Aplus.net Blog

As the latest development in their ongoing efforts to dazzle the marketplace by taking popular marketplace trends to all-new highs, Apple’s Steve Jobs unveiled the “world’s thinnest computer” at yesterday’s Macworld Expo in San Francisco.

The trend being capitalized upon is making consumer products that are smaller, thinner, more lightweight and more transportable than any that have come before. (See also: iPods, digital cameras, cell phones.)

To that end, the new MacBook Air “tapers in thickness from .76 inch down to .16 inch. The circuit board is about the length of a pencil” (according to the New York Times’ John Markoff). What’s more, it weighs just 3 pounds.

However, such a dramatic size reduction in a laptop has made for an interesting sacrifice: The new MacBook Air will feature no CD or DVD drive, something that has given many observers pause. Forget music and movies — how will new software be installed? Is the owner expected to download everything? Is this perhaps pushing consumers towards an all-download diet just a bit too hard (or soon)?

Apple’s response to this is the Apple MacBook Air SuperDrive, which “connects to your MacBook Air computer with a single USB cable and fits easily into a travel bag. It lets you install software and play and burn both CDs and DVDs, including double-layer DVDs.” It’s only a $99 add-on — not too expensive — but don’t extra components such as this sort of defeat the purpose of having a super lightweight and portable laptop in the first place?

That’s absolutely a matter of debate. Initial reaction at the unveiling has so far been fairly positive, but it will be interesting to see how the market reacts to the new product. As of today, the announcement hadn’t helped stop Apple shares from continuing their current Wall Street slide, reports MarketWatch today. (It should be noted, however, that most observers attribute this recent slide to Intel’s problems, and not directly to Apple.)

As some have been quick to point out, Apple received a similar level of skepticism way back when they announced that their Macs would not have floppy disk or diskette drives. And that not only failed to hurt the product, but in fact may have given it an aura of modernity that wound up helping sales.

Yet, this is admittedly somewhat different. With no built-in optical drive whatsoever, the MacBook is asking a bit more from the consumer. Then again, that’s just the sort of market anticipation that Apple, and Jobs himself, is best known for. It should be noted that this is a type of bet that the company usually wins.

What do you think? Are you excited about the new MacBook, or less than thrilled? Sound off in the comments section and let us know your thoughts.