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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."
I am an Apple user and thus somewhat bias. I do however question the release of the iPhone without g3 support. I also believe that it needs a removable battery so that I could keep a spare.
On another note no one can say that the iPhone did not change the face of the cell phone market. I can't say if the new Air will do the same thing for the notebook market or not.
All those comments could have come right from here. :)
Personally I think the Macbook Air may sell well, because Apple's proven they can get users to suffer through all kinds of hardware deficiencies to get their software.
I'm on both sides. I used to hate Apple for the same reasons that you prefer non-Apple products: I like to feel like I have control and figure out how things work, etc. However I got a Macbook Pro for school to go with my PC I've had for ages. The fact is, I don't use my PC anymore because as much as like messing with things, I'd rather they work 99% of the time and I'm willing to sacrifice the nerdiness and wasted time getting things to work in order to successfully use my comp when I need to. Of course, I was running XP but I cannot deal with it any more. I was trying to use it again yesterday, I don't know how I used Windows for my whole life until now. Nothing works! Everything crashes, games just choke to the point of hard shutdowns being a requirement despite having enough processing power, RAM, video card power etc (I invested a lot into my system). I just can't deal with it anymore because I feel like kicking the thing everytime I turn it on. Ideally, I'd move over to Linux and although I've tried a few times, it's always delegated to a secondary OS because it still can't support everything 100% without tons of excess effort. However Linux at least combines stability with the nerdiness factor, after using Windows for years thinking getting things to work proved my 1337ness, I realized it was just that Windows couldn't handle shit and I was proving my 1337ness but for no real reason.. getting things to run that a normal user may have trouble with is good, but it's also pointless. I know this probably reads like a troll but it's the absolute truth from my perspective and I'm only saying it in response to the parent who has similar views to my old self.
When Google announced the availability of the Android SDK, Apple should have seen that as a shot across their bow. It's just not occurred to them that if Android really works out in the real world the way that their slimmed down OSX does, that they're going to run the serious risk of having to play catch up with Google.
Apple should have released an SDK for the iPod Touch that gives full access to the system on both the iPod Touch and iPhone when the iPhone is not on a cellular network. A certification process for the code that interacts with a cellular network is one thing, but all of this rumored crap about the restrictions should have been dispelled by Steve Jobs announcing it as a general SDK open to everyone.
All it's going to take to kick the iPhone squarely in the balls is for someone to make a very sleak Android-based phone that has no developer restrictions on it. People are going to write good software for Android, and then Apple is going to have to convince casual users why they should pay for a phone that doesn't have all of the cool features and add-ons that are free or cheap for Android.
And here I was thinking it had more to do with how much power the 3G chips consume, and how it would negatively effect how many hours you can get out of a fully charged battery. I'm shocked that Woz would be puzzled by this. He used to work with hardware, didn't he? Maybe he simply never did embedded hardware, and so it's out of the realm of his experience. But, shit, I'm just a programmer and I can understand that much.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
For starters, EDGE sucks on a phone that is intended for YouTube, Safari and mail applications.
really? it doesn't seem to suck that much, or at all when I use my iphone. Its pretty damn fast.
I do happen to live in the most densely populated, and cell signal covered area in the USA though.
I am using T Mobile service also. YMMV.
music lover since 1969
The MacBook Air needed to have a touch screen. Then I could finally use a laptop that's not a fucking giant block of electronics as a replacement for my clipboard.
They should call it the Breeze or something. And put a low power mode for writing notes. The battery needs to squeeze out 8 hours for the device. It can be slower, that doesn't matter, it just needs to be a replacement for a clipboard.
There needs to be a mode on it called "scribble" or something, where the screen fills with a blank, lined or graph paper-like background, colour selection bar at the top, maybe a clear-screen quick button, a snap-to function for making quick hand drawn graphs, and IM support so you can reply with handwritten IMs, send notes, etc. It makes IM more personalized, and reduces the easily intercept-able plain text messages.
Make a version that's reasonably cheaper, maybe a low-colour display, flash memory storage, slower processor... but again, it's designed for taking notes. Maybe some web surfing as well. The advantage needs to be long battery life to get through an entire day of work or school without having to recharge it or plug it in.
