So Apple released the MacBook Air, an ultra-lightweight notebook. In some ways it's the long-overdue replacement for the 12" PowerBook, and in other ways it's Apple forging a lot of new ground. And yet everyone's in super complain mode.
The problem is that most of these critics can't wrap their heads around the idea that there are other types of people out there. That's what it boils down to. You see this same idea rear its head in plenty of other situations, too, like user interface design. It's part of the fun of usability: trying to design something great that works for you AND everyone else in the world.
That's the problem here. With the MacBook Air (I already don't like the MBA abbreviation, as I instantly get confused), people see a seemingly overpriced notebook with less features. I saw more than one digg comment along the lines of "paying more money for less computer".
If I can borrow a colloquium from the nineties: well, duh.
The whole point is that you pay a premium to get a slimmer machine and increased portability. Most of these who run in geek circles see everything in terms of gigahertz and cores and processing power, for good reason since they're exactly the type who need it to push video around or compile code. But that's not the user base that Apple's targeting here. They're targeting people like business travelers, who will pay a premium for something that's measurably smaller than their current machine. The vast majority of usage by that target market won't use Firewire or more than one USB device or audio in or even user-replaceable batteries or hard drives. These are the types of people that very likely have desktops at home that they do their primary work on- this is why Apple added the Remote Disc functionality. The lack of optical drive really doesn't matter as much to these people.
Wil Shipley just penned a great response to much of this immediate criticism - from those who haven't used the product, mind you - in his aptly-titled post MacBook Air Haters: Suck My Dick. It's definitely worth a read. Towards the end he starts commenting on the transition of the computer towards the computer-as-appliance, which is clearly the direction Apple has been heading towards. (This idea of the computer-as-appliance was the clear goal of Jobs and company with the original Macintosh, interestingly enough.)
Some journalists get so close to the truth it hurts, yet miss the large print. "OMG! The unit is all sealed and self-contained like the iPod!"
Yes... the iPod. That huge failure. Also, the iPhone. Stunning disappointment that it was. I mean, jeebus, why would Apple make ANOTHER device incredibly simple? Clearly the market has spoken, and it wants tons of ports and screws and geegaws and flippers... no, wait, no it doesn't.
I think it's clear that Apple wants to push a number of its products more towards the computer-as-application sphere, and the MacBook Air is at the head of that group. And you know what? That's cool, even for techies. If you're in dire need of more processing power and flexibility, you can go with a MacBook Pro or even a Mac Pro, which lets you swap out and fiddle with pretty much whatever you'd like.
It goes back to Jobs' original four-panel market segmentation that he moved Apple towards at the end of the 1990's: you have one column for consumers, and one column for prosumers. The problem we saw today is that those in the second column tried to force themselves into the first.