Woz Sounds Off On Innovation, iPhones and More

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, has a wealth of opinions. It's a trait that's helped to make "The Wizard of Woz" so successful and entertaining through the years.

In advance of his keynote address at ScanSource's ImpactNow event next month, Wozniak recently spoke with Everything Channel about everything from the economy's future to iPhones.

Predictably, his answers are unpredictable, and it's an appetizer for what solution providers are in store for when they will get the chance to ask Wozniak anything they want during an interactive session at next month's Impact Now event. The following are excerpts from the conversation:

With the financial market flailing, I have to ask you what you think of the bailout and what's happening on Wall Street. Do you think the government is making the right moves?

I have to be honest, I'm not a big stock market guy. People are talking about it, so I've heard about it. I'm not really surprised. The stock market has been going up and down all my life. We have five years, 10 years, off and on. This one didn't really surprise me. I've watched the national debt increase. You can't keep borrowing and borrowing and not expect something to happen. I'm a little pessimistic because I don't like to be in big debt. Now that you can barely pay the increase in the interest, you have to tighten up.

Do you think technology can still help companies, in that it can help them reduce costs and become more efficient?

The problem is it's not technology. Technology is just a tool. The key to it is what you do with technology. You can have a computer that runs 10 times as fast, 20 times as fast, but there's no more work getting done if you don't change the methods you have to get the work done. For the last 20 or 30 years, the computer business has been nothing more than replacements and upgrades. That, to me, seems kind of elastic. Can you postpone an upgrade for a year? That's not going to help you run your business better or worse.

Do you think people will be more tight with their IT spending the rest of the year?

In terms of what people will buy for Christmas, people already have their iPods. What's so new now that didn't exist before? These are tough times for the industry, but we've gone through it before. I don't think it will be anything like the dot-com bust. In 2003, San Jose lost population for the first time in its history. Right in the heart of Silicon Valley. I don't think that will happen again.

What technologies or products or companies excite you today? Who is really ahead of the game?

For the long term, Google is on a really good path. There's a major source of wealth to come from companies in the environmentally friendly [sector]. Google will go into that so much in the next decade.

Do you think selling "green" technology is a sound business decision for solution providers, our readers, or is it more hype?

I'm not talking about a "green" computer. What's a "green" computer anyway? Is it less computer? It's about making a good business decision. It's being a little more polite to the environment. If you buy less, if you buy a smaller car, that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to save the environment. If you have a little more money by buying an electric car, does that money go to a second car? How does that help? The cost of manufacturing that car creates pollution too. If you have some little piece of equipment, there is a cost to build, there's a dollars to joules ratio. You have to do your homework. I think only deep engineers and analysts can do that. I think you find out that you really save little.

So utilizing green technology has certain costs and risks associated with it? For example, it's like driving 10 extra miles to save 5 cents per gallon on gas. The gas it takes you to get there doesn't make up for the savings.

A lot of people don't like to hear the total analysis. They want to pick out one green thing and stick with that. Solar cells on your roof cost more energy to make than you will save by using them It's a difficult question to answer.

Do you feel there is as much innovation in technology today as there was five or 10 years ago? With so much consolidation in the industry, sometimes we worry that big companies don't have to be as innovative as they once were.

There is innovation in things you don't expect. Most companies and technologies that you're familiar with, that [lack of innovation] is true. But there will always be people with creative abilities. Look at the way someone designs their MySpace pages, or creates videos for YouTube. Creative energy still finds a way to get out. But it's been an awful long time in the computer space since there's been any real innovation.

In this space there's all kinds of little tiny products you can sell enough to be a business. Some are developed by one little guy in his house or garage. It might be a USB charger in the shape of a bunny rabbit. There is some of that innovation, but it's not deep, deep stuff. As soon as this industry became a $1 billion industry and big companies had resources to pour in, it became difficult to do something worthwhile today. Often the surprises we see are based on new atomic-level technology. There are some nano-technology approaches today. It might be a new photo-switching computer circuit. But big companies will miss it because it doesn't have value to them.

Next: Woz On iPhones

How can that technology help a business? Can it still be a differentiator?

I would love to see the Apple II of robots. Something you might be able to buy for a couple thousand bucks. You can sit down and with a simple scripting type language program it could wash dishes, wash your car. Do a bunch of little things that we now have to spend valuable time doing.

