The Mac Sucks!

We’ve discussed before how Apple’s tendency to speak in “absolutes” (e.g., “the nation’s fastest”, “the world’s most advanced”) will come back to bite it eventually. There’s nothing wrong with being proud of what you produce, but Apple seems to arrogantly proclaim that any product it produces is always the “ultimate” at something.

When it comes to its iPhone, Apple often touts that AT&T’s network is “the nation’s fastest 3G network“. PCWorld recently decided to test the 3G networks of AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint in 13 different U.S. cities. What it found was that, depending on your definition, AT&T does not have the “nation’s fastest” 3G network.

The AT&T network’s download speed tested at 812 kbps, which is worse than Verizon (951 kbps) and virtually identical to Sprint (808 kbps). Sprint and Verizon are better for reliability, however, than AT&T. PCWorld’s testers found that they were able to make a connection at a reasonable, uninterrupted speed on AT&T’s network in only 68% of their tests. Sprint’s network delivered a fast connection in 90.5% of tests, and performed “especially well” in terms of speed and reliability in the western U.S. cities tested. Verizon was available in 89.8% of the tests.

In other words, if you look at upload speed, you might argue that AT&T is “the nation’s fastest” 3G network. If, however, you look at download speed (which is probably what most iPhone customers would really care about), AT&T is at best “middle of the road” among the major cellular data providers… hardly “the nation’s fastest”.

Although it’s interesting to see that an independent source has confirmed that Apple’s “nation’s fastest” claim doesn’t quite hold up, one has to wonder if this isn’t just another part of an Apple conspiracy to discredit AT&T so that it can break its iPhone agreement early and start selling the device through other carriers.

CNet’s Brooke Crothers published “The MacBook Air’s fatal wireless flaw” on December 14.  Crothers begins by pointing out that Apple advertises the MacBook Air on its site with marketing statements like the following:

• MacBook Air takes full advantage of the wireless world.
• …unprecedented wireless capabilities…
• …MacBook Air is built for the wireless world
• The innovative now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t port hatch flips down to reveal (and closes to hide) all the ports you really need
• Like everything on MacBook Air, the battery doesn’t compromise power for portability. You can access the web wirelessly for 4.5 hours
• “without wires, you’re free to go anywhere”

Given Apple’s statements above, we should expect that it has provisions for “taking full advantage” of wireless technologies like 3G and WiMax, that the few ports it has built in are “necessary” and therefore easy to access, and that battery life on wireless should be good.

Crothers’ main point is that in the design of a laptop with “unprecedented wireless capabilities” the lack of a built-in 3G wireless networking option is a significant oversight.  Further, the recessed ports on the MacBook Air make it difficult to use the machine with the many USB 3G modems available without also using an extension cable of some sort, which goes against the device’s “you don’t need all those wires” philosophy.  By not recessing the USB ports or by including an ExpressPort so you could add an inexpensive 3G card, the Air could more effectively live up to the “takes full advantage of the wireless world” hype.  But as it is, that’s not the case.

It should be noted that aside from the lack of 3G, Crothers likes the MacBook Air, saying “I got one in February as soon as it was available at retail and have been pleased with the performance, screen, keyboard, build, and, until recently, the battery life (which has dwindled to under an hour).”  What really brought the point home that the lack of 3G support is a flaw in the air occurred at a Qualcomm press event. When he looked around the room, “Sitting there in the nerve center of one of greatest wireless companies in the world, I couldn’t get a wireless connection. Everyone else in the room had 3G connections of one kind or another. The Air instantly became the proverbial doorstop (or paper weight–choose your simile, or maybe it’s more apropos to say it was a dinosaur.)”

