New iPods fulfill the "amazing new products" remark?
The iPods, even if the Touch is updated to match the iPhone4, would be a rather modest payoff on a very big-sounding "amazing new" promise.
Was the quote "amazing new products" or was it some word other than "products"? Was it vague enough to encompas services, too? I suppose if Apple manages to sign deals with movie companies, that a new service (using the increased capacity of the new server farm) could be part of what's "amazing (and) new". Though a service like that doesn't presently interest me.
What does interest me is - Can or will Apple actually deliver on its "MOBILITY" rhetoric? I do not need a keyboardless phone (i.e., trying to dial a call in sunlight can be hard) that does 300 miscellaneous things.... while dropping 20-30% of its calls in Manhattan... and having glass with exposed edges on front and back as if it's almost "designed to break".
The "Touch" is in that 'mobile' category too, but I have no need for something duplicating what my smartphone does.
What I do need is for the "mobile" spin talk to actually get applied to Apple's long in the tooth laptops.... which look more portable than they really are... if you try to lift one. They're all very overweight, except the Air. The Air and the plastic MacBook's cases are so fragile, that it's a stretch to say they work for the truly mobile worker.
If you add a pound or two of padding to a MacBook Air before slipping it into a shoulder bag, (which maybe slightly helps the hinge-area problem.... but surely doesn't help the "white donut" problem or the gouged-bezel problem which are caused by forces acting in a crushing direction), THEN you've lost that big attraction of "3-pounds"-plus-charging-brick weight. And since Apple neglects to offer a 3G modem, you buy that in the form of an accessory dangling off the side, which of course then destroys the Air's wonderful aesthetic slickness which you just paid a premium for.
All this while the competition has equally light notebooks, with all the Air's missing features -- options for internal cellular modems, big enough RAM, big enough memory, a better keyboard (the thinkpads), etc.
"Thin", by itself, means nothing to the mobile worker. Lightness does. But it has to be lightness with durability and battery life... in a world with what seems a declining number of power outlets for the mobile worker to mooch off. And in a world where nearly everyone seems to be locking up their Wi-Fi modems, "MOBILITY" requires the Air to succeed at 4 things: Light+Durable+long battery life+3G.
An antiquated design which succeeds at only 1 out of 4 of those criteria... is a design tthat acheives the aesthetic image of "mobility", more than the substance of mobility.
Emergency Room doctor: "So, the law requires me to ask.... how did you break your foot?"
Patient: "I dropped my heavy MacBook Pro, which is easy to do since it has no handle or gripping-traction surfaces or grippable shapes of any kind -- in its design. Even though it was designed by "a mobility company."
C'mon, Apple. Time to start living up to the "mobility" rhetoric, in the smaller end of your laptop line!
