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Monday, February 18, 2008

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Breathing In and Liking the Rare Air

- Warner Crocker

If you followed Rob Bushway this weekend on Twitter you probably caught his adventures in an Apple Store and his falling in love with a MacBook Air. As far as I know Rob has reisted the urge to pull the trigger. So far. Also of note is an excellent think piece blogged by Loren Heiny on The Incremental Blogger about how perceptions might be shifting now that folks can grasp the Air in their hands. Here’s a quote:

I’m reading more and more about people proudly showing off their new Air laptops with resounding acceptance.  People like the lightness, the sleekness, the accessibility. The other stuff–you know the high performance stuff–is just not needed in this type of computer.

Yes, the tide it turning.

And my guess is that as thin and mobile become more “in” in the Apple world, so will it be in the Tablet space. And maybe, just maybe Tablets will make it back into retail. They’ll become cool for students to own. They’ll become acceptable as a lead laptop. The market will grow.

I like the jist of what Loren is pointing too, and I would hope he is correct once this plays out in the future. My hesitation is that I think it is far too early to tell if what Loren is predicting/wishing for will happen or not. While I think the early adopters early postive thoughts about the Air will carry some sway, my guess is a few months from now we’ll have a better assessment of how much the impact of the MacBook Air will have. Will it help turn the tide with Tablet PCs. Again, I would hope so.



2/18/2008 12:19 PM MST  

Breathing In and Liking the Rare Air     Comments [6]  |  Digg This |  del.icio.us |  Citations 
Monday, February 18, 2008 1:00:28 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)
Very true especially the partnership of Intel and Apple to push a new, significantly smaller and energy efficient chip. It will be very soon larger firms like Dell, Toshiba, and HP will adopt the same and smaller chip on our tablet PC. Less heat and thinner and may look like the Apple Air, maybe : )
Willy
Monday, February 18, 2008 2:35:20 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)
I had a similar experience. I was disappointed that the MBA was not the rumored iTablet, and pretty much dismissed it. It wasn't till I actually held one in Maine that I realized the seductive power of the design. It's said that Hawkins (I think that's the name)carried around a block of wood, whittling it and tweaking it till the size was right, and then and the engineers fill it with the electronics to match the size. Someone must have been carrying around a prototype and doing the same thing, but this critter just "fits" the hand. I don't plan on buying one, but I can better understand the appeal now.
Monday, February 18, 2008 3:02:24 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)
I'm willing to sacrifice optical storage, especially if there are alternatives (USB 2.0, SDHC, CF) - but there are two unforgiveable issues with the MBA:

1. No way would I **ever** consider buying a mobile device that will need to be shipped back to the vendor when the battery dies.

User-replaceable batteries - the **only** way to go.

2. Non-standard, hard-to-use USB ports are a non-starter for me.

Looking forward to the Lenovo X300, which may be just a tad less anorexic, but offer the essential amenities !!!!
borax99 (Alain)
Monday, February 18, 2008 4:10:14 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)
smaller, faster, longer lasting is the 'new' paradigm for portable computers? hahahahahahaha
apple don't innovate but they do have the balls to step outside what corporations want. MBA will succeed by being 'trendy' if by nothing else at all.
jpfx
Monday, February 18, 2008 5:00:44 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)
Convertible tablets like the ThinkPad X60/X61 are already pretty cool for being so thin and small. I think, however, that OEMs may want to begin pushing the idea that when you go into tablet mode, you're dealing with something even *smaller* - a flat item.

Thus far our paradigm for tablet use has revolved around the ink experience; you flip into tablet mode when you want to handwrite. In my experience, something closer to the true threshold is "when do I want to hold something smaller, or in a smaller space, than my laptop?" By thinking outside of digital ink as a main selling point, one can show tablets to be that extra level of compactness that not even the MB Air can match.
Benjamin Ries
Tuesday, February 19, 2008 5:35:23 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)
good point, if anyone's had the opportunity to use a sony prs505 ebook reader... that's what a tablet should be aiming at (IMO).
jpfx
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