The Air Up There
by petermeEarlier this week I spoke with a journalist from Reuters about the upcoming release of Apple’s iPhone 3G, and what it signifies. He asked me specifically about the increased speed, and what impact it will have. I responded that it means that iPhone 3G is far more reliant on the network, and the cloud, and as evidence we see Apple rolling out MobileMe. 3G speed means it’s less about what’s on the device, than what it has access to.
I pointed out that Apple is moving in that direction generally. I suspect a lot of people believe that the “air” in Macbook Air refers to the laptops lightness. When it was launched, certain wags critiqued its small hard drive and lack of DVD drive. What the folks at Apple understand is that local storage is becoming vestigial. You don’t need a DVD drive if you’re simply going to rent your movies from the iTunes Store, streaming them in real-ish time. You don’t need a big hard drive if you’re simply accessing your data in the cloud. Apple has a history of being on the leading edge of storage media (they were first mainstream offerer of 3.5 floppy drive, and CD-ROM drives), and this continues that tradition.
What this means is that the “Air” in MacBook Air more meaningfully refers to wireless connectivity, and thus aligns with Apple’s Airport technologies.
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July 9th, 2008 at 3:31 am
Be interesting to see how the MacBook Air and iphone products meet and perhaps merge at some point down the road.
As one travels more and more (planes, trains and automobiles) you really do appreciate the possibility of both products in terms of weight and ability to access rich applications without schlepping a heavy MacBook about.
July 9th, 2008 at 7:36 am
Well said. You stole my thunder.
July 9th, 2008 at 8:18 am
Perfect. Don’t forget they drove the UI we all know and love (and big brother usurped; yes, somewhat like Apple’s usurping from Xerox…) USB and more.
But as fuel costs soar, there will be less travel of all kinds. We may actually get to the point where most knowledge work can be done ala telecommuting. Of course it could be done today (probably 80% to be conservative) were it not for the the small minds of the ‘control’ freaks. But I digress…
I tend to work in numerous locations around my house, from the coffee shop, the mall, the car. To me, the MacBook Air is about personal freedom. Then, “Oh yea, it helps the ‘business me’ be more productive.”
-ski