Good Morning Silicon Valley

Turns out Apple’s super-sleek MacBook Air has an undocumented interference issue of particular concern to the business traveler — at airports, under certain conditions, it can suddenly interfere with your ability to catch your flight. At least that’s what happened the other day to Michael Nygard, a regional director of sales engineer for Verizon, who was pulled out of the security line at an unnamed airport for a closer inspection of his Air. Recounts Nygard, “I’m standing, watching my laptop on the table, listening to security clucking just behind me. ‘There’s no drive,’ one says. ‘And no ports on the back. It has a couple of lines where the drive should be,’ she continues. A younger agent joins the crew. … The new arrival looks at the printouts from X-ray, looks at my laptop sitting small and alone. He tells the others that it is a real laptop, not a ‘device.’ That it has a solid-state drive instead of a hard disc. They don’t know what he means. He tries again, ‘Instead of a spinning disc, it keeps everything in flash memory.’ Still no good. ‘Like the memory card in a digital camera.’ He points to the X-ray, ‘Here. That’s what it uses instead of a hard drive.’ ” After being sufficiently, if not thoroughly, convinced when Nygard opened the machine and ran a program, the security folks turned him loose to trudge back to the ticket counter.

And there’s another tricky thing about the Air that some owners are learning: If you put it down and take your eye off it for a second, you may never find it again — not because it’s been stolen but because it’s so damn thin, it can be practically invisible. Newsweek’s Steven Levy is testifying to that effect, having no luck in finding the Air that Apple sent him for review, despite reasonably high confidence that it was last in his apartment. His best guess at the moment? The Air went out of the room with a stack of newspapers from the coffee table. Levy can chuckle ruefully at the whole thing because Newsweek is covering the $1,800 loss, but others of you may want to dress your Air up with a large flashing red light or something.