Woz speaks… again.
Steve Wozniak isn’t known for playing nice with the company he co-founded, Apple Computer.
In fact, the Woz has said some downright upsetting things about Apple and Apple products in the past; amazingly, however, he’s still regarded as a veritable god by the Cult of Mac, a title that’s decidedly hard to keep when you’ve been known to criticize the Macintosh. Still, Wozniak is known for his old-school tech savvy (he designed the Apple I & II - the latter of which was extremely popular in the 1980s and still holds a cult following) and his down-to-earth, honest mentality - qualities which allow him to speak frankly about Apple and Apple products without being demonized by the Mac faithful.
He’s got some things to say about two of Apple’s newer products, the Macbook Air and the iPhone, and… well, they aren’t exactly kind words.
From smh.com.au:
To tell you the truth I was really disappointed when the iPhone was introduced … half the phones in the AT&T store at the time were 3G phones. I was shocked because Apple is bringing the full internet [to mobiles] - full web pages with pictures and everything - and it’s not 3G and I knew that would be a speed detriment.
So, not so keen on the iPhone… but he still uses one. He simply uses it in conjunction with a 3G-enabled Motorola RAZR, which he uses for his web browsing.
As for the Macbook Air:
I don’t feel it’s a benefit if you have to carry the Air plus a DVD player plus a couple of extra dongles to connect to Ethernet things and also maybe an extra hard disk to carry your music - but still there’s a pureness about it and really I like it.
Woz continues to say that he is a “one-laptop only” person, while implying that the Macbook Air may not be a good “one laptop.”
As for the Apple TV, however, he had some brighter things to say, calling it “a really good indicator of where the future is.” He did have a quip, however - namely the 24 hour time limit in which the end user must watch rented content:
My life is way too global and unpredictable for that [24-hour time limit] - I’ll get interrupted by something and I won’t finish it; I don’t want to have to pay again.
Fair enough.
Interestingly enough, Wozniak is still “good friends” with fellow co-founder Steve Jobs.
He said Jobs “very seldom” calls him to complain about something he has said about Apple in public.
According to Wozniak, him and Jobs also “never argue” about items the former have criticized, adding:
[…] Once in a while he [Jobs] will just have a comment, ‘thanks a lot’.
March 4, 2008 at 12:27 am
March 4, 2008 at 10:04 pm
To be honest, I was really quite impressed when I actually had a chance to use a Macbook Air. It was quick, it felt sturdy, and it felt very nice when typing (as the keyboard is essentially even with the table surface).
That being said, I think it’s more a great technical exercise than anything else. It’s kind of like the VW 12-cyl GTi… neat to look at, and probably wondrous to drive, but no one would ever buy one.
The Air doesn’t have a built-in optical drive, and that is its greatest crutch. I do hope, however, that Apple expands Macbook Air-esque design to the existing Macbook line, and even perhaps the Mac Pro and iMac lines… there’s something amazingly appealing about that curved aluminum.