Apple Touts Ultra-Thin Laptop: Tech Giant's MacBook Air Generated the Most Buzz at Expo

Jan 16, 07:27 AM

Jan. 16--SAN FRANCISCO -- Mike Evangelist travels a great deal on business and likes to fly light. Yet he always ends up packing his bulky laptop because he doesn't regard his cell phone as an adequate substitute for the Web and e-mail.

Apple Inc. on Tuesday targeted people like Evangelist with its new MacBook Air, a superthin and superlight Macintosh laptop that's among several new or updated products being announced with great fanfare at Macworld Expo in San Francisco.

Other unveilings during Apple Chief Executive Steve Job's keynote speech included the debut of iTunes Store movie rentals from all the leading movie studios, a new wireless network-backup device called the Time Capsule, as well as major updates to the iPhone, the iPod Touch and the Apple TV set-top box.

But it was arguably the MacBook Air that drew the most attention. It is thin enough to slip inside a manila envelope partly because it does away with an optical-disc drive.

For Evangelist, a Birchwood, Minn., resident who works in the Macintosh industry, this is huge. He's tried other ultralight laptops from the likes of Fujitsu, but found them wanting because of very cramped keyboards and difficult-to-use integrated pointing devices. The MacBook Air is just what he needs, he said, because of its full-size keyboard and large trackpad. He said one of these laptops is definitely in his short-term future.

Steve Borsch, an Eden Prairie management consultant and Apple watcher said the laptop "sure seems

expensive" at $1,799 (with a solid-state storage system in place of a mechanical hard drive for another $1,000 or so). But the MacBook Air is "an incredible feat of engineering," he acknowledged.

Movie rentals on the iTunes Store also drew considerable attention Tuesday, partly because Apple had been struggling to replicate with digital movies its enormous success in music sales. And its relationships with the top movies studios had appeared to be tense.

That's apparently history with all the major studios -- Fox, Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal and Sony -- now on board to rent and sell digital movies via the iTunes Store. It will be possible to view the films on computers, iPods, the iPhone and the Apple TV.

The latter device no longer depends on a connection to a computer, but can access the iTunes Store directly, a fact that thrills video producer and editor Mark Fawcett of St. Paul. He's treasured his Apple TV for viewing home photos and movies from his Mac, but thinks users will get more out of the device now that they are able to rent movies easily, affordably and directly.

He's also relieved Apple isn't making him buy a new device. An update for existing Apple TVs is coming soon.

Still, many regarded Tuesday's announcements as not on par with the iPhone's debut at Macworld Expo one year ago.

"Expectations are so doggone high," Borsch said. "If Apple released a 'Star Trek' holodeck, transporter and replicator, they might be more enthused."

Bloomington startup-company consultant Graeme Thickins noted the "lack of reaction in the Apple stock." Apple shares declined $9.74, to $169.04.

Staff writer Julio Ojeda-Zapata reports from Macworld all this week. Follow his coverage at twincities.com/technology, yourtechweblog.com and twitter.com/jojeda.

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