Woz Says Big Software Doesn't Work

chrizbot writes "A friend of mine studying journalism at Google's alma mater interviewed Steve Wozniak of Apple Computer fame. He chimes in on open source, DRM, record companies and how software from big companies suck so bad (including Apple's!). The part my friend doesn't include is how he guessed a trick was performed and won a necklace from him!" From the article: "Sometimes the engineers are true artists and really care what they're doing, doing a really great job. Although, I don't know how much I can even say that because the big companies, Microsoft, Apple and AOL, they tend to turn out the crappiest products, you know, software-wise. The ones that have the most bugs, the most items that are supposedly in there but don't work. The most things that are left out because they aren't finished. The most things that are inconsistent with the way they did their last program. I get the worst, worst software almost always from Apple."

Comments

GOOGLE WENT TO COLLEGE?!

[MondoMor]

No wonder it's so damn smart!

Has it got a Master's? Or should we call it Doctor Google?

Re:GOOGLE WENT TO COLLEGE?!

[M. Baranczak]

And who was "chiming in"? The friend or Wozniak? Seriously, it's been a while since I've seen so much mangled syntax crammed into such a small space. Do I win a necklace if I can figure out what the hell this person's trying to say?

Re:GOOGLE WENT TO COLLEGE?!

[Golias]

You begin with the incorrect axiom that each person produces a fixed quantity of hate.

I, for one, and not a hater of bad grammar, but if I was I'm sure I could get all bent out of shape over people using "it's" when they mean "its" without any reduction of hatred towards people who don't signal lane changes, terrorists, or the Los Angeles Lakers.

Back to the topic at hand, the summary wasn't just guilty of making a few grammar mistakes; it was completely uninteligible. There are chunks of the slash code which are easier to read. None of this matters, though. I've long since given up on carving any useful information from Slashdot story summaries, and have completely given up hope on the linked stories ever turning out to be even half as useful as what a Google News search of the summary's main keywords would have yielded.

Slashdot is a chat room with (relatively) recent news items used to kick off the conversation. That's all it is, and probably all it ever will be. It's still a good way to kill time when waiting for shit to load on the projects I'm working on.

Re:GOOGLE WENT TO COLLEGE?!

[Golias]

I, for one, and not a hater of bad grammar

s/and/am

(sigh)

Something about discussing grammar which seems to bring out the worst writers in us all.

Re:GOOGLE WENT TO COLLEGE?!

[vsprintf]

I can assure you that the most offending facts about english are th non sense relations between written and spoken language and the english morons who cannot realise that half of the World is struggling to learn such a stupid language.

It's good that you rightfully blamed it on the English instead of the Americans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, etc., who are merely victims. BTW, nonsense is one word. :)

Gone

[darrint]

I get the worst, worst software almost always from Apple.

But I'm not bitter.

who?

[BushCheney08]

Oh, c'mon. Like this "woz" person has any clue how a computer works. I bet Apple wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole...

Re:who?

[absinthminded64]

Apple's 10' pole will not be functional until the next release.

Abort(?), Retry(?), Fail(?) erecting 10' pole.

Re:who?

[BushCheney08]

Shouldn't that be a X' iPole?

Troll?

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

I get the worst, worst software almost always from Apple.

This Woz guy is obviously a MS$ fanboy troll! ;-)

Perhaps he's right

[drhamad]

Perhaps he's right, he does get the worst software from Apple... (ok, there's two ways I can go with this) 1. But at least Apple patches them or 2. That's because Apple doesn't like him very much Take your pick ;)

Re:Perhaps he's right

[millahtime]

Perhaps he's right, he does get the worst software from Apple... (ok, there's two ways I can go with this) 1. But at least Apple patches them or 2. That's because Apple doesn't like him very much Take your pick ;)

I'm going with 2. I bet Apple finds out where he is going to get his next apple software from and then sends him crap just to mess with him. He could get "the good stuff" if only he wore his tinfoil hat.

Clearly

[Tiberius_Fel]

Clearly, he doesn't get any software from any of the other companies named. :P

What does he use?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I get the worst, worst software almost always from Apple.

He must not buy anything from Microsoft or Adobe then.

and a new geek fashion starts

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

Wearing an orange Apple polo, dark dress slacks and a stainless steel, analog-and-digital Bell & Ross wristwatch, Wozniak greeted me at the door. After talking to Wozniak for five minutes, it was obvious there is weight to his reputation: he is affable, candid and sharp. The remarks that follow are excerpts from our discussion.

Orange polo and dark dress slacks. Check.

Multi-thousand dollar watch. Well, maybe some other time.

Death Star Syndrome

[(1 -sqrt(5))*(2**-1)]

Big-shop software, as a matter of fact, is always what made A New Hope somewhat plausible for me: the too-many-cooks oversight of a two-meter exhaust vent analogizes well with desktop infelicities.

I'd like to nominate this phenomenon the "Death Star Syndrome," or DSS.

Re:Has Woz ever *tried* open source software?

[geoffspear]

Yeah, but if Woz gets some bad open source software, he can just fix it to make it work the way he wants it to by himself.

And so can every other random person off the street, too. Right?

Re:Has Woz ever *tried* open source software?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear sir,

You are a moron for not being able to get it to work.

Yours in Jesus,
AC

P.S. You were right, I did want to.

I _told_ you so!

[Thud457]

I told my managers about that exhaust port being a vulerability. My group did extensive simulations showing that a small, one-man fighter had a 0.0016% chance of getting close enough to launch a radiation missle down the port, triggering a chain reaction in the main reactors. When I threated to go to the GAO, they took the whole team off the project and put us on designing improved Bantha saddles. When I tried to tell my story to "Sixty Parsecs" Lord Vader himself saw to it that I was transferred to the cloud mines of Bespin.

Re:Obvious?

[CodeHog]

Sounds like somebody has a case of the Mondays!

Re:Obvious?

[thebdj]

Working at a big corporation is being forced to use poor quality crap tools because some snake-oil salesman is buddy-buddy with a senior VP 10,000 miles away.

Or in Microsoft's case because they created the poor quality crap tools themselves.

Re:Obvious?

[Thundersnatch]

Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

But it's a helluva way to go through college!

Re:Back in the day

[Anonymous Coward]

Dvorak (John C. Dvorak) has never done any work in computers -- he's been a journalist his entire life. Frankly, I've never really understood why people paid attention to him.

Because he designed that excellent keyboard, and composed music in his free time.

I refuse to let you make fun of such a multitalented individual.

Re:HERATIC ?

[schon]

HERATIC

Because you think he's affiliated with a greek goddess?

Re:Obvious?

[hackstraw]

I must have worked at the same place. Or are they all like that?

Re:Moron. Even Wikipedia gets it right...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you've set a record for the most people confused in the smallest amount of text. Moron.

Were you born without a sense of humor, or was it surgically removed later?