What Apple fan of small-and-light computing doesn’t remember that Macworld Expo Keynote? The one where, uncovering Apple’s then-latest laptop and holding it aloft, Steve Jobs declared it “the smallest full-featured notebook in the world.” By the self-satisfied smile on his face, you knew Apple was back in the ultra-portable market for good.

Two years and change later, it was canceled.

That would be the 12” PowerBook G4 of 2003 that met its demise in 2005, but what happened then seems eerily familiar in 2009. Since the manila-envelope unveiling at Macworld Expo 2008, the MacBook Air has gotten less Apple Event love than the time it takes Yael Naïm to sing “New Soul.” Phil Schiller spent about 30 seconds detailing a spec bump and a price drop at WWDC 2009, the same event at which the MacBook Pros saw major redesign. It was that seeming indifference to the Air that led me to ponder the history of the smallest PowerBook in relation to the fate of the thinnest MacBook. 

Comparative Updates: 12" PowerBook G4 vs. MacBook Air

Spooky, huh? The overlap is like looking at some old soul reincarnated and doomed to relive the same life of regret. Note that after the first revision that included new video options, both models subsequently received “drop-in upgrades,” incremental increases in CPU and storage capacity. Also, the 12” PowerBook G4 ended its model life at $1,499, which is the same price as the MacBook Air now.

Of course, comparing the timeline of the PowerBook G4 with the MacBook Air hardly predicts the future of the latter — though a mirrored RAM boost for the MacBook Air would be nice. If there is any foretelling of the Air’s future to be had, it’s more likely to be found in the demise of the PowerBook. That demise, in my opinion, would be the iBook.

When the 12” PowerBook G4 was introduced, it had several big advantages over the 12” iBook.

• G4 CPU vs. G3 CPU
• CD-RW/DVD vs. CD/DVD player
• GeForce4 420 Go and display spanning vs. ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 and display mirroring
• Infinitely Awesome Keyboard vs. Chicklet Keys

By the time the last iBook model was introduced, the only advantage left to the higher-priced PowerBook was the keyboard and the ability to run dual displays. When Apple switched to Intel, the MacBook did spanning, and the superior keyboard was no more. The black MacBook effectively replaced the 12” PowerBook G4 in the laptop lineup. The question now becomes whether the 13″ MacBook Pro is replacing the MacBook Air.

Feature Creep: MacBook Air to MacBook Pro

At Macworld Expo 2008, Steve Jobs might as well have likened the manufacturing of the MacBook Air from a sheet of solid aluminum to Michelangelo discovering David within a block of stone, so lavish was his praise of the technology. If you aren’t familiar with the process, there’s a video on Apple’s web site, on a MacBook Pro page. Symbolism noted.

The timeline shows the migration of technologies from the MacBook Air to the 13″ MacBook Pro. Though it’s a given that Apple always intended to diffuse the tech throughout its portables, the 13″ MacBook Pro puts these features in a design similar to the MacBook Air. Further, several MacBook Pro features are arguably missing from the MacBook Air, including: better battery life, more RAM, buttonless trackpad and SD Card slot.

Originally promising five hours of “wireless productivity,” battery life declined with the second revision of the MacBook Air due to its faster CPU. The third revision brought battery life back to five hours with a change from a 37 to 40 W/Hr battery. However, the new built-in battery in the 13″ MacBook Pro has increased battery life to six hours. While it is possible the MacBook Air has reached the limit of battery life, the memory situation is not up for debate.

In January of 2008, 2GB of RAM in a MacBook Air was a good deal; not so much in 2009. Even Apple’s white MacBook comes with 2GB standard. Worse, the high-end 13” MacBook Pro comes with 4GB standard. In stark and embarrassing contrast, the the high-end MacBook Air still has the same 2GB of RAM soldered to the motherboard. It’s a change that should have happened, but hasn’t, like the single-button trackpad.

Button, button, whose got the button, and why?

The MacBook Air was the first Mac portable to have multitouch input, with that functionality later duplicated across the Pro lineup. The question concerning the MacBook Air trackpad is why is there still a button? Clearly, Apple has moved away from that design with the high-end portables, a lineup that includes the MacBook Air at $1,499. A button-less trackpad may be more a matter of form than function, but what about the SD Card slot?

While one could argue that the SD Card slot might not fit into the MacBook Air, certainly no Mac laptop would benefit from such a feature more than one without an optical drive. Instead of purchasing a SuperDrive, you could boot OS X off an SD card for troubleshooting, or even installation. Imagine where that could lead.

