“After being all but written off by the tech industry in the mid ’90s, Apple Computer Inc. has made a startling resurgence. But that doesn’t mean its latest strategies sit well with Woz,” Peter Nowak writes for The Globe and Mail. “Being super rich often results in the acquisition of some strange hobbies, and Mr. Wozniak was in New Zealand recently for a four-on-four polo tournament played on two-wheeled, self-balancing Segway gyroscopic scooters.”
MacDailyNews Take: Being a super-eccentric nerd king doesn’t hurt either.
Nowak continues, “[Apple’s switch to Intel from PowerPC] ‘is like consorting with the enemy. We’ve had this long history of saying the enemy is the big black-hatted guys, and they kind of represent evil. We are different, and by being different we’re better,’ Wozniak says. ‘All of a sudden we’re the same in this hardware regard, so it’s a little hard to swallow your words from the past.’ Still, the switch to Intel is a necessary one from an engineering standpoint, he said, because Apple needed a way to improve performance per watt. Mr. Wozniak would have liked Apple to continue using Motorola processors, but ‘Intel just did a very good logic design.'”
“Mr. Wozniak has mixed feelings about the iPod as well. The success of the devices has been fantastic for Apple, diversifying a company previously dependent on one product. But iPods are also distracting Apple from its focus on computing, he said, and the company might be better served by spinning off the business. Since iPods have their own operating systems, software and processor, ‘there’s a different group working on it anyway,’ he said. ‘We’re a computer company, and we really think computers. Spinning off a separate division makes a whole lot of sense,'” Nowak writes. “Mr. Wozniak couldn’t resist taking a shot at his long-time nemesis. ‘Microsoft wants to get out of the whole image of the big, black Darth Vader evil guy,’ he said. ‘Innovation is probably going on within the company, because any time you put smart engineers in places eventually they wind up talking and innovating no matter how much you try to hold them back. I hope Microsoft improves and becomes more like Apple.'”
More in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Woz is not an Apple insider and is more than a bit removed from the company’s overall strategy, which is driven by Steve Jobs. Woz is out doing his own thing and that’s fine. If he wants to comment on Apple, that’s his prerogative; it’s always interesting. Woz’s website is also an interesting place. If you haven’t stopped by recently: http://www.woz.org/
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Related article:
Apple creates new division for iPod to be led by Jon Rubenstein – May 19, 2004
No, M$ isn’t Darth Vader. Vader was evil, but cool.
M$ is more lile Jar Jar Binks. Completely ineffectual and highly annoying.
Microsoft is Buffalo Bill: “It takes the OS and puts it in it’s computer!”
Spin iPod off Apple.
“Spin iPod off Apple.”
Why?
Greatness is using the same cpu as the Evil Empire and making better machines than Dell and all the PC crap.
Now we will see how OS X is far superior to Windows.
It is not even in the same galaxy… probably in a parallel universe.
Microsoft is the Empire with an army of clones. Jar Jar didn’t have any power.
new nick name for this overweight anachronism: Was.
Apple shouldn’t spin off the iPod because the iPod adds to Apple’s name recognition and that will also be good for the Mac. The company name is Apple Computer and as people see that more often, they will think about Macs. The kep is to make sure the full name is used often in conjunction with the iPod to get that computer recognition from people. That’s when a “halo” effect could truly make a major impact.
kep = key
Buffalo Bill – heh heh. That one is funny.
“It puts the virus in its code, or else it causes Windows to load.”
Jar Jar did have an army. It was made up of strange looking poor communicators. They inexplicably won conflicts despite their opposition being far more technically advanced.
Sounds like a bunch of MCSEs to me.
Woz said…
” We are different, and by being different we’re better,”.
Well, I can think of a lot of people who fit that “different” label, and simply being “different” doesn’t make some-one or some-thing “better”.
“Doing something (a M$ branded mp3 player) weaker and somehow trying to use your size and market power . . . that’s just not good [enough] if you don’t turn out something superior.”
Well, why doesn’t M$ just make it… “different”, therefore making it “better”.
I think there’s a reason WOZ is in the wings these days.
