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Woz Dumps on MacBook Air, iPhone, AppleTV
AcidAUS writes "Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak heaped less than lavish praise on the company's iPhone, MacBook Air and Apple TV products when visiting Sydney this morning. Wozniak said he was puzzled by the lack of 3G support on the iPhone and that he didn't believe the MacBook Air would be a hit."
Well, Steve is just stating what everyone else is thinking! Everyone who isn't completely in love with apple, that is. Although apple has great products, they're not for everyone, and because of that, they lack certain features.
... respectable ... is saying it!
... so if they're a little bigger (because they're not manufatured with VERY tight tolerances, like the ipod nano), then I'm okay with that.
For example, the macbook air isn't very good as a main computer, and the lack of 3G iphones has to do with battery life - Apple has chosen to offer certain features which are mutually exclusive with other features - I'm glad someone
I know a girl who has apple everything. She wouldn't buy a music player if it didn't come from apple - and she has 4 ipods, and 3 apple computers. She likes things to WORK, and she likes them to look beautiful. So, she ** IS ** apple's target market.
Me, on the other hand, I prefer other options - I LIKE figuring out how my gadgets work, and I like repairing them at home
It's also just too bad he's not earning off these products. Heck, I'd go as far to say my old employer makes inferior products. They did fire me though, so maybe I'm just letting off steam.
While I definitely do miss the speed of 3G, all the other features of the iPhone made it worth it. I came from the Cingular 8525 and while it was an ok phone, all the apps on there seemed like they were made for a computer. Tiny buttons, slow response times and nothing worked well together.
The thing I like about the iPhone is while it does have a lot of apps, all of them were made for a phone. MMS is stupid not having, but I knew that when I purchased it. Hopefully it's just a firmware update.
Overall, it's a pretty good phone and I dont regret buying it.
The greatest experience we can have is the mysterious.
- Albert Einstein
Apple released a non-3G iPhone, to ensure that everyone who buys the first iPhone for $500, will buy the iPhone3G for $500, a year later.
Woz is, according to the article you obviously didn't read, still employed by and invested in Apple.
So just because Woz said it, it's news? His opinions are nothing new, at all, and have zero insight as an Apple "insider".
The iPhone didn't change the face of the cell phone market. It changed the face of the Idiot Bauble market by allowing them to buy a phone, but the most intense users of phones before the iPhone launch (corporate) still can't use the thing, so I fail to see how a non-3G phone corporate users can't use is changing the face of the cell phone market. Also, outside the US, the iPhone hasn't been as great a success. Most other countries already had phones that bested the iPhone on features (and price). The iPhone and the Air are just extrapolations of a game Apple didn't put into play. They're just using their clout to push things forward slightly, they're not launching new ways of thinking about existing products. They're playing the same game as everyone else, they just happen to have millions of grass-roots users screaming about their new products every time someone hears something new about them.
It's called the MacBook Pro. I'm sure he has a few. The Air isn't for him.
And of course everyone wants 3G on the iPhone. Judging from the sales, it's not a fatal flaw.
If the Air was half the price, they would sell shed loads. It's the kind of device that Apple might expect to sell two or three to a household. But at the current price, there may not be much demand.
He'd be modded troll and flamebait for daring to impugn Apple's quality.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
Woz thinks like an engineer. The majority of cellphone users don't know what 3G is and they don't care. What they do care about is a sexy, easy-to-use device that lets them easily play music, browse the web, make phone calls, and more. Other cellphones can also do this, but none is as sexy and easy-to-use as the iPhone.
Wait, you actually bought that garbage about needing the SDK restrictions in order to ensure network security? In spite of the fact that Nokia, Sony Ericsson, RIM, and all the WinCE handset makers have open SDKs which don't require application signing?
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I looked on eBay last night, and the N95 goes for about half the price of the iPhone. In terms of features, it is far ahead of the iPhone. Would you pay twice as much for a better UI and fewer features?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
You should consider the Nokia e90 Communicator. Though the price tag is a bit high, personally I think it kicks the crap out of the iPhone in features. It also lacks 3G in the US, but only because it uses a different frequency band.
I think your question really hits the nail on the head, actually. When people buy Apple products, they're almost *always* doing so specifically because they're willing to "pay more for a better UI". And yes, part of that inherently means "fewer features".
Did the iPod become a huge success because it had the "most features for the dollar"? Hardly! It didn't even have a lousy built-in FM radio tuner! The beauty of it, though, was the overall form factor and UI functionality. While China and Korea were cranking out cheap little generic MP3 players with tiny buttons and single line LCD displays, Apple came along with a player that was easy and actually *enjoyable* for people to manipulate. I remember when I first bought a 2nd. generation iPod, I'd hand it to reluctant people who said "I don't know how to use one of these things!" - and within seconds, they'd get a big grin on their face when they realized how that scroll-wheel let them move through the menus. The whole thing just had a "satisfying" feel to operating it, and even to simply holding it in your hand comfortably.
