I’m constantly amazed how antagonistic some of the anti-Apple crowd is, which can’t be compared to the anti-MS crowd, who are frustrated and angry at the problems caused by MS products. While Apple has also made some mistakes that are worth getting mad about, it is nowhere near the scale of MS, and they haven’t earned their position by illegal and unethical means, which MS has, as proven over and over in various court cases, including internal MS e-mails detailing many of their knowingly illegal methods.

Yes, it is missing a bunch of things we have been used to, but remember the outcry when the modem was dropped from Macs. Did we stop buying them? No.

Although there are postings that some or all the missing items are deal breakers as far as the posters are concerned, I’m sure many of them can actually manage without.

No doubt there are many who will need some of the missing items. Then obviously the MBA is not for them.

I have breaking news for the rest of you, though. The workarounds are generally not too much of an inconvenience for a lot of the non-IT-pro consumers, including in business.

Again, this is for most people, but even the single USB port is not a problem for most while mobile, while a USB hub in the location where all the USB equipment resides will allow connecting them all with just one cable once returned to “home base”. This is what I do now, finding it much easier than finding and plugging or unplugging all those cables. I now have three FireWire drives connected. I have to eject them all before I can unplug them. If I was using Remote Disc, I bet that also would be easier.

The battery? How many users actually have a spare lying around? (And I could be wrong, but my understanding is that to maintain the form factor, the battery is a weird convoluted shape spread around inside the laptop, not easy to take out.)

I know I have not removed the battery from my MBP, nor found a need to do so since I received it from Apple.

No optical drive? There is an optional external drive for those who may not find the Remote Disc function functional, for example, if they have no other computer with WiFi access, but again many will, as I do believe that most users with laptops do get a WiFi router, and either they or a family member already has another computer.

I could go on and on, but the bottom line?

I do believe Apple will sell a ton of these, and will probably have a hard time keeping up with the demand.

My boss would like one, just for the weight. He spends all day going from meeting room to meeting room. And he doesn’t need any “oomph” in terms of performance, because he only does “office” stuff on it.

-madd