
Steve Wozniak gives jailbreaking the thumbs up, wishes iTunes supported Android - mariusc
http://thenextweb.com/apple/2012/10/02/apple-co-founder-steve-wozniak-supports-jailbreak-community-wishes-itunes-worked-android/
======
seldo
BREAKING: hacker nerd who has had nothing to do with Apple for 3 decades takes
positions markedly different from Apple orthodoxy.

Woz always takes very predictably pro-hacker positions; I'm not clear why we
regard it as news when he does.

~~~
mariusc
The headline is not all about Wozniak,it's also a nice direction for iTunes
from an Android user perspective.I'd like to listen my music from iTunes
account without buying again from Google Music.

~~~
37prime
Since music tracks from iTunes are DRM free, they can be played in any Android
devices.

~~~
eli
Yes, music bought from the iTunes store can be played on Android. Which makes
it all the more annoying that iTunes does not support Android.

~~~
37prime
I believe Monique Farantzos and Jon Lech Johansen is working hard to bring
iTunes and Android together.

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netcan
The itunes thing is actually pretty interesting. There may be the same case as
there was before for an exception.

I have a work mac, work pc, home mac, kobo, ipod & android. Sounds like a lot
when I list it out. I'm not really a gadget person and some of those are
pretty old. I use them all though and every one or two years I expect to add
or replace a "device". Apple will be considered and sometimes chosen.

That's not unusual. Most Apple customers are not monogamous. Realistically,
Apple have never been the company with so many options you never need to go
anywhere else. They have been the company that's reluctantly good at bringing
devices together and connecting them with a marketplace.

They don't like harmonizing elements they don't control. They would prefer the
world divided nicely into Apple people and non Apple people. That's not
realistic.

To improve Apple users' experience they need to support foreign devices. Mac
users use android and many avoid itunes altogether (they need to think in
terms of 'files' anyway). Ipod users use android and their ipod never has the
podcasts they've been listening to. iPad users can't read the book they are
halfway through on sony reader.

They wanted ipod users to just plug them into a mac, but that wasn't realistic
so they released itunes for windows. I think its time for another compromise.

~~~
ja27
It's interesting that Microsoft has multiple apps on Android (11) and iOS
(23), Google has 22 apps on iOS and even 1 app on Windows Phone, while Apple
has 0 on any platform except iOS.

~~~
netcan
It's typical. Windows always seemed to have a pragmatic, simple decision
making process. They're strategic too, but not dogmatic. They never tried to
win with windows, for example, by not making office for mac. If the office
team wants to make software for mac or android or whatnot, I don't think
they'd be stopped.

Google has the thousand flowers mentality.

Apple doesn't like to develop anything that admits the existence of
intelligent life outside of Apple. In fairness, they are a "do few things
well" company. They don't actually make that much software. They also don't
like to do things that don't directly make money. There isn't a whole lot of
money to be made selling apps on Android or windows mobile.

But yeah, itunes/ipod for android would be a no brainer for any other company.
Just like kindle, for ipad. At Apple it requires divine revelation.

~~~
nirvana
> " They never tried to win with windows, for example, by not making office
> for mac."

Wow! Ok, I'm guessing you're of an age where you were probably very young at
the time, but exactly this happened. Microsoft, for years, threatened to
cancel office for the mac (office only _exists_ because of the mac- word and
excel started in the mac before windows existed.)

Apple used their control over office to drive Apple nearly to bankruptcy in
the 1990s. It was only until Microsoft got caught red handed shipping source
code stolen from Apple that they were forced to negotiate, and that produced a
massive settlement where Microsoft paid Apple many billions of dollars over 5
years, both companies entered a broad patent cross licensing agreement (Which
is still in effect, and which is why microsoft doesnt' ship something like
android which is an iOS ripoff- but was forced to do something original with
Windows Phone.)

And of course, part of that agreement was that Microsoft would continue to
ship office for the mac.

> "If the office team wants to make software for mac or android or whatnot, I
> don't think they'd be stopped."

Not how microsoft works at all, and I know this because I worked there.
Anything that is seen as a threat to the windows monopoly is killed,
immediately.

Office for Microsoft's own tablets was mortally wounded because it was seen as
a threat to the desktop windows empire.... which is part of the reason the
tablet market was in terminal shape until the iPad came out.

> They don't actually make that much software. They also don't like to do
> things that don't directly make money.

Apple makes a great deal of software that it is unable to directly monetize--
iOS and Mac OS X are good examples. While Apple charges $20 for OS X, that's
ancillary.... Apple also makes a great deal of software- from games like Texas
Holdem Poker (which they made to help jumpstart the App Store to Final Cut Pro
X which was made to make the Mac relevant for that class of creatives back in
the day) almost all of Apple's software efforts are to support the platform.
Hell they even make a database and Office apps so the mac can never be without
good solutions in these areas.... and then they sell them for cheap.

