MacBook Air Review: sleek, sexy, expensive and a little disappointing

The world's thinnest notebook. Outstanding design but limited functionality.

When Steve Jobs strode onto the podium to deliver his keynote address at this years MacWorld Expo in San Francisco the aging Apple founder showed that he and the company have lost none of the showmanship and pizzazz that has driven the company’s sales since it was founded.

The MacBook Air Jobs dramatically unveiled at the gathering showed that magicians have nothing on the computer industry when it comes to dramatics and smoke and mirrors, while Apple’s spin-doctors could undoubtedly put a positive spin on Osama bin Laden.

Don’t get me wrong. The MacBook Air joins a long list of industry firsts pioneered by Apple.

From both an engineering and technology aspect the MacBook Air sets the standards and qualities that others will need to conform to if they are to remain competitive.

The MacBook Air is a great concept machine that clearly defines the future of the laptop computer. Its sleek, sexy lines will undoubtedly win Apple a wall of accolades, just as other Apple products have in the past.

However, that said, the MacBook Air is a bit like buying a Ferrari and popping the hood and finding the motor is made by Honda and the seats upholstered with vinyl. High quality vinyl maybe, but vinyl none-the-less.

The primary shortcomings of the MacBook Air in its present format are due entirely to third-party component suppliers rather than Apple. As with other products Apple has released in the past, the MacBook Air is blurring the boundaries of today with tomorrow.

Anyone in the audience at the Moscone Center would have been excused for thinking they were viewing the return of the Messiah given the manner those attending applauded, cat-called, whistled and enthusiastically responded to Jobs’ every sentence – before they even new anything revolutionary was being announced.

Whether this is due to the average Americans penchant for cheering anything, including themself, or whether it was because the auditorium was full of die-hard Mac fans is difficult to determine.

But one really has to wonder what would cause such effusiveness by people to the simple sentence, “there is something in the air.”

The fact that Apple has been able to produce a laptop that measures only .0406cm at its thinnest point and 1.76cm at it’s thickest is largely due to the efforts of computer chip manufacturer Intel Corp.

Intel Corp. totally re-engineered the 400 million transistor core 2 duo processors used in the MacBook Air, slimming the original chip down by a staggering 60 per cent to end up with a processor a little under 18mm in width and 2mm thick.

Recognising Intel Corp’s. efforts Job’s paid tribute to the company during his keynote address to the point of sharing the podium for a short time with Intel Corporation president and ceo Paul Otellini.

There is no contesting the fact that the MacBook Air contains some impressive innovations. Among these is being the first ultra-portable laptop to ship with a 13.3-inch display and a full-size, backlit keyboard.

The oversize trackpad with multi-touch gesture support will prove extremely beneficial to those moving around large spreadsheets or graphics files, and for whom the low-power backlit LED display is too small.

The entry model MacBook Air ships with a 1.6 GHz Intel core 2 duo processor and the same 80 Gbyte, 1.8-inch (4.572cm) hard disk drive used in Apple’s iPod range, while the considerably more expensive and only marginally faster 1.8 GHz version ships with a 64 Gbyte solid state disk (SSD).

Prior to the release of the MacBook Air, the Sony Vaio TZ series were often described as the world’s most desirable laptops.

The silky smooth, sleek and sexy design of the MacBook Air will without a doubt be the laptop moulding that causes even hardened Windows users to drool over now.

However, putting the “wow” and “gee-whiz” factor aside, the practicalities of the MacBook Air will primarily appeal to those who have too much money, or are dyed in wool techno geeks who rush out and snap up the latest of any product that hits the shelves.

The most obvious shortcoming of the new MacBook Air is the absence of an optical drive.

This is partly due to the fact the current generation just will not fit, and partly due to Apple striving for more revenue from its online iTunes Store business.

To install software, MacBook Air users needs to either purchase an external USB powered Superdrive from Apple for US$ 99, have a second machine with an optical drive, or bludge off friends or co-workers with PCs or Macs containing an optical drive.

While Jobs painted this as being a technological breakthrough, his claim that “we don’t think Mac users are going to miss the optical drive” can only be described as pure hyperbole and the area where the spin-doctors took over.

According to Jobs, the four reasons people need an optical drive are to watch movies; install software; make backups; and “to burn music CDs – sometimes – for our cars usually.”

