Whatever Happens Tomorrow, the Air's Days Are Numbered

Will the "brick" revolutionize laptop production? Will it dramatically lower prices? Will it simply be an incremental upgrade to existing MacBook line? Whatever we see tomorrow, one thing is increasingly clear: The MacBook Air's days are numbered.

That's not to say there's anything inherently wrong with the Air as we know it today. The fact is though, at some point, (perhaps even this week) the features, weight, and thinness of a full-fledged Apple laptop with DVD drive and full array of ports will rival the portability of the Air.

Apple has previously patented a system of folding ports, which would seem to address the issue of offering more peripheral functionality in a smaller space. And at a time when the 1.8" drive used in the iPod is being produced at up to 250GB, and the cost of solid state drives continues to fall, there's no reason a full-features MacBook can't be thinner than it is today.

The MacBook Air is a transitional product, It is able to fill a gap in the product lineup until technology catches up, and allows for far more computing versatility in a smaller space. It's demise might just be a lot sooner than any of us realize.

Tablet device... Why bother?

For years, there have been rumors of a mythical tablet, or "tablet-like" device from Apple. I hate to spoil everyone's fun, but the tablet device is already out there, and it's called the iPhone.

Yet many people think any day now, we'll see a device with perhaps a 7" screen that would pack the power of laptop, or in some speculation, the device would act as a companion device to a house of Macs. What good would this device be? If you want to sure from the couch, and find a laptop too bulky, there's already the iPhone and iPod Touch. If you're looking for a lightweight design, that comes along with its own drawbacks, there's the Macbook Air. A 7-inch screen isn't large enough to do much more than surf the web. For full computer capability, you would need a physical keyboard, and that of course means a bigger device or a smaller screen.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I just don't see a place for this in the product lineups. If you want to talk about product gaps, we can talk about the gaping hole where a low-end tower should be, but as for portable devices, the choices are already there.