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The MacBook Air did get all the limelight on the recent MacWorld expo. However the main idea, what Apple is trying to push on the expo, is the word ‘Air’
“Something’s in the Air”.
No doubt that Apple’s new hardware, the MacBook Air totally stole the show at the recent MacWorld expo. However, more importantly is the word ‘Air’ on the whole expo, “Something’s in the Air“.
The introduction of MacBook Air, opens Apple to a whole new wireless possibility. It might just be a sign of where Apple is going.
Do to its anorexic diet, a lot of compromise is made on MacBook Air. The machine only has a stereo jack, one USB port and a little DVI output. All its connectivity lies in it’s wireless capability.
Being thin is not easy, it comes with a 80GB iPod like hard drive. If you are one of those people with money and no use for it, there is a much more expensive yet much less capacity drive, 64GB solid state drive.
As technology progresses, there will be smaller physical size hard drive with larger capacity of data storage. In the meantime however, Apple is suggesting the Time Capsule as an alternative for more data storage. Time Capsule is not just a peripheral for Time Machine it also acts as a network based mounted hard disc. You could have your hard drive sitting remotely away from your computer.
Apple is pushing the envelope, in this case a brown manila envelop, by saying you won’t be needing an optical drive, not as much as you think you would. One should remember that this is the company that first took away the floppy drives from their machines.
For the times when you do need to use an optical drive, there is a feature called Remote Disc where the MacBook Air could access an optical disc on a different machine, Mac or PC, as if its a local drive. This is done via network.
With Time Capsule and the remote disc, the MacBook Air is becoming a cunning little machine that remotely leaching resources from other machines.
Apple wants you to get all your entertainment needs through their iTunes service. Music, download it, movies, download it, who needs a CD or DVD. So they say. Everything comes over the ‘air‘. Data over the ‘air’.
I doubt that optical disc media will be going away, as new emerging technology like Blu-Ray disc are getting more mainstream, but do we need the optical drive to me inside our computers all the time? Could the disc drive be somewhere else and access it whenever we needed to.
As networking bandwidth gets bigger, with the promise of 802.11n and as networking gets easier, data could be easily transfered over the network, only this time instead of copper being the medium, it’s ‘air’.
If Apple were to ever pick up Blu-Ray technology, my bet is that we will first find in the Apple TV. It makes sense, at least to me, to have it on the Apple TV as that is the only Apple’s device that is closest to the television.
Now imagine that same drive on the Apple TV could be the remote super drive that other Macs could access, via Remote Disc feature.
Each of your Apple device could be connected with each other over the air. The Apple TV could be the media hub that gets all the media from iTunes, musics, movies, TV shows and podcasts. Store it on your Time Capsule for more more storage. Sync your iPod (iPod touch now has wifi capability) with your Apple TV to take some of the media to go. Get it on your MacBooks. Access the drive if needed. Everything over the air.
This could be the whole Apple strategy for 2008, then again I might just pulling this out of thin air, pun intended. All speculation, my speculation, not to be taken seriously.
It might happen if I were to run Apple Inc., then again I’m not running Apple. There is a good reason for that, but I forgot what it is.
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