new MAC
 

this is the bigger news imho:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/movies.html

http://images.apple.com/itunes/store...os20080115.gif

http://www.apple.com/appletv/

Holy crap, it's just like a normal iBook but thinner and without all that annoying functionality and performance!

Joel, what do you think is missing?

Do they have *good* gangster movies ;)

I couldn't watch the macbook presentation as I don't have Quicktime installed but I'm sure it's a cool laptop. I'm on the hook this week to buy my 70 year old MIL her first computer. The absolute limit is $800 (all the sibs are kicking $200 in) and since I'm gonna be the guy who has to re-explain (weekly) how to launch a browser, create/find a document, send email, it's going to be a Costco HP that I am familiar with.

Joel owning one is what's missing. :D

I think it's pretty cool. Hope the keyboard doesn't feel to "thin."

A hard drive bigger than the one in my phone, and an onboard optical drive for starters. It's a big iPod touch.

Other than being really thin what is it's most endearing quality?

um, light weight, small size, long batter life, full size keyboard, able to run real apps.

you have an 80GB hd in your phone?

Plus its beautiful.

Dave - you could get her a Mac Mini, a nice screen and maybe even a printer for $800. It might be tight, though.

I just find Macs are so much easier for newer users. I'm not certain I'd want to give a new user a Vista machine. Talk about getting phone calls during your dinner hour.

It looks neat, I give it that. I spotted it thin and you countered with small & lightweight, clever:D

Full size keyboard? Is that new? What do normal laptops have?

+1. You Mac detractors should really stop fighting the power. :p

i'm still waiting to find out what phone you have with an 80 gig HD ;)

Humor good boy, humor. or is 64Gig to big to make fun of? :D

Apple did away with floppy discs years ago and the reaction was the same.

Considering the the capacity of flash media and the relatively low cost of manufacturing thumb drives I expect the days of apps shipping on flash drives is around the corner

This is an ultra portable box, it's not meant to be a desktop replacement.

The Sony VAIO SZ does not come with an optical drive built in either.

These boxes have a specific target audience that Apple AND Sony have determined don't need it.

When is the last time you actually used the CD drive in your computer?
I was in the market for a small laptop a month or 2 ago. I realized that on a day to day basis I don't swap around huge files, game, or do much more than ssh/rdp, surf the web and check email. I went with this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220246
Yep, 7" display, 4G hard drive 512 megs of ram. I haven't touched my desktop other than to setup a connection between the two to share file since.

I'm no mac fanboi but I think apple has hit the nail on the head in a growing a market niche in this one.

I agree that optical is going away and the sooner the better. Moving parts=bad.


You guys need to keep in mind that some of us just enjoy yankin your chains on this Mac stuff as you get so excited about it. It's kinda cute really.

I don't understand the argument. This is not new technology, it is simply a new computer. A lot of other manufacturers are going with an overall smaller computer, while Apple has tried something a little different with a thin and light computer; maintaining the overall width and height. I had a Toshiba a few years ago that was very similar to this computer, but they don't currently make a computer this thin. If you hate Apple, then go right on hating Apple. If you like laptop computers, then take a look at this computer for what it is...something a little different than the norm.

Come to think of it most of my software installs are downloaded disc images

actually I do use my optical drive all the time. I routinely burn dvds. Just this weekend I needed to fix a video piece for the g/f's art installation. I popped in the original dvd, ripped the video, sucked it into finalcut, made some quick edits, moved it to dvd studio pro, then burned a new looping dvd sans menus. All on my macbook pro.

The air is beautiful, but for now I need more of a swiss army knife computer and more horsepower than this machine has, but for travel and basic work - about as good as it can get.

The big transition here is the gesture trackpad. There are iPhone-style gestures now built into it. Look for the next generations to expand on this. Right now though I want them to fix an annoying Leopard/Aperture bug...

Was that gesture trackpad inherent only to the Air, or is it part of Leopard? I wasn't very clear with that.