In recent weeks, there has been a considerable amount of buzz around the Macworld 2008 Keynote. Rumors of new Apple Computers and products have had Mac zealots frothing at the mouth, while placing bets at what might just be under the black curtains at Apple's booth. By this morning, the buzz had grown to such proportions that the commotion outside Moscone Center this morning was reported to be near-pandemonium.Though I have yet to watch the keynote address, I was reading the highlights via live web feeds, so I have least, some idea what Steve Jobs had to say -- which I could honestly say, wasn't as Earth-shattering as some keynotes have been in years past.
The biggest news, of course was the announcement of the MacBook Air, a new notebook with a new form factor, which should have the competition running back to their drawing boards. Now, there is nothing new with ultra-light, ultra-portable, or ultra-small computers -- except that these types of notebooks are crippled in one way or another. They usually have under-sized keyboards, are under-powered, too small a screen, limited expandability, or too little battery life. So why should Apple be any different?
Apple did some very impressive things with their new notebook. It is the thinnest design of any notebook in production today. At its' thickest, the notebook is 0.76" (1.94 cm) thick at its' rear, and it tapers to a mind-boggling 0.16" (0.4cm) thin at the front. Apple also ensured that the computer weigh as little as possible, as their new model is a scant 3 pounds (1.36kg) -- roughly half of what conventional notebook computers weigh today. To further complement the new design, Apple included a 13" widescreen, and a full-size laptop keyboard. The Power Plant inside the MacBook Air includes 2 Gigabytes of RAM, an 80 Gigabyte Hard drive, a 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 802.11n wireless, built-in Bluetooth 2.1, and 5 hours of battery life. Most impressive of all, is that Apple is incorporating their multi-touch technology -- as evident in their iPhones, into this new notebook. This means you can pinch, stretch, rotate, zoom, scroll, and rearrange with 2 or 3-finger gestures on the trackpad.
And you can have one of these beauties in two weeks for $1799.00 US. Some pundits feel the price point is a little steep; others feel that it is much cheaper than some of the competitions' ultra-thin portables.
As fantastic as the new machine sounds, I am not the least bit interested in buying one. Why? What did Apple skimp on in order to produce such a lightweight machine?
Well, I suppose it depends on your intended uses for said machine. If all you are going to do is write school papers, listen to music, write emails and surf the web, then this may just be the machine for you. If I were going to College this year, this would be the notebook I would buy -- simply because it is smaller and lighter than a binder I would tote in my backpack.
One thing I do require a notebook for is mobile recording -- and nearly all recording interfaces use Firewire. Guess what? Apple removed the firewire port on the MacBook Air to save space and weight. Strike one. I suppose I could purchase a recording interface that employs USB 2.0, but that's another story altogether.
A 1.8", 80-gigabyte hard drive (the same ones used in Apple's iPods) are used in the MacBook Air, to conserve space and weight. Sadly, 80 gigabytes doesn't cut it for hard drive space these days. Strike two. In order to solve the problem, an external drive would be required to store the user's photos, music, movies, and documents, which brings me to my next beef.
Apple included only one USB port on the MacBook Air. While other notebook manufacturers are including as many as four USB ports on their portables, I feel this a poor area to cut corners in. Only geeks know how to set up and run wireless print servers; the rest of us plug in our printers via USB. Some of us like external keyboards and mice; especially while working at a desk. Not to mention, we plug in our iPods and digital cameras. Not enough USB ports? Strike three. I suppose you could buy a USB hub to connect all your peripherals to.
Apple further slimmed the design by omitting the optical drive. You can buy a specially-designed external drive from Apple for 100 bucks (sold separately, of course). Now, I agree that my optical drives get little usage; I likely burn 1 disc per month, but it's the security blanket issue that concerns me (what I mean by this is explained below). Apple has been ingenious in designing a clever little application that allows the user to 'hijack' the optical drive of a networked machine, and have the software install on the MacBook via a wireless network connection. I am quite intrigued by this technology, if it works, then it will be really cool to witness, and may spell the end of optical drives on portables. What scares me, is how does one boot from a system recovery disc on this machine, if, heaven forbid, the hard drive fails? I would like to do further research into their wireless-optical-drive-hijacking thingy before I administer another strike.
The MacBook Air does not have built-in Ethernet. Its only connection to the rest of the world is via its' wireless capabilities. You can, however, purchase a USB to Ethernet dongle and connect to your local area network that way. Another cursed dongle. As far as Ethernet goes, I don't think I have ever connected my notebook to the network via Ethernet, so I am unsure if this is deserving of a strike.
Apple ensured that every MacBook Air comes stock with 2 Gigabytes of RAM installed. What they don't tell you is that there is no room for expansion. That's right, the RAM is non-upgradeable. Now, 2 gigabytes of RAM should be enough for a year or two, but when will it not be enough? Remember, Bill Gates once said that 640k of RAM ought to be enough for everybody. Strike four.
Now, I am speculating here, but I imagine that a lot of the exciting technologies that are evident in the new MacBook Air will find their way into the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines by their next revision. I am specifically referring to the multi-touch technology Apple is continually developing, though given the relative success (or failure) of solid-state storage, and the lack of optical drives may deterime which technologies make it into these new machines. I know the MacBook Air by now sounds really compromised. Remember what all the pundits said about the iMac when it was released in 1997? "No SCSI? No ADB? No Floppy Drive? What is Steve thinking!?" They all predicted it would fail miserably -- and it was a grand slam. So we could be wrong. Maybe missing some of these features isn't much of an issue after all.
The following features would be the only things that would get me excited about purchasing a new notebook: LED backight (already in the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro), lighter weight, and longer battery life (I want 8 hours!), but I am unwilling to compromise on such issues as RAM (expandable to at least 4 Gigabytes), and drive storage. And since I often deal with high-end audio production, so Firewire and Gigabit Ethernet are a must-have on my ideal machine.
So no MacBook Air for me. Although, I think we will see new MacBooks in exciting new form factors in the coming months, and those will be impressive machines. They will be thinner than the current models too -- just not as 'thin as air'.
I wonder how long it will take Low End Mac to dub this machine a 'Road Apple'.
