Steve Wozniak slams Apple over Intel and iPods

[Fats]

APPLE co-founder Steve Wozniak said that the company is consorting with the enemy in its chip pact with Intel and should spin off its iPod business as fast as possible.
Speaking in New Zealand, where he is taking part in a four-on-four polo tournament played Segways, Wozniak said that Apple has gone in surprising directions lately.

He said the move to Intel chips was "like consorting with the enemy". Apple had a long tradition of saying that the enemy is the "big black-hatted guys, and they kind of represent evil. We are different, and by being different we're better".

Now, Apple is just the same as them and it was a "little hard to swallow your words" from the past. As an engineer he admits the move was a necessary evil because Apple needed a way to improve performance per watt, although he was not certain if it was needed. He would have liked Apple to continue using Motorola processors, but "Intel just did a very good logic design."

Wozniak also does not really like Apple’s flagship iPod either. He said that while they were good for the company they were distracting Apple from its focus on computing.

He said that they should be spun off as soon as possible. Apple was, he said, a computer company which really thinks about computers.

Although Wozniak is still on the payroll he no longer takes an active role in the company after being shafted in a boardroom battle in the mid-1980s

Source (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=29887)

[Eidorian]

I still listen to the Woz.

[Fats]

Yeah, I do think that he makes some valid points. One of them being that Apple should concentrate on the computers they make. Could you imagine if they marketed their computer line-up as much as their iPod range?

[Eidorian]

Yeah, I do think that he makes some valid points. One of them being that Apple should concentrate on the computers they make. Could you imagine if they marketed their computer line-up as much as their iPod range?Yeah, I'm really starting to miss the Apple computer commercials. The Intel/Mac one has been beaten to death. Spin something new out...

[Sendok]

I haven't seen the intel/mac one yet.

Oh and I do like how your source conviently left out the other half


Auckland — After being all but written off by the tech industry in the mid ‘90s, Apple Computer Inc. has made a startling resurgence. But that doesn't mean its latest strategies sit well with Woz.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak — also known as “The Wizard of Woz,” or even “the other Steve” — made his fortune as the inventor of the Apple II computer more than 25 years ago. Being super rich often results in the acquisition of some strange hobbies, and Mr. Wozniak was in New Zealand recently for a four-on-four polo tournament played on two-wheeled, self-balancing Segway gyroscopic scooters.

In an interview after the match, which ended in a draw, the normally media-shy Mr. Wozniak reviewed his team's performance. “We're analyzing it every which way we can and we're absolutely convinced we had the slight win, but we were up against equal competition. They're tough, we learned a lot and we're going to go back and work on strategies.”

He might well have been commenting on Apple itself.

First and foremost, Mr. Wozniak is an engineer and has been since a very young age. At 11, he built his own ham radio station. At 13, he began designing computers. By university, he had met Steve Jobs and the two were building infamous “blue boxes,” which allowed users to manipulate phone networks.

The duo formed Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple in 1976 and set about revolutionizing the computer industry by selling inexpensive, fully assembled machines. By 1980, the company had gone public and the two Steves had struck it rich. But Mr. Jobs and Mr. Wozniak left Apple in 1985 after an internal power struggle. Mr. Jobs returned to the company as chief executive officer in 1997 and has since led the company to new heights, but Mr. Wozniak has stayed away. His dealings with Apple are minor, he said, although he's still on the payroll “just out of loyalty.”

Still, it's hard for Mr. Wozniak not to pay attention to Apple. With the runaway success of its iPod music players and its recent shift to Intel processors, Apple is heading in some drastically new directions. Apple's recent embrace of Intel processors, for one, is something Mr. Wozniak says he never imagined.

“It's like consorting with the enemy. We've had this long history of saying the enemy is the big black-hatted guys, and they kind of represent evil. We are different, and by being different we're better,” he says. “All of a sudden we're the same in this hardware regard, so it's a little hard to swallow your words from the past.”

Still, the switch to Intel is a necessary one from an engineering standpoint, he said, because Apple needed a way to improve performance per watt. Mr. Wozniak would have liked Apple to continue using Motorola processors, but “Intel just did a very good logic design.”

Engineering related considerations aside, he still seems reluctant about joining the Intel camp. “If it wasn't needed, I would say we shouldn't do it. And I still have some questions as to how much it's needed.”

Mr. Wozniak has mixed feelings about the iPod as well. The success of the devices has been fantastic for Apple, diversifying a company previously dependent on one product. But iPods are also distracting Apple from its focus on computing, he said, and the company might be better served by spinning off the business. Since iPods have their own operating systems, software and processor, “there's a different group working on it anyway,” he said.

“We're a computer company, and we really think computers. Spinning off a separate division makes a whole lot of sense.”

Mr. Wozniak didn't suggest specifically how the business could be spun out, but did say that when Apple had two successful computers in the eighties – the Apple II and the Macintosh – the two units were in separate buildings and didn't interact much.

Of course, the iPod's success has competitors drooling over the prospect of taking away some of Apple's market share. Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates recently vowed to introduce a rival MP3 player, but Mr. Wozniak doesn't appear concerned. “If they do it, they better do it excellent, excellent, excellent because the iPod sure is. Doing something weaker and somehow trying to use your size and market power . . . that's just not good [enough] if you don't turn out something superior.”

Like Apple, Microsoft is also changing by moving more toward on-line delivery of services, and Mr. Wozniak couldn't resist taking a shot at his long-time nemesis.

“Microsoft wants to get out of the whole image of the big, black Darth Vader evil guy,” he said. “Innovation is probably going on within the company, because any time you put smart engineers in places eventually they wind up talking and innovating no matter how much you try to hold them back.

“I hope Microsoft improves and becomes more like Apple.”

[Eidorian]

http://www.apple.com/intel/ads/

[HereticPB]

Interesting Perspective

[Moses]

I never liked the Woz much. He is a little whiney.