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Woz Worries Microsoft Is Now More Innovative Than Apple
First time accepted submitter yvajj writes "According to a techcrunch interview, Woz believes that Microsoft is now more innovative than Apple. Per the interview, it seems as though Apple is now just doing newer versions of the iPhone, and are potentially headed into a rut. Another gem from Woz is the fact that he treats all new hardware as something new to learn from and does not approach it with any preconceptions (irrespective of who the manufacturer is / what OS etc.). A great short interview from Woz."
Interesting interview.
That's refreshing to hear instead of the typical /. preconceived garbage they carry around, calling people as Apple fanbois or Micro$oft; and predicting doom and gloom for every corresponding company's new product launch. /.'ers ability to predict product success is about as good as predicting the stock market.
Why should he be worried? Innovation benefits everybody, no matter who does it!
Woz should probably be cheering for Apple's demise at this point...
Just imagine if IBM had been as good at shifting shiny cyrptographic lockboxes and patent litigation back when Apple was getting started. They would have sued his hacker ass back into the garage for good and we'd all still be speaking EBCDIC.
That people are going to take this interview and run with it. The Woz is saying he likes hardware. He uses all types and gives it a unbiased review. He said he can see Microsoft being more innovative than Apple. That is all. He isn't saying Apple is doomed and Microsoft is the new king. I think The Woz is a great guy as i've said before in another post and this is another great review from someone who loves hardware and not companies.
Have you seen Windows 8?
seems like one of the few people in the valley who've managed to retain their techno-weenie spirit despite enormous corporate success.
Are people blind? Seriously?
One look at the surface running windows 8 is enough to prove that microsoft is massively innovative these days. If anything, they might be too innovative.
For putting on a new skin/overlay to cover up the 'start' button?
I dunno Woz, where it counts, I reckon that Apple's legal division still innovates when they litigate better than Microsoft's.
The start of the interview eerily echos the likes of RMS talking more about fear of the cloud; Ownership [Device and Data] and Subscription services, which I personally believe is a more interesting topic that this pissing contest topic.
The question about innovation has troll written all over it. The answer was not as the summary suggest "Microsoft is more innovative than Apple [or Google]", but that Microsoft seemed to be looking for revolutionary innovation as opposed to [Apples] post Jobs evolutionary innovation. Woz explains what he means; Apple is simply producing improved versions of its own products rather than creating new markets [post Steve Jobs]. To be honest I think the word innovation is stretched very heavily to mean something completely different, from what I would say it meant.
The discussion of whether innovative[sic] people [Scott Forstall] are being pushed out for being like Jobs[Innovative but not nice], Woz and I paraphrase a little basically says Apple creating great products despite Jobs [uses words like dis-admire?; rough; not friendly; real rugged bastard; put people down; make them feel demeaned].
Woz handled what seemed to be a interviewer with an agenda, with honest answers [or at least came across as such] that unfortunately are hidden behind a summery that does the same.
It is easy to come up with lots of "new" products.
It is NOT easy to come up with a single new better product that people want to grab out of your hands.
Unlike many people who posted here, I actually saw the entire video. I am not a Steve Jobs fan or an apple fanboi.
I do admire Steve Wozniak, though. ( though am not his spokesperson - this is my interpretation )
IMO, what he's saying is that
- Small, incremental evolutions by Apple in their products will not help Apple in the long run.
- The delta between Apple and it's competitors is reducing.
- Apple needs to create newer product lines AND/OR create bring out more 'revolutionary products'
He probably means that we're not seeing the kind of 'jumps' that we saw from iPhone 3GS to the iPhone 4
or the creation of the iPad.
To conclude, he does not think that apple is doomed per se.
He is just worried that the pace of innovation might be slowing down at apple. Like all geeks, Woz believes in catching problems earlier rather than later.
You know, this makes me wonder...
Apple (Steve Jobs) was known for telling customers that it "just works" and for having limited options because the way it works is--obviously--the "best" way.
I wonder if Jobs ran his company that way too...just telling his people what to do, rather than teaching them how to arrive at good decisions or good designs on their own. If so, then they really wouldn't have a clue what to do now that he's gone.
Think Apple's stock might plummet? Oh wait...
After all that's the only tme they're actually not going down the toilet.
