The decade begins with Apple and Google at war in the marketplace, an aging and frail Microsoft propped up by it's Windows dependent hardware manufacturers, each with experimental Linux devices running Android, ChromeOS or Ubuntu, and Moore's Law is gone.

In all the confusion and noise, there is always something a technologist can tune-in to: "What Would Woz Do?" or WWWozDo?

The consumer electronics market is polarized by ad campaigns repeating the misguided message that it's worthwhile to seek or claim authority on which is the best gadget. Pundit rants and paid content are laden with traffic generating, polarized language like "iPhone vs Android" or "(insert product) is an underdog" and "(insert company 1) is entering into (insert company 2) territory".

Lately the news broke that Steve Wozniak has a Google Nexus.

The market is half proud (almost) and half aghast (almost). I say almost, because the .01% of the market that is distinguished by a critical yet unified and inviolable technical curiosity will never be zealous enough about brand or image to ignore a user experience produced through hard work and developer life-force. The makers and technologists, including me, are relieved. I carry an iPhone3G and a Nexus One as well.

Some of us in the Apple camp are also in the Google camp. We are hidden but we are legion. We love our Androids, because we can make whatever apps we please and sell them to whomever we want, bugs, imperfections, odd use cases and all. We love our iPhones because the intuitive JFW interface (just f#$ing works) and the apps that make "wow" too small a word.

I don't enjoy that the Android Market has a bar so low you can charge 5 bucks for a "hello world app". For that reason I can't suggest an Android for my mom or my kids. I don't enjoy that I can not come up with the motivation to even begin the iPhone App process because I am averse to ambiguous approval processes (we were all teenagers once,.. once.). None of the people in the world can actually say that these are perfect systems, They are, at best, two attempts at getting a job right, in a market obsessed with getting the sales right. The crack you see between these devices is the visible and palpable element of 20th century capitalism that the users have outgrown but the industry has not.

We will see, in time, who can meet the first rule of 21st century technical market victory first. That rule being: Do your best to give the consumer whatever tools you can, to help them save human life.

Google has a vision of a "star-faring" human race unified in their exploration of knowledge and intellectual curiosity. The ideal human cultural relationship with knowledge.

Apple sees a future where the perfection of human interface, user experience and intuitive industrial design allow us to experience life to the fullest, discover ourselves and express who we are before we pass on. The ideal human-machine relationship.

Both are loved by so many, but like the chasm between their platforms they are also plagued by last century's game. One enmeshed in advertising so much so that they can not operate without selling influence. The other drunk with media, unable to turn off the dream, as if the jukebox just had one button marked "louder" confusingly pushed in search of silence.

The consumer has a very difficult road ahead if we're going to sort this all out. Remember though, we can save the new super-powers from the zero sum by asking ourselves #wwwozdo? The vision is more like Stargate Atlantis. We live for the technology that helps us live well.

The news that Woz carries a Nexus and 2 iPhones does change a tiny almost quantum piece of the perception around Google and Apple. It makes us feel comfortable when our Google Voice Number Rings them all in harmony and we reach into our pockets and grab the one we feel like answering. Our first sign of the future.

The original story is clarified in the best method our technology can produce. The highest form of free speech. Steve Wozniak left a comment on the article where the information first appeared.

ha ha...I buy most of the significant gadgets that come out...I did not buy an Android right away but I did like the looks of the Motorola Droid so I bought it. When you buy a gadget and it works without hours of figuring things out, it's a joy. At different points in time you'll find me with different Blackberries and other phones. At the time of this interview I carried 2 iPhones (battery and multitasking fixed) and the Droid on my belt. And I do enjoy the Droid and it does my normal stuff fine, but it will take some time to find apps equal to some that are important on my iPhones. When the Nexus One came out I put the Droid aside and shifted to checking out the Nexus One. I'm always on the watch for the latest hot gadgets. When I don't like new gadgets, I keep my mouth shut. It's better to focus on the good. I'm not the conflict type of person so I don't try to get into arguments you never win about which is better. But if I only carried my iPhones, I wouldn't have as good an idea of how others do with their alternate choices....Woz

-Steve Wozniak originally appearing on nbcbayarea 1/13/2010: http://bit.ly/4sSqvo