> dead on arrival for anyone doing real work

Honestly, we’re not the target market for this. I’m pretty sure at this price point though, it will sell like hotcakes. Once people get slightly into the ecosystem, it’s usually a big win for Apple since their stickiness ( from my experience of people around me) is undeniable once you get one product

It's perfectly adequate for most office work: documents, spreadsheets, presentations, web browsing / research. The vast majority of users are not doing software development and never will.

Why would anyone doing “real work” want this?

If you’re doing “real work” then 16gb won’t be sufficient, either. My “real work” machine has 96 and I sometimes wish it had more.

This is not for "serious work". It's for users who spend most of their time in a browser and/or using lightweight apps.

People doing real work have money to spend and Apple wants them buying Airs/Pros.

If only we could get fun colors for those…

“real work” != “development”.