Really? That's a pretty fucking stupid statement if ever I saw one.

I for one would not buy a device like this without being able to get at the battery to replace it. I'd be willing to bet you one million pounds that I'm not the only person on the planet with the same view. I don't have an iPod for this very reason. I'd probably buy a 16gb touch if it had user replaceable batteries.

And bear in mind I've owned several ultra portables. Sony Vaio C1, C1VE, IBM X40, Nokia 770, so I'm in the target demographic for this device.

Note I agree that Apple will sell a shedload of these - it's inevitable - there are what 10 million Apple fanboys out there that would buy anything the great Stevo churns out...

lauriek

"Please, for those of you who can't manage your wireless network..."

Wired is faster, more secure, and sometimes more convenient, and the hardware to add it costs a pittance. Reason enough to have it for the serious road warrior.

"...or spend 5 minutes at your local Apple store getting the battery replaced...

They have Apple stores on planes now?

"...(or use a #0 Philips screwdriver to access the battery yourself)..."

Besides the warranty-voiding goodness of that advice, I'd like to see you open up a computer in a coach seat.

"...you probably shouldn't be buying such high-tech hardware."

Ahh, yes, that wonderful Apple super-duper-tech that's also in the Lenovo X61 -- which has a removable battery and an Ethernet port to boot.

HeartBurnKid

Please, for those of you who can't manage your wireless network or spend 5 minutes at your local Apple store getting the battery replaced (or use a #0 Philips screwdriver to access the battery yourself), you probably shouldn't be buying such high-tech hardware.

My only complaint: Toshiba is milking their Flash drive patent for all it's worth, an nobody makes a cost-effective alternative yet. That's why a solid state hard drive costs an arm and a leg.

So, other than -gasp- paying the price for bleeding edge hardware, the oft-claimed drawbacks to the MBA look quite trivial. Those who actually live wirelessly today will probably proclaim the Apple MacBook Air a breath of fresh air compared to the clunky alternatives.

my favorite car is a motorcycle

Executives aren't stupid. Middle management is, but executives aren't.

HeartBurnKid

cybergrunt

edeux

mtroute

If you don't like it don't buy it. But quite complaining about a product you have never seen or used because it doesn't meet "your" standards. It's called variety, get to know the word because your girlfriends already do!

mtroute

Then again, as was proven with the iPhone, Apple doesn't really care about business users; they only care about the trendy college crowd who will buy this over a desktop just because it's sooooooooooo stylish.

HeartBurnKid

This ultraportable is GREAT, i would never will be editing in a core duo 1.6-1.8 no way but i will be doing presentations and visiting clients, its perfect, its ultraportable and doesnt have stinky windows inside!

what more can you ask ?

Aberracus

But having to send the machine in for repair every time the hard drive or battery dies is a kill point. Battery will be dead in less then two years. And a hard drive, while not having a set lifespan, does fail often in a business setting.

...way too expensive also.

newgalactic

chenry

MBs the better deal. i hope they announce an backlit keyboard for the MB (just a illusionary wish) or wihte and black coloured aluminum MBs

ibunkun

OpTioNiGhT

"The Air seems nice at first, but then you realize it's just a pretty face and a good body and ultimately costs you too much for too little."

Call me when you're 50 and would KILL for 15 minutes with a HOT BODY!

FThorn

Second, these comments totally remind me of the s**tstorm that happened when the original iMac came out. So many complaints about missing things. NO FLOPPY! NO ADB! NO SCSI! NO CARD SLOTS! NO PRINTER OR MODEM PORT!! I can't open it easily to add X! But that computer found a pretty big audience and basically saved Apple.

How does Apple come up with these machines that geeks and engineers scream about but that the public likes? The answer is that geeks and engineers design stuff for themselves and most of the public can only use about 20% of the functionality that geeks intend them to use. They are just not motivated or not interested enough to care. They never get to use that feature, why bog them down with it?

Like I have a Powerbook with a Firewire 400 and 800 port on it. I don't own a video camera besides my tiny Canon SD point and shoot. Why do I need these ports? iSight? It's history. Every time I shop for a hard drive enclosure the Firewire ones are much more expensive. I know this is supposed to be a sacred issue for MacHeads but for the most part I have stopped caring. I hope its on my future mbp, but I would not scream if some business traveller did not have it.

