Once the name and form factor were revealed (leaked?) last night, I started to think this might be the result.
802.11n networking, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
Built to be a wireless machine.
No internal optical drive. $99 accessory optical drive.
10:20am:
What do we do with optical drives? Movies, software, backups, and burn cds?
We can now install software wirelessly.
New feature — remote disc. It will show you macs or PCs in your vicinity. You can pick one of those machines, and borrow it’s optical drive. You can then see what’s in their optical drive. PCs can read mac installers. Use it just like a local optical drive.
We also didn’t want to compromise battery. 5 hours claimed life.[From Liveblogging the 2008 Macworld Steve Jobs Keynote | Gadget Lab from Wired.com]
The dimensions preclude a lot of stuff, like an optical drive, and the AIR naming suggested it would be wireless first and foremost. I assume it can be on a wired network, but it wouldn’t surprise me to find that requires a USB add-on. I like the idea of leveraging a networked optical drive: I don’t use mine that often. Why pay for it in the purchase price or the weight/size?
My guess is they’ll sell out of these pretty quickly 😉