Walt Mosspuppet: Tech News and Opinion

There’s a fun interview of Steve Wozniak, co-creator of Apple computers — perhaps you’ve heard of them? — by Dan Lyons at Newsweek, because with the impending release of the Apple iPad this Saturday, everybody has to bait those links, and what better way to do that if you have no iPad-related information than to sit down with the tech industry’s William Shatner?

Exactly.

During the interview, Woz puts his finger on why the iPad is so goddamn amazing:

But the iPad simplifies things. It’s like a restart. We all say we want things to be simpler. All of a sudden we have this simple thing.

And Woz also lets loose with an exclusive  tip on how to double your iPhone’s battery life and enable multitasking on the iPhone:

I just have two iPhones, so if the battery runs down on the first one, I can use the other. And if I’m talking on one, I can use the other one to look something up. You would not believe how much use I get out of that.

You’ve got to love that insane little bastard.

Holy crapcakes, this is goddamn amazing! My close, personal friend Steve Jobs is starting a video show, and he’ll be answering viewer questions. Never has there been such a prime opportunity to pick the mind of history’s greatest CEO.

E-mail your questions to jobsotv@gmail.com! This is so amazing. I’ve got dozens of questions I want to ask Steve! Oh, boy!

The Unofficial Apple Weblog has a “First look” at some piece of crap iPad app called Twitepad. Here’s the video:

Good lord, have the programmers of this — assuming they are programmers, and not just blind opossums — ever seen an Apple application? This is terrible! They’ve taken this beautiful device with its wonderful screen and turned it into a crap-filled wasteland. Serious, I feel like vomiting, both from my extreme disgust at the design of this application, and the nausea I’m feeling at watching that disembodied hand fly around the screen for 2 minutes. Mac software should have a sense of elegance and class to it, not look like remains on a sheet of toilet paper after a goddamn Chipotle binge.

Makers of Twitepad: Why do you hate Apple’s customers? Why do you hate humanity?

This supposed Twitter app has a Tweetdeck-esque column layout, but the majority of the functionality seems to be geared toward displaying website content. I’ve got news for you, you execrable hacks: there’s already a browser on the iPad. It’s called Mobile Safari, and unlike your effort, it doesn’t give me violent diarrhea when it loads.

They’ve made this Tweetdesk-esque layout, but rendered it so poorly that the text is basically illegible. Twitpic images appear in a browser window (rather than like in Tweetdeck, which just, you know, opens the goddamn image itself without requiring you to download a whole goddamn page), and for some reason these blind opossum programmers forgot that the iPad has a flyout virtual keyboard, so that when you want to actually type something, the keyboard sits over the content you’re responding to.

We need a Razzies but for crappy iPhone and iPad applications. If we had one, this would take first prize.

Kudos, you bastards. You finally found something scotch isn’t strong enough to make me forget. But I’m going to try like hell for the next 12 hours. Somebody better take my car keys away from me.

Shut up.

Apparently there were rumors circling around Silicon Valley that I’m some secret agent of Dan Lyons. Now those rumors have been laid to rest, because Arrrrrington finally caved and talked about me on TechCrunch.

This feels like victory to me.

Everybody knows that embargoes don’t apply to me, because I’m the goddamn kingmaker, but some people bitch and moan about it like I should have to. Some fine game developers understand exactly how the haters make me feel, and they made a level for the excellent shooter, “Sketch Nation,” which is called Walt Mossberg’s Embargo Blaster,” and lets you play as me, giving you the opportunity to explode Briam Lam, Joshua Topolsky, and the Tivo brand. It’s pretty fun; you just move my continually-firing head around the screen, shooting an increasing assault from pretentious tech bloggers.

BOOM! Did you feel that, bitches? That’s the sound of you shooting me in the face with lasers on the top of my head!

Sketch Nation is out on April 6th, and will cost you a cool $0.99. That’s a price so low even the editor-in-chief of Engadget can afford. Eventually.

Here’s the press release:

It’s rare that I have cause to admit to being wrong, other than about my wife who I hate (please don’t tell my wife I hate her), but I have to do it today. I never imagined that the CrunchPad/JooJoo/Dumbestnameimaginable would ever see the light of day. But according to Engadget, the bastards are actually shipping! Crazy, right?

