What's the Macbook Air good for? What Developmental Psychology can tell us...

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What's the Macbook Air good for? What Developmental Psychology can tell us...

Date Created: 10 Feb, 2008, 11:26 PM

I can't recall a recent Apple product which has achieved such controversy both within and outside the Apple firmament than the Macbook Air.

I attended the Macworld keynote where Jobs unveiled one of his least surprising keynote announcements, given the much-held anticipation for a subnotebook portable Mac in the vein of the Powerbook Duo.

The PC world is not exactly short of überportable laptops, with many well-known brands producing a number of lightweight, small-screened units.

Sony, with its VAIO brand, has produced some tiny, light weight PCs their owners swear by. I played with a friend's VAIO the other night, when he was using it to DJ a folkdance evening.

I have to tell you, as portable as it is, it is very hard on the eyes and I was squinting and removing my glasses (I'm short-sighted) to make the screen legible.

It made me wonder just who would use such a machine as their primary machine and why. I recall several years ago having a friend whose brother was a security and networking expert, employed by small and large enterprises for their security issues (he had a Masters degree in IT, specialising in cryptography). He toted around a small Toshiba, about the same size as the VAIO with a tiny screen, which ran Windows Xp. But he spent most time using the command line, burrowing into networks and systems gaining access to what most employees would have assumed was private email. They would have been shocked to know just how easy their email was to access on the company's server.

So here we have two particular uses for very small screen lightweight PCs, where their owners have chosen them knowing their shortcomings, and where in both cases they had access to a full size PC for other work where a small screen just wouldn't cut it. In both cases, the CPU power was not the issue. As long as each machine had useful minimal "grunt" for their specific purposes, that was all that was needed, and there was no sense of compromise.

In releasing the Macbook Air, naming it as such and advertising it as "thinnovation" in the main West Hall which I visited after the Jobs keynote to play with the unit myself, Apple has let us know where it's coming from.

Both during his keynote and in the advertising material subsequently displayed, Apple and Jobs has not told its prospective users how to use the Air, for what specific purpose it designed the Air, nor who the primary user is. They left it up to us.

We, the consumer, come to the Air with all manner of prior knowledge, fueled by rumour sites as well as Apple's history of portable Macs. And design successes, and sales failures (e.g. the Cube).

If there has been disappointment in the Air, it's our doing, having projected onto the Air preconceived assumptions.

We have tried to do one of two means by which new knowledge is constructed by human beings, first described by the Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget, a giant in the field of Developmental Psychology (above, left).

He was one of the first to describe developmental stages we all go through as we develop as children. He developed two important concepts: Assimilation and Accommodation.

Assimilation is taking new data or information and making it fit our existing body of knowledge. The Mac's OS plays into this concept far in excess of Windows, and explains to some extent Mac users' joy in purchasing new software and "knowing" how to use it - at a basic level at least -- without consulting a manual. Windows users have to contend with a "wild west" software environment where software developers seem to make up rules of behaviour as they go along. There is a discernable lack of consistency. Every so often, an Apple software developer will break out of the mould (remember Kai's Power Tools?) but they are in the extreme minority.

Another example occurs when I step off the plane in LA after 14 hours flying from Melbourne, and can hop in a car, sit in the left hand seat, use my right hand to shift gears, and drive on the "wrong" side of the road, where a left turn takes me into the centre of the intersection, rather than it being a right turn back home. So despite so many things being inverse for me, I have sufficient prior knowledge of driving and how to do it in traffic that I can easily do it despite my tiredness and disorientation. (Just as well the pedal layout is consistent with what I know!)

Accommodation is the absorbing of new information - where I know it's new - and having to make a shift in my prior knowledge because the new information forces a change to occur. In other words, I cannot maintain my current knowledge base in the face of new information. Politicians often have a tough time with this concept, twisting and turning in the wind when deception and lies are uncovered in the public domain.

On a personal level, every so often, despite thinking I'm fit and healthy, I have to run for a tram or bend to reach something, only to get easily puffed or feel I am straining. This is when I am forced to acknowledge I'm not the fit exercise instructor I once was when I was in my twenties. The rest of the time I'm quite unaware of the aging process since I use my knowledge not my muscles to provide me with a living, and it keeps getting bigger and better, ie., I am yet to have senior moments, when my memory fails me.

Learning, even for adults, is a combination of assimilation and accommodation, and I use this knowledge when I give presentations and teach people presentation skills. As much as presenters need to know about design, I believe presenters who understand how the brain works - in particular how people learn - are at a real advantage over those who focus entirely on design (Let the war of words begin!)

To some extent, the introduction of the Macbook Air is a giant Piaget experiment in the concepts of Assimilation and Accommodation.

Some were so expecting a portable, ultralight but full powered Mac that they were unwilling to assimilate the Air as their fantasy notebook. These have been the Air's harshest critics, because it doesn't fit their pre-existing model of what an ultralight should be.

Because it is ultralight, critics have projected onto it other parallel qualities it should have to complete their mental model.

