This is a sad day. The world has lost one of its greatest minds and visionaries, in Steve Jobs, founder of Apple and obviously so much more than that. I have never met nor spoken to Steve, nor have the majority of people writing, tweeting and talking about him today. He was a hero to many, a beloved celebrity, and a leader.

We are allowed to talk about Steve.

We are allowed to feel sad.

I feel sad. In fact, this morning I decided to throw the todo list out the window, to sit down and think different. I’m dedicating this day to figuring things out, work and life and future and everything else that might be spinning around in the back of my head.

Thinking different is what Steve did, that’s what made him the great visionary that have touched so many lives and helped shape the world we live on today. This touches me profoundly as I’ve been flipping throw pages of obituaries on my iPad, reading tweets on my iPhone, and now I’m writing this on my MacBook Air, listening to music bought from iTunes. It amazes me, truly.

With these tools I make my life easier and more beautiful, thanks to Steve’s visions and the execution of the Apple he shaped, with its brilliant minds.

It is some comfort that Steve’s ideas and leadership will live on in Apple in the years to come. A man like that leaves a mark of course, but also because Apple’s future products and ideas are already in the company’s R&D department. The magic that is Apple products isn’t created overnight, they take years and years to build, which is what is so truly marvelous about this company. When they launched the iPhone, it had been in the works for years. Just now, PC manufacturers are catching up to the new MacBook Air line, and the iPad, well, no one’s there yet.

It is not all thanks to Steve, but I dare say that without him there would be no Apple today.

And yet, and yet. The visionary Steve is just one persona, the one we can pretend to know thanks to keynotes and famous one line emails.

The person Steve was with his family and friends is a whole different matter. There’s been some glimpses into his private life since Steve stepped down as CEO, but all in all we don’t know anything about that person.

Neither do we need to.

We shouldn’t forget that family Steve existed, however. Because in all our grief, which we’re entitled to, there are those who are tremendously more hurt by the loss of this man.

I’m still sad, I don’t seem to be able to shake that feeling today. That’s OK, I’m turning it into something positive by taking a page from Steve’s book of life and devoting myself to thinking differently today.

Thanks Steve. For everything.

Then a friend of mine pointed out that he didn’t want any spoilers, which got me thinking. It’s not like I, or anyone else other than Apple, know exactly what will be announced on stage tomorrow but the buzz usually has some things right. My friend wanted the keynote to feel fresh, and I see what he means. It’s not really just about the products, Apple could announce them on their website and we’d still see AAPL rise as well as products sold by the millions. The keynotes are a show for tech people, the Apple lovers, and something that has been so thoroughly embedded into what we expect from the company. This is entertainment for design-aware nerds.

Apple rarely disappoints, and I doubt they will this time around. In fact, just add power to any of the products they’ll talk about, and show off iOS 5 in all its glory, and I’ll be satisfied. All I really want is to upgrade my iPhone 4, which is starting to get sluggish and plain worn out. Give me some more juice, and more storage, and I’ll be a happy monkey. I don’t need a “One More Thing” every time, keep those for the cool announcements, the ground breaking stuff like you’ve done in the past.

Predictions aren’t spoilers, because we have no way to know what we’re spoiling. They are, however, kind of lame since it is all just guesswork pilfered together from pundits who usually lets us down. The predictions game is really just about getting pageviews, and because we want to talk about our addiction to the Apple concept.

So I’ll skip the predictions this time around. Sorry about that, and sorry about the slightly misleading, but true, title of this post. That one was for the pageviews.

OK, fine, you’ll get one prediction. We’ll get a brand new iPod, the replacement for the iPod classic, and it’ll be the One More Thing announcement.

I loved that Air, all its 1,6 GHz of low voltage processing power, the touchpad and even its awkward two buttons, the whole package. It was underpowered with its 2 GB of RAM and the 4200 rpm hard drive, combined with heating issues that firmware updates and some sensible usage sorted out for me personally. Still, best typewriter ever, thanks to its wonderful keyboard and the form factor. Love it.

The Air refresh was something I’d been waiting for a long time. I ordered the 11″ version, maxed out with 4 GB of RAM and whatever SSD storage I could get (128 GB, right – don’t have it here so can’t check and I’m writing this offline, go figure). I had always said that when Apple released a computer with a smaller screen than 13″, which I think is overkill most of the time, I’d buy it.

