Jobs gave quite a bit of detail on the development of the Macbook Air and of his fondness for the new laptop, saying he would be the “first one in line to buy one of these”. In a testament to the secrecy surrounding Apple, Jobs stated that they had been developing the Macbook Air for over 2 years, and had gone through over 100 designs before developing something that was light enough, powerful enough but also attractive. Jobs went on to blast competing devices, saying that many of them were “flimsy” compared to the Macbook Air.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jobs doesn’t see the Amazon Kindle being successful, but not because it’s a poor device or undesirable. Jobs is of the opinion that Americans simply don’t read books anymore, and therefore a device based entirely on reading will do poorly. Read more
Sony pouting over Macbook Air: thinks they did it first, better
In an interview with Gizmodo, Sonys senior vice president of VAIO product marketing Mike Abary gives Apple credit for getting a machine like the Macbook Air so small and thin, but thinks the concessions necessary to do so make the device unwanted by consumers. In his view consumers just don’t care that much about the ultra thinness factor, making the price premium to design and sell a laptop of this sort more than consumers are willing to pay, and he may be right but only to a point. There remains a significant market for the Macbook Air even if it isn’t for everyone.
Mr. Abarys animosity may have something to do with the fact that Sony tried to go down this path in 2004 with a concept model called the X505, which would have been slightly thicker than the Macbook Air and made of carbon fiber. Read more