MacBook Air NOT doing well sales wise in local store

[rotorblade69]

Although you asked this question of Scotsdale, I wanted to comment, too. Like you, I can't see Apple dropping the Air out of its lineup in favor of the iPad. The iPad, even if it did get "Airized" (nice word, by the way), has too many deficiencies for business use, it seems to me. It's very cool but it's designed for consumers, not business users. I think that most business users would insist that any device they used have the features of a real computer, not a jumped up smart phone.

No worries, all thoughts and input is welcome. I agree with you and scottsdale that the iPad is a consumer device. When I heard that it used an iPhone iPod Touch Processor just bumped up in speed I was instantly saying "WTF UH What is the point then". I see the point of the iPad. But I also in the iPad an infant, a device in its infancy stage. Much like the very first generation iPod, that has essentially grown up to become the iPod Touch.
What I'm saying is that a business user would be more willing to drop the coin on the Pro model and have the clout.
Some have said that Apple might drop the Air and do the whole Airized 13" and 15" Pro models to get rid of the stigma of the first gen airs problems. We can all agree they F'ed it in the A the first time around with the integrated graphics.

Oh and yes I have heard the sentiment many a time from many different retailers about the air. From Micro Center, Best Buys sales personnel tell me that they sell very few airs. I have had Apple store employees state (NOT in store by the way) its drooled over, but most are very skeptical about it due to what they hear from their friend who had the original first gen air. The customer would state that their friend couldn't even watch you tube it would freeze up. Hard to sell them something that has the same name and the same look (exactly the same look by the way) that their good friend had such a nightmare over or even sold at such a loss.


Just for clarification:
Air > Bye bye
13" 15" MBP > airized No optical.
iPad > becomes in apples mind a ultra portable, or in their mind a netbook replacement. I am not saying it is something that should be done needs done or will be done, just something Apple might consider.


Oh and thanks i've got a dozen or so.
Airized
Airish
Aired
Aired Out
Airing


Chris

 

[Scottsdale]

I'm not so enthusiastic about the iPad. Apple believes the iPhone's success means it's browser is adequate - it is not. Those getting the iPad will find out why, unfortunately.

Precisely, the iPhone can not have a fully capable browser and live with it, because it's a PHONE first and foremost. The iPad is sold as a consumer device that offers a better experience than a netbook, but a netbook can surf the entire web. This Flash issue isn't as simple as asking NYTimes.com and WSJ.com to migrate from Flash to HTML5 and h.264.

The more I try to look at an iPad to full fill a role in the future for me the more I look at an air. And the over all problem is lack of flash.
But to me the Air is the future. Do you see the MBP's becoming Airized and the Air Being EOL in totality? Leaving the iPad to fill the shoes of the air, for worse I know it can't but its apples call. The underlined portion above is me. I think that a Updated MBA for me and the iPad for the wife would be the best bet right now. She gets something to IM Chat Twitter and surf anything that requires flash she can borrow my Air. I get A notebook that can actually be used on the web and can do the business, she gets an ability to surf the web.
So in some aspect your right the iPad will sell an Air. But a 15"MBP airized will sell an MBA or 13"MBP Airized. 15" MBP airized for me 13MBP Airized for her.


Chris

I see the Air as always pushing the limits of ultra-portability yet able to do full-fledged work. When the MBPs get "Airized" the MBA will further explore the limits of extremely lightweight and futuristic computing. Wherever the idea or concept of the ultra-portable Mac goes, the MBA will have been the original inspiration whether it's called an MBA or not. Let's not worry about the name or design, let's worry about Apple taking care of the needs we have for power and performance, yet the wants we have of extreme ultra-portability. I am sure the iPad will give Apple ideas for the Mac notebooks whether it's something physical or the software or business model. But the role of the MBA isn't going anywhere. We're a nice market segment willing to pay more money for not just the OS X experience but also the lightweight yet fully capable Mac experience. I see a bright future for the essence of the MBA's role. I see EOL of the MBA brand as irrelevant to our demands.

 

[Deanster]

I've had my MacBook Air Rev. A since the first week they came out, so it's a little over two years old now.

I've been deeply surprised by this computer, and that my complaints aren't where I thought they'd be. I thought processor speed, hard drive space and ports would be my issues.

The processor is just fine. I use it for web, e-mail, MS Office, Keynote for both creating and presenting large, graphically complex presentations, iTunes, iCal, and chat. It's plenty fast. Not earth-shattering, but my desktop is a 27" i5 iMac, and I don't find that the Air's speed bothers me at all.

The hard drive is plenty big. I don't keep much on my Air. Just my current folder, which is rarely more than a gig or so, and another ~20-30 gigs of iTunes music/movies/TV shows that I dump onto the Air from my iMac before a trip. I find myself wishing for the 64Gig SSD, in fact, as size is so much not an issue that I'd happily trade size for speed. More on that later.

