MacBook Air will rule all notebooks

The MacBook Air unveiled by Apple today is generating plenty of geek skepticism, but I predict the following:

• It will become Apple's best-selling notebook by the end of the 2008 holiday season and will rank as one of the top 5 selling notebooks in the U.S.
  
• A disproportionate share of sales will be to women.
• A disproportionate share of sales will be to iPhone owners.
• MacBook Air will replace the original MacBook within 18 months and, eventually, a larger version will replace the MacBook Pro 15.
• By the end of 2010, the MacBook Air will be the best-selling notebook in the country. (It may have been renamed just "MacBook" at that point.)
  

Yes, it costs about $700 more than a regular MacBook, and is less functional since it lacks an optical drive. And a swappable battery, and an Ethernet port, and probably some other things most people don't care about.

This will not matter. People will pay. And then the price will come down, and more people will pay. And so forth.

It's not about the specs, which are good enough, it's about fashion, design and aesthetics.