Apple Announces MacBook Air

Apple made four announcements at MacWorld Expo: the new MacBook Air, new features for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and movie rentals via iTunes from a TV without a computer involved. The new portable gets most of the attention. It is 0.76" thick at the thickest part, tapering to 0.16". It weighs 3 pounds and has a 13.3" screen and full-size, backlit keyboard. Its Intel chip is the diameter of a dime and the thickness of a nickel. The MacBook Air will cost $1799 and up. Its storage is either 80 GB disk or 64 GB solid-state drive. 2 GB of memory. It has no optical drive (an external one is available for $99) and features a way to wirelessly use the optical drive of any nearby Mac or PC with the proper software installed.

But....

does it blend?

Re:But....

Air smoke. Don't breathe this.

A grand for a 64G SSD drive?

From the apple site...

Hard Drive

Your MacBook Air comes standard with a Parallel ATA (PATA) 4200-rpm hard drive. Or you can choose a solid-state drive that delivers faster performance and greater durability.
arrow_open.gif arrow_closed.gif Learn more Loading...

80GB Parallel ATA Drive @ 4200 rpm
64GB Solid State Drive [Add $999]

Wow. Just Wow. Transcript from http://www.macrumorslive.com/ [macrumorslive.com]

10:26 am New Ad for MacBook Air. Plays off of the ability to fit in an envelope.
10:25 am Pre-orders today, shipping in two weeks
10:24 am $1799
10:24 am 2 GB Memory standard
10:23 am 5 hours of Battery Life
10:23 am No optical drive, but a Superdrive accessory is available for $99. Also, software comes with the MacBook Air that allows you to "borrow" a Mac or PCs optical drive.
10:21 am 802.11n + Bluetooth 2.1/EDR
10:20 am Other features: 45 Watt MagSafe, 1 USB 2.0 port, Micro-DVI, Audio Out
10:19 am Steve retaking stage
10:19 am Otellini: The processor is as thick as a nickle and as wide as a dime.
10:18 am Apple asked Intel to shrink the Core 2 Duo. Intel shrunk the processor by 60%. Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel is taking the stage
10:17 am 1.6 GHz Standard, 1.8 GHz Option -- Intel Core 2 Duo
10:16 am 80 GB hard disk standard, 64 GB SSD as an option. "they're pricy, but they're fast"
10:15 am 1.8" Hard Drive
10:15 am How did we fit a Mac in here?
10:15 am Move a window by double-tap and move. Rotate a photo by pivoting your index finger around your thumb. Of course, pinch-zoom.
10:14 am Multi-touch trackpad
10:13 am display is LED backlit. iSight is built-in. MacBook-like keyboard, but with an ambient light sensor
10:12 am Magnetic latch, 13.3" widescreen display
10:12 am MacBook Air is 0.16" to 0.76". The thickest part of the MacBook Air is thinner than the thinnest part of the Sony. It fits inside a envelope
10:10 am We thought 3 lbs is a good target weight, but there was too much compromise with the other features
10:10 am Most people think of Sony TZ series when they think of thin notebooks. Competition specs: 3 lbs, .8-1.2 inches, 11 or 12" display, miniature keyboard, and slower processor.
10:08 am "The World's Thinnest Notebook"
10:08 am As you know, Apple makes the best notebooks in the industry. Today, we are introducing a third kind of notebook. It's called the MacBook Air
10:08 am 4th thing: There's something in the air
10:07 am Steve has re-taken the stage

Re:A grand for a 64G SSD drive?

64GB Solid State Drive [Add $999]

You think that's bad? Wait till you see the price difference when they offer it in black.

Wot no optical drive?

But how am I going to watch movies?

What's that? I can rent them from Apple, you say? What a coincidence!

Remember, kids, it's not lock-in, it's Steve Jobs holding you nice and safe in his loving arms...

Re:Wot no optical drive?

Your movies aren't already ripped into 20 different formats and stored on your in home wireless server? Then what the hell are you doing playing on slashdot, get moving man!

Re:Wot no optical drive?

Or you can buy them from Apple, download them from other sources, or rip them from your own DVDs.

How is this related to lock-in again?

Movie Rentals?

I thought this was a pretty big part of todays Keynote:

Touchstone, Miramax, MGM, Lionsgate, Newline, FOX, WB, Disney, Paramount, Universal, Sony all on board.
Library titles: $2.99,
New Releases: $3.99,
HD rentals are $4.99.

Rules: 30 days to start watching. 24 hours to finish
Watch anywhere (Macs, PCs, all current iPods and iPhone

Thanks MacRumors.

Short on Options!

So, somebody's going to buy one, and when they foobar their OS and drop it off at the helpdesk, how do we fix it?

• No Firewire - can't boot target mode!
• No Optical Drive - can't boot from DVD!
• No Ethernet - can't net-boot!

