The MacBook Air: Apple's Latest iPod?

The keynote is over, and the MacBook Air has been confirmed.

And it's designed to be a completely wireless machine, as I speculated in an earlier article.

And it's designed to use iPod-sized 1.8" drives, as I also predicted.

But there's also a few surprises to be found, as it has more in common with an iPod than just a drive.

As you can see, it also picks up design cues not from the Apple Wireless Keyboard as Wired speculated, but from the iPod nano and Classic, right down to the brushed aluminum and curved edges.

Let's take a look at the specs:

3.0 pounds, 0.16 -0.76 inches thick (world's thinnest), 13.inch LED-backlit glass display, full-sized keyboard, multi-touch gestures, iSight, 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo standard, 2GB memory standard, 802.11n Wi-Fi standard, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR standard, and MagSafe.

Prices start at $1,799.

And as mentioned above, the Air ships with a 80GB PATA 4200RPM 1.8" hard drive as standard equipment. Now, you can order it with a 64GB Solid State Drive instead, but the SSD adds a whopping $999 to the price of the system.

I guess flash memory isn't as cheap as some might expect. And it's surprising that no 160GB option is available.

Speaking of memory, the 2GB of 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM is soldered to the motherboard, so no upgrades there either.

The Air also has a large multi-touch capable trackpad. You can pinch, swipe, or rotate to zoom in on text, advance through a photo album, or adjust an image.

An external SuperDrive is available, but optional at $99. For those times when you still need to install software on MacBook Air from a CD or DVD, a new feature called Remote Disc lets you wirelessly use or “borrow” the optical drive of a Mac or PC in the vicinity.

Built as a wireless machine, the Air has just four ports, a single USB 2.0 port, a headphone jack, and a micro-DVI port that supports DVI, VGA, composite, and S-video output on the right side, and a redesigned MagSafe connector on the left.

Ethernet is available for those who need it as an optional dongle, but the Air is designed to be a wireless computer, performing backups, updates, data transfers, and even iTunes movie rentals wirelessly.

But no WiMax, and no AT&T cellular connection. (Sorry, Valleywag, but sometimes when you stick out your neck it gets chopped off.)

And it's power efficient, getting up to five hours of battery life even with Wi-Fi enabled and in use.

All on its integrated battery.

That's right, on its integrated, non-user-replaceable battery. Like the iPhone and iPod, you don't get super-sleek and super-thin without a few tradeoffs.

I told you they had a lot in common.

Find out more at Apple.com.

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Related Articles:

• The MacBook Air: Apple's Latest iPod - Part 2
• The MacBook Air: An Ultra-Portable Concept
• The MacBook Air: The AT&T Connection
• The Wireless MacBook
• Want A Small Thin Light Notebook? Here's How.