Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak Praises Android, Criticises Siri

Steve Wozniak has told The Daily Beast that he is a fan of Android and says that it is better than the iPhone in many ways.

The Apple co-founder said that although he still felt that iPhone was the best smartphone overall, Android phones’ voice recognition software and navigation was superior.

Siri doesn’t listen

“My primary phone is the iPhone, I love the beauty of it,” said Wozniak. “But I wish it did all the things my Android does, I really do.” His views differ vastly from his late co-founder and former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who viewed the mobile operating system as a ‘stolen product’ and vowed to destroy it.

Wozniak claims that Android’s voice recognition software is now better than the iPhone’s offering. Wozniak was a fan of Siri as an independent app, but says that since it was built into the iPhone 4S, it doesn’t work as well as it used to.

“I used to ask Siri, ‘What are the five biggest lakes in California?’ and it would come back with the answer. Now it just misses,” he said. “It gives me real estate listings. I used to ask, ‘What are the prime numbers greater than 87?’ and it would answer. Now instead of getting prime numbers, I get listings for prime rib, or prime real estate.”

“I have a lower success rate with Siri than I do with the voice built into the Android, and that bothers me,” he added. “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.”

Wozniak is not alone in having difficulty getting to grips with Siri, with many users who possess strong accents complaining that Siri doesn’t understand them.

History repeating itself?

He also admitted there remains a possibility that Android could do to iOS what Microsoft did to Mac in the 1990s by licensing its software to many different hardware manufacturers to secure a larger market share, as opposed to Apple who only sells its OS on its own hardware. Wozniak said that Android poses a greater threat as “there’s not as big a difference as there was between Mac and Windows,”

Another key difference, according to Wozniak, is that applications for Macs took a long time to look as good as their Windows counterparts, but Android apps may even have the edge over iOS as Apple’s bureaucratic approval process makes Google’s platform easier to develop for.

However the rush by developers to submit apps to Apple’s App Store before the Christmas deadline dsiscredits this theory as it serves to demonstrate Apple’s influence over their mobile app development, as does the fact that iOS apps remain more profitable.

Unsurprisingly, Wozniak reaffirmed his belief that the iPhone was the best smartphone overall, calling it a “phone that is simple to use and does what you need it to do.”