3 ms·

I think the best part is the mouse gestures. It doesn't actually add any functionality that you didn't have before but it makes the whole experience more organ

by uuilly 19y ago

I think the best part is the mouse gestures. It doesn't actually add any functionality that you didn't have before but it makes the whole experience more organic and you forget you're using a computer. That's what apple does right. This machine is a big step b/c it's shedding unnecessary historical devices like the optical drive. It's leaping into a world where there is always a connection between machines and to the internet. All the while they are meeting and sometimes surpassing old functionality with software that makes networking a lot easier (bonjour, time-capsule etc.) While slashdot is lamenting the lack of "options" apple is striving toward a machine with no ports and no keyboard. They want as little friction as possible between you and your experience. The macbook air is just a temporary stop-off on this trajectory.

Zak 19y ago
Apple is sometimes a bit premature about dropping legacy tech. They eliminated the floppy drive from all their models before USB flash drives were common, for example. The lack of an optical drive is appropriate for a subnotebook, but I've found myself needing wired ethernet quite a bit during the past year. Of course, there are USB ethernet adapters, but that takes up the only USB port. There are USB hubs, but at that point there's enough random crap to carry around to negate much of the compactness of this machine.
- derefr 19y ago
  Thus comes a complementary product, the Airport Express. Normally just a wireless router with an AirTunes doodad, it could be remarketed in this case as the Air's "wireless-to-Ethernet adapter."
  - Zak 19y ago
    Do they have some new gigabit wireless protocol I didn't know about? If not, it will take about 20 times as long to transfer a large amount of data.
    - derefr 19y ago
      Not quite gigabit. I think I read somewhere that http://www.apple.com/wifi/80211/ http://www.apple.com/wifi/80211/ can hit around 160 megabits, though.

by uuilly 19y ago

Zak 19y ago

Apple is sometimes a bit premature about dropping legacy tech. They eliminated the floppy drive from all their models before USB flash drives were common, for example. The lack of an optical drive is appropriate for a subnotebook, but I've found myself needing wired ethernet quite a bit during the past year. Of course, there are USB ethernet adapters, but that takes up the only USB port. There are USB hubs, but at that point there's enough random crap to carry around to negate much of the compactness of this machine.

derefr 19y ago
Thus comes a complementary product, the Airport Express. Normally just a wireless router with an AirTunes doodad, it could be remarketed in this case as the Air's "wireless-to-Ethernet adapter."
- Zak 19y ago
  Do they have some new gigabit wireless protocol I didn't know about? If not, it will take about 20 times as long to transfer a large amount of data.
  - derefr 19y ago
    Not quite gigabit. I think I read somewhere that http://www.apple.com/wifi/80211/ http://www.apple.com/wifi/80211/ can hit around 160 megabits, though.