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Steve Wozniak left Apple 12 years ago but still loves the company. In this interview, he revealed that in his opinion the iPhone is a lot more than technology: It’s a human concept. He agrees that the iPhone does not have everything it should have but the Mac and the iPod were both missing features when they first came out. Both products turned out to be huge successes.

Simplicity and effectiveness: For an electronic device to have success, it must have technological qualities that everyone can understand. It is this maxim which guided Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, the founders of APPLE, when they launched the first personal computer in the world. And it is the same maxim which guided Apple at the time of the development of its last innovation: the iPhone.

Steve Wozniak shared his impressions on the iPhone with a french-speaking newspaper:

Q: What distinguish the iPhone from other devices?

R (Steve Wozniak): "With its large screen and a brower that respects the format of web pages, the iPhone is a human concept, and not a technological concept. APPLE decided to offer what people really wish: a wireless device which at the same time enables them to make phone calls and being able to visit the same web pages as those which they consult on their home computer. They do not want pages atrophied that the other wireless devices offer to them".

Q: It misses however some phone features. Is this a problem?

R (Steve Wozniak): "The iPhone does not have all the characteristics of most of modern mobile phones, but they could be added to it in the future. The principle was to launch a device which resembles more to what a phone should in the Internet era. We made the same thing with Macintosh: it was expensive and did not do many things. But with time, these points were corrected and it had success, because it corresponded to what people wanted".

Q: It is also what occurred with the iPod?

R (Steve Wozniak): "Yes. People wanted to listen to music everywhere they went. APPLE developed a device which allows them to do that. The iPod was conceived to be the most discrete of all the music devices on the market, easiest to use, but especially, it included an access to iTunes Store, to provide them songs in all simplicity. What is most important? The user or the technology? The engineers and the developers should spend more time designing a product which corresponds to the user’s needs, than to develop a technology and hoping that the user adapts to it.

Q: The iPhone is Wi-Fi enabled which could satisfy one of the first needs for the consumers: to make less expensive phone calls. However, the function of telephone on Wi-Fi networks will be blocked. Why?

R (Steve Wozniak): "Quite simply because the operators of telecommunications do not allow it. They want to protect their market because, in a Wi-Fi zone, the consumers can make a phone call at a cost less than on cellular networks. Currently, the operators are the masters of the wireless industry and dictate the characteristics which a product must have. If a company as APPLE proposes a revolutionary idea, it inevitably runs up against them.

Q: APPLE created sensation these last years. Which other companies impressed you?

R (Steve Wozniak): "Samsung, in the field of the liquid crystal displays. They developed screens of excellent quality and equipped with a very effective energy consumption technology. There is also Google, for its way of treating its employees. The company understands well what the engineers want, in which environment they like to work. I know many former and very good employees of APPLE who work now for Google. It also impresses me by its way of exploiting Internet infrastructures effectively in order to improve the Web and providing to the Net surfers really human services. There is also Toyota and its hybrid vehicle Prius, the Dutch company TomTom and its GPS Device and Research In Motion (RIM). "

Q: Why RIM?

R (Steve Wozniak): For the same reasons that I like APPLE. Its BlackBerry is initially conceived according to consumer’s needs: it’s the easiest PDA to use since you can control it all with one finger.

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