Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was interviewed by Australia’s Financial Review recently, and told the publication he would be buying the entry-level Apple Watch Sport.
“If you buy the really high-priced ones, the jewellery ones, then you’re not buying a smartwatch that has a bunch of apps … Like a Rolex watch, you’re buying if for prestige and a label and a symbol of who you are,” Mr Wozniak said.
“The fact is the difference between a $10,000 watch and a $17,000 dollar watch is only the band, and for an engineer like me I don’t live in that world, that’s not my world.”
Wozniak said he was “waiting to judge whether they would be worth permanent wrist space,” noting that he had previously tried other smartwatches, like the Samsung Galaxy Gear, but stopped wearing them “once the novelty had worn off.”
The Woz also discussed comments by Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk that computers would eventually supercede humans:
“Like people including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have predicted, I agree that the future is scary and very bad for people. If we build these devices to take care of everything for us, eventually they’ll think faster than us and they’ll get rid of the slow humans to run companies more efficiently,” Mr Wozniak said.
“Will we be the gods? Will we be the family pets? Or will we be ants that get stepped on? I don’t know about that … But when I got that thinking in my head about if I’m going to be treated in the future as a pet to these smart machines … well I’m going to treat my own pet dog really nice.”
Wozniak is also a well-known fan of the Tesla electric car, noting the Tesla Model S P85D electric car was one of the finest pieces of technology he has ever owned. However, he is excited about the rumors that Apple was working on an electric car.
“There are an awful lot of companies right now who are playing with electric cars and there’s a lot more playing with self-driving cars, this is the future and it might be huge … there are so many openings here and it is perfect territory for a company like Apple.”
Wozniak noted that for a company of Apple’s size to grow dramatically it would need to enter a new market segment that had the potential for mass sales, Woz said that cars would fit the bill.
