Woz backs Chinese 'Apple of Far East' in play for US hardware market Apple grandee Steve Wozniak has said a Chinese firm mockingly dubbed the "Apple of the Far East" could compete with the fruity firm on its home turf. The fruity firm's co-founder jetted over to China to give his backing to Xiaomi, a tech company which sells smartphones and consumer electronics based on its own flavour of …
That's true, and the Apple crowd that only knows Cupertino approved iHistory really might want to keep that fact in mind.
But it does mean that a product he's endorsing probably isn't lobotomized like iOS and non-rooted or custom ROMed Android. I've checked out Xiaomi, and they seem pretty good/useful, but I'm still far more interested in Jolla and their Sailfish OS, and failing that, WinPho. But I'm an old school Nokia user and I really dislike Android's permissions model as it stands plus I've never cared for the iPhone aside from the 2008 iPhone 3G. It just doesn't do it for me.
Could someone please take note that I, for one NEVER wanted an iDevice. Not a stupid looking, non upgradeable iMac that nobody was writing useful software for, not a brightly coloured ipod when my Xen held more music in higher quality, certainly not an iPhone, even at a time when the alternative was a bloody N95, complete with stylus.
I buy Android because Android does what I want it to, without fuss, not because I'm too poor or style challenged to buy a locked down fruity.
OK, rant over. Back to Fandroid/boi bashing, nothing to see here.
>So his blessing on a product is more of a geek award than a blessing that the product is nice to use.
Sometimes maybe, but perhaps not in this case. This is the same Woz who said that the American consumer isn't getting the best product possible, because of Apple, Saumsung et al won't share their features with each other. He has a point.
As for Xiaomi, they try to sell hardware at close to cost in order to bring people into their services - so more like Amazon than Apple. In addition, they make their version of Android, MIUI, available to other handsets, a version that has some thoughtful features in it.
So not only does this company produce facsimiles of Apple products, its CEO feels the need to take it one stage further and replicate the dress sense of a dead man?
I'm beginning to wonder if we'll ever see a single innovative product or idea emerge from the vast, sprawling megalopolises that constitute modern day China.
I totally agree, now that Steve Jobs is finally dead (and for quite a while now I might add), its time for turtlenecks to phase out. Nobody should be allowed to wear what he wore, did he wear black socks? Ban them!
Have you ever even researched the company you are accusing of plagiarism?
They were the first (that I'm aware of) to manufacture passenger cars with a remote control so you can see yourself into a tight parking space. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkx2ZN4j2vk
This.
The man basically designed a couple of 1970s-era microcomputers – at a time when every Tom, Dick and Sally was doing the same thing, so big sodding deal – and, aside from a switching power supply, that's pretty much it. It was Jobs who suggested putting one of them in a case and offering a pre-built model for sale.
Mr. Wozniak had precisely f*ck all to do with Apple's transformation from a near-bankrupt basket case in the late '90s to its current status as one of the most successful businesses on the planet. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Naff all. Quite why anyone pays him any heed escapes me. Like Richard Stallman, his views are anachronistic, harking back to a bygone era before computers became a commodity consumer product.
Woz has become an embarrassing, parasitical media tart. A "rent-a-nerd" whose views represent the minority of the mercifully dwindling old guard.
Microsoft were #1 back when Jobs returned to Apple. However painful it may be to admit to many of you, it's Jobs you have to thank for finally knocking Microsoft down a peg or two and forcing them to get off their collective arses and actually innovate. (No, they didn't get ModernUI right first time, but it took them three goes to make Windows acceptable too. MS are good at playing the long game, so I'm not inclined to write them off yet.)
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