
The MacBook Air Tugs at My Heartstrings - jmartellaro
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/the_macbook_air_tugs_at_my_heartstrings/
======
eropple
"If the Mac company were a separate company, and the iPad company were a
separate company, what would the Mac company build to compete with the iPad?
And I think the answer is the MacBook Air." - Steve Jobs

This seriously sums it up for me. I've recently moved a decent amount of my
computing and my work to Apple hardware (Mac mini with a couple of hard drives
as an iOS machine, Macbook Air as my usual laptop, iPad 2--still have the
Windows demon-machine desktop, though). The Air was the last purchase; before
that I had a Thinkpad X201, and briefly an X220 for test-driving purposes. And
I found that I never actually wanted to use the laptop; it felt crippled and
slow and all of these things when it really wasn't. But dragging the machine
out, sitting down to focus on it--so many little factors started to add up,
and I thought at the time that the iPad 2 was really a laptop killer.

Then I got an 11" Air with a 128GB SSD, and realized that wasn't the case. I
was pretty skeptical at first: 4GB RAM? My Thinkpad had 8GB. 1.7GHz i5? My
Thinkpad had a 2.5GHz i5. It was going to be lame--I wasn't going to get
anything done on such an _under-specced_ machine.

Turns out it really wasn't a problem. I run Windows and OS X on the Air, and
everything I've got, from Photoshop and Illustrator to Visual Studio, works
just fine on the machine. The only time I've even heard the fans was when I
was building coretools from MacPorts (because the BSD tools aren't compatible
with some scripts I've written and carted around for years on my Unix
machines). The smaller size of the machine seems to be a benefit in ways other
than portability, though I'm having trouble really expressing why; I find I
focus very well and am surprisingly productive when working on the Air, on par
with, if not better than, my desktop setup with three monitors and every bell,
whistle, and gong I could want. (It's not a Windows/OS X thing, either--I find
I'm more productive in either operating systme on the Air than on my previous
laptops.)

OS X isn't perfect, and neither is iOS or the iPad 2, but Apple has
demonstrated to me, even in a short period of time, why they're in the
position they're in: the Air really is the "laptop competitor" to the iPad 2
referenced in the Jobs quote above, and I think it does so fantastically (and
I think that's hardware more than software--as I've noted previously, I use
Windows and OS X on it in roughly equal amounts). I would have expected that
it'd shake out that the iPad 2 would stay home, but the weight of the iPad and
the Air together is barely noticeable so both tend to live in my laptop bag.
It's a slick arrangement, and the experience when using either of the products
--or both in concert; there are apps to make the iPad a secondary monitor for
the Air, for example--is really very rewarding and productive.

------
atldev
The one thing that prevents me from replacing my 13" MBPro with a new MBA is
the 4Gb memory limit. I know it's only a matter of time before they up it to
8. When they do...I'm sold.

~~~
alttag
Why does one need 8 GB? Often, the answer is increased speed with multiple or
complex applications. The MBA compensates with the flash HD, so that
operations still _feel_ faster, despite "only" 4 GB of RAM.

Try it. You might be surprised.

~~~
jinushaun
Parallels. Sure, I can Boot Camp into Windows, but I prefer OS X for my day-
to-day tasks and only use Windows for Visual Studio.

------
13rules
Why get the Macbook Air over the Pro? Are those of you that have the Air
really traveling that much and using it on the road? I would think that for
most developers and entrepreneurs they are in their office or setup somewhere
at a desk, even if on the road. Seriously curious...

I have a MacBook Pro that is a few years old -- recently swapped out my 500GB
regular hard drive for a 300GB flash drive. Biggest improvement of performance
ever! Runs so much faster - bigger jump than when I have upgraded to a new
MacBook in the past. If you do development, go out and get a flash drive NOW
... get and external HD for movies, photos, and music. Your apps will run SO
much faster.

~~~
molecule
I recently switched from 13" mbp to 11" mba for: half the weight, smaller
dimensions, better battery life, no un-needed legacy optical drive.

