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."

Comments

Hum

[GodCandy]

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.

Re:Hum

[njfuzzy]

I'm going to blow my mod points, and comment on this instead... The reasons for releasing an EDGE iPhone are strikingly obvious to me, and I know others have seen the same two things: First: The simple fact is that at the time of the release, AT&T 3G coverage in the US, the main market for the iPhone, was very low. Even months later, it is still spotty at best. Coverage was just not ready. Second: Apple has also been very clear that, at the time of the release, 3G chips were battery hogs. Remember that this device has a hugh, bright screen with the added power draw of the touch interface, a powerful processor, all while barely thicker than the thinnest phone MOTO offers (the SLVR). Adding any more power drain would have meant making it thicker (less appealing) and slightly more expensive by adding a bigger battery. All this leads to an obvious conclusion: The first generation iPhone *needed* to be EDGE, not 3G. That gave them time for 3G coverage and power drain on 3G chips to catch up with their needs. From what I am hearing, that process is going well. I think Apple will release a 3G iPhone when it is ready, though of course timed to maximize revenue. (Plus, let's be fair, if they released it too soon, people would have bitched about being ripped off by the original. Some companies just can't win.) Also, honestly, who here has an iPhone, and thinks the EDGE speeds are slow for what they use them for? The only pain I experience is trying to use Google Maps with the satellite or hybrid mode , in a lower coverage area where bandwidth takes a hit.

Re:I'm glad SOMEONE is saying it...

[insertwackynamehere]

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.

lack of touchscreen...

[afxgrin]

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.

Re:3G (well-implemented) takes LESS energy...

[Andy Dodd]

Except that even basic housekeeping functionality eats lots of power when in 3G mode.

When in a 3G service area, battery life is affected significantly compared to in a GSM service area, even if all the phone does is idle nearly the entire time.

My AT&T Tilt seems to eat through battery at least twice as fast in standby if it is in a UMTS service area than it does when in a 2G GSM-only area, or when I force it into GSM mode for improved battery life.

The iPhone is an extremely thin device - there is no way they could have implemented 3G with the current crop of 3G chipsets without either making the device much thicker or reducing battery life significantly, both more "non-Appley" traits than slower data service.

Disclaimer: This applies to 3G GSM, aka UMTS. 3G CDMA2000 (aka 1xEV-DO) doesn't carry the same battery life penalty in comparison to 2G/2.5G cdmaOne/CDMA2000 - Partly because the base modulation scheme has not changed significantly. If Woz is a Verizon or Sprint customer he won't see much battery penalty for an EV-DO phone. Something about UMTS makes it very hard to optimize for power efficiency compared to CDMA2000, even for the CDMA experts at Qualcomm. (UMTS uses a CDMA modulation scheme, but with different parameters and a completely different protocol suite than CDMA2000.) UMTS is notorious for bad battery life/handset heat generation, even when implemented in a Qualcomm chipset such as the MSM7k series.