Wires Crossed #67 – January 20

Woz Loves Android
Stranger things have happened, but it’s true – Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, likes the Android operating system and even goes so far as to say that Android has better voice recognition and GPS offerings than the iPhone. But before we get too carried away, it must be said that The Woz primary mobile handset is his iPhone 4S. What is interesting though is that he spruiks the simplicity of the iPhone as one of its main benefits. Not sure if he should be saying that out aloud, after all it is a smartphone, the emphasis being on the word ‘smart’. Still think it weird The Woz touting the benefits of Android over Apple. What next? Sir Howard Stringer waxing lyrical about Samsung OLED TVs?

Murdoch Fires Salvo At Obama
Nobody can accuse News Corp head honcho Rupert Murdoch of being a luddite. The Octogenarian has taken to Twitter like David Warner has to the Indian bowling attack, and he’s hit a few out the park, too – colloquially speaking that is. He’s already had a crack at the Obama administration and its take on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that is trying to get passed in the US (although initially it looked like he was having a crack at telco carrier Optus due to the auto correct on his iPad). He also tossed a grenade at Google on the same subject. While he does say that he likes a lot of what Google does, he allegedly finds the search engine giant an enabler of bit torrent sites that harbour pirated copies of movies and television programmes.

EA For SOPA?
It looks like Murdoch does have some support with regard to the SOPA legislation in the form of gaming publisher EA, which is one of the biggest game publishers in the world. It appears it has joined the side of the US government in the argument according to a leaked memo from a senior VP from the company who stated that it agreed “with them on most issues”. Who would be surprised by  this? No us. With films, television programmes, music and games being the most pirated products on the planet, of course the people who produce entertainment items are going to support anything that would protect their interests. Not hard to understand at all.

Scully:Jobs Was Never Fired
One of the great stories surrounding Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs was his rise, then fall, then rise again to the top of the heap at Apple Inc. One of the main planks to the story was that he was fired by former CEO John Sculley, something Jobs even mentioned in a speech he gave at Stanford in 2005. It must have stuck in Jobs’ craw that the guy who he brought on board ended up firing him, and it also garnered him some sympathy at the time. Now, Sculley claims it never happened, and Jobs was merely demoted from being the head of McIntosh. According to Sculley, Jobs then decided to leave the company. Here at Wires Crossed we wonder why this well-known and well-publicised event was never questioned by Sculley when Jobs was alive. Why do so now? Hhmmmmm.