Apple’s new laptop, OS pack a powerful roar

It’s not just the iPad that makes Apple cool. The company’s Macintosh computer line gets fewer headlines, but the company sold nearly 16 million of them over the past year. They’re about to sell a whole lot more.

The new MacBook Air laptop computers, though pricey, are more elegant and powerful than ever. More significant is Apple’s latest operating system upgrade, nicknamed Lion. With a new iPad-like user interface that transcends old-fashioned mouse controls, Lion might be the biggest advance in user-friendly computing since the original Mac.

Hardware first: The new MacBook Air comes in 11-inch and 13-inch sizes, priced between $999 and $1,599 depending on screen size, processing power, and storage capacity. Apple loaned me the $1,299 model, a 13-incher with an Intel Core i5 processor, 4 gigabytes of random-access memory, and a 128-gigabyte slab of flash memory. Indeed, all Air models are flash-based, eliminating the need for fragile, noisy, slow hard drives.

The result is a stunningly fast laptop that shuts down in about two seconds and boots up in less than 25. Click an icon, any icon, and stuff just happens.

The Air has built-in Wi-Fi wireless networking, of course, but unlike most laptops, it has no Ethernet port. Instead, it features Thunderbolt, a new interface (codeveloped with Intel Corp.) that is supposed to move data far faster than today’s USB ports. For now, there are hardly any Thunderbolt-compatible devices available. But you can use Thunderbolt adapters to connect to standard Ethernet networks or desktop video monitors.

The MacBook Air lacks a DVD drive. If you must use a disk, there’s software that lets you use the optical drive on another network-connected computer. But Apple is betting that optical disks will fade away as laptop users download all their new software. That’s why Apple said that its stores will soon stop carrying boxed, disk-based versions of its own programs.

It’s already happened with Lion. There’s no disk version; instead, you download all 3.8 gigabytes of it from Apple’s online software store. Like previous Mac OS X upgrades, Lion sells for $29.99, a remarkable bargain.

I enjoyed using Lion on a mouse-equipped Mac workstation, but pleasure turned to delight once I tried it on the Air. The laptop features Apple’s excellent multitouch trackpad, which lets you use the same kinds of finger gestures that work on the iPhone and iPad: swiping, twisting, pinching, and the like. Lion takes full advantage of these commands, becoming the first desktop operating system smart enough to work like a smartphone.

How to install Lion on a new MacBook Air SSD (updated)

I just took delivery of a 13-inch MacBook Air i7 which will become my primary machine (more on that later) — but before I can migrate to my new iron, some planning is required.

Although I ordered my MacBook Air with 4GB of RAM and the 256 GB SSD (and won the Samsung lotto - woot!) that’s not nearly enough primary storage for me. I’m going to upgrade to a 480GB SSDfrom OWC now that they’ve been confirmed to work in the Mid-2011MacBook Air.

While saving up the $1400 (cough!) for the new SSD I got to thinking about how I’d actually install Lion onto a brand-new, blank SSD. Apple includes no recovery media with the new machines, instead relying on a recovery partition and Internet booting to bail you out should trouble arise.

I figured that I’d install the new SSD blade, then boot from the Internet and install Lion that way. As it turns out, there are actually two ways to install Lion on a new, blank SSD in the MacBook Air.

Method 1Use Lion’s Internet Recovery mode (via Apple knowledge base article#HT4718)

Note: If moving an OWC Aura Pro Express SSD used in a 2010 MacBook Air, using this method will completely erase the drive’s data. Make sure you have a Time Machine backup or clone of the OWC Aura Pro Express SSD on an external drive.

Method 2Use Lion’s Recovery HD mode:

1. Make SURE you have a Time Machine backup or clone of your data (from either the Apple factory stock flash drive or OWC Aura Pro Express SSD) on an external drive. We will refer to this drive as Drive #1.
2. Boot to the recovery partition on the stock drive by holding down Command R during a restart or boot process.
3. Use Disk Utility to do a restore on a separate external USB drive. DO NOT use the same external drive that was used for your Time Machine or clone backup. We will refer to this drive as Drive #2.
4. Replace the MacBook Air’s stock flash drive with the OWC Aura Pro Express SSD.
5. Boot to the USB Drive #2’s recovery partition.
6. Use Disk Utility to do a restore to the OWC Aura Pro Express SSD.
7. Restart or Boot to the OWC Aura Pro Express SSD.
8. Run Apple Migration Assistant to clone your data from Drive #1.

Update: The third (and perhaps simplest) option is to clone your original SSD to an external USB drive, then clone it back to the new replacement SSD. I use SuperDuper ($28) for this but the free Carbon Copy Cloneralso does the trick.

Are you going to upgrade the SSD in your MacBook Air?

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Macbook Air has a half-speed Thunderbolt port

EXPENSIVE TOY MAKER Apple put a Thunderbolt port into the latest model of its Macbook Air range, but it will only be capable of half the speed of Thunderbolt ports on other Apple devices.

The Light Ridge Thunderbolt chip used on this year's Imac, Macbook Pro and Mac Mini has four Thunderbolt channels, capable of up to 80Gbits/s of total bandwidth, along with two Displayports.

The Eagle Ridge Thunderbolt chip, on the other hand, has only half the channels and a single Displayport. This will be used by the Macbook Air, according to Anandtech, making for somewhat disappointing performance.

The problem for Apple is that it was a bit of a necessity in terms of price and space. The Eagle Ridge chip is much cheaper than Light Ridge, and it's also significantly smaller, coming in normal and small form factor versions. This made using it instead of the Light Ridge chip in the smaller and cheaper Macbook Air almost mandatory.

In terms of performance, 40Gbits/s bandwidth over two channels is still pretty decent. It will also support a single Thunderbolt display, rather than the two that a Light Ridge machine can handle, but it's unlikely that Macbook Air users are going to want to use two displays anyway, particularly when they come with such hefty price tags as Apple's Thunderbolt displays.

Thunderbolt is Apple's answer to next-generation connections. It boasts double the speed of USB 3.0 5Gbits/s bandwidth, along with two channels, effectively providing 20Gbits/s of bidirectional bandwidth.

At the moment not many devices support Thunderbolt. There's the Thunderbolt display, three storage devices, two video capture devices, and three adaptors. This limited range of peripherals is one of the problems that plague some other high-speed ports, including USB 3.0, and until it's addressed it will make one of the features of Apple's Macbook laptop range just that little bit less advanced. µ