MacBook Air!
Using the [MacBook] Air is like Christmas, your birthday, and Valentine’s Day all rolled into one.
CNNMoney.com (I couldn’t agree more)
So I learned the hard way (the hard way being my MacBook Air locking up right before when I get on stage to present), that .Mac and the UK just don’t mix. The SyncServer process seems to run the CPU cycles up, taking up to 99%. I kill it and it would keep popping back up. So far it has locked up my MacBook about a half a dozen times in just three days.
Daniel (who is UK-based) mentioned that he has suffered from the same problem on his G4 PowerBook. I wonder if there is an issue with connecting to the .Mac servers while overseas?
Note to self: turn off iDisk and .Mac syncing before heading to the UK again.
MacBook Air selling strongly... surprised?
Geeks have a tendency to drastically overestimate the value of extendability, number of ports, and benchmarks while drastically underestimate the value of design, feel, and convenience as perceived by regular people. This would seem a case in point.
37signals talks about the demand for MacBook Air’s and quotes ArsTechnica’s report on the demand, for what I consider to be the most perfect Apple laptop EVER!
The MacBook Air is the most perfect Apple laptop EVER!
Many have been complaining about what the MacBook Air doesn’t include and to those I reply, do you really need it?
In the world of technology we become so used to the ever increasing feature list of gadgets or software, that we tend to forget what we really need. That our actual needs are often quite simple. While new features are great, they can also become unwelcome clutter to our lives, adding stuff we don’t use nor need.
When something comes along that so acutely addresses our needs, we tend to forget about what it doesn’t have, but instead focus on what it does for us. It feels right at home. You think, “I don’t really need anything more than this.” This transcendental feeling is what allows us to concentrate less about what the technology does (or doesn’t do) and more about what it can do for me. It just fits into my lifestyle and becomes an indispensable tool to our life.
The perfect example of this is the iPhone, it has less features than most phones, is more expensive and slower than many phones on the market. But I don’t know a single owner that would part with it for anything else.
This is the feeling I have over my new MacBook Air. I’ve owned many Apple laptops, pleased with each one, but I feel like the Air is the laptop that I always wanted. For me, it reminds me of the first time I sat down to use the Mac OS, the first time I used an iPod, the first time I used TiVo, the first time I used the iPhone.
Lets face it, Apple laptops have always just been laptops. More elegant counterparts to the Windows dominated computing world. They are sexier, slimmer and lighter, but at the end of the day, they were in the same class as the Windows world. Much different than say the iMac, which completely redefined (several times over) what a desktop computer could be. While the Air isn’t quite as radical of a departure as the iMac was from the long gone beige boxes, it has redefined my perception of what a laptop can be. The MacBook Air feels more iPhone than MacBook. Almost like a tablet computer, but far more practical.
The construction is amazing, it feels like a solid piece of metal. You forget that it has any guts to it at all. The trackpad is larger than any other laptop I’ve seen, wider than the spacebar, allowing for multi-touch gestures like the iPhone, which I find myself using more and more each day. Given its size I imagine that Apple will release more multi-touch gestures with future system updates.
Every small nuance seems like it was refined to the point of perfection. I haven’t encountered one thing that I wished it did and doesn’t, and frankly I don’t really think about it. It has all the refinements of the MacBook Pro, but none of the disadvantages of the MacBook (I was surprised it didn’t come with an Apple Remote, not that I needed one more in my life, it does actually support a remote, though I can’t find the IR sensor in the design).
- One USB port? No problem. I usually only connect one device at a time or use Bluetooth anyway. I just haven’t found myself saying to myself, “I wish I could connect both of these cords right now.” When I do I have numerous USB hubs. In fact I like connecting less to my laptop. I do not mourn the loss of the morning ritual of plugging a cord into every port of my MacBook Pro.
- No DVD drive? No problem. The Remote Disc tool seems to work perfectly. And I never watch DVD’s on my laptop, I’ve been ripping them for years to increase battery life on long flights, a task that I never do on my laptop.
- Slowest Mac Ever? Hardly. I haven’t yet noticed a performance hit. It seems just as fast as the 2.2 Ghz MacBook Pro that my Air replaced. And it feels quite a bit faster than the MacBook before that, having far less little performance hiccups. I don’t know if it is because it is the first laptop designed for Leopard or what, but I have no regrets here.
- Is the loss of a few pounds worth the extra price? It is for me. Like the iPhone, the Air is the perfect weight. Hefty enough to feel like you don’t have to care for it gingerly, but light enough to pick up while open with one hand and take it with you to a meeting. Given the amount I travel, I really enjoy having a few less pounds (and more space) in my carryon.
- Would I use the Air my sole Mac? Probably not. Unless you are on the road a lot, I probably wouldn’t recommend it as your one and only Mac. I like the fact that I have more power and and hard drive space at home and at work. I rarely need to use it, but I am a big believer in if you feel you need power to do your work, you are better off with a desktop. Laptops make poor replacements for speed machines.
- Dealing with multiple Macs an issue? No so far. I’ve been a subscriber of .mac since day one. Without it, I’d probably be hurting a little. But I felt the $100/yr was worth it before I had multiple Macs, just for the automated Backup of critical data to iDisk. Now it seems like a bargain.
- So is the MacBook Air for everyone? Absolutely not. I’ve had to alter how I use a laptop, but for the better. It has allowed me to slim down what I carry with me, reduce some clutter, becoming more portable and feeling more flexible. And I don’t feel like I had to give anything up.
There are plenty who will disagree and for those folks there are several great options, but for me it will be incredibly hard to go back to anything else. Like the iPhone I doubt there will be many MacBook Air owners that could imagine using anything else.
I’m sure they’ve realized, like me, they never really needed all that extra stuff to begin with.
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