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TSA explains MacBook Air grounding: just doing its job
What, you don't read the official Transportation Security Administration blog? No worries, we've got your back on this one with the TSA's official reaction to Michael Nygard's missed flight as a result of its incredulous MacBook Air inspection. TSA agents are in fact trained to look for anomalies. So along come the MBA laptop. It's new (thus, rarely seen), ridiculously thin, and lacks a mechanical hard drive and any visible ports. Requesting further inspection is exactly what Mr. Nygard should have expected. As surly and detached as TSA officers tend to be, in this case they were doing their job just as they were trained. Of course, knowing this isn't going to prevent any of us from bitching and moaning every time we have to remove our shoes now is it?
MacBook Air, Mac Pro updates available
Who says this Tuesday arrived without updates? MacBook Air users can launch Software Update this morning and find SMC Update 1.0, which adjusts the use of the (very tiny) internal fan. If you've been having fan issues with your Air, let us know if this patch knocks them out. Also, the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT Firmware Update is available for the Mac Pro. The change this update offers is "system stability" according to Apple. How exciting.As usual, we ask that you let us know if you have any trouble after applying these updates.
TSA can't believe MacBook Air is a real laptop, causes owner to miss flight
The TSA has been known to take issue with products designed in Cupertino before, but for one particular traveler, it was Apple's thinnest laptop ever that caused the latest holdup. Upon tossing his ultra-sleek slab of aluminum underneath the scanner, security managed to find enough peculiarities to remove it from the flow, pull it aside and wrangle up the owner for some questions. Apparently, the TSA employee manning the line was flabbergasted by the "lack of a drive" and the complete absence of "ports on the back," and while hordes of co-workers swarmed to investigate, the user's flight took off on schedule. Thankfully, said owner was finally allowed to pass through after some more in-the-know colleagues explained in painfully simple terms what an SSD was, but the poor jet-setter most definitely paid the price for trying to slip some of the latest and greatest under the sharp eyes of the TSA (and cutting it close on time, of course).[Image courtesy of ABC]
AirQueue gives your MacBook Air's USB port more reach
Given the fact that most (all?) 3G USB modems won't even fit in the MacBook Air's ultra-cramped USB port, it's practically a foregone conclusion that some of that sex appeal is going to be forfeited when busting out a dongle to keep using your current wares. Enter the AirQueue, which is hailed as the first USB extender designed specifically to work with the MBA -- whatever that means. Truth be told, we can't figure out exactly what makes this any different than other extenders made for helping folks out in a squeeze, but at least it's only $6, right? Oh, and if you're aiming to make things extra unsightly, be sure and pick up the pictured $38 ExpressCard adapter -- your coffee shop style quotient will be tanked in no time.[Via MacsimumNews, thanks RD]
How a MacBook Air baffled airport security
Alternate title: The MacBook Air is a device, but it's not a "Device."Programmer Michael Nygard is used to travel. He's got the process down, from airport to hotel. Unfortunately, the TSA isn't as prepared. While passing through airport security recently, he was pulled aside and made to sit in the holding area. He watched as a gaggle of TSA workers examined his things, especially his laptop ..."'There's no drive,' one says. 'And no ports on the back. It has a couple of lines where the drive should be,' she continues...."As you've probably guessed, Michael's MacBook Air had them all baffled. Fortunately, a younger member of the team eventually arrived and explained that it's not a "device," but a computer with a solid state hard drive. It's good to know they're keeping up with this kind of thing.Here's a warning to everyone traveling to SxSW this weekend with a MacBook Air: schedule a few extra minutes for the airport.
First AirMail sleeves interofficed to MacBook Air types
The manilla envelope stunt pulled with the introduction of the MacBook Air is destined to go down as the stuff of marketing legend. Now, at least one happy Swede has his piece of consumer history with the receipt of the ManillaMac AirMail sleeve. It arrived with a spare red string and button and the added touch of his name hand written on the shipping label -- nice. According to Michael, his "high quality" sleeve fits the MBA "perfectly" and features "very good" stitching with white cotton innards which should keep his MBA looking just as glossy clean his new sleeve.
Daily Show election center features a passel of MacBook Airs
The Daily Show, recently returned to full writer strength, apparently decided that the best way to say "high tech" for its March 5 Election Center feature was by getting a bunch of MacBook Airs on the set. Five of them, to be precise, arrayed before correspondents like Aasif Mandvi, Samantha Bee and Rob Riggle.Does putting an Air onscreen automatically make these fake journalists more credible and authoritative? Maybe not... but that isn't stopping some other jokers from using them in slightly more official newsrooms.Thanks to Kevin for the screen capture and Jesse for the Karl Rove tip.