They complain its footprint is the same as the Macbook, as is the screen size (which having seen it in person is much brighter). The Air's thinness, while admittedly enchanting, is insufficient to differentiate it from the Macbook which is both more powerful and capacious. And thus offers better "value".

I place "value" in quotes because it is a subjective term, difficult to objectively measure and subject to personal opinion.

I want to offer that once more Steve Jobs and his design team are offering us an education in Accommodation, just as they did with the original Mac ("it's a toy!"), the iPod ("it's just an expensive mp3 player") and the iPhone ("Apple should stick to its knitting", an expression the holder of grudges, allegedly, may well use against Australia's largest telco when it comes to awarding exclusivity of iPhone distribution sometime this year).

Once more the Apple design team reminds us of the difference between good and great design, the latter perhaps revolving around what designers choose to leave out, rather than include in their designs.

It's we, the consumer, who has to come to term with the fact the Air is not perfect, if by perfect we mean it has everything we need in a portable computer. Clearly, laptops by definition are compromises, unless you choose a preferred desktop replacement such as a Macbook Pro 17".

In my own mind, the Air is an exercise in pushing design boundaries, something we were privy to seeing when Jobs brought Intel CEO Paul Otellini on stage (right) in a "confession" that their current processors weren't up to scratch and new designs had to be forged to fit Apple's minimizing designs.

The CPU that resulted is not as fast as its larger brethren in the Macbook, according to a number of sites now publishing benchmarks. Big deal - are you surprised?

Disappointed?

Why?

What were you hoping for? The world's most perfect portable?

Please! It's a thin wireless Mac portable. You need to accommodate these facts. Apple is emphasing (and I just saw a advertisement for the Air on Aussie TV as I'm writing this blog entry) its thinness. The Air part is a play on words, as in "light as air", as well as the lack of wired connectivity it forces upon its owner, using the "air" to transmit data.

(For the presenters reading, notice how Jobs illustrates the lighter than air concept by having the Macbook Air float above its shadow, (below).

Let me offer you a little story which follows my visit to Macworld.

I travelled down to LA after, and visited a small software firm who wished to speak with me about having a greater presence in Australia. It has developed unique software which goes way beyond Apple Desk Remote and Timbuktu allowing for remote operations, and the placement of applications on central servers, providing for the use of thin clients, in enterprise and educational settings.

Its young CEO, who has worked for Microsoft and Novell, had whipped together some protocols in order to solve an inhouse networking problem (his firm initially developed enterprise level security software), when the idea occurred to him his solution had applications well outside his small family-based firm.

When he saw the keynote announcing the Macbook Air, he told me he said to himself, "There goes Jobs again, placing Apple five years ahead of the rest of the IT industry".

He immediately saw where Jobs was heading. He assimilated the Air's place in the IT world, because it fitted his awareness of where things are going, because that's where he's heading also with his software ideas.

His software will allow a family to have a central server, where Office or iWork or other apps. are stored, and each family member with his or her Air will use the app on an "As Necessary" basis without impacting any other user. A smallish 80GB iPod-based hard drive in the Air is plenty sufficient to store documents, OS X, and his software. No need to store Apps.

Heading out on the road, as long as you have a wireless connection, you'll connect to home, and continue your work. Unsure if you'll get a connection (in five years, this will be a much less problematic situation as wireless "clouds" emerge), you'll take with you a smallish USB hard drive with your apps. Oh, and any road warrior or traveller spending time in hotel rooms who is not travelling with an Airport Express (AX) needs to take a hard look at their out-of-office preparations.

(My partner and I always travel with an AX, and it remains one of the first travel "documents" we pack when we travel. Whether a hotel has an ethernet connection, or wireless unit, the AX is a no-brainer to take).

It also means that travellers need to get over the idea that they must travel as light as possible, and that additions to make the Air "useful" to them detracts from its primary purpose. Again, Apple is not telling you the Air's primary purpose, that's your concoction in order to assimilate the Air into your belief system about the meaning of portable, or road warrior, or whatever.

Those who complain that Apple "makes them" take a unique DVD player on the road with them are also not getting the Accommodation principle.

If you're going to be away from work or home, needing to be self-sufficient, and you're not taking a backup drive, a Start-up CD or DVD, or a repair disk like Disk Warrior, you're asking for trouble.

So if that's your workstyle, buy the external DVD drive and keep it stored in your hotel room or in your travel bag, along with your power supply, handouts, presentation remote control (and extra batteries), and data projector connectors.

Yes, connectors. The Air comes with two, one microDVI-DVI and the other microDVI-VGA. And there is the option to buy a microDVI-S video/Composite for US$19.

Remember, what I wrote about great design leaving things out? Let's see what Apple left in with the Air.

Many commenters have decried the minimal connections Apple included. One USB, one headphone and one micro-DVI.

Left out was a microphone jack (pack a Griffin iMic or Blue Snowball or use the built-in iSight mic.), Firewire (you're really not going to do much importing from your Sony DVcam, are you on the road?) a PC Card slot (I've had one in my Powerbook for four years and never used it - never), a modem (no longer need one on the road, although having just purchased a Phone Valet at Macworld I am using it now at home, sparingly), and an ethernet connection (this is where the Airport Express come in to play). Or you purchase an adaptor. Not having target mode via Firewire will prove a once-off challenge. See Apple's advice here.

