Woz praises Android, blasts iPhone limitations Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has underlined his love for Android handsets, stating his gripes with the iPhone and why in many ways he prefers Google's OS. He even claimed voice commands worked better on Android, as does the GPS system, the Daily Beast reports. “My primary phone is the iPhone, I love the beauty of it. But I …
Not like Jobs, who was more of a visionary.
Wozniak has been too under-emphasised in the success of Apple - Jobs took advantage of his skills, I believe.
Still, at least he doesn't have to worry about offending Jobs now. I don't think he'd have said this in such plain terms before.
Right and the "stringent checks" that come into play with the apple system mean that malware has never happened, other than when the phone itself was storing info it shouldn't or when the program got in that was sending texts out without people knowing, or the one snooping on your phoen book (both of which they used the secret kill switch for i believe)
Or the current one of a game with tracks directly copied from mario kart that is available for sale.
Yes the stringent checks that apple stop everything bad from getting onto the app store, also it makes pigs fly as well.
Whatever your assessment of the differences in security between iphones and android phones, it’s obviously impossible to take anyone seriously who thinks it’s of this kind of magnitude – apple 99.9% effective, android 0% effective, or in other words Apple infinitely better. Fanboyism of the most comical stripe.
Security experts have shown ways to get passed Apple security checks. In fact one researchers got a spyware packed app release on Apple app store.
Apple security is worst than Android for the simple fact that Apple and it fanboys and girls believes Apple security is 99.99 % secure. Why Android use know that Android is far from being 100% secure.
Erm: In practice, that means that almost every app from Angry birds to wallpapers asks for every permission in the book. So yeah, you can refuse to install these apps... if you don't want to have any apps on your phone.
Try to find, say, a Sudoku app that asks for NO permissions. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Actually, in practice it means nothing of the sort. UC Berkeley published a paper titled "Android Permissions Demystified" which found that, out of a sample of 940 apps, only one third asked for more permissions than were required, and of those third, over half only requested one additional permission, and only 6% requested more than 4 additional permissions. And this seems to reflect my experience with the 134 apps I've installed on my own device. BTW, of the three different versions of Angry Birds on my phone (original, seasons and Rio - all the free versions), none of them ask for more than a handful of permissions.
And it's important to understand that just because an app asks for permissions doesn't mean it's up to something dodgy. I'm not about to trawl the entire Market checking the permissions on every single Sudoku app out there right now, but a quick check of the two on my phone show that one of them (Andoku Sudoku) only asks for access to the SD card and the vibrator. Meanwhile its successor (Andoku 2) in its free incarnation only additionally requests internet access (to download ads - though it works OK in areas of no network coverage too...).
"When I install something on my computer, I can block it from accessing the internet"
Really, Have you blocked every program on your PC apart from a select few from accessing the internet?
Does any program on a PC tell you it needs to use the internet before you install it?
Do you stop all programs on your PC from accessing your hard disk and set up individual permissions for all of them so they can only access a specific area of userland?
Do programs on your PC ask you before they can access your USB port, or access your printer?
Do you only get programs for your PC from a safe area, where all the programs have had their source reviewed and checked for malware or bugs? Any software downloaded from a manufacturers website or bought in retail packaging hasn't been checked.
How much junk is out there that you could install on your PC?
Android is far, far safer in all these respects. But still gives you the freedom to decide yourself what gets installed (after knowing the permissions it needs) without anyone telling you that you are not allowed to.
Wel in that case you're either an Apple fanboi/shill trying to stir up non-existent shite or you've been a naughty person and downloaded naked boob apps from some very dodgy places! I've stuck to Google Marketplace, downloaed something like 175 apps in 2 monhts and haven't had one problem that I am aware of on my rooted SGS2 from O2.
So why don't you just bugger off back under your bridge troll!
Shame Woz can't post that summary in every flame war on the Internet around iOS vs Android, he's summed it up brilliantly: for those who like tinkering, get an Android; for those who just want a instant gratifying/usable (but inevitably restrictive as a result) experience, get an iPhone.
It's why I use an iPhone. I *could* put the effort into an Android (and did try for 2 months - one of the few people I talk to that has honestly lived with both devices) but ultimately don't have the time or inclination to do such a thing for my phone.
I got my wife to get an Android phone at her last upgrade and she is as technically illiterate as they come. She has had no problems getting it to do everything she wants it to do and I haven't had to give her any support - unlike my sister-in-law with her iphone who seems to ring me about every little thing.