The $39,750 MacBook Air
If the golden iPod isn't luxurious enough for you, check out this MacBook Air. Called "Golden Age", it's got a coating of 24k gold beneath 12,000 Swarovski crystals. Each crystal was applied by hand (of course), and only 20 Golden Age Airs have been made.That's right, you can buy one! Why not show up at Starbucks with an Apple laptop that cost nearly 40 thousand dollars? And people say Mac users are smug.Thanks, Marco!
Win a Mac mini, hosting and a MacBook Air
Aside from being a company with a name that's dangerously close to copyright infringement, Macminicolo has long been dedicated to creating hosting solutions for Mac users. In fact, they only host - you guessed it - Mac minis. It's a pretty nice service. Just send them your mini and they host it for you and give you full access (it's all yours, not shared). If you've thought about colocation but shuddered at the cost, this could be your chance. Right now, Macminicolo is running a contest to find the greatest answer to the question: "What would you do with a remote mini?" Start up a new business? Create a non-profit? The contestant who submits the best answer will receive a year's free hosting, a Mac mini and a MacBook Air. As Jeff Probst would say, "Worth playing for?" Yes, Jeff, it is.You can get the details here. Good luck!
MacBook Air gilded again - that's two times too many
Really, it's ok, you can stop tipping us on the Golden Age / Bling My Thing MacBook Air. We know it's all 24k gold and has 12,000 Swarovski crystals and crap, but we'll be honest, this stuff kind of freaks us out. We don't know, it's just offensive in that way that only a triggered gag reflex can properly describe. Supposedly only twenty are being produced, and you know the story about price, and these things being out of your league if you even have to ask.[Via Pocket-lint, thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Enjoy gestures across applications with MultiClutch
The multi-touch feature that's been added to the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air is pretty cool, but rather limited (for now, at least). Wouldn't it be cool to have gestures across applications, like Safari and iChat?Check out MultiClutch. It's a preference pane that lets you assign your own keyboard shortcuts to a given gesture across applications. Switch Safari tabs with a flick. Zoom in on email with a pinch. That kind of thing.MultiClutch lets you bind gestures to a Cocoa app, including swipe, zoom and rotate. If you want to test this out, understand that it's beta. With that in mind, have fun!
MacBook Air: Woz predicts flop, store inventories say otherwise
Ars Technica has a very interesting article describing the strong demand and sustaining momentum behind the MacBook Air. While much of the evidence is anecdotal and based on the claims of retail sales associates, it is clear that in at least some markets, the MacBook Air is hard to keep in stock.Although the product has been available for more than a month, Apple.com's shipping estimate is still between 5 and 7 business days. Amazon.com won't have more units in stock until March 16 and although BestBuy.com is showing that the units are shipping from the website, store availability is still pretty low. Looking at the local Best Buy stores in Atlanta, only 4 of the 12 stores were showing units available for pick-up.I was at the Apple Store yesterday (and so much for the claims that it's a great place to meet guys -- maybe if you're into married men or aren't yet old enough to drive a car) and I couldn't help but notice that most customers were congregated around the Air. How many people were potential buyers and how many people just wanted to play, I cannot say, but it was certainly the most popular product in the store.Of course, it is easy to argue that shipping delays are simply because Apple didn't place a big enough order with its suppliers, and while that may be true, it doesn't change the fact, as Ars points out, that the Air has been the top selling product according to the Apple Sales Rank widget for at least the last three weeks. Of course, Apple has not released the sales figures for the Air (we'll have to wait for the next quarterly report, and even then it's likely to be lumped in with the other laptop sales), so this is all speculation. Still, it appears that Woz might have been a bit out of touch when he recently commented, "I don't think [the Air] will be a hit."
Woz strikes again: disappointed by iPhone, wary about MacBook Air and Apple TV
We'd say 2007 was a pretty big year for Steve Wozniak, what with Kathy Griffin, an Epcot animatronic, some widely covered Apple sentiments, and (honor of honors) an Engadget interview to top it all off. Turns out he's not backing down in 2008, and spoke out at a Sydney press conference with some fairly constructive criticism for some of Apple's brightest stars. He expressed concern over the 24 hour limit for iTunes movie rentals, and doesn't see the Apple TV taking off just yet, though he sees it as a "good indication of the future." Woz was less kind to the iPhone, saying he was "really disappointed" at the iPhone's introduction, due to the lack of 3G. He's still a fan of the phone interface, particularly the browser, but he's miffed about those speed constraints. Finally, he likes his MacBook Air, and he's currently attempting to see if he can make it his single laptop, but the shortage of ports and lack of disc drive and removable battery are making it difficult. We really couldn't have said any of it any better, Woz. [Via The Inquirer]
MacBook Air selling out left and right?
