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Woz says Amazon Echo is the next big platform

Technically Incorrect: In a new interview, the Apple co-founder extols the virtues of "not having to lift anything." Gosh.



Steve Wozniak, under the spell of an Echo.

CNBC screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

Your phone's been hurting you lately, hasn't it?

The sheer effort it takes to pick it up, press its buttons, bend your arm, and -- perish the concept -- talk into it is all a little much.

You'd rather just wander about your world and utter your demands like a latter-day monarch, without lifting so much as a finger.

I know this because that's what Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak would prefer.

In a CNBC interview Friday, Woz explained that he'd found the answer to many of his woes.

"I'm excited right now about the Amazon Echo, oddly enough," he said. "I think it's the next big platform for the near future, if I'm right."

The Echo has, indeed, captivated minds and mouths. Its ability to sit in your room and be your permanent servant is highly alluring. It behaves as if it's the love child of Siri and your Fairy Godmother.

"It's just become such a wonderful part of our life, not having to lift anything up and speak to things, and just speak to it anywhere across a room," said Woz.

Yes, that sheer strain of lifting your iPhone is a burdensome thing. The Echo, said Woz, "is such a luxury and freedom."

Luxury and freedom are, of course, two of the most basic goals of American life. The promise of both is the basis of much of our political discourse.

There's also a tinge of laziness attached. Once you wallow in so much luxury and freedom, you might count on someone (or something) to do everything for you.

Woz insisted that he enjoys the Echo because he simply doesn't like to remember things. I suspect, though, he's also amused by the thought that, as he said, he can order another Echo by just declaiming, "Order me an Echo."

Will Apple decide that having some elegantly designed Siri sitting in your living room, there at your beck and call, is actually a fine idea?

Or might that give the FBI too great a chance to make itself at home and monitor your every thought and utterance?