I get it now...

[kapolani]

Received my Air 13" 4GB/128GB a few days ago. First Mac, ever. I used to be anti apple. Not sure why. Thought they were all tree hugging, granola eating, hippies.

I understand why now. I understand what it is about these machines. It truly is a beautiful machine. Very light. Fast. Can handle everything I've thrown at it. HD movies, games, programming. I love this thing.

From reading threads here I decided to stay away from 10.6.7 and upgraded from stock 10.6.5 and went to 10.6.6.

The only app I've downloaded so far is FaceTime.

What are your top apps?

Looking for a semi good looking, rugged case for this thing too. Haven't found one I like yet.

 

[ECUpirate44]

Welcome to Mac everyone will come to the bright side eventually.

Go ahead and grab 10.6.7. Theres really no reason not to.

Look in the Mac App store. Some of the free ones I use often are alfred, coconut battery, handbrake, chrome, hulu, mac the ripper, and skype.

Incase is a popular brand.

 

[McGiord]

Vlc

 

[gglockner]

From reading threads here I decided to stay away from 10.6.7 and upgraded from stock 10.6.5 and went to 10.6.6.

Looking for a semi good looking, rugged case for this thing too. Haven't found one I like yet.

Not sure why you're staying away from 10.6.7. It's stable and contains all the latest security features.

As for a case, the most flexible option is to get a sleeve. With a sleeve, you can put the MBA in a variety of different bags, depending on your mood and needs.

 

[slapguts]

Congrats, and feel free to upgrade to 10.6.7. There was a small patch released that fixed all of the issues. It'll show up in 'Software Update'.

 

[MBA13]

See thread...
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1122278/

6.7 is fine...

Also, note after a few years your laptop will still appeal to you as looking new. Own a plastic PC laptop for one year and it looks like A$$.

FYI the hard shell cover from ipearl found on amazon work very well, lots of colors to choose just make sure you get the right cover for your model MBA.

 

[lucashungaro]

10.6.7 causes gaming performance to drop drastically if you use a combo update. Since you're already on 10.6.6 you can download the 10.6.7 patch from http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1363 and install it. Then you need to install the Supplemental Update for MB Air: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1370

That way you won't have any issues. Do not use the combo update.

Some apps I use and like: Dropbox, Droplr, Jumpcut, Breeze, Caffeine, 1Password, TextMate, Fluid, Reeder, VLC and uTorrent.

 

[ditosou]

hummmm.....

I work in informatics area (both research and teatching) and I used to be a Windows user almost all of my lifetime.... I gave a change to apple five years ago....

From my experience I think that: you will never leave apple again and you will use a mac computer forever. (only keep something like Vmware with windows in your mac if you need some specific proprietary windows app... not very common but sometimes can be usefull)

 

[Dougef]

Just bought a 13in MBA this week. I ordered and received a Waterfield Design slip case from http://www.sfbags.com and really like it. Very sturdy and good looking.

Was never an Apple fan, but got the iPhone last year and in my occassional visits to an Apple store, kept eyeing the MBA's. Finally went for it. So far so good.

 

[IngerMan]

I have been a Mac user for the last 3 years and will never go back.

I have the cargo bag and sleeve from sfbags.com, I really like the smaller size. I also just installed the iCarbon skin.

Enjoy your new MBA

 

[kapolani]

I have a pretty nice setup at home that I develop on for my window's and linux projects. I installed Parallels on the Air and used it all weekend. Very capable little machine. The 13" resolution is perfect for coding.

I'm running a bunch of apps in the background and haven't noticed any lag/slowdown etc. Love it!

It's taking me a little while to get used to the keyboard. Either the spacing of the keys are a little different than what I'm used to or the low profile keys are throwing me off. Not sure yet.

So far I've installed:

Caffeine
VLC
Google Notifier
Skype and FaceTime
Coconut

I can't seem to put this damn thing down. I would recommend this machine to anyone. Resistance is futile...

 

[maclaptop]

Welcome to Mac everyone will come to the bright side eventually.

In my world there is nothing but sunshine with Macs & PC' s.

All it takes is an open mind and understanding that just like people, there are differences.

I celebrate that and greatly enjoy both.

 

[Stingray454]

Glad to hear you like it, welcome to join us tree hugging, granola eating hippies

Some apps I'd recommend:

VLC, great video viewer

Adium - the must have app for MSN, ICQ or whatever IM you use (it supports a ton of them, if not all)

Microsoft office (yes, really) - no matter how "macified" you are, you always get sent word documents or excel spreadsheets (or have to create some youtself). Somehow Pages, Open Office or similar solutions always seem to screw up the layout of the documents or such. Imo, the "real" office works best.

uTorrent - excellent, light-weight torrent client.

