Jobs and Woz: Together Again?

Wireless Week joins the fray with what appears to be further speculation regarding Apple's entry into the "smart" phone market. While this may simply be a rehash of iPhone rumors, it's the first to bring Woz and Jobs back together:

Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple, and his former partner, Steve Wozniak, are said to be developing a "smart" phone in an attempt to kick-start the market for next-generation mobile phones in the same way that the company's computers popularised personal computing.

Wozniak has been involved with Danger.com since late last year. Danger is due to release it's combo cell-phone and web-browsing handheld ("Hiptop") in the fall.

The Danger device has nothing to do with Jobs.

He may have been seen holding one at some point, but there is no involvement as of yet.

I beleive Woz sits on Danger's board because he had a relationship with Andy Rubin (Danger's CEO), when Rubin worked at Apple. He's also a notorious gadget freak!

Also, Woz has been involved with Danger, Inc., not Danger.com. Danger.com is merely Danger, Inc.'s marketing and info site, and not their company name (the .com as part of company became passé in the pets.com days).

I've been using the Danger device for a few weeks, and while terribly cool, it is targeted at a teen demographic, with key points being ring tones, games, SMS, crappy snapshots, etc.

This is not the Apple arena...we've seen that ever since the fruit flavored hippy dog computers went sleek.

The Danger device is all Java, so I predict that when they hit market, you'll see plenty of good apps and hacks, but for not, it is a teen toy with a browser.

Also, as an odd aside, mine has service from Cingular, but a bit 'T-Mobile' printed on it...

It'd be pretty cool to have them together after all these years. Although, I see Woz's new thing Wheels Of Zeus (guess where that came from) instead of Danger.

Originally posted by drastik
It'd be pretty cool to have them together after all these years. Although, I see Woz's new thing Wheels Of Zeus (guess where that came from) instead of Danger.

oops - you're right... article updated.

It'll be interesting to see what comes from Woz....

arn

yeah, if this rumor is correct, it definitely will want to be better designed than the Hiptop... The aesthetics of the Hiptop do not look well polished.

Originally posted by theaz
yeah, if this rumor is correct, it definitely will want to be better designed than the Hiptop... The aesthetics of the Hiptop do not look well polished.

The HipTop is fairly well laid out as a browsing device, but it is a horrible phone (ergonomically).

It is convex, so the phone doesn't match the contour of the face. Also, the UI needs more work. It is not very intuitive, and the natural movement often takes you to the incorrect place.

Those problems aside, it is a VERY cool device, and will be the Christmas gift of choice for the 12-20 crowd.

Success in this market should lead to a rev 3 (rev 2 is color) device with better usablity, and more funding to make more adult apps available.

Apple has a good chance to surprise ZDnet's anchordesk, IMO.

Look at this article: "Why I'm still waiting for the perfect PDA/phone."

http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2878490,00.html

They chose the iPod as th best mp3 player, so why not the iPhone ...

Originally posted by Nipsy


The HipTop is fairly well laid out as a browsing device, but it is a horrible phone (ergonomically).

It is convex, so the phone doesn't match the contour of the face....

While I was viewing the flash demo, I had a thought -- why do all combo phone/PDA makers put the PDA screen on the same side of the device as the phone speaker and microphone? (I know that there are better terms, but "earpiece" and "mouthpiece" sound out of place when referring to an all-in-one device.)

By moving the PDA screen to the back side of the phone, there would be a few advantages:

1. No more smudging the PDA screen with your face when you put the phone up to your ear.

2. You could build functionality into the PDA side of the device (keypad, protective lip around the screen) without worrying about keeping the phone side concave.

3. For fun, I imagined that my old Handspring Visor had a phone built into its backside. Tapping on the screen to "make a call" and then putting it against my face to "talk" seemed to be a very natural motion, whether my Visor was on my desk or in my hand.

Just a thought. Maybe I should try to patent this - it would be a better income plan than my present one, which is to play the Megamillions game. :)

So where can a fella find out more about this Wheels of Zeus thing? woz.com is, strangely enough, failing to respond right now for me...

Actually, the speaker and microphone of the Nokia 9110 is located on the other side than the screen, like you describe.

However, if you hold a PDA in your left hand and tap on the screen, you would have to turn it 180 degrees when moving it to your ear. I would find that rather annoying, I think.