Did someone say “world’s thinnest laptop?” I’m ordering one.
Damn you Steve Jobs. I wonder if I can get it by the weekend? If I can, I’ll take it to Davos.
Lots of details are coming. Steve Jobs just pulled one out of a manila envelope on stage.
The pictures are unreal. Go to MacRumorsLive.com to see the photos.
UPDATE: Drat, ships in two weeks. $1,799, but this will be the computer to run my new venture.
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Robert Scoble works at Fast Company.TV (title: Managing Director). Everything here, though, is his personal opinion and is not read or approved before it is posted. No warranties or other guarantees will be offered as to the quality of the opinions or anything else offered here.
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January 15th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Remember all of the thermal issues Apple initially had with the first MacBook?
January 15th, 2008 at 11:44 am
$1800 with the 80G “iPod” type 1.8″ hard drive. If you want a solid-state (SSD) 64G drive, it’s $3100!
Wow, Steve wasn’t kidding when he said it was pricey.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Was about to preorder, but really not happy about that 80GB hard drive. Couldn’t they have done the 160? Otherwise it’s freaking awesome.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
I’m pretty sure I’m wrong about it being 1.8 inches. It’s 1.8 something-or-another though… and yes, the exact same as the drive inside the iPod.
Oh yeah, and with my MacBook’s 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo, I actually clock in at quite a bit faster then either the stock 1.6 GHz (or the pricier 1.8 GHz) Core 2 Duo on that Mac that is either $600 or $2000 more.
OUCH!
While I’m at it, I’m real glad to see Steve look out for us early adopters again. The exact same AppleTV I bought a year ago is $70 cheaper (but at least I get the software update for free), and that iPod Touch I bought in November can get the additional apps for a mere $20 - which will come for free with the iPod Touches they sell starting today - at the same price as the one I bought.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
No Firewire, no ethernet = deal breaker for me…
January 15th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
There’s a guided tour of the airbook on Apple’s site; http://www.apple.com/macbookair/guidedtour/
January 15th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
there’s no express slot too…which is lame because I want to use my AT&T modem.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Ian: yeah, luckily I got the USB Verizon modem.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Dave: get off the price thing. Prices ALWAYS fall in the technology industry. Has been doing that for 50 years. My Sony TV that I paid $3,900 for two years ago? Now the same TV is $1,700. So what?
January 15th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
It’s just a slower (cpu and hdd), memory limited (only 2gb) macbook. Nothing too exiting. Macbook isn’t that large that you really need it that thin and light. And it still doesn’t have enough screen real-estate. They could put a lot more pixels on a 13inch screen.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I’m confused on the market it’s going after. At the current price, you are comparing a MacBookPro against a MacBookAir. So the Pro gives you more performance and the Air gives you a smaller footprint. That’s easy enough to differentiate.
Obviously this if from my vantage, but if I wanted a small footprint the MacBook itself is pretty damn small and cheaper than the Air. For those wanting to get the Air, is there a reason that you need something that small? I can’t imagine a scenario where a MacBook wouldn’t work, but an Air would. I’m not saying there isn’t a scenario, it’s just I can’t think of one.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Be careful with your credit card. This may be the slowest computer that Apple makes, especially that iPod hard drive! Is it worth it?
January 15th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
I didn’t think somebody could sell you a 80 GB 4200 RPM PATA harddisk in 2008. The Macbook Air is also called the blonde Mac (sexy but dumb). Apple gets very much like Microsoft (still the better designer) but more and more of their products are only good after version 2.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
I really like this laptop. No $$$ for one though at the moment.
I instantly picture practically every blogger and journalist with this thing.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
“Ian: yeah, luckily I got the USB Verizon modem.”
Better not try to upload a video to your machine using the USB port and try to be on the internet at the same time.
And with the slow HD….yikes.
January 15th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
I don’t like how there is no optical drive either…. makes it kind of difficult to watch dvd’s while travelling, or even to watch presentations from a CD. The USB-docked one just seems inconvenient.
I guess that is the price you pay for the smaller footprint. If this had an integrated optical drive it would be killer for business travellers.
January 15th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Low powered processor and integrated graphics … bleh!
January 15th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
When I first saw the MBA I thought “Man why didn’t I wait before buying the Sony TZ!” No more. I take my TZ with me on photo trips and I want to back up those photos to CD or DVD on-site, not when I get back home. No sense even thinking about using the MBA for video editing. Not enough fast disk space and no Firewire kills that idea. The MBA will be great for MBAs. I’m liking my TZ better all the time. I am no fan of Microsoft and was wanting to get rid of my TZ if Apple could produce something to replace it but the MBA just won’t do it.
