Very disappointed with Apple and the Air-specific issues

That does not sound normal at all. I would actually return it for another, even if it was a Windows PC I would RMA it.

Macs are vulnerable to the same hardware problems as Windows PCs, it's really the software that makes them better.

As a lifelong Windows user I can tell you the MBA runs circles around anything Windows has. But it is not without its issues.

I haven't experienced any hangups yet, but the MBA is a very thin laptop and is bound to get warm. If you are expecting a cold laptop then the MBA is not for you. Those temperatures you are quoting are perfectly normal for an MBA. If they make you uncomfortable, then you may want to consider a MBP which has a "little" more room to dissipate heat, but they too are pretty thin and heat will show a lot more than a typical Windows "brick" laptop.

I tried connecting to a third party iTunes streaming server and than hung up, but I blamed it on the server software. Occasionally when I go to the App Store I get the apparently infamous "beach ball of death", or BBOD (did I get that right?). Its the spinning beachball graphic that your mouse cursor turns into when the Mac is "thinking". Oddly enough the AppStore is the one I get it the most.

Another pet peeve is some software doesn't support the Mac very well. I recently got some HP printers. and the Mac flavored HP setup software just didn't work right. Thankfully I have Windows 7 in dual boot and on Parallels, so I was able to work through that. There are some things that just don't have a good Mac equivalent (like Quicken, DVD Profiler, Escort Radar Tools, etc.) so if you are a longtime Windows user, consider installing Windows in either dual boot AND/or Parallels so you can have the best of both worlds. I have a ton of software loaded, and the MBA is just tearing through it like a Pro. Overall I am very satisfied.

YMMV.

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deepakvrao said:

IWhen I try to load a folder [on a network drive] to the iTunes library the Air just collapses

Click to expand...

What kind of network do you have? I had all sorts of little glitches and oddities with my iPad and my Verizon router. They all went away when I bought an Apple TimeCapsule that has a wireless access point built in.

Imagine that.

I have the same Air and haven't had a single issue. She never 'hangs' and she runs cool. My idle at the moment is 50ºC and is not noticeably warm to my lap at all. My wife's 13" aluminum MB runs quite warm, however.

Granted, I've never tried to sync any iTunes stuff over the network or anything, but it's handled everything I've thrown at it with no issues. Best laptop I've ever had.

deepakvrao said:

I think there are two issues.
2. Heat is very high when I do the above but even at 'idling', it runs at CPU 50-55C, back at 33-35. Is that normal?

Click to expand...

Yes the 50-55C CPU temps are normal during "idle use". Actual idle it should be between 38-45C. I personally don't find it uncomfortable on my lap until it gets over 65C. Keep in mind the fan is usually at 2000rpm during those temps and generally doesn't increase in speed until it goes over 80C for a longer period of time. If you find it too warm you can always download smcfancontrol and increase fan RPM manually.

I've had a good number of issues with Lion, it's far from a perfect operating system, but I've never had consistent "hanging" issues and I use network drives all the time. So I'm not sure about that issue.

deepakvrao said:

1. When I try to load a folder [on a network drive] to the iTunes library the Air just collapses

Click to expand...

How big is the folder? I'm assuming you're doing this over wifi which might be pretty slow for a large folder.

If that's not the problem, can you access the network folder via Finder?

deepakvrao said:

Okay, I'm new here. Just got the Air today. 13" 128gb, 4gb RAM. Trying Mac on my wife's insistence. Both of us are long time Windows users, and she said that we HAVE to see what Mac is all about.

So, today my Air hangs at least 5 times. I find unresponsive programs etc which I thought was non existent in Macs?

Mostly the problem is with iTunes. When I try to add a folder which is on a network drive, it just hangs after about 5 minutes.

Another issue is the heat. It is almost unbearable to use it on my lap. Right now CPU is at 80C and enclosure base is at 35C, probably because iTunes is running again. But even with just surfing, the monitor shows base temp at 32, but it is really uncomfortable on the lap. Fan is at 6500 rpm.

I so much want to love Mac, and I do love what I have seen till now, like expose etc but these issues are unacceptable?

