14 DAY TRIAL // This morning saw Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak delivering a keynote speech at a conference focused on Australian broadband, in Sydney. The only Apple employee entitled to criticize its products on the record says that the Apple TV is frustrating to use, that he wishes Apple had gone with the 3G approach on the iPhone, and that, although he's trying to fit it into his life, the Air is bound to fail at becoming a hit.
The group interview, available thanks to apcmag.com, reveals that Wozniak sees a lot of problems with the Apple TV, particularly the 24-hour limit on rental movies:
"The AppleTV has problems... the 24 hour limit once I start watching, I have to finish in 24 hours. My life is way too mobile and unpredictable for that. I don't want to have to pay again to watch the rest the next night. ... I don't like to be given control of something by remote control, then have restrictions put up against me about how I can use it. That interferes with my feeling of humanness," Wozniak comments.
The 2G iPhone is just another disappointment for Woz, who claims while "in the audience ... half the phones that AT&T sold at that time were all 3G phones." Wozniak says he was actually shocked "because Apple was bringing full internet with full webpages," yet didn't offer 3G support.
Expressing his awe again towards Apple's move with the iPhone, which, in Wozniak's opinion, is totally contradictory to the company's way of looking at the future, the man claimed he was in no position to give any clues as to when the 3G iPhone would arrive, noting however that "it's sorta been known since day one that it would be here."
Finally, the Air. Now, bear in mind that Apple's latest NoteBook actually appeals to Wozniak. Still, that doesn't make it a winner and Apple's man says it loud and clear: "...a lot of its missing features bothered me, but when I got it, for some reason, the way its keyboard is, I can type faster, it's a more comfortable, positive experience. I love the whiter-whites of the LED backlighting ... So I'm trying to figure out a way to make the Air part of my life, because I'm a one-laptop-only person."
However, all this still doesn't spell success for the Apple co-founder: "I don't think it's going to be a hit, I know some people love it and it works great, they have a computer at work, and they use their Air to give presentations, but I don't see a mass swing over to them," he concluded.