My computer also has a PC Card slot - now outdated - never ever used, not once.

My computer has upgradeable RAM slots - I will never add more than my 1.5 gig that I have had all along. I won't ever invest more money in this configuration and I have no need to ever do that. More memory does not make your computer faster if you have enough to start.

My computer has a removable battery but it is still on the original battery - what is the point of this? I am almost to the point of being done with this computer. I have never replaced a battery. They seem to fail just when I am ready to upgrade. I have learned that the time that I start wanting to replace stuff on my laptop is really a sign to start saving for the next one. So my battery is not great, but I just carry my charger, I don't waste cycles and I am sitting on $100 to put to my next computer.

And on the contrary, I have had stuff where a removable battery sucked. One cell phone broke where the battery was latched to the phone. The battery worked, it just kept falling off. A user replaceable battery would have costed more than I paid for the phone - how is that in my interests? My solution was to glue the battery on permanently, and there forward I lost interest in the false benefit of the removable battery. I think Apple has it right here, put the battery in the case, protected, an if it needs to be replaced, open the screws on the case.

Most users don't need Ethernet any more. They just don't use it. They have no where to plug in. And Apple is shipping a USB ethernet module people the 2% who need it.

Most users never use the mic input, or anything optical in or out - they don't even know its there.

If you want to criticize this machine it has one real weakness: small disk. This is because they choose to use the 1.8" drive rather than the larger 2.5" drive in most notebooks. They may be ahead of the curve here. Certainly for a media centric machine - but a lot of people simply are not doing that work or if they are not when they are mobile to any great extent. I am sure in time we will see larger drives in this size. Until we are told they can't go in this machine I would not assume it can't be done.

I will tell you what I do see among my none geek friends. I have two friends who won't on any basis give up their pb 12". They just want the smallest thing out there. They see computers as a burden, they want less burden. Another has a tiny Thinkpad and wants a Mac. She would probably like the Macbook but I have a feeling she will go for the mba because it is so damn small and that is just cool. Another friend has a bad back and hates carrying his mbp, his mba is now on order. Another guy has a desktop pc he uses to check hotmail. After using the iPhone he wants a Mac. I really doubt he needs the crap you guys are screaming about. Macbook is great for him, but so here again, the mba is a very cool option.

For all of these people the mba is a great machine - its nearly ideal. So they may have an optical drive they leave at home or in time they will likely want to get a larger drive in there. I am excited for them to have an such a tiny amazing machine. Screw Firewire or Ethernet.

junkie4junk

Because iPods don't cost $1,600?

Whatever, I'm sure they'll sell a gillion of these things. I wonder if the day will ever come when self-proclaimed "geeks" finally realize that Apple does not make machines for you. They don't care about you or like you. They make machines for 85lb trust fund hipsters who live in Shoreditch, Williamsburg, Silverlake, etc. They are Steve's customer...you are a beneficial side-effect.

strangepork

My friends have a Great C.D. i want to Copy .. oh wait.. Or make them a Copy of my Videos or Pictures!! I don't have Optical Drive.. !!!

No! Slot For My DigitalCamera Memory Cards.

Oh But wait.. Im on the Road Since this Things is a Suppose to be Mobile..
and i want to use the Internet? Oh wait I Can't It Dosent have an Express Card Slot or even
WiMax Suport~!

Yes.. its Beautiful! - But Beautiful Dose not always Put out!

No DVD! LAME LAME LAME!!

DJJS

danny.what

Both the Micro-DVI to DVI adapter and Micro-DVI to VGA adapters are included.

someToast

NeoPoliticus

This 'Macbook Air' is NOT meant to be 'for the masses'.

It is designed to SEDUCE the well-monied EXECUTIVE, jet-setter,
stylish raconteur, must-be-seen with the BEST stuff type person.

And why is this, you ask?

Because... this is Apple's STEALTH entry into 'enterprise IT'.

Yep. Steve is doing it 'from the top down'... sell the boss on
Mac (He will have to have one!) and then sit back and wait for
massive orders of Enterprise-level servers and related gear.

