I see what you mean, but the article says base stations and hot spots several times. 570 WiFi clients would be a very low-ball figure for a room of maybe 5000 attendees. Hopefully a video posting of the presentation will clear it up, though they might cut all that out.
I'm not sure there would be 5000 people in the main conference hall. A good number of developers don't even go to the keynote and they always have overflow rooms that are pretty full with live video feeds. Of course, people in those other rooms would also be using WiFi, but they'd be fairly distant with several walls (or floors/ceilings) between them and the keynote stage. Then again, there are members of the press who attend only the keynote and that aren't developers so I'm not exactly sure how many people would be needed to fill the main hall.
I can't be sure of how many persons were using WiFi or MiFi or whatever, but from previous WWDCs I know that a lot of people sit and answer email, play online games, and browse the web while the keynote is being given. Why they spend thousands of dollars and travel thousands of miles just to do those activities during the conference has always amazed me but I guess it is because they aren't paying for the trip (their company pays).
Great. Since everyone decided not to honor Steve's request, looks like Apple will not offer the keynote video on their website due to the presentation difficulties. Steve will not release any subpar material.
With all Apple's experience in WiFi they should have configured their own Secure WiFi hotspot with a private unique frequency at the top of the band band and hard wired to the backbone and they would have had the bandwidth almost to themselves
It might be illegal to go outside of the approved frequencies and besides they would have had to modify the hardware in the iPhone to support something outside of the 2.4GHz range.
Like I've suggested before, it would have been much easier to use a MicroCell and run the demos over a secure, fast 3G connection that was routed to their own wired backplane (as a backup for the WiFi). AT&T MicroCells prevent connections from just any phone (they only accept connections from a limited list of phone numbers), so there would have been no calling conflicts from other phones in the hall. With a MicroCell directly under Steve's podium I'm pretty sure they could have gotten a strong, fast, and reliable 3G connection.
Good one! Also, explained by the 'Tragedy of the Commons'.
This is a good example for those on this forum who think that bandwidth is free and elastic, and that companies like ATT should only charge a fixed amount for 'unlimited.'
Exactly. Thank you for getting it. I don't think anyone else did.
The iPhone 3GS still loaded NYTimes.com. Maybe this new antenna on iPhone 4 is not so great after all. It may be the true culprit and not the mifi. I guess we will all find out on June 24th.
The iPhone 3GS still loaded NYTimes.com. Maybe this new antenna on iPhone 4 is not so great after all. It may be the true culprit and not the mifi. I guess we will all find out on June 24th.
This is an interesting observation.
Perhaps someone with tech knowledge can answer: why did the 3GS load but not the 4G?
I think you misunderstand the means of sending the feeds out. They aren't using Apple's access points or the convention center's, many of the people carried their own pocket cellular devices that are WiFi access points, one report gives Apple reps saying there were 570 access points in the auditorium. You would have to block everyone's cellular connection, you would have to modify the room to do that. And even without an outside connection, I don't know if the MiFi-like devices know to turn off the access point if there is no outside connection.
No, you don't understand. This isn't some techie solution about local wi-fi or cellular access. My solution ELIMINATES almost all of the REASON for all of the gadgets to be ON AT ALL!
If you're sitting in a lecture, for example, what exactly would be your need to communicate AT THAT VERY MOMENT to the outside world? Not much.
No, you don't understand. This isn't some techie solution about local wi-fi or cellular access. My solution ELIMINATES almost all of the REASON for all of the gadgets to be ON AT ALL!
If you're sitting in a lecture, for example, what exactly would be your need to communicate AT THAT VERY MOMENT to the outside world? Not much.
OK, I see what you mean, I got confused by the particular terms you used that probably have a stronger connotation than what you meant. It would help, I don't think it would be very effective. You can eliminate the reason, but then you're still dealing with humans, with human ego and all. We've already heard about plenty people at the presentation that were on the internet for reasons unrelated to the presentation. And you'll still have the bloggers that think there are people that want the blogger's opinion on it.
Uhm, it was a developers conference? Not a hardware conference. What'd you expect?
You must be new to WWDC keynotes. "Pro" aimed products, such as cinema displays, mac pros and macbook pros were the traditional staples of WWDC announcements. They have just as much place as an iPhone announcement.
I'm another that is disappointed that the 30" display hasn't had (non price-drop) update in six years since its WWDC04 introduction.
The iPhone 4 keynote was "plagued by high-tech Wi-Fi meltdown"??? It looked to me like Steve Jobs hardly missed a beat. Can you say Yellow Journalism?
I suppose, if your beat is longer than two minutes. The headline is a little hyperbolic, but a typical crash or other tech problem in a Jobs presentation is normally bypassed in seconds and done so smoothly that it's almost not noticeable. It is very unusual for him to be sidetracked with a tech problem for more than two minutes.
Perhaps someone with tech knowledge can answer: why did the 3GS load but not the 4G?
All devices trying to get on the network are peers, and in that room in the same location (Steve's hands) they have an equivalent shot at getting connected. If you had 2 3GS phones or 2 of the new ones, they might easily have one connect and one not.