Now I've shared the angst I've had pent up over electronics for the past 5 years. Somebody do something with this. Otherwise I'm just going to make it myself.
or, to be clear: it spends more power, but during much less time, so the energy / byte ratio is lower than, for instance, EDGE. Most 3G phones I know don't load a page in the browser while you are reading another (the iPhone certainly don't), so, the battery would endure MORE if the iPhone was 3G.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Although I saw several MacBook Air's at the local Apple store in my relatively (1M by the Census) small town, I also saw reports of it being intermittently being sold out in the larger markets. Hard not to call that a hit, unless they only built 5 of them.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
...the only voice of common sense in the whole apple organization, past or present.
#include <disclaimer.h>
#include <beer.h>
And to the grandparent poster: I've still upgraded the RAM and HDD in my MacBook, but it's nice to have a system where everything works so brilliantly. And for that 5% of the time when I'm not letting OS X do things for me, there's a great CLI and certified Unix nerd-points. Not that I really know what I'm doing with it all that much, but it's fun to learn. (And I haven't broken things too badly yet.)
Sure the N70 gets comparable talk time at twice the thickness to the iphone. I used to have an N70, the battery in it is huge in comparison to what is in the iPhone.
You may not agree with the reasons given and believe it is for marketing reasons, but this means you think Mr. Jobs is directly and purposefully trying to deceive the buying public when he said they were waiting for more efficient 3g chipsets. Why would he lie about such a thing if it were so easily disproved? He would risk his entire "believability capital" on such a silly thing? This is highly unlikely as it is such a trivial thing for one to risk their reputation on, yet your "feeling" over rides any attempt at being logical about the real reason.
BTW there have been a few new 3g chipsets "released" recently that are much more power efficient, hence the newest rumours of a 3g iphone coming soon. There wasn't really a push to lower power requirements in 3g chipsets until Apple made a stink about it, notice how they stayed pretty close in power requirements over the previous three years until this event.
--- I do not moderate.
The iPhone is only a success in markets where mobile phones are treated as single-function devices. In the US market, this is the case. In the rest of the world, it isn't. The iPhone is like OS X: It does 70% of what I want it to do, and it does it very well. Unlike OS X, I can't add the remaining 30%. In contrast, the iPod does 100% of what I want it to do - it plays music. As someone who owns two Mac laptops and an iPod, I am not interested in the iPhone until it is available in an unlocked form.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The fact is, I don't use my PC anymore because as much as like messing with things, I'd rather they work 99% of the time and I'm willing to sacrifice the nerdiness and wasted time getting things to work in order to successfully use my comp when I need to.
Here here!
After my wife bought her Macbook, I would always prefer firing it up instead of fumbling around with my Windows laptop from work. Having to start up my Windows laptop is a chore -- god knows what will break this time and how many times I will have to reboot to get the thing to fly right.
The Macbook would just work... open the lid and hit the shift key and Voila! No worrying whether the wireless stack will go MIA again or not or whether I'll have to wait 5 minutes while the PC laptop mulls over some network event.
It just works.
I bought a Macbook Air yesterday as a result. It is exactly what I've been looking for -- a computer that I can carry along with me to work along with my work PC laptop (that weighs a ton) without breaking my back. I don't care if it's missing features -- my purpose with it is to have a non-company-own presence on the internet while I'm at work and this fits that bill perfectly.
Wow, that's funny, because the Woz was kind enough to visit San Jose's biggest Apple Store on iPhone's release date and talk to the people in line. I wish I was there just so I could shake his hand and get a photo.
But hey, I totally get his reasoning. The Macbook Air was a disappointment for me, too. It belongs in Ripley's Believe it or Not moreso than a computer museum, what with such a small hard drive, etc... It was totally premature, imo - if they waited five more years, the MacBook Air might have replaced Apple's current line or laptops altogether. The iPod Touch seems like a bigger jump for Apple, but it barely gained the attention of the press. It uses uses Wi-Fi, and the iPhone uses cellphone networks. if the iPod Touch could be used to make phone calls, couldn't it just replace the iPhone? Other than needing a good signal...
The fact is that Wozniak is rightfully credited as having made some of the most significant engineering achievements in the history of computing is entirely justifiable. When it comes to electronics the man is a bona fide genius. But when it comes to his views on business, he's no more qualified to speak than anyone else. Apple isn't the same company it was when he was there. He might as well give his views on Walmart.
All that said, I actually agree with him on this one. The iPhone isn't 3G right now, because it means Apple will be able to sell the drones another one when they released it (planned obsolescence anyone?) and the Air is overpriced crap that stretches the limits of style over substance even by Apple's standards.