Okay man, there is just so much trash talk going on about the MacBook Air that I want to personally take a board and whack all the whiners upside the noggin. We are such a jaded bunch of jackasses at times.

Anyways my initial thoughts were that it didn’t have some features I would have liked to have, but I understand there was a goal to meet and decisions had to be made to achieve it. But what I thought first of all is that Apple probably doesn’t expect it to be an immediate hit – it is the first step on the road to further innovation and keeping its branding on the cutting edge of innovation to be primed for when the timing and market is ripe to reap the sales. Plus I do think it was a labour of love for Jobs. I mean really just look at these pictures – I smile just knowing that this is a look of a man who is holding something dear to him that he really deeply desired to make. And it is quite an accomplishment.

Not to continue to make the Jesus-Jobs analogies (but what the heck the Jobs as the Messiah of tech is firmly implanted into Apple culture) but the thumb-sucking baby bawling going on that Jobs didn’t live up to their expectations did instantly bring to mind:

Matthew 11:17 – “To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge and you did not mourn.’ “

Oh poor us. I dunno, I guess this is a full-on rant, but half of the blogs and comments out there sound like they come from petulant brats.

The Big Picture: Apple’s methodical moves show it takes time to change the world is a great article that mirrors how I see the introduction of the MacBook Air:

First let’s look at the MacBook Air, which is a cool product with a bad name, though I guess it worked well for Michael Jordan, so what the heck. It is very doubtful that Apple will sell a million Airs in the next year. It is doubtful Apple will sell even half a million Airs and Steve Jobs knows this. What’s important here is not the subnotebook computer but the bits of it that will likely make their way into much more interesting Apple products to come.

Take that specially packaged Intel CPU, how did that come about? Steve Jobs didn’t beat the heck out of Intel CEO Paul Otellini to get a little CPU that would go into fewer than half a million boxes. Steve did what he always does. He beat the heck out of Paul Otellini with the promise that this little CPU — for which we can expect Apple will hold some exclusive for the next six months — will end up in millions and millions of Apple products, nearly all of them costing a lot less than a MacBook Air.

Apple is very important to Intel. Though nobody says it out loud, Apple is the last of the major computer companies that uses 100 percent Intel processors. And Apple’s ability to do more with less has to be a continual inspiration to its competitors. As Apple slides further and further into the consumer electronics and networking markets, Intel will be right there, too. I still expect we’ll see an Apple tablet this year, for example, and it will use this same Intel CPU.

Want an example of the vacuous drivel that set me off on this rant? Well here are some quotes from this gem

Only days removed from CES, and Steve Jobs has decided that he wants attention again. This time, his attention-grabing, flame-war inducing, fan-boy wet-dream has come in the form of a laptop. [blah blah whine whine] After all, I know that charging $3,100 for any laptop basically amounts to robbery of the highway variety.

Of course the author doesn’t mention that the $3,100 price point is for the solid state drive and never mentions at all that the traditional hard drive version is $1,700 – hardly highway robbery for what it is. Let’s not let facts get in the way shall we? Such as the fact that Apple is selling incredibly cheap SSD drives? No, no, mustn’t do that.

Oh, and sorry to interrupt with this, MacBook Air battery replacements take only minutes

Now I feel a whole lot better. I will leave my wallet at home when I make the pilgrimage to the Holy Land in two weeks to personally fondle the actual item.