Ports - ports have turned out to be not a problem. I have the external CD drive, and have used it twice, both times to install MS Office. Otherwise, it sits on the shelf. I have the ethernet dongle, and have used it a couple times, either to speed up network transfers at home, or when traveling where there was only an Ethernet connection. I'd rather have GigE onboard, but it's never been an issue. A couple times I've had to unplug a memory stick to put in another USB device, but having only one USB port hasn't been a big deal. Lack of Firewire is also not a hassle, much to my surprise.

So, the three that I'd expected to be a problem really haven't been. At all.

Surprisingly, my big complaints about my MBA are: slow hard drive, slow charging, rapid discharge when sleeping, and the crappy speaker.

Slow hard drive - it's not as bad as I thought it might be, but I really want the SSD model. It was price-prohibitive when I bought mine, but geez...

The battery life on the MBA is... OK. Nothing special, but until the unibody MBP's and their crazy-long battery life arrived, the MBA was in the same general category as other laptops. But recharging takes FOREVER. The discharge-recharge cycle is really long, and makes it painful to risk letting the battery get low. This means my most-mobile computer is most likely to be tethered to a power source.

Similarly, after a day or two in my computer bag, asleep and untouched, my MBA is likely to have 30% battery remaining... so it's again needing to be tethered to a power cord.

The speaker sucks. I know it's an ultra-thin laptop, and that compromises abound, but geez... it's worse than standard Macbook speakers, which are some of the worst in any laptop on the market. The jump up to the 15/17" MBP is amazing - these have great speakers.


Long story short... My MBA has been a great little computer. It's fast, capable, and truly multi-functional. The screen and keyboard are full-sized, and excellent. The power issues are really the only thing keeping it from being the best laptop I've ever owned. My primary concerns turned out to be non-issues.

and I'll be getting an iPad, not to replace my MBA, but to replace my Kindle, and then to have a long-battery-life companion to the MBA. I don't look at the iPad as a competitor to the MBA, but as a really good complement - iPad for browsing, fiddling, and minor edits in a long-life, super-portable format, and MBA for typing, desktop apps, and 'real' work.

 

[gwsat]

Lack of Firewire is also not a hassle, much to my surprise.

But recharging takes FOREVER. The discharge-recharge cycle is really long, and makes it painful to risk letting the battery get low. This means my most-mobile computer is most likely to be tethered to a power source.

Similarly, after a day or two in my computer bag, asleep and untouched, my MBA is likely to have 30% battery remaining... so it's again needing to be tethered to a power cord.

Deanster -- An interesting post, thanks. Nevertheless, I have only quoted the parts that I will be responding to.

I have recently confirmed that the lack of a FireWire port should not be a big deal. Until recently my first and only external hard drive was a 250Gb FW 800/400 drive I got from OWC more than 5 years ago. It is still in daily use as a network drive. Recently, though, I got a super lightweight (9.5 Oz) 640Gb Toshiba USB drive to use as a backup device for Windows 7 running in a Fusion virtual machine on my Macbook Pro. I found it at Amazon and, in the immortal words of Gilda Radner's Roseanne Rosannada, "It was rill chip." (I use Time Machine and a Time Capsule to backup the OS X side of my Macbook Pro.)

After getting the Toshiba USb drive setup I discovered to my delight that it is plenty fast using only USB 2.0. Early results lead me to believe that it will be just what the doctor ordered.

The serious drain of your MBA's battery, even when it's in sleep mode, would worry me. I have found that my 2007 model MBP's battery retains its full charge even after it's been asleep for a couple of days.

I am hoping against hope that Apple will either upgrade the MBA or offer a super lightweight "Airized" 13 inch MBP. If I could upgrade the RAM to 8Gb on one of then, so that it could comfortably run Fusion and Windows, I would buy it in a minute.

Would it be possible to use another computer's DVD drive via a USB connection to install software from a DVD onto a MBA, or is a dedicated external drive required.?

 

[Alkiera]

The battery thing is odd. I too have a RevA MBA, bought the first weekend they were out. Mine rides in my backpack all the time, and very rarely do I notice significant power loss while it's asleep.

Is it possible it's not actually sleeping, just turning the screen off?


I agree it can take awhile to charge, which is unfortunate, but I tend to leave it plugged in overnight, and that's usually enough for my daily usage at the moment.

 

[Deanster]

It's definitely sleeping. Screen dark, I hear the hard drive head park, the sleep LED pulsates, etc.

It is weird, and it may be unique to my MBA - I perhaps should have taken it for warranty work when it was in-warranty.

