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You won’t have a lot of spare time at the World Wide Developer’s Conference — what with the sessions and a packed schedule of parties — but here are a few great ways to spend those precious hours, whether you know San Francisco like you know your code or are here for the first time.
Love this portrait of Apple co-founders Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs silhouetted in an old-school Apple logo. It brings to mind the early days of the Cupertino company and its humble beginnings.
It’s the handiwork of Laurent Bourrelly who was inspired by Jonathan Mak’s iconic black-and-white image of Jobs that spurred a media storm.
“I thought Woz deserved as much props as Jobs,” he said.
Let’s hope this re-imagined logo ignites less controversy.
Via Flickr
While many tech pundits equivocate over the Verizon iPhone now that it’s finally almost here, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has no qualms about plunking down for another device on a new network.
“I’m definitely going to get one,” Wozniak said. “I always have at least one Verizon phone on me at all times, just in case I’m in one of those bad areas. You can find those areas where Veriozn doesn’t work and AT&T does, but in truth, it’s usually the opposite.”
“And I also love the mobile hotspot,” Wozniak added. “I hope it’s the standard $30 a month. I wish it was free like the Palm Pre, because that made the Pre a cheaper Mi-Fi. Anyway so I’m expecting that it’s no big new iPhone, not even a new color. It’s just going to be on the Verizon network.”
Wozniak is not your average cell phone user, however. Aside from being far more fabulously wealthy than 99% of the people in the US, his Verizon iPhone will bring the number in his phone holster up to four.
“I’ll have three activated AT&T iPhones, so if the battery runs down I have a spare,” Wozniak said. “And I’m in Europe a lot of times, so maybe one of them will be Verizon, one of them will be AT&T. So I’ll have two AT&T, one AT&T with the international plan, and one Verizon if I need it. Although the tethering’s only to a computer. Although maybe I can give one number up and give it to Verizon. And I’ll keep the Droid X. And I’ll probably give up the Palm Pre, because I now have another Mi-Fi.”
It’s nice to be a man with options, eh?
Clarifying remarks attributed to him by a column in the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf on Wednesday, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said today that, based on things he’s read, he does believe Android will eventually come to dominate the smartphone market — but not because it’s better than or has more features than Apple’s iOS platform.
“I [wasn't] suggesting [Android is] better than iOS… it can get greater market share and still be crappy,” Wozniak said, pointing out that he merely told the De Telegraaf reporter that voice commands on Android were presently more sophisticated, but that Apple would catch up through its recent acquisitions. He went on to say that almost every app he has is better on the iPhone than it is on Android.
[Engadget]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25X8yD0SCpM&feature=player_embedded]
Check out Steve Wozniak’s fun cameo on The Big Bang Theory last night. There’s actually a couple of good jokes.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FzuZdZLt54]
To celebrate Woz’s 60th birthday today, his wife Janet commissioned this song as a gift.
“That’s Woz,” is sung by Jonathan Mann, an up-and-coming YouTube singing star whose song about the iPhone 4 antenna was played by Steve Jobs at a press conference. Mann followed this up with a song about Jobs. A song once wrote a tune about Paul Krugman that went wildly viral and landed him on the Rachel Maddow Show.
Mann’s song about Woz is a tribute to the Apple co-founders pure geek values. “Do it for fun,” he sings during the chorus. “Don’t do it for the money. That’s just Woz.”
Mann is singing a song a day and posting them to his YouTube channel and his Song A Day website.
(See also Mann’s funny NSFW tribute to heroic JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater.)
Steve Wozniak will be taking a break from Segway Polo and dancing the tango to be interviewed on radio program “The American Entrepreneur” Tuesday, June 15.
Tune in from 3 PM – 6 PM (EST) online and call 412-333-1360 to ask Woz your most pressing Apple questions.
Host Ron Morris will be chatting to Apple’s other Steve about his personal history, the early days of Apple, what he is up to nowadays and what Steve thinks of the evolution of the computer industry since he and Steve Jobs launched their fledgling startup in April 1976.
Via TAE radio
The San Jose Mercury News hit stands today with a front page story on Steve Wozniak’s Segway Polo Team training for the International Segway Polo Association Woz Challenge Cup finals next month.
As far as Woz athletics go, this is a smidge more elitist than his recent roller derby hosting gig, it takes place in sunny Barbados from June 10th – 13th.
Segway Polo isn’t a very complicated sport — two teams of five players each try to ram a ball through the goal post of opponents — but that doesn’t mean Woz won’t do anything necessary to win, the paper reports:
Giving the ball a mighty whack, Wozniak watched as his shot dribbled to within a few feet of the goal — and then stopped. Complaining that his wrist strap slipped, he spun his Segway and went hurtling off to the other end, where he attempted to disrupt a shot by his wife, Janet Wozniak, by throwing his mallet at the ball. He did this despite a decree in the Segway polo rule book written specifically to stop him from doing this.
“As you can see,” says Woz’s Silicon Valley Aftershocks teammate, George Clark, “he will even cheat on his wife.”
“Only in Segway polo,” Woz clarifies.
His Silicon Valley Aftershocks team is determined to avenge last year’s defeat in Cologne, Germany. We’ll keep you posted.
Here’s a interesting story about secrecy and making mistakes at Apple. The story is told by Woz, Apple employee number one (check out his hilarious shirt).
While Woz was waiting in line to buy the iPad last month, an Apple test engineer showed him a prototype iPad. It was just a few hours before the device went on sale. Woz, who is still an Apple employee, fired up the Numbers app. Little did he know, the unit was 3G test prototype, and was not to be shown or used outside of secure areas at the company HQ. Unfortunately, Woz’s playing with it must have somehow sent up a warning flag at Apple.
“… I can tell you that the test engineer who showed me an iPad after midnight, for 2 minutes, during the iPad launch was indeed fired. I opted to spend 2 minutes with Numbers on this iPad, trying some stunts I’d seen on Apple’s website demo video. I was not told that it was a 3G model and I had no way to know that. I was told that this engineer had to wait until midnight to show it outside of Apple’s secure area. And I’m an Apple employee who he was showing it to. My guess is that he was allowed to take the iPad outside of the secure area but still not supposed to show it.”
The test engineer was fired for betraying Apple’s ironclad rules on secrecy. The device was not to be shown to anybody — not even Woz. (And worse, Woz told Steve Jobs about seeing the iPad that night. Jobs himself said it was “no big deal.”)
On the other hand, Gray Powell, the Apple engineer who lost an iPhone 4G prototype at a bar, is still employed at Apple.
“Product secrecy is good for Apple and should be strictly enforced, but maybe 10% of niceness and 90% of strictness is OK too,” writes Woz.
It seems mistakes are forgiven, but betrayals are not.
Gizmodo: Steve Wozniak On Apple Security, Employee Termination, and Gray Powell
Woz was camped out all night at the Valley Fair Apple store in Santa Clara, Calif. He seems to somehow have gotten his iPad early, because it’s still a couple of hours before 9AM on the west coast. But here he is holding it with a big sh*t-eating grin on his face.
“iPad delight…wow this is better than I ever imagined!”
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