Steve Wozniak is the co-founder of Apple, less high profile than CEO and the other half of Apple’s founding duo, Steve Jobs, but much loved amongst the tech community.
It’s a surprise then to see this interview with the BBC’s Click programme, in which Woz appears to throw a couple of thinly veiled insults in Jobs’ direction. Is there a spot of bitterness there?
For a start, Woz has a moan about the iPhone’s closed operating system. Asked what he thinks of hackers and jailbreakers, he said: “I love it… some of the applications will record video… I’m a user, so I want those things. I want more of the world, I don’t want to be locked off from it.”
Throwing his lot in with developers rather than businessmen, Woz also said: “Engineers and geeks are special people to me. They’re a lot more interesting than the CEO who has done all these amazing business deals. I couldn’t care less [about them].”
Subtle, yes, but is that a jibe at Jobs, who famously masterminds Apple’s deals, but cannot code for his own brand of computers? Maybe. But there’s another snipe later in the interview too.
Asked about the iPhone being unlocked, Woz said: “Steve and I both were a little bit hackers when we grew up and we were younger. Maybe you forget that when you become a businessman.”
Ouch. Woz then rounds off his discussion of Jobs by stating that the two aren’t close friends, and explaining that nowadays he only sees his co-founder at Apple events, and wouldn’t be counted amongst his dearest acquaintances.
“We’re not close,” he says. “We’re friends. We’ve never been more than friends.”
Of course, Woz has often been misquoted when speaking about Jobs. “The press say “I’m trashing Apple’s iPhone” when I love it more than anything,” he explains. “I think sometimes [Steve Jobs] gets a bad impression of me.”
Gee, we wonder why… You can see the interview in full below.
Via BBC Click
