Tim Cook personally sent Steve Wozniak an iPhone X, Apple’s latest commercial and critical smash hit. Woz’s ringing endorsement of the flagship iPhone? “It works fine, but it’s not what I would want.”
Ouch!
Woz issued this verdict to an Australian newspaper while in the country to speak at the Pivot Summit in Geelong, Victoria. Cook invited Woz to try out the iPhone X after hearing that it was the first iPhone he didn’t plan to buy on “day one.”
At the time, Woz said didn’t really need the upgrade (and wasn’t convinced Face ID would work as well as promised).
“I’m happy with my iPhone 8 — which is the same as the iPhone 7, which is the same as the iPhone 6, to me,” Woz said back in October. “For some reason, the iPhone X is going to be the first iPhone I didn’t — on day one — upgrade to. But my wife will, so I’ll be close enough to see it.”
Apple dutifully sent over an iPhone X to Woz, who now says he “bit the bullet” and gave it a go. The result? He’s not a fan of Face ID.
“I think what I would want is Touch ID on the back,” he noted. “I’d want that more than anything. Face ID slows down my Apple Pay, and it fails enough times I have to keep typing the password.”
He continued: “I have friends who actually turned off Face ID and turned passwords on to make their phone simple to use.”
Apple is still the best
Despite this brutal slamming of the iPhone X’s killer feature, Woz said he still likes Apple more than its rivals.
“If you look at Google, Facebook and Amazon, we’re really being taken advantage of,” he said. “We’re the weak guy, and they’re the big powerful guy exerting their power, continually getting more power and wealth over us.” Woz said that, of all the tech giants, “Apple is the one that makes its money off of good products.”
This isn’t the first time Woz expressed views counter to what Apple would no doubt prefer. Previously, he suggested that Apple should consider building an Android device, called the Apple Watch a “luxury fitness band,” and likened Steve Jobs’ personality to that of Donald Trump — not in an altogether favorable way.
Sometimes Woz walks back these types of comments at a later date. However, provided the iPhone X quotes are legitimate, it seems pretty clear that Woz isn’t going to be wheeled out by Apple as a cuddly spokesman anytime soon.
Source: ChannelNews
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
6 responses to “Woz ‘bit the bullet’ and tried iPhone X. It’s not for him.”
Woz obviously played a great role in the early story of Apple, but he’s commenting purely at the level of a user here, His opinions nowadays are just equally as valid as those of a random user who, by their own admission, are “Not into phones”.
Only his negative comments ever make news.
I think it is good that Woz has a mind of his own and will say what he feels is right, he does not come across as a sold-out puppet barking out the corporate message as part of a blanket brainwash propaganda program.
I agree with Woz. Touch ID is faster, and wish they would have made that on the back like the Pixel. Face ID isn’t good in the dark, it does slow the phone down. Hopefully Apple learns from this and fixes the issues.
Completely agree with Woz, don’t care at all for face id.
Woz is entitled to his opinion, but IMO it’s a cognitively dissonant one. Apple, who charges tremendous markup on every item sold, and exercises stranglehold control over their ecosystem, boldly and deliberately disadvantaging competitors, is somehow more “pure” to him because they “make money off of good products”?
As opposed to Amazon who has gotten retail to the point where I can order something right now, pay the cheapest price for it, and have it at my door tomorrow for no shipping cost? And who has commoditized IT with the largest (and growing) cloud platform that allows you to get started for free for a year?
Or Google and Facebook who basically give everything away, in exchange for showing you ads and “collecting data”? Some people seem to really believe that any individual is actually interesting to these organizations. All that is interesting is a massive aggregate. And the data collected feeds back to make the free products better. No one is forcing anyone to use them and they *are free*. If you are enormously paranoid or feel your browsing and clicking habits are a secret gold mine, then don’t use them
How the heck Woz makes the leap of logic to some weird “Davy and Goliath” analogy about them having “power of us” is beyond me. Companies that have “power of us” are companies like Equifax. Or the large banks that control the financial system whether you like it or not. Or the oil companies who can actually drive policy*away* from alternative energy or environmental protections. And *none* of the companies can be ignored or escaped if you live *anywhere* in the Western world.
Id argue that Apple charging $250 more for features Samsung had 2 years ago, *and* making like 45% profit on *hardware* (*including* freakin R&D and snacks in the micro kitchen!), while offering mediocre services that you are almost forced to use (Google Maps or Waze on CarPlay so you don’t drive off a cliff? Nah) is more egregious.
I like face id. Just don’t like the size of the iphone x. They should of released an iPhone x plus same time as the iPhone x. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Bottom line it comes down to user preference.