The Macbook Air looks to be an amazing feat of engineering (yet again), but in my humble opinion it could have been more – or maybe it will be a bit more.
I was watching the demo of the Macbook Air (I wonder if Adobe is upset at that Air thing), and I was thinking, aside from sales people, who’s going to use that? Granted, it is the thinest laptop I’ve ever seen, but I didn’t know thick laptops was a problem.
If you ask me, and I know you didn’t, I think the Macbook Air should have been Apple’s ebook. If they could have slapped another screen where the keyboard is, made the whole thing all touch-sensitive iphone-like, with page flipping with finger flicks – that would’ve been awesome.
I mean, iTunes for the book store… books are so small you probably can deliver them over the cell network, maybe even daily newspaper subscriptions… Heck, Apple is already big in schools… what college student wouldn’t want to carry a single 3 lbs. book as opposed to 5 books the size of my head? Even in addition to a laptop, most students have like 30 lbs of books.
I haven’t actually touched a Macbook Air, but from the looks of it it looks like it would even rest in your hands correctly like a book. And Apple is traditionally about publishing. I think they could have / would have crushed the ebook market (if indeed there is money in it).
Maybe this is the route they are going to be taking, and this is a first run with the manufacturer or something. However, as I sit here in my arm chair with my $600 in the bank, my obvious superior strategic sense says Apple missed the mark a bit on this one.