MacBook Air: It's the iPod of Macs

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 20 January 2008 09:17

Opinion and Analysis

There’s been a lot of complaint that Apple have left too much out of the MacBook Air. But similar complaints were made about the iPod Shuffle, the Mini and the Nano – and look how popular these ‘cut down’ versions have been.

The Apple TV went it the other direction, taking an iPod and making it larger and only able to connect to your TV, your home hi-fi setup and a broadband connection.

Now that the Apple TV can download movies in HD – and can do it (and more) without needing a PC to get in the way – perhaps the Apple TV might start becoming much more popular.

But the MacBook Air has gone the way of the smaller sized iPods before it, sizing down and even removing features. That strategy hasn’t hurt the iPod, and given the MacBook Air is a full computer, offering essentially the full computing experience (unlike most ultraportable competitors which are underpowered) in a smaller package, it will clearly be very tempting to anyone considering the purchase of a new notebook.

I’ve had mixed feelings about the MacBook Air. I’ve watched the keynote a couple of times, and it is easy to get excited about such a small, svelte and still powerful computer.

Clearly the MacBook Air is far more capable than something like the ASUS Eee PC, especially when coupled with Apple’s top-notch iLife suite, and there can be no doubt that working with a MacBook Air would also be much more comfortable than the Eee, but at five times the price.

The regular MacBook delivers a faster experience with more hardware options. Granted, it’s heavier, but it’s cheaper, and does everything the MacBook Air does, but better and faster.

The only truly unique hardware feature of the MacBook Air is the multi-touch glidepad, and if there are no software updates coming for existing MacBook models to gain the same functionality, the ‘other 50 weeks’ in 2008 that Steve Jobs alluded to will very likely see MacBook and MacBook Pro refreshes that will, at the very least, include the new touchpad features, amongst whatever other hardware updates are simply standard by that time.

There's also been criticism of the MacBook Air's non-removable battery, and how this will stop people from swapping batteries out in-flight or whenever they've run out of power and need to plug in a spare. With no removable battery, you'll need to carry an external slim battery pack around with you that connects to the MacBook Air via the Magsafe adapter socket.

That battery will in turn be charged by its own adapter, or better still, by the Magsafe adapter charger for the MacBook Air. Extra battery packs could be slim, but either smaller or larger in surface area depending on how many hours of life you want your spare battery to store - expect a range of external, rechargeable battery packs to emerge for the MacBook Air in short order!

While the MacBook Air isn’t necessarily a ‘must have’ product, it is very much a ‘like to have’ product, but when I think about it, it’s one that will simply offer me all that my existing PC based notebook already lets me do, albeit in a much thinner package.

And it’s obvious that the MacBook Air is just ‘version one’ of a new thin range from Apple. How much better will the MacBook Air 2 be, and when will it come out?

Will there also be a MacBook Pro Air that gives you the larger screen sizes in the same thin packaging?

There’s also the question of a device that sits in between the iPhone and the MacBook Air, the so-called Mac Tablet or iPhone Pro.

Is it worth replacing what I already have – which meets my current needs perfectly – just to go a bit thinner?

That’s the US $1799 question. If only it cost the same as the most expensive iPod!