From AppleInsider: What does $999 buy you today vs. five years ago? Just in case you think Apple is always keeping it's prices too high (OK, maybe that's a little true) it's still fun to look back and see what has changed. Moore's Law, still hard at work!
Even more fun -- for me at least -- is surfing recent price changes and realizing what I deal I can get on last year's Macbooks via eBay when this year's sexy new MacBooks come out. I love me some hand-me-down Mac action!
(a.) Thanks for making me watch a 30 second commercial before watching a 1 minute news piece. Now I'm totally into SAP.
(b.) Wha?
This piece kinda seems to forget that the Macbook Air already existed, and it's a laptop. Sure, the new MacBook Air is nice, and the low-end price point ($999) for the 64GB, 11-inch model is attractive, but that doesn't really mean it's everything that an iPad is.
For instance, an iPad is a *tablet* which is handy for carrying around, reading and interacting with by touch. This notion that it doesn't have a keyboard and is therefore only a "media player" is somewhat reminiscent of those people who said the iMac would never make it because it lacked a floppy drive.
The MacBook Air is a *laptop* which is a device that many people are already familiar with. The 11-inch model is in some sense Apple's attempt at creating the world's most expensive Netbook without actually admitting it's a Netbook. In theory there could be some folks who opt for the MacBook Air low-end over the iPad high-end model, but the MacBook Air actually fits a product strategy that Steve Jobs has had going since he came back to Apple -- the MacBook picks up where the lower-end category leaves off.
Oh, and by the time you get up to a "real" laptop with the MacBook Air, you're talking $1299 or $1599 depending on the storage you want.
Yes, the Air is going to break some new tech open -- this is the mainstreaming of the SSD and a stronger foray into the "featherweight laptop" or perhaps a "high-end" Netbook category. But I don't see it taking away from too many iPad purchases, except, perhaps, in extreme cases where someone wants a single device for accessing the Internet and wants something with an Apple logo on it regardless of its specs.
And it seems to me that the worst case scenario for Apple is that they'll up-selling those folks from iPad to MacBook Air right there in an Apple Store. Steve'll be crying all the way to the bank.
