Rather than writing a long review on the Air I’ll just sum it up in two lines:
- If your a multi-computer user. Get one
- If your a mobile computer user. Don’t bother
Side note:
Do not waste your money on the SSD version of the Air, read the reviews or take my word for it… It’s not worth it.
It’s that simple. I’m a multi-computer user. I have a MacPro at home where must of my work gets done. I use my laptop for reading a research and light coding. When serious work gets done I go straight to the MP. I was using my MacBookPro for my laptop needs and often thought that it would be nice to have a smaller machine that was more mobile. Believe it or not I think the 15" is too big for travel and after lugging it around the Airport all day, it can take a toll on your back (combined with everything else I pack in my bag.) So when the Air was announced I was immediately attracted to the concept and goals of the machine.
So I love the Air it’s totally replaced my Macbook Pro - It’s perfect for the way I work. Zero problems with the lack of USB ports and slower speeds. In today’s computing age RAM is king anyhow. I wouldn’t think of using a computer without 2 gigs of memory at least.
Because the Air is such a great machine to work on I’ve found a new problem.
Being a multi-computer user. The struggles of keeping a synchronized todo list, keeping code organized, email sync’d, photos organized, and music purchases straightened out. I know there are loads of great web based programs that would fix my entire set of problems but Apple has done such a great job at providing a great user experience with their software that ditching those and using the web based equivalent isn’t possible. That being said why hasn’t Apple solved these headaches of a multi-computer user? The Air wasn’t designed to be a single computer machine so you’d think they’d have a better solution for me and others with this problem.
In a perfect world…
I would work for a few hours on my Primary machine and push a button to tell it I’m done and take a nap. Wake from my nap and drag myself downstairs and open my laptop. Push a button to tell it I’m working on this machine now. Actually this is my perfect world so… it would ask me… "Do you want to sync your computer?" Because it noticed I updated some work from my other machine. Hitting yes would grab everything, the idea is it would be the same environment as my primary or other machine. After reading a few emails, responding and updating some bugs I would simply send my work back to the mother ship and go on my day like nothing changed.
So what I want is a massive version control system for my multi-computer life. I couldn’t work on programming without version control so why should I work without some type of version control between multiple machines? Apple if you’re reading this help. If not maybe it’s a project I’ll tackle myself.
"More is less"
- Chris