Jobs declines Wozniak book request

Apple's Steve Jobs has backed out of writing a foreword for his former business partner and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak's upcoming book. Jobs reportedly declined after reading portions of the book. Wozniak, who gives Jobs a "great deal" of credit for turning around Apple, said that he was "a little disappointed," noting that Jobs initially had indicated he'd write a foreword. "But he'd never written a foreword before and I said, 'Just write what we were like back then,' according to an interview with The Seattle Times. "We sent him the book and he said, 'Oh, I saw some excerpts, and I'm going to decline writing the foreword.'" Wozniak, who remains on Apple's payroll for its health benefits and receives special VIP invitations to all Apple events from Jobs, also revealed that both he and Jobs aren't close friends and don't see eye-to-eye much of the time, although he admits their differing view points probably helped Apple in the early days. [corrected]

Wozniak described himself as more of an inventor/engineer, while Jobs was a businessman and visionary.

"Even when Apple really got started we weren't close friends because he had a different motivation in the company, which was to run a company, and mine was just to be a top engineer that did clever, clever projects," he said. "So we almost never saw each other in the company."

Responding to Apple's new Boot Camp technology that allows users to select either Windows or Mac OS X during startup on its new Intel-based Macs, Wozniak said that he was not impressed.

"I don't think anything of it at all. You know, people say a bunch of PC people will now buy Macs. No. What I really want is just a window that I can go back and forth instantly. I don't have to reboot," he responded. The Woz, as he is affectionately known, said that he uses Microsoft's Virtual PC on his PowerPC-based Mac, which allows him to instantly switch between the environments--without rebooting--although he does admit the software is slow.

Microsoft says it is still evaluating the future of Virtual PC for Intel-based Macs.

Filed under: Apple