Woz: I Wish to God That Apple and Google Were Partners

If there’s one man who talks tech sense it’s Woz—and never more so than in a recent interview with the BBC. Woz would love it if Apple and Google played friendly, and he makes a very, very good point.

Both have strengths and weaknesses, after all. He explains:

“Sometimes I say ‘Go to Joe’s Diner’ and [Siri] doesn’t know where Joe’s Diner is. And very often usually I find out that Android does… That is actually the future of intelligence probably for computers getting smarter and getting artificial intelligence. I wish to God that Apple and Google were partners in the future.”

But Woz, can that ever happen?

“I don’t know. If I were there, it would be pretty likely. I’m probably wrong, there’s probably an awful lot I don’t know about the business concerns and one thing you’ve got to remember is a company has always got to make money. I wish everybody just did a lot of cross-licensing and sharing the good technology, all our products would be better, we’d go further. I do wish they were more compatible”

Sigh. Ain’t that the sad truth. It’s a shame when progress is stymied by politics, copyrights and profit-making, but it’s an inevitable truth. [BBC]

Image by OnInnovation under Creative Commons license