Is Apple trying to fool the world?
51 CommentsPublished June 6th, 2007 6:04 PM EDT By Daniel Goldman
What’s going on with Apple CEO Steve Jobs?
Last week I read a quote of his regarding Apple TV saying ‘this is the first time users can easily browse, find and watch YouTube videos right from their living room couch.’
As has already been pointed out by other bloggers, Nintendo beat Apple to the punch when it included the Opera browser to the Wii. I’m sure many of you have browsed ‘easily’ and watched YouTube videos on your living room couch. (Did any of the other gaming consoles beat the Wii to playing Flash videos on TV?)
Then today I read in the Wall Street Journal (section B) another quote from Steve Jobs, this time referring to the Apple iPhone, “it is the full Internet in your pocket for the first time.”
With all due respect, what’s he thinking? Is he trying to fool the world again? Hasn’t Opera Mobile been providing the full internet on phones for a while now?
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Very true, Opera Mobile definetly has been the expirience for a while and is top tier on the Windows Mobile platform.
I myself have come to prefer it for the “identify as desktop mode” along with the other options to further that expirience.
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I noticed that about Steve Jobs and Apple too. I used to really believe quite a bit of the hype that used to be spread by Apple, and a lot of was valid. They have made really great products with great usability and design. But along those lines, Apple has begun to really get on my nerves citing innovation where there really is none. I remember an article I recently read where Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were compared on both innovation and self-interest. A year ago I would have thought Steve had focused mainly on the better of the two (innovation), and he did. But now it seems like Apple has been up to more Microsoft-like tactics of “innovating” ever since they developed the iPod and discovered a way to become more profitable. Meanwhile, Microsoft in general has been going a different direction in-house and outside by allowing others to capitalize on its developer platform, thereby encouraging more innovation. I’m not saying that either one has made a complete switch in either direction, but Microsoft and Apple have seen what each “side” has and are taking steps outside of their normal comfort zones to implement what the other has. Have Steve and Bill been having secret discussions with one another lately? O_O
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Actually, I think SageTV had that feature even before the Wii.
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And if the Wii doesn’t count as watching YouTube videos from your living room couch, what about video-out graphics cards that run from the desktop to the tv?
And if that doesn’t count, what about Opera for Devices? http://www.opera.com/products/devices/markets/stb/ http://www.opera.com/products/devices/brochures/pdf/OperaForDevices2006.pdf
Now VCAST from Verizon has released a new video streaming feature on their phones to watch TV on your cell phone. Now that I think about it, Opera really has been the first one there all over the market.
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Provabily Steve is just trying to reach the masses of ipod fanboys who do not know what Opera or a Wii is.
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Let’s give Jobs a benefit of doubt.
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Well I was prepared to do that the first time he made an erroneous comment. But, now he really needs to get his facts right. What he is doing is deceiving and lying.
This kind of reminds me about the campaign for Minimo. While publicizing it Mozilla had created an impression that its the first real mobile internet browser and no other browser can do what minimo can do.
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Long-time employees, ex-employees and observers of Apple know of this thing called the Jobs Reality Distortion Field, or RDF for short. The RDF means that Jobs and those closest to him have an ‘altered’ view of reality. Whilst it does help Apple a lot, it also does great damage to Apple, too.
It sounds like the RDF is in no danger of dissipating anytime soon.
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He should not get away with this…
Digg it!
We can make enough noise about this to show them!!!
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Yet another PR **** from the Grand Wizard himself. This one beats the preview of Leopard where he showed the “revolutionary” feature of virtual desktops.
I once read an interview where a former Apple top engineer said that one of the main reasons Apple would never be able to compete with MS head to head is that the industry fears Jobs tactics more than Gates and Ballmer combined, go figure.
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Can we please get the context of the quotes ? Link to the first one, scan of the second…
Maybe he means users with really really small living rooms and pockets, which only the iPhone can fill. Mac can’t barely fit 4 fingers in his pockets.
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Let’s face it – Jobs is the best salesman in the world. If Opera were the first then why doesn’t anyone know about it. It’s like the guy in line who spots a celebrity and whispers the news to his friend. It takes a Jobs to step out of line, point like a banshee, and get all the credit.
More power to him. Who uses Opera? Nobody (of importance). Who uses Wii? Nimrods with an IQ of 12 years old.
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Watch out, here come the Apple zombies!!! Hide your kids!!!.
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Ha! Does anyone notice that the Wii has nowhere near HD-quality and the browser is very limited (eg it is a mobile browser).
You guys obviously have never seen nor used the Apple TV.
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I agree the Wii doesn’t do HiDef, however the Wii is capable of outputting a 480p (EDTV) signal, via component output. Which is well enough, certainly for You Tube videos, which are only 320 by 240 and a use 25 frames per seco
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It’s a full browser with the same engine used by the PC version of Opera. What do you mean by limited?
Is there anything out there can compare with the Internet Channel on Wii?
