Thanks Steve..

[theducks]

.. for a US$19.95 upgrade for my iPod Touch so I can have the same features I've already hacked into it from an iPhone
.. for a US$1999 thin Macbook with a non-replaceable battery and an 80Gb hard drive (seriously, you couldn't fit a 160Gb from an iPod? that would have actually made it a useful product, but no, the only other option is a AU*$1700* "upgrade" to a 64GB SSD drive)
.. for dropping the price of the Apple TV in the US but not in Australia
.. for the Time Capsule WLAN AP with a 1TB hard drive that costs AU$199 than buying an Airport Extreme base station and a USB 1TB hard drive to plug into it

So sure, last night was no iPod-hiFi and leather iPod cases, but it sure was crap.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

ill probably still get a macbook air in 6 months when they've upped the hdd (how could they not!?!? or else maybe we'll see a really, really, really big .mac)

[velvetbutter.livejournal.com]

The Air looks cool and great for the work traveller, but the price tag is a massive ouch. For less you get a higher specced Macbook, which has more features such as an optical drive and more HDD space. You are really just buying the weight difference, which it totally personal. I love my macbook, it's has more grunt than the current MacBookPro.

Making the Air come standard with 2gig RAM shows that it's going to really need it to run the OS X and apps at a 1.6gig processor.

The 64gig SSD is interesting indeed and I like where they are going with it.

The Air is cool, and you'll see lots of people have it that need it just for emails and word processing. Great for the traveling exec in many ways.

[theducks.livejournal.com]

I think some people will buy the air and love it, but I think they've missed the mark. Steve made big things of how tiny screens and keyboards are on other sub-notebooks were, and how this was better because it was a huge screen. Erm, I think more than a few people actually *want* a small screen and keyboard.

SSD is a cool technology, but 64GB seems a tad low for my liking, and a $1200 sticker-shock to upgrade to it makes it something for extreme hardcore users only.

And yes, 2GB is what I recommend people get in new Macs. It's just unfortunate that you can't upgrade past 2GB on the Macbook Air, cause it ain't got no slots ;)

[hipikat.livejournal.com]

Making the Air come standard with 2gig RAM shows that it's going to really need it to run the OS X and apps at a 1.6gig processor.

I admire your conclusions' jumping ability =O.o= But I'm running OS X and many apps including photoshop, synergy and three different browsers on a 1 GHz PowerPC G4 (with only a single core, obviously), with only 1 GB of ram, and doing fine.

[theducks.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but Intel Macs are worse memory hogs :/

[velvetbutter.livejournal.com]

Also notice Itunes 7.6 is now released on the back of the Air, just in time to buy and download those DVDs from the Apple store rather than use the non-existent optical drive :P

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

They should've called it the Air MacBook. As usual, "revolutionary" in Apple parlance means only Marie Antoinette can afford it.

1.8" drives

[matt (from livejournal.com)]

http://www.apple.com/ipodclassic/specs.html suggests that 80 and 160 gig drives aren't the dimensions?

Re: 1.8" drives

[matt (from livejournal.com)]

same dimensions rather.

Re: 1.8" drives

[theducks.livejournal.com]

No, the 160Gb is slightly larger, but c'mon, it's like 2mm.. I sure they could have made it fit :)

Re: 1.8" drives

[dannipenguin.livejournal.com]

But then they won't be able to sell the 160GB version in 6 months so they can pretend that they're innovating!

Re: 1.8" drives

[hipikat.livejournal.com]

Haha, oh yes =^.^= When will people come to their senses and see that Apple's just been pretending to innovate all this time??

[conradin.livejournal.com]

yeahh, slightly tempted by the air..

Not sure that people _want_ a small keyboard and screen, but they want the small dimensions, and I'm not sure that the thickness is the dimension that most people want to minimise.

But for the people that work on a laptop all the time, and only have one work computer, then a large screen and keyboard might be good.

I'll see what has happened with the Air by July when my salary sacrifice expires, anyway ;)

[shifuimam.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Stevie's a douche on this one, for sure.

I don't actually see anything about the MacBook Air that makes it worth $1800 or even $1000. Or $800. Or $500. I'd rather just get an eeePC or CloudBook...this thing is a royal ripoff.

And $1300USD for a 64GB SSD is a major ripoff. That's nearly all lining the pockets of Stevie and his buddies, and that's just wrong.

