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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."
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.
Full interview video you can find here (or I'm sure elsewhere)
http://www.neowin.net/news/steve-wozniak-microsoft-might-be-more-innovative-than-apple
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.
seems like one of the few people in the valley who've managed to retain their techno-weenie spirit despite enormous corporate success.
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.
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.
Woz explains what he means; Apple is simply producing improved versions of its own products rather than creating new markets [post Steve Jobs].
Steve Jobs died now just over a year ago. Some will call it "ages in the computer world", but that depends on your perspective. Indeed many types of devices (particularly mobile phones) have a complete new generation every half year or so. Over the past year Apple introduced the iPhone 4S, iPhone 5 and iPad mini, amongst many other accessories and whatnot. That's not too bad. The 4S was shortly after Jobs' death, so is a Jobs-era product, the other two are much newer.
Indeed they did not introduce anything revolutionary, but then how often did Steve Jobs do that? Not too often I'd wager. Major releases were of course the Apple II back in it's day, and more recently the iPod, later the iPhone and iPad. These shook up the market, but other than the iPod which was totally new they're not that magnificently different. The iPod evolved to have a touch screen, then got a phone component added and it became the iPhone. The iPhone was then upscaled, the phone part removed, and one has the iPad. The underlying OS, and I see the iOS as a major key to their success, is the same for all, making it relatively straightforward.
OK I highly simplify it, but the point is: this are not totally new devices, they are rather logical evolutions, albeit with significant steps in between. And the iPod was 2001, the iPhone 2007, and the iPad 2010. So maybe in a year or two we could expect something revolutionary by Apple. Not every year, that's too much to ask.
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.
I've used Windows 8 for weeks as well, at work (the nature of my job) stretching back to the summer previews.
The start menu that is now full screen (that you seem so enamored with), doesn't really do it for me. On Windows 7 I could hit the windows key, and start typing to search installed apps. Now the windows key flips screens, and desktop -> metro, does not focus the search feature. No, I get to hover in the corner with the mouse, in order to pull the search "charm" from the side, to click it and search.
As for specific gripes, have you actually tried using any of the metro apps? Like to view pictures for example? The "Photo" app only lets you see ones your Pictures folder (Library->Pictures). I've got games and apps that don't happen to use that as the default directory. As a result, I need to copy or move all my pics into this ONE place that is usable, or hunt them down in the explorer for desktop mode, then double click (causes a "flip" to metro mode) to view each one. This blows chunks and my compromise (for now) is to enable the small preview mode (lower right toggle).
Fundamentally, the whole grafting together of desktop and metro interfaces isn't as smooth as it could be. Novice users are going to be totally mystified why one half of their system sees files and the other one doesn't, and they aren't really going to care much about the metro app directory sandboxing.
I can't help but notice you posted anon, and then have the balls to accuse somebody of being a karma whore. Seems like you are a major shill that doesn't want to be outed or attached to a real user account.
Is it just me, or has Steve Wozniak become the practical version of Richard Stallman?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Wow- your nuts too I see.
Yoda! Stop looking at my nuts!
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons