What Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak really thinks about the Apple Watch, driverless cars and Tim Cook
Apple's co-founder is not such a fan of the Apple Watch, it turns out.
While he loves it as a customer, Steve Wozniak has revealed he's not such a huge fan of the wearable from a business point of view.
In a Reddit AMA (that's ask me anything), he said he was worried about the market Apple was targeting with it, and that it doesn't really follow in its footsteps of creating world changing products.
"I worry a little bit about – I mean I love my Apple Watch, but – it's taken us into a jewellery market where you're going to buy a watch between $500 or $1100 based on how important you think you are as a person. The only difference is the band in all those watches. Twenty watches from $500 to $1100. The band's the only difference? Well this isn't the company that Apple was originally, or the company that really changed the world a lot. So it might be moving, but you've got to follow, you know. You've got to follow the paths of where the markets are."
As a customer on the other hand, he told readers what he likes about wearables and the Apple Watch in particular.
"Wearables are becoming very attractive because of the less hassle to use them. I like picking up my watch, and asking it to send a quick text to my wife, or using it for other things without having to pull the phone out of my pocket." He continued:
"But you know, I had some other smart watches, and I got turned off. One of them I kinda liked actually, called the Martian Watch. It was a very very simple one, but you could talk Siri commands into it. But I had the first Galaxy Gear, and after half a day, it just turned me off that it was separated; it felt between me and my phone. Whereas, the Apple Watch does some amazing things with Apple Pay, boarding passes for airplanes, and all the Siri commands that work. I do wish the speaker were louder."
On driverless cars, that well-trodden world-changing path is more obvious, Wozniak believes, but Apple should be wary of whether the end product will be up to those high standards.
"I think that we're really going to improve life a lot with some of those things, and that's where Apple likes to be. Basically making products that make a better world for the users. So the car market makes total sense to me for Apple, but the important thing is that I hope if they get off on a product, something that they could sell and make a lot of money for but is not "insanely great" as Steve jobs would say, Apple should drop it and start over."
And despite the worries, he said he approves "very strongly" of boss Tim Cook and the "new Apple" when asked what he thought Cook was doing right or wrong.
"Everything else, I'm very approving of Tim Cook, because every time we have a new iOS update, I'm very happy that it's doing things that really affect people. Like transferring calls from my phone to my computer, etc. I really love even the Airplay, and all that. So, I love the software, and I love the hardware, and nothing's letting me down. So I approve very strongly of Tim Cook and the new Apple. I dearly miss Steve Jobs too, but, that's all."
He's also a fan of the Amazon Echo, a connected device activated by voice control. "One of my favourites [devices] of all is the Amazon Echo, because I don't have to move or pull anything out of my pocket. I don't even have to get out of the sheets in bed to use it," he said.
Woz, as he's known, may have had a hand in creating the biggest company of the last couple decades, but there's one great invention he wish he'd built – "A device that gives us one extra hour per day". I think we all do, Woz.