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Jonathan Ive's Sharia Style

I was on a business commuter flight the other day, which was also the maiden voyage of my MacBook Air. I had it out before takeoff. This was an international flight and I was in bulkhead. On international flights, they’re not as strict about not having your laptop on your lap during takeoff. This flight was only an hour and ten, and if I had to wait ’til cruising altitude, I’d never get any work done.

I slid it into the middle of my Economist (manila envelopes are the only think it fits in), but other guys had their mondo Dells out, so I stopped hiding it.

One of the flight attendants saw it and came over, pouncing on me. Drat. Nabbed.

I blinked when she cooed, “Ooooooo, is that the new MacBook? Can I touch it?”, because this wasn’t what I would think of as a nerd-bird. It was Etihad from DMM to AUH, and after a few days in Al Khobar [link to http://www.the-saudi.net/saudi-arabia/alkhobar/index.htm no longer works], I found the fact that the flight attendants had neither an abaya nor hijab to be a pleasant surprise.

I handed it to her. She called over another flight attendant, who also cooed over it. They passed it back and forth extolling, “It’s so light! It’s so smooth! It feels sooooo good!”

They called over a third young woman who turned up her her nose and sniffed, unimpressed, “My brother has one of those.” She thus put the others in their place for being so unsophisticated as to not be totally bored by it yet. It’s a good thing that SAFEE [link to http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/dn14013-inflight-surveillance-could-foil-terrorists-in-the-sky.html?feedId=online-news_rss20 no longer works] isn’t implemented, yet, or we’d never have gotten off the ground. If looks could kill….

Pointedly ignoring her, my pair of flight attendants marveled over the Air for a bit longer and then handed it off to me so they could play with seatbelts and oxygen masks.

After they left, the guy across the aisle turned to me and said, “My god, I never thought I’d see the day when a laptop was better at picking up girls than a Ferrari. That’s it, I’m ditching Windows.”

10 comments on "Jonathan Ive's Sharia Style"

  • The Dave says:

    The best part is that once you get tired of air-tail, you can fire up Windows and get some real work done.

  • The Dave says:

    The best part is that once you get tired of air-tail, you can fire up Windows and get some real work done.

  • The Dave says:

    Sorry about the dupe… First request timed out (damn you EVDO), I refreshed and checked, no comments, so then I reposted and now there are two. TWO!

  • tim says:

    By the time Windows boots up or comes out of sleep mode you would of been asked to put it away for landing.

  • The Dave says:

    Tim, ever actually timed OSX vs Vista for bootup?
    Vista is substantially faster, even on Apple hardware (so that effectively removes the hardware equation)
    The difference is that OSX encourages the user to standby, whereas prior to Vista, Windows encouraged the user to shutdown.
    OSX does appear to come out of hibernation a few seconds faster though, although if those few seconds are enough to make a difference when compared to the length of a flight, might I suggest leaving your laptop in it’s bag?

  • Fred says:

    Macs are hot. A few years ago I had the same experience with a new Powerbook G4 and some KLM flight attendants.

  • N. Husted says:

    Perhaps mordaxus should be extolling the virtues of his Macbook Air in the next Apple commercial?
    Perhaps Macbooks have become aphrodisiacs in the Arab world?
    Sadly, I’m going to be purchasing an UMPC to save on cost, although I have had pleasant experiences with MacOS X.

  • Keithamus says:

    Okay, mac fans. It’s just getting annoying. Please just logically realize that macs are in no way shape or form any better than windows, and when it comes to linux, it’s blown out of the damn water.
    Macs better at anything? HELL NO!

  • david says:

    Bah! I say bah! Ubuntu on any laptop makes it sexier than the Air. Macs are for kids.

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