The title says it all... I am currently in Houston, TX and as previously posted was thinking about buying a new MacBook even possibly the Air. The reason behind this is that one of my home laptops is dying its slow death!
Now, I visited the Apple store yesterday and decided to give the Air a rundown and I also took the opportunity to play some more with the iPod Touch and iPhone. Now I left the story disappointed and still hesitant (even more so when you see rumor articles like this) which is kind of a shame considering Apple's innovative approach and track history. Here is my problem, within a small 30minute period, I managed to find quirks and interface issues in all the new products.
First on the Air: I tried to use the multi-touch trackpad (which is only activated when you hold a key down) and found that in fact the applications don't respond very well. I couldn't even get it to work in iPhoto. When I did manage to get it to work, the zoom pinch function to reduce (after I had enlarged) was impossible to get working! I just could not reshrink the image. Could it be my fingers, maybe but...
Second on the Air: I heard some of the reports concerning the slow speeds but was thinking maybe it was just the reviewers. In the store, the Air was side by side with a pretty standard Macbook. I rebooted both at the same time... and the Macbook was up and running at the same-time if not faster than the Air! Ouch I was also very surprised that after only a few days of exposure, the unit was already showing signs of scratching and wear on the alu frame...
Third concerning the Touch & iPhone, I won't go back on some of previous comments regarding the missing features in some applications (like video, mms support, etc). To start, the display units are used by many people so they get quite dirty, believe it or not this makes it quite hard to get the multi-touch interface to respond properly. Your probably thinking, yeah so, a single person wouldn't dirt it up that much! But are you sure... my feeling on display units is that the passage of many people gives you a good impression of how resistant the device will be to prolonged usage and wear and tear.
Then I was playing with basic features like the music player and video player. During that time I also switched out to Home interface (tried to be a normal user). Then I ran into a problem, the audio got really loud (I think the following song was boosted)... It is there that I struggled, I couldn't for the world of me get a quick access to the audio controls and even in the player interface I struggled!
Believe it or not I left the store really stunned, in shock! Not the feeling I would have expected from visiting the Apple store hence my disappointment. I am still considering getting the iPod Touch though...
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