My girlfriend is very technically literate, and has Android which drives her insane as it requires serious effort and swearing to get it to simple things like join our home network (which she has to do manually every single time), adding new email accounts, transferring data, getting more apps on to her phone with an SD card, etc etc
Your point proves nothing, and neither does my gfs inability to get along with Android.
Ok ill bite, what sort of cheap nasty chinese knockoff android phone did you buy for your girlfriend?
"join our home network (which she has to do manually every single time)"
Are you hiding the SSID of your network? thats the only thing that springs to mind that might stop the phone connecting as soon as you turn on wifi and a hidden ssid doesn't really offer any security.
"adding new email accounts"
Ill give you this one, in my guise as an evil spammer i find updating all the email accounts i burn through in a day a real chore.
"transferring data"
Plug in usb cable, enable usb storage, copy. Or if your like me and too lazy to get out of the chair and find a usb cable upload the data to your website and download it to the phone with the phones convenient built in web browser (yes i really did that)
"getting more apps on to her phone with an SD card"
Inconvenience is the price of piracy, you do have the option of using the market but you'd have to pay for some of the apps then.
As condescending as usual, no wonder you are the tech equivalents of dinosaurs. Also shows you did not read nor really understand the point of the post.
Anyway the phone is the samsung s9000, so no not a cheap £5 device, "cheap" agreed as that is what she wanted to determine if she wanted an smartphone.
Are you hiding the SSID of your network? Nope, the device simply refuses to connect, we are not running anything strange, any other device (including my new Galaxy S2), connects fine. The s9000 point blank refuses to see the network and simply connect. Could it be something on the LAN? Possibly, do I want to spend any more time trying to fix the stupid thing, no thanks.
Email: Yes of course it is likely this is the case. Rather than she wants to access her personal email which the s9000 refuses to pick up. Again it is accessible from other devices, PCs, etc. Could I spend another 5 hours trying to determine why her configuration is unhappy? probably..
I could go on, but seeing as you will have already stopped listening, I will make the point again:
The suggestion of one person that because their partner works perfectly (when they are tech illiterate), with Android does not prove a thing. It only proves a single use case.
It's a Blasted Samsung issue and I have the same problem with my P1000 Tab.
They did something strange to their wireless manager and email client. With wireless I am constantly turning it off and then on again to get it to connect to my office and home WiFi networks but my HTC (runs Cyanogenmod) doesn't have that problem. The same goes for email, I can't speak for pop3 but Samsung's clever Email client can't delete IMAP emails from the server so if I delete the message it's gone until the next time it checks the server.
Someone at Samsung thought they needed to modify Android to make it better and they failed badly.
Really? I can't see how she has problems joining your home network, then. My Droid automatically connects to my home network. It also automatically connects to my friend's home network when I'm visiting her in Edinburgh, to the O2 Cloud network, and indeed to any wi-fi network I have previously given it the password for. Likewise, getting apps onto the SD card is done by a single keystroke in my app manager. Transferring data onto the phone is *literally* a matter of dragging and dropping in Windows.
I submit that your girlfriend is not technically literate at all, assuming she doesn't live in Canada. And neither are you, or you would have made up better lies.
Wow on what planet are you... I have never seen anyone have to join a home network manually eveytime as you say, I have 4 Android Tablets from differn't manufactures and 2 phones and never had this problem, getting Apps from an SD card means your getting from a source outside the Market (which I do on a occasion) but not because of Limitations of Android OS, but by the Limitations of Manufacturer. Your problems are caused by external sources, ie your poor understanding of Local area networks and Blaming the wrong source for your problems. I think she is not as " literate" as you think..
As for setting up an email account if you don't actually DO it how will it get on the device by "wishing"
I've had my Android phone for about 8 months now and I'm still waiting for this "effort" that I'm going to have to put into it... Hasn't happened yet. I'm getting really sick of this particular trolling comment. Maybe it's time for a new one.
My friend just got her 10 year old daughter a fairly cheap Samsung and she's having no problems with it either, so I really have to question the other commenter with his girlfriend's issues too. When I walk into any place where there in wifi, my phone pops up a notification that there's wifi available and asks if I want to connect. I set up my Gmail and corporate ActiveSync on my phone with zero problems.
However, my sister's iPhone can't see half of the wifi networks that my Android can (although they magically show up if she enters the SSID manually) and she's already had to have it replaced once because the battery was only lasting about 5-6 hours.
