One of the “One Last Thing” announcements from yesterday’s Macworld keynote was Apple’s new 17″ Macbook Air Pro. This wasn’t that much of a surprise as it was widely expected, having been missing in action since the rest of the line was updated before Christmas. The update however was somewhat underwhelming. Sure the unibody is nice and having an anti-glare option on the screen is cool, but at the end of the day it’s just a bigger 15″. They still leave a huge amount of wasted space either side of the keyboard that could have happily housed a numeric keypad, or they could have left firewire 400 on board instead of 3 usb ports. But most of all, impressive as the new battery technology is, it just seems silly in a pro end model.
If you think about it, if someone has gone to the trouble of forking out for a 17″ model the chances are they’re a pro, and they’re probably using it for either graphics or video. (I’m sure there are others too, but I suspect this is the key demographic) and so you’re more than likely going to be driving it harder than the average laptop user. So I would say with a fair degree of confidence that Apple’s estimates of battery lifespan are probably a bit optimistic. So what do you do when the battery starts to only give you half its original lifespan? Do you change it then or wait till it dies fully? What do you do in the mean time? You can’t use a second battery like you could with most other laptops. You can’t even expect a third party battery pack because Apple has so far refused to license its mag safe technology. It’s a massive trade off, and for what? A few mm of depth and a few pounds of weight? Surely if you’re going to buy a machine for it’s large size, you won’t mind if it’s, well, large? Apple’s obsession with weight is really starting to take the biscuit.
Apple offers a battery replacement program, where you can have it replaced at an Apple store or Approved reseller? What if you’re in a country where there are no Apple stores and “Approved Resellers” are few and far between? Will they have to send it off to be swapped by Apple? I can’t see any of the resellers here in Ireland doing this in store. What happens if you’re editing a documentary on safari in Africa and your battery dies? New technology aside, these things happen.
Freudian slip aside, the new 17″ seems to be more like a giant MacBook Air than a Pro machine. It just doesn’t make sense. And Apple have totally confused their product lines now too. Many people don’t want a 17″ laptop but do want a non gloss screen, but Apple, as yet don’t offer this option. Are they going to offer it in the future or is it a way to get people to buy the 17″. I would hope the former but suspect the latter. Other companies who have large format laptops actually make use of the extra space for things like extra hard drive space. The Sony 18″ for example has the option of 2 SSD drives and a blu-ray player, and Firewire 400 and a bunch of other stuff. The only problem is it runs windows, but it looks like a much better deal.
And therein lies the whole problem with Apple at the moment. As the company grows and as the user base grows, the one thing from Apple that isn’t growing is choice. You have their limited line up of computers and that’s it. If you want to run OSX it’s Apple’s way or the high way. Some issues you can get round with third party accessories, but it’s had to see a way round the battery issue on the 17″. Or the lack of hard drive and ram access. This is precisely why people have been calling for Apple to license OSX. You don’t have to open it up to everyone or every piece of crap pc out there but at least offer choice where you are unwilling or unable to make the product yourself. A limited licensing program to select vendors could solve the problem of Apple trying to do everything themselves and grow the Mac’s market share at the same time
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