Oh yeah that's right - they can't.
*flush*
Entropy means there is no way out, regardless of the -ism you go with.
It seems the pendulum is swinging back towards Microsoft. If you live long enough, it will swing back (or away from MSFT) again.
It reminds me of the days when data was stored on main-frames, mini's, etc. with distributed green-screens... it went to PC's (stored locally), and now the cloud, then...
It's the pendulum.
Wozniak is a rational voice in a world of fanbois that sees benefit in innovation. Saying that Woz is not qualified on the grounds that he is no longer involved with Apple is erroneous at best. Woz was a true innovator, more so than myself or any other /. commentor and is perfectly suited to comment on his perception of what qualifies as innovation.
Disagreeing with you does not make me a troll.
Microsoft has been more innovative than the Woz since about 1986 ;)
My takeaway is that Apple is now innovating less than Microsoft, moreso than Microsoft is now innovating more than Apple. Microsoft's weird experiments, and the forcing of it down the throat of the market, isn't much of a deviation for them.
That would explain all the lawsuits against competitors...
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
We have geniuses do that all the time.
Then the rest of the humanity hammers them down.
I had an iPhone for two years, an Android (HTC Evo) for two years, and I recently got a Nokia 920 with Windows 8. All vey different experiences, but from an overall polish and usability standpoint, Windows 8 is the clear winner. The UI is wonderful. Apple still has the upper hand on hardware (not screens though), and Android has the upper hand in apps and 'openness' (if you even care about that). But when I got this device I felt like I did when I first got the iPhone. Maybe that feeling is what he is referring to.
Oh please. Woz didn't say that he believes that Microsoft is more innovative than Apple. He said he has seen Microsoft do some things that seem more innovative than what he has seen from Apple in the last few years. ... they don't.
But he admits that he doesn't even know the people currently in charge at Apple all that well, so how is he supposed to know what Apple is developing right now?
I mean, we all know how secretive Apple is. It's also no secret that Microsoft does do a lot of basic research; they frequently show promising tech demos. The original surface anyone? But it's Apple who creates actually successful products while Microsoft largely seems to be content making new versions of Windows and Office every now and then. It's just now with their latest tablet efforts that they are trying something new for a change. And that means new for Microsoft. There's not all that much new for the market in that product.
Or to take it from another perspective: I believe Microsoft *does* have the resources to produce a really innovative and compelling product. It's just that
Also, I have to comment on this sentence of the original article:
"if Tim Cook should stumble, Apple might consider bringing [Woz] back as their CEO."
That's just ridiculous. Look, I like Woz. He's obviously a really nice guy. And he's very smart; I mean, he built the original Apple-II almost on his own. But let's be honest: He's not a very good business man. He would make a *very* bad replacement for Tim Cook. And you know it.
We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Woz
We hear he is a whiz of a wiz, if ever a wiz there was
If ever, oh ever a wiz there was, The Wizard of Woz is one because
Because, because, because, because, because
Because of the wonderful things he does
We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Woz
What made Sony once great is that the manager never stopped his engineers from trying anything and everything and it gave them a great range of products and a name for quality (Yes I know it popular to hate on Sony now but the company used to be very different when it was still a pure Japanese company). And gosh isn't that "do whatever you want and we see what comes out of it" just like Googles 20% idea except Sony had it at 100% (and because engineers are engineers, got 140%)?
Focussing on one product, one the core business is a great way to die slowly. It is something managers just don't get, which is why management should be restricted to bean counting, and stopped from running companies. The lower engineers should run the company, the CEO should just make sure that the money is accounted for and try not to steal to much of it.
MS is indeed an innovative company, they have a LOT of ideas. It just never materializes into products people can buy because MS keeps trying to maximize profits. Take gaming. Halo 4 was actually named in the same list of earners for MS as Windows and Office... that is quite a lot for single game. And is Halo 4 available for that Windows? No it is not. Because MS decided to maximize its profits by focussing on its console instead it is hurting its own OS by starving it of games. (If I don't need a PC for gaming I can run OSX just as easily, gaming is the one lockin remaining).
There is absolutely no reason for MS not to produce games that run on both Windows and its console and even encourage it. Instead it spends hard cash discouraging this. It is one manager trying to focus on one product and not the business as a whole.
