Slashdot Mirror
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.
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 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'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.
Wouldn't iTreason be more appropriate?
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
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.
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.
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.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
That sounds like a good deal. Is it hard to get health coverage for her slave?