Yes, there is USB, so we'lll need to keep a few USB CD-Rom drives around for these things. >p>ah well, it looks real nice.

Re:Short on Options!

But! You can use "Remote Disk" to access the optical drive of a nearby Mac or PC running a little Remote Disk client. Yes, you can even reinstall the OS this way. http://www.apple.com/macbookair/wireless.html [apple.com]

Sweet.

and features a way to wirelessly use the optical drive of any nearby Mac or PC with the proper software installed.

And here I was thinking wardriving, bluejacking, and so on was just starting to get boring. Off to the coffee shop to watch some DVDs! I hope someone's got "The Simpsons" loaded in...

For That Price

It better include a iHandjob!

$20 Suite of apps for the iPod Touch?

I'm a tad annoyed by this. iPhone users get the new software update for free, new iPod Touch users get them for free, yet the early adopter iPod Touch people have to stump up $20?

I know I'll end up buying them, but it's the principle of it all...

Re:Expensive

Just because it costs a lot doesn't mean it's overpriced. It's a deal compared to comparable Sony models with less power and aren't as thin.

Re:Expensive

Compared to Vaios that have a DVD drive or 200GB second drive built in?

Really thin is only so useful. The Vaio TZ (along with some Japanese laptops that we don't get here in the states) allows you to change the way that you live. You can stuff those notebooks into a man-purse (Tumi makes some that fit rather well) and go. You can use them in the coach section of an airplane without fear of screen-crunch.

I'm not saying that the Macbook Air is a bad thing. Thin notebooks are nice, but thickness is the dimension that I find least annoying in a notebook (keeping in mind that my thickest notebook is a comparably enormous Vaio FZ, and my favorite notebook is my Thinkpad T42). I wouldn't want my sub-notebook to be as thick as the old Thinkpads were (think DSM-IV hardcover) size, but the footprint matters as well.

If only someone would bring back the old butterfly keyboard of the Thinkpad 701...

Re:Expensive

You serious? Have you priced out its competition? The closest is probably the Vaio, and it is more expensive. The Dell XPS is cheaper, but is bigger and heavier.

Re:"Integrated Battery"

Then get a MacBook. Sorry but you are not going to fit it into that form factor.

"Wah Wah Wah, I want a replaceable battery in the iPod."
Get a Nomad. Some companies even have players which take AAs.
"But they're not tiny like an iPod".

Compare a AA to an iPod... there's no way you're going to get it into that form factor.

Go take the battery out of your laptop. Notice all the extra plastic around the battery. And then the laptop has to have plastic where the battery sits. So you're already essentially doubling the case thickness.

Do you want a laptop that is 0.16" to 0.76" thick? Go grab a ruler and put that in perspective. There is no way in hell you're going to do that with a standard external battery.

 

Re:"Integrated Battery"

No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

Re:"Integrated Battery"

There's a $50 (CDN) adaptor for airline power. If you're on a flight, just plug in. And it's cheaper than an extra battery.

Re:"Integrated Battery"

No way to take it out at security check points (or if it catches fire)?
.

As opposed to those videos you saw where someone walked up and pulled out their exploding battery after it caught fire?

Re:"Integrated Battery"

What happens if your battery goes dead? You throw away the all thing? You pay for expensive service to install a new one? For many people swapping batteries are just a way to keep going with their work.

Re:I'm underwhelmed

If you are not willing to accept those tradeoffs then you are not the target market for the MacBook Air. Might I suggest a MacBook or a MacBook Pro?

Re:I'm underwhelmed

I just don't share Steve's obsession with thin.

Thin? I'm just happy he appears to be over that whole "cube" fetish. I was worried we were two years away from an iBook the size of a milk crate.

Re:I'm underwhelmed

I feel the same way about the iPhone -- with 16GB storage, it is in no way a replacement for my current iPod. But I suspect if he'd been willing to accept 1/16 of an inch increased thickness, we could be looking at 32GB or 64GB, and then you've got me as a customer.

No way. The iPhone (which is 8GB max) uses flash and has zero space left inside. If you're talking 32GB flash, you're adding hundreds of dollars to an already hefty price to get that much flash, and you'd still possibly need to slim down the battery to make more space for flash chips (the thing is seriously packed inside). And a 32GB hard drive like the one in the current iPods wouldn't fit in 1/16 of an inch.

Re:Solid state drive?

Not sure I'd trust one of those just now. No one is really talking about MTBF and I've heard that eventually they turn into a Read Only device.

I thought everyone was [engadget.com] talking about SSD drives MTBF? 2 Million hours seems pretty good to me. 200+ Years really ought to be Enough For Anybody[tm].

Seriously, they have no moving parts - which do you think will fail first? The manufacturers have been working on the limited write capacity for years such that they believe it's no longer an issue. Modern flash memory can already silently correct for any parts that can no longer be written.

Now all we need is for production to ramp up and the cost to come down.