"The Woz" says Android better than iOS in some ways

Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder and long-time guru for all things Mac, expressed admiration and even envy over some parts of Android he thinks are better than the iOS experience on Apple’s iPhone. Speaking to the Daily Beast, Woz indicated that the iPhone was still his main phone, because he “loves the beauty of it”, but that he wishes it could do many of the things that his Android phone does.

Woz made headlines in late 2011 by picking up a Galaxy Nexus straight from Google headquarters, but apparently has settled on the Droid RAZR as his Android handset of choice. For staunch fans of all things Apple it may sound like blasphemy coming from Woz, but he says that along side Android’s extra complexity comes a lot of superior implementations.

Some items may come as no surprise to long-time readers of PA; for example Woz prefers the turn by turn navigation that Google has implemented on Android. He also cited the recent battery problems that many have complained about on the iPhone 4S as a negative. But one of his biggest gripes may surprise you: Woz doesn’t like Siri.

He says he was a big fan of the predecessor app when it was separately available in the App Store. But ever since Apple bought it out and integrated it into the iPhone 4S, he says the results are significantly worse. According to Woz:

“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. 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.”

He also dislikes it being connected to Apple’s backend servers. He says he frequently finds that Siri can’t connect, robbing him of simple voice controls like asking the phone to dial his wife. He says the voice controls on Android never have this problem, since they control the phone without having to contract a server. He also indicated that voice search on Android now returns better results than Siri does, saying “that really bothers me.”

The Woz wasn’t endorsing Android as superior to iOS – he says in particular that people who want an intuitive device, or dislike computers in general, should choose the iPhone, which he still feels is the best all-around smartphone on the market. But the respect Wozniak has for Android and Andy Rubin’s team is an excellent reminder that right now there isn’t a mobile OS that is head and shoulders above all the others, what it comes down to is what you want to get out of your phone.

source: The Daily Beast