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Comment by Steko | Hacker News Reader

Dvorak's greatest hits: "nobody wants a mouse", "Steve Jobs going the way of pet rocks", "cable modems are a dead end", "the mac is dead", "ipod is a niche product", "wikipedia is a dead end", "podcasting is a dead end", "linux is a dead end", "time to short apple", "the iphone's a flop", "ipad's a flop", "apple watch's a flop", etc.

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When I used to listen to the TWIT podcast (its been years..), I liked Dvorak's cynical perspective vs the love everything new and tech of the other hosts. He was cranky. I give him bonus points for remembering lotus's Jazz software in the podcast (and calling it out for its problems when it came out).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Jazz

“I get no spam!”

Cranky Geeks was a great podcast.

One of my fondest personal memories is "printers and photocopiers use fundamentally different print technologies and will therefore never be integrated in one machine".

Does not in any way whatsoever justify the asshat fashion of the firing.

From a Bayesian perspective, he seems like an excellent source of predictive information, when appropriately weighted.

I’m curious, but what has he been right about? It didn’t say much on his Wikipedia article.

If you look at some of those, he was right if you extend the timeline out. "nobody wants a mouse" - True in the days of touch screens. "the mac is dead" - Becoming true as they continue with the hardware choices for their pro lines and iOS'ification of the MacOS. "ipod is a niche product" - It is now for those who just want a music player and not a phone. "apple watch's a flop" - That was true when it came out. Apple was expecting it to be far larger than it was. Its now starting to gain traction, but don't see it growing to the number users who have iphones.

It might be better to say he was ahead of the curve on many of his statements.

Yes nearly 40 years of predictions will offer plenty of fuel if you're looking to burn someone.

Some examples of what he got right then ?

He said people would still be using napkins in the year 2000

I LOLed.

I don't read PC Mag, and don't care to review so much material. Considering his long career and fame though I consider it uncharitable to assume he's made no right calls in that time.

Apple Watch isn't a flop?

You could call the discontinued "edition" line (gold/ceramic) a flop but on the whole it seems fairly successful by watch/smartwatch standards if not by iphone standards.

What's wrong with these? It looks like the average click bait title to me.

Well they are all demonstrably wrong, that's what's kind of peculiar with this guy's production.

or that time he couldnt put back together idiot proof IBM PS/2 desktop.

What an epic collection! Isn't this output from one person something of a record?

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