Apple’s new MacBook Air is a wonderful looking computer and is remarkably thin. It’s the sort of computer that I would want if I was doing any amount of travelling. Actually, I want it anyway.
I’ve read some criticism though, in particular with regards the compromises (or design decisions) that Apple have made to get the machine so thin. In no particular order they are:
1. Not enough ports. The MacBook Air comes with just three ports – USB2, micro-DVI out (for driving a monitor), and a headphone jack. So you can’t, for example, connect a USB printer and mouse at the same time. However, I suspect that Apple doesn’t really expect anyone to attach either. Rather, they expect that your printer will either be attached to your desktop PC, or some other part of your network (like your router); and that the new multi-touch trackpad with its gestures, is better than (or at least as good as) a mouse. And if you do want to connect a mouse or a printer, then the machine comes with the latest bluetooth standard. In short, the MacBook Air is genuinely designed to be both portable and wireless.
2. No optical disk drive. We’ve been here before of course, when Apple first dropped the floppy disk from its iMac desktop computer. Once again Apple is probably moving slightly ahead of many of its users, but as Steve Jobs demonstrated during his keynote when announcing the machine, there aren’t really that many reasons for having an optical drive in a computer like the MacBook Air. Backup can be handled by Time Machine and the new Time Capsule, music and video content can be purchased and rented from the iTunes store, and installation of new software is available via the clever Remote Disc facility. All of this of course ties the user into Apple more – but that’s how the Apple’s ecosystem works.
3. No user replaceable battery. There are those, I’m sure, who carry around spare batteries and will swap one in when the other runs out of power, but Apple is betting that the number of people who actually do this is very low. It’s the same principle that they’ve applied to the iPhone. From my own experience, I don’t know anyone that touches the battery compartment on their laptop or their phone.
4. Non-upgradeable memory. See the battery argument. Is 2GB enough? Well, more memory is always better, but it’s probably an acceptable compromise – it’s certainly a good deal more than is in my current iBook.
5. Not enough hard-disk space. 80GB (or 64GB if you’re going to the SSD option) is of course less than some iPods, but the MacBook Air is not meant to hold all of your data – rather, it’s a tool for accessing and working on snapshots of it. So, most of your data will be stored on your desktop (accessible via Back to My Mac as required), or in that famous internet cloud (via iDisk, Google and a myriad of other online data stores and applications).
Clearly the MacBook Air is not for everyone. It won’t replace the full functionality of either a MacBook Pro or indeed a MacBook. But for many people, who want a light, powerful laptop computer, I suspect that it will most certainly do.
Tags: apple, laptop, macbook, macbook air, notebook
