I'm a little puzzled as to why this got up voted. :( Would it still be significant news if it was Everyday Joe's love letter to the MacBook Air? And if it's because it's DHH, does his love of MacBook Air significantly change a market or industry? And if all else fails, is it interesting, and did I learn anything? In my mind, it's a resounding no.
Actually, before I read this article I had no idea who DHH was. Oh, he wrote Rails? I guess I assumed somebody must have, but I never especially cared what the guy's name was. Is this guy really famous enough to be referred to by his initials, RMS-style?
And I still don't care whether he likes the Macbook Air.
Note that DHH is using the solid-state drive version of the Air, so consider that when reading, "The machine is plenty fast for everything I do with a computer."
Seriously, you can program on a 13" screen? My brain gets angry that I can't see enough code even on my non-portable 17" laptop at 1920. Or is that only when attached to the external 24"? (kinda cheating...).
3 years ago when people said they didn't need to pay a premium for speed and would take a cheap Dell that did everything they need, Mac fans said "But I do it faster!"
3 years ago Apple still used PowerPC chips. The marketing emphasis was on the capabilities of PowerPC, such as SFP and DPF, over the x86 chips.
Due to various reasons, the PowerPC designs has languished while Intel has surged forth with Core Duo chips and with Apple's transition to the same Intel chips that ALL manufacturers have access to, it should be obvious the marketing emphasis has to be something else. To, I don't know, Mac OS X, user experience, and design perhaps?
1. Don't treat "Mac fans" as a homogeneous group, and don't attribute some random opinion to them 3 years ago, observe that one particular Mac fan has a different opinion now, and accuse "Mac fans" in general of hypocrisy. That makes no sense.
2. Don't equate "a cheap Dell laptop that does everything you need" with a MacBook Air. That is like comparing apples and oranges.
Even if you consider this mac fanboyism, I must say the air is simply a feat of design and engineering. Its hard to deny that. And the price, while being expensive because it is Apple hardware, is sill fairly reasonable. Its not mac fanboyism to praise something that is genuinely aesthetically pleasing.
I do however, wish that I could in fact afford one. Which, I can't.
I was a pretty skeptical regarding the Air. But, just today I went down to the CambridgeSide Apple Store and played with one of them. Its really quite nifty. The weight and thickness are really astounding. The numbers don't really mean much to me... having felt it now though, I can understand why some people love it.
No - never missed those, though. The MBA is probably better than my Dell, but that's to be expected with 2 years of technological progress under it's belt.
Although for me personally, my Dell has the ultimate feature: it's fanless. I have raved about that too often on news.yc already, but still...
