Apple's eccentric co-founder and longtime gadgetphile, Steve Wozniak, decided to get himself a shiny new Nokia Lumia 900 so he could have a bit of a play with Windows Phone and... he likes it. And this should surprise precisely no one. It's a great new phone and Woz tries every great new phone that comes off the assembly line (he has a chair reserved at the end of the conveyer belt, we're told). He's also giddy-passionate about technology (and recently said Android was more functional than iPhone...). However, since he co-founded Apple, Woz liking anything without an lowercase i in front of it makes headlines. So let's have at it.

"iPhone is my favorite phone. I did give my opinion that the Windows 7 phone had superior visual appearance and operation cues that were also more attractive. In my opinion, it sets the mark for user interface. I would recommend it over my Android phones given that it doesn’t yet have the breadth of apps. I surmise that Microsoft hired someone from Apple and put money into having a role in the UI and appearance of some key apps. I also surmised that Steve Jobs might have been reincarnated at MS due to a lot of what I see and feel with this phone making me think of a lot of great Apple things."

Yeahbutokay... that last part is more than a little around the bend and down the garden path, since Jobs was still alive when Windows Phone and Nokia were put together, never mind anyone reincarnated in the last year WOULD STILL BE A BABY and not in a position to turn around the battleship that is Microsoft. It also doesn't give the credit where it's due -- to the Windows Phone team and Microsoft team for putting together a damn fine product.

Windows Phone is arguably still more of an app than a platform, but that's changing faster and faster every day. While their specs lag Android by a considerable amount, they've got the polish and experience down and should easily be able to start matching speeds and feeds when Windows Phone 8 starts hitting shelves.

Of course that will be around when iPhone 5,1 and iOS 6 launch, so it'll make for an interesting fall to say the least.

Meanwhile, we leave you with Woz, bless him. (It's audio-only. Now if they'd had an iPhone with them...)

Source: SoundCloud file, A New Domain, WPCentral

Woz, a known Android fan, thinks the Android OS is more functional than iOS in many ways. Even though an iPhone is his primary device he still wishes his iPhone would perform some of the tasks his Android devices do.

“if you’re willing to do the work to understand it a little bit, well I hate to say it, but there’s more available in some ways...

I agree with his statement even though I'm strictly an iOS user. I still manage to find a reason to jailbreak when Apple decides to omit the features that I want. Not only is feature set an on-going issue for Apple but the fact that iOS is exclusive to Apple. Android being open source to the end user is arguable as well. It's open to the manufacturers and carriers, not the user. Android is still available for licensing to all manufacturers while Apple is the only company with rights to distribute iOS.

Woz also said he thinks Apple's approval process for apps slows developers down compared to Android's model. He was a long time user of Siri until Apple purchased it. He claims it doesn't work as well as it did when it was an independent application.

Do you think Apple's strict curation of the App Store and need for control is what pushes users towards Android?

Source: The Daily Beast

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak recently held an interview at the Campus Party in Valencia, Spain. He talked about the iPhone 4's antenna problems, Apples relationship with Google, his roll at Apple, and his relationship with Steve Jobs.

Here's some of what he had to say.

On iPhone 4 antenna

• "I have not really had a problem with the antenna... I think it’s a very tiny, tiny problem that is blown out of proportion because there are a lot of people who want to accuse Apple of a mistake only because Apple has been so good with its products, creating the products that we all love."

• "Even though I can cause the problem on my iPhone 4, I don’t have the problem in real usage."

• "A problem that is imagined to exist is that much greater the more you love the product that you’re afraid won’t work"

On Google

• "In recent times, I’ve been a little saddened to encounter the controversy between Apple and Google."

• "I love Google, but I’m afraid it has a chance of becoming the Microsoft of the future. You remember how Microsoft used all of their ownership of the operating system to take over the browser."

On his role at Apple

• "Although I receive a small salary from Apple, I do virtually no real work at the company."

• "I like to be more on the outside of Apple, because I prefer to judge products objectively."

On Steve Jobs

• "I chat with Steve Jobs now and then, from time to time, and we have never had an argument. We have always been friends. We are not close friends like we once were, spending every day together."

What do you think? Is the iPhone 4 antenna problem blown out of proportion? Are you afraid of Google becoming the next Microsoft?

My follow up question to Mr. Woz is what exactly he considers a small salary!

Check out video of the interview after the break.

[TechCrunch]

A bit of a roundup this afternoon as the cell phone inventor Martin Cooper, personal computer inventor Steve Wozniak, and advertising revolutionary Larry Page all give their opinions on iPhone vs. Android.