Make sense?

All of the 'deal killers' mentioned so far do NOT count for
these guys... ALL OF THEM

vastgene

People don't want to do that. This systems CAN edit video it's just not well equiped to do it. It lacks all of the features that would make video editing easier.

It's going to be great for editing video from the built in webcam. For editing 1080 content off a modern camcorder it won't be so great.

This configuration of the air is not great for video editing. Just bacause Apple says so doesn't make it true.

Techguy1138

hn333

Also: it's a terrible markup on that flash memory for the SSD.

Klitaka

Anyone got an idea?

DJJS

Zyren

I'm not going to rush out and buy a MacBook Air, I'm very happy with my recently purchased MacBook thank you very much. I'm also not sure what will happen with this product in the future, but I wonder if Jobs isn't seeing something the rest of us are maybe too shortsighted to realize- computers become obsolete so quickly that upgrading them is an exercise in futility. He's kept the mercury out of it, I'm thinking that he's thinking that when the battery dies or when you want an upgrade, you'll return it and Apple will recycle it. Maybe with a trade-in option. I could be completely wrong, but Jobs has seen the future ahead of the rest of us before.

As to everyone who keeps pointing out there's no ethernet port- what part of MacBook AIR did you not understand?

rsquared

shiny7k

[www.engadget.com]

Sam Glover

cvalue13

A feature I never use is not a feature. Being very light IS a feature my back will definitely appreciate.

Padriac

gary_slamson.

[finance.google.com]

Rcoles

rifdawg

i just paid $116 for a replacement MBP 15" battery the other day. and that was education pricing. $13 more (and non-edu pricing) to replace the MBA battery seems like a decent deal to me. especially if there is no labor cost.

i'd probably just do it myself though honestly. it's amazing how many gadget aficionados are scared to death to open a computer up. what has this world come to?! i mean you can clearly see the screws on the bottom of the case. can't imagine it being any more difficult than an optical drive replacement in a 12" or (shudders) a hard drive replacement in an original iBook.

@techguy1138: this will work perfectly fine for video work as long as you capture elsewhere. you people are all spoiled these days is what it sounds like (once i saw the various "presets" in Motion i was able to confirm this). i made several hundred commercials and several dozen long form productions on a 300Mhz G3 with 96MB of RAM and a 8GB hard drive. worked perfectly fine for me. and that was the "fast" machine since the 9500/150 was sorta a dog. yes. you might have to render. prepping for a render helps you make sure you do it correctly the first time.

x23

GrndsKeeprWillie

Christibyte

Replacing the battery on an out of warranty MacBook Air will cost you the same as buying a new battery for a MacBook Pro: $129.

someToast

GrndsKeeprWillie

ianmac47

As for the size factor...thickness generally affects people less than the mass of a notebook. People tend to obsessively protect their notebooks(i've noticed this w/ MBP's especially) w/ oversized padding or large bags that the shape of the notebook is almost irrelevant.

A notebook is a very different beast from the iPod when it comes to battery life. Most people can't go very long w/o their notebook and shipping it off for a replacement will be agony.

With the near complete lack of features, the MBA just doesn't justify the cost in both dollars and hassles. My money would be spent on an XPS1330 (faster proc, burner, removable battery for less money and 1lb penalty) or a pedestrian Macbook Pro if I wanted the big form factor.

mishap

ACoBildo

Palestina

GrndsKeeprWillie

People keep saying the MBair has all these limitations to make it so thin. WRONG. Sony and Toshiba did it thinner and better years ago!! Innovative my ass!

GumbyJump

I think you have to look at this as one of a family of products. I use my MBPro as my only machine. I run Parallels and Adobe CS3 most of the time. Should I expect to have the experience on an Air? No. Would the Air be a great product who values size over performance and battery life? Yes.

The greatest products are those that are designed for one target user. Apple practices this with all their products.

In the end, I guess the point here is the difference between honest criticism and bashing. Honest criticism is using spaces and realizing it has some usability issues. I expect more thorough interaction design from Apple. Bashing is NEVER ACTUALLY USING A PRODUCT and pointing out a feature that doesn't work for you and calling it a fatal flaw. Lets try to wait until at least 5 minutes after the keynote to express our ignorance.

skylark64

GumbyJump

Rand

GumbyJump

Yes. As usual.

