Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Really Wants a Folding iPhone

(Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak doesn’t want to wait for a folding iPhone.

"Apple has been a leader for quite a long time in a few areas such as touch ID, facial ID, and easy payment with the phone,” Wozniak said in a Bloomberg TV interview. "They’re not the leader in areas like the folding phone, and that worries me because I really want a folding phone."

Wozniak was referring to folding phones that competitors Samsung Electronics Co. and Huawei Technologies Co. recently introduced. Apple’s rivals have taken on its high-price strategy as their own, pricing their folding phones at $1,980 and about $2,600, respectively. Apple recently reported that iPhone revenue declined 15 percent in the fiscal first quarter from a year earlier.

Wozniak is optimistic about Apple’s future, with the company branching out in a range of projects outside of its core iPhones market. However, he still prefers "my Roku" to Apple TV.

"They just got so successful on the iPhone and that was their whole business for a long time," he said. "Now they’re branching out so a lot of their businesses have been very good."

Wozniak co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs and helped build the first prototypes of Apple computers. A bitcoin advocate, last year he joined a little-known crypto startup called Equi Capital.

To watch Wozniak’s full 10-minute interview, click here.

--With assistance from Giovanni Prati, Zainab Fattah and Candy Cheng.

To contact the reporters on this story: Yousef Gamal El-Din in Dubai at ygamaleldin@bloomberg.net;Nour Al Ali in Dubai at nalali1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Giles Turner at gturner35@bloomberg.net, Kim Robert McLaughlin

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