Am I doing something wrong? I have 10.7.2 and have the latest iTunes too.

Click to expand...

This is a tad bit strange & definitely unacceptable. Beach balling/freezing up over something as simple as iTunes management seems strange to me and I would have the Genius bar look at it for a possible hardware defect.

Take it to them and "stress" the Mac in the same way until the fan & heat start to kick in.
If it is truly unreasonable, they will have a replacement for you.

Are you still within the 14-day return-policy and/or within the Warranty period?
If so, the above visit is your best option.

My MacBook certainly reacts in a similar way when using Flash for watching videos on Safari. Heats up a bit, and the fan becomes audible.
After some heavy research, I found this is how the Mac will naturally react to the application as Adobe is still working to optimize Flash player for the Mac line. A recent update helped, but the issue continues to recur, somewhat.

Still, the many pros do much to outweigh this one con.

Regardless of the heat, I believe Apple, and most other companies, deprecated the use of the word 'laptop" as it caused legal issues with people being burned etc from actually using it on their laps. I have had numerous notebooks over the past few years and most get warm enough after use that I try to rarely use them directly on my legs without some sort of lap desk etc. as it also inhibits cooling.

deepakvrao said:

Another issue is the heat. It is almost unbearable to use it on my lap.

Click to expand...

Kind of a strange choice in your subject line. Might have used some alternate word choices.

Personally I think working with any laptop in your lap is not a really good choice in the first place. If you are working with a laptop in your lap then get some flat surface "lap desk" kind of thing.

It protects your laptop and allows the vents to get some air flow and protects us guys from laptop heat which really should be avoided if you know what I mean ( ladies also probably ).

Most of us move iTunes libraries onto a mac thru an external drive and it worked well for me in getting 36 gb of music onto my macbook air.

First shot in the dark guess is that maybe you have more of an issue with the network access to the remote drive than you have an issue with your air.

Why not just use iTunes match and get rid of the file transfer issues altogether?

deepakvrao said:

I think there are two issues.

1. When I try to load a folder [on a network drive] to the iTunes library the Air just collapses
2. Heat is very high when I do the above but even at 'idling', it runs at CPU 50-55C, back at 33-35. Is that normal?

I guess I'll have to look for an iTunes solution. Maybe I'll copy the folder from network drive to Air and see.

I WANT to like this laptop.

Click to expand...

1.) What kind of network drive... Windows share? NAS?

2.) As stated not too far off the park. Heck the AIR here outside in the summer is often near 50C and I used my Air out in it with no issue.

I loved my 2010 Air so much I bought a 2011 model soon as it was released. But I like its small size and felt the 13" was too large for my tastes. It was the size of the 11" AIr that first wowed me so an 11" is what I bought. Twice now.

After owning dozens of Windows laptops over the years the 2010 Air was my favorite one ever. It was only bested by 2011 Air.






Michael

deepakvrao said:

...

So, today my Air hangs at least 5 times. I find unresponsive programs etc which I thought was non existent in Macs?

Mostly the problem is with iTunes. When I try to add a folder which is on a network drive, it just hangs after about 5 minutes.

Another issue is the heat. It is almost unbearable to use it on my lap. Right now CPU is at 80C and enclosure base is at 35C, probably because iTunes is running again. But even with just surfing, the monitor shows base temp at 32, but it is really uncomfortable on the lap. Fan is at 6500 rpm.

I so much want to love Mac, and I do love what I have seen till now, like expose etc but these issues are unacceptable?

Am I doing something wrong? I have 10.7.2 and have the latest iTunes too.

Click to expand...

I've been using iTunes on my MBA using a shared music library over my network and haven't had any issues like the ones you're describing. I'd take it in and talk with someone at your Apple Store, or just return it for another one. You shouldn't be having all these problems right out of the box.

I didn't read the whole thread so sorry if its been said but:

1. That air doesn't sound normal. They really don't get very hot. I'd exchange it.

2. For iTunes, sometimes you can run in to issues dragging a large folder in to it. My suggestion (although its a pain at first) is to either try dragging your folder to the local drive and try it there, or copying a few subfolders at a time.

