Did someone forget the Mini DisplayPort? VGA does seem a bit clunky for such a small device.
Despite what Apple says, the Mini-DP is a proprietary standard, and I would be surprised to see it on any competing laptops or displays in the coming months. The $900 24" ACD is hilariously expensive to most people, and even if other notebooks came with the mini-DP output, I doubt many of those buyers would choose the $900 Apple monitor.
Since the mini-DP so far works with only one display, why would anyone adopt the port?
Yeah I know, and that's exactly my point 🙂 It's a subtle detail, but if you look at, say, the VGA adapters that Apple sells, you'll notice that they aren't blue. Apple colors them white or grey because a designer with taste actually designed them to match the machines they are paired with.
Another small detail many people aren't aware of is the USB connector in the USB ports on Apple machines is colored white. This is because again a designer worried about that detail to make the machine more attractive. Look at pretty much any other machine and you'll notice the USB connector is black, the ugly default color from the USB reference spec.
I guess you can look at this multiple ways. If you are hanging upside down looking at the back of a rack, you would sure love all of the ports to be colored the conventional way. You are correct that the Macs mostly have body-colored ports, but I remain unconvinced that is entirely a good thing.
Sometimes, Apple's playing with standards can be a PITA, like when they over-specced the MBA's USB port to make the add-on superdrive useless with any other Mac.
Everyone seems to talk about Apple's design, but how many of you would not give an extra 10th of inch and half a pound to have a laptop with significantly longer battery life? The Apple design does come at a price (literally and figuratively, and it is worth it to remember). If I could fatten up my MBA to have the same features but longer life, I would take the trade-off in a second. The Atom netbooks with full-size batteries have very impressive battery life, something worth considering if you are focusing primarily on basic tasks with an MBA. Legality aside, if you are an enthusiast, OSX is less and less of a hurdle to adopt on the platform of your choice.
