Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak worries Microsoft is now more innovative than Apple
That’s a switch. Apple has long had the reputation as one of tech’s biggest innovators, but its cofounder Steven Wozniak is impressed by Microsoft’s recent moves.
During an interview at the TEDx Brussels event, spotted online by Computerworld’s Preston Gralla, Wozniak was asked whether he thought Microsoft has indeed become more innovative than Apple.
Woz (as he’s known) replied:
"[With Microsoft] I've seen more of the type of the innovation where you see something, and whoa, they really changed things drastically, whoa, they aren't even going in the same direction as everyone else, meaning the iPhone and the Android operating system.
"A couple of day ago I read an article where Microsoft has a machine and you'll speak into it English and it will come out Mandarin. And if they're making strides in this valuable voice-recognition area, I fear that Microsoft might have been sitting in their labs trying to innovate with a formula, how do we come up with new ideas, let's not keep doing the same things as before...they might have been doing that for three years, while Apple was just used to cranking out the newest iPhone and falling behind, and that worries me greatly."
Microsoft certainly went in a different direction than Apple and others in developing Windows 8 and its own Surface line of tablets.
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Woz also recalled that Apple had some tough years when his cofounder Steve Jobs was forced out that he said was marked by a lack of innovation.
Instead of “creating something astounding that you're just gasping because it's so unexpected...We just had a formula for making money, and running it, and making the same machine."
Wozniak added that just improving an existing product “is not Apple-style innovation.”
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Comments 3
Microsoft always innovated more than apple, you just don't always see what they're working on. Microsoft recently started showing off their innovations more. The Microsoft house, to the Surface table computer (as apposed to the hybrid we have now) and many of the other things Microsoft research worked on and is now working on. Microsoft research wise is more like IBM and GE who try and work on things that may come out 10+ years from now unlike apple who just makes phones, tablets and computer.
Microsoft has always been a highly innovative company. Sadly, they simply suck at creating products that people love to use.
Tim Cook needs to go. They need someone in there that is able to look to the future and not worry about money. It seems that is all he is interested in. Making sure every one is happy in China and what the stock market is doing today. He is defininately not into making or thinking of the future. Good luck Apple...I am stuck with my Apple iPhone 5 for another year and a half and that new HTC looks great..I have to many Apple products but if the competition continues at the rate they are going I am leaving fast. I dont mind paying a lot of money for a great product, unfortunately Apple is not there anymore. the 5S and IOS 7 I am sure will not do it and LG HTC and Samsung will start making huge leaps if Apple is no longer the Innovator it once was under Steve Jobs