What-ho Carrier,
- Regardless of the machine configuration you ordered, for Macbook Airs Apple only have a few different possible configurations, so instead of building each one they just ship you the one you want, unlike, for example, early-2000s Dell. This is why you have old software on there. This is normal and to be expected.
- You don't need a credit card number, or to log into the Mac Store, to download OS X security and system updates. I can't remember if iTunes / iPhoto falls into this category, but to update that you can just grab the latest version from Apple.
- You do, however, need one to download updates to Mac Store programs, and this includes (AFAIK) the iWork suite. Therefore if you click "update all" you will get asked for a credit card number.
- OS X is a secure OS. Ironically, I'm pretty sure that Greenwald & Miranda use mostly Macs, and there are plenty of them floating about at the Guardian. There are publicly available guides on how to secure OS X for government / enterprise use, including using full-disk encryption.
I agree that the 10.9 asking for iCloud is a bit annoying, and that the Mac App Store is a bit confusing to the uninitiated, but these are small irritations compared to, say, Android or Windows 8...
I think you should do a bit of research and think again before you ship this Mac back to Apple. The thing is, the hardware is incredible and there is absolutely no other 11" or 12" machine that will give you the performance and battery life in a package that small, thin, light, and good-looking, and these considerations are often important to WAGs...
If you've really had enough of it, I suggest you get a Lenovo (formerly IBM) Thinkpad X230 with Windows 7. This is a 12.5" machine with about the same performance and battery life as the MBA 11". Windows 7 64-bit is currently one of the most secure OSes out there (proven to be more than OS X 10.8, in a recent study), and you can also do full-disk encryption.
Con:
- touchpad isn't as good as the MBA (few are)
- heavier, thicker, slightly bigger screen size so not so portable
- no Thunderbolt
- style hasn't changed that much since the early 90s (...maybe this is a "pro"?)
Pro:
- "nipple mouse" which I vastly prefer to touchpads
- You can get one with integrated 3G wireless (no dongles, integrated SIM card slot)
- Incredibly upgradable / maintainable; you can swap out the battery, keyboard, RAM, and hard disk in seconds, and the m-SATA SSD, wifi chip, 3G chip, etc. pretty easily. The MBA, on the other hand, is essentially disposable.
- Carbon-reinforced plastic is way more durable than easily-dented aluminium
- More connectivity ports, including a docking station port
- you can run Linux if you like, driver support is pretty good
Hope this helps
