First things first: no, I won’t be buying one. No, I certainly won’t be buying one this very hour either. It’s true that – like many, I might add – follow news about Apple very closely and in an almost addictive fashion, but I’ve never let that get in the way of actual purchase decisions; every product I’ve bought has been considered for several months. And as it is, right now, the MacBook Air isn’t even worth considering.

But the MBA¹ does have me intrigued. It represents a bit of a glimpse at the future; in that regard, it may very well be a little bit ahead of its time. And thus, the changes it represents as compared to a regular MacBook or MacBook Pro fall into four categories:

1. First, like so many things Apple, the function-follows-form one, where they let looks get too much in the way of functional design.

   E.g., the thing is so thin that, like an iPod and iPhone, it doesn’t have a replaceable battery any more. I can live with that; indeed, I’ve never once bought a secondary battery for any of the plenty of laptops I’ve owned or used for personal or business purposes. And when I have had to replace it, it was always a case of warranty that Apple (or the respective manufacturer) covered either way, so why should I care?

2. Second, the ones where their radicalness went just about far enough: no more optical drive. I don’t ever need it. Each time I buy a laptop, I find myself regretting the existence of an optical drive within, for it is easily the least-used component. Install software? Most stuff gets downloaded; the rest is on images on an external drive. Look at media from friends? Most stuff is on USB sticks or comes via e-mail; the rest I can do without.

3. Third, where they went a little bit too far, maybe: no more Ethernet. I love WiFi. But when I do have it, the routers are often flaky (not everyone has a Cisco, an Apple AirPort, or anything more worthy than D-Link), and when I don’t have it, the MBA would provide me with zero alternatives. Apple’s USB dongle? Nah. They need to provide WiMAX instead, and/or 3G (UMTS/HSDPA). Which brings us to:

4. Finally, where they didn’t quite go far enough, mostly for lack of opportunity. Solid-state storage is available as an option, but have you seen the BTO pricing? Seriously, have you had a look? Take a look again. That’s, literally, nine-hundred ninety nine dollars more for 64 GB of flash storage compared to an 80 GB hard drive instead. Oh, it’ll be fast. And dependable. And did I mention fast? But boy, is this technology ever not ready for mainstream yet.

And this, all together, is just great. I don’t mean that in a sarcastic sense; I am in fact quite serious: I’m not actually in the market for a laptop right now. I typically buy a new primary machine every three and a half to four years, which would put my hypothetical MacBook Air purchase around summer 2010, which gives Apple plenty of time to address some of my issues with it.

As much as I like FireWire’s design, I hardly use the technology in practice – the only type of device with it that I regularly do use, external hard drives, would benefit far more from eSATA instead, if only for added benefit of S.M.A.R.T. The same goes for other features that they cut: I don’t in fact use the optical audio. I don’t need a second USB port. And I never did buy something to insert into the ExpressCard slot. Conversely, what the MBA does have, I would use: having fallen in love with the two-finger gestures for scrolling, zooming and secondary clicking of my trackpad, I can’t wait to have a trackpad with even more advanced ones such as pinching.

Once the solid-state drive is significantly more affordable, once it ships with WiMAX or 3G – preferably both – , and once other parameters have been improved upon as well (the resolution should be at least 1440×900; ideally a lot more), this will be a real winner. But right now, and I don’t think Apple intended it any other way, the MacBook Air is destined as an early-adopter product – much in the same way the initial iPod and iPhone were.

1. With apologies to Blake Seely. ↩