While Apple might like to believe “that most of us have iPod’s” and therefore don’t need to burn music CDs for use in our cars, this is far from the situation.

Downloading movies from the iTunes Store is a great revenue earner for Apple, but it ignores those people who want to go out and rent a movie and watch it now rather than wait for a movie to download, pay Apple for the rental and/or pay their ISP for the bandwidth.

For backing up data Time Machine is without a doubt a nice piece of software. But the new Time Capsule external hard drive that connects wirelessly to the MacBook Air is just another item to add to the purchase cost – and the weight of a complete system.

While these are inconvenient at the least, Jobs’ claim that the need to wirelessly install software on aMacBook Air from another machine is a feature akin to having your five-day holiday flight to Bali land at Christmas Island and having to wait three days for spare parts and calling it an Indian Ocean Island adventure.

Remote Disc is a handy feature, but it means having a second machine. I for one would run out of patience very quickly with a co-worker who continually wanted to “borrow” my optical drive so they could install new software on their yuppie toy. I suspect most other people will take a similar view.

The single USB port and no Firewire port will also be frustrating to many users of the MacBook Air.

The power supplied by USB ports on many MacBook Pro’s and older PowerBooks is insufficient to run many 5-volt external USB hard drives let alone a number of devices connected through a non-powered USB hub, so it will be interesting to see what the smaller MacBook Air is capable of.

For those not comfortable with the costs, security or slow speeds offered by WiFi, or those who need to connect to office LANs, Apple has developed an Ethernet adapter.

However, as this connects via the MacBook Air’s only USB port, it means compromising between what tasks you are going to perform at the time.

Apple’s claim that the battery in the MacBook Air will provide five hours of email and web browsing with wireless networking turned on is something that can only be supported once machines start to be delivered.

If the claim is factual one has to admire the technology being employed in both the battery and the MacBook Air circuitry.

The fact that the battery is hard-wired-in to the MacBook Air though means that users will need to carry their charger with them and stop to recharge, as opposed to carrying a spare battery, dropping it in and continue moving.

With an entry level price of US$ 1,799 for the 1.6 GHz/80 Gbyte model and US$ 3,098 for the faster and SSD equipped version, I suspect the short-comings in features will make the MacBook Air too expensive for students, while many corporate users will have to also need to carefully consider the compromises that are made to achieve the size and weight reduction.

More importantly, if the weight of the external optical drive and Ethernet adapter are included, the overall weight saving of a MacBook Air over a basic MacBook with a 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, two USB ports, a Firewire port, an Ethernet port, a built in optical drive and a 120 Gbyte hard disk is less than 500 grams (less than 1.2 lbs).

From a cost perspective, an entry level MacBook Air with Ethernet adapter and external optical drive will cost US$628 more than the 2.2 GHz MacBook, while the faster and snazzier SSD equipped MacBook Air is a whopping US$1,927 more expensive.

The MacBook Air is clearly an insight into the direction portable computing is heading and as in the past, Apple is leading the way with design, sex appeal and “wow” factor.

From an environmental standpoint, the MacBook Air is one of the most environmentally friendly computers Apple has made and sets standards others need to follow.

The MacBook Air’s aluminium casing is fully recyclable, while the display contains no mercury and uses arsenic free glass.

In addition all of the Apple designed circuit boards in the MacBook Air are bromide flame retardant (BFR) and PVC free while the packing is 50 per cent less in volume than the previous smallest package shipped by Apple.

From a practical standpoint though the MacBook Air will, I believe, appeal to only a small number of users requiring certain features only. It sits below the MacBook on features and above even the 17-inch MacBook Pro on price.

Despite what Steve Jobs said, I think Apple will find that users are not as ready to give up their optical drives as he claims, or as keen on asking to borrow somebody else’s optical drive every time they want to install software.

In spite of all of the travelling I do I won’t be rushing out to buy a MacBook Air. The saving of 500 grams when I’m travelling is not worth that much money to me and I don’t need the status of owning “the world’s thinnest notebook.”

What the MacBook Air does do though is give an insight into Apple’s future marketing and growth strategies and how it sees the revenue stream generated from it’s iTunes Store playing an increasingly role in corporate revenue.

