Macworld 2008 Discussion Thread

phide said:
Did Steve slug your mother? What?
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Nah.. Why do you care anyway? Just expressing my opinion (mostly about them charging $20 for software that should have been included in the ipod touch to begin with)
 
For anyone curious, the song they use in the manila-folder ad is 'New Soul' by Yael Naïm. It's out there as a single and on the CD 'Yael Naïm'. The full song is just as infectious as the snippet from the ad.
 
phide said:
No, but that's not specifically the reason why I don't believe Apple's going to sell many of these (I never said that, did I?). It'll sell -- there's no question about that -- but I see this one riding a wave of hype and then dissipating pretty severely. There are some pretty significant shortcomings with this package overall.

Think about it this way: $1800 base. A tad more gets you into MacBook Pro territory, and the only advantages of the Air, at that point, is its diminutive size and its battery life. It'll perform worse than the $1100 MacBook with its slower processor and severely slow hard drive (though it does come with twice as much RAM as a baseline). It's an expensive machine, and it'll naturally attract creative professionals who may not be able to cope with that dinky little hard drive, and if you want the faster drive, you'd better be prepared to ante up for it (and surpass the highest-end MBP doing it) or sacrifice the USB port for a drive that'll likely hold you back anyway. Believe me, the port issue is going to be the deciding factor for some people. I'm a real-world user, I fit right in this demographic, and it's a deciding factor for me.

This is something I'm going to see people using at Starbucks to check their e-mail. It might attract some web developers, writers and programmers, but likely not artists who do any kind of work for print. I don't think it's going to attract musicians, audio folk or video editors. We're talking big sections of the Mac crowd here.


Haven't found that to be the case. I have to try pretty damn hard to load up my old Opteron-equipped PC to the point where Pro Tools starts bitching at me and getting sluggish. For most purposes, the little low-power Core 2s in the MacBook are more than adequate, and for my work, overkill (and I use some of the more intensive, no-bullshit plug-ins out there)


Yep. Like I said, I'd be sizing this thing up if it had a FW400 port. I'd guess that they could have done some little miniport-to-full adapter type deal, but they didn't. That makes the Air pretty much worthless for the kind of tasks I'd like to do with it, unfortunately.

It's very cool, as always, but I think too much emphasis was placed on form rather than on function. I see this one as a "show-off-at-Starbucks" machine and little else.
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It's an ultra portable. People pay sony 3k for one that's heavier, slower, with an unusable display and keyboard...

Why not pay less for an apple that's thinner and more capable?
 
lopoetve said:
It's an ultra portable. People pay sony 3k for one that's heavier, slower, with an unusable display and keyboard...

Why not pay less for an apple that's thinner and more capable?
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no, its not. thin != portable. its the same size as a macbook. the sony models are a lot smaller.


go to a store and take a picture of the 2 next to each other. closed. the x and y dimensions are vastly more important that the z dimensions when considering portability.
 
lopoetve said:
It's an ultra portable. People pay sony 3k for one that's heavier, slower, with an unusable display and keyboard...

Why not pay less for an apple that's thinner and more capable?
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Uhm... How is it more capable? It's CPU is 600mhz faster, but that's about it.
 
Martyr said:
no, its not. thin != portable. its the same size as a macbook. the sony models are a lot smaller.


go to a store and take a picture of the 2 next to each other. closed. the x and y dimensions are vastly more important that the z dimensions when considering portability.
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They weigh the same, they're marketed against each other, and the Air is the size of a bunch of legal paper. It's portable.

Arcygenical said:
Uhm... How is it more capable? It's CPU is 600mhz faster, but that's about it.
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Real Screen. Real keyboard. Faster CPU. More ram by default. Better OS. Better wireless. backlit keyboard. better battery by default (although I will fault the non-replaceable).

I know plenty of managers and sales folk that are all over them already - It's the same size as their legal briefs, weighs what the sonys do, costs less, and actually has a real screen and keyboard for when they're on the road.
 
As far as the replaceable, Apple mentioned it would cost 129$ for another battery (should yours fail) and they do a free swap. Was on the news this morning.
 
KodiakStar said:
As far as the replaceable, Apple mentioned it would cost 129$ for another battery (should yours fail) and they do a free swap. Was on the news this morning.
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It's still a major PITA though, which is probably my biggest problem with the Air (other than it's just not for me)

If you're on the road, and you can't get to an outlet to charge, you are stuck with a dead laptop until you can get to one.


