Wozniak: iPhone Could Learn From Android

Apple co-founder says Google’s mobile platform outperforms iOS in key areas like battery life, navigation, and voice assistance.

10 Top iOS 5 Apps
10 Top iOS 5 Apps
(click image for larger view and for slideshow)

Steve Wozniak may have co-founded Apple along with Steve Jobs, but the serial tech entrepreneur apparently isn’t letting that cloud his judgment when it comes to evaluating new smartphone technologies.


More Mobility Insights

Webcasts

More >>

White Papers

More >>

Reports

More >>

In a candid interview sure to ruffle Apple fanboys, "Woz"said Google’s Android OS in many ways outperforms the iPhone's iOS operating system.

"My primary phone is the iPhone," Wozniak told The Daily Beast's Dan Lyons. "I love the beauty of it. But I wish it did all the things my Android does, I really do."

[ Android or iOS? For more insight, read Why Developers Still Target iOS Ahead of Android. ]

Wozniak said he thinks Android outperforms the iPhone 4S in a number of areas, including GPS navigation, battery life, and, perhaps most surprisingly, in automated, voice-enabled assistance. He said Apple's much-ballyhooed Siri service has deteriorated since the company acquired it from an app maker and integrated it into the iPhone.

"I used to ask Siri, 'What are the five biggest lakes in California?' and it would come back with the answer. Now it just misses. It gives me real estate listings," said Wozniak, adding, "I have a lower success rate with Siri than I do with the voice built into the Android, and that bothers me."

Wozniak, however, did have some praise for the iPhone--sort of. He said it’s the best smartphone out there for technophobes. "For that kind of person that is scared of complexity, well, here's a phone that is simple to use and does what you need it to do," Wozniak said in his interview with Lyons, who used to impersonate, thinly, his late partner on the Fake Steve Jobs blog.

Beyond Wozniak's barbs, Apple's got good reason to be wary of Android. The latter, which already has almost twice the U.S. market share of iOS, continues to grow faster. According to the most recent numbers from market watcher Comscore, Android's share increased 3.1%, to 46.9%, from August 2011 to November 2011.

Apple's share increased just 1.4%, to 28.7%, over the same period.

Apple may also see renewed competition from Microsoft. A number of Windows Phone devices, like the Nokia Lumia 900 and the HTC Titan II, generated considerable buzz at last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Microsoft's mobile operating systems, including Windows Phone, held a market share of 5.2% as of November.

For the 15th consecutive year, InformationWeek is conducting its U.S. IT Salary Survey. Upon completion of the survey, you will be eligible to enter a contest for prizes including a Bravia HDTV or iPad 2, and get a link to download our report once it is published. Take the survey now. Survey ends Jan. 20.


Related Reading




Currently we allow the following HTML tags in comments:

Single tags

These tags can be used alone and don't need an ending tag.

<br> Defines a single line break

<hr> Defines a horizontal line

Matching tags

These require an ending tag - e.g. <i>italic text</i>

<a> Defines an anchor

<b> Defines bold text

<big> Defines big text

<blockquote> Defines a long quotation

<caption> Defines a table caption

<cite> Defines a citation

<code> Defines computer code text

<em> Defines emphasized text

<fieldset> Defines a border around elements in a form

<h1> This is heading 1

<h2> This is heading 2

<h3> This is heading 3

<h4> This is heading 4

<h5> This is heading 5

<h6> This is heading 6

<i> Defines italic text

<p> Defines a paragraph

<pre> Defines preformatted text

<q> Defines a short quotation

<samp> Defines sample computer code text

<small> Defines small text

<span> Defines a section in a document

<s> Defines strikethrough text

<strike> Defines strikethrough text

<strong> Defines strong text

<sub> Defines subscripted text

<sup> Defines superscripted text

<u> Defines underlined text

InformationWeek encourages readers to engage in spirited, healthy debate, including taking us to task. However, InformationWeek moderates all comments posted to our site, and reserves the right to modify or remove any content that it determines to be derogatory, offensive, inflammatory, vulgar, irrelevant/off-topic, racist or obvious marketing/SPAM. InformationWeek further reserves the right to disable the profile of any commenter participating in said activities.

Disqus Tips To upload an avatar photo, first complete your Disqus profile. | View the list of supported HTML tags you can use to style comments. | Please read our commenting policy.
Subscribe to RSS

Resource Links