Apple announcement recap

[Adam Bridge]

On Jan 19, 2008 5:25 AM, Charles Dyer <charles.dyer at gmail.com> wrote:
> The crippling part is not the slow hard drive; my PowerBook has a 4000
> rpm drive that's smaller... but that doesn't matter, I have the travel
> drive, so everything's on _that_ drive, not on the internal. The
> crippling part is not the speed; the MBA is way faster than the
> PowerBook. The crippling part isn't the lack of an optical drive; if
> I'm watching a movie or some such on the road, I'm not on a network,
> so I could get Apple's external USB optical drive and the fact that it
> uses the one and only port is not a problem. I don't usually install
> software on the road. The crippling part is not the screen; it's 13",
> the same size as the MB that I was (and am still) seriously
> considering. The crippling part is the lack of ports. Only one USB
> port and no Ethernet renders it _useless_. If it had two USB ports, or
> one USB and a FireWire, or one USB and an Ethernet, I could figure a
> way around the problem. Just one port, now, that makes things nearly
> impossible to use.

There are some incredibly small 2 & 4 port USB hubs. It's not like you
can't toss one in with you luggage. Now you can plug in ethernet, disk
drive, mouse, camera.

Or you can do things in sequence although that might take a bit of
thought -- it's part of the trade-off of a minimal form factor.

So I just don't see how this makes for a crippled machine.

For the target audience, however, it's simply not an issue.

Adam