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."

Re:Sour Grapes

[canUbeleiveIT]

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.

Ironically. . .

[MistaE]

Woz also states in the same interview [macrumors.com] 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."

Just a quick note ...

[tomhudson]

after an upgrade from a P-133 -- yes, first generation Pentium)

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.

Re:Woz's notebook is already here...

[TheRaven64]

I thought Apple were crazy for launching a phone in the US. The US mobile phone market is incredibly hostile to manufacturers because the lack of standardisation encourages lock-in. If you want to switch networks elsewhere in the world, you just take your existing phone (maybe pay a nominal fee to get it unlocked) and pop a new SIM card in it. In the USA, you can only do that between GSM providers, and you are lucky to have two of them in the same area willing to unlock your phone.

Looking at the iPhone, it is clearly designed for the US market. Elsewhere, the idea of a phone that doesn't let you just copy arbitrary MP3/4 files to use as ring tones is silly. So is a phone marketed for data use that can't be used as a bluetooth modem. My last three phones have all supported these features, and they have all been cheap and infrequently upgraded. The UI on my current phone sucks for Internet use, but the fact I can use it as a bluetooth modem with my Nokia 770 or MacBook Pro makes up for it, because they both have nice browsing interfaces.

Re:Hum

[molarmass192]

I have an iPhone and the EDGE connection is fine. Yeah, it could be faster, but let be honest, I ONLY use EDGE for Maps and the odd web request while in the car (not when I'm driving of course). I'd say 90% of the time the phone is tapped into WiFi somewhere and that's plenty fast. I can see 3G being a draw for some, but that alone is not going to be enough for me to upgrade. I have to agree with the removable battery though. It would be nice to always have one in the cradle ready for a swap out.

Re:Hum

[roaddemon]

I've had an iPhone for 6 months now. It's my favorite tech gadget in a very large stable of tech gadgets. Edge sucks. Every time I use it I have flashbacks to my dial up days.

You are actually the first user I've heard say that Edge is sufficient.

Re:No questions

[red star hardkore]

I have a two and a half year old Nokia N70 which is one of the oldest 3G phones on the market. I still get over 3 days between recharges. I use my phone quite a lot for web, games, talk and text and as I said, I get 3 days. I don't believe this 'battery life' explanation for 3G on the iPhone, I agree with the poster who said it's for marketing reasons. I mean, look at the iPod photo... It's capable of playing video if you install iPod Linux, yet Apple said it wasn't powerful enough and that's why they didn't include an option for it. Yet, one year later they release the iPod Video. It's BS.

Re:No questions

[MikeyVB]

So the other 500 million or so people outside of the U.S. that do have 3G coverage don't count?

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

[saigon_from_europe]

Same as my experience.

I own Samsung Z400 phone, but I don't have a plan that covers 3G. But the network is there. I had to manually turn off 3G, in order to get 3 days battery life instead of 2 day life.

My wife also owns the phone and one of our friends, and all of us benefited from turning 3G capabilities off.

Re:Hum

[bkr1_2k]

US support for 3G networks is highly limited compared to that of Europe or Asia, as far as I understand. Why would Apple bother supporting a network that has only limited use in their primary target market? It seems fairly obvious to me why they didn't add 3G support for this first generation.

I'll be surprised if any $2k-3k laptop changes the current laptop market. There are simply too many low priced laptops out there and the air doesn't really cater to what most consumers want right now.

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

[Em Adespoton]

For me, Trebuchet. The OS X firewall solution is too simplistic, so I had to install something that gave me tighter control of IPFW. After years of working with IPFW, scripts that work just fine on any other OS still don't seem to work correctly on OS X. The wrong rules get prioritized and I have to fiddle around in vi to get what should be a simple list of access rules functioning in a sane manner.

Then, of course, there's the issue of EVERYTHING getting dumped into either /Applications or ~/Documents. I like to organize my software and documents, but (and this isn't really Apple's fault for the most part) if I try to organize these files so that they are sorted in a logical (to me) manner, many third party apps just stop working, and Software Update stops correctly locating Apple software for updates. Oh, and WHY does the dictionary app have to go in Applications root in order to be found by the context menu and various services? Apple designed around fixed paths decades ago. And yet we see so many fixed path issues persisting into 10.5!

Re:No questions

[mrbobjoe]

To be fair, the iPod Video has dedicated video decoding hardware, whcih allows it to handle higher bitrates than the iPod Color can on its 80 MHz dual core ARM CPU.
Devices like the Toshiba Gigabeat F series, though, with their 300 MHz CPUs, have no excuse for not supporting video in the manufacturer's firmware.

Re:Hum

[samkass]

The iPhone didn't change the face of the cell phone market.

The actual evidence contradicts your random opinions. According to Google and other web tracking sites, iPhone users search and browse the web between 2 and 10 times more than any other type of smart phone. That sounds like a game-changer to me.

