Wozniak: I Would Consider Returning To Apple

Google85 writes "Steve Wozniak told Reuters he would consider returning to an active role at Apple, the company he co-founded, and believes the consumer electronics giant could afford to be more open than it is."

Comments

Right on Woz!

[MoldySpore]

See? Not everyone associated with Apple has the same mantra as Steve Job's closed off bricks of user inaccessibility and locked down interfaces that tell the user they can't modify their own hardware or software without voiding a warranty. It took the judicial system to rule that it was legal to jail break an iPhone. I have a feeling that if Woz was still a major player in Apple's development and ways of thinking, this would have never been necessary. I say kick that turtle-neck wearing skeleton outta there and reinstate Woz as new Apple overlord! ;)

Re:Right on Woz!

[metaomni]

Yeah! Apple totally should entirely change its business model. I mean, it's not like they've gone from almost-dead to the second-largest market cap company in the United States under Steve Jobs.

Re:Right on Woz!

[russotto]

"But all I did was modify the software!". Nope, no warranty, since you put the engine outside of it's expected engine parameters. Maybe going extra fast made the engine really hot and melted it into a molten block of metal.

The burden of demonstrating that the failure was due to the modification is on the car maker, however.

Re:Right on Woz!

[hedwards]

You do realize that if they hadn't chosen an inept business model in the first place that we'd likely be complaining about Apple's monopoly over the desktop market, right? There were a lot of inept decisions which led to the near demise of Apple, but being too open wasn't really one of them. (Depending upon how you count allowing other manufacturers to make hardware that could run their OS

One of the reasons that Apple lost out was the lack of openness to the platform, there were other problems, but that wasn't helping them any.

Apple is a marketing company

[Trip6]

Woz is a technical guy and is no longer needed there. Jobs only ever cared about the user experience and that's why Apple dominates.

Re:Apple is a marketing company

[macs4all]

so your convinced that since a marketing team threw pro at the end of a name that it is not?

Are you really going to sit there and call THIS a "consumer gadget"?

You're retarded. Hand in your geek card and delete your slashdot account immediately.

Re:Apple is a marketing company

[Osgeld]

its a mass produced product from a consumer company using off the shelf parts with a consumer friendly OS that any yutz can get from a local dealership

also just cause your easily impressed does not make me instantly retarded

Re:Why tell the world?

[contrapunctus]

just post the damn url, i'm not going to click on a tinyurl link and get goatse'd or something...

Re:apple needs to be open to more hardware choice

[UnknowingFool]

apple needs to be open to more hardware choice.

There is an ongoing debate about the paradox of choice. Apple has chosen less choice. It simplifies their product line for them. Remember Apple is selling to consumers in general and not specifically to geeks like you.

What is so bad about makeing it easier to swap the HDD in the imac / mini?
What is so bad about desktop a system with imac power levels without a build in screen?

The problem is you are only seeing from you, you, you. From Apple's perspective they have to compete in a very competitive market with Lenovo, Dell, HP, and others. They have distinguished themselves by picking which products and subsets of the market that will ensure they have customers. It's probably the reason they stopped making Xserves; they just wasn't enough market for them. Remember they have to employ engineers, support engineers, etc for every product. As a business they make product lines where they can have success and not ones where a small percentage like slashdot geeks care about.

If apple does not want mini towers then lower the price of the base mac pro to $1500-$2000 or have a bigger mini system with a 7200RPM HDD at least (320GB-500GB) or SDD. Better video then on board video / intel video. AMD new on board video system in the cpu may be ok and desktop ram with 4gb at the base. Also have at least a desktop i5. NO i3 or i3 on board video.

A Mac Pro is not a mini-tower desktop. It is a professional workstation. There's quite a difference between the two. A Mac Pro is designed for professionals to author photos, video, sound, graphics, etc. While you can write book reports in Word on them, that's not their intent. It's like asking why a heavy duty truck isn't good for transporting 6 people around. Different purposes, different designs.

But if apple where to have a mini tower have it with desktop i5 or i7, 2-4 HDD slots / bays, 4-6 ram slots (based on what chip set is used), pci-e X16 video slot + pci-e X16 slot (X4 speed) or TB port. Maybe have a higher system with room for dual video cards or just X16 + X16 (does not need to full X16 speed) + TB port. and 1-2 ODD bays.

Basically you've described a system that every computer manufacturer makes. Why should Apple compete in a crowded market where the margins are pretty thin just to make you happy.

Re:Has he done anything after that?

[Concerned Onlooker]

Yep. I hate my Apple products so much I regularly buy new ones just so I can have something to complain about.

Re:Has he done anything after that?

[mwvdlee]

The last thing Apple needs is somebody that actually cares about their customers' freedom.

Re:Has he done anything after that?

[SpzToid]

Steve Jobs has learned to be humble? When did that happen?