Apple does it… Again!
When Mr JM began computing, the Apple computer company was in its infancy. According to him, they made an almost fatal mistake – they locked down the architecture, sued the pants off (or threatened to) anyone who dared to try to imitate them, (in spite of the fact they ripped off the WIMP interface from Rank Xerox) and over-priced their machines to almost absurd levels.
(WIMP = Window, Icon, Menu, Pull-down)
IBM, on the other hand, introduced a much inferior computer, opened the architecture, & didn’t care if people copied them. Consequently, today, there are at least 50 Windows PC’s out there for every MAC.
There were a few other faux pas as well; inability to expand the machine you’d paid $5,000 for, holding onto a nine inch grey screen even when the standard everywhere else was a fourteen inch 256 colour VGA screen, and eventually a clunky single button mouse when even IBM was releasing a two button version.
Mr JM says also that you can tell someone who began their computer experience on a MAC by the fact they bang the mouse on the desk before they move it. (Apparently the MAC mouses had ‘sticky’ balls, and you had to lift them & tap them on the desk to get the pointer to begin moving)
Now they have the MAC-Air. 
Lovely looking machine, light, thin, everything a catwalk model should be – and about as intelligent.
To quote Tech Republic, Computer Guru site…
“Our Apple MacBook Air is the standard $US1,799 model, which is made up of these parts:
1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU
80GB Parallel ATA Drive running at 4200 rpm
13.3-inch widescreen LED backlit display (1280-by-800)
802.11n WiFi (draft specification)
Bluetooth 2.1
2GB RAM (not upgradeable)
1 USB port, 1 mini-DVI out, a headphone jack
Weighs 3 pounds
With hardware like that you are limited to a notebook that can surf the Web, check e-mail, and play an occasional video. In other words, basic computing and not much more.”
They’re right – for that price, one would expect something more. Without a DVD Burner, no Gigabit network port, it’s a very average computer relying on looks & weight alone to persuade the buyer to pay over twice the price of a machine that will take almost anything you throw at it.
Apple are relying on the wireless world for input – but wireless downloads are expensive. In Australia they are offering 30GB ADSL (broadband) plans for around forty to fifty dollars per month – sounds good till you remember that DVD’s from the store are available at a couple of dollars each and 30Gb is about six movies. And without a DVD Burner, you can’t save out your downloads for later use. The eighty GB of disk space will fill very quickly.
You have to wonder when. If ever, Apple will hire someone who knows about what the market wants. They keep doing lovely products with serious flaws – usually the price.
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