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, who created the Apple I and Apple II computers in the mid-1970s but ended his full-time employment with the company in the late '80s, 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.
"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," Mr Wozniak said during a press conference following his keynote speech at the Broadband and Beyond Conference this morning.
"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."
Wozniak, who has moved on to new ventures since Apple but is still an employee and shareholder, said he did not know when a faster 3G iPhone would be released, although it had "sort of been known since day one that it would be here [eventually]".
The current iPhone model supports fast EDGE networks operated by Telstra and regular 2G networks, but both aren't as fast as 3G. At the UK launch of the iPhone, CEO Steve Jobs said Apple left out 3G support because it would have a detrimental effect on battery life.
"I never heard that it was a battery issue," said Wozniak.
"I don't understand why it would be a battery issue - I get as much life on my 3G phones as I get on my non-3G phones."
He said he still used the iPhone and praised its internet capabilities but he also carried a Motorola Razr for taking calls and browsing the web.
The iPhone is due to launch in Australia this year but thousands have already imported the device from overseas and unlocked it for use on local mobile networks.
When the MacBook Air was launched in January, Apple was criticised by reviewers for trading off too many essential features in favour of a lightweight, streamlined design.
The criticisms centred on the lack of a DVD drive, missing Ethernet networking port, relatively small 80GB hard drive and the inability to swap the battery.
Wozniak agreed with those criticisms, saying: "I don't think it's going to be a hit." He said he liked to burn a lot of DVDs for friends and watched movies on planes, and so needed the ability to swap batteries mid-flight
http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/woz-finds-flaws-in-apples-
latest-offerings/2008/03/03/1204402340251.html
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