Personally, I greeted the MacBook Air’s debut with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I had been one of those die-hard 12-inch PowerBook users who kept that adorably portable pro notebook running long after I should have switched to an Intel model. When I finally caved and got an MacBook, I lamented that a single extra inch of screen made the whole thing much more unwieldy.
So I was glad to see Apple hadn’t abandoned those of us who didn’t want mega-screens on an ostensibly portable device, but I was disappointed that the Air’s big draw was thinness, not overall size. It was still wider and taller than the 12″ PowerBook, but it sacrificed the 12-incher’s disk drive and (relative) affordability for a solid state hard drive with questionable advantages.
In other words, the Air was a vanity device, not a desktop replacement, or even an Apple netbook. I wasn’t giving up my MacBook just yet.
The rumored Apple tablet, supposedly coming out next year (possibly at MacWorld or WWDC?) has some similar issues. Described/fantasized as an iPod Touch on steroids, it would have none of the functionality/desktop-replacement-ness of a notebook with none of the portability of an iPod Touch.
So what is the appeal again? It looks super sexy? Yeah, that worked out well for the Prada phone. Apple already knows that usability trumps specs: that’s why the first iPhone was such a hit despite lack of 3G, MMS, true GPS, and a whole host of other features that were already standard on other PDAs. Not to mention the triumph of Wii over PS3.
The New York Times explores five reasons why tablets haven’t been successful.