I also charge overnight, but it's notable that I rarely take my MBA anywhere without the charger riding along.

I think the hard one for me is when I put the run-down MBA on the charger at noon, come back at 3pm, and find that it's only at 75%... I've owned a couple dozen laptops, and have had the MBA for more than two years, and it STILL catches me by surprise, cuz it's so far outside my expectations. Not sure if the Rev. B/C models are better in this regard.

Would I buy a Rev. D MBA? hard to say... with an iPad in hand, I might be more likely to go for a 13/15" MBP, and figure that the iPad is for lightweight high-mobility situations, and the larger screen/better speakers of the MBP is for more-general use away from home. But we'll need to see.

 

[PsyD4Me]

it needs a case redesign, otherwise the shiny black MBP's are more cooler looking and eye catching in the store

 

[gwsat]

it needs a case redesign, otherwise the shiny black MBP's are more cooler looking and eye catching in the store

The thing I like best about the MBA is it's case design. I love its thinness and light weight. If so many other of its features weren't substandard by current standards, I would have one by now. What aspects of the MBA's case design don't you like?

 

[chrono1081]

I cant WAIT to get a MBA myself. Its the perfect machine for me.

I'm not surprised that its not the hottest seller. Like others have said its a niche product, and an excellent one at that. For the person who travels a lot and needs more then a netbook this thing is perfect. I almost walked out of my bestbuy with one today but I'm holding on for the refresh.

 

[BeachChair]

I would love to be a MBA owner some day, but the fundamental stuff like ram, batteri, trackpad and heat/noise management has to be brought up to the MBP standard I'm become used to.

 

[Huubster]

I simply cannot imagine the MBA being anyone's sole machine - it should be a supplementary computer that can be conveniently taken anywhere. The fact that is was designed to link to another Apple computer's DVD drive is proof of that, imo.

When I look around me most friends and family use their computer to browse internet, write email, write the occasional letter, manage their digital photos, do some multimedia things and maybe chat. Except for the lack of internal storage space the Rev C MBA is more than decently specced for that. (I desperately wait for the rev D though)
I got the (stupid) Super Drive to discover that I use it once every 4 months on average.
Now I am sidetracking, but I think that optical drives are a species due to be extinct. Declining sales and disappointing success of Blue Ray are proof of that. Its just the movie and music industry who desperately try to shove the shiny disks down our throats instead of becoming inventive on the internet.

The MBA is my one and only primary computer. My job is technical and IT related.

 

[mashinhead]

This isn't surprising at all. I used to work at an apple store and this was obviously the pre-ipad days and i had a hard time even recommending it then. Remember the ipad keynote when Steve was talking about netbooks just being cheaper slower laptops, well thats what an MBA, except it's not cheap at all. I think with the intro of the ipad this product will die, its only attribute is that its thin and light. It's not powerful enough to even run most software well, it can't tap the app store, and its not cheap. Whats the point? I meant you can find them on ebay for like $600, if that's any indicator. I feel real bad for the people that bought the first gen one.

 

[JoeG4]

The MacBook Air is like a cross between Netbooks and notebooks; it is low power and has a large screen.

5 or 6 years ago it would've been perfect for me. Back then, I never used my laptop for anything meaningful. Now, I actually do work on them and thus have to carry around this 7lb monster XD

 

[gwsat]

When I look around me most friends and family use their computer to browse internet, write email, write the occasional letter, manage their digital photos, do some multimedia things and maybe chat. Except for the lack of internal storage space the Rev C MBA is more than decently specced for that. (I desperately wait for the rev D though)
I got the (stupid) Super Drive to discover that I use it once every 4 months on average.
Now I am sidetracking, but I think that optical drives are a species due to be extinct. Declining sales and disappointing success of Blue Ray are proof of that. Its just the movie and music industry who desperately try to shove the shiny disks down our throats instead of becoming inventive on the internet.

The MBA is my one and only primary computer. My job is technical and IT related.

If rev D has slots for memory modules instead of hardwired RAM, I will buy one. For the moment, though, my needs make the rev C MBA unacceptable because of its 2Gb RAM limitation.

You mentioned your Super Drive, which gives rise to a question: Is it necessary to use a dedicated external DVD drive with the MBA or would it be possible to somehow use the DVD drive in another Mac to install new software on an MBA?

 

[gglockner]

Is it necessary to use a dedicated external DVD drive with the MBA or would it be possible to somehow use the DVD drive in another Mac to install new software on an MBA?

You can share a drive in another Mac or Windows computer:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1777

You can also install software by copying the disk images to a USB flash drive.

