Has Steve Wozniak gone Team Microsoft?

As the Huffington Post reports, the Apple co-founder said at an Entel technology press conference in Chile that he is impressed by the design of Microsoft’s new products.

“I made a joke that Steve Jobs came back reincarnated at Microsoft,” he said, noting that he wants to own a Surface tablet. “I’m glad that Microsoft is starting to show that maybe they’re a different company than before. I don’t remember this type of thing happening in a long, long time from Microsoft, so I’m very happy.”

In his talk, Wozniak gave special shout-outs to Microsoft products including the Xbox Kinect, Windows Phone 7 and the Surface tablet, due out this October, commending the company’s convergence of “art and technology” resulting in a “strikingly good visual appearance” of its most recent products.

The outspoken Wozniak’s comments come at a time when Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has vowed to take on Apple, in practically every arena, though no official word on a Microsoft-developed phone has been confirmed. Ballmer does predict, however, that the company will move “a few million” Surface tablets in its first year.

Watch Wozniak’s talk here, the Microsoft praise starts at about 2:30 …