The MacBook Air is clearly not meant to be a primary machine. Understandably, there are many of us who do use a notebook computer as their only computer, and we are not going to be the target demographic. But there’s something to be said for a computer that only weighs 3 lbs. Face it. Minimalism is beautiful. Why do you think European sports cars sell so well?

Seriously, if you’re only going to be using the Air on-the-go, what the hell do you need all those other ports for? I mean, are there really people who need to be editing their digital movies while they’re sitting on the ground at JFK waiting for their delayed plane? And if you insist on having more ports, then you’re just going to have to get yourself a USB hub. (I’m surprised that Apple isn’t selling those, too.)

As for people who want to use the Air to do Powerpoint/Keynote presentations, all you need is the mini-DVI to VGA connector. And in reality, all the presentations I’ve done have had to be copied onto the machine actually hooked up to the projector because everyone is paranoid about disconnecting the wires, and nobody ever seems to be able to get things running again once they do.

One thing that would be cool, though, is if Apple supported target disk mode through USB like how they support it through Firewire.

In any case, if you have objections about the lack of ports on the MacBook Air, then it’s clearly not for you. You’d do better to wait for Apple to release this machine instead.

It is interesting to note that Apple was the first computer manufacturer to abandon the 3.5” floppy disk. They were extensively ridiculed and derided for it. And yet, who still uses those dusty relics of the 1990s? You can’t even fit an entire mp3 on it. Some of my Excel and Powerpoint documents wouldn’t even fit, even after compression.

Does this mean that it’s only a matter of time before everyone gets rid of their extraneous ports?

Well, maybe. This article from 2005 is remarkably prescient about the prospect of Apple being the first to enter the realm of cloud computing and ubicomp. With nothing but wi-fi, Bluetooth, a solid-state 64Gb drive, and a multi-touch trackpad, you’ve got the entire world at your fingertips.

(For those of you moaning about the lack of dedicated WWAN hardware for the Mac, explain to me how this would be significantly different from connecting through your cel phone to access the net via GPRS or EDGE?)