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MacBook Airs have Arrived

No more plastic – no more MacBook

Air is the trademark for Apple´s lights/ultra lights. We´ll see the Airs go smaller in June. One without keyboard, two versions full-size keyboard. Current Fat Air will touch MacBook prices, not specs. The MacBook will be phased out. The Pros will get a fully featured 13" version – and new shapes all round.
 
quantumbits said:
3) 802.1x functionality in the iPhone and iTouch is a certainty upon the availability of the SDK. This is the main reason why I haven't purchased a touch.
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Well that, for one, is pretty awesome news for me. My university's main wireless internet is 802.1x and the only thing keeping me from getting an iPhone/Touch was that it'd be difficult to VPN into their old WiFi. I'm still hoping for an upgrade on them before buying, though. I either want more than 16GB Touch or a better iPhone battery/provider :D
 
kuwisdelu said:
Well that, for one, is pretty awesome news for me. My university's main wireless internet is 802.1x and the only thing keeping me from getting an iPhone/Touch was that it'd be difficult to VPN into their old WiFi. I'm still hoping for an upgrade on them before buying, though. I either want more than 16GB Touch or a better iPhone battery/provider :D
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Ditto!!! I have an iPhone and it has been a pain to be surrounded by a high speed wireless connection that I can't use! My school uses TLS certificates so hopefully someone makes provisions for that too. Fingers crossed...
 
None yet today on the Apple Store in Tysons Corner, VA. And the person I spoke with isn't expecting any this week. He's thinking around Feb 8 or 9.
 
MBA in PA next week?

Rumor has it MBA may be in PA Apple stores next week... by friday...
(Ardmore / King of Prush)

was a little on the fence, ouch those metal twisties hurt! -
but the large screen & full keybd combined w/ 3 lb weight will make this my first MAC since SE/30!

can not wait .. much.. longerrr.....
 
what i did for love

syklee26 said:
my 2 cents for MBA:
....
5. I honestly don't know who will be up for purchasing this notebook. For about $500 less you can buy a faster computer (Macbook). what you get for $500 more is aluminum casing and 2lbs less. If you find 2lbs extra that troublesome, you need to spend $500 for gym membership, not for purchasing MBA.
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i actually canceled my gym membership and diabetes meds just to pre-order my MBA.. but please don't hold it against me, toughguy
 
Why is that preventing you from buying it? If its because you want to be able to buy more than one battery and swap them, then I could see why it would deter you from buying it, but if its because you want to swap the battery later when it gets worn out then I wouldn't sweat it. The macbook air has already been taken apart to see how hard it would be to replace the battery and its been decided it would be pretty simple to replace.

~NeonFire372~ said:
I wish the Air didn't have a non-user-replaceable battery. That's the one thing that's preventing me from even considering buying one.
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It's too thin!

They should've made it a tad thicker so that you can have an ethernet port and a larger replaceable battery, and another USB port.

I just want a smaller macbook pro without the optical drive and a smaller size hard drive.

I'm not too crazy about this remote CD thing.
 
The price point is what kills me. Personally, I just don't see the value added (arg...buzzword bingo!) in the price difference between an MB and an MBA. But that's just me. Other folks are genuinely excited. Personally, I look forward to playing with one in person. Friday is a big decompression day. Maybe I'll finally indulge myself with a Touch and play around with the MBAs then.

What would truly get my juices flowing is a smaller footprint. Again, that's just me expressing my desires. Maybe the success of the MBA will further motivate Steve and friends to release such a variant in the near future. I'm a little less perturbed about the battery after the disassembly demonstration at Gizmodo. But again, I would really like some more battery life. My MB, though a pain at first, is pretty stable by now. It will likely suit my needs for another 2 years. Hopefully SSDs will drop quite a bit in price by then. These are exciting times for portable computing!
 
Apple made it pretty clear in the announcements that this was designed for the business traveller. 95% of the people who visit MacRumors do NOT fit into this category. However if you were to sell this thing only in Northern California it would be one of Apple's best sellers.

A business traveller to me is somebody who flies at least twice a month and is on the road all the time.
 
In Defense of the Whines

Okay, there are several posts over the last few pages of this thread saying, "what are you complaining about??? If it's not right FOR YOU, the other MacBooks are still around!"

People are complaining for the simple reason that, every since the 12" G4 Powerbook was discontinued, we've been waiting for a smaller MacBook. We finally got one, and it's entirely unsuitable for almost everybody.

- Same big-ass footprint as the MacBook

- No security lock

- Not enough battery life to travel from NYC to LA with it unless you tote some kind of charger with it.

- Lots of goofy design compromises for the sake of "thinness", when in fact you're only shaving off about a third of an inch from the actual thickness and sloping the edges off to make it look pretty.

- Absurd price. (I don't care how much it cost to get Intel to make a boutique chipset for it. I don't care what the R&D cost was for that fancy little USB trap-door. Those are reasons why Apple must charge more for it, but not reasons why it's worth more to a consumer. Adding cost without adding value is a huge design mistake.)

If they had doubled the size of the battery, it would still only be, what? 3.5 pounds? 4 pounds? Doing so would have allowed users to more frequently leave their wall chargers & airplane chargers at home or in their checked baggage. That would REALLY save carry-on space, far more than making an already-thin item (a notebook computer) a little bit thinner.

If they had worked on removing most that excess bezel space instead of obsessing over thinness, they could have reduced the footprint nearly an inch each in two directions even before considering a reduction of the screen/keyboard size (which also would have been a good idea.)

