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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."
You know you want to.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
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.
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
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.
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.
Really?
FTA: Wozniak, who has moved on to new ventures since Apple but is still an employee and shareholder...
I would say that he is earning off of these products.
Wozniak won't be happy until every Apple project is personally designed and constructed by himself and comes with a copy of his autobiography.
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.
Woz also states in the same interview that he's tired of reporters taking his comments out of context and making him look like an Apple-hater.
Quote: "[Jobs] calls me and he says he doesn't like something that I was reputed to have said. But he gets it out of context. A reporter's seized on a comment and strung along with that. I'm very positive on Apple, but I'll also point out things that could be better, or aren't the way I'd like them to be."
I would say it's more newsworthy than Linus or RMS saying something, because everyone always knows what Linus thinks, and RMS never shuts up. It's been a while since I read a quotation from Woz.
Cut the guy some slack. For some reason, people whose last name ends in "-ak", are just incapable of understanding the marketing side of Apple products. (Ya, I'm, lookin' at you John C.)
Set your phasers on "funky"!
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.
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.
The p-133's weren't first-gen by a long shot.
The 1st-gen Pentiums were P5 (Intel product 80501/ 80500) - 66 and 60 mhz (the 60mhz chips were those that couldn't pass QC at full speed). - .80 micron process. Your p5-133 is either a P54CS or (if its a lappy) a P55C. You skipped both the original P5 and the P54C.
Good thing too - the original P5 was expensive, and slowwwww compared to an AMD 486-120.
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.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
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."
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.
"Apple gets heat because their products lack a few features that people want where as Microsoft releases two dogs, Vista and the new Office, and they largely get a pass. Yes there's some complaints but nothing like the venom Apple gets."
/. ?
Do you actually read
...the only voice of common sense in the whole apple organization, past or present.
#include <disclaimer.h>
#include <beer.h>
You are actually the first user I've heard say that Edge is sufficient.
Read again. He was not saying EDGE is sufficient, he was saying it was necessary. And that is correct. Chipsets still use too much power ( a problem solved later this year) and 3G was not yet very widespread at launch (for instance, Denver had no 3G coverage - that is only in the last month or two starting to come online). That said...
Edge sucks. Every time I use it I have flashbacks to my dial up days.
EDGE is slow for browsing, but usable. For maps it's totally fine. If you really think EDGE is as slow as dialup I strongly urge you to connect your laptop to a modem someday and see just how absurd your statement really is. You are browsing the modern web on something that is like 5x faster than dialup, but pages are much heftier and more graphical these days. Some sites have tried to address this by presenting the iPhone with a more limited page but I despise this approach - I would rather wait a few seconds extra for the full functionality of a site I visit.
I'm with the other responder, in that an upgrade to 3G support alone (or even in combination with a few other trinkets like GPS support) is not enough to get me to upgrade my iPhone. I'll be fine on EDGE/WiFi for some time to come.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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
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
Are you kidding? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wozniak#Post-Apple_career
oo
Uh, it closed at 199.83 on Dec 28, and at 119.46 on February 22. That's 40%.
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
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.
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.