As was widely rumoured, the main announcement today at Macworld was the Apple Air, Apple's first foray into the sub-notebook category. Steve Jobs opened by saying they were, in effect, out-Sonying Sony by offering a product even more anorexic than theirs. However, in digging deeper, it turns out that whilst it may be thinner than the Vaio, it still weighs a bit more. Think Kate Moss in diver's boots, that should set the stage.
Anyway, for me the most interesting thing is that Apple is also going out with an option for a solid-state drive instead of bits of whirling recording tape. Hopefully, this spurs along the rest of the industry to follow suit and in parallel drives prices down. This has to be the way forwards and with price really being the only downside (for a hard drive of equivalent size anyway) then the more demand for these capabilities the better. Though having said all that, Apple is really pushing out the boat here in charging an additional $1,300 bucks for the model with the SS drive (64 Gb) vs. the mechanical one (80 Gb), though they do chuck in the slightly faster process (1.8 Ghz instead of 1.6 Ghz) just to sweeten the deal a little.
About time Apple had an offering in this category for two reasons: a) it was the whole reason they moved off the Power architecture in the first place and frankly this has been a long time coming, and b) it offers them a chance to capture the executive market - i.e. me! For the first time ever, I'll be giving this member of the Apple family serious consideration, though the premium for the SS drive, seeing as how it pushes the list price to $3,000, is a non-starter.
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