Maybe it's me, but every public appearance of Woz in the last 10 years or so, especially on TechTV, has left me feeling embarassed for the guy - some retro time warped geek who I at first admired until realizing that he checked out so long ago that his relevance to the industry as it stands today is virtually nil. The personal computing industry of today reflect the influence of the Macintosh and Lisa projects more than the Apple II and III - The Macintosh was not a Woz project - the Bit computer project that died was the last one I was aware of, and althought that did evolve into the Lisa project, he had checked out of Apple before the Mac was released. Granted, it was a tragic departure, triggered by a serious accident if I remember correctly (drawing parallels to Microsoft and Paul Allen yet), but Apple hasn't looked back, or looked to Woz for any real guidance, since. And this is coming from someone who admired and even idolized Woz for years - I was happier when he kept a low profile - Cloud Nine, Wings of Zeus, and his random appearance make me want to start calling Woz "Why" instead. But, I don't want to rag on Woz too much - hey, someone needs to show up at a Homebrew Computing events. And the Apple II is why I'm where I am today - computing on anything else at the time was a joke. Sure, games and graphics were better elsewhere, but calling the bare bones bootstrap code on the non-CPM personal computers of the time an OS was a stretch.
The other Steve, Jobs, may be many things, but I've pretty much gotten over his dark early years and realized that he finally hit on the right combination of talents to make not only Apple succeed, but has made Apple more admired now than it's been in years. Even if you hate them, you actually give them conscious thought for the first time in years - they stopped being an afterthought, or even, also-ran, to being an innovator, or at least agitator, influencing design and marketing more than architecture most of the time, but still influencing all the same.
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Maybe it's me, but every public appearance of Woz in the last 10 years or so, especially on TechTV, has left me feeling embarassed for the guy - some retro time warped geek who I at first admired until realizing that he checked out so long ago that his relevance to the industry as it stands today is virtually nil. The personal computing industry of today reflect the influence of the Macintosh and Lisa projects more than the Apple II and III - The Macintosh was not a Woz project - the Bit computer project that died was the last one I was aware of, and althought that did evolve into the Lisa project, he had checked out of Apple before the Mac was released. Granted, it was a tragic departure, triggered by a serious accident if I remember correctly (drawing parallels to Microsoft and Paul Allen yet), but Apple hasn't looked back, or looked to Woz for any real guidance, since. And this is coming from someone who admired and even idolized Woz for years - I was happier when he kept a low profile - Cloud Nine, Wings of Zeus, and his random appearance make me want to start calling Woz "Why" instead. But, I don't want to rag on Woz too much - hey, someone needs to show up at a Homebrew Computing events. And the Apple II is why I'm where I am today - computing on anything else at the time was a joke. Sure, games and graphics were better elsewhere, but calling the bare bones bootstrap code on the non-CPM personal computers of the time an OS was a stretch.
The other Steve, Jobs, may be many things, but I've pretty much gotten over his dark early years and realized that he finally hit on the right combination of talents to make not only Apple succeed, but has made Apple more admired now than it's been in years. Even if you hate them, you actually give them conscious thought for the first time in years - they stopped being an afterthought, or even, also-ran, to being an innovator, or at least agitator, influencing design and marketing more than architecture most of the time, but still influencing all the same.