Steve Wozniak may be more famously associated with one of Android’s biggest rivals – in fact, he co-founded Apple – but he appears to have quite the soft spot for Google. While giving a keynote address at the eMerge Americas tech conference in Miami, which took place earlier this week, he reportedly even went so far as to apparently place Google well ahead of its competitors in at least two key areas.
The first topic Wozniak tapped into with regards to Google’s superiority is in the company’s AI-based digital assistant, Google Assistant. Wozniak seemed most impressed by Google Assistant’s contextual awareness. By way of example, he outlined how Apple’s Siri can become confused by questions that Google’s A.I.-helper seems to be able to handle easily enough. You can ask Siri about glass, and get a basic response about what glass is. But Google’s virtual assistant “will understand” and make the connection if, for example, a public figure is being discussed on the internet who also has the last name Glass. The result is smarter, more contextually relevant results and responses. Wozniak also briefly touched on Google’s efforts into telecommunications with Project Fi. On that front, he praised the groundbreaking premise that the service offers in that it simply “picks up the best network and wifi with low cost for data, voice, and text” and that it works across 115 countries.
Wozniak is a well-known tech junky, with a lot of love for a lot of different types of tech and its makers. He has shown with some regularity that his loyalty lies with the tech itself instead of any given manufacturer or developer. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise when he opts to praise any other company instead of the one he helped start. This also is not the first time he’s touted a company that would be in direct competition with Apple. Google Assistant is found across a growing list of Google’s different products whether that’s in Google Now as part of the Google app itself, or in a wide variety of other devices such as Google Home. That it now exists on a larger number of platforms speaks volumes about Google’s efforts and its hard-earned success in the area. That said, it’s always nice to get some vindication.