And with this introduction, apple should AT LEAST FINALLY make some magsafe car adapters that will charge the laptop
 
KodiakStar said:
As far as the replaceable, Apple mentioned it would cost 129$ for another battery (should yours fail) and they do a free swap. Was on the news this morning.
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I'm not too sure I know too many executives that would feel confident shipping or giving their laptops away for a week or so. The downtime, and the potential data leakage.

Not to mention, 129$ for a battery? Christ.
 
Real Screen. Real keyboard. Faster CPU. More ram by default. Better OS. Better wireless. backlit keyboard. better battery by default (although I will fault the non-replaceable).
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The larger screen and keyboard can be seen as a negative to some, not me, but some.

Better OS is subjective. I've *really* started to dislike OS X these days. Programs are always crashing on me.

Not a better battery though, since there's no option for a high capacity one. And almost all the managers or execs I know dislike it because there's no way to carry extra batteries with you. If you're away from an outlet, and you run out of charge, you're SOL.

Wireless is very true, as is the RAM. Nothing beats OSX's wireless implementation.

Don't get me wrong. I think it's a gorgeous product, I just think some of the choices they made will seriously reduce the amount of people willing to purchase it. Only time will tell though.
 
Arcygenical said:
I'm not too sure I know too many executives that would feel confident shipping or giving their laptops away for a week or so. The downtime, and the potential data leakage.

Not to mention, 129$ for a battery? Christ.
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$129 is the same as every other apple battery. And the swap can be done in any apple store in an hour, apparently.

Arcygenical said:
The larger screen and keyboard can be seen as a negative to some, not me, but some.

Better OS is subjective. I've *really* started to dislike OS X these days. Programs are always crashing on me.

Not a better battery though, since there's no option for a high capacity one. And almost all the managers or execs I know dislike it because there's no way to carry extra batteries with you. If you're away from an outlet, and you run out of charge, you're SOL.

Wireless is very true, as is the RAM. Nothing beats OSX's wireless implementation.

Don't get me wrong. I think it's a gorgeous product, I just think some of the choices they made will seriously reduce the amount of people willing to purchase it. Only time will tell though.
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Granted, but most people I know planning on getting them love the idea of having a real keyboard and screen on something that weighs exactly what they currently have.

I don't know any of them that carry extra batteries, honestly... most of these people are on the road 30-35 weeks out of the year, they carry as little as physically possible. A spare power adapter is ~it~ - they also have full passes to most hotspots, so they never need ethernet either.

What I think they need to do is make for a replaceable battery (that IS a fault, although only for some) as an option, and also make a dock for it for when you're at the office. Those two would seal the deal.
 
I want to throw in my 2 cents about the MacBook Air.

It looks outstanding.

I wont gripe about the specs either. They did what they could for the size. You cant expect too much in something that small!

I am pissed off about the price tho. Way too expensive to be an "Ultra Portable"

It should cost 1000$ with the standard Hard Drive. I can see spending more $$$ for the SSD right now because its new tech.

Seriously apple. You arent getting my money for this just because of the cost. Beautiful product tho.
 
USMC2Hard4U said:
I want to throw in my 2 cents about the MacBook Air.

It looks outstanding.

I wont gripe about the specs either. They did what they could for the size. You cant expect too much in something that small!

I am pissed off about the price tho. Way too expensive to be an "Ultra Portable"

It should cost 1000$ with the standard Hard Drive. I can see spending more $$$ for the SSD right now because its new tech.

Seriously apple. You arent getting my money for this just because of the cost. Beautiful product tho.
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Um, it costs less than every other ultra portable out there that compares.

TZ series starts at 2100

phide said:
I'm sure people do. I'm not sure a lot of people do.
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I know of one place that ordered 15,000 of them alone.
 
I was really disappointed. :( I was hoping for a 3G/32GB iPhone and a true tablet. Instead, we got optional (and at an extra charge) addons for the current products, and a "thin" gimmicky notebook that costs way more than it should and has a disproportionately large screen for it's thin-ness. I expected something that thin to have a 9" or so screen.
 
InorganicMatter said:
I was really disappointed. :( I was hoping for a 3G/32GB iPhone and a true tablet. Instead, we got optional (and at an extra charge) addons for the current products, and a "thin" gimmicky notebook that costs way more than it should and has a disproportionately large screen for it's thin-ness. I expected something that thin to have a 9" or so screen.
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AT&T has said the 3G iphone is coming, it's just not ready yet. Expect it in a few months.

