It's interesting that while most of the Mac web is upset with the 13" screen (wanting a smaller footprint) both Steve Jobs and this magazine see it as an asset. Something that makes it better than the competing sub-compacts.

I suspect that Apple's market research and PC Magzine's experience will prove to be correct here. The Macbook Air isn't impressing the Mac faithful, but I think it will attract a lot of new Mac users who would have otherwise bought the Sony.

In other words, I think Apple is reaching the point where they can release certain products that don't appeal to their current users, and yet will still be a hit. The Macbook Air might be one of them.

(Although, personally, I feel the Air won't be a big hit until next year when the flash drive is cheaper and they add cell-phone internet to the thing.)

No Firewire
No Target Disk Mode
No Migration Assistant
No digital audio
No larger hard drive internal option
No extra USB ports to make expansion easier.
No Express/34
No dedicated graphics chip
No RAM slots
Requires an exchange program to replace battery
Requires an external optical drive to install anything by CD or DVD, or playback DVD

USB slowed down by adding just the optical drive.
USB slowed down by adding just a mouse.
USB slowed down by adding just any device.

Too much compromised. And for a price more than an existing MacBook?

Quote

gopher wrote:
No Firewire
No Target Disk Mode
No Migration Assistant
No digital audio
No larger hard drive internal option
No extra USB ports to make expansion easier.
No Express/34
No dedicated graphics chip
No RAM slots
Requires an exchange program to replace battery
Requires an external optical drive to install anything by CD or DVD, or playback DVD

USB slowed down by adding just the optical drive.
USB slowed down by adding just a mouse.
USB slowed down by adding just any device.

Too much compromised. And for a price more than an existing MacBook?

MacBook Air does have Migration Assistant, though not via FW, obviously.

I'm not sure what you mean by "USB slowed down by adding..." There's one USB port, if you use it, it's being used. Are you trying to say that the only way to add multiple USB peripherals is for them to share the single USB port? If so, why not simply say so? None of these devices necessarily slow the USB port, though by trying to use it simultaneously they may consume its available bandwidth.

The MacBook doesn't have an ExpressCard slot either.

While you suggest that there are too many compromises, others may think, "Finally! They got rid of all of those useless features and and got the weight and thickness down to something portable!" It's in the eye of the beholder.

Personally, I think that the MacBook has too many compromises and stick to an MBP. My opinion doesn't seem to have noticeably slowed the sale of MacBooks.

This is a sub-notebook. A traveller's companion. It's not a desktop replacement unit. Every comment you made shows that it's a good thing apple has market segmentation in mind when they release products. This isn't meant to pacify every potential mac buyer and every existing mac buyer. It's meant for a certain niche, to attract new revenue to the mac user base. The sony TZ sells very well. Now there is actual competition from apple in this market. Who cares if the TZ has a built in optical drive. I have never once seen someone who owns one use this while travelling. Ever. There is a migration assistant. They made point of that. Everything else is a moot point, and again, the target market they are aiming for doesn't care about the points you're bringing up. I remember hearing the same outcries when apple released the imac without a 3.5" floppy drive and apple's proprietery serial connector support. No one uses 3.5" floppies anymore, and apple's properietary serial adapater is long gone. It's just the way of technology.

I don't recall seeing the same outcries for the UMPC's. Oh no, no CD Drive! No Migration assistant! Only 2GB of RAM? Oh noes.

I live on my MacBook Pro. So let's see how many of the missing items impact me.

> No Firewire

Never used it.

> No Target Disk Mode

Never used it.

> No Migration Assistant

Never used it.

> No digital audio

Never used it.

> No larger hard drive internal option

A bigger drive is nice; however, my MacBook Pro purchase didn't have a bigger drive option than the one I purchased, so this is kind of silly. Eventually, there will be bigger drives. But now AAPL is shipping what's available at the price point they needed to reach.

If the drive ain't big enough, buy something else. Like, oh, I don't know, a MacBook or MacBook Pro.

> No extra USB ports to make expansion easier.

I've never used more than one USB device at a time. And that's only to sync my iPhone. Don't know why I still have to plug that in just to sync!