It is the approach of trying to maximize everything in terms of profit that actually hurts MS badly. When it launched the Zune it launched it with a new DRM scheme and shop incompatible with what they had been selling to MP3 player makers before. Gosh... that is a HELL of a way to get them to buy into your stuff again. First you force them to adopt your scheme, then you launch a new one for your own player.
The Surface is another example. Google can do it because the Nexus are nice phones but bare ones. But the Surface is a full blown competitor except MS can afford to subsidize the hell out of it. OEM's can't and are already on razor thin margins to begin with. And in order to maximize MS sales, the expensive Surface doesn't even come with a full Office license, with Office being the only selling point the device has. It is understandable they want the extra cash but it is no way to market a product already perceived as behind before launch. Of course, if they did include a full office for "free" the OEM's would be even more upset, but you already upset them so why not go the whole way? (Remember that if you have office on your PC and on your tablet, you now have two licenses to pay for despite only using one at a time)
Windows 8 is another example. The simple fact is that Phones, Tablets, Consoles, PC's, Laptops are different devices. Trying to get people to use them all the same way is stupid. It would like fitting your bicycle with a steering wheel because well, your car has one? Why not a unified interface for all vehicles? It has been said time and time again, holding up your hand at above heart height is tiring. And for large desktop spaces, some of my monitors are actually out of reach.
Enabling touch for every interface means Fisher Pricing it to hell and back and desktops have always been about putting as much information as possible on it. I don't WANT huge buttons on my NON-touchscreen monitor just in case I might one day spend extra money just so I can have fingermarks on my screens.
But MS wants to focus on one product, one interface to rule them all and in darkness bind them... gosh and how did that end in Mordor? Oh yeah, but tying all your power into one focus point, you die along with it.
The Kinect is another great example. It is a very interesting product but NOT because MS wanted it to be. They jus
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Apple is the leader, yes. It's just in the wrong direction.
iPad Mini Commercial (Jimmy Kimmel)
I'm just curious as to which of his many brilliant and famous feats of computer engineering or programming you are referring to as his "one item"?
If you read the article here, it feels like yellow journalism, things only said to bring hits to a site or draw comments. Watch the video, you'll see that Woz is a level headed geek, he says the sorts of things that everyone here can agree with and the points given in this article are just a few tiny pieces of what he mentions in the video.
A little bold statement - but not exactly inaccurate.
Apple didn't invented or innovated absolutely a single product that make success under his grisp - aside the Apple II.
Apple Phone, Newton et all - Apple's innovations, but utter failures.
iPod, Mac OSX, Intel Macs - commodities established by someone else that Apple adopted, improved and then re-released under his brand.
I would not claim "perfectness", but they did a God damned good job on all these.
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
That's true, and it's pretty much guaranteed. When you're winning, you don't innovate. Innovation, after all, is nothing but risk judged over time as successful.
Microsoft didn't innovate for years. They didn't have to -- they could copy the better things being done by other companies, deliver incremental improvements and changes, and keep their empire pretty much intact. They stumbled on Vista, badly... that was the start of their fall from being "The Most Valueable Tech Company On the Planet". Vista was stupid risk -- it was trying to deliver a bunch of strategic things for Microsoft, without much concern for the end-user. Not innovation, because [a] it failed and [b] it just wasn't that interesting.
Apple's doing that now... steady but very conservative improvements. Why not? They have a model that, even if they don't dominate the mobile world quite as much as a couple of years ago, they make the most money of any mobile computing company. As Microsoft was, they're now on top in that segment. It's much easier to imagine falling than climbing much higher.. so they don't screw with the formula. Apple's actually a worst-case, because they only release a model or two in each product line every year (ok, actually three iPads this year, but the iPad 4 was an apology for the iPad 3). So if they gamble and win, wow, that's a great innovation. If they gamble and lose... no money, and maybe they lose a bunch of seemingly unloseable customers to Android or, hell, even Windows Phone/RT.