January 15th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Well, it’s obvious Apple is still up to its old tricks in claiming the MacBook Air is “the World’s Thinnest Laptop” at .76″. Forget about the .62″ Sharp from a couple years ago… forget about Intel’s upcoming .7″ laptop… forget about Toshiba’s .77″ laptop (only .01″ thicker, yet does not sacrifice the optical drive, 2.5″ hard drives rather than the horrible-performing 1.8″ models, is nearly half the weight at 1.72 lbs. in the SSD flavor, and better battery life). I’ll trade that .01″ for an optical drive any day.
January 15th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
And the best, it looks like you can’t replace the battery. Still the same stinker trick. There is really lots of AIR in this product. A bit too much for me.
January 15th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
@Ian : could you please just “think different” for a minute ? Now, you’ll realize that the MacBook Air is another paradigm-shifting SOLUTION from Apple, as the first iMac was, as the iPod/iTunes was, as the iPhone is since half a year now.
Why would you need wired ports when you can DO everything thru WiFi ? Keep in mind the new baseline “there’s something in the air” : that’s your future, Man.
ps : the MacBook Air gets full-speed when combined with the new TimeCapsule and a desktop Mac, e.g. an iMac. Just an amazing solution.
January 15th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Before the Air was announced, there was still a “world’s thinnest laptop” … and it had been out for quite some time, actually. The Sony one (not the one Jobs mentioned in the keynote, Im pretty sure) was the first time I ever saw a laptop and said “man, this thing looks like it shouldn’t work!”
January 15th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Mark, umm…..have you ever worked in a fortune 500 company? Wireless isn’t allowed in most because of security.
And since when can you “Do” everything through wifi? Try streaming HD content to an xbox 360 or Apple TV and it’s laughable.
Your response still doesn’t answer the question of the Express slot, or the lack of Fire wire?
January 15th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Check the specs:
The Air specs against that of a MacBook.
MacBook - £829
2.2Ghz C2D - 4mb L2 cache
13.3 glossy widescreen -1280×800
1GB RAM (£90 for 2GB but we all know it can be done cheaper)
120GB SATA 5400rpm HDD
8x Super Multi Drive
Intel GMA X3100
MacBookAir - £1,199
1.6Ghz C2D - 4mb L2 cache
13.3 glossy widescreen -1280×800 LED backlit
2GB RAM (none upgradable)
80GB PATA 4200rpm HDD
No Optical Drive Needed (£65 option for on the move)
Intel GMA X3100
£370 price difference for the pleasure of having a thinner laptop with a longer battery life and an LED backlit screen.
January 15th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Robert, why would you buy an Air? If you’re doing video, you want a hard drive that’s as fast as possible. My Thinkpad X61 Tablet has an option for a 7200RPM drive in 60 or 80GB sizes. It’s also 3 pounds and has 5 hours of battery life, and I’ve owned this one since May 2007.
4200RPM… that’s old-school tech. And guess what… Lenovo also figured out how to squeeze an Ethernet port in there… which is still useful in many hotels! :P
January 15th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Robert, I do understand how prices drop. I apologize for going on a very minor rant. It probably obscured my REAL two points:
(1) Ian (comment #23) just said it best. At nearly every angle even Apple - not known for retailing anything at less than premium prices - has a much better solution/product than MBA, and those better solutions cost less.
(2) This keynote rates no better than a 3 on a scale of 10. It’s what he didn’t say… no 10.5.2, nothing more than acknowledging that the iPhone SDK is coming out, nothing compelling (to me anyway) in 1.1.3 (along with apps for the iPod Touch should have been free for all), no new movie content for purchase, and no exciting and new Mac footprint.
DISCLOSURE: I’ve owned Apple stock since November 2004, currently own four Mac notebooks and one PowerMac G5, one AppleTV, and 4 iPods along with an iPhone. Oh yeah, and an Airport Extreme.
I really wanted something to buy from Apple today. This cash is burning a hole in my pocket! I’ve been known to succumb to Steve’s RDF as recently as the last MWSF (AppleTV, which I very rarely use - still, I wanted to buy the version 2).
Oddly enough, he never came CLOSE to luring me into the RDF this year.
January 15th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
In my opinion it is a weak laptop for the money. Get a Dell XPS M1330 for about the same money and it is only a tiny bit bigger, has an optical drive, move USB ports, etc. LED backlit screen still.