Coda - I do some web development, and this is an awesome editor for that.

Photoshop - probably the most used image editor, for a reason. Great for both professional work, or for touching up photos, resizing images and whatnot.

Path Finder - personally I hate Finder. It's very limited in some ways, and this solves everything I don't like about it. Folders on top, cut-and-paste files, dual list views and tabs to name a few things.

Firefox - My personal favourite browser because of all the addons available.

Transmit - Nice FTP client

Twitteriffic - my favourite twitter client

There are ofc tons and tons of other good software, but these are the ones I use most myself.

 

[ZipZap]

haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I work in informatics area (both research and teatching) and I used to be a Windows user almost all of my lifetime.... I gave a change to apple five years ago....

From my experience I think that: you will never leave apple again and you will use a mac computer forever. (only keep something like Vmware with windows in your mac if you need some specific proprietary windows app... not very common but sometimes can be usefull)

Most that continue to use Windows inside some form of VM are not doing so for that one proprietary program. There are many, many applications that windows simply does better.

Each platform does certain tasks very well. I dont think an Apple will ever come to replace a PC. Its not really Apple's goal.

Apple is still way too proprietary for me

Enjoy your Mac!

 

[bpaluzzi]

Most that continue to use Windows inside some form of VM are not doing so for that one proprietary program. There are many, many applications that windows simply does better.

Each platform does certain tasks very well. I dont think an Apple will ever come to replace a PC. Its not really Apple's goal.

Apple is still way too proprietary for me

Enjoy your Mac!

Hrmm, the only thing that I (and my coworkers) use VMWare for is running IE, so we can test sites/apps on it. Not trying to be a jerk, but what programs run better on Windows?

 

[DaveOZ]

I only use Windows under VM Fusion for motorsport specific data acquisition programs that only run on windows communicating via USB. Funny thing is they seem to be more stable this way and it saves me carrying two laptops.

 

[kapolani]

I code realtime simulation programs that only run in windows. Another simulation I work on runs on linux. I use Netbeans/Eclipse/Visual Studio/QT.

I _have_ to run those two OS'es to program. I can't run any huge scenarios, but I can get enough up to test entities etc.

The more I use this machine the more I love it.

 

[jayo123456]

cool....now go tell all the other apple haters what they're missin out on.

hearing haters yap about apple, who've never owned an apple machine before ......is quite irritating.

 

[MBA13]

As far as torrent client I recently tried Transmission and found better connections, stuff (big and rare) that used to take days only take a day at most now. I have Comcast, dont know if they are targeting utorrent traffic, last I knew they were not (at least not in my neck of the woods). But if one is troubleshooting, give Transmission a try, you may be surprised.

 

[steadysignal]

Received my Air 13" 4GB/128GB a few days ago. First Mac, ever.

welcome aboard.

make sure you check out macupdates.com. there may still be a spring bundle up there that will help you get started apps-wise. if not, the bundles are great way to get many apps for a low price.

 

[jamesryanbell]

Not sure why you're staying away from 10.6.7. It's stable and contains all the latest security features.

As for a case, the most flexible option is to get a sleeve. With a sleeve, you can put the MBA in a variety of different bags, depending on your mood and needs.

There's a thread on it. It kills framerates in games.

 

[tom.bcn]

make sure you check out macupdates.com

I think you mean macupdate.com (singular). "Other Mac software sites are available"

 

[kapolani]

I think you mean macupdate.com (singular). "Other Mac software sites are available"

Thanks for the correction.

macupdate.com looks like a nice repository of apps.

Any others that I should be aware of?

 

[mrsir2009]

I'm on 10.6.7 on my MacBook Pro and its fine... Don't see any reason why you wouldn't do the update?

 

[Bakari45]

Congrats on your first Mac.

There’s no problem upgrading to the latest OS system. You should keep your Mac updated always, unless there’s a specific reason/conflict not to.

Also, if you decide to do a clean re-install of the system, check out this MacRumor post: http://bit.ly/dWInmL

Finally, in terms of apps, just open the App Store app on your Mac and check out all the software on there, and download based on your needs. Personally i try to keep my MBA free of stuff I don’t really need. I use cloud computing a lot with the Air.