New iPod and MacBook Air: Time to Update Yours Again?

How long will your electronic device last?  With Apple’s announcement of new MacBook Air and iPod models this week, it’s clear that they hope the answer is “until a better one comes out!”  But can Apple harness the same drive for new features it has with the iPhone release schedule?

Nowadays, it seems as if Apple is cranking out new products, or an updated version of existing products, every year.  Take the iPod.  I purchased my first iPod five years ago.  It was a silver iPod Mini that had 4 GB of space.  At the time, it was the cool, trendy iPod that everyone coveted, much more advanced than its predecessor, the CD Player.

Only a few years on, it has already become outdated, and uncool.  Your average flash drive at Walgreen’s rivals its capacity.

In other words, in a matter of couple years, my formerly-hip iPod is something that deserves to be placed in a museum.  Of course, not to be left behind, I recently treated myself to a fifth-generation classic iPod with 30 GB of space, perfect for storing all of my music and listening to it anywhere I go.  There are now as many varieties of iPod as there are types of cereal (I’m only half kidding). This kind of continual updating is also apparent in the laptop department.  With a variety of MacBook models available, Apple announced that along with a new iPod Touch, a new MacBook Air is set to hit the mainstream at the end of the year.

But will the MacBook Air catch fire?  Since its release in 2008, the Air hasn’t hit the cover off the ball the way the iPod, iPhone or iPad have.  A couple days ago, we did a post on the new iPhone, and how Apple’s 4 release has generated an incredible number of iPhone activations.  Apple hopes that the new MacBook Air, which is projected will hit 400,000 shipments at the end of the year, will be another feather in its cap.  Weighing at only 3 pounds, the MacBook Air aims to bring the most efficiency both by the amount of space it takes up and by performance.  More incredibly, the iPod Touch shipments may reach up to 18 million at the end of the year; not too shabby for an MP3 player.

And while the MacBook Air certainly fills out the array of form factors Apple has available, it is unlikely that the Air will be received in the way the iPad was, for example.  Why?  First, although the Air is technically a new form factor, to consumers it is just a light laptop, with a small hard drive (most people do not know or care about solid state), and a really big price tag.  The niche of people who will pay a premium for an extra light laptop (probably those who need to use a laptop and also travel, whose companies are willing to pay extra, i.e., executives) is just not that big – so economics are working against it (price to performance).

Second, because it is still basically a laptop, it doesn’t meaningfully satisfy the desire many Apple owners have to “whip out something cool.”  Since the introduction of the iPod and iPhone, one reason for having an Apple product is to have people ogle it and ask to check it out.  No one is dying to check out anyone’s laptop – we know how it works.

But the Air obviously represents something different long term.  For the time being, there are really not a lot of good substitutes for the laptop.  And there will undoubtedly be a need for a better, lighter, faster, more awesome laptop in the future.  It’s likely that the Air is a little ahead of its time – but by continuing to innovate on the platform, Apple will ward off new entrants while being ready with the next generation device when the laptop market heads that way.