In a post about the Macbook Air, Webupon lists 10 issues that they’re having with the tiny machine:

1. Mono Speakers

   For a company that can attribute much of their recent popularity to an mp3 player, you’d think the MacBook Air would be friendlier to music lovers. Instead, the only way users can hear sounds in stereo is to connect a set of speakers.

2. No SD Slot, ExpressCard Slot, or Apple Remote

   The MacBook Air just provides the bare minimum for laptops. In order to achieve average accessibility for a laptop, the MacBook Air requires several extra add-ons.

3. One USB Port

   Surely Apple would realize that most computer peripherals today are connected using USB ports. Essentially, Apple has forced consumers to make a decision. Want to connect your printer? Better take out your mouse. Want to transfer some files onto a flash drive? Better unplug that iPod (for those that think they can connect their iPods with firewire, the Air does not come with that port at all). The worst part is that the ports are non-expandable, which means that no matter how much more money you want to shell out, you’re stuck with one USB port.

4. No Ethernet

   Unfortunately, the only way to connect to the Internet using the MacBook Air is through a wireless connection. An optional USB Ethernet Adaptor can be added for wired connections however its use would take up the only USB port.

5. It’s Actually Not the World’s Thinnest Laptop

   In 1997, Mitsubishi and Hewlett-Packard produced a laptop called the Pedion. At its maximum thickness, the Pedion measured in at 0.72 inches, compared to the MacBook Air’s length of 0.76 inches. More recently, the Toshiba Portege 2000 also beat the MacBook Air with a maximum thickness of 0.75 inches. Unfortunately, neither of these computers had the marketing machine that Apple has.

6. No User-Replaceable Parts

   The hard drive, memory, and battery are all encased inside the laptop. Only the battery can be replaced, but it must be done by Apple for a fee. Other alternatives are possible but most are likely to void the warranty.

7. Slow and Weak Hard Drive

   The 1.8″ hard drive only operates at 4200 rpm. On top of that, the maximum option of 80 GB is much less than the norm for laptops today.

8. No Removable Media Drive

   There is no CD/DVD player on the MacBook Air. Users can access CDs and DVDs using software called Remote Disc but it requires putting the disc in another computer. Moreover, it’s been reported that Remote Disc cannot be used to install Windows, watch DVDs, or play music.

9. Comparable Laptops Outperform the MacBook Air

   Many people feel that the Sony Vaio is the closest comparison to the MacBook Air. For about the same price, the Vaio TZ does not have many of the problems above, is 40% faster, has twice as much hard drive space and is lighter than the MacBook Air.

10. Extremely Overpriced

    1.6 GHz, 64 GB hard drive, and no optical drive for $1800? 1.8 GHz for $3098? No thanks.

I genuinely agree with a few of the points on that list, but come on. A lot of it is just Apple-hating.

Let’s start with number 4. No ethernet port? Seriously are we going to pick on that? Are we not supposed to be moving into the future here? In an age where city-wide, free Wi-Fi is being discussed I don’t think this is that big of a deal. I realize that some hotels might have a wired port and no wireless broadcast (or no internet at all), but if you’re a business traveler (or just a geek) chances are you’re going to check that your hotel has Wi-Fi before you book. I do. Hell, I won’t stay in a hotel if it doesn’t have Wi-Fi.

Number 5. Are we really going to compare the macbook air with a computer released in 1997? That’s kinda like saying, “Well, I’m not going to buy it because my kid’s Leappad is lighter and thinner!” Also, the Pedion that they’re touting? $6000 in 1997. That’s what, $8-10k today counting for inflation? Seriously?

Number 7. 4200RPM hard drive. Absolutely it’s underpowered compared to other laptop drives, but can you imagine the heat that a 7200RPM drive would put out (if there’s even one of that speed small enough to work in the Air)? This is not a gaming laptop. It’s a second machine for travel, maybe for doing presentations. You can afford a slower HDD if it conserves some heat and energy, I’d think.

Number 8. No removable media. If they’d done a little research they’d have found that an internal hard drive in an enclosure can be plugged into the one (WTF was Apple thinking?!) USB port and it works just fine. Sure it’s not as fast as internal, but there you go. Oh, also? Apple sells a superdrive (look at the bottom of the page under “Configuration Options”) specifically for the Air so that if needed the consumer can buy one. Yes, it costs extra, but if you can spend $1800-3100 on this machine what’s another couple hundred dollars? Economic sitmulation, folks.

Number 3. Speaking of one USB port. How about a powered USB hub? Anyone? Hell I have two at home now.

Number 9. The Sony Vaio TZ? Costs $3600 as well. Yes the Vaio TZ has an internal optical drive, but the processor is slower (1.33 gHz) and it’s thicker. Credit where it’s due: The Vaio has more ports, it’s .35 lbs. lighter and you can have a hybrid drive that is quite a bit larger than the Air. However, they are very similar machines. You sacrifice one thing for another in any computer. And guess what. They cost approximately the same.

Another thing that has been left out of the article (in point #10) is that the 64GB drive (on the Macbook Air) in question is in fact solid state. We’re talking about 64GB of flash memory, not the spinning HDD which is actually 80GB.

Something else that needs to be taken into account: Apple’s business model doesn’t really seem to allow a lot of overlap in their target consumer brackets. People that buy an iPod don’t necessarily buy an Apple computer. People that buy the entry level Mac Mini don’t buy an iMac. People that buy an iMac generally don’t buy Mac Pros and so on and so forth. The Air is being marketed at a higher consumer bracket than the average. It’s basically a second machine for someone that already has a Mac Pro desktop and can afford to overspend on the Air.