The MBA is meh in my opinion. Multitouch is the only thing it has for now that is special but that will be in all other Apple notebooks within 3-6 months.
Do yourself a favour and don’t be caught by the RDF, the MBA really isn’t worth the money for the size. There are much better systems available that are only a tiny bit ticker. The tradeoff for a few grams or mm isn’t worth it.
January 15th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
[...] Today’s announcement of the Macbook Air is certainly cool and beautiful and they’ll probably sell a lot of them. Hell, Scoble is buying one. [...]
January 15th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
One final post… I mean that! :-)
It appears that the battery is not user replacable:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1155
I don’t know about any of you, but if I’m not replacing my production and/or development laptop within 2 years, I’m most certainly finding my self needing to replace the battery.
Maybe they should have named the product the “MacBook iPod”?
January 15th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
The MacBookAir is for the cinema industry: it should be quite sexy on screen! ;)
January 15th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I would never buy a phone that I can’t replace my battery. Why would I buy a laptop that I can’t replace my battery in. Personally not very cost effective.
January 15th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Okay, a bit more on that Sony laptop I was talking about: Sony Vaio x505: .38″ to .8″ thick — still a little bigger than the MacBook Air, but clearly smaller than the TZ that Steve Jobs was comparing the MBA to in his keynote. And the X505 shipped in 2004(!).
January 15th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
I’m skipping the MacBook Air. My nearly 4.5 year old JVC-7310 notebook is smaller and lighter. It also has more features. Sure its only a Pentium M 1Ghz, but it was way ahead of its time and very little exists today that would make me upgrade.
Robert, I suggest you shop around first before jumping on the Air bandwagon. Dynamism (I have no affiliation other than being a happy customer) and other retailers sell much nicer subnotebooks. Sony, Panasonic, Fujitsu and others have far more experience in this category than Apple does. I wouldn’t be surprised if most people skip this laptop.
January 15th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
doesn’t have 3.5G - so it can be seen as useless in good old europe. i do have wlan in my home, but not on my car or on the train or in my office.
January 15th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
A beautiful status symbol…but I am still thinking of the Asus Eee PC as a travel “blogging machine”.
January 15th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Zoli… any relation to Paul?
January 15th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Well, now that I’ve had my hands on it, I’m still going to buy one. I don’t care about the limitations brought up above (except for maybe the non-replaceable battery, although when my son’s iPhone’s battery died they simply handed him a new one). It’s a secondary computer for me, since I already have three other computers. This would be totally for traveling.
The Asus is definitely one to think about, but I want something that works the same way my other computers do (IE, MacOS).
January 15th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
@35. In your post you said this will be the computer to run your new venture. Wow! Where do I invest? That’s gonna be some leading edge venture!
January 15th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
[...] pretty sure that the majority of Mac users; and those in the business, got their drool towels out - Robert Scoble and Jason Calacanis among them - along with their credit cards at the very sight of the Air but not [...]
January 15th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Limited storage? No problem.
Save your files in the cloud somewhere. The MacBook Air is the first step into the computing of the future.
January 15th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Bluvg, no… other than being asked all the time:-)
January 15th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
@35: you use IE under OS X? Gag!
@24 and others: Robert is Apple’s target market: more money than they know what to do with.
Unless Apple announces significant REAL upgrades soon this will represent a dead-end for them. It’s not significantly thinner than my several year old Powerbook which still performs well and will also fit nicely into an intra-office mailer envelope. My Asus 8G is on order.
Apple is running out of ideas.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Robert, if you have the money to burn then go for it. I would highly recommend you try other ultraportables first though. If you still go through with a MacBook Air, then more power to you.
January 16th, 2008 at 1:02 am
I can’t believe I waited a year for this dud. I wanted it for traveling but there ain’t always wireless everywhere I got but there is often a cable in a the hotel room or at a friends apartment. I would also like to watch dvd’s but it defeats the purpose if I have to carry another piece of equipment. Dumb, really dumb. I was hoping they would offer something that would really stand up to the other ultraportables but a 4200 rpm drive is a yawner. And they missed the boat with 13″ screen. I know a ton of people (myself included) who loved the 12″ powerbook of yore. I could care less about the “thin” factor. I want power and utility.
Wotta dud!
January 16th, 2008 at 1:56 am
The battery will be replaceable for $129. Just FYI
Reference: http://www.tuaw.com/2008/01/16/new-macbook-air-battery-129-installation-free-at-apple/
January 16th, 2008 at 3:08 am
MacBook Air is thin and make it fly ;)
January 16th, 2008 at 4:14 am
The world’s thinnest laptop!!!!
