In the years since Apple last upgraded the MacBook Air in a meaningful way, I’ve noticed much of my work time gradually shifting to my smartphone, with the laptop taking a secondary role, deployed only when I need the larger screen and more comfortable keyboard.
The small efficiencies of being able to just pop your computer open anywhere and start working without fiddling with wireless network credentials or setting up a mobile hotspot eventually add up to a big productivity win. When the venue’s Wi-Fi network let him down, he didn’t even notice because his computer seamlessly switched to using the cellular connection. My colleague Dan Seifert wrote about it in the context of the Surface Pro LTE from Microsoft earlier this year, and he covered the entire Apple event this week with that device. Adding LTE to your most-used portable computer is truly a transformative upgrade.