Short answer: Apple's way too successful to innovate, and they don't really have a corporate culture anymore that allows innovation. The guys still jockeying for position in this industry, that's where you find innovation. So Samsung's winning on phones, and their SIII is basically just bigger-better-faster-more over the SII, no surprises. But they were only so-so on tablets. So they introduced, shocking the world apparently, a 5.2" tablet.. and create the "Phablet" class. Not just that, but the Galaxy Note has a Wacom digitizer in it -- they brought back the stylus, but one that doesn't suck. Now that's in their higher-end 10" tablet, too. That's innovation -- they took a risk, it was well received. Microsoft's copying this in their Surface Pro, so it'll actually be possible to run real Windows applications without a mouse. One sign of real innovation: someone's stealing the idea.
Look at Motorola... nearly dead, they built what was basically the anti-iPhone, in the original "Droid" (aka Milestone), and delivered the first significant Android product. Innovation, because it did well. They did the same thing recently with the revamped RAZR series... a smartphone that actually survives typical smartphone use without a case? They're also doing what companies that will be seen as innovators do: lots of experiments. In the time that Apple went from iPhone 4S to iPhone 5, Motorola fielded five different RAZRs, not to mention a bunch of other smartphones. That's not the way to get to Apple-like profitability any time soon, but it's also the way to, by brute force and refinement, figure out what you can do that Apple, HTC, or Samsung can't.
Microsoft, of course, has done some crazy shit lately.... because they're scared. Sure, they still dominate, still have most of the desktop PC market. But that's actually the wrong question to ask, given the rise of mobile. They have 69% of personal computing, once you factor in mobile.. and that's an older number. It's actually possible that Microsoft will fall to under 50% in the next year or two. Now, sure, any other company would be happy to have that share, but Microsoft's whole business has been built on the fact they can bully pretty much anyone they want in the PC industry. They've made some real enemies, and won't be the same Microsoft without that being their main superpower.
So Apple's floated this Metro/WinRT thing, a tablet version of Windows that's more or less the same thing (with some mysterious compatibility matrix) between different devices. They've basically th
-Dave Haynie
-isms are all fine and dandy. People fuck them up and will be true regardless of which ism you choose until people as a whole under go an unimaginable change in perspective.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
This is precisely why quad core Android phones with 1GB of memory were having their arses handed to them by iPhones with supposedly "slower" processors and less memory. It is really the "software" that makes all of the difference and it is why even the superphones have laggy UIs compared to iOS devices.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
So what you are actually saying is, you would love to have Mac with the specs you listed?
"Do you think that Microsoft now is more innovative than Apple"
..
That's what's known as a leading question, where you drive the discussion where you want it to go. In this case they have Wozniak saying Microsoft and Innovation in the same sentence. There's isn't a department at Apple dedicated to dissecting the other fellas stuff in order to invent their own "innovation"
AccountKiller
He'd probably turn the company into a likeable business.
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Just visit Microsoft Research and you'll realize that Microsoft has always been more innovative than Apple (at least for the last decades). Apple does not even do open research.
Has Apple really ever invented anything? Just watch this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFeC25BM9E0
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Apple have spent years as the company that can do no wrong - virtually every piece of hardware they release is a stonking success. Apple may not corner the market in terms of %age of units sold, but they sure as hell corner the market in terms of %age of profit made.
This is great for anyone who bought Apple shares a few years ago.
Unfortunately, it's rather less great for Apple long-term because sooner or later a company that enjoys that much success tends to become complacent; innovation stagnates and they fall behind.
It's even worse if a single company does so well as to monopolise the market (see also Microsoft between about 1995 - 2005) - then the entire industry is held back because there's only one big player and they aren't really innovating.
They were stealing not well known ideas and presenting them as their own ideas, patenting them and screwing the innovators with that patents.
Communism doesn't have to be based on either the Chinese or Soviet models. Both of those societies were largely backward and agrarian when the communist revolutions took place, as opposed to developed Western Democracies. A good deal of the political developments since WW2 in Europe could be described as the admixture of socialism into capitalism.
