“Steve Wozniak 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,” Georgina Prodhan reports for Reuters.
“‘I’d consider it, yeah,’ the 60-year-old computer engineer said in an interview, when asked whether he would play a more active role if asked,” Prodhan reports. “He founded Apple Computer in 1976 with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne, and built the Apple I and Apple II computers that helped revolutionize personal computing… Wozniak, a lifelong hands-on engineer, said he liked technology to be relatively open so that he could ‘get in there and add my own touches.’ ‘My thinking is that Apple could be more open and not lose sales,’ said Wozniak, but added: ‘I’m sure they’re making the right decisions for the right reasons for Apple.'”
Prodhan reports, “Wozniak, who was in the English seaside town of Brighton for a computer server conference and to present a software developer award, stopped working for Apple in 1987 but is still on the payroll… ‘There’s just an awful lot I know about Apple products and competing products that has some relevance, some meaning. They’re my own feelings, though,’ said Wozniak, who is currently chief scientist of storage start-up Fusion-io.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: At the very least, who wouldn’t love to see Woz onstage as part of Apple’s keynote cast?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “NixoN” for the heads up.]
No thank you.
Woz… let it go man. Let it go.
Woz onstage telling stories about lasers, blue boxes and the past-yep.
Woz trying to control product direction or running anything at Apple-nope.
You gotta admit it would be cool aye, him steve and ronald if hes still alive. Just a bit of Retro Apple!
Agreed though, not running apple… ou no.
Agreed.
I can almost see it, his first keynote where the lights dim and Woz comes on the stage on his Segway. As he floats across the stage, smiling and waving at the crowd, he drives it off the stage. OMG, such a Woz thing. Can’t you see it?
Woz represents the tech side but not the design side of early Apple. His aesthetics are more in line with tech and engineering nerds who appreciate boxes like PC’s and so-called open phones like Android. All that is an anathema to Apple and their special take. As long as they take his advice with a grain of salt and realize Woz is no Jobs then that’s fine. A supportive role would be nice.
Wozniak is a nice man but I always thought Jobs thought him a bit of an embarassment too. I’m not convinced Woz is actually fairly ordinary and lacks the ability to see clearly where the puck will be.
Wrong. Remember what Steve Jobs said about design: It goes beyond the looks. It’s the product itself.
Woz is a brilliant designer. He has the main thing a designer must: Making technology human.
The Apple I and Apple II are proof of Woz’s approach to design. He built a small and affordable computer for the masses. And he did it with a box of scraps. Before Woz, the only way to do what an Apple II could do was by having a room full of IBM refrigerators and paying tens of thousands of dollars. If you tell me that’s not good design, then you don’t know what design means.
He’s also a good speaker. Woz is a very likable person. He’s an icon of innovation. And he knows technology, is passionate and loves Apple.
Granted, he lacks of a lot of trades Steve Jobs has. I wouldn’t make him CEO. As a matter of fact he’d reject being CEO. He wants to be an engineer forever. But if you’ve not read iWoz, you will not understand his view of engineering. It’s pure design.
Woz is a genius. I mean IS. Not WAS.
Not a chance in hell of this happening.
Simpsons’ “Persephone”, anyone?
Considering the current business plan seems to working quite well, don’t call us, we’ll call you. Thanks
Woz, definately, but as part of the PR team. Sure he has a lot to offer, but the audience has changed and what he wants is not what’s best for Apple.
But he could have things like the Woz edition of the same products which are more dig in and modify, just because you can. They wouldn’t be retail items but geekiest specials, limited editions. Woz can add a lot of ethos to Apple. But I wouldn’t give him the keys to the castle.
Absolutely, this is what I was going to say. He’d be great in the scoble sort of role. He contributed enough to the company in the early years that if he wants a job, he should get one. Give him a mid 6 figure income or whatever he reasonably wants and feed him the PR he needs to represent Apple well in public.
He’d be a great developer evangelist, or app-developer ombudsman or something like that.
He’s mostly a celebrity, he’s going to be running around all the time anyway, and I don’t think he or Apple need him for a committed 60-hour-a-week gig.
He’d also take some of the focus off of Steve Jobs, so it would have been good if they’d done this a couple years ago.
Comparing Woz to Scoble is a grievous insult. Woz is a brilliant engineer who designed masterpieces like the Apple ][ disk controller. He was instrumental in Apple’s early lead in the personal computer industry.
