Woz Worries Microsoft Is Now More Innovative Than Apple 333
First time accepted submitter yvajj writes "According to a techcrunch interview, Woz believes that Microsoft is now more innovative than Apple. Per the interview, it seems as though Apple is now just doing newer versions of the iPhone, and are potentially headed into a rut. Another gem from Woz is the fact that he treats all new hardware as something new to learn from and does not approach it with any preconceptions (irrespective of who the manufacturer is / what OS etc.). A great short interview from Woz."
Re:Do RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
Full interview video you can find here (or I'm sure elsewhere)
http://www.neowin.net/news/steve-wozniak-microsoft-might-be-more-innovative-than-apple
Re:Do RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Really? Woz? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, Word was a contemporary of WordPerfect, not a copy. Lots of us used Microsoft Word for DOS. It went through 6 major versions before the Windows version.
Re:Really? Woz? (Score:5, Informative)
My gripe: I run remote desktops. Sometimes from an iPad, sometimes from an android tablet, sometimes in windowed mode from a windows PC. Nearly everything does not work with remote desktop. There's no start button to click. There's no way to run an app w/o getting to start. There's no way to simulate gestures when you don't use a mouse. Productivity is way down with this thing.
Re:Really? Woz? (Score:5, Informative)
Excel was actually always an in-house Microsoft thing. Originally it was called Multiplan and was actually very popular for a while. Like the poster mentioning Word, it's a contemporary of its main competition, not a copy.
IE was originally a licensed and rebranded version of one of the old mosaic browsers. I'm sure the name is on the wiki somewhere, but it was definitely not attempting to clone what would be the Gecko engine.
The fact is, Microsoft has always tried to compete, not copy. They've tried to do things better than the competition and not exactly like it. Like any company, they've had their share of failures and successes, but it's DEFINITELY not fair to say Microsoft has been riding the coattails of anybody - especially not in the modern day where its success was mostly through buyouts of very successful, good pieces of software. Every large company does this.
None of this, however, hides the fact that the Metro interface is awful for desktops and trying to force it on the desktop in order to force users to use their app store is and already has sewn some seeds of contempt. Microsoft is definitely making a HUGE gamble on this and arguably a mistake as well.
Re:Really? Woz? (Score:5, Informative)
I've used Windows 8 for weeks as well, at work (the nature of my job) stretching back to the summer previews.
The start menu that is now full screen (that you seem so enamored with), doesn't really do it for me. On Windows 7 I could hit the windows key, and start typing to search installed apps. Now the windows key flips screens, and desktop -> metro, does not focus the search feature. No, I get to hover in the corner with the mouse, in order to pull the search "charm" from the side, to click it and search.
As for specific gripes, have you actually tried using any of the metro apps? Like to view pictures for example? The "Photo" app only lets you see ones your Pictures folder (Library->Pictures). I've got games and apps that don't happen to use that as the default directory. As a result, I need to copy or move all my pics into this ONE place that is usable, or hunt them down in the explorer for desktop mode, then double click (causes a "flip" to metro mode) to view each one. This blows chunks and my compromise (for now) is to enable the small preview mode (lower right toggle).
Fundamentally, the whole grafting together of desktop and metro interfaces isn't as smooth as it could be. Novice users are going to be totally mystified why one half of their system sees files and the other one doesn't, and they aren't really going to care much about the metro app directory sandboxing.
I can't help but notice you posted anon, and then have the balls to accuse somebody of being a karma whore. Seems like you are a major shill that doesn't want to be outed or attached to a real user account.
Re:Really? Woz? (Score:4, Informative)
I've used Windows 8 for weeks as well, at work (the nature of my job) stretching back to the summer previews.
The start menu that is now full screen (that you seem so enamored with), doesn't really do it for me. On Windows 7 I could hit the windows key, and start typing to search installed apps. Now the windows key flips screens, and desktop -> metro, does not focus the search feature. No, I get to hover in the corner with the mouse, in order to pull the search "charm" from the side, to click it and search.
