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yet another Microsoft blogger

# Tuesday, January 15, 2008

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Apple Stuff 2008

Having now seen the new stuff and drooled on my keyboard here are my thoughts on the new Apple stuff.

Apple TV

  • Buying One, the 160GB. This will come out of my cable bill :-).
  • I wish I could rent TV shows. I mean who wants to own a TV Show? I just started watching the Office on Netflix Watch Now and it's awesome. With Hulu, Netflix and others I'd love to be able to watch TV shows for free from my couch.
  • This isn't going to replace Netflix anytime soon

MacBook Air

I was ready to buy this sight unseen, but now that I've read about it here are the drawbacks I see:

  • 4200 rpm drive is kinda a bummer. This would bring Vista to its knees. The SSD drive is too small and too expensive
  • 2 GB is acceptable but 3 GB would be better
  • No Ethernet is a bummer, this comes in handy
  • I expected some mobile broadband thing with a name like "MacBook Air"
  • No user replaceable battery? Laptop batteries usually tank after a year (300 or so charge cycles). Spending $1800 on something that needs to be tossed out and replaced every year is an expensive proposition
  • Will all this stuff work with Bootcamp? I haven't seen any info that Bootcamp will support the new features like gestures etc.
  • One USB port kinda sucks.

I bet if I saw and held a MacBook Air in person though I'd probably be $1800 poorer. I wonder how long before I break down and order one. I strongly suspect v2 of the hardware will address many of the existing shortcomings.

Overall though, a nice set of announcements. Apple continues to become more and more relevant in a dynamic market.

Apple
Posted Tuesday, January 15, 2008    Permalink    Comments [12]  View blog reactions

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Tuesday, January 15, 2008 4:59:06 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Spending $1800 on something that needs to be tossed out and replaced every year is an expensive proposition

You're not going to have to toss the whole MB Air out after a year if the battery goes; they're almost sure to have a battery replacement program going.
Total
Tuesday, January 15, 2008 5:46:30 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
"Almost sure to have one" isn't really going to comfort those looking to buy one who see the deficiency. Surely, I wouldn't buy an MB Air unless I knew there was going to be a method to replace the battery. Even then, without it readily replaceable, still doesn't help since I always like to carry a charged spare when I travel.

The lack of an ethernet port is another big ouch. Even with faster Wifi, getting actual gigabit speads is nice when doing larger transfers. I was psyched about the Air, but kind of fizzled out when I started reading about it on Apple's site.
Ken Robertson
Tuesday, January 15, 2008 5:58:25 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
According to engadget, there is a battery replacement program:

http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/217257355/
Aaron
Tuesday, January 15, 2008 10:23:53 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Why in the world would I want a crippled AppleTV device when Vista Media Center is just as easy to use, has a beautiful user interface, and does a heck of a lot more? Seriously, I don't get it. What's the draw?
Jeff Atwood
Tuesday, January 15, 2008 10:35:33 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Jeff, while I love my media center as much as you, I also love my TV Show subscriptions and wouldn't mind the ability to watch HD Rentals w/o buying into the HDVD/BluRay nonsense. The Apple TV is just a box to deliver content by a company that can actually get that content and deliver it to me.

While Media Center is great the content is still cable.
Omar Shahine
Wednesday, January 16, 2008 2:25:11 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
It's so sad that Microsoft didn't release their own hardware for Windows Home Server or Windows Mobile or Windows Media Center. All markets they could have really dominated had they made these moves.
John
Wednesday, January 16, 2008 5:42:58 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
"Almost sure to have one" isn't really going to comfort those looking to buy one who see the deficiency.

Then I'll upgrade it to "There's a battery replacement program."
Total
Thursday, January 17, 2008 6:01:21 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
* 4200 rpm drive is kinda a bummer. This would bring Vista to its knees.

It does not ship with Vista. Moreover, I have yet to see a notebook that is _not_ brought to its knees by Vista.

2 GB is acceptable but 3 GB would be better

And 4 would be even better. So what?

No Ethernet is a bummer, this comes in handy

There's an adapter for that.

Spending $1800 on something that needs to be tossed out and replaced every year is an expensive proposition

Do you toss out your car because the ash tray is full? The battery replacement costs $129.

Will all this stuff work with Bootcamp? I haven't seen any info that Bootcamp will support the new features like gestures etc.

Bootcamp does work. Not sure about the gesture support, however.

One USB port kinda sucks.

There are those little things they call USB hubs. You should try that sometime.
Ralph
Saturday, January 19, 2008 12:39:45 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Bootcamp support gestures? You need to be told that that won't work?
Someone
Sunday, January 20, 2008 5:13:17 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
@Ralph: Oh come on, you don't have to sound so dismissive. He has stated some fundamental flaws in the MacBook Air. An adapter for Ethernet? USB Hubs? Adapters defeat the purpose of this laptop being ultra-portable. Furthermore 4200 rpm is not the best, I wish they could have bumped that up a little.

@Someone: Apple is by far one of the best OEMs around, if not the best. I would love to see gestures in the Vista partition, and if one company were able to create such a feature it would be Apple.

For me, I would love this notebook. Off to university in September I really want a thin, ultra-portable laptop. However, with the MacBook so cheap in comparison, and the hugely better spec'ed MacBook Pro only £100 more (British ... gotta love), the MacBook Air just wont work :(
Thomas
Monday, January 21, 2008 6:33:32 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
@Thomas: those are no "fundamental flaws", this is part of a concept called "the world's thinnest notebook". Can you find an 1.8 inch hard drive with more than 4200 rpm? Look closer, these are iPod hard drives in there.

Moreover, an adapter for LAN, an USB hub and an optional, external optical drive certainly don't defeat the purpose of the whole thing being ultra-portable - au contraire, those things make it possible that the device is so light and thin. It's a modular concept and it's a beautiful device, and yes, there is no compromise. Apple 's products have always been rather radical. Think about the first iMac ("What??? No floppy drive? JEEEESUS!!!!!!!1eleven!!
Ralph
Thursday, January 31, 2008 3:40:05 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
@Ralph: It seems strange however that Steve Jobs said that using a stylus was irritating because you have to get it out, then put it back it, and it could easily be lost. This is the exact same thing with the adapters.

>>> Apple 's products have always been rather radical. Think about the first iMac ("What??? No floppy drive? JEEEESUS!!!!!!!1eleven!!

Well OK then, yeah they were the first major company to get rid of the floppy drive, so I guess that was radical'ish. But that is very different to the disk drive missing, as they couldn't fit one in. To me that is a flaw, to you that is part of the concept.
Thomas
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