> No Express/34

Never used it.

> No dedicated graphics chip

Couldn't care.

> No RAM slots

I'd prefer that this came with 4 GB instead of 2 GB, but I'm using a machine at the moment with 2 GB and am content. If they shipped with 4 GB on the MacBook Air, I'd certainly not complain about the absence of slots.

> Requires an exchange program to replace battery

I only own one battery and in the countless years that I've used portable Macintoshes I've never owned a spare battery. So I don't care about this at all.

> Requires an external optical drive to install anything by CD or DVD, or
> playback DVD

Practically everything that I install I install by downloading anyway.

I do however have several hundred CDs that I've not yet ripped to iTunes.

And I watch movies off DVD from time to time. Probably the not playing DVDs even remotely would be the closest thing to keep me from buying a MacBook Air if I didn't already think that the MacBook Pro was the optimum combination of size, weight, and power (now if the speakers were just louder).

> USB slowed down by adding just the optical drive.
> USB slowed down by adding just a mouse.
> USB slowed down by adding just any device.

Since I never use the external USB and since I can't imagine that I'd be traveling around with multiple devices plugged into the USB, I can't imagine that I'd care that USB slowed down. And if it's working fast enough to run the optical drive, why do I care if it's "slowed down"?

So, in short your complaint is that the MacBook Air isn't better than the MacBook Pro, cheaper than the MacBook Pro, *and* a MacBook Air at the same time?


I know a half-dozen people that ordered one instantly along with two or three others who also ordered one for their SO. At least half were replacing Windows subnotebooks and thought they were getting upgrades. Some were replacing MacBooks and thought they were getting upgrades. One was unhappy because they really liked the MacBook Black and hated giving up the black...


I don't think the Air will outsell the MacBook or the MacBook Pro, but I think it fills a niche previously missing from the product lineup. So it'll be interesting to see how it goes.


Now, can we rev the MacBook Pro so I can't rationalize replacing mine?

reinharden

Quote

gopher wrote:
No Firewire
No Target Disk Mode
No Migration Assistant
No digital audio
No larger hard drive internal option
No extra USB ports to make expansion easier.
No Express/34
No dedicated graphics chip
No RAM slots
Requires an exchange program to replace battery
Requires an external optical drive to install anything by CD or DVD, or playback DVD

USB slowed down by adding just the optical drive.
USB slowed down by adding just a mouse.
USB slowed down by adding just any device.

Too much compromised. And for a price more than an existing MacBook?

For 2465 US dollars?
That is the price here in Norway.
Well, I am afraid it won't sell that much here.
That is the only wrong side to it. The price.
It doesn't halp that other, similar products are more expensive. They don't sell that well, either.
Well, let us wait for the next big thing:)

I read somewhere that the Japanese market is The Market for lite notebooks and will absolutely gobble up the MBA.

Quote

Anonymous wrote:
I don't recall seeing the same outcries for the UMPC's. Oh no, no CD Drive! No Migration assistant! Only 2GB of RAM? Oh noes.

Rob Art, of Barefeats.com, posted some interesting comments about the MacBook Air. One particular comment that interested me was the following.

"With only 2GB of RAM and no option to upgrade, I would want the optional solid state drive since I expect to be making a lot of virtual memory hits."

I've moved my data with Migration Assistant and without FW-cable for years now. You can make an image of your hd to an external usb-disc and then mount in MBA and then use Migration Assistant.

The MacBook Air is not for everyone! As many of the previous posts have pointed out there is a lot of stuff that it does not have.
This is the whole point of the machine. It is a relatively simple portable machine dedicated to portability and a wireless environment.
If you need all the other stuff; there is still the MacBook and MacBook Pro.

The iMac?

I mean c'mon:

no SCSI
no serial ports
no appletalk
no slots
no external monitor
bad graphics chip
need a tech to upgrade the memory
and...

can you believe it?

No floppy!

What? That'll never sell. Also, whats this USB? Never heard of it.

It's a complete non-starter.

Only a moron would buy it.

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To quote The Great One, Wayne Gretzky "A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be."

Now get the puck outa here!