Every time Apple's released a new product over the last five years or so, all the "zomg tihs is just Apple marketing and hype for overpriced useless stuff!!1! blah blah" people crawl out of the woodwork. So far, I've always disagreed with this crowd, because even though Apple's products have been 'expensive', they are good quality AND more importantly have always had a *useful* role in the market. So far the market's 'proven me right' every time. In spite of being expensive, they always still had a use, some *pragmatic benefit* over their competition, they weren't JUST "sexy status products".
This time I think is different - for once, I agree with the naysayers, I think Jobs has made a mistake with this one. It's 'sexy', I'm sure it's also good quality, and it's OS X --- BUT I just don't see enough "pragmatic differentiation" - it's primary selling point seems to be the fact that it's super-thin, and of all the things I've ever heard people say they really wanted in a laptop, being super-thin is not one of them, nor do I imagine it becoming the case. It's almost *only* a "sexy status product", so apart from flashing your material status, there is not really any benefit over this to buying a normal MacBook. As a minor, quiet "sideline" addition to their product line, this might've been OK, but the fanfare almost suggests to me a directionless-ness from the company, as if this is their main "next big thing" ... "that's it?" ... I guess I would've preferred to see something that seemed to indicate bigger, broader aims for Apple i.e. in making inroads encroaching on the PC market - e.g. more affordable machines, some more 'steps' towards allowing OS X to run on other hardware perhaps, or trying to make their systems more useful in broader markets e.g. better gaming support, whatever. I think the Air will flop, but it won't kill Apple, people will just kinda forget about it in a few years. Hopefully I'll be proven wrong. If not, hopefully Jobs will realise and get his feet back down on the ground again.
I wonder if people who are "too" successful start to disconnect a bit from their customers' actual needs, maybe they start surrounding themselves with too many 'yes men' (like Gates too, I think, or better, Ballmer with his 'squirt' nonsense) that any idea they have gets trumpeted as good by those around them, so they start to believe it instead of being self-critical.
But anyway, we'll see what the market says.
