Speaking at a keynote session at Storage Network World in Santa Clara, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was asked how tablet devices had changed the computer industry – his answer was that these devices are for ‘normal’ people – not geeks. Woz told the audience of enterprise storage engineers that:
The tablet is not necessarily for the people in this room. It’s for the normal people in the world.
Woz also said that it was also Steve Jobs’ intention to create products that were normal consumer appliances:
I think Steve Jobs had that intention from the day we started Apple, but it was just hard to get there, because we had to go through a lot of steps where you connected to things, and (eventually) computers grew up to where they could do … normal consumer appliance things.
Woz established Apple Computer, Inc. – along with Jobs and Ronald Wayne – around 35 years ago. He hasn’t worked for the company since the 1980s, and is now chief scientist at solid-state storage vendor Fusion-io. Though it’s believed he still has a close relationship with Apple’s CEO.
Woz also mentioned Android tablets at the keynote, hoping they never take over the iPad:
“On the subject of tablets, I read today that Android tablets are expected to surpass iPads, and I hope that never happens.