Naturally, the comments below the article instantly became a Mac vs. PC flame war.  If you try to read the statements objectively and read past the rhetoric, emotion, and hype on both sides of the battle, the arguments make some interesting observations:

In defense of the MacBook Air, these points were made:

• 3G support is common in Europe, parts of Asia, but can only be found in parts of the USA.  Built-in 3G support wouldn’t be useful in much of the world, or the US.
• 3G is still slow for things like Flash or streaming video at high quality
• The Air includes BlueTooth, so it could be tethered to a 3G cellphone without the need for wires or a USB dongle
• The Air does include a USB port, and pretty much any 3G or EVDO network offers a compatible USB device that could be attached to the Air
• If a 3G card slot was included inside the Air, that might reduce battery life (another of Crothers’ complaints) even further
• Apple tends to stay with standards that are globally deployable to leaves them out (though that doesn’t explain the lack of an Express Card slot)
• Between BlueTooth enabled phones and free WiFi access in many areas, built-in 3G support isn’t necessarily needed in the Air
• MacBook Air sales aren’t exactly low, so lack of built-in 3G hasn’t stopped many people from buying the device
• “…the underlying problem isn’t what manufacturer includes/excludes from machines but rather the multitude of formats, protocols, connections. You have 3G, EVDO, WiFi, WiMac, and probably others.”

In support of other laptop computers or against the MacBook Air, these points were made:

• HP and Dell laptops can be ordered with 3G built-in or you can easily add it with an Express Card, giving you more options than the Air
• Although USB devices can be used to add 3G to the Air, the recessed ports on the Air make that difficult, and take up one of the few ports available in the device that you might want for something else like a USB flash drive
• The iPhone doesn’t (yet) support tethering (though this has been rumored to be coming in the future)
• Lack of built-in 3G is “why netbooks won’t beat the iPhone…once you’ve experienced always being connected, it’s difficult going back”
• The Cradlepoint PHS-300 Portable Personal Router is cited as an option that allows a laptop user to have a broadband card external to the computer without draining the built-in battery.
• One commenter noted that “I have traveled through the US quite a bit and stop at many of their airports. I have not found an airport where I could not get a 3G connection.”
• Several commenters noted that Crothers should have read the machine’s specifications more carefully before purchasing it, and he might not have expected 3G built-in.

Some good points are made on both sides of the argument.  In the end, if you can afford the MacBook Air, it has the features you need, and doesn’t lack the ones you do need (e.g., 3G), there’s no reason you shouldn’t consider it.  On the other hand, if you need multiple USB ports, an ExpressCard port for 3G or EVDO connectivity, etc., then look at other Apple and Windows laptops that have what you need.  Personally, I like having more connectivity and expansion options than fewer, and I don’t really care about unused ports “cluttering up” my computer’s appearance, so the Air probably isn’t a great fit for me.  But I’m not “everyone else”.

It is interesting to note, however, that Crothers claims that his battery life has dropped to about an hour of real use.  As some of the commenters noted, it would be enlightening to learn whether this is a fault of the battery itself, a symptom of overuse, or simply poor power management on his part.

According to this article from The National Post, comparing the Apple iPhone and RIM’s Blackberry bold is “misguided” because the devices are targeted at different markets. They indicate that “Research In Motition’s 3G smartphone is targeted at upgraders, professional consumers and business users, while Apple Inc.’s popular device focuses on media-centric consumers. It’s kind of like comparing steak and lobster, RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky told clients. They’re both tasty but offer completely different experiences.”

The article says that the Bold may be preferable for “productivity-centric buyers” while the iPhone’s touch screen “may deter frequent email users.”

As we’ve recently discussed here at the site, iPhone 3G customers have been complaining about dropped calls, slow browsing, and other unpleasant experiences with the device. Apple has released a software update to the iPhone that they believed would correct the problems users were reporting. According to Gregg Keizer of Computerworld, “the new 2.0.2 firmware has not fixed users’ 3G reception problems” as many had hoped. The article says that “Users have been complaining about 3G network problems almost since the July 11 debut of the iPhone 3G. More than 2,000 messages have been posted to the phone’s support forum since then, detailing difficulties making calls from areas supposedly covered by a 3G network, and griping about weak signals and slower-than-promised data download speeds.”

According to an anonymous researcher in Sweden, the iPhone 3G is less sensitive to 3G signals than published 3G standards dictate and less sensitive than other 3G phones. CNet.com’s Tom Krazit tells us that this means “the phone drops the connection with a 3G tower more quickly than other 3G phones as it moves away from the tower and averages slower data speeds when connected.”

We’ve discussed here before that we think that Apple’s software developers must be stretched too thinly, because they seem to be making a lot of basic mistakes that should have been caught in testing and QA. Now, we have to wonder if their hardware engineers are having the same problems.

The old joke that Apple’s paying customers are its beta testers is starting to look more like a reality.

