14 DAY TRIAL // There are many approaches to solving any problem, and anything can be seen form many points of view. Some might say that this is obvious when looking at Apple and Microsoft, both companies essentially doing the same things, when you get right down to it, but each having very different results depending on exactly how they tackle the challenges ahead of them. While the differences between Apple and Microsoft are huge, one need look further than between the two Steves, Jobs and Wozniak, the founding fathers of Apple.
The two have historically seen things differently, and that hasn't changed as of late. In a recent interview, Woz talked[ADMARk=1] about both Leopard and the iPhone.
When it comes to Leopard, Wozniak admits that he has not stayed up to date with Apple's developments in the operating system area, but notes that he does not like the direction the industry is headed in general.
"Early on with the first Apples, we had these dreams that the computer would let you know what you wanted to do. The idea was that little icons or words would suggest what you wanted to do, but now I have to find my way around to odd little icons that aren't positioned in the prominent places. When conducting a common task, I have to go searching around in folders or the bottom of the screen."
"I don't think any of it will be solved with Leopard," he says, "because I don't think there is incentive to. They want to make things easy, and if it seems easy and it can be demonstrated quickly then it's okay. The real dreams of how it will work for someone who knows nothing about the computer have been lost and don't get addressed anymore."
Woz even goes as far as to say that updates such as Leopard get done "to keep your loyal people happy. Learning an entirely new operating system is something no one wants to do. You get stuck on a platform, and you don't want to start learning a whole new computer system."
On the iPhone, Wozniak sides with the jailbreakers, preferring an open platform that can be used to do anything he might want. "From a business point of view, Apple owns what they have done. They have a right to lock it. But I am really for the unlockers, the rebels trying to make it free. I'd really like it to be open to new applications. I'd like to install some nice games. Why in the world can I not install a ringtone that I've made? How would that hurt AT&T's network? Here is Steve Jobs sending letters to the record companies saying [they] should provide music that's unprotected, but here he is taking the opposite approach with the iPhone. I don't know to what extent AT&T is involved in the thinking and direction."
Fortunately, Apple is already there and the much-desired SDK is on its way. Woz certainly was a key figure in the creation of the computer industry as we know it today, but the stark differences in vision between him and Jobs does make one wonder just how different the computer would have been if the two had switched places.