Business Bytes
Renee Oricchio

The Way We Woz

 

As the saying goes, with friends like these...

The other Steve that co-founded Apple offered a few choice criticisms about the latest products coming out of Cupertino to reporters in Australia.

Steve (as in Wozniak), originally was boosterish about the release of the iPhone. But has since changed his tune.

Among his criticisms of the iPhone and other Apple offerings:

- He thought it was unfair to early adopters to drop the price of the iPhone by $200 just ten weeks after its release.

- He thinks it was a cop out not to use 3G in the iPhones, not buying the excuse it would eat up too much battery life.

- He still carries an iPhone. But also uses a Motorola Razr for making calls and surfing the web.

- As for the new Macbook Air, he predicts it will be a bust. Too many critical features have been offloaded for the sake of lightness; like the DVD drive, ethernet ports, only 80 gigs on the hard drive and a battery that can't be swapped out.

Comparing the two Steves makes for an interesting contrast.

Look at Steve Wozniak today.

Steve Jobs, the person, has become almost as recognizable a brand as the Apple logo itself. He's thin, with carefully trimmed short graying hair in typical male pattern baldness, with carefully trimmed facial scruff and always seen wearing jeans and a black turtleneck. Somehow, he is forever youthful though an aging boomer; and forever the captain of cool.

By contrast, Wozniak is real people. He too, has the turtle neck (only its a slate gray). How shall I put it; he's a little on the rotund side. His hair, both on his head and face are as unruly as it was 30 years ago.

If Jobs is style, the Woz is substance. Jobs, the future. Woz, the past. Jobs, the guy who kept coming back to rescue Apple over the years. Woz, the guy who retired to the Santa Cruz Mountains to enjoy his kids and his millions back in the late 80's.

Here's a picture from the mid-70s, when the two Steves were just starting out making their first Apple. No turtlenecks, no sleek designs or marketing hype machines. Just two guys who loved tinkering in a garage together.

What a difference 33 years makes.

Renee Oricchio is a technology writer and former supervising news producer for CNN Financial News. She has been covering the computer industry since 1987. @oricchio