Mac OS X is much the same way. It's a visually satisfying OS, as well as one that most people find relatively "friendly" to use once they give it a chance. If your only (or main) concern is having the most possible options to tweak/modify, then OS X isn't for you. Many aspects of the UI are chosen for you by Apple's designers, and you'll have to buy 3rd. party tools (that often destabilize the system or fail when updates come along) just to force the changes. On the other hand, MOST of us just want an operating system that's stable, looks good out of the box, and does the things we need it to do. OS X seems to accomplish all of this quite well.
I see the iPhone as yet another device in this vein. Some phones really cram in too MANY features, and it just makes the menus hard to navigate. Most cellphone users can't even tell you what some of the options do, or at least how to get to them on their phones. The iPhone does a pretty darn impressive job of making it easy to access the things you really might want to use on your phone, while leaving out a lot of the confusion. (EG. If I want to call forward my number to another number, I don't have to to remember that my carrier uses * and some 2 digit code to turn forwarding on, and another such code to turn it back off. I simply tap the "Call forward" option on the iPhone menu and key in the destination number for it. I then slide the switch to either "On" or "Off" and it's done.) And obviously, the web browsing experience blows away most of the competition. It's the first of many "Smartphones" I've had where I can surf "normal" web sites and actually read the content properly.
I think they're just following the same old "ipod" strategy. (which has worked so far) They keep adding incremental upgrades to the device, and get to charge you $400 for each new one. Why not keep that up, if people keep falling for it?
It's hard to believe that many people would buy a laptop without an optical drive. One of the primary uses for my laptop is letting the kids play games and watch DVD's in the back seat during long drives. (I see no point in spending hundreds on a separate device that's just for playing movies in the car.) When I use it, it's usually for work, but I've watched a few movies on it myself, and I wouldn't consider buying a laptop that didn't have that feature. The Asus EEE PC would be awesome for the kids if it had a DVD-ROM drive.
It would also be nice if 4+ GB USB drives were cheap enough to use them for movies instead of optical disks, but we're not quite there yet. I wonder if they would be significantly cheaper using ROM instead of flash RAM. They would be like those game cartridges for the old Atari and Commodore systems, but smaller. Anyway, it would be nice.
they're going to run the serious risk of having to play catch up with Google.
They aren't even in the same class. Android (WHEN we even get a phone that supports it) will be great in bringing a better standardized platform to low-end phones. But the necessity to be adaptable for every possible kind of hardware hamstrings Android in comparison to a more focused phone that is free to pair hardware and software UI advancements, that will take place in higher end phones (not just the iPhone or phones from Apple either). There may be some kernel of Android embedded in more advanced phones but using applications built from Android on said platform will be like using web apps on an iPhone - a usable stopgap but hardly competitive with native apps that take full advantage of the native GUI and hardware.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My wife and I listened to his book (oddly named iWoz) while traveling in Alaska. He's brilliant, and so is Jobs. They're brilliant in different ways, though. Steve Jobs has an innate ability to know in advance what the consumer will like (and he's right most of the time, and wrong sometimes. See 1st generation Apple TV, the G3 Cube, etc.). Woz had (and presumably, still has) an innate ability to make it work with what he's got.
Which is why I understand Woz not seeing where the Air will fit in today's market. It's not quite a part of his skillset. He's still a genius.
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
what's wrong with a clipboard:
storage space is low
edits are limited/lossy
organizing/achiving/backing-up media is challenging and error prone beyond trivial use
searching is slow
long access time for reference data during work tasks
network transmission is slow and lossy
data re-entry to digital systems is time-consuming and error-prone.
It's a mark of how poorly tablets have been done thus far, that a clipboard still compares favorably.
It's not unlike the early days of personal computing, when people snickered about not having to reboot their typewriters.
Yet, as with desktops before them, it's just a matter of time before tablets are done well-enough that their drawbacks are trivial next to their advantages. The form-factor is too perfect to be relegated to the dustbin of history. Eventually someone will create a tablet computer with hardware and software built from the ground-up for its task. And it will carve itself a very respectable slice of the computing market.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
I have no idea how Apple's current products are supposed to compete with their competitors' future products. Perhaps Apple will also release future products. In the future.
This is a demand that I can't begin to understand. Don't you ever sleep? Can you not make it through a day on a single charge? Every cell phone I've ever had has had a removable battery, and not once have I ever felt the need to have an extra around.