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Macs With 3G — More Connectivity, More Problems
narramissic writes "In a recent blog post, Josh Fruhlinger muses on the possibility of 3G radio receivers turning up in future Mac notebooks (as foretold by Apple job postings and the mention of WWAN hardware in Snow Leopard beta releases). 'At first glance,' says Fruhlinger, 'this seems like a reasonably awesome idea.' But will the target market be willing to take on the additional telecom charge? 'And, more to the point,' he says, 'most of us have gotten accustomed to the idea of one Internet connection per household, shared with a wireless router. The latter idea could be covered by a router that connects to the Internet over a 3G connection — something like the MiFi hotspot. It wouldn't surprise me if Apple had such a thing in the pipeline, an Airport station (Airport Mobility?) that didn't need to be plugged into the wall. That would explain the search for 3G experts, anyway.'"
The submission makes it sound as if there's some big mystery about adding 3G to a laptop that Apple has to solve. But there are other laptop makers out there besides Apple, and almost all of them have been putting 3G in their notebooks for years now. This is a feature that Apple is just behind on, and especially if they want to keep *any* semblance of a business market (and designers and photographers run businesses too - and a lot of them are freelance, working outside), then it's something they really need to catch up on.
It's a big and obvious mistake to suggest that 3G connectivity is meant to replace wi-fi. 3G connectivity is meant to replace, well, not having any connectivity. Laptops are meant to be portable, and they can go lots of places where wi-fi doesn't exist.
I can't believe I actually even have to explain this.