Almost all Mac Products have been devices you can't upgrade, instead you throw away the old one and buy a new one. That's their way of marketing and it worked for years.

Klappstuhl

No media burner.

This is TERRIBLE for video work. It can do it but so can my powermac 7500/132.

Techguy1138

The Great Aussie Evil

Apple is very good at knowing just how many people HAVE to have the newest sexy product and charging them for it.

One that market is near tapped it will drop. The lack of an optical drive make me think this is ONLY for the ultra geek. Walking random manager through an os re-install or software install will be hard. No target disk mode to transfer one mac to another?

you will need to be nerd core to make this thing go.

Techguy1138

You don't have to take my word for it, though; according to the Apple Store, the MacBook Air includes "iLife '08 suite for creating photo projects, making movies, designing DVDs, building websites, and composing music", so from that alone, it seems that Apple itself disagrees with you. Click the link to buy one and what does Apple offer to go along with a new MacBook Air? Final Cut Express 4. There you have it: Apple does indeed intend for people to be able to use MacBooks Air for video production. They just have to get their video in and out some way other than with FireWire.

Thanks for playing.

Brian Sexton

boonkien

Joe Alien

You know, my laptop has 5 hours running time... but if I run 3D apps and other demanding tasks with it, it goes down to 2 and a half.

My extra battery saved me several times.

And finally... we still have to hear how hot it gets... I'm not very confident since it has a 3D graphics card in it. They get surprisingly hot.

Bokusatsu_Tenshi

re: no disc drive: I use the disc drive on my imac for three things: burning CDs, watching movies, and games.

on the air: well..I dont game, or burn cds on the go. If I need to install, use remote disc at home. Movies: rip and transfer..and I dont have to carry DVDs either. Data: flashdrive.

its meant as a secondary or travel computer. I feel like a fanboy defending it so much, but I mean half the arguments I read dont have much base..

redkamel

firesign

firesign

nincompoop

Hijakk

kaushalmodi

Coming soon, the Macbook AirPlus with no charger. I can hear the apple techs now... "I'm sorry maam, it's run out of power. You'll have to buy a new one."

Lauren

"I don't really care that much about the battery or upgrading. I'd just use it for a couple years then move on to the next. That is, if I were to get an Air, which I'm not."

Good luck getting any resell back out of the thing if that would have been your plan. The value of these things will drop like a rock in 2 years.

nwaringa

ItsMrJP

pantoine

turbineseaplane

"The speaker is mono only (not stereo), so your audio output will suffer a bit. The audio comes out of the keyboard holes in the right side, and it sounds a little funny."

SPEAKER IS MONO. AHAHAHAHA. That is ridiculous! Absolutely stupid.

And $129 to replace the battery (oooh free installation. like that was a steal for us...)

slingblade

I wanted to like this but it's limitations are huge. Either way, I expect they'll sell millions.

It's Apple and it's shiny.

JoshS

Splendor

This device is a premium-priced lifestyle product. This is easy to tell: it is essentially identical to a MacBook in specs, but $400+ more (not counting the price of buying an external optical drive).

This is not a device for road-warriors who need to swap batteries to cover a press event, or run a remote office. This is not an expandable, customizable geek toy for people who want to swap their own hard disk or ram.

This is targeted at those people's bosses: people who want essentially a MacBook, but don't mind paying hundreds extra for the privilege of having a machine so sleek and small that the other passengers on the plane or patrons of the Starbucks will gasp when they slip it out of their bag.

For this market, they've got plenty of disposable income to equip the thing nicely out of the box, and two or three years from now when the battery is worn and needs to be replaced, they will move on to the next hawt, sexy overpriced gizmo. For these people, 5 hours is plenty: it's enough time two watch two (expensive, iTunes rented) movies on the plane, or to sit and be seen while drinking their (expensive) latte at Starbucks.

People on this thread bellyaching about the cost of eventually replacing the battery or not being able to swap the disk are not the target market, and never will be.