Luckily it's much easier to install apps onto an iPhone from the SD card than it is on Android, isn't it? Oh, wait.
I totally agree.
I support end-users. If I spend a little time explaining whats what, the end user is always 100% happy with their choice of Android handset.
iPhone users just don't want to listen/learn, it should just work. Well it does, it works well for those brain dead people.
But for the majority, they can, do and want to learn and understand their phone and what it can do for them.
The Malware thing! BOLLOX, i've not had any trouble. I tell people to check app permissions before installing and to use a bit of common sense. You don't allow a wallpaper to "make chargable calls" for example.
Well, Android is rapidly evolving now at a good clip after a slowish start. iPhone seems stuck in 2007 and little real evolution (outside of slightly improving hardware) as they're too busy with lawsuits right now. Not much innovation coming out of Apple other than rounded corners... That's pretty embarrasing. Apparently they don't feel its worth the effort (or their huge cash bundle) to spend R&D money on it.
Personally, I think Apple is exiting the smartphone business, which sounds crazy at first until you look at where the focus is. The focus is on iPad currently, and they've shifted resources to that rather than bringing out the much delayed iPhone 5 which is now closing in on a year late on the outside and 6 months late on the inside. Why might they do that? The smarphone is becoming a commodity market now, and without them being willing to take less of a profit cut, they're going to get marginalized (already occurring), and eventually forced out anyway. Another high profit margin company, Cisco (well its CEO John Chambers), states when a market goes commodity, they will exit rather than reduce the margins. Best example there is when they stopped making NICs. So it isn't out of the question Apple deciding to focus on high margin iPads instead and killing off the iPhone. The timing of Woz's statements also hint at something *possibly* afoot long term.
Of course, much of the above could be complete bollocks, and fair enough if it is. Apple has been too secretive for its own good. Maybe Cook will fix that and he is making some efforts at Glasnost to fix the worst of the Jobs era, but right now the actions of Apple are pointed towards a smartphone EXIT while they continue the tablet ramp-up.
That's Android for those who are willing to invest a little time to get a large reward, iPhone for the time starved and those who just don't care. And even then I'm stretching Woz's words. At no point does he invoke the peer pressure or crowd following sentiment that you impute.
So I'm not sure he's in line with the El Reg gang but I think he's quite right.
Google's navigation app is fantastic. It has far more detail than "thick" satnav apps and tends to give more useful and specific advice too, e.g. knowing which lane to be in, or what the street is called. I tried Copilot and frankly it was useless by comparison though it did work in offline mode.
Which is where Google's app falls down - you need to be online to use it. It would be great to be able to plan a route in advance and for the app to cache the route and major roads either side and be able to use it offline.
As an aside, I have a Nokia Lumia 800 and I was looking forward to using the Nokia Drive app which allows you to download maps to the phone. Great when you're in France or somewhere and don't want to be screwed on roaming data. But can use it in offline mode? Nope. The maps might be offline but you still need to go online to find destinations or work out routes to those destinations. This is the worst of both worlds IMO. What is the point of offline maps if you still have to go online to use them? Useless app.
So my advice is that if you have data then Google's app is superior. If you're offline or roaming then buy a satnav (app) and live with its limitations. And don't bother with Nokia Drive.
Google Navigation's lack of offline access bit me in the butt once. We stopped for lunch and when we came back out to the car we didn't have data. We were then lost for the next two hours because no one in the car remembered that they still have these analogue things called 'maps' that can generally be picked up in any service station until a week later when someone else pointed it out. I've never trusted Google Navigation without an atlas for backup since.
I have used Google Navigation extensively over the past 15 months and I have travelled through many dead zones with many lunch stops, but it has never failed me that way. My understanding is that it does a good job of caching, but I don't know about that voodoo. Now my Galaxy S's GPS chip is a different matter altogether. It has led me to curse out loud and long many, many times.
He's not that old. At 61 he's not even retirement age yet.
As for his technical expertise, he remains one of the top engineers in the world. He's probably got more widespread respect than anyone else in the technology sector. If anything he's getting more honest with age (which, given his level of honesty before, would be quite an accomplishment).
I would be curious to see Woz's opinion on the Wp7 phones, to be honest. I think he might be able to give an interesting perspective/comparison.
I personally love my WP7 phone and think it should now be considered a viable option to the other platforms.