The CrunchGear site has a review of the new
iPhone 3G that begins with the recommendation to wait, and not to buy it
yet. Why? Here are a few excerpts from the review:

With 60% certainty I predict a minor hardware or,
more likely, software update in the next month or to improve the
3G’s thus far abysmal battery life.

3G is nominally faster in the right areas – my
Brooklyn haunt is not one of them – so if you were expecting
improvements over EDGE think again. While most folks in urban areas will
see a bump, the iPhone 3G has yet to show marked improvements over the
standard EDGE/Wi-Fi combo that worked so well in the first model. I
think 3G is a red herring, something Apple threw in at AT&T’s
request to showcase their network. 3G burns up battery life and does not
automatically shut off when out of range.

Without turn-by-turn the iPhone’s
GPS is useless in the car unless you have a navigator. A Garmin or Tom
Tom device is more cost-effective in this case.

All of the sharing
systems built into MobileMe already exist in some form elsewhere and
everything else can be recreated simply by plugging the iPhone in and
syncing to desktop applications like Outlook. So far the push calendar
and contacts have been great but they are not particularly noticeable
nor was I desperate for their addition.

I know multiple sites have waved their
hands over the numbers and found that the 3G is in fact quite
long-lasting. In my experience I’ve found that I can get a full 18
hours of normal usage given I don’t do much browsing. I also know
that my use case is fairly uncommon – I have 12,246 unread messages
right now and I get about ten or twenty every half-hour. However, I
don’t think it’s that uncommon. I’ve set the
auto-fetch to every hour and I’ve seen some improvement in speed
but the battery will be a major issue soon enough – these things get
worse, not better, over time and as I recall another device with a
similar problem, the Sidekick, eventually petered out to eight hours on
a good day and four hours on a horrible one.

Click here
to read the review in its entirety.

Writer Eric Zeman of InformationWeek makes a very interesting point in his article, “Did Apple Really ‘Sell’ 1 Million iPhones to End Users? Nope.” As Zeman points out, Apple’s press release claiming a million sales might be true on the surface but is an example of how the company is using “spin” to make the iPhone seem more popular than it really is. Analysts say that Apple sold only about 425,000 iPhone 3Gs to end users. The article quotes Fortune magazine, saying that “One explanation for this discrepancy may have to do with how Apple counts sales. Sales at Apple Stores are counted at the register. But sales to its partners — in this case AT&T and the overseas carriers — are recorded when the devices leave the loading docks in Asia. In other words, some of those 1 million iPhones recorded as sold by Apple may still be in transit.”

Before you go thinking Zeman is a pro-Microsoft, anti-Apple person, make sure you  read his other article about the iPhone. Zeman owns an iPhone 3G. He found the purchase process unpleasant. I refer specifically to this excerpt from that article:

Apple CEO Steve Jobs said: “iPhone 3G had a stunning opening weekend. It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world.” I wouldn’t say a “great” start, Steve-o.

All I am saying about Friday’s buying and activation process is, “12 hours”. That’s how long it took. I got in line at 7 a.m. I walked out of the Apple store at noon. My iPhone refused to activate until 6 p.m. The activation/initial syncing process lasted an hour. From start to finish, it took 12 hours. That hardly qualifies as “great”.

You would think that after all the bad press Apple took for the troubles people had activating their original iPhones, they would have ironed the process out a lot more before the launch of the 3G, such that people would have had their iPhones activated before they walked out the door of their Apple Store.

iPhone owner James Kendrick of the “jkOnTheRun” blog shares an interesting story about the iPhone 3G and the process of getting one at his local Apple store:

The most interesting part of the entire purchase process was seeing the role that Microsoft played in every single iPhone purchase at the Apple store. You see, Apple doesn’t use cash registers or even Macs for the purchase process. No, they use handheld wireless devices made by Symbol, maker of such things, and every single one of them is running the Windows CE operating system. That’s right, Apple had to turn to Microsoft for a point-of-sale (POS) solution solid enough to work under such volume sales situations. These Symbol devices used barcode scanning to input each iPhone’s serial number and other information, used a credit card scanner to accept customer payment, and tapped a wireless connection to not only the Apple store’s network but to the AT&T network to activate the new service for the customer. They handled the mad crowd with ease and even kept working when the Apple store power flickered once. Talk about ironic.