 

[miniConvert]

The Macbook Air is a fantastic machine but it's an incredibly niche product. It's important that it forms part of Apple's notebook lineup, but I doubt it ever has been, or ever will be, a big seller. Its price should justify continued development.

I'll certainly continue to buy them.

 

[gwsat]

You can share a drive in another Mac or Windows computer:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1777

You can also install software by copying the disk images to a USB flash drive.

Thanks so much for the link! It gave me just the answer I was looking for. That was the first good news I had read about the MBA in awhile.

 

[Scottsdale]

The Macbook Air is a fantastic machine but it's an incredibly niche product. It's important that it forms part of Apple's notebook lineup, but I doubt it ever has been, or ever will be, a big seller. Its price should justify continued development.

I'll certainly continue to buy them.

When it gets the brand MacBook "Pro" label printed on it, it will surely sell much better. Apple uses the MBA to introduce new technology, and the design has to be the future of MBPs (first ones without optical drives). We all know Blu Ray is a "bag of hurt" so Apple doesn't want to sell it even as a BTO upgrade for huge margins. So for Apple's strategy, an optical drive will become meaningless and ultimately be removed from the MBPs. In truth, the DVD/CD "SuperDrive" is nearly useless and most people have a BluRay (backwards compatible DVD/CD player) in another Mac or computer to use when needed for app install. In the future, downloads of apps or USB drives will probably be used to distribute apps. I could even see Apple maybe providing an external SuperDrive for the first few revisions of MBPs without them internally.

But I believe the MBA's design will find its way into future Mac notebooks. Apple specifically developed the MBA to test new technologies and prepare them for the MBPs. This is of course all my opinion, but I think the past proves that Apple has big plans for this form factor. I am sure Apple will make it a lot different, but as someone else has declared it, "Airized" the MBP will become one day.

I see the MBA taking ultraportability to the extreme once the MBPs get "Airized." I believe the people willing to pay a premium for extreme portability yet MB like power will always (relative term) have a Mac product to buy that will suit their wants and needs.

 

[pmichellon]

I bought the Macbook Air one month ago. It's the 2.13 Ghz / 128 Go SSD version.

Being a PC user as well, all I can say is that I'm very happy with the Air. I have hard times to understand why people complain about this laptop. I spend most of my time in airports and hotel rooms. Since I have this computer, I can work, skype my family, surf on the internet, update my website, ... without having to carry heavy hardware anymore. Unlike most PCs, it boots very fast and turns off in 2 seconds. 2 Go of RAM is more than enough. Even Photoshop CS3 runs perfectly (heats the Air after an hour but again to edit several pictures, it is ok). Even the battery is ok. One can easily watch a full movie and work after that.

I was waiting for the iPad announcement but when I saw what this new product would be, I decided to go for the Air immediately. No regrets ! Adding the optional keyboard and potentially a camera to the iPad would make the whole thing heavier than the Air.

I must admit the original price for the Air is high. But I bought it second hand from someone who could not get used to Mac OS X. I paid 1200 USD and bought an Appelcare contract for less than 120 USD. Found the Superdrive for 45 USD. I guess you can get more featured loaded laptops for the same price but nothing so thin, classy and easy to use.

 

[gwsat]

I bought the Macbook Air one month ago. It's the 2.13 Ghz / 128 Go SSD version.

Being a PC user as well, all I can say is that I'm very happy with the Air. I have hard times to understand why people complain about this laptop. I spend most of my time in airports and hotel rooms. Since I have this computer, I can work, skype my family, surf on the internet, update my website, ... without having to carry heavy hardware anymore. Unlike most PCs, it boots very fast and turns off in 2 seconds. 2 Go of RAM is more than enough. Even Photoshop CS3 runs perfectly (heats the Air after an hour but again to edit several pictures, it is ok). Even the battery is ok. One can easily watch a full movie and work after that.

I was waiting for the iPad announcement but when I saw what this new product would be, I decided to go for the Air immediately. No regrets ! Adding the optional keyboard and potentially a camera to the iPad would make the whole thing heavier than the Air.

I must admit the original price for the Air is high. But I bought it second hand from someone who could not get used to Mac OS X. I paid 1200 USD and bought an Appelcare contract for less than 120 USD. Found the Superdrive for 45 USD. I guess you can get more featured loaded laptops for the same price but nothing so thin, classy and easy to use.

I agree that the MBA's ergonomics and extreme light weight are impressive indeed. I would be perfectly willing to pay Apple's premium price for one of them but for its extremely limited 2Gb of RAM. I recognize that you and many others don't need more RAM for the apps you run. Unfortunately, though, I need any Mac computer I buy to be able to run Windows in Unity mode in a Fusion virtual machine. Alas, I have learned the hard way that 2 Gb of RAM is simply inadequate to allow me to do that satisfactorily.