14 DAY TRIAL // An interview scored by Newsweek with Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak has revealed that the tech-guru is not just planning to acquire one iPad, but two, and an extra one for a friend. Credited with contributing significantly to the personal computer revolution of the 1970s, Woz claims he is planning to wait in line at one of Apple’s stores on Friday evening, “just for fun.”
Newsweek’s Daniel Lyons had reportedly caught up with the Apple co-founder as he was driving through a snowstorm in Green River, Wyo., on his way to judge a high-school robotics competition. Making the most of this rare opportunity, Newsweek’s guy asked the Woz to share his thoughts about the iPad, Apple’s latest revolutionary product, set to launch publicly on April 3rd (this Saturday) in the US.
“I'm out here on the road with four cell phones and two GPS devices, trying to look at maps, and I wish I had an iPad with me now,” Woz, who left Apple in the ‘80s, but never stopped being a fan of the company’s gizmos, said. When asked whether he thought Apple’s iPad would prove to be a hit, Woz replied, “The iPad could lower the cost of acquiring computers for students. I think it's going to be huge in the education market. Think about students going off to college. They want an Apple product, but their parents don't want to spend that much. Now they have the ideal thing. They can go to college and someone may have a whacked-out $6,000 laptop, but the guy with the iPad will get all the attention.”
However, students don’t make up the entire audience for Apple’s tablet computer. Computer-illiterate folks are also targeted by the product, with Woz pointing out that, “My wife's parents—they're not ready for the complicated computer world. They have these old computers. But the iPad simplifies things. It's like a restart. We all say we want things to be simpler. All of a sudden we have this simple thing.”
And, although Wozniak first thought that the iPad was not for him, he now feels he really needs one for when he’s navigating maps. “It's horrible to navigate a map on an iPhone because of the screen size,” America’s most beloved geek told Newsweek. “I've ordered one for a friend,” he went on to say. “Then I ordered two for myself. One with the Wi-Fi and one with the 3G. And I'll go to the store on Friday night and wait in line, just for fun,” he claimed.