Apple goes air – I have to admit defeat

I’ve always tried to argue about Apple products. Not so much because I wouldn’t like them, but mainly because I had a friend that would put his hand into fire for any Apple gadget. It was a point of principle and a bit that Apple always seemed elitist, while we should care about bringing IT technologies to the masses.Hm, how credible could that sound as an argument really? To a very large extent my friend has always been right, look at whet Steve Jobs delivered in the last years: iPods all over the place, Macbooks Pros, iMacs, Mac Minis, Apple Cinema displays, iPhone, Apple TV and now MacBook Air & Time Capsule! They are all fantastic products. Ever held one in your hands? The best build quality ever…It’s tough to argue against.

Take MacBook Air for example. It says the “thinnest laptop” ever made and it seems to be true. I slightly remember that Sony claimed the same for their X505, but it has a 10’4 inch screen compared to the 13’3 of Apple. And in fact it’s thicker, it has a crap name, plus it costs a fortune. True, MacBook Air doesn’t have a great amount of ports, nor it has an internal optical drive. But Steve offers you a vision: why would you need that? Transfers over the wireless networks are almost as fast, everything is available on-line, you have large USB sticks (larger than normal DVDs anyway), so why bother? Look at the Apple backup solution Time Capsule, or connect your Apple Macbook Air to one of the fantastic Apple Cinema Displays. Here even the best of the Asus combinations gets killed.

So, it’s difficult to argue against the laptops and PCs that Apple makes. The only argument I could still raise it’s for the iPods. They still rely on the iTunes software. With great features, free of charge, but not open source. With the immensely large collections of music in digital format that people posses nowadays, the iPods are great (people, up to 160GB of storage!!!), but iTunes don’t deliver so well. But hell, tough to argue against here as well. Legally, the iTunes are a great tool to force people to actually BUY music on-line not just import their ripped songs got from bittorrent or from a friend. They even had to align their prices in the EU recently, due to European Commission pressure. It is also difficult, if not impossible for most people, to transfer songs bought on iTunes to players other than iPod (also an competition infringement?). So, even if I’m in favour of open source, I would in this case argue against something that has been a success story so far in legalizing transfers of digital music. So, kick away the principles.

So, yes, Apple has an impressive range of products and impeccable design. I’m just getting worried about my financial situation, when I start switching to Apple products that are now even more environmentally friendly.

P.S.: For a funny Apple fake website selling ham, see www.ijam.es