I love the new Apple TV updates. I wrote about how it may change the HD world. It really bodes well for HD and VOD. There are a few of us that were early adopters and bought mac mini’s for their Home Theater PC (HTPC), and some of us that wanted the extra juice to play their 720P 30 fps or 1080 material.Whatever the reason for owning a mac mini as opposed to an Apple TV, it seems that we are left out in the cold.

Yes, while the Apple TV was busy getting it’s update on, front row users are left with yesteryear’s interface. Of course it’s a computer and I can switch over to iTunes, but let’s face it. When you’re listening to music with friends and want to quickly browse and buy a song you’re all talking about. Breaking out a keyboard is the equivalent of the VISA check commercials when that person breaks out a check. It certainly doesn’t create a one click buying experience, putting more obstacles between me and the check-out lane. That’s the whole point of this, Apple wants to sell rentals and music. The easier they make it to buy, the more they’ll sell, period.

I hope this is on their to-do list. It would certainly encourage me to buy more from them.

The following was a post from apcmag.com

1. 80GB iPod hard drive being used as a system drive. It’s 4200 RPM slow and after years of encouraging people to amass a horde of digital media, how can Apple really expect people to fit their iTunes library, digital videos and so on onto 80GB? With notebook hard drive capacities topping 500GB in a single 2.5″ drive, surely Apple’s customers would have preferred a slightly thicker form factor with a beefier drive?

Really, most people get by on less. Apple’s customers already have this sort of form factor, the MacBook and MacBook pro have been about 1 in thick for years and the lightest available. You want speed, get a SSD drive.

2. Non-expandable memory: 2GB of RAM soldered onto the motherboard… sure, that’s a lot of RAM today, but if I were buying a notebook worth between $2500 and $4300,

Hmmmmm, I looked at the Apple site, says starts from $1799.

(update) Whoops - I saw in the comments of his page that he was talking about Australian dollars.

I’d sure as hell want the ability to add some extra RAM in later to cater for future Mac OS X upgrades, virtualisation and memory hungry apps like the Adobe suite. (To be fair, other subnotebooks also have soldered RAM, and sometimes have only 1GB, but still… looking at this from the perspective of someone looking for a thinner, lighter MacBook Pro, this is a significant limitation.)

If you start with the wrong expectations you will be disappointed.

3. 64GB flash-memory as an option in place of the hard drive is nice, but for $1400 more, it seems unlikely many people will take it up. (Update: reader Jeff Singleton points out that the SSD drive is more than “just a flash drive” — SSD disks offer greatly enhanced reliability and much faster throughput than mechanical media can, which is a fair point.)

Apple fans are notorious early adopters, if they weren’t they would buy Dells with Windows for less.

4. One USB port: not only is the MacBook Air expansion-limited on the inside, it can’t connect to many things at once on the outside, unless, of course, you carry a USB hub with you, which kinda defeats the purpose of having an ultraportable notebook to begin with. And since it’s a recessed design (a flap on the side of the notebook has to pop open for you to access the port), quite a few USB accessories aren’t going to be able to plug in there without the use of a USB extension cord.

Carrying a USB hub would defeat the purchase of an ultra portable, but so would carrying the accessories that would connect to it.

5. No wireless broadband: if anyone’s going to buy this notebook, it’s the regular traveller who is tired of toting 3KG of extra cabin baggage everywhere. These people are also exactly the same people who find wireless broadband really, really useful. But despite the fact that HSDPA modules can be manufactured as small as a postage stamp, Apple didn’t include one. Guess what you’ll be using that one USB port for? A soap-on-a-rope style wireless broadband dongle, or a fat broadband stick. It’s not a very elegant accompaniment to the world’s thinnest notebook.

Guess what you’ll be connecting to your Bluetooth [phone] device for?

6. Underpowered, last-gen processor: despite Apple claiming the MacBook Air has the ‘latest’ processor in it, it’s actually a slow old 65nm version of the Core 2 Duo, topping out at 1.8GHz. Presumably Apple’s legal eagles would argue that since Intel made a special version of the processor that has a smaller chip casing than others, it is literally using the “latest” release from Intel. But in this case, “latest” certainly doesn’t mean “better”.

This is a small definition of better. Faster doesn’t necessarily mean better, but latest is defined by release date. In fact the whole chip industry is moving toward less power. Most individuals don’t need the kind of speed that even apple’s cheapest laptop puts out.

7. No microphone port: sure, it’s not the most essential feature given the proliferation of USB microphones, but again, I’ll point out: one … USB … port.

Bluetooth, bluetooth, bluetooth.