Scoble is nothing but a loudmouth fratboy in love with the sound of his own voice, who gained notoriety as a shill for the world’s biggest technology retardation organization.
I think Apple can afford to pay him a million bucks a year to evangelize new releases or hype up existing releases. Someone has to be the public face of Apple. That someone should have a definable link to early Apple so the ties are obvious and people can make an emotional link with Apple. Selling these days is more than pushing anodyne products – they have to be wrapped up in emotional attachment. When Steve strides on stage at an Apple event he commands the attention of everyone from tech journalists to bloggers to the casual observer, through the keynote podcast. This set the tone for the masses to leap on to the next great product release, be it the iPhone, iPad or MacBook Air. Steve’s showmanship gave the product allure and something which no hardware technology company has, the imprimatur of the founder. Woz can carry the same role.
If you think about it a circus is nothing more than a parade of performing animals but why did people pay to watch the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus back in the day. Because it was promoted as The Greatest Show on Earth. Steve’s keynotes is the Greatest Show on Earth and you need someone of his calibre to sell! sell! sell!
Agree with engineer.
Hmmm… iMac WOZ Edition.
Would suit a technoid friend of mine who insists on buying PCs ‘because I like playing in DOS’.
Makes no sense to me, but…!
I’m going to go out on a limb and say there is an opportunity here despite the concepts obliqueness.
There is certainly something Woz could value add. IMHO- I;d have him be the interface between apple’s hardcore fan base and apple management/engineers. I kind of think he’d excel in such a consolatory role for product transitions and a filter for fast tracking the improving of new products.
Agree; Apple’s existing engineers and designers might not find the common basis for collaboration. They are too apart, for now.
But, as idea, the returning of Wozniak is interesting. Not that probable, though, even if Steven will return as PR department.
No way dancer.
Newflash:
High school Spanish teacher say’s he’d consider an active role at Apple (if asked).
Maybe Mr Wozniak could be a kind of “Entertainment Officer” like the ones they have on cruise ships…
iWheelsOfZeus …um, no thanks.
I’m not sure how they could do it, without making it seem like a “gimmick” move. But I like Woz (used to be an avid Apple II fan even after the Mac came out), so if there is a sensible and productive way to have him involved, I would be a supporter.
Would be great ! To replace Steve as a new product presenter.
Make Woz the new face of Apple if Steve can no longer do the job. He has the Apple cred and is more enthusiastic than Tim Cook on stage. At 60 it isn’t like he want to work full time.
Woz was – There’s nothing he can bring to Aaple’s engineering team that’s special at all.
Woz is great a “trying things.” From starting up a computer company in a garage with his buddies, to putting on a rock concert, to being a pilot, to the Segway stuff, to being on “Dancing…” He’s not afraid to do something new and even a bit outrageous. He would be most valuable, not as an “engineer,” but as an external point of view.
Engineers tend to get extremely focused on what they are working on at the moment. And that is fine and necessary. But Apple also needs to have an “open mind” about (and watch VERY carefully) things that are happening outside the “mothership.” If not, Apple slowly becomes Microsoft.
WAS
He would simply be a distraction and getting in the way of things.
You have no clue what you’re talking about. Woz is one of the most talented electrical engineers in American history.
“Give Him A Living, But Don’t Bring Him Into The Family Business.”
Thank you Godfather
I can not understand. Why so much negativity towards Woz? From what has been written looks like 80% of you who wrote this are working at apple and are sheeting in the pants looking at another hard-nosed engineer who in the first place gave you all the carriers that you may be in now.
But I’ll agree the he is no good as a designer of a product or at PR (it would be a disaster). I would like to see him more of a get that working kind no matter what it takes. Hi has done it before when he started off with Jobs.
You all have to understand Jobs does not like to see any equal talent that also of his same age working with him. He just used him like he is using some of you to get were he wants to go.
No hard feelings…….
Bring back Guy Kawasaki!!!!!
Uhhhhhh, apart from Scully and Amelio, perhaps the most dumbass idiot at Apple ever, evangelizing all the wrong, crappy, substandard products (like 4D).
The perfect team mate for the sugardrink salesman.
The core of Apple must have been pretty sound to have survived with these guys (yes, yes… intentional) aboard.