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By the way… it is funny, then, that Apple wanted to buy Nintendo to get their hands on Wii
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Ahh!!!! Apple Zombies !!!!
I already hide my kids, you can´t do anything.
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And this is why opera will never be taken seriously by me or several thousand other users and will always remain a NICHE browser at best. They seem to be so full of themselves that any comment negatively against them will result in “articles” like this which insult the user who made the comment.
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The key word is “easily”. Can you browse Youtube on a Wii? Sure. Is it easy? No, not really.
You can argue that “well I have no trouble doing it!” much like the Linux people who put together MythTV boxes, or the Windows people who modify their MCE PCs, or the crazy people with long RCA leads to their computers across the room, but AppleTV is indeed the first time Youtube has been licensed for easy, unified menu-driven access to full screen Youtube videos. What Jobs said is not hyperbole or a lie.
The thing about the web in your pocket is a bit more subjective, but I think the main push is that it’s the first time the web in your pocket hasn’t been limited or sucky. Time will tell if that’s true, but from the demos Safari on the iPhone looks like a far more usable experience that will actually replicate a desktop browser rather than making all the accomodations for small screens and terrible input methods that Opera has to. So again, no fooling is going on, if you judge existing methods as harshly as Jobs probably would.
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It’s of course just promotion of a product.
If you’d promote a product like this “We have a new x which can do everything that product y and z can do to”
Than the product isn’t that special anymore.
Promoting a product that maybe isn’t even needed is difficult
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Shamurai, I totally agree with you. Althought I am a big fan of Opera, but whenever someone posts negative stuff about it, there comes Daniel (no offense) with some article about how “stupid” that person is, etc. ;-/
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In my opinion, Steve Jobs is using the fact that Opera is less known than Apple to promote his products. Remember, it’s like Firefox’s innovations that were already in Opera…
Maybe should Opera make some marketing, too. At this time, I never saw one Opera ad on the net – whereas there is plenty of Apple one. Opera deserves to be known, and it shouldn’t rely only on word-of-mouth.
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[quote]Ha! Does anyone notice that the Wii has nowhere near HD-quality and the browser is very limited (eg it is a mobile browser).[/quote]
This is wrong, Opera for Wii is in no way a mobile browser (why should it be?).
Anyway, Jobs’ statement is just plain wrong. But this is PR, nothing special, I guess.
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Ha! Does anyone notice that YouTube videos are FAR from HD and that apple tv doesn’t even have a browser?
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Dante, Steve Jobs made those comments during the Wall Street Journal D conference. I have a link up for the first quote, though for the second, I read it in the newspaper (it cost $$$ to read some WSJ article online).
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That’s called marketimg ********…
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But this is typical to Opera and Apple: Opera is right, but Apple gets to be right.
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Heh, in the end he (Jobs) was wrong to claim either on both accounts. No questions if, ands, buts or exceptions about it.
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Opera is pretty cool, but…
another opinion
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1. What’s going on with Apple CEO Steve Jobs?
He’s doing his job. Paid $ 1 a year, still creating $ billions in shareholder value…
Now ask, what’s going on with Opera CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner?…
2. Hasn’t Opera Mobile been providing the full internet on phones for a while now?
No. Apparently Opera Mobile is not good enough for real use. Mobile v.8 has been preinstalled on more phones than Mini, yet only Opera Mini shows up in the market share stats (0,16%)…
However, there is hope. Opera Mobile 9 got what the market wants (overview mode and intelligent zooming)… So hurry up with a Beta release…
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After reading “another opinion” (quote: Our products will be the first to allow normal, non-loser people to do these things.) I would say to one, who wrote that: go and fu*k yourself with your Ishit product.
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This IQ of 12 years BSc, M.Phil, enjoys Wii surfing – but is having to use the Wii because his partner has pinched his Fedora Linux Pc – her iMac has gone back for repairs after breaking down!!!
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Investor, we asked HitsLink/NetApplications to show Opera Mini usage statistics in its own category. Opera Mobile still shows up as part of the main Opera stats.
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Someone should develop an extension for FF (an something similar for Opera) that blocks every comment posted on the net by Apple zealots; christ, they are annoying as hell.
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@Free:
… in Germany we say: “Getroffene Hunde bellen!” (Maybe you find a way to translate it)
Hehe, this is not my intellectual layer
On the other hand I agree totally with Investor!
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Who did Opera insult, Shamurai? Is it an insult to point it out when someone is wrong?
Same goes for “Free”. Who called anyone stupid? Only YOU have used that word so far.
@SuitCase
Sorry, but the iPhone will still be limited to Flash 7.
I don’t get what you think is so difficult about YouTube on the Wii, though.
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Yet another example of why Apple fans have the worst reputation on the internet by far.
No one dares, ever, to criticize his holiness S.Jobs; keep that in mind boys and girls, otherwise you all will suffer the worst torture a human being can suffer: an Apple fan. God forbid.