The MacBook Air will start shipping in another two weeks. It will be after that we see if the machine lives up to the hype and claims – particularly in regard to battery life.

However the fact that production models of the MacBook Air will not be available for so long indicates that Apple might have rushed to announce this product at the strategic MacWorld Expo in San Francisco.

ENDS:
© John Le Fevre, 2008

Apple’s Leopard redefines the PC workspace

If ever a reason was needed to buy a Macintosh computer Apple’s latest release of its operating system (OS), code named Leopard, provides plenty of incentive.

According to Apple more than two million copies of Leopard were sold in the first weekend following its release and users are finding it lives up to all of the hype that preceded its release.

OSX 10.5, as it is formally known, is the sixth release of Macintosh OS 10 in the last six years and continues the use of “large cat” monikers by Apple to name its operating system.

Of the four species that form the large cat genus only the lion has yet been used.

The latest inculcation of the Macintosh OS is priced the same as its Tiger, Panther, Jaguar and Puma predecessors at US$129 for a single dual layer DVD and US$0.95 less than the original OSX 10.0 Cheetah introduced in 2001.

While there are a string of reports of some users experiencing difficulties installing the update, most of these have been found to be caused by third party utilities and applications that fail to conform to Apple’s programming guidelines.

My personal experience with the installation using the “archive and install” facility was a totally pain free one, while the speed increases Leopard  delivers well and truly compensates for the time it took in ensuring my computer was ready for the install and the time it took to perform.

Though OSX 10.5 is not a fatal body-blow to Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system, it is sure to result in increased sales of Macintosh’s – at least until the Redmond, California developers manage to catchup with some of the innovative and productivity increasing features it packs.

While Vista has provided PC users with a poor-man’s version of what Mac users have had for many years, Leopard totally redefines the desktop workspace.In fact it’s hard to imagine anyone opting for a Vista-based personal computer once they have seen what can be done with the new Macintosh OS.

While some of the new features such as transparent menu bars and the 3D dock are purely “eye candy,” others such as Cover Flow, Quick Look, Stacks, Spaces, and Time Machine revolutionise the desktop and provide greatly improved productivity and document security capabilities.

The impressive new look starts with the Finder which now has a cool new iTunes-style look and feel.

In addition to the traditional icon, list and column views, a new option called Cover Flow splits the finder window horizontally to display thumbnail images of a folder contents above a column list of the contents.

High definition thumbnails of PDF documents, movie clips, JPEG files, Word or Excel files are displayed in the picture area and can be viewed in a similar manner to flipping through the pages of a book.

Cover Flow allows a wide range of files, including the contents of multi-page PDF documents to viewed from within the Finder. Movies can also be played without the need to open an application to run them.

Integrating tightly with Cover Flow is the new Quick Look feature.

With a simple press of the space bar Quick Look allows up to full screen versions of JPEG, text, Excel, PDF, Word, movie and other files to be opened and viewed without the need to launch the application that created them.

In the case of multi-page PDF Pages or Word documents it is even possible to scroll through the contents of each page.

This is a great productivity boosting tool as it is no longer necessary to open an application to view the contents of say a Word file to refresh your memory when you are working on email or to quickly check a reference.

Unfortunately Cover Flow does not allow you to open a preview of a word or PDF document, select a portion of the text for copying and paste it into a email.

It also does not display a 100 per cent true view of text documents and users will notice error in formatting that do not exist in the original.

What it does facilitate quiet well though is the viewing of multiple documents that may have similar names so that when you double click on the thumbnail in Quick Look to open the file  you are able to go directly to the file you want.

For many people desktop clutter is a common occurance. Most people have more than one application at a time open.

In my own case it is not unusual to have a Word document open and sitting on top of an Excel file, which in turn is sitting on top of a Photoshop document which in turn is covering an internet browser with a Mail application under that.

OSX 10.5 puts an end to crowded desktops by allowing users to create up to 16 different virtual desktop work areas Apple calls Spaces.

With a simple click its now possible to have one or more word processing document open in one Space, click to another Space where an Excel file is open and click to another Space where a web browser is open and so on.

Now when you see your boss approaching while you are browsing through your MySpace or Facebook pages a simple mouse click or ctrl-arrow combination will quickly return the spreadsheet or word processing document to your screen that you should be working on.

