Macbook air
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MacBook Air
Apple stunned a nation, or at least those who haven't been paying attention to the rumors, today with the unveiling of a very thin new MacBook called the MacBook Air. 'The world's thinnest notebooks' starts at $1799 and comes with a 13.3 inch display (LED), a full keyboard, built-in 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth, built-in iSight, and a multitouch trackpad that lets you use gestures to control a number of actions on the MacBook Air. Some other stats include: 1.6 GHz or 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB L2 cache 2GB of RAM 80GB 1.8-inch hard drive (with optional 64 gig solid state drive 1 USB 2.0 port What it doesn't come with are built-in ethernet ports, FireWire, and optical drive, or enough graphics power to power a 30 inch Display (but you can hook up a 20 or 23 inch display via a built in mini-DVI port).
Apple MacBook Air first hands-on
Yeah, pretty much sexy. Every element is super sharp, the hidden ports are a thing of beauty, and the backlit keyboard is certainly a nice touch. It's almost silly how light it is, and multitouch is smooth as butter. With the dimensions and curves Apple is playing with, we can almost forgive the lack of removable battery -- almost.%Gallery-13880%
Apple's MacBook Air is available for pre-order
If you're the type who just has to be the first to have everything, then don't waste any time and rush over to Apple.com to pre-order your MacBook Air. Aside from the regular list of MacBook accessories, you'll have to decide if it's worth $300 to go from a 1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo to a 1.8Ghz. The only other choice to ponder is if your also the SSD type. Sure, SSDs are faster and use less power than their spinning brothers, but at $999 -- and 16GBs less capacity -- it's a hard pill to swallow. Of course you can get the ultimate MacBook Air for $3,098 and while you're at it, go ahead and get an all but useless optical drive for $99 and what is almost sure to be a required accessory on any first gen product; AppleCare at $249.
The MacBook Air SuperDrive
Apple may think it's over for optical media, but we have a feeling a lot of MacBook Air customers are going to end up spending the $99 on the external SuperDrive. The 1.06-pound USB-powered dual-layer burner is as slickly encased in aluminum as the Air itself, has a built-in cable and features 4X DL read / write speeds, 8x DVD±R, and 24x CD-R. No official word on availability just yet, but we'd guess it'll ship alongside the Air in two weeks. Interestingly, the specs say it requires a MacBook Air -- but we'll be recklessly plugging it into whatever we have handy soon enough, stay tuned.
Meet the new MacBook family
Here they are! Your oh-so-recently refreshed family of MacBooks. From left to right, we've got the tried and true MacBook, the all new showstopper (you can call it MacBook Air) and the MacBook Pro. Unfortunately, the two wingmen aren't seeing any updates today, but that fellow in the middle sure is getting a lot of attention. %Gallery-13885%
Sizing it up: MacBook Air vs. the rest
So just how thin and lightweight is the new 13.3-inch MacBook Air. We've pitted it against the 13.3-inch Dell XPS M1330, 13.3-inch Sony VAIO SZ, and Apple's own MacBook to see how it stacks up, literally. Not bad Stevie, not bad.%Gallery-13884%%Gallery-13920%
The MacBook Air
Apple just announced the .16-inch thin MacBook Air -- a laptop so thin it fits in a manila envelope. The new machine features a full-size keyboard and LED-backlit 13.3-inch display with built-in iSight, and the new larger trackpad supports multi-touch gestures. Just like the iPhone, you'll be able to pan around, pinch to zoom, and rotate with two fingers, and move windows with a flick. Apple got the size down by using the same 1.8-inch 80GB drive that's in the iPod classic, but you'll be able to order a 64GB SSD as an option. The Air eschews optical media, but there's a separate external you can snag for $99 and Apple's also announced a feature called Remote Disk that'll let the Air get data off the optical drive in any PC or Mac running the Remote Disk software. Pricing starts at $1799, and the Air will be shipping in two weeks. We'll have a hands-on with the MacBook Air here in a just a few, stay tuned!%Gallery-13872%
Apple announces Remote Disc to wirelessly install software on MacBook Air
Wondering how you were gonna install all your software on that forthcoming optical drive-deprived MacBook Air? Enter Remote Disc, which essentially enables users to "borrow" the optical drive of another machine on the wireless network and pass along the data sans wires. Notably, hosts can be Macs or PCs, meaning that even a household Wintel rig can be used to beam OS X applications to your shiny new MBA. No word on where the "special software" for the host machines will come from, but here's to hoping it's boxed right in from the start.
MacBook Air features Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
Not a bad turnaround time -- Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, ratified just a few months back by the Bluetooth SIG, has found its way into the MacBook Air's unnaturally thin shell. This should lead to improved (read: quicker) pairing, better battery life, and improved security over 2.0. Only trick is to find a few other 2.1 devices, of course.
Is this Apple's ultraportable?
Wired's Gadget Lab blog has posted a mockup of the rumored MacBook Air. They based their mockups on what inside sources had to tell them. The big points are that this thing is supposedly very, very thin and lacks both an optical drive and an Ethernet port. I can see omitting networking ports and an optical drive if there is a docking station involved, but I would be hard pressed to buy any computer that didn't have a dedicated networking port.What say you, does this look like something out of Cupertino or something out of the Macworld addled brain of a Photoshop guru with a little too much time on their hands?
MacBook Air wafts around the rumorscape
Of our predictions about Macworld this year, the subnotebook likely topped the list for most mentioned, and though the name MacBook Air sounded strange to me when I first heard it (come to think of it, it still sounds weird, unless this is actually a product made out of hardened atmosphere), it looks like the evidence is mounting. Over the weekend, the name appeared in an Adium X usage log, and now we've got news that search engine ads and domain name lookups all point to Apple as the owner of macbookair.com (even if the site itself doesn't).So is this the name of Apple's new subnotebook? Of course, we won't know for sure until Steve says it on stage, but while it's not, on the surface, Apple's best naming choice, it could work, in an "Airport" and "Air Tunes" kind of way. It could be worse-- the thing could be called the MacPod. Or the PodBook. Or the PodMac. Or the Lisa.Update: macbookair.com isn't owned by Apple, but by some merry prankster. Let the speculation continue!
More "MacBook Air" evidence wafts by
Sure, all will be revealed tomorrow, but rather than twiddle their thumbs, the Apple curious are scouring the internet for further evidence of the MacBook Air. A certain tipster named "byrd" searched for "macbookair" on Dogpile and found a Google ad listing up top, which redirects to the MacBook page of the Apple Store. Meanwhile MacDailyNews reader "mango" tracked down the macbookair.org domain name and found that it is indeed listed under Apple -- the Whois domain name lookup won't show any info on the .com or .net versions. Obviously these are pretty minor details that don't say a lot in themselves, but the more of these that pile in, the more we're inclined to believe in a magical ultraportable from Apple tomorrow that will fulfill all our wishes -- we're suckers like that. [Thanks, byrd]Read - MacDailyNews domain name lookupRead - Dogpile search results
MacBook Air in the air?
The kids over at 9to5Mac are making the case that Apple's rumored ultra-portable will be dubbed the MacBook Air. Besides all the anecdotal evidence supporting their case, one of their readers discovered a machine identifying itself as a "MacBookAir" in a January 9, 2008 Adium usage log -- 3 days before the "There's something in the air" MacWorld banner was revealed. If true, it's thought that the name could refer to the ultra-portable's weight, WWAN capability, or even Wireless USB support. As odd as the name might sound, just remember how strange we all thought "Wii" was back in the day. Ok, Air is still bad.Read -- 9to5mac Read -- week 2, 2008 Adium log in Google's cache