And the notebook is that size so that it has a real, actually ~usable~ screen and keyboard (unlike all the other ultras that are pretty useless). And it's cheaper than the other ultra-portables are.
 
Cheetoz said:
ultra portables do NOT have 13" screens.

This is just a thinner macbook.
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it has ultra weight, and it has ultra thin-ness. They're calling it an ultra, and it's pretty much the same size as a standard legal brief. It's as ultra portable as they come. It just actually has a usable screen and keyboard.

If it fits in a manila envelope - it's ultra portable.
 
lopoetve said:
AT&T has said the 3G iphone is coming, it's just not ready yet. Expect it in a few months.

And the notebook is that size so that it has a real, actually ~usable~ screen and keyboard (unlike all the other ultras that are pretty useless). And it's cheaper than the other ultra-portables are.
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a 3g iphone will not be out in a few month. it might be unveiled in a few months, but then it has to wait another 6 for the fcc.
 
InorganicMatter said:
It's portable, not ultraportable. That title is reserved for the ASUS eeePC.
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that's not a computer. It's a glorified calculator. :p Totally different league.

Martyr said:
a 3g iphone will not be out in a few month. it might be unveiled in a few months, but then it has to wait another 6 for the fcc.
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It's supposedly already in FCC consideration.


In addition, after looking things up a bit more, there's a reason Apple is charging for the iPod Touch updates - It's the Sarbanes-Oxley act.

To quote someone else:
No, its just like when they did the 20 dollars for the N firmware for their router a year or so back. Because it wasn't an advertised feature and the money received for the product has already been amortized, they can't legally add the feature. This is Sarbanes-Oxley, not because they nickel and dime you. They can get away with giving extra features for free on the iphone because its money is amortized over your contract.
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iPod touch has been discounted $20, so that the $20 upgrade for the new features brings it back to standard price and the accounting lines up. http://www.macrumors.com/2008/01/16/todays-announcements-the-untold-story/

There are very specific revenue recognition rules on delivering incomplete and/or promising future updates that provide new features and/or functionality to a product. Based upon how Apple is charging for the “unlocking fee”, it confirms that they began shipping the newer Mac computers before they finalized 802.11n. From a revenue recognition standpoint (remember, we live in a cash based world, but publicly traded companies live in an accrual-based accounting world), there are different ways to account for the decision to ship incomplete hardware to customers and then providing a finished product in the future.

1) Do not charge for 802.11n: This is what everyone probably wanted to hear from Apple, “We are shipping 802.11n enabled hardware, but it will not be ready for X months. Customers who purchase now will be able to enable the hardware with a software update when it becomes available.” If Apple made this commitment to its customers, it would have to defer a portion of the revenue from each unit that ships with the 802.11n cards. Sometimes this amount can be trivial, but based upon Apple’s decision to charge to unlock 802.11n, I would assume the amount was not trivial to them. For example, if we assume that a brand new 802.11n wireless card would cost $100, an auditor would assume the value of providing 802.11n to the customer is worth ~$100. Let’s say a computer costs $2,000, then the company would be able to recognize $1,900 now and then recognize the $100 once the feature has been delivered to the customer. If this happens within the same quarter, it is not a big deal. But if you cross a quarter or multiple quarters, it is can be a big deal. In some EXTREME cases, the auditing firm may say, “Since the wireless card is an integral part of the computer, you’ll have to defer the entire $2,000 until you ship 802.11n.” This is an extreme example, but in some cases, it does apply. (Don’t rationalize it! It’ll make your head spin

2) Charge for 802.11n: Do not get this confused with bug releases, patches, and other non-feature releases of a product. There are rules that allow companies to “fix” their products if they are broken, such as security patches to fix critical flaws in your software, bugs, etc, without charging a fee. It is assumed that the product should function and companies are allowed to fix them. BUT, in Apple’s case, they are not providing a hot patch or bug fix, they are providing a new wireless standard that was not complete when you purchased it. So to avoid revenue recognition hell (see above), Apple doesn’t announce that hardware has been shipping with 802.11n hardware and charges customers to activate it once the standards have been finalized. This allows them to avoid deferring a large portion of revenue from their hardware sales, but really sucks for the customers.

This probably sounds all crazy and you probably think I work for Apple (I don’t), but this applies to all software companies: Ever wonder why there are certain windows of time that qualify for free upgrades? Why companies have very odd cross product upgrade paths??? Hahaha! Welcome to the world of publicly traded companies and public accounting!
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http://www.techliberation.com/archives/041749.php

If someone claimed the added features were never delivered, they could sue for the value of them.
 
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