I've always found it fascinating that we can build technology to put a man on the moon but we still get down on our hands and knees to clean cat poop out of a litter box. So there's still opportunity in utilizing technology to make our own lives and businesses more efficient?

Think of it this way. There is a lot of human intelligence that goes into making a cup of coffee. I could walk into your house and make a cup of coffee. I could find the kitchen, find the coffee machine, decide how this one works. I know how to look in your drawers to find filters. That's a lot of deep thinking. We learn over time to do that because we see how others make coffee. Find out how a machine can do that. There's a lot of deep artificial intelligence needed to do those kinds of things.

You've always been a strong gadget guy. The last time we talked to you, you had just bought an iPhone. Do you still have it?

I have three iPhones now. I loved it from the start. It's indispensable for what it is. But it is an American product. Which means it doesn't do things up to what European products do. It was designed with features low, which you don't expect from Apple. I carry multiple phones. I finally got rid of my Blackberry. I have one for calendaring, one for applications. I carry another [device] for my voice phone. I don't mind carrying two devices, but if I had to have one phone it would be an iPhone. I don't like being stuck to one carrier. And AT&T is talking about dropping unlimited data plans.

I travel a lot and I love to get data from my computer through my cell phone. But that's hard here. I was just in Eastern Europe. They've got 7 MB [per second] going to 14MB per second] over 3G. People are buying their Internet for home and they're using cellular not broadband. That's through their computer as well as a phone. Eastern Europe, that's the place I want to live in. They've had capitalism for 20 years now and they found the good parts and haven't corroded it yet.

If you could create the one, truly perfect device, what would it be?

They already have it: a MacBook Pro. But really, I would want an iPhone with much more openness and accessibility to third-party developers, not limited to one data carrier. The carriers would compete to create lower data prices. You'd also be able to get plans that cover Euorpe at a reasonable price. There would be a fuller implementation of the Bluetooth specs. Like stereo and auto-answer on Bluetooth. I'd have a couple more hard-push buttons on the side and be able to speak some commands to it. Part of it is based on products I've had in the past. As far as the Internet, I wish it had a larger screen. I know that makes it a larger phone. Sometimes I get a little turned off by the navigation hassles of gesturing or I accidentally click. There's no way this could be done, but I wish I could do it all one-handed. What technology excites you today?

I love the organic LEDs, showing flexible displays. Finally we have real LED type displays that you can paste on the side of a car, or wear as clothing.

What was the last technology product you bought?

The last thing I bought? I bought a iPhone and gave it to a guy, like a hacker, in Brazil. I wanted to have the first 3G iPhone in Brazil. I bought some 16GB micro SD cards. I just got the HD Slingbox that can serve high definition. I have the regular one and the HD one is not a lot different. HD is really a phony word anyway. It's the number of bits vertical and horizontal on a screen. What really matters is how many bytes per second are you actually streaming? Blue-Ray is the best at that. Comcast is up there. Apple TV is actually fairly low as the numbers go. With Slingbox I do not expect to have an HD experience. Even 4 MB per second, where my home is, is the best I ever get. That's not watching real HD. But I don't care when I'm in another country as long as I can tune in to my TiVo and watch the Presidential debate, I'm satisfied. That's not the time to say quality.

There seems to be a stronger prevalence now for convenience over quality. Do you agree and is that a problem?

Look at audio. When we were young, we concentrated on the fidelity. The better amplifiers, more lows, more highs. Then MP3s came out and we said forget quality, convenience wins. That goes along with a lot of the digital world. Quality has become more of a luxury. I'm not saying that's bad. We find this need for quality then we don't need more than a certain adequate level.

What do you plan to talk to solution providers about next month when you speak at ScanSource's ImpactNow show in Orlando?

I don't know yet. I have a busy schedule, I have little specific ideas, but I try to get there early to meet people the day before, then I go back to my hotel room and figure out what is going to mean the most to them, what will be entertaining to them, what will they feel good about.

If you were a young person today, would you get into the IT industry? Specifically what advice would you have for selling technology solutions to businesses?

That's a tough question. I've never been in retailing myself. When is a right time be in that business? It seems to me large businesses today have established relationships and they've been established for so long and they get IT needs fulfilled, so it would be tough to break in for a newcomer. But if you have real sparkling ideas and you work at it, it can happen. As far as niche opportunities, you have to know what you're doing.