There’s something in the Air: awe.
by moose
Do not be fooled by what you read on the Web.
The MacBook Air is truely awesome.
And there was NO disappointment when Jobs announced it.
I was in San Francisco for the Expo, and since I couldn’t get access to the Keynote, I followed it using the various live transcripts on the Web. As soon as Teh Steve had finished, I went to the show floor and had a chance to have a look at both the machine itself and the crowd’s reactions.
Well, I can tell you it’s a truly beautiful device, it actually feels way lighter than it really is, but maybe that is because we are not used to lift full-sized laptops that weigh so little. It teriggers the same instant lust as the iPhone does: when you see it in pictures, it looks nice and all, but the moment you actually handle one, you just WANT one. My preciousssssss.
And the whole crowd was as enthusiast as I was, there was almost as many people crowding around the displays as when the iPhone was announced, although this time there was quite a large number of machines that people could actually use, lift, open and close as much as they wanted.
So, that’s for personal and floor-crowd reactions. But what about Keynote attendees? Well, I just watched the Keynote’s podcast and one thins amazed me: when big announcements are made by Jobs, they usually trigger wild cheers, applause, whistles… but this time, when he takes the MacBook Air out of the (now famous) manilla envelope, you can hear a general “ohhhhhh”… and not of joy or pleasure or disappointment, no, it’s the sound of several thousand people IN AWE (1).
So don’t believe tech pundits and bloggers who write articles and posts about how people were disappointed by the Air and so on. Maybe said pundits were, but the MacWorld crowd sure wasn’t.
(1) Awe, according to the Oxford dictionary, is “a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder”.
January 21st, 2008 at 06:16 CET
Yes, Yes, yes… My Dear
But 2008 is the year of the sub-notebook under 500 €… 299 € fot the succesful Asus EEE ! Acer, Gigabyte, MSI….. Many sub notebooks with Linux at low-cost are coming from them…. The real new big market without Apple…
A Mac at home, an Asus EEE on the road !
January 21st, 2008 at 08:17 CET
Hmm, not sure about the (in)famous Eee… it actually gets bad reviews from “normal” people. Once the “OMG it’s cheap” stage has been passed, it seems people find out it’s actually a really slow machine with a tiny screen and keyboard.
And the whole idea of a tiny ultraportable is quite asian/geek in my opinion. Average “on-the-go users” (like me) are more likely to be ready to carry around a couple extra pounds to be able to have a “regular” laptop (screen and keyboard).