Apple announcement recap

[David Cake]

At 3:22 PM -0800 17/1/08, Patrick Coskren wrote:
>I fail to understand this idea (in general, I'm not picking on you) 
>that you can't do much work on this machine.

	Me too.
	Perhaps I'm weird like this, but I know many many people for 
whom 'work' involves almost entirely writing words, often in a single 
document at a time. Maybe using a web browser and email a bit. 
Writers, for example. Lawyers. Many managers. Some of these people 
even have a lot of travel to do, and will appreciate something really 
small and light, and some of them have enough money to buy something 
pricy and stylish and that bit more convenient.
	I think most of the complaints about it are from people who 
aren't in its target market, and aren't likely to buy one. Though I 
think some people who are in its target market are annoyed about the 
lack of replacable battery, because they'd really like to use it for 
12 hours on a flight over the pacific. Interesting, thuugh, the 
biggest complaint from such people seems to be actually screen width. 
A little bit smaller, and it would be easier to use on an economy 
tray table, or something. Then again, I think Apple possibly did 
think carefully about this and figured the number of people who 
actually spent that much time in the air was not that big a part of 
the  market segment.
	And then there are people like my wife - has a MacBook now, 
likes everything about it except would love it to be a bit lighter, 
appreciates good design and is willing to pay for it, uses her mac a 
lot for web browsing, email, occasional written documents, and 
downloading photos, and maybe one work related powerpoint 
presentation or word document every few months. She is already 
planning to buy an Air. If it had a bigger HD to hold more photos, it 
would be her perfect machine.
	I think very few people who are in its target market care 
about the hard drive replacability, the lack of ports, the lack of an 
ethernet port (or having to use a dongle if they do want an ethernet 
port). They manage to make a living and pursue their hobbies and 
interests and generally get through life without needing cutting edge 
processor power, big screens, or lots of gadgets, but they do like to 
use their computers to produce words and communicate. Amazing, really.

	Me, I like my laptops huge and manly, and I have 17 inches. 
And I like to do many crazy things with it, including mutli-track 
recording, compuling software, and playing video games, all of which 
suggest a fairly muscular machine. But we are all different. The MBA 
isn't for me, fine.
	Cheers
		David