New MacBook Airs have new iProblems?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 04 November 2010 10:03

Your IT - Mobility

Whenever Apple seems to launch new products, reports of problems and issues for some users seem inevitable iCompanions, from claims of faulty logic boards, kernel panics and display problems over at Apple's Support forums.

Although Apple's iPod Nano, Touch and Shuffle product lines seem to have evaded reports of bugs and issues, Apple's newest computing creations, the MacBook Air lines, are seeing reports of problems as has affected many Macs upon release.

Usually Apple will firstly ignore the problem and neither deny nor confirm anything, before eventually suggesting that an miniscule iProportion of users have been affected and that everything will be fixed up for those with issues.

Which is normally what happens, to everyone's eventual satisfaction, although those affected in the first place clearly wouldn't be happy with the issues they're facing.

A video of an affected 11-inch MacBook Air is available to view at YouTube here, and yeah - I wouldn't be happy to see that video glitch, either.

Anyone willing to take a look at Apple's support forums will see claims of display problems, faulty logic boards and Mac OS 'kernel panics' that are said to be affecting both the 11-inch and 13.3-inch new MacBook Air models, showing that if you want to get thinner, you really do have to work for it, both before and after the new thin size has been achieved!

And while there has been a MacBook Air software update already, it sadly hasn't helped users with their issues, leaving MacBook Air owning consumers to wait for more iGuidance from the crunchiest company this side of the orchard to arrive.

However the update did indeed manage to fix some issues - iMovie was becoming unresponsive playing certain files, and waking up from sleep had issues if an Air was connected to an external display.

Still, Apple has a history of fixing these issues for consumers, and has shown up ultra-portable notebook makers with super-slim computers that are actually affordable for consumers, rather than costing in the $3000 - $4000 range as ultra-portables with ULV (ultra low voltage) processors often seem to be priced in.

Yes, Apple does have some pretty amazing efficiencies and economies it can draw on when developing and designing its technologies, but despite the aforementioned issues hopefully means competing companies will be forced to drop prices on ultra-portable computers that have much more power than netbooks.

It's happened in the netbook space, and Pentium Dual Core processors have helped slim and more powerful computers appear, but using a Core 2 Duo even if at a low clock speed certainly sets Apple above and beyond its competitors, which is a place the company likes to be.

Now all it has to do is quickly sort the issues that some new MacBook Air owners are reporting, so peace, happiness and satisfying crunchiness is quickly restored to Apple's never ending universe of iPossibility, iMagic and iRevolution!