I bought the iPod Touch because I didn't need a new phone, but even that is a game-changer. Until you carry it around for a few days you don't realize how much you'd use it.

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

[insertwackynamehere]

Well mainly, (and this is with two video cards, one a high end ATI at the time and then later on a higher-end (for the time) Nvidia) serious system errors caused Blue Screens (which in XP equals a random reboot). Basically after running games for too long, everything was running quite hot and more often then not (sometimes as common as 30 minutes into the game, sometimes more, sometimes less), the computer would either *click* and restart or the game would freeze and the last 2 seconds of sound would repeat on loop. I would have to turn the computer off by holding down the power button and then when it turned back on Windows would prevent me with a system error saying something along the lines of a device caused the system to seriously fail. It always would point back to my video card, using standard drivers and no overclocking. I have 1gb of RAM a 3.0 intel processor, I upgraded my power supply before along with general upgrades because I am a computer nerd (hence my posting on slashdot) and yet Windows would always choke anyway whether its on applications that use a lot of memory or graphic intensive games. Sometimes physically cleaning the case out would help a bit but the fact is Windows just chokes on that kind of stuff in my experience. Whenever I played games I would be stressed out in the background because the whole time I'm trying to concentrate on the game crossing my fingers that this next room doesn't have too many monsters and that the system won't choke and literally just die. No end task, no kill process, just completely fucking die. And you know what else about your comment? I ran Doom 3 on my XP system on this desktop which I've already said was (or should have been) pretty powerful. Doom 3's settings had to be medium or high, never ultra and certain effects just brought the FPS down too much. Later on when I installed Linux on THE SAME SYSTEM AS A DUAL BOOT, I installed Doom 3 for Linux using the Linux binaries and the game data from my discs. I was able to get amazing FPS, NO CRASHES and tons of special effects + Ultra mode. So the fact is, my system was fine. I put too much time and money into trying to get Windows to REALIZE THIS. It was windows, not me and not my computer.

Re:No questions

[CottonThePirate]

I think the battery life argument is a sham. I think the real reason had more to do with AT&T's data network in the US. I read a report (I think in the NY Times, but could have been elsewhere) that the NYC metro area saw a 300% increase in data on AT&T's network due to the large number of iPhones with unlimited data plans hitting the streets. I think if all these phones were 3G the amount of traffic would have grounded AT&Ts data network to their cell sites.
oblig: Then they wouldn't have had enough spare capacity to route all the calls and data to NSA HQ.

Re:I dont get it

[kyofunikushimi]

Are you kidding? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wozniak#Post-Apple_career [wikipedia.org]

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

[AstrumPreliator]

I agree on the build quality. The hard drive in my PowerBook G4 died back in November and I decided to upgrade to one of the new Intel Macs. Now the PowerBook was the first Mac I ever owned but I found it to be an extremely durable machine. With the amount of abuse I put it through I was thoroughly impressed that it was still working just perfectly, although it is dented in certain areas.

So when I upgraded I decided to go with a MacBook, partly because I didn't want a 15" screen (my PowerBook was 12") and partly because I didn't want to spend a ton. Well I'm typing on my PowerBook right now as I had to send in my MacBook after some things went wrong. The exhaust fan is rattling, the hard drive was having really weird problems, and the white plastic case (which must be manufactured by Mattel) was developing hairline cracking. Now I understand that sometimes people get faulty components, but the case cracking was unacceptable. Furthermore their tech support (which I never had to deal with with my PowerBook) was terrible. You can only call their customer support for 90 days after buying it, and after being thrown around for a bit I drove to an Apple Store where you apparently have to make an appointment to get your laptop fixed. I finally called them again and told them to send me a box to send it to them. Between school, work, and a dying car it was rather infuriating to say the least.

Perhaps the MacBook Pros are better, I don't know. But one thing is for sure, Apple has lost my business. I may prefer OSX for what I do but I'd rather make my own linux distro than buy another product from Apple.

Re:Sour Grapes

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, it closed at 199.83 on Dec 28, and at 119.46 on February 22. That's 40%.

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

[failedlogic]

Opps, my fault, I did not mention I have a Rev. "B" iMac. I know there were serious problems with the first iteration of the iMac G5s with faiing components and Apple had to replace them as was your situation. My Rev. B iMac has been without a problem in the last 2.5 years (give or take) that I've owned it. I've only had to upgrade the hard drive and must say the 500 GB Segate w. 16 MB cache drive is noticeably faster.

My comment was not only to the quality but also Apple's lack of response to options. Their utter secrecy on future products casts doubt in my mind of when/if I should upgrade. And, given the iMac only comes in the glossy screens and the lack of a matte display the glare where my monitor is located makes glossy not an option. And I'm not willing to go the iMac route again and cannot afford and would not want to spend the money on a Mac Pro.

At least hardware wise, Apple is likely to lose out on my future business.