When asked about bringing Blu-ray to the Mac at an Apple Event in 2008, Steve Jobs replied that “Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt.” By this, Jobs meant Apple didn’t want to burden Mac users with the “cost of the licensing and the cost of the drives.” While that sounds altruistic, it’s a little difficult to understand, as companies like Dell have sold sub-$1,000 laptops with Blu-ray drives for over a year.

More understandable would be history repeating itself with Apple and removable media. In 1998, Apple introduced the original iMac without an integrated floppy drive. The future is clearly digital downloading, the way video is rented and sold at the iTunes Store. Unlike the floppy, Apple has a vested interest in speeding the demise of the optical drive. Should Apple remove the optical drive on Pro lineup, the impact would be immediate for the MacBook Air.

The handwriting for the optical disc is not on the wall, but the back of the MacBook Pro case.

Removing the optical drive and supporting structure from the 13” MacBook Pro could reduce the weight by as much as half a pound. How much could Apple engineering then do to reduce the size of the motherboard? Adding a longer, thinner battery could allow for a wedge-shaped case, making the 13″ MacBook Pro look and feel a lot like the MacBook Air. Would a prospective MacBook Air buyer then pay an extra $300 for one less pound in weight? It’s the story of the 12″ PowerBook G4 all over again, though the story won’t end this year.

Fall is for iPods, perhaps desktops, but not laptops, and not during an Apple-less Macworld Expo in January 2010. Between February and April would be a good guess for the next round of laptop updates. Ironically, a last MacBook Air update in the spring would nearly complete the comparison to the 12″ PowerBook G4. Sometime later that year, the first MacBook Pros without optical drives could be introduced, leaving Apple’s latest foray into ultra-lights to vanish into the thinest air.

Apple Announces Netbook! That’s the headline you wanted to see, right? That’s the headline that industry analysts and so-called experts believe Apple must have in order to remain relevant in today’s economic climate. That’s also the headline you’re not likely to come across unless it happens to be April 1.

“It’s not a space we’re interested in,” according to Steve Jobs, and a few others at Apple. At least one site run by a reputable Mac journalist claims to have first-hand knowledge that a netbook does indeed exist deep inside Apple’s headquarters, but goes on to back up what we’ve already heard: It’s a prototype, and it’s just not going to ship.

The truth is, Apple already has a netbook on the market, which they’ve been selling for quite a while now. It’s called the MacBook Air. It’s a powerful, good-looking notebook with a full-sized keyboard, spacious 120GB hard drive, and a 13.3-inch, backlit LED screen. It’s capable of running a full version of Mac OS X Leopard, iLife, iWork, and Microsoft Office at full speeds, as well as light-duty graphics work in Adobe Photoshop.

Compare that with most sub-$600 netbooks currently on the market, which run some obscure distribution of Linux, or cripple-ware known as Windows XP Home, and you start to see why netbooks aren’t all that appealing for many people. Not to mention, the standard LCD screens fall in the 10-inch range, the touchpad is practically guaranteed to wear out from excessive scrolling, the keyboards are 80 percent of “normal” size for people with Barbie doll-sized hands, and hard drives are smaller than your standard iPod.

And let’s talk about power. The MacBook Air features a full Core 2 Duo processor, while most netbooks are running an Intel Atom or Celeron processor that barely outperforms my digital watch in modern-day tasks!

Do you really want a netbook?

When I ask around to friends and colleagues about why they bought a netbook, the answer was always the same: “It was small and cheap.” But when I ask them what they thought of it outside those two factors, I didn’t get much in the way of positive comments. Tiny screen, hard to type on, cheap-feeling hardware, and junkware were a few of the descriptions I heard. I thought perhaps this was due to the fact that most of these people weren’t terribly computer-savvy folks, but apparently it’s more widespread than that.

According to this report from The NPD Group, a leading market research firm, only 58 percent of consumers who bought a netbook said they were satisfied, while 65 percent said they expected the same performance as a regular laptop. Many were so unsatisfied that they returned them. How many? Intel’s Sean Maloney was quoted in this article as saying, “They [netbooks] had very high return rates, and a couple of these guys [retailers] had return rates in the 30 percent range, which is a disaster.” Three out of every 10 get returned? Yikes!

In fact, after a slight dip in sales at Amazon.com, when interest in netbooks was at a fever pitch, Apple is back at the top of the sales chart with the new 13-inch MacBook Pro, which has been the top-selling laptop since the moment it was introduced.

Mac Users Want More

The market is apparently showing what Apple, and Steve Jobs, already knew. People want small and cheap, but they don’t want to give up power. As Mac users, we want more from our hardware, and we’re willing to pay a bit more for it. That demand prohibits Apple from selling a powerful, small, and cheap laptop.

