Apple Fell Too Far From The Tree This Time

So the keynote has come and gone. My pre­dic­tion like many oth­ers didn’t pan out as expected. The Mac­Book Air is yet one of Apple’s many love-it-or-hate-it prod­ucts. It appeals to some but cer­tainly not all. I think the biggest prob­lem Apple made is in the pric­ing. The price just isn’t in line with the raw specs. The gen­eral con­sumer isn’t going to care or even nec­es­sar­ily under­stand that a hard drive with a smaller form fac­tor is more expen­sive than a larger one with the same capac­ity. (e.g. The Mac­Book Air packs a 1.8″ hard drive and not a typ­i­cal 2.5″ one.) Espe­cially con­sid­er­ing their own base Mac­Book is 67% faster with 20% more bat­tery life (user-replaceable) for 39% less money and only for 67% more weight (not that 5 lbs is really all that heavy to begin with). Would it really have been that hard for Apple to iMac-ify their entire note­book prod­uct line, upgrade the touch­pads to use the new mul­ti­touch fea­tures, put LED back­lights across the prod­uct line, apply some of the Mac­Book Air design ideas like drop­ping the super-drive? That would prob­a­bly shed a pound off the base Mac­Book in which case it’s 4 lbs ver­sus MBA’s 3 lbs in the same foot­print if not the same vol­ume. Per­haps like the New­ton, the Mac­Book Air is ahead of its time. Then again it may be so off the mark it’ll die a slow death unlike the Palm Folio. Judg­ing from the com­ments at var­i­ous sites and forums, I wasn’t the only one hop­ing for a Mac­Book redesign which is arguably long over­due. Con­sumers weren’t the only ones who were dis­ap­pointed. Wall Street saw a drop in the stock price which I’m sure will be made up sooner or later. On a good note, the Apple TV is more appeal­ing, but I would still rather get a Mac Mini and turn it into a MythTV fron­tend. So much more ver­sa­tile. But before that hap­pens I need to fin­ish out­fit­ting my MythTV server.