I think that this year's MacWorld solidifies what I've been saying for awhile: Apple's gotten too big for its panties. Stevie's ego has taken the place of any semblance of sanity Apple has displayed in the last few years.

As far as I'm concerned, Apple's glory days of the late 90s and early 2000s are over. The G4 iMac was the last truly innovative piece of hardware they produced...it's all been downhill since then.

[caitlen.livejournal.com]

The Air is a really pretty piece of work, but possibly that's all it's good for. I can see Business people going nuts for it, because it's so thin, it's like having a manilla folder to stick in your briefcase/satchel. But The 80GB HDD isn't really up to speck. I'm totally with you on the "Why couldn't you put the 160GB iPod HD in there?" I'd like to see them improve it straight away.

Also, far out, the price tag for Aussies is ridiculous.

It was exciting, until I read more about it.

[dannipenguin.livejournal.com]

Also the lack of ethernet will probably go down badly for corporate customers.

They'll go and buy Toshiba or Fujitsu if they want tiny notebooks.

[dannipenguin.livejournal.com]

Well, corporate types aren't even going to run MacOSX anyway.

[caitlen.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about that. I thought at first "Wow, I don't think I could do without ethernet", but then I thought about it. When I lived in Canada, I lived off wireless. At work, it was easy to hook up to the intra office web, and that's how everyone did everything. I was stuck at home, because in the shared house (between 7 of us at once) there was only one internet connection, and I had to steal it off the modem in the room off the kitchen, and that was ethernet. But that was the only ethernet connection I used. I think it will actually go down really well amongst corporate customers, specifically in parts of the US and in Europe, where businesses have gone wireless, and for those who usually run wifi but have commitments in places where wifi isn't guaranteed, well there's the ethernet adapter.

I think it will work really well for those people who travel, and might have a Mac Mini at home, with the larger hard drive, or work off a Mac Pro (which they might need for bigger projects), when they can just drag and drop items that they need, and take the Air with them on the road.

It'll be interesting to see how it develops. I think it's a bit ahead of itself, but in a year, I'd be surprised if it's still behind.

[dannipenguin.livejournal.com]

I love how if Apple do something it's "ahead of the curve". If it appeared in anything else, people would say "how stupid!".

I don't think that many businesses are wireless enabled. Wireless is an anathema to business. They are constantly concerned about security, so much so that many company IT policies explicitly forbid the use of wireless.

While many places have wireless hotspots now, many hotels I've stayed in still only have a hardline into the room. I've actually been known to carry a wireless AP with me so that I could lie on the bed instead.

The other nice thing about a hardline, besides the fact that it's that much harder to eavesdrop on is that it's orders of magnitude faster. If you're copying large numbers of files between two machines, connecting via a cable is still the fastest way.

Dongles are lame (remember how they were lame when they plugged into the PC card you had in your machine, and how awesome it was if you had a real port). USB dongles are also slow.

The back is 1.94cm high, which is slightly wider than the back of my Portege R200, which has an ethernet port.

[caitlen.livejournal.com]

Going to have to agree to disagree. It'll work and work well, but there's a bit of a way to go with it.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

Oh I don't know - the drive's as big as the one I was travelling with not so long ago, and I really could have done with the weight savings when going hand-luggage only. I also don't think I used my optical drive once the entire time I was in Europe the year before last.

So yeah - aside from price, a nice beast for backpacking..

[caitlen.livejournal.com]

I've decided I like it. And having backpacked with my iBook 2 years/18 months ago, I could have really done with a weight out of that bag. This would be perfect, and can I say a bit tougher than my iBook? I might take the optical drive with me though, but not for shorter trips (I was living overseas for 7 months, and backpacking for 3 months at the end).

[dannipenguin.livejournal.com]

A Portege R500 with solid state drive and no optical drive weights 800g and has twice the battery life. It costs the same amount of money.

My three year old R200 weighs less than the new Apple, is the same thickness and significantly less expensive (although dated technology-wise).

All-in-all, I was looking forward to seeing what they did, but I feel that Apple have produced a very poor device.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

Oh I agree that in many regards they're playing catchup. I've wanted a laptop with a 12" 150dpi screen for quite some time, and they still don't produce one. (mm, 1440x1080)

But I want something that officially supports OS X..

[hipikat.livejournal.com]

The MacBook Air isn't for you, Alex. I'm totally with Wil Shipley on this one, and hungry for Air.