Steve Wozniak: Android has leapt ahead of Apple in many ways

In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple, a company that would grow into one of the most innovative and valuable in the world. With the iPhone, Apple brought smartphones into the mainstream and quickly turned into a mobile company. Soon after Google released the company’s Android operating system, which spread like wildfire, Jobs vowed to destroy Android and considered it a cheesy knockoff of his device, but a stolen product. However, Woz has taken an opposite approach and praised both operating systems. Read on for more.

Steve Wozniak still thinks Apple’s iPhone is the best overall smartphone, but he says there are ways in which Android has leapt ahead of Apple. “My primary phone is the iPhone,” said Woz. “I love the beauty of it. But I wish it did all the things my Android does, I really do.” Woz believes that Android’s voice commands and built-in navigation system are a big advantage, and says that Android phones aren’t as simple to use as the iPhone, but not too complicated. “If you’re willing to do the work to understand it a little bit, well I hate to say it, but there’s more available in some ways,” said Woz.

Last Month, Woz showed up on Google’s campus and received the company’s latest flagship device, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, although he chooses to use the Motorola DROID RAZR instead. Apple’s co-founder believes Android’s voice commands are ahead of and more responsive than Siri’s. “I have a lower success rate with Siri than I do with the voice built into the Android, and that bothers me,” said Woz. “I’ll be saying, over and over again in my car, ‘Call the Lark Creek Steak House,’ and I can’t get it done. Then I pick up my Android, say the same thing, and it’s done. Plus I get navigation. Android is way ahead on that.”

While he does have his criticism, Woz still recommends the iPhone as the best choice for most users. “The people I recommend the iPhone 4S for are the ones who are already in the Mac world, because it’s so compatible, and people who are just scared of computers altogether and don’t want to use them,” said Woz. “The iPhone is the least frightening thing. For that kind of person who is scared of complexity, well, here’s a phone that is simple to use and does what you need it to do.”

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