I thoroughly appreciate my MacBook Pro 13. It’s durable, has a great screen, very good keyboard and battery life goes and goes. But I also like tablets — in spite of my belief they’d never be a viable market segment… oops. With time I’ve come to appreciate the Apple iPad and, more recently, the Samsung Galaxy Tab. These are really ideal devices for reading magazines, newspapers and books. Plus they’re perfect for watching television shows and movies too.
But here’s the problem: I don’t want to carry my Motorola Droid, MacBook Pro and a tablet when I travel. There’s enough hassles already with security lines, cramped seating and, now — bonus fun — the pat down.
So it forces me to choose.
And the Tablet, be it an iPad or Galaxy Tab, never wins and almost always stays at home.
The Droid always comes along, a no brainer to slip in the pocket. Still, with tablets in the equation, there’s just too many gadgetry to lug around, and when push comes to shove the MBP can do it all. As a publisher, I am constantly writing, editing (my work and others) and writing some more.
If Apple would only build an iPad Air, life on the road would be so much easier.
You can look at the iPad Air in one of two ways: a MacBook Pro with an iPad in place of the screen, or an iPad with a MacBook Pro keyboard attached. To me they’re one and the same. And that’s the point. It would be the best of both worlds, and when I travel I know that I need only bring iPad Air with me. When I want to read or enjoy some leisure time, I’d simply pop off the screen, et voila I’d have a 13″ (or 10″ perhaps is better size) tablet ready to use.
Others have tried this before including Lenovo with their convertible S10-3t (abysmally underpowered and kludgy at best), and Toshiba with the Libretto (not quite what I have in mind with iPad Air but innovative nonetheless), but only one company can pull off this feat of engineering properly, and that, of course, is Apple.
Apple, though, probably won’t build one.
Why?
Because they’d rather sell you an iPad, and a MacBook Pro. More revenue, more margin.
The solution is simple. If Apple wants to protect their bottom line and not cannibalize with an dual purpose product such as the iPad Air they need only charge a premium; something they’re not exactly afraid to do already. So if iPad is $500 and the MBP is $1100. Make the iPad Air $1,400-1,500. The convenience alone would make it valuable to a lot of potential buyers.
It would make my decision — MacBook Pro, and/or Galaxy Tab — a lot easier when I travel: iPad Air FTW.