My initial take on the 11″ Air was mixed. I loved the form factor, but the keyboard wasn’t as good as my previous Air. Also, going from 13″ to 11″ for writing was fine, but anything besides writing felt unnatural. That was obviously a mixture between being used to larger screens and the difference in resolution, but still, it bothered me a bit. Almost to the extent that I, when the next Air generation would arrive, contemplating giving 13″ another go. Also, I hated the lack of backlighting on the keyboard. That’s essential when writing in the dark, not just for finding keys (I don’t need any characters or labels) but for the balance in light between screen, computer and you when writing in the dark.

A few weeks ago Apple released an upgraded Air, with a backlit keyboard, and I ordered the 11″ model again, maxing it out with 4 GB of RAM and the i7 processor choice as well as 256 GB SSD.

And I’m at peace. This is everything that was so awesome with the previous model, the form factor and the snappy SSD, but cranked up a bit. With a backlit keyboard and a Thunderbolt port.

This computer is still new and one can never tell how a computer performs early on. Everything will load fast, feel fresh, and so on. Two months in, then we can talk, but I’m not the least worried. The possible problem with performance won’t be hardware (unless Apple screwed up somewhere in the manufacturing), it’ll be the new OS, Lion. I’m not worried about that either, but that is the Achilles’ heel here.

Why aren’t I worrying? Well, the previos Air ran circles around my 17″ i7 MacBook Pro with 4 GB RAM, thanks to the SSD of course. It was so bad that I had to order a 240 GB Vertex 3 SSD from OCZ and swap out the old hard drive. Pecking order was restored, the MBP was faster than the Air, all was well.

Still, my first 11″ Air could’ve easily have been my primary computer. It was that fast. Still is, by the way.

And the new Air? Well, benchmarks tells me it kicks my old Air’s butt thanks to the i7 dual core processor, which makes sense since it is superious to the old Core 2 Duo. Other than that, there aren’t so many things that differ between the old and the new Air, this is a classic hardware upgrade within a product line generation, nothing more.

I’m on the road right now, and will be for several weeks to come. I’m not bringing my workstation (aka the 17″ MBP), I’ll manage with the Air and an iPad. In a way I’m dreading how this will work out, because I’m pretty sure that when I get home I’ll question why I need the MBP at all. The old 11″ Air had no problems powering the 27″ Cinema Display at the office, and the new one won’t either (although I won’t be able to link two Thunderbolt Displays thanks to the underpowered Thunderbolt chip in the Air, keep that in mind if you plan on swapping your workstation with that setup). While my MBP is a quad core i7 at a higher clock frequency than the Air is, I seriously doubt I’ll miss that horsepower 95% of the time. So why not just bring the Air to the office, hook it up and work as I always have, making the MBP obsolete?

Why indeed? I have no idea, but I already know I’ll ask myself that question when I get back into the everyday life again.

It has never been this easy being a road warrior. Between the Air, the iPad, the iPhone, and a mifi 3G router, I can do just about anything. Incidentally, that’s exactly what goes in my bag, along with a Moleskine notebook and some pens, when I need to go work. And I can work wherever, whenever, as long as I have a decent 3G connection. In Sweden, that’s not really a problem – I’m sitting by a lake in the forest right now, and when I turn on the mifi I’ll have a 2 Mbit connection right away. Sure, that’s pretty crappy overall but it’ll do, I am in the woods after all. The same might not apply all over the world, but the complete sense of freedom this brings, bringing the office with me whenever I need to (which incidentally was why I swapped out my Mac Pro with triple screens for a 17″ MBP) and being able to set up shop wherever I need. I love it, plain love it, even though I might not take advantage of it all the time. It is the possibility that makes it great.

I wonder if I’ll ever buy a big heavy laptop again. I also wonder if I’ll ever buy another desktop, despite being really happy with my brand new 27″ iMac that sits in the apartment at home. SSD in particular have gotten us so far, and we’re only grasping at the surface on what we’ll be playing with in the future.

For me, it’ll be lightweight and pleasant to write on. Since my first contact with the Air product line, that has been the only computer fitting the description, and I’ve fiddled and tried so many. Right now, I can’t even begin to imagine what I’d want more, besides more horsepower of course. Not that I really think I need it, that’s just the greedy geek talking.

He should shut up, that geeky guy, and let me focus on the one reason I actually bought this thing in the first place: To write on, because it is still the world’s best typewriter.

Is it perfect, this Lion-thingy?

No, Google tells me there are a ton of bugs. Nothing too crucial although it might depend on what you’re doing with your computer, so I urge you to research that before updating your OS.

Me, I miss Spaces. Now I’ve got this fullscreen mode for apps that support it, meaning that they’ll get a “space” of their own. That’s great for things like Screensharing and the Safari web browser, but less ideal for other apps. I miss my Spaces, I miss being able to have all my communication apps and windows in one Space, text editors and whatnot in another, and so on. I really do miss that.