If they had simply chopped the drive and most of the connectors off the MacBook, shipped it out is a slightly smaller case with a slightly lower cost, people would have bought it. Take the additional step of making a smaller laptop with a smaller screen, and it would have been a sensational hit.

If you have a MacBook or MacBook Pro, the Air is neither fully-featured enough to replace it, nor a big enough improvement in portability to justify owning a second computer, especially one with such a high price tag.

If a MacBook really is too much for you to carry around, I suggest going with an iPod Touch (or perhaps an iPhone.) I hate the touch-screen keyboard, but in terms of design concept, it's far closer to what a Mac ultra-portable should be than the MacBook Air is.
 
inkhead said:
Apple made it pretty clear in the announcements that this was designed for the business traveller. 95% of the people who visit MacRumors do NOT fit into this category. However if you were to sell this thing only in Northern California it would be one of Apple's best sellers.

A business traveller to me is somebody who flies at least twice a month and is on the road all the time.
Click to expand...

But so many of the design choices that went in to the MacBook make it a lousy computer for business travel.

One thing about travel, is you need to be prepared for uncertainty.

You might be stuck in an airport where free outlets are hard to find (especially if there's a flight delay, and hundreds of passengers are crowding around the few available plugs to charge their phones). That means you NEED long battery life and/or the ability to quickly swap in a spare battery.

You will sometimes find yourself in places were there is no Wi-Fi signal, or it's prohibitively expensive, or it's so weak that it's nearly useless. Most laptop owners can keep an ultra-thin retractable Ethernet cable handy for such situations. MacBook Air owners must also carry a USB network adapter dongle, and (as it turns out) a USB extension cable because no adapter on the market can fit into the Apple USB port!

You may occasionally get handed something from a customer, client, boss, etc., on CD or DVD and be expected to work with it. A business traveller with a MacBook Air will have to wait until they get back to the office to do so, unless they bring an external drive along.

With a length (and open height) that is nearly the same as any other MacBook, it will suck to be you if you find yourself flying coach (which does occasionally happen) and the person in front of you decides to recline their seat when you're trying to work or watch a movie.

Need to pee when you're alone in a coffee house in a distant city? Better take the MBA into the john with you, because there's no way to lock it to the furniture while you're gone.

All this for $1800.

If the "business traveller" market really is what they are counting on to sell this thing, it's going to make the Cube look like a massive hit in comparison.
 
Tara Davis said:
Okay, there are several posts over the last few pages of this thread saying, "what are you complaining about??? If it's not right FOR YOU, the other MacBooks are still around!"

People are complaining for the simple reason that, every since the 12" G4 Powerbook was discontinued, we've been waiting for a smaller MacBook. We finally got one, and it's entirely unsuitable for almost everybody.

- Same big-ass footprint as the MacBook

- No security lock

- Not enough battery life to travel from NYC to LA with it unless you tote some kind of charger with it.

- Lots of goofy design compromises for the sake of "thinness", when in fact you're only shaving off about a third of an inch from the actual thickness and sloping the edges off to make it look pretty.

- Absurd price. (I don't care how much it cost to get Intel to make a boutique chipset for it. I don't care what the R&D cost was for that fancy little USB trap-door. Those are reasons why Apple must charge more for it, but not reasons why it's worth more to a consumer. Adding cost without adding value is a huge design mistake.)
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I have no problem when people complain for the lack of a 12" MacBook Pro to replace the 12" PowerBook. I think that would be pretty cool, myself. But you have to remember that it was never meant to be a replacement for the 12" PowerBook; it's just a different type of computer. Anyone looking for a replacement of the 12" PB is going to be disappointed, because that's not the niche it's supposed to fill; Apple went in a different direction.

Saying you're disappointed that it's not a replacement for the 12" PowerBook is one thing; but saying it's a failure of a computer for not being a replacement for the 12" PowerBook is kind of silly. (I'm responding to this sentiment in general, not directly to you.) It appeals to a different consumer (and I'm not saying it's perfect for every business traveler, either; I know it's not), and that's all.
 
I think before considering MBA, one must understand its purpose. It is not meant for hard core usage, neither it is meant to be the first computer.

For me, I would like to use an MBA for my everyday traveling, not considering LA to Washington flight. Very few people actually fly LA to Washington on a regular basis, and if they do, they get company paid Business class, where they can plug their MagSafe power adapter.

Another use I can think of MBA, is my data mining task that is running on my Windows XP based server or Mac Pro for hours, and I can actually control those processes using remote desktop, having my MBA on my lap while watching TV.

I think it is a perfect companion for my daily life. After all, I don't expect a C++ programmer to create some visual effect or even an eye catchy splash screen for the program he has been writing.
 
I honestly can't see the point in the Macbook Air as it's neither fish nor fowl - it's not a stand alone PC nor is it a true ultraportable like the Eee is.

There are better alternatives for this kind of thing - the Lenovo X61 (and the prospective X300) spring to mind as does the, dare I say it, Dell XPS M1330.

Not impressed. Would have preferred the announcement of a new Macbook.
 
inkhead said:
Apple made it pretty clear in the announcements that this was designed for the business traveller. 95% of the people who visit MacRumors do NOT fit into this category. However if you were to sell this thing only in Northern California it would be one of Apple's best sellers.

A business traveller to me is somebody who flies at least twice a month and is on the road all the time.
Click to expand...

I disagree. Show me one serious business traveller who isn't paranoid about battery life and having a back up and I'll show you someone who doesn't really do that much 'on the road' work.
 
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