Steve Wozniak bashes iPad Air: “I don’t want one”

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak – or Woz as he is more commonly known – has said that he doesn’t want an iPad Air because it doesn’t meet his needs.

Speaking at Apps World on 23 October, Woz revealed that he hadn’t seen Apple’s iPad event keynote because he was flying, but that he caught up on the news when he landed in the UK. Having now read up about the iPad Air and Retina iPad mini, though, Woz says that he doesn’t actually want one after all.

“I am constantly following the gadget world but I was on a plane and missed all of the keynote,” said Woz. “When I finally took a look at the devices, the iPads didn’t hit my needs.”

The iPad Air is much thinner and lighter than the fourth-generation iPad. It has a new, speedier A7 processor as well as the M7 chip introduced with the iPhone 5S. But Woz still isn’t impressed. “Yes it’s thinner, but I wanted storage. I don’t have broadband at home, and you can’t get great broadband connection in hotels, so I carry all my personal media in the iPad. So I was hoping Apple has a 256GB iPad,” Woz explained. “I was hoping for more storage so I could put every episode of Big Bang Theory on my iPad. So I emailed my wife and said ‘nope, I don’t want one of those.”

Apple did introduce a 128GB model of the iPad earlier this year, which continues with the iPad Air, and has also added a 128GB version of its iPad mini to the line-up. However, we think a 256GB version of the iPad might be a little bit much, at least for now. Most people won’t need more than the 128GB available, they’re using it like a laptop and carrying around their entire music, photo and video collections.

UPDATE: Woz has since said that he “never criticised the new iPads” and insists that he simply meant that the iPad Air “wasn’t enough of a critical change to get my money.” The new Retina MacBook Pro, on the other hand, caught Woz’s eye thanks to the 1TB of SSD. [ Via Cult of Mac]

Find out more about the iPad Air and what we think about it in our iPad Air hands-on review

Also, we found it quite surprising that Woz doesn’t have broadband at home, but he explained that it’s “because of his lousy phone company, but that is life.”

“It is really sad as I was the one that had a 1MB line back in the day when everyone else was on dial up,” he added. “I was the king of the hill.”

As for the new Retina iPad mini, Woz says that the 7.9in tablet is “just a hair too large” for his liking.

Find our more about the iPad mini 2 find out our reactions in our Retina iPad mini hands-on review

Despite his comments, we wouldn’t be surprised if Woz still queues up to buy himself Apple’s new iPad. Last year, Woz headed down to an Apple Store in LA with his wife to queue for a new iPad on the day of launch.

[ Via TechRadar]

All of our iPad Air coverage:

iPad Air review (all Macworld’s  iPad reviews)

What people love about the iPad Air |  What people hate about the iPad Air