MacBook Air - Something Apple Did Right

[bobbit]

The MacBook Air. You can get two versions of it: One a harddrive, one a flash.

Is this Apple's way of trying to drive down Flash prices further to move into all their other products? The 64gb SSD in the more expensive one probably puts a good few hundred dollars on the cost, but once those start selling, the 32gb modules will surely become cheap enough to start shoving in iPods?

If this is true, next year they'll be putting SSD's in more of their products and MAYBE the Classic line (in September) will be updated to have a 64gb SSD and a 160gb+ HDD, as per the layout of the MacBook Air.

Just a thought. :)

[Surf Monkey]

Here's the skinny on the MacBook Air:

Apple is now and has been the leader in laptop design and sales for years. The entire laptop industry takes its lead from Apple in many critical ways. MacBook Air is a niche product, designed for a micro market, BUT, it's also Apple saying to the world "Look! This is what ALL laptops will be in four or five years." As with many early Apple products, it's more design statement than fully realized product. A couple of revs down the road, MacBook Air might really be something special.

A way to drive down NAND Flash memory prices? Unlikely. After all, compared to cell phones and media players the amount of Flash that Apple moves with the Air will be insignificant, even if it's a hit.

[bobbit]

But the fact is that more and more laptops, computer and devices are starting to use higher capacities of SSD products, thus the more used, the less prices will be.

Apple may have a deal with whoever supplies the SSD drives in the Air that they get 32gb modules for a discounted price when they start including them in more of their products... and starting that deal with a niche product is a step in the right direction for that.

[Surf Monkey]

But the fact is that more and more laptops, computer and devices are starting to use higher capacities of SSD products, thus the more used, the less prices will be.

No serious laptop or computer is using SSD. Mainstream desktop and laptop computers use HDD. SSD storage is unlikely to ever replace hard drives, at least, not in our lifetimes. More and more devices will use SSD but only in boutique, niche, and special use applications.

Apple may have a deal with whoever supplies the SSD drives in the Air that they get 32gb modules for a discounted price when they start including them in more of their products... and starting that deal with a niche product is a step in the right direction for that.


As I said before, Touch and iPhone will use up so many of those modules that Air won't make even a blip. I really think Air is more of a vanity project for Apple than anything.

[bobbit]

SSD storage is unlikely to ever replace hard drives

I never said that, don't put words in my mouth.

SSD is available from most companies now - including Dell - as a replacement to HDD for people who want it. That helps drive down prices.

I'm not denying that it would be a vanity project for Apple, but they could easily have shoved a 160gb HDD in there as a higher model instead of a 64gb SSD - which is lower capacity. They obviously had a reason to do that specifically, and the fact that it came with a slightly more powerful processor seems to point me in the direction of thinking it's not just a straight-minded ideology.

[Germansuplex]

The Air with the SSD costs nearly one thousand dollars more than the one with the HD. If this is an attempt to drive down costs, we've got a long way to go.

As for the Air itself... I really don't care much for it. One USB port and no optical drive just kills it for me. Yes, it's damn nice looking and really powerful, but the price and lack of other things makes it impractical for most users. I understand this is not being marketed to heavy media users or people that require large drives, but still....

I would much rather see Apple focus on a low-cost computer and/or laptop to broaden their market of users. The Mac Mini is still pretty expensive when they are selling PC's with huge hard drives, 1 or 2GB of storage and really nice widescreen monitors and printers. The Mini comes with nothing and is much more expensive if you don't yet have an up to date monitor, keyboard or mouse. Apple should release a PC package and laptop around the $750 mark. I know they can do it if they wanted. Low-cost doesn't always mean low-quality, if that's what they're afraid of.

[bobbit]

If this is an attempt to drive down costs, we've got a long way to go.

Yes. However including them in a product which, knowing Apple, they'll end up selling a lot of, will assist said attempt. Imagine seeing a $1,000 iPod Touch in September that comes with a 64GB SSD. It just won't happen - but the more they sell, the more chance that the price reductions and deals will move them towards that quicker than if they didn't.

I have no opinions on the laptop itself other than it's pretty. ;)

[Reubania]

It's pretty and impractical. But once again, Apple will have a winner on their hands - just as the slowly-but-surely sales of the iPods - they weren't the market leaders or the best when they came out. But how they've caught on, and how much they've improved in specs. What started out as also a vanity project - where the form factor was more important than the form function (something M$ failed to take cues for their first gen Zunes), we might expect that to happen with the Air.

