Filed under: Macworld
TUAW interviews Walt Mossberg
We were lucky enough to run into Walt Mossberg, columnist for the Wall Street Journal, co-founder and host of D: All Things Digital. He shares his thoughts on the keynote and Apple's new products. What was the biggest surprise for him? Watch and learn.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Victor Agreda Jr said 9:35AM on 1-16-2008
And yes, we're aware of the deinterlacing issue. We had issues with Viddler uploading last night and had to make the decision to get this up here before the end of the week or keep messing with it. Sorry about the lines!
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The Jerk said 9:48AM on 1-16-2008
Ha ha, Walt. What a jerk. Not that there's anything wrong with that - its my name after all.
But, man, he bolted after the interview. Doesn't he know we value TUAW's collective opinions more than his own?
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Frank said 9:51AM on 1-16-2008
wow, either you're taller than i expected, scott, or uncle walt is shorter. either way, interesting that he mentioned the multi-touch gestures as something that surprised him. i was thinking the same thing: my personal view is that the macbook air will eventually be seen as an interim machine in apple's line... sort of a hybrid that pointed the way to where apple was going. much like they (rightly) declared the floppy dead years ago with the imac, this is the first shot declaring the end of the CD. take the two things together, and i think apple can see the future, and it's going to be completely wireless, downloadable, and completely multi-touch. bring it on, i say!
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Ed said 9:54AM on 1-16-2008
I think Walt somewhat controlled that interview...
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sweetblue said 10:26AM on 1-16-2008
Agree totally. Keep working on those interview skills, Scott. But the shirt was a nice touch.
David said 9:58AM on 1-16-2008
It was good to see that at least Mr. Mossberg was fair in his assessment of the Keynote, and taking note himself of the newer trends that Apple is beginning to introduce in it's products in adapting them from others.
Overall, I can't see the MacBook Air entering into the public sphere with the kind of widespread acceptance the Apple is looking for, at least now, given the MSRP of the notebook.
Also, given the limited capacity of it's standard HDD (80 GB), using optical media (4.7 GB on DVD) would seem as a more reasonable alternative to digitalizing every bit of content for mobility.
With a battery life of 5 hours, the MacBook Air isn't for watching Movies, listening to Music, or for other like activities. The truth of the MacBook Air is that it's work-centric, considering Mr. Jobs new philosophy in realizing a 'wireless economy' in which future computing itself works, in the most strict and restrained sense.
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5cents said 10:08AM on 1-16-2008
McNulty is always hardcore rocking the hawaii shirts huh.
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Fats Vernon said 10:09AM on 1-16-2008
Zzzzzzzzzzz.....Look guys, I'm sorry, but listening to Walt Mossburg drone on either here or on his site is just downright painful. Aside from the fact that he's a total bore, he is a very "safe" reviewer and rarely offers anything insightful other than what's already propogated into the mainstream media.
Regardless, he is really just painful to listen to in this fast paced digital world. And ya know, I really WANT to enjoy his reviews so I keep revisiting him because he's popular I guess, but I'm always disappointed.
Emperors clothing if you ask me.
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Brandon said 12:32PM on 1-16-2008
thank god someone else actually sees he is not special at all, i have no idea why people listen to him, hes uninteresting and says the obvious
if he was actually a good tech columnist and apple lover he shouldnt have been surprised by the trackpad gestures, we all know that apple is going to do a lot more with multi touch especially since they have the technology down...
Daniel said 10:14AM on 1-16-2008
Great job on the interview, Scott. Seems like he really wanted to be "different" (shake off that notion that he only gives the mainstream opinion that so many people seem to think), and his way of doing that was to simply be contrarian. People like that are very, very difficult to deal with, and you really did well.
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Fats Vernon said 10:31AM on 1-16-2008
Hey, don't get me wrong. Scott ROCKS and always does a great job. I have no problems with anyone at TUAW. It was merely a pointed comment toward Walt is all.
brian said 10:48AM on 1-16-2008
Dude. I *hate* watching needless video and listening to needless audio. Plus, I'm at work anyway. Can someone post the big "surprise" and save me 3 minutes?
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mkumemr said 10:53AM on 1-16-2008
Boy, this Walt was annoyed. Obviously he hated the whole interview...
mk
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sam said 11:30AM on 1-16-2008
scott seems like a nice guy. walt on the otherhand must have had a macbook air shoved up his a**.
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Vineet Shah said 2:52PM on 1-16-2008
exactly what i was thinking...
piminnowcheez said 11:32AM on 1-16-2008
Nice job with the interview. Mossberg didn't strike me so much as jerky or annoyed, as *cautious* and unsure how to approach an interview with a tech blogger. The hostility between establishment media and bloggers who cover politics is evident and the subject of much interesting commentary, but tech journalists/reviewers and bloggers have the same issues learning how to regard each other. What may be different is that tech journalists understand that there isn't much division of their audience between online vs. other media, so they have to find a way to play nice. That's what I saw - Mossberg trying to play nice, while still being protective of his establishment privilege.
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ac said 12:23PM on 1-16-2008
Mossberg: "It's very hard to predict what Apple's thinking about."
Yes, oh Karnac, who would've predicted a movie rental model for iTunes and Apple TV? Who would have predicted updates to the iPhone? Who would have predicted a sub-notebook?
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Nick F said 1:43PM on 1-16-2008
"Watch and learn"??? Oh, for goodness sake, just tell us, at least in brief. I read a blog like this exactly to save me having to trawl through lots of stuff before knowing it will interest me or not. So save the teasers, which are just annoying. Tell me roughly what it contains, then I'll be able to decide whether to devote whole minutes of my life to watching it! Thanks - this is intended as constructive criticism by the way.
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phlavor said 1:51PM on 1-16-2008
Ha ha, Walt. My first SF MacWorld I interrupted him talking to like the head of laptop development with some stupid question and he looks at my made up title and made up company on my badge and stares me down like he was remembering my face for later. I had no clue who he was at the time.
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AR said 1:43PM on 1-16-2008
Mossberg is a fuddy-duddy. Scott was trying, but response from status-quo is tame at best. Or rather, frankly nothing, zip, nada.
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