It's hard to tell whether the MacBook Air is selling way beyond Apple's regular expectations or whether they just didn't make that many units (there's a difference, after all), but as Ars Technica points out, a cursory glance to Apple's MBA stock-checker shows the majority of Apple stores are plum out. Of course, the Cube sold pretty well in the early days too, only time will tell whether the machine actually has staying power. Something tells us Steve will have a thing or two to say about the Air's sales later this week, though.Read - Ars points out the MBAs are oft sold outRead - MacBook Air retail stock-checke
MacBook Air patent is mocking you
It's no secret where this little bit of patented know-how ended up. Apple's little port door for the MacBook Air is one of those design elements of legend that could one day go down next to MagSafe and the Click Wheel in the annals of Apple history -- even if it's near impossible to use without picking up the computer. So it's a little ironic that even the dreamer that drew up this patent couldn't imagine a mac without FireWire, Ethernet and a pair of USB ports. Oh Steve, you ask so much of us.[Via SlashGear]
MacBook Air trackpad settings video included in System Preferences
Among the delightful tidbits taking up precious space on the MacBook Air's slender hard drive or SSD, you'll find this very handy video guide to stretching, zooming, scrolling and rotating using the power of human touch. It's tucked away in System Preferences under the Keyboard Trackpad tab.It seems a little silly to animate a guide like this, but I'll admit that I found myself more likely to try the finger moves after watching the demo. No doubt the upcoming multitouch-equipped MacBook Pro machines will feature a similar guide for the perplexed.
MacBook Air gets smothered in Swarovski crystals, loses innocence
For whatever reason, products designed in Cupertino have a strange attraction to precious coverings -- ones created with gold and diamonds, namely. Nary a month after Apple's thinnest laptop ever started shipping out to eager early adopters, over 8,000 Swarovski crystals have somehow found their way onto a totally helpless MBA. We wish we could say it was defaced and stripped of its soul for a good cause, but sadly, it wasn't.[Via Crystal Icing]
Potential fix for an annoying MacBook Air wireless issue
As much as I love my MacBook Air, it's had one issue in particular recently that has been pretty annoying: it drops wireless network connections seemingly at random intervals and for no particular reason. Not all wireless connections, though, just some and again, with no discernible pattern of access point or type of connection. For example, it works on my home Airport network flawlessly, but with some public Wi-Fi networks, it has a problem. Case in point: I was at a local coffee shop near my house recently that provides free WiFi. Given that the WiFi was free and only had a WEP password, it should have been a simple matter to connect and enjoy the benefits of free Internet access. After being told the WEP password, I was able to enter it, click "Save this password to the Keychain," sign on to the wireless network and was off and surfing. Unfortunately, my wireless connection was short-lived as after only a few minutes, the connection dropped, leaving me with nothing.Not knowing the exact nature of the problem, I connected again by selecting the network SSID in my list of available networks which show up in the Airport menu on the top right of the screen. When I selected the network, I was again prompted for the password I had just entered a few minutes ago and had, as I remembered distinctly, clicked that I wanted the Keychain to remember.
ColorWare does the Air
Macs, in general, have always been works of art compared to their rivals, and the MacBook Air is a pinnacle achievement in the line of lust-worthy Apple computers. There's just never been a lot of color choice in the Apple's lineup. For the audacious souls who choose to express their personality through their hardware, ColorWare has been making Macs (et al) into vibrant articulations of individuality for 8 years. And now they'll deck out your Air, too. ColorWare recently announced the inclusion of the MacBook Air in its line of color-modded machines. Starting with a sleek black, the pigmentation possibilities branch out exponentially when you consider there are 34 other colors that can be mixed and matched in whatever combination best describes your individual taste. You can choose a metallic or solid type of color for the high-gloss, scratch-resistant, polymer-based coating. For a lot of us – well, me anyway – I'm pretty happy with titanium and white as I've never needed my computer to be a distraction in and of itself. I have enough applications designed for that purpose. But I know there are more than a few people excited about a black MacBook Air, probably even a few tickled about the pink option and many more in the spectrum between. You can send in your current machine ($500+) or buy one ready to go ($2568+). You can even play with the possibilities before you make the leap.
A MacBook Air and an XO walk into my office...
It may sound like the intro to a joke that would only be funny at WWDC, but for a few minutes this afternoon I had both a shiny new MacBook Air 1.8 SSD and a not-so-new but still cute as a button XO laptop hanging out at my desk. If they were high school kids in a '50s movie musical, one would be nicknamed "Peewee" and the other one would have to be called "Slim."The MBA is moving on to its permanent home soon (the owner will be getting it next week, once we've -- ahem -- done our due diligence in testing), and the XO is on loan from iTransmogrify developer Joe Maller. It seemed like the thing to do in the presence of these two pieces of 21st century tech, each desirable in its own way, was to take a few snapshots for posterity.%Gallery-16467%