My friends (iPhone owners, mainly) all scoffed when I told them I got a WP7 phone, but when I actually let them use the phone, they were all quite impressed at how fast, intuitive, and smooth it was.
Love the Woz. But droid fanbois get boring quickly. It's won. There's more droid than ios handsets being sold right now. It's a bit like windows vs osx. You can stop feeling all insecure now. However, it's good to have have competing os's to keep driving innovation, surely? For the record, some of us who do have a clue still have a preference (yes it's a preference, not a religious calling) of ios to android. This doesn't mean I think android is somehow unclean (though it would be nice if they sorted out the realtime audio latency issues and being able to connect through proxy servers without faffery).
Woz did the boring engineering shit nobody (aside from other engineers and nerds) actually gives a shit about. Jobs did the rest: the boring management, sales, marketing, packaging and _design_ shit nobody (aside from other managers, salespeople, marketers, designers, etc.) actually gives a shit about either.
Together, they solved crime!
Alone, neither would have become famous. Woz may have created the early 8-bit (pre-GUI) Apple machines, but he never wanted to go into business. Without _both_ Woz _and_ Jobs, there would _be_ no Apple. It needed both characters.
*
"Creative things have to sell to get acknowledged as such. Steve Jobs didn't really set the direction of my Apple I and Apple II designs but he did the more important part of turning them into a product that would change the world. I don't deny that." — Steve Wozniak.
Now shut up, all of you, and go to your rooms!
Every time my dad has tried to impress me with it, like asking it trivia questions, it returns comically unrelated local businesses.
E.g. asking it "can wolves breed with dogs?" gave a listing for a local pet store.
Asking the same question to my Android phone gave me exactly what you'd hope for:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfdog
Having grown up accustomed to search engines, it makes little sense to ask a computer questions in plain English, because unless it's Watson it will inevitably fall short and waste my time. But at least Google doesn't get tripped up on auxiliary verbs.
Woz has always been in favour of the separate software / separate hardware approach vs the integrated "we do it all" approach that Apple has taken since the Mac.
He is however right on the money that Android is actually as good as (and sometimes better) than Android. Apple without Jobs is going to have a tough time over the next decade.
I've got an android and when my wife was due an upgrade I got her to get an android, we are both happy. I take the micky out iBones and the latte culture...
I am also writing this on linux and commenting on el reg, I'm a geek.
2 months ago my 60+ mother in law wanted to join the smart phone world, she runs her own business, has used windows PCs for donkey's and is a more competent PC user than she gives herself credit for but I strongly recommend her get an iphone and she loves it. I also love the fact that the support overhead for me is minimal, she didn't even know she was supposed to plug it into her PC to do certain things.
I could have recommended she got an android and with a little bit more handholding she may have got it and fully utilised it but that would have taken more of my time. I think she just wanted an iPhone so that she could say "I've got an iPhone" to her less tech-literate friends, if she had got an android the conversation is a bit different, "I've got an android" "What's that?" It's like an iPhone, but different"....
I fully agree with Woz, if you just want simplicity get the iBone, if you want to RTFM and have a potentially richer experience, get an android.
I don't know why people get so invested in an OS!
Android's a fantastic smartphone OS. It does exactly what it is supposed to do 99% of the time. Apple's iOS is another fantastic smartphone OS and it also does exactly what it's supposed to do most of the time.
I haven't found anyone who has a major issue with either platform to be perfectly honest.
The only comments that I do hear quite a lot is that a lot of people are finding the iOS grid of icons on a desktop approach rather limited, particularly if they are familiar with Android.
The main thing that most people notice is that with iOS, all of your apps are dumped on your home-screens and are rather difficult to sort. Where as on Android, your apps are stored in an apps folder / drawer and you can decide which ones you want to put on your home screens. The ability to add widgets to the screen also differentiates Android.
Also, you have to compare like with like. Apple does not make low-end smartphones. Where as Android runs on everything from cheap and nasty devices with small screens and limited processing power to devices that have significantly more power than any iPhone. So, it's quite hard to generalise about Android as it is only an OS, it's not an OS + hardware combination unless you're talking about the the Google Nexus range.
Also, I don't understand why people would want Apple or Google to be the absolutely dominant player. We have a wonderful situation at the moment where several major players are competing in this space and it's driving innovation forward rapidly. Google, Apple, Microsoft/Nokia, RIM/Blackberry are all still there.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
