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After 22 Years, Walt Mossberg Writes Final WSJ Column
McGruber writes "Walt Mossberg, principal technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal, has written his last column after 22 years of reviewing consumer technology products for the newspaper. His final column discusses the dozen personal-technology products that were most influential over the past two decades."
Why did the NYT let a report called 'Walt Mossberg' write newb-level electronics reviews, rather than pushing him in the direction of being a hard hitting, hard drinking, crime-beat reporter with a tolerance for risk and a taste for vigilante justice?
It seems like such a waste...
Rupert Murdoch found out that Mossberg voted for Obama.
His successor will have been a *cough* former *cough* employee of Microsoft, Apple or someone else you "can" trust.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
and spare me the scrolling down the page...
Humm... lose the MacBook Air and toss in the Garmin Forerunner GPS. The MacBook Air didn't exactly revolutionize anything. But handheld GPS has changed the way we drive, walk and find restaurants.
So ubiquitous people forget we have them. And where we left them :)
This seems like a huge omission. It's hard to think of a more influential computer game.
Apple Newton???
How could anyone take this paper seriously after a posting like that? The guy is supposed to know what he's doing and look at this list he's come up with?
:) Apple doesn't understand Software Libre at all. They're just a commercial firm trying to circle the wagons against competition and use IP to control the market for digital goods. Apple is turning technology into appliances and the WSJ are just a mouthpiece for marketing propaganda. You'd think that for his last article, the WSJ would let Walt write it himself, but no.. the marketing dollars from Apple are just too tempting.
5/12 of the products are from Apple. I'm surprised he didn't include polo necked sweaters and jogging shoes in the list
Richard Stallman must be turning in his grave.
Never read any of his reviews or advice because he was so blindly biased. He mentions a failed Apple handheld device for its for AI innovation but then fails to mention all the original devices Apple stole their ideas from? iPod? Why not the Creative Nomad. Utterly biased until the end.
Never read any of his reviews or advice because he was so blindly biased. He mentions a failed Apple handheld device for its for AI innovation but then fails to mention all the original devices Apple stole their ideas from? iPod? Why not the Creative Nomad. Utterly biased until the end.
Thumbdrives are how the electromecha take over. After seeding the planet we're just waiting for geoelectronics to take off the way geochemistry did for humans.
Also, we're smarter than you, so we're outlawing quantum computing to end the cycle.
He has Google, FaceBook and Twitter on his list. In those three cases the product is You.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
He has Google, FaceBook and Twitter on his list. In those three cases the product is You.
He should have had Alta Vista, USENET NEWS and IRC.
These successors have only made scads of money off ideas from real pioneers.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Against our magnetic monopole weapons, there can be no defense.
While there was much excitement & media hype to the Win95 launch, Windows 3.1 (1992) is definitely a better candidate for this list--it had all the foundations including advanced font support, multimedia, mouse access, networking (Windows for Workgroups) and even 32-bit application support (Win32s)--all for personal consumers. By 1995, everyone who was buying Win95 already had Win3.1 (except DOS-only holdouts) and even the DOS-only folks were using their mice to interact with their PCs. (I would argue for Windows 3.0 over 3.1, but 1991 was his starting point...)
To add, I'd say that Microsoft Office would have been a better choice than the Apple Newton. Around 1992-1994 was when companies dropped, en masse, their DOS-based WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, and Harvard Graphics installations for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. So why does that count for "personal" uses? Because now, MANY households, almost all students (including those on Macs), and almost all businesses use it. Home users used to pirate copies of Office, and Microsoft now gives it away for less than $150 for non-commercial use. Back in the '90s, Microsoft was trying to foist Microsoft Works on consumers, with Office having a $400+ price point. Word and Excel file formats are ubiquitous now... (And while I applaud & appreciate "office" FOSS, they only exist because of MS-Office's successes & intentionally maintain compatibility with MS-Office file formats).
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
Actually no.
The latest evidence points to the phase out of tetraethyl lead in gasoline.
Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
Apple doesn't understand Software Libre at all
More like, you do not understand Apple, and the HUGE degree to which they have based success on top of open source.
BSD, and LLVM are but two of the largest and most obvious examples. But also Apple has used open standards when possible, like CalDav or VNC...
Yes Apple (like ALL companies currently) uses IP for competitive advantage. But they do so on top of a very thick layer of Free software...
the marketing dollars from Apple are just too tempting.
He got nothing from Apple for writing the article. What you and others misunderstand is the simple fact that many people LIKE using Apple products. That must go double for a guy like WM who tests many new electronic devices, you have to figure he gets a lot of stinkers and so more than most can appreciate something built well.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
iPod? Why not the Creative Nomad.
Speaking as a former Nomad owner, your comment is like saying, "Ferrari? Why not a Ford Pinto?"
Over 22 years of experience writing columns, he ends on a 'best of' list. This stupid meme (using the more traditional definition of the word) is so frustrating to witness. I understand why writers do it (because it's easy), but it's depressing to see a good columnist in a respected publication end his career with one.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
Highly overrated, but decent.
iPod? Why not the Creative Nomad. Utterly biased until the end.
Speaking of being blindly biased... Which of the two devices you named entered into society's gestalt, beconing a common cultural reference, and altered both the music industry and online shopping in fundamental ways, changing them almost completely?
He was writing about things that made a difference in the larger world; not which you feet carried the higher geek credit.
More people will say Ford did advance technology father than Mr Ferrari, with affordable technology for everyone
Clippy would've made the baker's dozen list.