Democratic socialism does not have to turn into Maoism or Stalinism.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Mixing socialism into capitalism doesn't qualify as communism. For one thing - where are the communes?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I actually agree with GP... the Surface is a surprising development from Microsoft simply because it works so damned well. I've not played with one for long but I came away incredibly impressed. I have an iPad that's not seen a charge in 6 months, a smattering of Android tablets (and I think I've misplaced some of them) but to-date my computing world has been three laptops (one Windows, one Mac OSX and one Ubuntu), a server (running Ubuntu) and my Android phone. The Surface is the only tablet I could see myself actually using "in anger"; it's something I can whip out at a coffee shop to surf the web or actually get some real work done (assuming I have the keyboard/cover attached!) or something that's small, light and portable enough to throw into my backpack when I'm going for a long ride on my motorcycle for a couple of days... the only one of my laptops I consider small enough is my Ubuntu box which is an Alienware M11Xr2... even then the Surface is probably better.
It lacks apps at the moment... and the "classic" desktop feels a little like an appendix on the ARM-based tablet (no real apps for that environment)... but that will change and is changing rapidly.
I admit. I have been (and probably still am) biased. But I guess that just proves the point...
I have been avoiding purchase of Microsoft products for years. - You cannot really avoid them altogether, but you don't need to buy stuff you don't like either. But three weeks ago I did buy one. A Windows Phone!
I've been using happily iOS since first iPhone, although not upgrading it like Apple would like me I guess. I only had my second iPhone (since buying the very first right after it came out) and that was about to fall to pieces. So, I decided to buy a new phone. I've used Android ICS (didn't like the mess, pun intended). I was kinda torn between the iPhone 4S or 5, but neither really felt like a new phone after 3GS. Just an reiteration that would make do, nothing to be excited about. But after fooling around with a couple WPs, I was hooked! And behold, I of all people bought a Microsoft phone! My only worry was will it sync with my iPad, which it apparently does...
After three weeks, I feel like this is the first real improvement to smart phones since the first iPhone! Microsoft has actually innovated something! They beat Apple in their own game, making a UI that's actually easier and more intuitive to use than anything else on the market. Now, that's something I didn't expect ever to hear coming out of my mouth (or ever typing for that matter).
If all else fails, pull the plug and get out...
The Life is out there...
I'll say one thing, windows 7 is damn secure! Can't say that for any apple or android hardware.
Woz is right. Again. Apple is more worried about marketshare, hence the patent lawsuits. The old Apple would crank out a new iPhone so superior to the Samsung Galaxy III, it would be pulled from the shelves in disgrace. Apple's "desktops" are mere suped up laptops with a big screen, sans battery. Their workstation product is years out of date, and the base of creative people will (or have) moved on. Jobs' useless fight with Adobe didn't help matters. The botched Final Cut Pro release didn't help either. Granted, Windows 8 presents a huge departure in terms of interface and software compatability but it's available in all sorts of platforms. Heck Surface/Windows RT run on ARM. ARM!
Apple's recent OS releases are more tiny steps. Nothing that greatly enhances usability or packs a "wow" factor. The iPhone 5 has 4G, which most iPhone 4 and 4s users thought they already had thanks to some cleaver AT&T marketing.
Face it. We have slick user interfaces. We have app stores. We have baked in search. We have free email. We have file sharing and sync. We have cross platform browsers and (some) cross platform apps with syncing preferences. We have clamshell laptops. We have smartphones with large screens and larger non-cellular call making tablets. Most don't care about mobile data on tablets. What's left? A shiny(er) interface and a click on membrane keyboard? Sigh.
The big thing for M$ is the wider adtoption of touch. Something which Apple has not included in the Air or in the iMac. Windows 8 will run on hardware that puts all of Apple's hardware to shame. Even if a lot of these users carry iPhones. They want to render video and blast CGI monsters with ever increasing speed and realism. Something you have to watch and wait for on Apple. Something you can achieve on Windows with a video card swap. So in spite of Steam coming to OSX, it isn't the cash machine it is on Windows. Unless the ARM-based Apple future rumors are true (and the results are 'Think Different' awe inspiring), I see Apple becoming a consumer electronics vendor. Like GE, Samsung, and Audiovox. Only with a 80s Sharper Image type of sheen.
Only the dead have seen the end of War. - Plato
G.O.P.?
Can a person program a new solution to a problem? Why should anyone be able to stop such a thing? -Richard Stallman
I'm not a big fan of the M$, but ICE is way cool, and it has been around forever, but MS seems to just ignore it for some reason.
Can a person program a new solution to a problem? Why should anyone be able to stop such a thing? -Richard Stallman