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MacBook Air to Finally get Built in 3G?

What the MacBook Air needs is Firewire for repairs via Target Disk Mode. Any Mac should have it. Any Mac user may need it any time.
 
I wonder why, whenever 3G is mentioned, there's NO mention of EDGE. Maybe that's the whole idea, maybe the "3G" in this situation is what Verizon & Sprint offer in this country: EVDO, which is (technically, I believe) a form of 3G wireless technology.

Plausible, and I may sign up for that.

BJ
 
SirOmega said:
The card inside will probably be HSPA+ since the new chipsets are starting to be qualified by the carriers, so the user could eventually get speeds of 14.4Mb/s down and 5.6Mb/s up once the sufficient network upgrades are in place - initially they'd probably get 7.2/5.6.
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That is the question on my mind. What would be the maximum speed that the 3G chipset could go. I hate buying products that are EOL before I take them home. Any chance AT&T (or whoever the carrier will be) would allow home network connectivity over this network. Seems like a no brainer way to end the monopoly of the cable providers.
 
wow, it only took apple 5+ years to offer a laptop with Cellular built in. This has been offered by Sony and others for some time. that said, no reason for it when you can get a wireless card.

which i don't really need as much, cause i just got rid of the wireless card i had, they are damned expensive.
 
QCassidy352 said:
...and that's a reason not to add it now
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hitekalex said:
So because they didn't offer WWAN in the first version, they should never offer it in the updated models? Interesting logic.. 🙄
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My point was that Apple like to be the first to do something that is ahead of the industry, when the Air first came out a lot of users thought it would naturally have a sim tray thereby making it truly wireless, and something that would abide by the name. It would really make it stand out from the other laptops in their lineup, just being thin wasn't enough.

They can add it now by all means but big deal, when others are already there doing it.
 
aviddk said:
That is the question on my mind. What would be the maximum speed that the 3G chipset could go. I hate buying products that are EOL before I take them home. Any chance AT&T (or whoever the carrier will be) would allow home network connectivity over this network. Seems like a no brainer way to end the monopoly of the cable providers.
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Well hopefully its a mini-PCIE card that can be replaced and not soldiered to the board. But I dont know if there is enough room inside for that.
 
it seems to me the MBA was sort of a toy for apple...by eliminating the optical drive I mean....

I think this is a precursor to Apple's future plans if true.... tho I'd like to have better than ATT to have network with. Internet everywhere (in theory anyway) makes a laptop truly a portable computer.
 
From a production standpoint, why is the MacBook Air so expensive? Are the components that expensive compared to say the alu MacBook? You're not talking a whole lot of differences between the 2- unibody construction, same GPU...

I would imagine the MBA has a bigger profit margin than the other notebooks, which is fine if that's what Apple wants to do. But if they could get the starting price to $1299, that would be really nice IMO. The alu MacBook offers more power at that price, but not the same portability. To be able to pick between the 2 at $1299 would be great.

I guess to realistically introduce a $1299 MBA, they would need to cut out the keyboard backlight and use the lesser quality (but still LED-backlit) screen from the MB. But there might be a lot of takers at that price.
 
Pretty much all of Apple's laptops (obviously not including the white Macbook) are in need of a refresh but with the new rumored iPhone and Snow Leopard I wonder if the rumored separate even will prove true as that seems like a lot to reveal at just a Developer's Conference.

But more specifically, I wonder if an update would include built-in 3G for more than just the MBA?
 
would only make sense to do this with all macbook/pro's. finally catch up with pc's as they market toward business users in this one aspect.
 
If they added this to the macbook, I would be thrilled. Although, I want a macbook now, and if they released this feature in the next 6 months I'd be bummed. 😕
 
Yvan256 said:
Funny, I heard the same thing about Apple dropping support for classic Mac OS, about switching to intel processors, about making a phone-less iPhone, etc.




iPhone = voice contract required. I don't want that.
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mmmm okay but at least in canada you can sign up on a voice data plan, and then cancel your voice plan, of course paying the cancelation fee and then a stupid amount for just data every month....
 
The possibility of built in 3G is pretty exciting, although I still have some reservations. It would annoy me, but not surprise me, if the 3G was locked into one service provider.
It's possible Apple might slowly migrate this feature to the other notebooks. However, I'm not going to hold my breath.

BTW, for the iPod touch user who wants 3G, get an iPhone. Like others have said, Apple isn't going to kill their iPhone sales because you don't want to be locked into a voice contract. Besides, who do you think would be offering your data service? AT&T. If you think you could get away with someone else, please share your drugs with me. 🙄
 
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