This is Apple's standard MO in the high-end (think iPhone and lack of 3g): Design a device's external form, decide what they think the target customer will pay for that hotness, and then put in as much capability will fit.

max_k

Knirfie

Knirfie

el_gordo

TheBull

DrXym

I admit I'd like to stuff this thing with RAM, and a second battery can be handy on very long flights. But many people don't care about that. As mentioned above the vast majority of people will get all they want and need out of a computer like this.

With more computing tasks moving to the cloud I think the market for items like this keeps growing anyway.

If you're a geek who demands to have everything with you at all times, or a power user who doesn't have a desktop machine this laptop is not for you! Ditto if you would consider buying an Asus!

stwf

MacAir

workingonyourinvoice

The problem is the price.

turbineseaplane

sqeakytoy of the apocalypse

Regardless of the price you will either buy this or you won't. If you are the one that will buy it the Air probably isn't your only computer and just want something simple to take to the coffee shop or on the road. If you won't buy it, it's because you aren't willing to sacrifice ANY functionality for the sake of simplicity or mobility (define it how you will).

Seems like we need to stop calling it a laptop and toss it in the mobile device category. It looks like a laptop but isn't one in the traditional sense. This is the same reason Asus doesn't classify the Eee PC as a notebook.

Lastly, I could slap Steve Jobs for the external drive. What the hell! Why exclude a feature KNOWING you customers will expect it and make it available at an extra cost? Pretty low, dude!

Singlespeed

As overdue as solid-state laptops are, I can't imagine anyone laying $1800 for this. btw anybody done any looking into how long the flash in a solid-state laptop would last, assuming it got the same number of write cycles as a rotating disk?

xfrosch

BorBor

mirom2

glassonion718

mullingitover

imaria

someone above said this would be f=good for $800 - that would sound about right

@NewRider: @AndyDuncan: you guys are such kidders...

youknowit

madoublet

Sir Gibler

AndyDuncan

NewRider

Noobs-R-Us

P3nnst8r

mtopper

thechansen

deadlizard

Xenocide

deadlizard

I sure as hell won;t be one of them. Vaio TZ or a Lenovo X Series for my super portable 100%

Lavallee017

It feels like everyone is yelling at Apple before they think, i think the MacBook Air does exactly what it's supposed to do removable battery and things like that would have only made it bigger and heavier.

Andune

Canadian Impostor

The lack of an optical drive is sensible, though, for space savings. I like the option to use an extant optical drive in a separate system. It will be nice if Apple adds some kind of burning capability to a future version of its Remote Disc software.

If I had enough money sitting around for one of these, I would probably admire it at my local Apple Store then go with either a MacBook or either a Mac mini or an iMac plus an Asus Eee PC for around the same price-maybe less.

Brian Sexton

ppeetteeyy

careful, dont want to injure yourself.

mtopper

For the rest of us, a non-user replaceable battery is completely unacceptable particularly on a $1700 PC. If it ran 12 hours with everything on, maybe. If the battery was good for 90% capacity after 5 years, maybe. Neither is true.

I'm not an Apple basher. I own an iPod. I've been pining for an Apple tablet since the first Windows tablets came out. I've believed and said that Apple has it all over everyone in terms of design. I no longer care. The effing tablet, if it ever comes out, will undoubtedly also have this ridiculous, unnecessary design flaw. I'm not encouraging this stupidity with my own money. Fujitsu P1610 here I come!

68newyorker

tamoko

Ron-Mexico

tamoko

lephunk

Nintenboy01

Brandson

The MacBookAir (stupid name) is gorgeous, and hell, I'll probably crack and buy one in the end (OSX after all), but I still think my year-old Panasonic R6 has it licked as a subnotebook. 1kg (so 50% lighter), 10" screen (so 30% smaller footprint), 120GB HD (so 50% more capacity, and faster too) and 8.5 hours battery life (again, 50% more). It slips effortlessly and unnoticeably into my backpack - and is so rugged that I don't have to worry about it when cycling through the city.

OK, so it only has a 1.06Ghz CoreDuo, and it's nowhere near as pretty as the Air, but there's still a clincher - it cost me substantially LESS than that cheapest Air, and there's now an R7 with 250GB HD, 2GB RAM and 1.2GHz Core2Duo.