Gag.
I’m a mac enthusiast but this machine is useless and the hype is offensive, carnival barker BS.
I was in Walgreens the other day and saw the WORLDS BIGGEST CALCULATOR…
January 16th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Must resist greed genes. Must not go to store just to take a look…..
January 16th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Fantastic. Just what I need when on the road outwith wi-fi enabled areas. Or not.
Good for the city crowd with more money than sense, rubbish for just about everyone else. Those thinking that wi-fi is the immediate future should really get out of Starbucks a little bit more. It’ll be a good while yet.
As for size, who cares how thin it is as long as it’s reasonable? Footprint and weight are the real issues here. Given that the Airbook is actually bigger than the Dell M1300 which weighs less than a pound more and has vastly better features I’m not seeing the point here.
Style over substance. Nothing more.
January 16th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Dude, are you mental? After all the problems you’ve had with Apple products recently do you really want to get a toy that is obviously not going to stand up to the abuses of travel very well?
Stop messing with Steve Jobs’ toys and get a real frickin computer.
January 16th, 2008 at 11:25 am
[...] MacBook Air, on the surface, is totally playing to both my fanboy sensibilities and my needs. Robert Scoble wants one. So did I, for about four seconds. But it doesn’t take long to do the math. The MacBook [...]
January 16th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Bloggers Speak: MacBook Air
While the dust settles on Macworld 2008, I scoped the blogsphere to see what the reactions were to the MacBook Air and here is what I found.
“…MacBook Air is quite simple the most beautiful personal computer ever made.” Shel Israel,…
January 16th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
This sounds all so familiar.
The doomsayers.
We heard it when the iPod came out - too expensive, too limited. Would *never* succeed.
And then there was no shortage of people twelve months ago lambasting Apple for the iPhone.
Someone needs to start a website called “You were wrong” where they collect all these comments by folks who think they’re the experts, and then show how wrong they turned out to be.
BTW I’m, the expert at being wrong. I was very dubious about the iPhone 12 months ago too.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
The Air is a waste of money objectively speaking, but Apple makes big money catering to those with lots of disposable income that buy anything blessed by Jobs. Scoble is a great example of this, as he buys anything and everything Apple regardless of whether he needs it or not. Must be nice for Apple to be able to put out mediocre products and get the sycophants to pony up the big cash just to be hip and to get a status symbol.
I’d rather get a Ferrari as a status symbol, but that’s just me.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
@Chris H
Somewhat contradicting my above post, this Air thing actually reminds me of the Mac Cube, which at the time was the epitome of form over function, and was a massive failure.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:36 am
Tosh, the Cube had real problems though.
Provided the Air doesn’t have any significant problems, then it’s just up to whether it satisfies its market niche.
But actually, the cynic in me expects there will be issues. :)
January 17th, 2008 at 9:08 am
It’s got the great 1.0 asthetic that Apple has nailed down over the years, but IMO the limitations and lack of uniqueness (superthin laptops are already out there) detract from the “Wow” factor. I personally was expecting a tablet PC from them (call it an iPhone on steroids or a real version of MS Haiku)
January 17th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Completely useless in Australia as we have mobile broadband that requires either an expresscard slot, mobile phone over bluetooth as modem, or USB dongle. The expresscard slot is the only convenient solution. Hanging a USB dongle off an ultraportable is just plain stupid and annoying.
A mobile computer without the internet is entirely useless. Oh yeah.. there are wifi hotspots.. in some places.. if you are lucky.
Not to mention it has a small, slow, mechanical drive as default. If they fixed those two things it would be good, but as it stands, it is a useless POS for rich people who have no lives and find the only thing they look forward too is using a new gadget to fill the void.
January 25th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
The whole issue about the lack of removal battery is a non-issue (mostly). If 5 hours is a true 5 hours, then it is a non-issue. Here’s why, you can no longer take a spare battery on a airplane (unless checked), so you don’t get to use it on board, which is 90% the place you need it. Moreover, if you don’t check it, you don’t have it at your destination. Please let Apple’s 5 hours be a real 5 hours, then I will be happy!
March 9th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
COOL MACBOOK AIR WITH SSD DRIVES I AM GETING MINE WITH THE SSD DRIVE I WICHED THAT MORE SSD COMPUTERS GET OUT IN THE COMPUTER STORES.