Woz is a bit wacky at times. But it would be good if he were to return to Apple as its avid ambassador; but to inspire and lead the crew in a hypercompetitive environment he’s a bit deficient in this area. Leave it Tim Cook to steer the ship.
Don’t be too hard on the Woz – he didn’t put forward the idea, he was just responding to it.
Ya, but he eats up the attention. Sadly, “no comment” is not in his vocabulary.
No on Woz, and Kawasaki.
First w.r.t. Kawasaki, as good an evangelist that he was, he lacked the foresight. Many of his suggestions on improvements for Apple on those days were off the mark. He wanted Apple to be more like MS in the mid 90s, which I didn’t agree with. Kawasaki is a great guy overall, maybe a decent PR person, but I don’t see his value in any active roles in the current Apple team. Apple right now is a tight community that doesn’t need any fixing.
Now Woz. As most have suggested, dear Woz, you can be a good tour guide or a curator of an Apple museum, but beyond that, thanks for the past and let’s not ruin it.
The problem with Woz and him championing openness, is that he missed the Jobsian gem: “real artists ship.” If you go the open route, and blabber on your current project, there’s a good chance you’ll transform a genuine innovative company into a Googlesque perpetual beta producer, or worse, a copycat machine.
Case in point: it was just a bombshell for most of us Apple watchers when SJ announced in 2005 that OS X already supported Intel chip natively all along. If someone from within Apple went the “open” and transparent route with that, Apple may have found itself in conflict with negotiations and bargaining deals with IBM, Motorola, Intel and most importantly the consumers cuing up. Pre announcing your current and future projects can severely jeopardise strategic advantages, particularly for corporations like Apple. Unless, it wants to be in the OEM business and/or be like MS etc. and be content to allow others to do the R&D for the industry.
Dear Woz, keep the buzz words du jours to yourself or for the hipster Android champions. Who are gullible enough to find a champion in you for the “openness”. Sheesh.
> it was just a bombshell for most of us Apple watchers when SJ announced in 2005 that OS X already supported Intel chip natively all along.
It wasn’t a surprise to anyone who came from the NeXT crowd. We knew they’d keep building for Intel if for no other reason than to make sure their code remained portable. When Apple bought NeXT, OpenStep 4.2 had been ported to MC68K, PPC, IBM POWER, SPARC, HP PA-RISC, DEC Alpha and MIPS.
Maybe you’re not as average as some of us are.
Woz was a one hit wonder when he used PALs in the design of the early Apple computers. I don’t know of anything he has done since and don’t believe he has the insight or skills to do anything of value anymore. It is time for him to say Bye Bye.
>Woz was a one hit wonder
He not only designed the Apple 1 and the Apple ][, he wrote the Apple BASIC interpreter, he designed a disk controller with less than half of the parts of any competing product, and after he left Apple, he invented the universal programmable remote control.
That’s just off the top of my head. If you think Woz is a one-hit wonder, you are hopelessly ignorant of computer industry history.
It would asinine to dismiss Woz’s contribution and brilliance with Apple I and Apple ][. His work with disc controller is inspiring to say the least.
However, I’m not that CL 9 CORE remote control, the first universal programmable remote control (1987) is on par with his earlier achievements.
“When it was near completion, with just the programming by Wozniak left to do, he pulled back. He decided to hire another programmer to do the work so he could spend more time with his children.” [source 1=”wikipedia” 2=”https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/CL_9″ language=”:”][/source]
He has tried a GPS tracking device called Wheels of Zeus (WoZ) in 2001 that wasn’t successful. “In 2006, Wheels of Zeus was closed, and Wozniak founded Acquicor Technology, a holding company for acquiring technology companies and developing them, with Apple alumni Ellen Hancock and Gil Amelio.” And that seems to be last of his innovative stints, at least publicly.
Wozniak is listed as the sole inventor on the following patents:
US Patent No. 4,136,359 – “Microcomputer for use with video display” – for which he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
US Patent No. 4,210,959 – “Controller for magnetic disc, recorder, or the like”
US Patent No. 4,217,604 – “Apparatus for digitally controlling PAL color display”
US Patent No. 4,278,972 – “Digitally-controlled color signal generation means for use with display”
These are indeed impressive contributions.
Agreed.
The times they are a-changing. Don’t look back.