Just because the Air is spare, you still need to keep in mind your purpose in being on the road and pack accordingly. I gave a workshop last week and used a large Travel Pro suitcase to pack all my necessary gear, including my back-up Firewire 800 hard drive "just in case". Last year, in front of some young CEOs who had come to see me present, the Powerbook failed me, and would not start up. Blue Screen. If I'd had my external drive with me, since it was a Leopard problem, not hardware, I'd have started up from its Tiger-based partition, and no one would have known the difference. A costly learning exercise. The hard drive came to Macworld with me and provided me with some safety net assurance given it was my first time presenting (I did OK).

There is one location for which the Air has come in for some major criticism, and once more it's an exercise in accommodation. And that's on board aircraft, where five hours duration seems to be the benchmark, given it's the average endurance between the US coasts, eg., New York to LA. After that road warriors travelling internationally will have endurance challenges of around 8 hours (US East Coast to Europe), then 12 hours (US West Coast to Europe), then anywhere between 12-18 hours, which is US West coast into Asia and Australia.

For the latter, you need three batteries minimum, or better still, upgrade to Business class and tote with you (yes, one more thing) an airline seat charger. By the way, the cheapest connectors simply supply minimal power to maintain charge, while more expensive units incorporate inverters which allows for charging.

But let's look ahead five years, which is where Jobs is looking now. Most business travellers will be travelling, if not in business, in an economy class which will allow both power and wireless internet connectivity (The first attempt by Boeing called Connexion, failed, but in a few years time it will be ubiquitous).

Yes, I know, you want it now. But that's not necessarily how innovation works. Sometimes you have to grow into (ie, accommodate) someone else's innovations. And that includes the Air ecosystem which is about to make its way to market, and will include dock-type devices to offer multiple USB connections, mic. in, and other "missing" components. And perhaps one bright star in this ecosystem will develop a very light weight ultrathin battery plate which fits beneath the Air. I once had such a battery, albeit as thick as the Air is thin, and heavy with 10 hour battery life from VST which I used with my Powerbook 180 more than ten years ago.

Let's see who brings one out first. Sure, it won't look pretty but it will still be thinner when combined with the Air than a Macbook. And when you're on the plane, you're beyond pretty and into practical.

... but there's one more thing...

I want to add one more point to this blog entry before guiding you to add your own comments. In a previous blog entry, I advocated that Apple's Keynote, its presentation software (which I presented with and about at Macworld) was Apple's Trojan Horse into the "Please, stop torturing us with lousy Powerpoint" enterprise setting.

I have commenced this process myself, to judge by the number of CEOs who come up to me after my presentations knowing I didn't use Powerpoint (that's a whole other blog entry I'm working on as to how they know, but it's not hard to guess), and saddened to hear I didn't use Powerpoint but an Apple proprietary software. Some in the know tell me they are preparing to buy Macs just to run Keynote to give them a distinct advantage over their competition. (I kid you not. Apple Australia - are you listening?)

Think now about what Apple left in the Air. The DVI-out connection - with two connectors, just to make it easier (Does any other Mac portable pack two connectors?)

I am advocating that the Air is a presenter's dream machine. Despite its slower hard drive, I am guessing it's got five times the processing power of my current Powerbook, and believe me I load up my slide shows with movies, animations, multiple slide builds, and really push it with 400MB Keynote files.

It occasionally misses a beat, and frankly I am in dire need of a new 'book. It won't be an Air. Surprised? Don't be. My Powerbook has been my primary computer for four years, now used 16 hours a day on average.

But in a different situation, say with an iMac as my primary machine (I design my Keynote slides with a 19" monitor plugged into the Powerbook), I'd certainly take the Air on the road with me as my primary presentation device. Now you might ask why make such a big deal about presentations, and link it to the Air.

It's because, at least according to Microsoft, some 30 million Powerpoint presentations are given each day. Leaving aside the hours of lost productivity due to how most people use slideware, this is a huge marketplace. As OS X makes its presence felt more and more in education and enterprise, those demo iWork apps. will hopefully get opened and explored.

And I'm hoping the combo of the Air and Keynote will appeal to those who are ready for a paradigm shift in how to communicate complex ideas, one of the more important concepts of the early 21st century. That's just about any knowledge worker's job nowadays.

In a few years' time, I'm hoping to attend conferences and conventions, where instead of rocking up with lousy Powerpoints on thumbdrives and CDs to place on a central server, presenters will open their Airs and wirelessly connect with the data projector and it's on with the show. No more futzing around with connectors, no more useless rebooting, no more being told you can't use a Mac "with our technology set up".

It's a few years away, but I've been ready for it for years already. Time will tell how many people have been waiting for a Macbook Air and how they're going to use it. One more webpage for Apple to eventually add to apple.com/macbook: How are you using your Macbook Air?