Apple has also overhauled it’s Mail program. In addition to being able to now apply templates incorporating drag-and-drop photo placements, it is now no longer necessary to email yourself reminder notes.

Reminders can be created from within the Mail program and stay in a separate section of the Mail application desktop.

In addition, reminder notes integrate with Apple’s iCal calendar application, while a new inbuilt data detection capability allows Address Book information or calendar entries to be automatically created.

Also providing productivity gains is the new Stacks function. Stacks allows folders to be placed in (on?) a section of the application Dock and provides either a fanned or grid display of the folders contents with a single mouse click.

A required file or folder can then be opened with a single mouse click.

While handy in the current implementation, it would be even more useful if the stacking functionality could be applied to folders placed anywhere, rather than limited to just those placed in (on?) the Dock.

It would also be considerably more beneficial if the pop-up feature of stacks was able to be applied to folders inside the main Stack folder.

As it is presently, clicking on a folder in a stack opened in either the fanned or grid display open that folder on the desktop.

While Apple has given the fanning capability of Stacks considerable emphasis, fanning only works if the Dock is placed horizontally along the bottom of the screen.

People who spend considerable time with their web browser open want as much desktop height as possible and generally place the Dock vertically. Unfortunately in the current implementation the fanning capability is not available.

Not withstanding this the grid display does save the need to search for a required file in the Finder.

Also much vaunted by Apple in the lead up to the release of OSX 10.5 has been Time Machine.

While H.G. Wells’ Time Machine had the capability to go into the future or the past, Apple’s implementation can only backwards – which is what most people tend to need.

Despite all of the warnings and numerous magazine and newspaper articles that have been written advising people to backup their data, very few people maintain a strict archiving regime.

Apple’s Time Machine provides the easiest possible solution to this. Simply connect a FireWire or USB hard disk to your computer, activate Time Machine and the contents of your hard disk are automatically copied to the external drive.

Once the initial backup is complete Time Machine will automatically back up your data every hour. Should the need arise you can quickly and easily locate and restore a previous version of a missing or damaged file or folder from the backed-up version.

The new Quick Look and Cover Flow features, as well as Apple Spotlight file searching tool all work with files stored on the Time Machine hard disk allowing you to easily locate the file you are looking for and then confirm you have in fact found the correct version before restoring it to your computer.

To gain the maximum benefit from Time Machine a hard drive needs to be connected to your Macintosh all of the time. For some this will be a drawback.

In addition, Time Machine will not recognise MS-DOS Fat 32 formatted hard disks preventing users from connecting their archived disks to a PC.

At the time of writing I have not tested the Time Machine function so can not give any report on what level of security is used to protect the archived files should the hard disk be lost or stolen.

OSX 10.5 also features an impressive array of parental controls.

Parents can restrict websites by name, authorise only certain websites as accessible, limit the number of hours their children can use the computer and even limit who their kids exchange emails and iChat sessions with.

If their kids try and connect with unauthorised email or iChat accounts the computer cna be set up to automatically forward an email advising parents.

The beefier parental controls can also keep a log of all websites visited and all iChat sessions held.

The new level of parental controls also provides a system administrator or employer with greater control.

If an employer feels that employees are spending to much time accessing their MySpace or Facebook sites parental controls could be used to block access to these sites.

While these are just a few of the 300 new enhancements and features included in OSX 10.5 it should be enough to leave home and business users with little doubt that those clever programmers at Cupertino have again set new benchmarks for personal computer operating systems.

It should at the very least cause anyone who is in the market for a new personal computer for either home or business use to drop in to their local Apple reseller prior to making a purchasing decision.

While some PC writers have been quick to point out some flaws with Leopard, such as the new transparent menu bars and information panes being a little difficult to use if sitting on top of a dark desktop picture, the innovations incorporated in the new OS far outweigh the negative.

No one would say that Leopard is the perfect operating system. Such a beast will never be developed.

What it is though is significant step forward and a continuation of the Apple heritage that has always seen the Macintosh boast a more intuitive and practical operating system than its rivals.

It’s hard to imagine any Macintosh user whose machine meets the minimum requirements not upgrading to the new OS.

The stacks feature of Apple's OSX Leopard is one of over 500 additions to OSX 10.5

ENDS:
© John Le Fevre, 2007