I understand what Woz means by “open”. But if we consider the strict meaning of Open Source, let me remind folks that, at my last count, Apple contributes to or uses software from nearly 300 Open Source projects. The most famous of the projects is WebKit, used in a number of competing web browser technologies including Chrome, Chrome OS, Android and OmniWeb. Mac OS X has never been a strictly “closed” OS.
Agreed with everything you have said. Matter of fact, as I often tell my aggressive Android championing friends: you can download the latest source code of OS X 10.7.1 (right now at http://www.opensource.apple.com/), but good luck with the latest Android Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich etc. To be fair, the latest Darwin for iOS is also not publicly available; but Apple had never proclaimed/promised they would be open sourced, nor did they self-appoint themselves as champions of “open rul3z”, chastise others on that front, and then do a 180.
Anyway, it appears Mr. Woz’s call on this is more on the business aspect of the company’s direction than technical.
“‘My thinking is that Apple could be more open and not lose sales,’ said Wozniak, but added: ‘I’m sure they’re making the right decisions for the right reasons for Apple.’”
I’m just not convinced that Mr. Woz has the right business acumen to make that call. However, he is entitled to his opinion, and certainly he has been more successful in life, technology and business than many of us here.
Also, many people find it strange that some Apple fans automatically don’t roll out the red carpet for Mr. Woz and his charitable, lovable goofy strolls. It just that, some of us have found over the years that Mr. Woz can come across a bit petty and jealous of Mr. Jobs, by making some covertly disparaging comments. Mr. Jobs has shown a lot of class over the years, and never got into a public spat or tried to defend himself.
I should offer at least one example of this:
from the book Apple confidential 2.0, I think, it was suggested that Mr. Jobs had lied to Mr. Woz about the money involved for developing an Atari game/challenge. It was suggested that Mr. Jobs had pocketed the lion’s share, while Woz was in the dark of the original deal. Mr. Jobs never defended himself, but it seems to me, he had commissioned the job to Mr. Woz, and it was their call to negotiate the price.
Mr. Jobs was working for Atari at the time, Woz was at HP; Jobs can offer any price and Woz had the option of saying no if the price wasn’t agreeable him. Was Mr. Jobs right to not divulge the actual sum to a friend (more than a co-worker, co-enthusiast)? That’s a moral issue than legal. But even that we wouldn’t know until we get to hear both sides involved and the circumstances surrounding them. But it irks me when people try to throw mud at Mr. Jobs’s reputation with information obtained not equally from both sides.
Recently, in an interview somewhere, Woz has played coy with this particular story/rumour. He neither confirmed nor denied the incident, while mostly alluding to that he has forgiven Jobs. I believe he could have taken a classier route and either just come out and set the matter right, or just not comment on it. Alluding half and half is just sneaky.
There were so many examples of these kind small mindedness from him over the years, that more than a few of us have come to view Mr. Wozniak as a self aggrandizing publicity machine.
I know all this may sound harsh, but sometimes, it’s better to be clear about what you’re trying to say honestly, than just allude it.
If pettiness lies at the core of your values, then well done. The rest of us get on with our lives and use the best tool available to us under the circumstances. If Woz has a place in modern Apple and who is to say he hasn’t then it’s best to co-opt him in some way that brings him into the fold now that Steve seems to have relinquished his day to day role. That is not to diminish Steve’s contribution to the remaking of Apple but your closed one track mind seems to exclude wider possibilities. I hope you don’t live your life in eternal regret at what could have been instead of living it for what can be.
“…but your closed one track mind seems to exclude wider possibilities.”
W.r.t. benefits of Woz finding an active role at Apple, I had shared my opinion in this particular post thusly:
“Anyway, it appears Mr. Woz’s call on this is more on the business aspect of the company’s direction than technical…I’m just not convinced that Mr. Woz has the right business acumen to make that call. However, he is entitled to his opinion, and certainly he has been more successful in life, technology and business than many of us here.”
Interesting that you would find this as a sign of one-track closed mindedness on my part. Then again, coming from you, maybe this shouldn’t be so surprising after all.
Rest of my post/rambling was about a different topic (responding mostly to the question, “I can not understand. Why so much negativity towards Woz?”)
Wouldn’t want to see Woz back and active at Apple. It was good to see him a couple of times on Stephen Fry’s 100 Greatest Gadgets the other night though