Last year, at the Macworld trade show - the world's largest fair for Apple products - its chief executive officer Steve Jobs had the world sitting on edge when he unveiled the iPhone.

On Tuesday, the world sat up again when he removed a super-thin laptop from a standard manila envelope.

Dubbed the MacBook Air, it is being hailed as the world's thinnest notebook computer.

Mr Jobs also introduced the iTunes Movie Rental Service.

Industry analysts and observers say both products are likely to have an impact on the computer industry.

The MacBook Air will raise the design bar for notebook makers, while the online movie rental service will cut into the revenues of the video distribution and rental business.

The sleek MacBook Air will create a ripple among notebook makers such as Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Sony and Lenovo, which are focusing on the consumer sector because the corporate PC market is saturated.

Design has been how these companies differentiate themselves. For example, notebooks now come in multi-colours and even cover material of leather instead of metal.

The MacBook Air's thinness - about as thick as a CD case - and light weight of about 1.5kg have upped the cool factor for notebook design.

The Windows camp is now under pressure to go one up if it wants to capture more dollars from consumers.

Pricing, however, will definitely be an issue. The online Apple store shows a price for the MacBook Air of S$2,988 for the 1.6Ghz version with 80GB of storage space.

But a faster machine of 1.8Ghz with a solid state drive of 64GB will cost a hefty S$5,088. The solid state drive is state of the art, costing US$999 (S$1,450), and is not a commodity item at the moment, hence the steep price.

But the solid state drive will never fail and should be good for tough use and travelling, like trudging through the jungles in South America. In contrast, a similar Windows-based notebook costs about S$2,000.

As for the iTunes Movie Rental Service, it will be launched in the US immediately, and internationally later this year.

Apple said new titles will be available online 30 days after their release in movie theatres.

chngkeg@sph.com.sg