It, not the Air, is the ultimate ultra-light.

mongrelnomad

This product puzzles me. It's a lot like the iTV unit. a promising concept, with a lot of potential, but with lackluster follow through in the implementation. An answer to a problem that isn't well defined.

I'll stick with my MacBook Pro, and get more buff from lugging it around then buy this thing... disappointing now, but a year or so down the road, this thing might evolve into something far more useful, and hopefully much cheaper.

tamoko

sgodun

Suney

G_Money

markcheng

Crash900s

tonashideska

It doesn't have STEREO speakers. It only has a single MONO internal speaker.

XbmcFan

sumocat

Until the first rude traveler bumps your laptop bag and you upon it to find your MBA looking like humpty dumpty.

nwaringa

What if you want extra battery life? What if the battery fails when your on travel? Etc. etc.

digidandy

Nintenboy01

what i'm not stoked about is;
wtf on the black keys option?! they're going away from consistency...

and the glossy screen pisses me off to no end. you have no idea. as a graphic designer (and i understand that you probably couldn't put a whole lot of cs3 on here... MAYBE just photoshop, but still), the glossy screen is an eyesore. whatever happened to matte screen? you can't view your laptop outside if it's sunny out.

but all in all, it's about time they release something like this. i'm just excited to see the new lineups for the towers (ie. G6; even though they dropped the number/name series). i love the mac pro's. but i'm waiting for something jaw-dropping...

devianaut

I personally want one. I need a very small laptop for travel, and this is the right thing for me. If I were looking for a laptop as my main computer, then I'd consider one of the others instead. The Air only adds to the product line - it's not taking away from what's there already.

It's funny because I recently spent a couple of months traveling, and all I wanted was a very simple, lightweight, stripped down Macbook.

s5

adholmes

ThriftyTechie

It's very "in between:"

Mediocre performance numbers

Mediocre (bad) portability

High price

Innovation is pretty low (multitouch mousepad? yawn.)

Disappointed in DC

OENOPHILE

DaveTyranham

nwaringa

juhs10

workingonyourinvoice

Lavallee017

nmcglynn

Or an "appliance". The 1984 Mac just won't die.

nojo

I was actually going to run down to Fry's today and pick up some cheap ass notebook memory (2gb corsair for 42$ ?? ) and upgrade it for the first time.

Still using the same batter, HDD, RAM, cpu. The mobo was swapped in the first six months (it failed for no reason) but has since been solid and this thing still ticks strong.

The only thing that worries me about this all is the horrible track record of Apple's gadgets vs. their computers.

shiftyeyedgoat

If they were smart they would design a port that could accept any wireless carriers modem, but also had an adapter for ethernet.

nwaringa

I think I'd still prefer the OQO E2, though - sadly I'll get neither, my new desktop is going to burn a pretty deep hole in my pockets :).

Toodles.

XHA

cygnusx8

replaceable battery: its nice to know you can, but I have never, ever, in my college and graduate program EVER know ANYONE who replaced their laptop battery rather than charge it. And I dont know anyone with an apple who had laptop battery problems either (excepting recalls).

if its covered free under warranty when capacity drops below 70% I think its good deal.

redkamel

buy a desktop if you want real upgradability - surely we all know that by now

as far as the battery goes, replacement will be covered by AppleCare, and after 3-5 years anyone who can afford a device like the Air will have a new computer anyway.

lvd

bandit

wymea

halfro

wymea

1) SSD standard
2) swappable/removable components
3) Built-in optical drive
4) Matching Keyboards (no deal breaker)
5) Some standard wireless slot that will take any cell carriers wireless modem.

Even if you have to add a few millimeters...offer this at a 1500-2000 price tag and watch the masses flock. Is that formula extremely difficult to comprehend?

nwaringa

BTW: Nominating distantboy for "Best Comment On The New MBair".
(Actually only the part about the MBair being merely a device to enhance your existing home-computer.)

mangochutney

thechansen

luxera

a) thicker

b) more prone to failure due to the tight build tolerances this thing needs in order to be super-model thin

I'm guessing that they wanted it to have some decorum of reliability and anytime you make things removable...

image18301

Crominator56

Rojaws