Speculation on the Mac Air future

With the rumours of an Apple Tablet floating around, a friend suggested that the MacBook Air just might be dropped from the Apple line up. At first, I discounted the idea. Our house has an Air. A first generation that is going strong. Strong enough to withstand the constant use and abuse of a teenager. The only downside with that machine is its paltry 80G hard drive. Being a 1G, I can't easily upgrade the drive either as it is a 1.8" ide drive that is thinner then most 1.8" hard drives.

I got to thinking whether my friend was right? How are Air sales doing? Unfortunately, Apple does not report out individual product sales. So all we can do is take speculate based on available data that may have no association with reality. Apple shows the Air in it's "Top Sellers" Mac products on their website. This month (August 09) it sits at number 6 just behind the Mac Pro. Mac Pro? Who buys those things except professionals? Sure, I want one, but then I want a lot of things. Most of my Apple purchases are made on need first then want. Weird thing is AppleCare is at number 7. I'd expect the extended warranty would do better then that. Hmm... maybe top sellers is based on revenue and not individual sales.

How about Amazon's 100 Best Selling Computer and Accessories? A few Apple products make it into the top 100 including AppleCare. Here are the standings for Apple computers:

17. Apple MacBook Pro MB990LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop by Apple
35. Apple MacBook Pro MB991LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop by Apple
39. Apple MacBook Pro MC118LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop by Apple
46. Apple iMac MB418LL/A 24-Inch Desktop by Apple
59. Apple Mac mini MB463LL/A Desktop by Apple
66. Apple MacBook MB466LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop by Apple
78. Apple MacBook MC240LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop by Apple

Notice what is missing? Yep, the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro 17" and that beautiful monster the Mac Pro. All missing from the top 100 Computer and Accessories sold on Amazon. What does all of this mean? I'm not sure. i I do know, the Air is sweet and there have been many times while traveling on business I wish I had brought the Air instead of my ole MacBook Pro. I also know that I need a new iPhone. My first gen jumped out of its sock and into a glass of water this morning. Strangest thing I've ever seen.

Quello e tutto per oggi!

MacWorld Tuesday Eve Update

After spending 2 hours in the freezing San Francisco wind, I never made it in to see Jobs. The line was huge and wrapped almost completely around Moscone.

Instead, I grabbed posts from endgadget.com. Their feed was fine as I got the general idea of what was going on inside the hallowed halls.

Once the Keynote was over, they let us in ... after a suitable wait of course.. I headed straight to the OS X server course I had signed up for. Suffice it to say, I enjoyed the class and may have even learned a few things.

As for my predictions - let's see how I did.

Mac Air - the new ultra portable. This laptop weighs 3 pounds, is 3/4" thick at it's thickest narrowing down to just a bit thicker then dime. It has minimal ports - USB 2.0, audio (analog - yes but no digital? What the?), mini-Digital Video Interface and power a la MagSafe.

It does not have an Ethernet port nor alas Firewire. The Mac Air connects to your network wirelessly via 802.11n. Accessories connect via the latest version of BlueTooth 2.1 or the single USB 2.0 connector. Yes, you can connect your wireless keyboard and mouse via BlueTooth and plug in your external display whenever you find yourself at home. But you will need a USB hub if you want to connect your USB printer, camera and USB coffee warming plate.

The processor runs at 1.6 or 1.8 GHz. 2 Gigs of RAM are standard and it is not expandable. Hmm, I expected something a bit faster and with an option to upgrade it to 4G of RAM, but o.k., our iMac G5 only has 2G of RAM and it runs Leopard fine.


No touch screen but the touchpad works with gestures similar to the iPhone. -- cool factor.

No wireless charging - I guess I'm just ahead of my time.

The standard hard drive is an 80 GB parallel ATA drive. Don't they make 1" serial drives? For the well healed, there is an optional 64 GB Solid State Drive that replaces that tiny old fashion spinning hard drive. This is expensive (thus the need for well healing) and pushes that $1800 laptop to 3 grand before taxes, license and dealer preparation charges!

Look, I know Solid-State Drives are expensive, but I was hoping Apple would just cut a great deal with the supplier and then give everyone a non-mechanical drive for a small premium. I suppose my definition of "small premium" and reality needs a bit of work.

On the plus side, Apple appears serious about bringing Solid Drives to the masses. For that I'm happy.

As for the DVD/CD drive - there is an optional $100 external drive. Apple did me one better and has included a way to use a DVD drive from almost any other computer. All wirelessly. I wonder if our old iMac DVD with a USB 802.11b d-Link adapter would be suitable. I somehow doubt it.