Steve Jobs a product wizard: Wozniak

During a Piers Morgan television talk show interview on CNN, Wozniak described Jobs's legacy as "giving mankind the most useful, helpful tools we've ever had... the ones we not only use but we have come to love."

Jobs stepped down on Wednesday as chief executive of Apple, which has grown to be among the world's most valuable company's since he and Wozniak founded the business in a garage in 1976.

"He always thought in terms of products," Wozniak said of Jobs. "It's not how do you connect a few chips together, it's what are they going to do that is useful."

Wozniak credited Jobs with taking Apple to lofty heights since the early days of making Macintosh desktop computers.

"He's really admired so much today for recent products that I've had absolutely no involvement with - iPods and iPads and iTunes stores and retail stores," Wozniak said.

"Everything was so incredible," he continued, adding Jobs's creation of Pixar film studio to the list. "Who could have so many successes one after another?"

Wozniak said Jobs was a genius at "higher level" thinking focused on how products would resonate with consumers.

"The great products of Apple, they come from an awful lot of great people that he's hired, too, or built the structure to hire," Wozniak said.

"It came from his methodology," Wozniak continued. "His workings, his philosophies."

Wozniak said he wasn't close to Jobs but that they are friends and speak from time to time.

"A lot of what I get in life is only because Steve Jobs keeps doing these great things with Apple and it always rubs off on me," said Wozniak, who is considered an Apple employee but long ago stopped working at the company.

He sidestepped a question regarding whether Jobs was ruthless. Wozniak contended that everyone can be ruthless at times, and that some of Jobs's tough reputation stemmed from having to push hard to achieve great things.

"I don't think you can have a great company without some ruthlessness," Wozniak said.

Jobs has battled cancer in recent years and resigned as Apple chief executive for apparent health reasons.

(c) 2011 AFP