Do I think the Air is overpriced? Well, if you compare it to the Vaio like Webupon there did, no. Is it overpriced for me? Absolutely. Do I want it? No, I like my MacBook Pro just fine, thanks. Do I think Apple might’ve gone a little overboard here? Yes, and maybe a little underboard too. What with their only being one USB port, no firewire and no optical drive.

Do I think that there needs to be more research done for web-articles? Absolutely.

[Chart and statistics via: Kotaku]

Despite having more than a year’s worth of headstart, Microsoft’s XBox 360 has been eclipsed by the Nintendo Wii in international sales.

I don’t think I need to elaborate on the story for you to get the impact of what’s happening in the Next-Gen console wars. But just for a comparison, take a look at these stats:

Launch Date in U.S.

• XBox 360 - November 22, 2005
• Wii - November 19, 2006

Time in Months to Reach 10M Units Sold (approx.)

• Xbox 360 - 22 Months
• Wii - 10.5 Months

The biggest factor in these numbers, however, is clearly the Japanese market. Microsoft has virtually no consumer base in Japan for the XBox 360. The Wii is still behind the 360 in North American sales, but look at the numbers in relation to the amount of time the consoles have been available. It’s only a matter of time before the Wii catches up.

So, well. There you go.

By The Chad

Picture this: You’re watching a baseball game on tv. But that’s all you’re doing - watching. Because with tv, that’s about all you can do. TiVo has made it possible to pause and rewind footage, but that’s about as interactive as it gets.

You watch. End of story.

Now picture this: You’re watching a baseball game on your computer (or your computer hooked to an LCD tv). When Barry Bonds comes up to bat, you click on his name with your mouse to see his current game, season, and lifetime stats instantaneously. Maybe you’d like to toggle the scoreboard or the display which shows the runners on base on or off. Maybe you’d also like to have 6 or more of these screens with different games on them at one time in the same browser window. Now you’re not just watching - you’re interacting.

You watch. You interact. Saucy!

Maybe sports aren’t your thing. But everyone likes movies, right? Imagine instead of having to hassle with snail mail (that’s the USPS for all you uncool kids), you can subscribe to Netflix and watch any movie in their expansive library in high definition at the click of a mouse. Standard DVD controls, chapter selections with full motion preview, full movie information, and even a “share” option to invite a friend to watch with you via a built-in chat window. You could discuss the movie or anything else, all while the movie is playing, fully-synced and full screen to both of your computers anywhere in the world.

These things seem pretty high-tech, but they are actually very real and very close to realization. Netflix already has a working demo of the movie service I just described, and the MLB recently gave a demo of their in-game baseball interactivity application.

“But, how?” you ask.

The answer is Microsoft’s new browser plug-in called Silverlight.

Silverlight is being plugged as a super-powerful tool for making extremely interactive media experiences a snap to develop and deploy for web artists. What does this mean for the average web browser? Well, take the examples I listed above and think of the amazing things you could do with that much raw power in any web-page.

Full, playable game demos in your browser? Full-blown applications for video and music editing from any computer with a browser? The possibilities are startling. Microsoft is upping the ante on the interactive web experience that companies like Adobe have dominated for a long time, and they’re doing a bang-up job of it. I, for one, am excited to see the creative things that media companies are going to use Silverlight for.

Silverlight is still in its beta phase, but you can check out some resources and examples of what people are already doing with Silverlight.

Netflix movie service demo

MLB interactive game demo

Top Banana (video editing in your browser!)

Scott GU: Silverlight frontman

Live Silverlight “Surface” demo (Note: You will actually have to install the alpha Silverlight plug-in to play with this demo.)

So something happened yesterday which managed to point out three painful truths:

• 1) If a butterfly flaps its wings in Zimbabwe, an American stock trader will immediately dump 5,000 shares of Apple.
• 2) Even a bell-weather, blue-chip company like Apple is susceptible to the whims of butterfly wings.
• 3) The internet is a helluva thing.

What exactly happened, you ask? This happened:

at 11:49 AM EST Engadget posted saying that the iPhone and Leopard operating system launches would be seriously delayed. They based the story on an internal Apple email that was forwarded to them. The original post:

This one doesn’t bode well for Mac fans and the iPhone-hopeful: we have it on authority that as of today, the iPhone launch is being pushed back from June to… October (!), and Leopard is again seeing a delay, this time being pushed all the way back to January. Of 2008. The latest WWDC Leopard beta will still be handed out, but it looks like Apple-quality takes time, and we’re sure Jobs would remind everyone that it’s not always about “writing a check”, but just how much time are these two products really going to take?

Apple’s stock promptly tanked on massive selling, going from $107.89 to $103.42 in six minutes (11:56 - 12:02). This wiped just over $4 billion off of Apple’s market capitalization. A lot of people lost a lot of money very quickly.

Well, it turns out that the email was a hoax. In an update, Engadget said that the email was in fact sent from Apple’s internal email system, but that it was not accurate. Apple quickly notified Engadget of the error, saying “This communication is fake and did not come from Apple. Apple is on track to ship iPhone in late June and Mac OS X Leopard in October.”

[via TechCrunch]

Now, mind you, it took less than half an hour for the stock to rebound - and the share closed the day down only $1.40 (that’s still 1.25 billion in market cap). But the point is: one single blogger caused Apple investors to lose a collective four billion dollars in minutes. Sure, he writes for a leading technology blog. And sure, the email itself was responsible for the panic - not the blogger reporting on it. But there is no denying the power the blogging community can have on the world around us. It’s frightening to think of the ramifications internet culture has on our social and economic lives.

Who wants to bet somebody’s lawyers are furiously sharpening their pencils right about now…