Sure, it would be great to have a $500 MacBook. But do you really want to spend that much for a Mac that has limitations that might include a smaller keyboard, a smaller screen, a stripped-down OS, the inability to edit or even watch videos with smooth playback, or a hard drive only large enough to keep a small sampling of your iPhoto and iTunes collection on in order to save room for other documents. I sure don’t, and I suspect that I’m not alone.

Apple's MacBook Air

The MacBook Air, as I stated earlier, is quite a capable little machine. The lack of numerous ports and a media drive initially struck me as absolute craziness at the highest levels at Apple. But when I look at how I use my current 15-inch MacBook Pro, I was surprised to notice how little I actually used the media drive; the Firewire and USB ports; the card slot and the ethernet port. I do most of my heavy-duty graphics work on a Mac Pro at the office, so the extent of my laptop use is light-duty graphics for the web, office and web apps, with the occasional iMovie or iPhoto work.

I suspect my laptop use is typical of most laptop users, except I paid a premium for some extra processor power that I don’t use, a slightly faster hard drive and slightly larger screen that aren’t worth the extra weight or battery use over a MacBook Air.

In fact, when I look at my usage, I really need a netbook. My next laptop will be something cheaper, smaller, lighter and just a little less powerful, but not crippled. A netbook. Most likely it will be named MacBook Air.

Note: I highly doubt Apple will ever release what most consider a netbook. But I’m fully prepared to eat my words, if I have to. After all, I didn’t expect an OS X upgrade to cost only $29, either. With Apple, you just never know what the next headline will be.

Despite an incremental speed increase, the biggest update to the MacBook Air at WWDC was the price. The low-end model is now $1,499, down $300, while the high-end model with a solid-state drive now sells for $1,799, a jaw-dropping $700 price drop.

Available in two models, the low-end version now features a 1.86 GHz Intel Core Duo, formerly 1.6 GHz, along with a 120 GB hard drive. The high-end now runs at 2.13 GHz, but more importantly has a 128GB solid-state drive. This is a huge improvement over the low-end model, not in capacity but speed. The problem with the 120GB mechanical hard drive is that it spins at 4200 RPM, resulting in a noticeable performance bottleneck. While the MacBook Air 128GB SSD is no Intel X-25M SSD, it’s still a big leap up from the mechanical hard drive. Apple is clearly addressing a major flaw with the MacBook Air by lowering the price on the SSD model. Unfortunately, that’s the only flaw being addressed.

Both models still have only 2GB of RAM, RAM that is soldered to the motherboard and cannot be upgraded. This seems especially curious when one considers that even the 13″ MacBook “Pro” has a high-end model with 4GB of RAM. Another deficiency, at least when compared with the MacBook Pros, is that the battery life on the MacBook Air remains at around 5 hours, the same as it was when the MacBook Air was introduced in January 2008. Another flaw, or absence of update, concerns the mouse button. The MacBook Air still has one, unlike the MacBook Pros. Why?

While the price drop is welcome, this MacBook Air is looking a lot like an interim update. Those who need the lightest, thinnest MacBook right now might want to consider it, but a true upgrade will probably come early next year. Look for more RAM, better battery life, and possibly a fast SSD drive then.

Despite an incremental speed increase, the biggest update to the MacBook Air at WWDC was the price. The low-end model is now $1,499, down $300, while the high-end model with a solid-state drive now sells for $1,799, a jaw-dropping $700 price drop.

Available in two models, the low-end version now features a 1.86 GHz Intel Core Duo, formerly 1.6 GHz, along with a 120 GB hard drive. The high-end now runs at 2.13 GHz, but more importantly has a 128GB solid-state drive. This is a huge improvement over the low-end model, not in capacity but speed. The problem with the 120GB mechanical hard drive is that it spins at 4200 RPM, resulting in a noticeable performance bottleneck. While the MacBook Air 128GB SSD is no Intel X-25M SSD, it’s still a big leap up from the mechanical hard drive. Apple is clearly addressing a major flaw with the MacBook Air by lowering the price on the SSD model. Unfortunately, that’s the only flaw being addressed.

Both models still have only 2GB of RAM, RAM that is soldered to the motherboard and cannot be upgraded. This seems especially curious when one considers that even the 13″ MacBook “Pro” has a high-end model with 4GB of RAM. Another deficiency, at least when compared with the MacBook Pros, is that the battery life on the MacBook Air remains at around 5 hours, the same as it was when the MacBook Air was introduced in January 2008. Another flaw, or absence of update, concerns the mouse button. The MacBook Air still has one, unlike the MacBook Pros. Why?

While the price drop is welcome, this MacBook Air is looking a lot like an interim update. Those who need the lightest, thinnest MacBook right now might want to consider it, but a true upgrade will probably come early next year. Look for more RAM, better battery life, and possibly a fast SSD drive then.