Steve Jobs introduced Apple’s new Macbook Air at MacWorld Tuesday in SanFrancisco.

Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, took several big gambles Tuesday, betting that he could repeat his success in selling digital music by persuading Hollywood to allow Apple to rent digital movies, while at the same time returning to his original Macintosh roots with an elegant — but limited — ultralight computer called the MacBook Air.

The Macbook Air, as it’s officially called, will be startlingly thin, a mere .76 to 0.16 inches thick (it tapers back to front) and just 3 lbs (note “thinnest,” not “lightest” — I’ve personally owned Sony Vaios that were lighter). It’ll come with a 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and a 1.8GHz option and sport a 13.3″ LED-lit widescreen display @ 1280-by-800, built-in iSight, MacBook-style illuminated keyboard (but with an ambient light sensor like the one found in a Macbook Pro), a magnetic latch, an iPhone-inspired multi-touch trackpad, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, and a 1.8″ hard drive — 80GB standard or 64GB super-speedy solid state, you pick.

Unfortunately you only get 5 — as opposed to the rumored 10 — hours of battery life. I get about 3 right now with my 90% healthy Macbook Pro battery.

Apple says it asked Intel to shrink the Core 2 Duo by 60%, which Intel purportedly did, though I’ll bet less for Apple explicitly than simply naturally dovetailing interests. Intel’s Paul Otellini says the processor is “thick as a nickle and wide as a dime.”

What else do you get?

45 watt MagSafe power adapter

1 USB 2.0 port

Micro-DVI to DVI or VGA

Display polishing cloth

Audio out (Given iSight, I’m assuming audio-in as well)

Fully aluminum case

First fully mercury, lead-free display

Retail packaging that uses 56% less volume than MacBook

“Remote Disc,” a feature that lets you access nearby DVD or CD drives, though I don’t get how this is any different from sharing a network drive?

What don’t you get?

An optical drive (a superdrive accessory is available for $100). How do you watch movies? Apple’s answer: Buy or rent from iTunes.

An ethernet jack (Jobs says the MA “was built to be a wireless machine,” but you can buy an optional USB Ethernet adapter)

Arsenic in the display or brominated flame retardant (BFR) on the circuit board (hooray!)

A decent 3D processor (it’s not officially spec’d, but almost certainly integrated, i.e. ridiculously feeble)

More major product announcements from Apple Inc. Tuesday:

MacBook Air: A laptop less than an inch thick (.16 inches at its thinnest point). The machine has a full-sized laptop keyboard, 13.3-inch screen and 80-gigabyte hard drive. No optical drive for reading CDs and DVDs. Retail price: $1,799. Pre-orders are being taken now.

iTunes movie rentals: Under an alliance with all six major movie studios, iTunes users can download movies and watch them any time within 30 days, as long as they take no more than 24 hours to view them. Prices: $2.99 for older titles, $3.99 for newer releases. Add $1 for high-definition.

iPhone upgrades: New features include the ability of users to pinpoint their location on Web maps, text-message multiple people at once and customize their home screens. No upgrade to faster network. Available now as a free software upgrade.

Apple TV upgrades: Jobs cut the price of the Apple TV set-top box from $299 to $229 and announced new software that allows users to order movies through the device — sans a computer — and play them directly on a TV.

iPod Touch upgrades: New software will allow the iPod Touch music player to process e-mail and perform new mapping functions. The software will be built into new iPod Touch models, but existing Touch users can buy the upgrade for $20 over iTunes.

Time Capsule: A new product called Time Capsule allows Mac users to back up their data wirelessly on a 500 GB drive for $299 or a drive with a terabyte of storage for $499. Time Capsule goes on sale in February.

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