~~~
nivla
>It was only until Microsoft got caught red handed shipping source code stolen
from Apple that they were forced to negotiate.

Do you have any source for this or are you just making it up? Microsoft
agreeing to continue making Office for mac was the settlement of a bogus
patent lawsuit where Apple sued Microsoft for having a GUI.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microso...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microsoft_Corporation)

------
gadders
Does anyone really care what Woz says these days? Really?

I know he accomplished some cool stuff 30-odd years ago, but why is his
opinion still relevant? What technology is he actually working on now?

He just seems to be a reliable semi-controversial rent-a-quote for busy
journalists. He's not even that insightful.

I realise this will cost me karma, but whatevs.

~~~
lutusp
> Does anyone really care what Woz says these days? Really?

It's not so much that Woz is a source of wisdom and insight, it's more that
there are few gurus and "experts" in computer science (generally a good thing)
willing to offer opinions.

Woz is in the position of being able to take philosophical positions that
people won't be likely to argue with, because of his long incumbency in the
field of computer technology.

But that's an explanation, not an excuse. In fields that depend on scientific
reasoning, there's no justification for accepting the opinions of experts
based solely on their position. As Richard Feynman famously said, "Science is
the organized skepticism in the reliability of expert opinion."

~~~
gadders
You know what? If he wrote a 3 page blog post saying "why it would be good
business for Apple if iTunes supported Android" (or whatever) I'd be more
interested. But all we get are soundbites.

~~~
crusso
I say this as a big fan of Apple, my Apple II+ and all that Woz created so
brilliantly when he was there...

I think that your criticism above is the heart of the matter. If Woz had deep
thoughts he were relating that informed in a meaningful way, great.

Instead, he tends to spew out populist geek one-liners without any supporting
rationale.

What's disappointing is the way that the tech culture picks it up as an appeal
to authority or noteworthy opinion.

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nicholassmith
I'll be honest, I'm so, so glad iTunes doesn't support anything but the
iPod/iOS lines as it's already a headache of overdone and unneeded
functionality.

Quote! "It’s better to think constructively about what can be done with our
mobile platforms to improve our lives more, rather than trying to throw darts
and insults". And this is why Woz is still relevant. He understands that it's
not about the iPhone or the Galaxy S3 or which ever device you have, but about
what it _does_ for you. They've all been drastically transformative in day to
day life for a huge amount of the population of the Western world. Tech blogs
and geek circles spend that much time sniping at each other that we seem to
forget how quickly things have progressed. They're all great devices.

------
enraged_camel
Woz might have been influential back in the day, but let's face it: he also
had _zero_ business sense. If it was up to Woz, they would have given away the
computer he had built for free, and he would still be a lowly and unknown
engineer working for HP. Jobs was the one who figured out how to monetize
Woz's hard work. That's why Apple was founded and led by Jobs.

I'm actually saddened that after 30 years of working for Apple, Woz still
hasn't learned that coddling your competitors and giving up your competitive
advantages are bad for business.

edit: gotta love the ninja downvotes. Must have touched a nerve. :)

~~~
mnl
Yeah, despite the fact that without Woz, Jobs would have never taken the home
computer business by storm, and probably would have ended his great
entrepreneurial vision with at most yet another unremarkable 70's DIY kit,
after struggling aimlessly at Atari... This is becoming snobnews.

~~~
enraged_camel
I don't think my post downplayed Woz's contributions. No one has any doubt
that Woz is a very bright individual. What I'm saying is that being smart
about engineering does not necessarily translate over to being smart about
business. And that's certainly true about Woz. Like most geeks, he's an
idealist: he talks about what he wishes the world to be like without thinking
about or understanding what that would mean for the company that employs him.

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fredley
iTunes supporting Android would be great for Apple. Unfortunately, it would
also be good for Google, so it's never going to happen.

~~~
ZoFreX
It would be great partially because the existing sync solutions for Android
are all a little bit wonky. I don't think it would necessarily be great for
Apple, though - I'm considering purchasing an iPod to listen to music on to
get that better integration, and releasing iTunes for Android would
commoditize the listening device - exactly what a shiny hardware manufacturer
does not want.

~~~
CrazedGeek
"It would be great partially because the existing sync solutions for Android
are all a little bit wonky."

Eh? Winamp, DoubleTwist, Spotify, and even Windows Media Player all sync
flawlessly, and Google Play Music and Android Cloud Player work great, too.

