Woz would love to see iTunes for Android, also jailbreaking community reminds him of his youth
Putting aside any love or hate you have for Apple, you can’t but help like Steve Wozniak. The man is a legend. The Apple co-founder, who invented the Apple I and Apple II computers, has been talking with community members over at Slashdot and during the discussion the topic of Android popped up!
As part of the “interview” members posted all manner of questions for Woz ranging from “What new stuff excites you most now?” to “Where do you think the iPhone is going?”. Along the way Android was mentioned a few times. His first comment on the open source OS was that “iOS 6 is not inferior to Android” and let’s face it, he is right. You might not want to own an Apple mobile device, you might love Android for its openness, freedom and broadness (in terms of hardware support) but iOS isn’t inferior to Android. But neither is Android inferior to iOS!
When the topic of jailbreaking (rooting as we call it in the Android sphere) came up, Woz was quite keen. He says it reminds him of his younger self. “I have always given my support to the jailbreak community because they remind me of myself when I met Steve Jobs and how we were, then and for the years leading to Apple.”
The next mention of Android is quite stunning. Woz loves iTunes, OK he is the Apple co-founder, he is an Apple share holder, fine. But Woz has a broad view in terms of how prevalent iTunes should be. You see, Woz points out that Apple ported iTunes to Windows so that it could connect with customers who didn’t have a Mac. So Woz thinks that Apple should do the same with Android. “So why don’t we port iTunes to Android?” says Woz. “Did something get closed up? I love Apple products and iTunes and wish it were on my Android products too.”
This is an interesting point. The current smartphone market is made up of much more than just the phone itself. It is the eco-system that matters. Google has its Play Store, Apple has iTunes and Amazon has its whole online presence. Leaving aside apps, which obviously will only run on the right OS, films, music and TV shows can all be watched on any modern mobile device regardless of the OS. It is a simple thing to buy a MP3 album on Amazon and listen to it on an iPhone. The opposite is also true, it is easy to buy music on iTunes and listen to it on an Android device. Because of DRM issues it isn’t so easy with films or TV shows, so if Apple ported iTunes to Android it would open up a whole new market to Apple and offer a new source of content to Android users.
What do you think, should Apple port iTunes to Android? Rather like the Amazon MP3 store, do you think you would buy music, films and TV shows to watch on your Android device via iTunes? Leave a comment below to let me know your thoughts.
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