Indeed. This is just one more reason why, here at The Mac Sucks, we remind you that while the Mac may be a fine computer for some uses, there are some things that Windows or Linux can simply handle better. Here’s a perfect case in point. Apple needed a reliable system that tied together disparate networks and technologies, and they couldn’t (or at least didn’t) use OS X… even in their own stores, where you’d think it’d almost be a requirement.

Jim Lynch at Extremetech had the opportunity to put one of the new iPhone 3G devices through its paces. Apparently, though he loved his original iPhone, he’s not so fond of the new one. In his article “iPhone 3G: The Dracula Phone” he tells us:

In one of my last columns I called the iPhone 3G the “satan phone.” Well forget that — with more reviews trickling about the iPhone 3G, it should more rightly be called the “Dracula Phone” as it seems to be a power-sucking vampire compared to the iPhone Classic.

Ouch…

According to ChinaView.cn, the 8GB iPhone 3G costs Apple about $173 to make. This is the same phone Apple and AT&T are selling for $199 here in the U.S. As ChinaView tells us, “Apple’s profit, however, is much more than the 26 dollars difference between the cost and retail price, as the retail price is subsidized by the exclusive carrier, AT&T Inc. ISuppli estimates that AT&T will subsidize each phone by 300 dollars, while other analysts have put it at 350 dollars. The carrier will earn the subsidy back through monthly service fees. Apparently, the biggest money maker is the 16GB variant of the iPhone 3G. The extra Flash memory costs Apple 23 dollars, but adds a full 100 dollars to the retail price.”

Apple certainly has a right to make a profit, no one’s arguing that. However, like the oil companies, perhaps they could help their customers by trimming a little off their prices?

Grace Aquino of Bloomberg posted an article comparing the iPhone and iPhone 3G to two competitors the LG Dare and Samsung Instinct. While she does point out some advantages the iPhone has to the competition, she notes that there are some things the competitors do much better than the iPhone:

• “GPS navigation is more advanced on the Instinct and the Dare than on the iPhone: Both have voice-guided driving directions, whereas the iPhone and the new iPhone 3G show text- based directions and maps only.”
• “The Instinct from Seoul-based Samsung and the Dare from LG, also based in Seoul, can capture video and send it (or a photo) as an attachment to a text message (a so-called multimedia message, or MMS). The iPhone only takes still pictures, not video, and can’t do multimedia messaging. It also lacks instant messaging software; same on the Instinct.”
• “All three phones are power-hungry. On talk time, the Instinct lasted for about 5.5 hours, the iPhone for about 5 hours, and the LG for about 4.5 hours.
• “Call quality was best on the Dare, in part because of Verizon’s reliable network. On the Instinct I noticed more of a background hiss, and the iPhone on AT&T’s network sometimes dropped calls.”
• “Apple’s $199 iPhone 3G with 8 gigabytes of built-in storage seems like a good buy at first, but when you consider AT&T’s $90 monthly charge (covering 450 minutes and unlimited data and texts), the savings disappear.”

CNN covered the launch of the 3G iPhone on Friday and said that
buyers had problems getting the phones to work.

CNN tells
us that “A spokesman for AT&T Inc., the exclusive carrier for the
iPhone in the U.S., said there was a global problem with Apple Inc.’s
iTunes software that prevented the phones from being fully activated
in-store, as had been planned. Instead, employees are telling buyers to
go home and perform the last step by connecting their phones to their
own computers, spokesman Michael Coe said.”

As we
suspected some time ago, “the new model is subsidized by carriers, as is
standard in the wireless industry, and Apple and AT&T therefore
planned to activate all phones in-store to get customers on a contract.”

Apparently, the iTunes glitch also extended to the
first-generation iPhone model. Freelance photographer Giovanni Cipriano
said, “It’s a mess,” referring to updating his first-generation iPhone,
only to find it unusable.

Interestingly, CNN notes that
“At the flagship Apple store on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, a line of
hundreds encircled the block ahead of the 8 a.m. opening. Many of them
were already owners of the first iPhone, suggesting that Apple is
preaching to the choir with the new model…” It will be interesting
to see if the market share increases significantly or if the bulk of
iPhone 3G customers are just original iPhone customers back for an
upgrade.