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Steve Wozniak was today invited to speak in the Developer World at Apps World in London. He was interviewed by Nate Lanxon, editor at Wired. Although he is in his 60s, it seems he still has that engineering passion which has led him to build one of the most respected companies in the world, Apple.
As he has recalled, he is a fan of gadgets of every shape and size. He really liked the Galaxy S3 and the Galaxy Note because they had the biggest screens in the market, even though he doesn’t believe that “features” make the difference anymore. What really matters for Wozniak is the apps ecosystem around the device you are building and how user friendly you choose to make a device. Although we have seen Woz handling the latest iPhone5 S (Gold Version), he really didn’t appreciate the shape that Apple gave the iPhone 5. “Why didn’t they make it longer on both dimensions?”
“However, at the end of the day, you can’t really criticise the phones out there, everybody has got a good phone.” He doesn’t think there is a big difference between phones, it’s the ecosystem around them that makes the difference. In a similar way, we have seen him enjoying and making good use of his new Galaxy Gear and the whole smart watch market, which is going to explode in the next few months. What he really desires is an interactive smart watch that can help a normal human being to live life in a better way.
I like unusual different things and I love trying them and see how they work.
After starting on mobile phones, the conversation kept moving toward wearable technology devices like Google Glass. Apparently, he could have chosen to have a Google Glass, which he wants so badly, but preferred to leave it to someone who can deeply test the product.
He’s an engineer will never be an investor or a business man. However he still has some tips about Entrepreneurship and startups. Regarding the lessons he has learned in his “startup phase”, he said that “Publicity” is what really matters. Apple had a lot of publicity thanks to Steve Jobs and when they started Apple, they had a competitive product in a market with no competition; that’s why it was so easy to get momentum and traction from the press. The big question that every Entrepreneur should face at some point is “How do I get my product noticed?”.
Further, as he recalls, you need to be a user of your own product. You must think like the consumer in order to see where you are missing the point or where you are succeeding. When they started Apple, they had one mission, they wanted to be a “market oriented company”. Apple wanted to understand people and help them to improve their lives.
Regarding Co-Founders, Wozniak thinks that if you are not a “good user” and you have got an idea, you need to find one of those Co-Founders who are able to sell. Likewise, if you are a business man, you must find an engineer, because “they are so clever and they will think about things you hadn’t thought about”.
As he remembers, when Steve Jobs was at Apple, he gave to Steve Wozniak a special badge to access everywhere in Apple. The relationship between the two has always been friendly, even after Wozniak left Apple. The most exciting day at Apple was when Steve Jobs introduced the Macintosh, because they were thinking: “We are going to bring to the world some new life”.
Woz doesn’t like books talking about Apple and, as he says, most of them are completely wrong about the real story. However he believes that there is a movie, which is the closest ever to what really happened in the early days of Apple, “Pirates of Silicon Valley”. The scenes and the settings of that movie matched Wozniak’s memories. On the other hand, the latest movie about Steve Jobs, the one with Ashton Kutcher, really missed the point and the way Jobs behaved and the personal interests they had in common.
At the end of the interview, there was a brief space for a QandA from the public. We have reported a few of the questions that were relevant to what we are about.
What do you think of iOS 7?
Woz doesn’t think that this update has changed his life from iOS 6. At first, he was a little bit disappointed from the different icons, but he started using it and after several weeks he realised that it was more beautiful than the past releases of iOS. He does like it and he really doesn’t have any problem with iOS 7.
I really like it and it doesn’t mean that everything is perfect, but there has been a revolution.”
Raspberry PI? What do you think?
Woz got a Raspberry PI for himself and he set it up, but he couldn’t spend time on it. However he saw the same mission he had with Apple in Raspberry PI. They are trying to let young and experienced people access technology.
What’s your advice for people who want to find people?
Wozniak hasn’t founded just Apple, and as he says, he has started companies on his own. He has always looked for a Steve Wozniak^2, but that wasn’t possible. The best advice is to look at Universities without seeking guys with top scores or first class marks, but look for people who have inner ideas. “You need to make sure they are builders, because you want to have a working model before you go out and raise money”.
Obviously nowadays, any company would never hire Steve Jobs and me.
