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Mobius 1

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 11, 2011
456
0
USEA
K, so some of u guys see the MBA 11" lifted by helium balloon

greensboro_store_car_1.jpg


like that


turns out the balloon is plastic and possibly hanged from a wire

greensboro_store_car_2.jpg




see the hollow plastic balloon there?



or is me mistaken?



lol
 

PraisiX-windows

macrumors regular
May 19, 2011
185
0
It's just a marketing thing, but it looks cool.

Edit: - Did you crash your car into that building just to prove that?
 

Pracht

macrumors member
Jul 22, 2010
53
0
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

It's the display at my apple store too, and it CLEARY has a solid wire from the balloon to the ceiling.

I don't think they want peeps to actually believe it's a real balloon?
 

Xgm541

macrumors 65816
May 3, 2011
1,098
818
yeah i doubt anybody over the age of 10 would believe that the display was real.

While at it, we may as well complain that the 5 foot iPad models on display arent real.
 

MJedi

macrumors 6502a
Dec 16, 2010
898
386
Poor Apple Store! :eek:

At least it didn't hit the display tables. :D

Where did this happen, and how?

My local Apple Store has the same display. I know it's not a real balloon holding it up, but it is a great window display that catches the shoppers attention.

 
Last edited:

jdechko

macrumors 601
Jul 1, 2004
4,230
325
While at it, we may as well complain that the 5 foot iPad models on display arent real.

:mad: Thanks for spoiling it for the rest of us. At least put it in white so that people who want to read it have to highlight it.

Kidding.
 

Stetrain

macrumors 68040
Feb 6, 2009
3,550
20
If they used real balloons they would constantly have to replace them as they leaked down, people might mess with them, and they would get blown around with air currents.

Like everyone else said it's just a fun marketing display, I don't think it is meant to be taken literally.
 

Mobius 1

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 11, 2011
456
0
USEA
well none of my apple store has that lol

if the balloon was real would it really be able to lift that air?
 

MBABuyer

macrumors regular
May 4, 2011
153
0
VA
It would need to be a bigger balloon... just think about it, they use tiny weights to hold those things to the ground, even when grouped together. It would have to be slightly smaller than a weather balloon I bet
 

KylePowers

macrumors 68000
Mar 5, 2011
1,688
197
Helium has a lifting force of about 1 gram per liter. (source)

A typical amusement park balloon holds 14 liters of Helium.

The 11in MBA weighs 1.06Kg (1060g), so you'd need about ~76 balloons.
The 13in MBA weighs 1.32Kg (1320g), so you'd need about ~95 balloons.

This is assuming the balloon itself and string are negligible in weight... so you may wanna throw in some extra balloons :p
 

Mobius 1

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 11, 2011
456
0
USEA
Helium has a lifting force of about 1 gram per liter. (source)

A typical amusement park balloon holds 14 liters of Helium.

The 11in MBA weighs 1.06Kg (1060g), so you'd need about ~76 balloons.
The 13in MBA weighs 1.32Kg (1320g), so you'd need about ~95 balloons.

This is assuming the balloon itself and string are negligible in weight... so you may wanna throw in some extra balloons :p

hahahahaha

nice customer marketing strategy tho
 

palpatine

macrumors 68040
May 3, 2011
3,130
45
K, so some of u guys see the MBA 11" lifted by helium balloon

Image
like that

turns out the balloon is plastic and possibly hanged from a wire
Image

see the hollow plastic balloon there?

or is me mistaken?

lol

The MacBook Air also appears to be made out of metal, and not air at all. I have also been totally unable to find the book that I expected to find with my Mac. I'm glad you crashed your car into the store in order to expose the Apple lies.
 

CalBoy

macrumors 604
May 21, 2007
7,849
37
if the balloon was real would it really be able to lift that air?

Since the Air weighs 1.06Kg and as another poster mentioned helium has a lifting force of 1gram/Liter, it's a very straight-forward bit of math. 1060grams=1060 Liters of Helium (plus change for balloon and string mass). That is equal to a cube of about 1.02 meters on all sides, or a spherical balloon 1.27 meters in diameter.

It probably could fit in a window display, but I think the effect would be lost. :p
 

TrollToddington

macrumors 6502
Feb 27, 2011
312
1
Since the Air weighs 1.06Kg and as another poster mentioned helium has a lifting force of 1gram/Liter, it's a very straight-forward bit of math. 1060grams=1060 Liters of Helium (plus change for balloon and string mass). That is equal to a cube of about 1.02 meters on all sides, or a spherical balloon 1.27 meters in diameter.

It probably could fit in a window display, but I think the effect would be lost. :p
It's exactly so, for further reading one can read this - http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/21168/How-much-helium-do-one-need-to-lift-1Kg
 
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