But not as much as I thought I would. In fact, I might not miss it at all when my favorite apps have gotten said fullscreen mode. I doubt that though, as I’m writing this in MarsEdit which has got it but looks plain awful in fullscreen mode, who wants to write like that? I mean, look at this:

Not ideal, not ideal at all. I could blame Red Sweater Software, but I think it is the actual feature that is broken. I used to be able to get the perfect workflow through window positions within a Space, now I just can’t.

I miss Spaces, but I do like Lion so far. In fact, I like it so much that you’ll get more On Lion posts in the future. Fancy huh?

Update: Adding Spaces in Mission Control.

No doubt the myriad of screen sizes and resolutions changes everything. Smartphones are actually useful these days, and tablets have turned back resolutions to 1024 pixels width. As if the netbook resolutions weren’t bad enough.

I digress.

Mobile versions of websites are cool. A lot of them are actually really impressive, and I’ve seen some nifty solutions, as have you I’m sure.

But how important are they?

That’s rhetorical.

Try visiting apple.com from your iPhone or iPad. You’re not getting a mobile version, no custom treatment whatsoever actually. You get the same thing that greets you one your desktop, but in the palm of your hand.

Apple obviously doesn’t feel that they need a mobile website. Then why should you?

It all boils down to your design, something most people tend to forget. Uncluttered clean websites work well when scaled down, and cluttered websites work less well.

Don’t get too hung up on creating mobile websites. If Apple doesn’t need it, then you should probably ask yourself what gains you have from one.

At the end of the day, a good design will work on your smartphone. Achieve that, and take it from there.

One thing the experience have taught me is how wonderful the Mac App Store is. I knew that already of course, but it truly shines when you’re on a new machine. While I can copy-paste most apps from my old hard drive to the new one (using a Deltaco encasing with USB that cost me about €9/$11), just getting them from the Purchased tab in the Mac App Store is so convenient.

In fact, it is so bloody nice that I’ve re-purchased a bunch of apps I already own licenses to, from the Mac App Store, just to get them there.

If all goes to plan, the home computer (a 27″ iMac) will arrive next week. Thanks to the wonders of Dropbox (aff link), syncing apps, and the Mac App Store, I don’t dread setting that up one bit. Well, except for the Windows BootCamp partition, but that’s an entirely different beast.

• It’s thinner, lighter, and faster. Love it.
• It’s beautiful.
• Android tablet makers are even further behind now.

Seriously, Motorola & co must be frustrated right now, they just can’t keep up with Apple. They have yet to produce a tablet matching the original iPad, and now Apple ups the ante again. It’s never fun to be a follower all the time, and it is definitely not good for business.

And while the competition is playing catch-up, Apple is busy preparing iPad 3.

Go figure.

The Wednesday event is the annual MacBook event, back the Mac after quite a focus on iOS devices. We’ll get a refresh across the line of course, processor bumps and things like that, but my bet is that the focus will be on the next OS X, featuring a lion it seems. That, and a new iLife, the current one is a bit dated, and these are things that add to the Mac platform value overall.

And the Air, that’s the sole truly new piece of hardware we’ll see, is my bet.

I’ll buy it. I don’t care what it costs (cheap, says the rumour, which I think means cheaper than the current Air but still somewhat pricey – hey, it’s Apple after all!) because it fits me perfectly.

Why?

The current Air is underpowered, but it is by far the best writing device out there, no question about it. The keyboard is just marverlous, it is light and there’s no bulky DVD drive.

I feel 13,3″ is a bit big for a truly portable laptop. Today I use my iPad when on the road, only bringing the Air when I need to work one of my technical books since they need code editors and localhost. When I just need to write, the iPad suffices.

An 11,6″ Air would fit me perfectly. Light, a solid state drive (or flash drive, which is my bet)” preferably with 3G built in, great keyboard (please please please don’t mess with that, dear Steve Jobs) and decent power. I’d like to be able to do some minor image editing on this thing, and please make it powerful enough to roll HD video without hassle.

Or, to put it simply: With a decent processor, 4 GB RAM, and a smaller form factor than the current Air, this is my dream computer.

I’d still use my iPad, just less for serious writing.

I’d still use my 17″ MacBook Pro monster, when working with graphics and coding websites.

The rest of the time, the bulk of my day, an 11,6″ Air would be the perfect companion to someone as addicted to words like me.

Please give it to me on Wednesday, Apple. Thanks.