Something in the Air
A little known provision of Steve Jobs' deal with the devil is that every Apple product must have a critical flaw. The new Macbook Air's critical flaw is that the battery is non-removable. I can see how making the battery removable would have involved design trade-offs, but.

The Macbook Air is the thinnest laptop ever. But I don't care how thin my laptop is. The regular Macbook is a perfectly fine form factor. I just want something with half the weight and twice the battery life. The new Macbook Air at least gets the weight down to 3 lbs, which is pretty reasonable. The lack of ports on the Air is also annoying. The lack of an optical drive I doubt I'll ever miss.

Now the lack of a replaceable battery. That's the first thing I decided when I starting shopping for a new laptop back in last August. My next laptop was going to have two batteries. There are just too many situations where I'm away from power for more than one battery duration (for example, long haul flights). As my battery has aged it's only gotten worse.

One thing is certain: the Air is not meant to be anybody's primary computer. That's fine, it's the direction I'm headed these days anyway. But at that rate I might go straight past the Air to the Asus EEE PC. At 2 lbs it's extremely light. If only it had a bigger keyboard or at least a bigger screen. At least the price is right. (also see the ars technica review)

So is the battery a complete deal-breaker? I don't know. Since it's not shipping for two weeks, I guess I've got a little time to decide.

Also: The new Apple TV finally looks like something somebody might want. And it's cheap enough that it makes some sense vs. just putting a mac mini next to your TV.

Also: I don't think Randy Newman should expect a Christmas card from Steve Jobs this year. That was really weird at the end of the keynote.