The real problem here is that these personal base stations / hot spots aren't designed with a thought towards what happens when a lot of them occupy the same general vicinity. In my opinion using them during a presentation is the height of rudeness, and roughly equivalent to standing up and screaming at the top of your lungs. Using a wireless client is closer to whispering to your neighbour and listening.
And don't for a second think that having Apple broadcast the keynote would at all reduce the number of live bloggers in the audience using their MiFi devices. These are guys that are so full of themselves that they think that people care about their opinions.
Nothing... today's problem has more to do with the sudden explosion of popularity of these "personal base stations". And I don't think webcasting the keynote would necessarily quell the use of them -- all the media people present want to get their own words out there. The real answer is to upgrade the Wi-Fi equipment at Moscone, and ban the use of these personal base stations.
Don't be too quick to dismiss wireless handling changes in the new iPad and iPhone. If you Google 'iPad wifi problems' you will see that in fact there are many people reporting issues. Delve into those a little and you'll discover that many people mention that all their other devices work fine, but the iPad experiences sluggish / slow wifi performance; a typical statement runs along the lines of 'my iPhone 3G / 3GS works fine, but the iPad is slow.'
Now take a look at the video from today's keynote - the 3GS loaded well before the iPhone 4, which is the same issue being reported about iPad. Given the wide-ranging reports about iPad, I don't think you should dismiss this as a peer sharing / resourcing issue - I think there could be something to what the original poster suggested. It is highly likely that whatever hardware changes were made in iPad may also have been made in iPhone 4. And here is a biggie: none of those earlier models supported N. I'm guessing something flaky in Apple's implementation of the N protocols, or in the hardware itself.
On a personal note, I had the same issues with my iPad - unexpected and inexplicable networking issues while my 3G and other devices all worked fine. I had plenty of scenarios that looked like what Steve experiences today, except instead of a 3GS and iPhone4, it was my 3G and iPad, with the 3G winning over the iPad.
Here's hoping Steve's experience today will cause some pressure to be exerted on engineering to find and resolve the wifi issue. For iPad, it will almost certainly hurt them in the enterprise.
I live in a flat which incidentally have relatively little sound dampening (read thin walls) and there are about 4-8 wifi networks that are within my reach and my iPad and iPhone wifi connections sometimes struggle to get a good reliable connection. Most of these have very close (neighbouring) network channels which mean overlapping service. It made worst when everybody is also eating their microwave take-aways instead of cooking a home meal! I resorted to installing a Gigabit wired network so I could have my computers and game consoles to connect flawlessly to the Internet. I could imagine how frustrating it was when network congestion happens. Technology at its worst when it fails due to popularity.
Comments
He shoulda pulled out his Verizon iPhone and tried again.
Theoretical Max Speeds:
802.11G = 54MB
AT&T GSM = 7.2MB
Verizon CDMA = 3.1MB
I see what you mean, but the article says base stations and hot spots several times. 570 WiFi clients would be a very low-ball figure for a room of maybe 5000 attendees. Hopefully a video posting of the presentation will clear it up, though they might cut all that out.
I'm not sure there would be 5000 people in the main conference hall. A good number of developers don't even go to the keynote and they always have overflow rooms that are pretty full with live video feeds. Of course, people in those other rooms would also be using WiFi, but they'd be fairly distant with several walls (or floors/ceilings) between them and the keynote stage. Then again, there are members of the press who attend only the keynote and that aren't developers so I'm not exactly sure how many people would be needed to fill the main hall.
I can't be sure of how many persons were using WiFi or MiFi or whatever, but from previous WWDCs I know that a lot of people sit and answer email, play online games, and browse the web while the keynote is being given. Why they spend thousands of dollars and travel thousands of miles just to do those activities during the conference has always amazed me but I guess it is because they aren't paying for the trip (their company pays).
Thanks a lot gizmodoans.
With all Apple's experience in WiFi they should have configured their own Secure WiFi hotspot with a private unique frequency at the top of the band band and hard wired to the backbone and they would have had the bandwidth almost to themselves
It might be illegal to go outside of the approved frequencies and besides they would have had to modify the hardware in the iPhone to support something outside of the 2.4GHz range.
Like I've suggested before, it would have been much easier to use a MicroCell and run the demos over a secure, fast 3G connection that was routed to their own wired backplane (as a backup for the WiFi). AT&T MicroCells prevent connections from just any phone (they only accept connections from a limited list of phone numbers), so there would have been no calling conflicts from other phones in the hall. With a MicroCell directly under Steve's podium I'm pretty sure they could have gotten a strong, fast, and reliable 3G connection.
Yeah, yeah, there will never be a situation like this with 500+ devices in one room...
Never normally.
Yeah.
I really hope our military is not relying on this second-rate technology.
Good one! Also, explained by the 'Tragedy of the Commons'.
This is a good example for those on this forum who think that bandwidth is free and elastic, and that companies like ATT should only charge a fixed amount for 'unlimited.'
Exactly. Thank you for getting it. I don't think anyone else did.
