Marco.org

Naturally, it will suffer an Internet fate worse than that of the MacBook Air, which was ridiculed in its time for how underpowered, overpriced, port-poor it was. The tablet will be called a fanboy’s gadget, a netbook with a fancy logo on it, and why would anyone buy that instead of the Nokia N101 or something which has a higher-megapixel camera and Ogg Vorbis support. Or, why not just keep your iPhone/iPod touch?

Except whatever. Except the MacBook Air was awesome, and clearly this is what the rest of the MacBook line will look as soon as Apple can pack enough CPU and battery into the same enclosure.

— Neven Mrgan on the rumored Apple tablet-like device.

Many of Apple’s products are ridiculed by tech geeks when they’re announced, but then a few years later, we all have them. The most extreme example of this so far has been the original iPod, which was greeted with disappointment, negativity, and doubt for nearly a year after it was introduced.

I have to agree on the MacBook Air, which was also ridiculed like crazy on introduction (I’m guilty of it, too). But the Air is awesome.

When I used one, I was constantly frustrated with its performance, limitations, and screen resolution, but I can’t deny that it’s an awesome computer to handle and carry. I was just using it wrong: I demand more capabilities and higher performance out of a laptop than most people. But it won’t surprise me at all if my next laptop, maybe in 2-3 years, is an Air.

Apple is incredibly good at designing products that we really want, even if we don’t recognize that immediately because we’re blinded by the past or obsessed with the wrong metrics.