But I don’t think the story here is whether or not the new MacBook Air is a worthy “primary” computer right now. I think the Air, like many Apple products, is more interesting in what it represents than what it actually is.
What the Air represents, of course, is the future. It’s sort of the concept car of Apple’s Portable Mac Lineup, giving us hints of what we can expect to see in the entire line in the coming years. In Apple’s perfect world, it would already be the replacement for the entire portable Macintosh lineup. But since that isn’t possible yet (too many tradeoffs, still too expensive), it remains in a transitional state, going from expensive niche computer, to slightly more reasonable computer for a slightly larger market with this iteration.
People aren’t going to have to choose between an Air and a MacBook Pro for very much longer, though, because the next MacBook Pros will end up adopting many of the Air’s features, and then some more, and so on, until eventually they will become just a line of Airs in increasing sizes.
In other words, these two lines of notebooks are going to merge over the next few years. There won’t be 11″ and 13″ Airs, and then a 13″ Macbook, and then 13″, 15″ and 17″ MacBook Pros. It might take a few more upgrade cycles, but eventually we’ll just have 11″-17″ MacBook Pros.
That isn’t the reality today, but believe me, it will happen. It’s just going to take some time to get the pricing down to earth.
Take a look at what makes the Air unique in the lineup, and you’ll quickly see that there isn’t anything the Air has that wouldn’t be a good idea in all of Apple’s notebooks. Flash storage is superior to a spinning hard drive. Instant on is obviously something everyone wants. Bigger and better battery life. Thinner footprint and lighter weight—who wouldn’t want those, even in a 17″ notebook?
Think about the Air features that have already made their way to the MacBook Pro: Unibody construction was a feature of the Air first. So was the integrated, unswappable battery.
Flash storage is still too expensive to match current hard drives, but it won’t be long before it gets close enough.
The Mac App store will further decay the need for an optical drive.
I expect the $999 plastic Macbook to die first. Probably not right away, but within a year or two. Apple is clearly moving away from plastic bodies in all of its products, and as mentioned in the above article, most people with modest needs (i.e. most people) can get by with less storage.
The Air isn’t quite cheap enough to kill the MacBook today, but Apple will drive that price down even further over the next year. When the middle of the road 13″ Air is $1099 and has 4 GB of RAM, I’d say the MacBook is toast.
Meanwhile, the Pros will all get thinner and lighter next year. Hard drives won’t go away as an option quite yet, but Flash storage alternatives will get cheaper, encouraging more users to go that route.
I guess my point is that right now, it doesn’t really matter if people buy an Air or a MacBook. I suspect a decent number of people will go to each option. The new Air will certainly appeal to more people than the old one, and the MacBook will continue to appeal to those for whom the Air isn’t yet a perfect match for their needs.
Like the iPod Classic, the MacBook and the 13″ MacBook Pros will hang around for a while, but will likely not get much attention from Apple moving forward. And then they will be quietly taken out to pasture when the Airs are ready to grab what remains of that niche market.
The question then, of course, will be whether or not Apple decides to keep a “concept” line of notebooks for other features we can’t yet imagine. I think it’s an interesting way to innovate without risking alienating the current user base.
