Apple’s eccentric co-founder and longtime gadgetphile, Steve Wozniak, decided to get himself a shiny new Nokia Lumia 900 so he could have a bit of a play with Windows Phone and… he likes it. And this should surprise precisely no one. It’s a great new phone and Woz tries every great new phone that comes off the assembly line (he has a chair reserved at the end of the conveyer belt, we’re told). He’s also giddy-passionate about technology (and recently said Android was more functional than iPhone…). However, since he co-founded Apple, Woz liking anything without an lowercase i in front of it makes headlines. So let’s have at it.

“iPhone is my favorite phone. I did give my opinion that the Windows 7 phone had superior visual appearance and operation cues that were also more attractive. In my opinion, it sets the mark for user interface. I would recommend it over my Android phones given that it doesn't yet have the breadth of apps. I surmise that Microsoft hired someone from Apple and put money into having a role in the UI and appearance of some key apps. I also surmised that Steve Jobs might have been reincarnated at MS due to a lot of what I see and feel with this phone making me think of a lot of great Apple things.”

Yeahbutokay… that last part is more than a little around the bend and down the garden path, since Jobs was still alive when Windows Phone and Nokia were put together, never mind anyone re-encarnated in the last year WOULD STILL BE A BABY and not in a position to turn around the battleship that is Microsoft. It also doesn’t give the credit where it’s due — to the Windows Phone team and Microsoft team for putting together a damn fine product.

Windows Phone is arguably still more of an app than a platform, but that’s changing faster and faster every day. While their specs lag Android by a considerable amount, they’ve got the polish and experience down and should easily be able to start matching speeds and feeds when Windows Phone 8 starts hitting shelves.

Of course that will be around when iPhone 5,1 and iOS 6 launch, so it’ll make for an interesting fall to say the least.

Meanwhile, we leave you with Woz, bless him. (It’s audio-only. Now if they’d had an iPhone with them…)

Source: SoundCloud file, A New Domain, WPCentral

According to reports, Apple has been in talks with major TV channel Epix over rights to streaming its content to the Apple TV or any other Apple device which has that capability. The Epix channel is backed by three major movie studios, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures and Lionsgate.

Apple Inc began talks earlier this year to stream films owned by EPIX, which is backed by three major movie studios, on devices including a long-anticipated TV, according to two people with knowledge of the negotiations.

Negotiations may run into problems as Epix currently has an exclusive streaming rights deal with Netflix. That deal costs Netflix $200 million a year but only runs until September this year; then it would be open to renegotiation. This sort of deal could be critical if Apple is planning on launching the rumored Apple HDTV set. Content is king and this could be one of many deals that Apple is trying to tie up prior to any HDTV set launch.

Source: Reuters