MW: CASE, as in Nut Case
Paraplegic kittens consider Darth Vader a very good friend.
Never, NEVER underestimate the killing potential of a paraplegic kitten.
Yawnnnn!
Woz continues to get a free pass when comenting on Apple. I guess he has earned it. In the early days I ranked him ahead of Steve in importance-sadly his comments over the past year or two has changed my opinion.
APPLE STILL IS FOCUSED ON COMPUTERS (WOZ) AND THEY WILL BE INTERSECTING WITH IPOD AND DIGITAL HOME MEDIA AT A FASTER PACE SOON.
Apple should get rid of the iPod because Apple is a computer company?? The iPod is a computer, period. A very specialized computer, but definately a computer (OS, Hard disk, RAM, User interface, etc.) If by computer Woz means an general purpose machine, then his thinking is very limiting. I am glad to see Apple making all sorts of computers.
acid was big back in the the 70’s man.
i still hear the choppers.
What’s this “we” stuff? I didn’t realize Steve Wozniak still made any contributions to Apple. He might still own some stock I suppose, but so do I and I wouldn’t presume to consider myself a part of Apple’s organization.
Love Woz but a biz genius he is not.
Spinning off Apple’s most succesful product in years would make 0 sense. The iPod is ingrained in Apple culture and could potentially be a great switch incentive. Key word being potentially. Have not seen numbers to back up that claim.
We essentially have spun iPod off, because Apple is now two divisions. But keeping it in-house is good for the Mac, Steve. Why? Because the buttloads of money the iPod makes is letting us innovate with OS X and Macs to a much larger degree with a whole lot more freedom!
If Woz had been on his own, he’d still be in his parents’ garage. He’d have cool stuff to play with, but nobody else would. That was my part. Bring it to the people!
Woz concedes that the switch to Intel was actually necessary and he correctly observes that it’s because of the need to get more computing power while using less electrical power. Intel provide that and many other advantages too. His reason for not going with Intel is because of bad associations from years gone by, when Intel were on the other side of the fence.
It’s clearly a good idea that his influence over Apple has diminished, because he pays more attention to his heart than to his head. That probably goes a long way to explaining why he’s such a great guy and so popular, but running a business as big as Apple now is requires a different set of qualities.
‘We’re a computer company, and we really think computers.
Woz is making the same mistake the railroad industry made in the ’50s.
Back then, railroad executives believed they were in the railroad business, when in actuality, they were in the transportation business.
Thinking narrowly like they did, they didn’t make any moves into other types of transportation that would compliment their ‘railroad’ business.
It almost ruined them.
The vitriol directed at Woz is stunning. Fellow Mac users, Steve Jobs couldn’t code anything more complex than a ‘Hello World’ program, and then only with a guide.
Woz is the man that brought Apple the company and computer to the world.
Woz, even after leaving Apple, has been a big supporter of the company and the Macintosh through even the darkest hours of their history, when Steve Jobs was burning through his stash of Apple stock sale cash at NeXT and Pixar.
Woz has went to MUGs, big and small, to speak and listen to Mac users for decades.
Woz is not a One Trick Pony and has been involved with a wide variety of projects from the Hiptop Phone/PDA to Universal Remotes to RFID devices, etc.
Steve Jobs is the father of the vision, drive and ambition of Apple, but Woz was and is it’s soul. Both are brilliant men, but very different. Woz, by being detached from the daily running of Apple has amore mature, platform blind, big picture view. Although I don’t always agree with his views, I learn from them and see their value.
Woz kind of looks like my Uncle Jenks.
My Uncle Jenks creeps me out.
macnutt wonders: “Spin iPod off Apple.”
Why?”
——–
To stockholders the ipod biz is worth more than the combined computer/ipod companies. Just imagine if you own a share of apple now, you would own a share of apple, plus shares of the new ipod company….however it is configured.
Plus it solves lots of potential problems with the Apple record corp. plus potential monopoly problems.
————
On the other side – Unfortunately for the computer part of the company it will probably show how weak it really is.
And that the iPod franchise is limited because of all its technical restrictions and extras one has to have to own one.