SINGAPORE, March 25, 2010 – Fusion Garage announced that its category-creating joojoo Internet tablet has begun shipping from the factory today. joojoo devices are now on their way to U.S. customers who pre-ordered them. Devices should be received by Monday, March 29.

New joojoo orders can be placed at https://thejoojoo.com/store at a cost of $499 USD.

I wonder if Arrington ordered any.

Word from Techcrunch this morning that Opera has submitted their version of their always amazingly performing browser for the iPhone:

After hyping the fact that they were building a free browser application for the iPhone and iPod touch, and showing it off to a small circle of reporters at the most recent Mobile World Congress (us included), Opera Software has officially submitted Opera Mini for iPhone to the Apple App Storeearlier today.

Million dollar question: will Apple allow it in, or leave the Norwegian software company hanging?

No, of course they won’t. Opera claims that their app is 100% in compliance with the App Store rules, but this suggests to me that they missed the one that says Apple rejects apps for duplicating existing iPhone functionality. And the functionality of Safari is pretty duplicated in this case, I’d say.

I shouldn’t take so much glee in their upcoming public failure, though, as it would be great if their app makes it onto the store. After all, there are all sorts of big bets I win once I can show evidence that Hell’s frozen over, and Apple allowing another browser on the iPhone might just do it.

Come on, Daddy needs a new pair of shoes! And sex with Bea Arthur.

Following Opera’s insane example, Amazon is announcing their intensely delusional belief that Apple will approve a Kindle app specifically for the amazing Apple iPad. They’ve got a preview site for it here. Says the in-need-of-medication Amazon, in a paragraph titled “Kindle Apps for Tablet Computers Including the iPad”:

Tablet computers, including the iPad, are coming and with our free app you’ll be able to read more than 450,000 Kindle books. Like all Kindle apps, Kindle for tablet computers will include Whispersync technology, which automatically synchronizes your last page read, bookmarks, notes and highlights across your Kindle and Kindle compatible devices including PC, Mac, iPhone and Blackberruy.

Seriously, Bezos, do you think you’re actually getting Kindle on the iPad? Do you think Santa Claus is real, too? Do you think that dirty guy with the combover’s really going to give you your camera back once he’s taken that picture of you and your gullible family?

Time to grow up and face reality with this one, Amazon. Yes, there’s a Kindle app on the iPhone, but so what? You think my close, personal friend Steve Jobs won’t nuke it like Nagasaki to save its revenue stream? Amazon will have as large a presence on the iPad as goddamn Adobe does. Illegal? Maybe. Anti-competitive? Sure, but so what; this is Apple, after all.

The only way that the Kindle will make it onto the iPad is through Safari. Actually, why the hell isn’t the Kindle a web app? I mean, it’s just text, right? How hard is it to display text? This isn’t rocket science, Amazon.

To those of you who might be upset if the Kindle app is removed from the App store: grow a pair, and rebuy all your books in the iBook store, if it’s available in whatever country you get your iPad in. It’s not that hard.

Shut up.

Interesting article in BusinessWeek about Apple “forcing” partners to secrecy in order to let them see the iPad:

Apple makes big demands of software developers who want an early crack at the iPad. Would-be testers of the tablet-style computer, due to be released Apr. 3, must promise to keep it isolated in a room with blacked-out windows, according to four people familiar with the more than 10-page pact that bars partners from disclosing information about the iPad.

To ensure that it can’t be removed, the iPad must also remain tethered to a fixed object, said the people, who asked not to be named because their plans for the iPad have not been made public. Apple (AAPL) won’t send out an iPad until potential partners send photographic evidence that they’ve complied.

If this weren’t a new class of product, and were just a scaled-up version of something we’ve all had for three years, or if it were basically running the same software as the previous model, and there really weren’t any secrets left to uncover, then, sure, I’d say this is extreme. Crapcakes, I might even call it crazy. But this is my close, personal friend Steve Jobs, and this is a revolutionary and completely brand new, magical device. This is amazing.

Kneel before Zod, bitches!