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Nutter – er.. I don’t think anybody knows what version of flash the iPhone has, but that’s not the point I made. The reason YouTube on the Wii cannot be considered easy is simply because of the process of entering the address, and scrolling, and dragging, and hyperlink-hunting, and zooming, etc etc. It takes a lot more effort and concentration than the average media playback device, and for that reason it’s quite understandable that Steve Jobs has decided his integrated Youtube support is the first time it has actually been easy to access from your couch.
Freerun – where on earth are you getting that from? Seems like you’re spouting a random stereotype with no bearing on the story or the comments it got.
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Damn you Dan!!!
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From what I heard, Youtube on the Apple TV won’t just be some kind of browser – supposedly, Youtube is actually converting all of the original material to H.264 in order to provide higher quality!
I don’t know if it’s true or not, but that would make a huge difference – “Youtube HD” would be a huge reason to get an Apple TV!
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where on earth are you getting that from? Seems like you’re spouting a random stereotype with no bearing on the story or the comments it got.
Let’s see:
-”Who uses Opera? Nobody (of importance). Who uses Wii? Nimrods with an IQ of 12 years old.”
-”the first to allow normal, non-loser people to do these things”
And then we have your comment which is basically: “but…but this is Apple so everything would be iEasy, therefore Jobs is right.”
Yeah, we know, all options available today are very complicated so they don’t count for Apple fans, the only one that counts is the holy grail that Jobs presents to the cult followers.
We have heard the story many times before and we will hear it again when Leopard comes out: virtual desktops (as someone pointed out above) and so on; just rename it to some iWhatever shite and claim you are innovating because, hey, this is iEasy.
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SuitCase
Unless it’s Mac OS X running on the exact same architecture as normal Macs it’s Flash 7 because that’s the latest version Adobe makes available for anything that is not a PC.
Funny you should mention that, because the iPhone ads show the EXACT same scrolling, dragging, hyperling hunting and zooming to get stuff done.
And everyone knows that entering text on a phone can be a pain in the ***, until you get the hang of it.
So basically you are arguing AGAINST the iPhone now
That said, the Wii browser is very easy to use. Nintendo set out to make it that way. And they KNOW how to cater to the needs of the masses rather than the geeks.
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so much £$%^%££%^&&……
“same engine used by the PC version of Opera”
so, If I put a porche engine in my car, it will instantly become as maneuverable, as fantastic on the road, and all those great thing the porche has???
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If the Wii browser is limited, then so are all other mobile/devices browsers, including the iPhone browser, judging by the ads. It’s the same thing.. scroll, zoom, scroll scroll scroll.
A device/mobile phone is not a PC.
Saying “the browser is very limited” and pretending that it doesn’t apply to the iPhone browser is pure nonsense.
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well, the big reason so many are going loony over the iPhone, is …
- apple has a good reputation for getting the whole interface & hardware right.
- It is the first phone to use *the whole front face* of the Phone as a combined touchscreen & colour display.
- It will operate with the other apple stuff as well.
(note the other big company missing from this????)
Of course, the bad news is, this may be only half the truth or worse…..
we shall just have to wait….
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You guys (the ones getting all worked up) do *know* that FSJ is *fake*… right?? Its a *parody*. FSJ takes the piss out of everyone, including RSJ…
I like browsing the web using my Wii; but I don’t think its particularly easy to use Youtube on it. It will be interesting to see if YouTube on AppleTV is any better. Right now, browsing movie trailers on AppleTV is fantastic – because it has a custom-designed interface. If AppleTV has a custom-designed interface for YouTube, then I respectfully suggest it will be a great user experience. But we will have to wait and see to find out.
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Uh, you guys are getting confused now.
I was saying that the AppleTV’s YouTube is the first time YouTube has been easily accessible from your couch. This is because the AppleTV menu system requires a lot less work than navigating to and around the Youtube website on a Wii.
My argument about the iPhone being easy to use was different, and would warrant you reading the last paragraph of my last post if you forgot it. Don’t mix the two up.
Though there’s not much reason to continue here. FSJ has made fun of this post twice, and so we have now moved beyond irrelevant.
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As much as I like Opera, I find this Nintendo obsession they have a little disturbing..
The only real media/gaming devices are the PSP/PS3, and yes in a ideal world, both would benefit from Opera, they still vastly outclass anything else out there at present..
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YouTube already is easily accessible from your couch using the Wii browser. It doesn’t require a lot of work at all to reach YouTube. Navigating YouTube on Wii is almost exactly the same as using a computer. It even has a “mouse pointer”.
By the way, it’s great to see that Opera is getting some publicity in Mac circles, even if it’s just a satirical blog
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At the WWDC he forgot about Opera again while telling that safari was the fastest browser in the world. He ran benchmarks by testing how fast several pages loadet in IE and Firefox. And when the two browsers was beaten he told that Safari was the fastest in the world by far.
I think he forgot about Opera again…