8. Non-replaceable battery: you have to send the entire notebook back to Apple for replacement of the battery. Which will have attrocious battery life within about two years. Note to Steve Jobs: this is not an iPod.

I actually agree, but when the time comes I’m sure there will be a plethora of services to replace/upgrade the battery. (update) The time is now $129 battery replacement includes install. That’s what a normal battery costs.

9. Thin but not that thin: Steve Jobs says the MacBook Air is thinner at its thickest point than competing notebooks. But the Fujitsu Q2010 is only 19.9mm thick at its thickest point, and that’s 0.5mm — yes half a millimetre — thicker. However, in the Lifebook, you get integrated HSDPA/3G/GPRS, an ExpressCard slot (34/54), SD card slot, two USB ports, inbuilt VGA out, Ethernet, Firewire, fingerprint sensor. I’d say that functionality is worth an extra half millimetre.

I must take a look at the Q2010, but using Windows is not worth it. I have never missed Windows since the move.

10. Oh, and no Ethernet port: yeah, OK, you can order the optional USB Ethernet adaptor, but that one time your router stops working wirelessly and you really need to log in via Ethernet to fix the configuration… hope you’ve got that USB adaptor with you.

Spoken like a person who has owned many a faulty PC’s. I have never had an ethernet port stop working on any of my Macs. I have also found my 802.11 N faster than my old 10/100 ethernet. You can also login via bluetooth.

Post mortem: Yes, there are some really nice features of the MacBook Air: the multi-touch trackpad, the fact that it doesn’t have a tiny, cramped keyboard like many ultraportables, some clever workarounds for the fact that it doesn’t have an optical drive — the ability to comandeer another Mac’s drive over a network, and so on.
But the fact is, apart from the screen and keyboard size, everything else in the MacBook Air is a big compromise.
People who were looking for a viable “pro” upgrade path for their PowerBook G4 12″ will be disappointed, as will anyone who wanted a lighter version of the MacBook Pro.
Will it be a success? I’m willing to bet that there will be an initial rush of sales from people who want the hottest, latest, slimmest thing in the airport gate lounge, but for the rest of us, who are balancing the specs with the portability, the MacBook Air will ultimately turn out to be a sales dud.

I disagree with the sales dud comment. I do believe that sales will be lower than that of the other MacBook lines. But the entire ultra portable market is smaller - it’s to be expected. I do believe it will pave the way for the rest of the MacBook line. If Apple were to release a 17 inch ultra portable I would pick it up. I don’t use wires, and I don’t use the optical drive.

This is definitely an early adopter product, and Apple may be on the cutting edge, but that means they have more room to grow rather than to play catch up.

And no I’m not talking about the CES Warner Announcement of going to Blu-Ray only. I’m talking about Steve Job’s Keynote at MacWorld today.

Most people (including me) have been waiting for Blu-Ray or HD-DVD to win before making the HD Media plunge. No one wants to support a dying or dead medium and having to re-invest in the other. Everyone has been waiting for all of the Studios to support one.

It looked like Blu-Ray was going to win with the Warner Studios announcement of Blu only. I heard Warner’s announcement and thought the last two studios would surely cave toward the Blu camp, and I think they still will make the move to Blu.

Let me Tarantino a bit. I’ve been using a hacked XBox and XBox Media Center for a few years now. I rip all most of my DVD’s on a cheap linux server, soon to become a NAS. I can view  all of my movies without getting up from the couch and sorting through 600 or so Discs. As HD-DVD and Blu-Ray started closing in on release dates, I started to think about the possibility of using physical media again. I’ve gotta say,  I’m pretty opposed to it. The idea of not having all of my content at my finger tips sounds antiquated. Having to run through the house to find out which room I left a disc in is worse. I am a quality freak. I like the best stuff (at least what I can afford), so I was constantly waiting for a HD format to win. Which by the way is taking forever.

Here comes an announcement from Apple. They’re updating their Apple TV along with a price drop that brings the price lower than Blu-Ray and almost as low as the lowest priced HD-DVD unit. Not only that, but with their new rental service offering HD movies and content from all the major studios, they’re offering exactly what I wanted. All the studio’s content, not having to leave the couch to watch content, or the house to rent it.  All of this at a lower price than the current HD competitors.

Apple has it, they have the right combination of offerings to make it work. If they push it correctly it will be a major contender in the HD format. I do think that Blu-Ray will still do well after all the studios commit to the format. Mostly because people are creatures of habit, they will continue to go to blockbuster and rent; they understand - put some sort of media in a machine, press play and it works. Some people just want to do things the way they always have, touch physical media.