Actually, you don't have to pull the search charm up to search. Just start typing whenever you're on the start screen and it'll assume you're doing a search. It's definitely annoying that type-to-search isn't obvious -- it seems like discoverability is not so great with Metro, but hey, if you're still reading, at least you have a solution to one problem that sounds like it was annoying as hell. For what it's worth, I preferred the start menu from before because I could still see my desktop while I was searching.
Disclaimer: Yes, I am a Microsoft Employee. No, I do not work on any of the teams designing the modern UI. There are parts that I think are awesome, and parts that I think are poor. We'll see how users end up handling it and (I hope) our designers will push through good improvements based on the usage patterns and frustrations that occur, but only time will tell.
Re:Really? Woz? (Score:5, Informative)
MS typically makes shitty clones of popular products.
That oversimplifies the situation to the point of not being a useful statement.
Windows 3.11 was an ugly clone and copy of the Mac.
No, both the Mac and Windows were attempts to make something similar to the Xerox GUI system (that both Jobs and Gates had seen). And in those wild and woolly early days there was a lot of cross-pollination between the Windows and Mac worlds.
At the time, the Mac was hands-down more beautiful, more elegant, and more polished. Windows 3.x was partially burdened by a bunch of GUI conventions invented by IBM called "CUA" (Common User Access); this is why the shortcut for "save file" was not Ctrl+S, but rather Shift+F12 or something like that.
I'm sure there is stuff in Windows that was on the Mac first, but it is hardly accurate to say that Windows 3.x was a "clone" of the Mac. Heck, I think it was 1987 before Mac OS could even do color, and Windows was full color all along. Windows always had menus on each window, Mac always had a top-of-screen menu bar. All sorts of differences.
Netbios was their poor attempt of copying VMS networking technologies.
I don't know anything about this so I will take your word for it.
Word was a copy of Wordperfect.
Good grief, no! Where are you getting this? Word was originally released with the so-called "multitool" interface, a weird sort of menu system. WordPerfect was designed to be used mostly via the function keys (and everyone had little function key overlays to remind them what Shift+Control+Alt+F9 did and all the others). WordPerfect used embedded codes and had a "reveal codes" command; Word used properties that were attached to characters, paragraphs, sections, or styles.
Here's a primary reference: My mission: write the world's first wordprocessor with a spreadsheet user-interface. It took five years to repair the damage. [memecentral.com]
Word for Windows was available before there ever was a WordPerfect for Windows, so I don't think your claim makes sense in the GUI world either.
Excel was bought and was a cheap clone of Lotus.
Just as Word evolved from the "multitool" version of Word, Excel evolved from Multiplan, Microsoft's first spreadsheet. Per Wikipedia, Multiplan was first sold in 1982, and Lotus 1-2-3 came out in 1983. Excel was not bought; you are mistaken on that point.
Multiplan and Excel were nothing like Lotus 1-2-3; Borland tried making a menu-compatible spreadsheet that actually was like 1-2-3, and got sued.
IE a buggy clone of Netscape etc.
Microsoft licensed a browser called Spyglass Mosaic and customized that into IE 1.0. Spyglass Mosaic was sort of based on NCSA Mosaic, the first popular web browser ever. In no sense can either Mosaic be considered a clone of Netscape, given that Netscape 1.0 was also based upon NCSA Mosaic!
Probably as IE evolved, it copied stuff from other browsers. That happens. IE also pioneered stuff, a lot of stuff we don't really want (remember ActiveX?).
Re:More about ownership and lack of control (Score:4, Informative)
other than the iPod which was totally
No it wasn't. HD based MP3 players existed before the iPod. The wheel was invented by Synaptics. The 1.8" drives were invented by Hitachi for other purposes.
You can argue Apple does things well, but they rarely if ever actually invent anything. Jobs himself was quite up front about that.