You may consider returning your 2011 for a 2010 MBA, it runs a lot cooler, especially with Coolbook, mine idles at 37C and averages about 43C in casual use, and the battery lasts longer as well. Performance is about the same unless you're doing video encoding or other cpu intensive tasks, but that's where the heat comes from when TurboBoost kicks in.

Second that on the 2010... mine has rarely ever run hot at all. I've noticed that quite a few people have complained about heat in the 2011 MBA's...

cedwhatev said:

Second that on the 2010... mine has rarely ever run hot at all. I've noticed that quite a few people have complained about heat in the 2011 MBA's...

Click to expand...

Beefier processor in the 2011 means she runs a little hotter, uses up a little more battery. I had a 2010 Air for a few months before selling for the 2011. I only upgraded for the backlit keyboard (ok, and the speed bump was nice too ). BUT, I did notice that the battery in my '11 does not last quite as long as the '10. My lap can't tell the difference in heat at all.

deepakvrao said:

OK guys, I 'might' have a solution.

My network drive is NTFS, but I thought that Macs can read from NTFS without a problem? Installed Paragon and iTunes is doing its job for a while now without hanging. Like I said, this should not be required for just reading a NTFS drive right?

Another issue is that Mail is just not fetching my gmail. Oh well, I'll search for that now.

Click to expand...

It can read, but not write to an NTFS drive without extra software. Perhaps iTunes is hanging because it is trying to write to the drive.

Anyway, I have used Macs for 3.5 years and have not experienced the performance issues you described in your first post. Perhaps it is the use of iTunes on the NTFS drive, but on the whole, the new MacBook Air runs very smoothly.

The Airs do run hot. This is actually pretty common to Mac notebooks since they design them to be as thin as possible. It's a design choice, but I have never had the 2010 or 2011 MacBook Air overheat on me (the very first model in 2008 had throttling issues). The fan is running at 2001rpm right now after about an hour on the web.

deepakvrao said:

OK guys, I 'might' have a solution.

My network drive is NTFS, but I thought that Macs can read from NTFS without a problem? Installed Paragon and iTunes is doing its job for a while now without hanging. Like I said, this should not be required for just reading a NTFS drive right?

Another issue is that Mail is just not fetching my gmail. Oh well, I'll search for that now.

Click to expand...

If you are connecting to an SMB share, I have seen OS X hang when trying to authenticate agains Active Directory or SAM. Not sure why this is or how to resolve it, but it typically connects after a few minutes. Although sometimes it is instant. I connect to a Windows Server 2003 share that is a Domain Controller, and sometime is hangs for close to a minute after entering my credentials.

I have never deal with any heat issues at all other than exporting a moving from iMovie that is processor intensive. Then I hear the fans speed up some but it has never been loud nor uncomfortable to use.

I have not experienced the wake from sleep issue on the 2011 Air with 10.7.0 on it.

deepakvrao said:

Loaded the NTFS software and added smaller folders one by one to iTunes, and it seems to work [instead of just adding 120gb of 'Music' folder, I added individual sub folders].

However, now I have the not waking from sleep issue. Apparently pretty commonly reported?

Click to expand...

NTFS isn't a network file system so you don't need drivers for that if you're accessing an NTFS file system over the network - you'll likely be using SMB/CIFS to access it, which works out of the box. It's probably the fact that you're just adding small folders that makes a difference.

deepakvrao said:

Another issue is that Mail is just not fetching my gmail. Oh well, I'll search for that now.

Click to expand...

"That's not normal, return it."



People throw that line too often in these forums (this thread alone is a good example). Sometimes, I think Apple are too nice for accepting returns of perfectly good MacBooks. The real problem is users' ignorance + lack of self documentation.

Regarding the real (software) issue, it's just that network mounts are slow and both Finder and iTunes don't deal with slowness that well. For example, importing files from a network mount makes iTunes hang (BBoD) instead of just streaming files in the background (separate thread or evented chunk reads).

Nothing to do with NTFS. OS X can read NTFS partitions, can't write, In this case, the partition isn't on a device connected directly to the computer, it's mounted over a network, so only the transport protocol matters (SMB if it's a Windows share), and OS X implements it fully.