Why have both the Newton and the Palm Pilot?
Why have the iPhone and iPad (maybe even iPod) as separate things? They are different, but incremental/size changes?
Why have the Air? Incremental form factor change over the laptop... And I wonder if there were other laptops in that time that were more influential (intro of LCD maybe?)
Facebook belongs, but Twitter, IMHO, doesn't.
I'm not sure what I would put on a list of 12, but I think digital cameras definitely belong. GPS with mapping? Thumb drives? I'm sure there are lots of other things missing.
It just seems like there is not much variety on the list at all.
More people will say Ford did advance technology father than Mr Ferrari, with affordable technology for everyone
Yes, but one would not say that of the Creative Nomad. As an owner of both a Nomad and iPod, yea, no contest.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
Usenet and IRC are much older than 22 years.
That old goat is still alive???
Mossberg's list is pretty good, but a little too device-centric for my tastes. Some of the broader improvements in technology weren't specific to particular devices:
1) The Web Browser
Tim Berners-Lee's Nexus -> NCSA Mosaic -> Netscape
How we first look for info on any topic moved from rummaging in card catalogs and old encyclopedias to an online way to read about anything. Browsers are everywhere from the desktop to phones to TVs and game consoles.
2) Search Engines
AltaVista -> Yahoo -> Google
The cream of the web was only to rise to the top with the help of search engines. Early books about the web included specific URLs on various topics.
3) Non-Dial-Up Internet
DSL / Cable -> Fiber
The web became much more capable with increased end-user bandwidth. Media available online today was only possible because of bigger pipes, without it we'd not have YouTube, Netflix, or torrents.
4) Windows 95
DOS Shell -> Windows 3.x -> Windows 95
The first modern Windows had its flaws, but the interface changed how the average end user accessed his computer. The GUI was simple enough to push OS/2 out of the market and let Microsoft dominate the desktop for the next 15 years.
5) Microsoft Office
VisiCalc -> Lotus 123 -> Microsoft Excel
Having a single package that allowed every business user write documents, spreadsheets, and email made the computer indispensable both at work and at home. It is a cash-cow that powers Microsoft to this day.
6) Windows XP
Windows NT -> Windows 2000 -> Windows XP
The relative stability of NT-based Windows came onto the public's computers over a decade ago and is still marching on as its End of Life is on the horizon. Thanks in part to hardware advances, XP meant computers were still useful for longer periods than they were previously.
7) Smartphones
Palm -> BlackBerry -> iPhone -> Android
In a mirror of so many other young industries, early devices were not standardized, but the potential for something great was there. BlackBerry's killer app of push email made the smartphone professionally useful for the first time. The iPhone made it cool.
8) Digital Music
The cassette tape, record stores, and even the CD have started to become things only for old people. With high-speed internet, file sharing and early MP3 players, most radio of the future will be done online.
9) Social Media
Geocities -> Friendster -> MySpace -> Facebook
Facebook and Twitter made sharing minor updates and day-to-day events into community discussion, without having to know HTML.
10) Linux
It's cheaper than Windows, and goes more places, even your toaster. It may be under the hood to end users, but it's there, more ubiquitous than Intel processors.
Naah. Kids started reading freakonomics and quit selling drugs on street corners. Then pot was semi-legalized so they started selling it in storefronts.
IMO, the best pre-iPod mp3 player was the Rio Karma. It had FLAC and Ogg support, came with a half-decent set of songs on it, gapless playback, cross-fade, and you could create playlists on the device itself. Apparently you can still buy them here and there. I'd forgotten the (included) base station had ethernet, usb 2.0, and stereo RCA out.
The one major downside was that the scroll wheel was flimsy. Still, the iPod was in many senses a step backwards for the industry.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
obligatory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n85dP5plZxg&list=PL18730D76566A2236
His successor will have been a *cough* former *cough* employee of Microsoft, Apple
Judging by his rampant promotion of Apple products for many years, I'd say that has already been done in all-but-name...
as he was always in the bag for big computing and didn't 'get' open-source computing
Regardless of what you think of his talent - I hope his "retirement" isn't a sign of a critical illness. Whenever I hear something like this - I'm reminded of Charles Shultz or Steve Jobs.
"Netscape Navigator: The first successful consumer Web browser, it was later crushed by Microsoft's Internet Explorer " ..
Only because Microsoft sabotaged Navigator on Windows, mainly by extending the protocols and cloning Netscape eg. a full embrace strategy and excluding them from the development program and implementing a common Netscape/Corel attack group
"What kind of date do we have about how much software companies pay Netscape? In particular I am curious about their deals with Corel, Lotus and Intuit"
He should have had Alta Vista, USENET NEWS and IRC.
These successors have only made scads of money off ideas from real pioneers.
IRC and USENET clients were left behind as users found easier ways to communicate.
Today...IRC... has around 400k users at peak hours.
IRC
Skype at peak hours, 55 to 60 million. Skype Numerology
I would think that laptops (and other devices?) whose microphones and cameras that can be accessed remotely without the user's knowledge would have to be on that list. That is awesome.
They're actually hiring a team of reporters to replace just him, apparently.
It's also worth pointing out that he's not retiring. Rather, the WSJ has decided to spin off AllThingsD, to which he belongs, and from which he's been providing articles to the WSJ for a number of years. He'll still be writing for AllThingsD, but the articles just won't be getting republished in the WSJ any longer.
You must be new here. You're not the first one 'round here to make that mistake.
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.