MacBook Air.... MacBook Crap

[cwtnospam]

Quote: Originally Posted by roncross@cox.net I watched the macworld video and I was surprised to see that Steve didn't even demonstrate the use of the new product as he normally does.

But how would he demonstrate it? It's a Mac. Anything he could do on it can be done on any other Mac, and steve only demonstrates new features. The only thing new about the Macbook Air is the hardware. I suppose he could have demonstrated the Air using another computer's drive, but who wouldn't have slept through that?

[Jay Carr]

Quote: Originally Posted by cwtnospam But how would he demonstrate it? It's a Mac. Anything he could do on it can be done on any other Mac, and steve only demonstrates new features. The only thing new about the Macbook Air is the hardware. I suppose he could have demonstrated the Air using another computer's drive, but who wouldn't have slept through that?

I would have liked to see a demonstrations of boot time on the Solid State Drive as opposed to the hard drive. Perhaps this is an indicator that it's not all that different?

[cwtnospam]

Quote: Originally Posted by Zalister Perhaps this is an indicator that it's not all that different?

Considering that Mac's tend to boot pretty quickly using a hard drive, I doubt it could be fast enough to be a crowd pleaser without being so fast that they miss the point of it. Remember that many in the crowd were not techies. It just wouldn't be sexy enough to grab their attention.


By the way, I'd love to see it too. I just don't think the average user is going to care until they spend some time using SSD drives.

[roncross@cox.net]

Quote: Originally Posted by cwtnospam But how would he demonstrate it? It's a Mac. Anything he could do on it can be done on any other Mac, and steve only demonstrates new features. The only thing new about the Macbook Air is the hardware. I suppose he could have demonstrated the Air using another computer's drive, but who wouldn't have slept through that?

Ok good point about the new feature. But without an optical drive, there was at least one new feature such as installing applications wirelessly from another computer with an optical drive. He could have chosen a small application to install on the macbook air and at the same time showed the reliability and sturdiness of the machine. This would have demonstrated the feature and the machine's reliability at the same time. So I'm kind of puzzled why he didn't do this.

On an opposite note, can you install wirelessly from one computer to another on the normal macbook line of products which doesn't include the macbook air?

[cwtnospam]

He could have but he didn't. I think he didn't see enough wow factor in it. Jobs likes to demonstrate things that are going to get a reaction from the audience. Things that techies would like aren't necessarily going to thrill the average user. In fact, I think most users would just yawn because they're expecting that it will be reliable and sturdy.

I don't know if you can install wirelessly from one computer to another, but I think that is unique to the Air.

[solipsism]

Quote: Originally Posted by roncross@cox.net On an opposite note, can you install wirelessly from one computer to another on the normal macbook line of products which doesn't include the macbook air?

The screenshots of 10.5.2 show that Remote Disc is being added to all Macs. Remote disc may be possible between all Macs, the way you have been able to share a Windows optical drive to move files or install software remotely for many a year. The only that is new in Remote Disc is the ability for the MacBook Air's EFI to locate disc wirelessly with NetBoot.

PS: Jobs did demonstrate the use of *true* multi-touch gesturing.

[chabig]

The Air is sturdy, I held it.

[GavinBKK]

Did you? Good build quality? What about the screen hinges?

[chabig]

Yes, I played with it at MacWorld. The build quality was Apple perect in every way possible. I don't think anyone will complain about quality. The screen was brighter than my MacBook's too.

[GavinBKK]

Brighter? So, the LED backlit is worth it then? Is the clarity better than the MB as well?
TIA

[chabig]

It's the same display as the MacBook, but with a different backlight. I do think the backlight makes the display brighter and better looking.

[Sumleilmus]

Quote: Originally Posted by solipsism …the ability for the MacBook Air's EFI to locate disc wirelessly with NetBoot.

I wonder how Apple expects the owner of a MacBook Air (unlikely to be me, with no security slot) to do a full reinstall on a dead one, since it has no optical drive out of the box? There's the Remote Disk feature to use an optical drive in the network, but I wonder how the install boot sequence is configured. How does the computer with a BLANK storage device (no network settings, &c.) find the optical drive and vice versa through the network so install can occur? Are you saying NetBoot somehow does it from ??? which end? Drive looks for MBA? MBA with blank storage device boots to screen which demands network settings for boot sequence to proceed?

