Suggestions earlier this week that Apple had bought speech-recognition vendor Nuance Communications have been rebuffed by the same person who initially set tongues wagging. Reuters reports that retired Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said he was “totally wrong” in implying the iPhone maker had acquired Nuance. Nuance’s shares had touched a 2.5-year high on Tuesday, after TVDeck.com posted a video showing Wozniak saying Apple bought Nuance. Both companies had declined to comment. “I thought I’d read about it but obviously got it all wrong,” Wozniak told Reuters in an e-mail, when asked what he meant.

Nuance licenses its technology to Apple, as well as many other vendors. Apple has huge cash reserves, making such an acquisition a possibility, and at its last results announcement CEO Steve Jobs commented: “We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of this calendar year.” One of those surprises could be a new acquisition, according to Jobs: “We strongly believe that one or more very strategic opportunities may come along, that we are in a unique position to take advantage of because of our strong cash position. We don’t let it burn a hole in our pocket, we don’t allow it to motivate us to do stupid acquisitions. And so I think that we’d like to continue to keep our powder dry, because we do feel that there are one or more strategic opportunities in the future.”