Also - the prices for iPods have continually dropped - starting out at ridiculously high prices, above the standard costs for MP3 of that time, so will the Air be. I say give it 2 odd years before purchasing one of these babies. I have to make the most of my MacBook currently before justifying one of these.

[Eric Lewis]

eventually SSD will replace HDD trust me

[Surf Monkey]

eventually SSD will replace HDD trust me


No chance. HDD technology is advancing at a rapid rate. SSD would have to match capacity and price point to replace HDD and that's not going to happen any time soon. In fact, as bobbit has pointed out many times, it's likely that NAND Flash units will be obsoleted by new technology long before anything replaced HDDs.

[laurenglenn]

If anything, HDD technology would only be replaced by better HDD technology. If they used a "holographic" approach by using lasers focused on a spinning plate which is about 1cm thick, then I'd say HDD technology would become obsolete. Imagine having a 5 cm circular surface that's one cm thick and having every little micron of that space be a layer just by focusing the lasers to intersect at different depths of the plate..... your capacity would eclipse HDDs without having to worry about head crashing. You'd only have to worry about optical alignment, but I imagine someone will come along to work that out.

Lauren

[kylo4]

The negatives for this are double the positive on Macrumors.com, a Mac fansite. Yes, there were posters saying they preordered it, but most pointed out the very things wrong with it that we here did. Its a flawed design, but the wealthy will buy it just because they can.

[jhollington]

People who hang out in online forums like Macrumous and even iLounge are generally not typical Apple customers, however.... They tend to be heavily technical in nature, and are therefore more concerned about spec sheets than they are about form factor (granted with Mac users those two run fairly close, but the specs still tend to be the more important of the two).

I'm not likely to buy a MacBook Air any time soon simply because my MacBook Pro does double-duty as a desktop and laptop computer. However, if I'm honest with myself, the reality is that when I'm on the go, I almost never need any of the extra features or power that the MacBook Air doesn't offer in terms of doing my job.

If I had a Mac Pro sitting on my desk at home, I might give serious consideration to a MacBook Air... In fact, the only reason I wouldn't jump at one is that I"m enough of a technical user to also want the spec sheet. However, if it were simply a question of a notebook computer to do my work on as opposed to having something with a few extra toys to satisfy the geek in me, the MacBook Air would fit perfectly as a companion to a decent desktop Mac.

[studogvetmed]

I'm a macbook user. I love it's simplicity and size, and for what I do it has great power and is basically a desktop replacement that I can take anywhere. It's plenty light and thin for me.

But I get what Jesse says. If I had a full powered desktop Mac at home, I would seriously consider the Macbook Air as an awesome companion. With leopards new "back to my mac feature" (though of course reports say this feature still needs some work), it makes it an even more compelling companion.

People keep talking about the "price premium" on this device, but still it seems like it's right in line with the others out there. I mean Sony's TZ vaios with their SDD standard, webcam, etc, quite similar specs to the air (different compromizes of course), is over three grand! The major differences are smaller screen + an optical drive versus no optical drive, larger screen. I suppose the vaios have a mobile broad band option. the "air" concept of the new macbook would have been even better had Apple been able to do this. I expect one of the next revs to hopefully have this standard or as an option.

I mean, apple could have gotten a nicer pricepoint, but it really is on line with similar models out there.

[Skwidspawn]

I own a 24" iMac which I use for my heavy-duty applications: Photoshop, Final Cut, etc... But I can't take that sucker on the road. I'm buying a MacBook Air, it'll do everything I need to do on the road, and be unobtrusive. Plus, it looks cool!

As far as SSDs go, I think they are going to be replacing drives in Laptops soon enough. They're zippy, they have a very low power consumption, and the capacities are good. The power consumption issue is the reason why we'll see a lot of them in laptops it seems.

On Pricing: The cost on the Macbook Air, as was mentioned above, is actually quite in line with the other laptops in its class. Apple Insider wrote a story called
"How the MacBook Air stacks up against other ultra-light notebooks (http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/01/22/how_the_macbook_air_stacks_up_against_other_ultra_ light_notebooks.html)" that discussed this very issue. The table the have there was quite informative.

[bobb-mini]

"Drive the price down" - unlikely. What's Apple share of the notebook market?

'Coz I have watched Jobs so long... it's a simple matter of him wanting a Silent/vibration-less/cool-running notebook that requires no booting.