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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...
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 :)
Space Invaders?
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
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.
This seems like a huge omission. It's hard to think of a more influential computer game.
Apple Newton???
Mossberg's editorial point of view is of the average consumer, and I don't think most people care about computer games. I don't.
But choosing the Newton because of AI? Everybody has been working on that, and the Newton's approach was a dead end. The Newton had an even bigger impact that Mossberg omitted: It launched ARM into the low-energy device market, which it now dominates.
Have a nice time.
I would argue Wolfenstein 3D before Doom. The Apple Newton is important because it introduced the concept of a handheld. The industry learned from Apple. Without Newton's handwriting recognition failure, Jeff Hawkins would not have invented Graffiti, which was a "simpler" way of entering data into a handheld through a stylus. Graffiti worked until the Treo and Blackberry keyboards came along, followed by Apple's adaptive touchscreen.
Sure, but what were its competitors doing that changed the User Experience for the better?
Screwing up so bad they made Apple look amazingly good.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Yes, Apple may be a bit over-represented. (MacBook Air? Sure its form factor sparked a slew of of copycats known as 'ultrabooks', but it didn't exactly change the UX or how the general public used computers) But to use 'software libre' as the reason why they shouldn't be in this list at all is just stupid. For all that FOSS has done, it has been almost nonexistent as far as influence in general personal computing, largely because FOSS for the most part has still not figured out how to make UX not suck. And that is what this list is about - those products that have caused a watershed in how the general public does computing.
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
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?"
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.
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
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.