Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak believes Google’s Android operating system will eventually dominate the smartphone market, but only if consistency improves.
Wozniak told Dutch daily De Telegraaf that Apple’s iOS is the current benchmark for smartphone software, but predicted that Android will eventually close the gap and dominate through sheer device numbers in the same way Microsoft has ruled the PC world.
He conceded that Android devices offer more features than the iPhone, but noted that the Apple device has “very few weaknesses,” and a similarly low number of “true complaints and problems.”
Indeed, the biggest flaw to hit the iPhone to-date was the so-called Antenna gate problem on the iPhone 4.
Android is also facing many of the same problems Microsoft encountered in the early days of its PC software in terms of the consistency of the user experience, Wozniak said.
Fragmentation has failed to stop Android storming up the sales charts, with the OS grabbing almost 20% more market share than iOS in the US during 3Q, according to Canalys.
Wozniak issued a damning verdict on Nokia, claiming the firm has the “mark of a previous generation” hanging over it, and that it should launch a fresh, youth-oriented, brand.
The Finnish vendor was hard hit by the launch of the iPhone in 2007, which Wozniak said was around two years ahead of the market in terms of screen technology, battery life and software.
The iPhone was actually Apple’s second attempt at producing a smartphone. A previous unit developed with an unnamed Japanese vendor in 2004 was ditched because Apple didn’t think it would revolutionize the market.