The iPhone 3GS still loaded NYTimes.com. Maybe this new antenna on iPhone 4 is not so great after all. It may be the true culprit and not the mifi. I guess we will all find out on June 24th.
This is an interesting observation.
Perhaps someone with tech knowledge can answer: why did the 3GS load but not the 4G?
I think you misunderstand the means of sending the feeds out. They aren't using Apple's access points or the convention center's, many of the people carried their own pocket cellular devices that are WiFi access points, one report gives Apple reps saying there were 570 access points in the auditorium. You would have to block everyone's cellular connection, you would have to modify the room to do that. And even without an outside connection, I don't know if the MiFi-like devices know to turn off the access point if there is no outside connection.
No, you don't understand. This isn't some techie solution about local wi-fi or cellular access. My solution ELIMINATES almost all of the REASON for all of the gadgets to be ON AT ALL!
If you're sitting in a lecture, for example, what exactly would be your need to communicate AT THAT VERY MOMENT to the outside world? Not much.
No, you don't understand. This isn't some techie solution about local wi-fi or cellular access. My solution ELIMINATES almost all of the REASON for all of the gadgets to be ON AT ALL!
If you're sitting in a lecture, for example, what exactly would be your need to communicate AT THAT VERY MOMENT to the outside world? Not much.
OK, I see what you mean, I got confused by the particular terms you used that probably have a stronger connotation than what you meant. It would help, I don't think it would be very effective. You can eliminate the reason, but then you're still dealing with humans, with human ego and all. We've already heard about plenty people at the presentation that were on the internet for reasons unrelated to the presentation. And you'll still have the bloggers that think there are people that want the blogger's opinion on it.
Uhm, it was a developers conference? Not a hardware conference. What'd you expect?
You must be new to WWDC keynotes. "Pro" aimed products, such as cinema displays, mac pros and macbook pros were the traditional staples of WWDC announcements. They have just as much place as an iPhone announcement.
I'm another that is disappointed that the 30" display hasn't had (non price-drop) update in six years since its WWDC04 introduction.
The iPhone 4 keynote was "plagued by high-tech Wi-Fi meltdown"??? It looked to me like Steve Jobs hardly missed a beat. Can you say Yellow Journalism?
I suppose, if your beat is longer than two minutes. The headline is a little hyperbolic, but a typical crash or other tech problem in a Jobs presentation is normally bypassed in seconds and done so smoothly that it's almost not noticeable. It is very unusual for him to be sidetracked with a tech problem for more than two minutes.
It would have been funny if he'd just turned off all the wifi spots except his own special presentation one.
Except these were devices brought by the turds in the audience.
This is an interesting observation.
Perhaps someone with tech knowledge can answer: why did the 3GS load but not the 4G?
What he said
This is an interesting observation.
Perhaps someone with tech knowledge can answer: why did the 3GS load but not the 4G?
All devices trying to get on the network are peers, and in that room in the same location (Steve's hands) they have an equivalent shot at getting connected. If you had 2 3GS phones or 2 of the new ones, they might easily have one connect and one not.
The real problem here is that these personal base stations / hot spots aren't designed with a thought towards what happens when a lot of them occupy the same general vicinity. In my opinion using them during a presentation is the height of rudeness, and roughly equivalent to standing up and screaming at the top of your lungs. Using a wireless client is closer to whispering to your neighbour and listening.
And don't for a second think that having Apple broadcast the keynote would at all reduce the number of live bloggers in the audience using their MiFi devices. These are guys that are so full of themselves that they think that people care about their opinions.
Nothing... today's problem has more to do with the sudden explosion of popularity of these "personal base stations". And I don't think webcasting the keynote would necessarily quell the use of them -- all the media people present want to get their own words out there. The real answer is to upgrade the Wi-Fi equipment at Moscone, and ban the use of these personal base stations.
Don't be too quick to dismiss wireless handling changes in the new iPad and iPhone. If you Google 'iPad wifi problems' you will see that in fact there are many people reporting issues. Delve into those a little and you'll discover that many people mention that all their other devices work fine, but the iPad experiences sluggish / slow wifi performance; a typical statement runs along the lines of 'my iPhone 3G / 3GS works fine, but the iPad is slow.'
Now take a look at the video from today's keynote - the 3GS loaded well before the iPhone 4, which is the same issue being reported about iPad. Given the wide-ranging reports about iPad, I don't think you should dismiss this as a peer sharing / resourcing issue - I think there could be something to what the original poster suggested. It is highly likely that whatever hardware changes were made in iPad may also have been made in iPhone 4. And here is a biggie: none of those earlier models supported N. I'm guessing something flaky in Apple's implementation of the N protocols, or in the hardware itself.
On a personal note, I had the same issues with my iPad - unexpected and inexplicable networking issues while my 3G and other devices all worked fine. I had plenty of scenarios that looked like what Steve experiences today, except instead of a 3GS and iPhone4, it was my 3G and iPad, with the 3G winning over the iPad.
Here's hoping Steve's experience today will cause some pressure to be exerted on engineering to find and resolve the wifi issue. For iPad, it will almost certainly hurt them in the enterprise.