Martin Cooper went on CNN with this zinger:

"I think that the Android phones are catching up now, and the latest version of the Android phones are every bit as good, if not better, than the iPhone."

Of course, the accuracy of statements about which is better are inversely proportional to their generality. Don't tell us which, tell us why.

Apple's Steve Wozniak on Korea Times offers a little of that:

"It's difficult to find where things are (on Android phones). More and more, I feel like it is more like (Microsoft's) Windows in which many different hardware vendors have installed different equipment on the same platform. The (Windows') platform has to be very neutral and cannot be special. That's the similar problem Android phones have," he said.

"When you write an app for Android phones, there are so many platforms to consider. That's the problem Microsoft was facing with its Windows years ago. People like Apple products because they are always predictable and work."

Apple does a subset of features very well, but woe to you if you need something outside that subset. Google is currently doing as much as they can, even if all of it isn't polished yet. Both are moving towards the same goal, just taking very different paths.

As if to highlight that, Google's Larry Page went so far as to accuse Steve Jobs of distorting reality when it came to Jobs' charge that Google dropped the gauntlet by deciding to compete with Apple:

“We had been working on Android a very long time, with the notion of producing phones that are Internet-enabled and have good browsers and all that because that did not exist in the marketplace. I think that characterization of us entering after is not really reasonable."

But it is reasonable to say Android was aimed squarely (pun intended) at Windows Mobile Standard before Apple launched the iPhone, and now look at who's duking it out full-screen multitouch to full-screen multitouch.

We've just gotten a Nexus One running Android 2.2 Froyo here at TiPb HQ and we're going to put it one-on-one with iPhone 4 and iOS 4. If there's anything in particular you'd like to see, let us know in the comments.

[CNN via Android Central, Korea Times, Fortune, via 9to5Mac]

Yesterday NBC Bay Area reported (and Android Central gloated!) that Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, had replaced his iPhone for the big bark and less bite Google/HTC Nexus One. TiPb never believed Woz would ever relinquish his beloved iPhone and, sure enough, NBC Bay Area has now updated their story:

"I have two iPhones, sometimes I wear a Droid on my belt, and also a Nexus One," said Wozniak. "At any given point, I might have BlackBerrys. My main phone is still an iPhone."

He sounds like our very own Dieter Bohn just without the BlackBerry. So there you have it folks, Woz has not betrayed us.

It's not very often that you get to see Steve Wozniak in a interview. Well the iPhone Dev Team found this gem of an interview and posted it for all to see. Woz speaks up on Steve Jobs, Apple, hackers, and most importantly the iPhone! I'll stop talking... watch the video if you have not done so already!

[Via blog.iphone-dev.org]

Woz co-founded Apple and pretty much kick-started the personal computer revolution; fair enough. Since then, however, he's made his bones as a fairly big practical joker. Which Woz was it, then, who told the Telegraph:

"Consumers aren't getting all they want when companies are very proprietary and lock their products down," he says when comparing the iPhone's closed operating system to the new Google phone's open source system which allows anyone to modify and adapt the way the phone works. "I would like to write some more powerful apps than what you're allowed," he laments.

Of course, Woz could probably stroll into Apple, flash his stock certificates, and write any App he wants. So what's he really saying? That average consumers would be better off with a more open platform from Apple?

That probably better defines the harder core developers, geeks, technophiles, and blogerati than the average consumer -- just the type currently salivating over the Google Android.

Apple has made their iPod -- and now iPhone -- fortune, however, by giving average consumers what they really want: unmatched ease of use wrapped in a drop-dead gorgeous package.

My 2 and a half year old godson could use an iPhone with startling ease. Google Android? He could probably figure out how to throw it (likely at my head in frustration).

Woz is a genius, no doubt about it. He dented the world. But the classic mistake of any genius is seeing multiple problems when all every day people see is a single solution. The iPhone isn't a kit computer like the Apple II. It's the ultimate sealed-up Mac. Two different markets, with the second one being better for average consumers (despite geek howls to the contrary).

If Fake Steve weren't taking some "vacation" time to allow his alter-ego's to move from Forbes to take over Steve Levy's job at Newsweek, he'd no doubt be all over this.

Seems Woz, who co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs in a garage during the age of aquarius (or something), in between Segway Polo matches and paying for hamburgers with uncut sheets of $100 bills, found some alone time with his honey, celebrity funny woman Kathy Griffn, in the back of a limo.

What to do, what to do...

Why, live-vidblog (or whatever the big media equivalent of that is) the jailbreaking of her iPhone! What else?

A combination of Woz's massive watch and Griffin's neon-orange case may blind you for life, but if you just gotta see the geekbait, check the video over at Engadget.

O.P. Original Pirate, y'all! JAR!

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