[solipsism]

Quote: Originally Posted by Sumleilmus I wonder how Apple expects the owner of a MacBook Air (unlikely to be me, with no security slot) to do a full reinstall on a dead one, since it has no optical drive out of the box? There's the Remote Disk feature to use an optical drive in the network, but I wonder how the install boot sequence is configured. How does the computer with a BLANK storage device (no network settings, &c.) find the optical drive and vice versa through the network so install can occur? Are you saying NetBoot somehow does it from ??? which end? Drive looks for MBA? MBA with blank storage device boots to screen which demands network settings for boot sequence to proceed?

Using PXE? It is common to use Ghosting software in larger companies running Windows. You can boot from something as simple as floppy disk which will then access a network to get the disk image to install. There are often questions asked to complete the correct installation over the correct network.

All Apple is doing is using a less used implementation that already has this code built into the EFI firmware. The MoBo accesses teh wireles card adn creates a network connection. As to how complex they made it, I don't know. Meaning, will you have to turn off encryption to get it to work or can you input the pass key.

I'm pretty excited to have it all dissected for us to see. I'm sure we'll see an article or two the first week after they start arriving. Kudos to Apple on this front. The easy and cheap solution—and one that I know HP and Sony do—is create a secondary, special partition for the OS installer to reside without even supplying a simple DVD of the OS. The MBA is pretty low on space but I've seen this done on new notebooks with 80GB HDDs running Vista.

I think this protocol was designed into EFI but I can't find anything to substantiate that claim. Even if the Air's footprint to weight ration doesn't take off, eventually DVD drives will be removed and we should start seeing this more often, especially now that most homes have additional computers.

[tlarkin]

Netboot is not a viable technology solution for the end user since it requires you set up a Netboot and DHCP server. Unless they came out with a router or whatever that would act as a DHCP server and redirect Netboot (or PXE) requests to a netboot server. Then the end user would be required to create netboot installers, which are sepcific to each machine in OS X with apple hardware, and map the share and pull down the image. Also imaging over wireless is not really possible either. It is too unstable and lacks the speed of a wired connection.

Netboot installs/images for the end user are many years away IMO.

[solipsism]

Quote: Originally Posted by tlarkin Netboot is not a viable technology solution for the end user since it requires you set up a Netboot and DHCP server. Unless they came out with a router or whatever that would act as a DHCP server and redirect Netboot (or PXE) requests to a netboot server. Then the end user would be required to create netboot installers, which are sepcific to each machine in OS X with apple hardware, and map the share and pull down the image. Also imaging over wireless is not really possible either. It is too unstable and lacks the speed of a wired connection. Netboot installs/images for the end user are many years away IMO.

So do you think they have a new solution that uses a very small partition on the HDD with a simple installation that contains the network drivers to coordinate the install over the network?

[J Christopher]

Quote: Originally Posted by Sumleilmus I wonder how Apple expects the owner of a MacBook Air (unlikely to be me, with no security slot) to do a full reinstall on a dead one, since it has no optical drive out of the box?

Optical drive connected via USB interface?

[Sumleilmus]

But it would require one to have other things (the hardware you cite).

This machine is a computer that can't heal itself right out of the box, if broken. It must have a network (for a networked optical drive) or more local hardware, or, as mentioned above, a restore partition on its resident storage device.

[solipsism]

Quote: Originally Posted by Sumleilmus But it would require one to have other things (the hardware you cite). This machine is a computer that can't heal itself right out of the box, if broken. It must have a network (for a networked optical drive) or more local hardware, or, as mentioned above, a restore partition on its resident storage device.

1) Restoring an OS isn't something you do with frequency
2) This isn't intended as ones only computer
3) Home networks and have more than one computer in the home is common
4) Apple has created ways to install the OS without the typical internal optical drive.

[Sumleilmus]

I agree with solipsism notes above, but we were speculating exactly how Apple has done their work. It HAS to be restorable after something fails, or it will be a . . . brick.

I am one user who, for my own cranky reasons, not always the same ones, reformats storage devices and reinstalls OSs on new machines just purchased, sometimes even on Apple ones.

In a week or two, people will actually have these, and curiosity will cause the hood to come up, so to speak, and we will know for sure. Especially someone like me would want to know for sure before reformatting the storage device (clumsy new lingo, but what are we to do now that the SSD is implemented).

[tlarkin]

Quote: Originally Posted by solipsism So do you think they have a new solution that uses a very small partition on the HDD with a simple installation that contains the network drivers to coordinate the install over the network?

It is hard to say, and well I think it is definitely possible by all means, but not plausible for an end user to deal with all of that. Plus with how OS X is designed, you need to build a very specific netboot install image for each model of Mac. For example we have several different intel iMac models at my work, you would think you could use the same image for all them, but no you can't. This is a major issue with managing multiple macs and like I mentioned earlier Mike Bombich is trying to change that so its more of a standard product.