iPhone 6, iPhone 5S Releases Should be Followed by Innovative, Non-iPhone Devices – Steve Wozniak
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has his own wishlist of futuristic iOS devices, which he hopes the tech giant will get around in building once the euphoria expected to surround the iPhone 6, iPhone 5C and iPhone 6 has subsided.
Speaking to Reuters while on a business trip in Singapore, The Woz shared his thoughts on how the once start-up firm he co-founded with Steve Jobs is faring now. The great Apple success story is mostly based on bold innovations and Mr Wozniak maintains the company needs to keep it that way.
While noting that he's not the type to dictate on what path Apple CEO Tim Cook must set for the iPhone maker, the one-time Steve Jobs close pal didn't hold his punches. Mr Wozniak let out his piece in suggesting what other growth areas Apple must look into.
For starters, he prodded the company's creative team to think out of the box and surprise the world with new game-changers - the way Apple did when it broke out the iPod, which redefined the portable music player industry, the iPhone that reinvented the mobile phone and the iPad that created the market for tablet computers.
His pitch on this is a companion gadget for the smartphone. "I want my wearable devices that are basically as complete as my iPhone in their functionality," Mr Wozniak was reported by Business Insider as saying.
The computer wizard didn't specify anything but he was clearly alluding to the projected functions and features of the iWatch, which Apple is rumoured to start ticking by the second half of 2014.
Yet more importantly, Apple needs to learn how to compromise in order to expand its market reach, especially in emerging markets like China, Mr Wozniak said.
As if suggesting that the impending iPhone 5S rollout falls short of attracting hordes of buyers in new territories and establish new grounds for the company, Mr Wozniak floated the possibility of tapping into Chinese expertise to gain a deeper perspective of the local market.
It wouldn't be too bad for Apple to have a Chinese partner in building a mobile phone that fuses the Apple technology and the local craftsmanship, which he admitted would have to absorb some form of tradeoffs that Mr Cook seems to loathe.
Yet he insisted that "we haven't cracked the Chinese market as well as we could," per reports by CNET, so there has to be some adjustments in order for that goal to be realised.
Such phone, Mr Wozniak added, is not necessarily an iPhone variant, instead flashing "totally different features and work in a totally different way."