~~~
ZoFreX
Winamp was OK but crashed a little too often for me to be able to rely on it.
DoubleTwist is, hands down, the worst music software I have installed on my
laptop in recent memory (I can expand on this if you want, but my overall
summary is: terrible). I hadn't tried WMP or Android Cloud Player, and at the
time Google Music wasn't available to me. Spotify I haven't tried yet because
until today, I couldn't even get it to see my phone despite my laptop and
phone being on the same wireless network, as per the instructions. It has
finally shown up though so I will give that a go.

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cageface
With Rdio and Spotify both working well on Android I don't see much need for
iTunes.

~~~
adambyrtek
Google Music is also pretty good, at least when it comes the storing existing
music library (I'm outside of the US so I cannot buy music there).

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actf
This is entirely anecdotal, but I think a lot of people underestimate how
important iTunes is to the success of the ipod/iphone/ipad.

Speaking for myself, one of the main reasons I chose an iphone+ipad over
android is because I love watching indie films, and iTunes is great for this.
Their content library includes so much stuff that just isn't available
anywhere else. Being able to instantly start watching a high quality version
of a relatively obscure indie film can currently only be done on an apple
platform (please correct me if I'm wrong here).

I would love it if iTunes was available on other platforms, but I can't see it
happening. I don't understand why no one else has been able to secure these
content deals that Apple seems to exclusively hold.

~~~
dserodio
I think Apple was able to secure these content deals because of their massive
userbase.

------
moystard
It is nice to read that Steve Wosniak supports the idea of iTunes on Android
but to be honest, it does not make any sense for Apple.

The battle of mobiles is not about the hardware and the OS, at least, not
only, but about the ecosystem around it. Google would not like its Play
ecosystem to be on Apple's device, it is important for them that people buy
their platform to get access to it (however, nobody would like to do that
nowadays as the Play ecosystem is quite small). Now if you think about
iTunes...

~~~
RyanMcGreal
> It is nice to read that Steve Wosniak supports the idea of iTunes on Android
> but to be honest, it does not make any sense for Apple.

As Apple's smartphone market share continues to erode, it will make more and
more sense for Apple to try and capture some of the media purchase revenue
from Android users by providing an iTunes app.

~~~
gordeh
Market share is irrelevant to apple. Market share can be bought if you throw
enough money at it (See Microsoft's and Nokia's attempts).

As the only people making money from mobile is Samsung and Apple I doubt apple
care about market share stats.

The iTunes eco system is there to sell hardware not to make apple tons of
money.

~~~
moystard
As opposed to Amazon philosophy which is to sell hardware to allow people to
access their ecosystem, which is their main source of money.

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lucian1900
He loves iTunes? Odd.

~~~
reinout
He probably loves itunes for what it accomplished. Remember the music industry
_before_ itunes? The way in which it made a lot of things possible and easier?

And the whole app store mechanism? Whether it is itunes or android's or
whatever's?

That's what he loves it for. (And I'm assuming you're wondering why he loves a
product that is so ugly/slow/complicated/whatever; I suspect that's not Steve
Wozniak's point).

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nirvana
Woz hasn't worked for Apple since the early 1980s. He got in a minor plane
crash, got freaked out because he could have died and was "wasting his life in
business" or something like that. Stopped working for Apple and started
putting on the "US Festival!" which was not a financial success. So he
stopped. He's been pursuing essentially charitable causes, for the most part,
since.

He did invent the universal remote (but it got copied by everybody right
away.)

He's a nice and well meaning guy and was a consumate engineer. But he was
never the product guy.

On the Apple II he liked to try and get as much functionality out of as few
parts as a challenge-- a technical challenge. It was Jobs who knew this would
let them have a competitive advantage (or cared about it, anyway.)

He was critical to the early years of Apple. Jobs was not nearly as good of an
engineer (but unlike what many people seem to think, Jobs was an engineer.)

but it was Jobs who understood how to make products really great, and why you
needed to, and who made Apple the company it is today.

It was Jobs who cared about design as much as engineering.

~~~
nachteilig
I can't thank you enough for this post. It really bothers me that Woz always
manages to get so much attention for his seemingly anti-Apple opinions for
this very reason. He's a great guy, but he hasn't been involved at Cupertino
for a majority of Apple's existence now.

------
GoldiKam
Wish Jobs was there to comment on the article.

~~~
mariusc
we all know his point of view about this and it's clearly that he never ever
will agree with it

