Walt Mossberg

June 12, 2007: With iPhone frenzy hitting a fever pitch in the buildup to the device’s launch, journalist Walt Mossberg sends the Apple world into a tizzy by whipping out a prerelease unit during a speech. The Wall Street Journal columnist is one of a handful of tech writers given early access to Apple’s revolutionary smartphone so he can put it through its paces for a review.

Speaking at The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Presidents Forum, Mossberg says he isn’t sure whether he’ll give the iPhone a thumbs up. Worried doubters immediately fear Apple is about to drop a dud.

An editorial by an iFixit employee condemns Activation Lock, a security feature of iPhones and recent Macs because it makes these computers hard to recycle.

But Walt Mossberg, well-known journalist formerly of the Wall Street Journal, calls the editorial “outrageous.”

Walt Mossberg, the award-winning tech writer who was one of Steve Jobs’ favorite journalists, is retiring.

Currently serving as executive editor at The Verge and editor-at-large of Recode, Mossberg has been one of the best-known names in tech writing since 1991, when he started writing his “Personal Technology” column for the Wall Street Journal.

Android fans who have been waiting for Apple to bring its popular iMessage platform to Android won’t be getting blue chat bubbles anytime soon, according to Apple executives at WWDC.

Despite pre-WWDC rumors that Apple planned to push iMessage across the Android divide, the company revealed this week that it has some pretty good reasons to keep it as an exclusive iOS feature.

Bringing the iPod to the PC was one of the keys to making Apple’s breakthrough music player the ubiquitous mega-hit that it became. But, as with the decision to allow an App Store on iOS, then-CEO Steve Jobs wasn’t exactly on-board with the idea from the start.

In fact, according to a new interview with Nest CEO (and former Apple executive) Tony Fadell, it virtually turned into a “knock-down, drag-out” battle between the pro-PC camp at Apple and Jobs.

Until Walt Mossberg, of all people, managed to break the deadlock.

Walt Mossberg was Steve Jobs’ favorite critic, and has long been one of the most respected Apple analysts out there — with some people even arguing that he can be too forgiving when it comes to Cupertino’s mistakes.

But in a new article about what tech companies should do to improve in 2016, Mossberg has no problem taking aim at something a lot of people view as Apple’s big weakness right now: its software.

Technology journalist Walt Mossberg opened up about the Steve Jobs movie debuting in theaters this Friday and he didn’t have many kind things to say about it. Mossberg, who knew Steve Jobs for 14 years before his passing, recalls the numerous occasions in which they talked and spent time together including in interviews. None of those times, however, seem to add up to Aaron Sorkin’s portrayal of Jobs in the movie.

Developers have been eager to capitalize on the Apple Watch hype, with thousands of apps already available, but according to Snapchat’s CEO, it’s going to be a long time until you’re able to check your snaps on Jony Ive’s timepiece.

The state of the tablet industry has not been promising lately. Over the last few months Apple reported slumping iPad sales, Best Buy’s CEO declared that tablet sales are “crashing,” and many analysts and pundits have eagerly declared the tablet fab is coming to an end, but Recode’s Walt Mossberg has a few points to make in defense of the tablet.

While IDC expects tablet sales to flatline by the end of 2014, Tim Cook indicated to Mossberg that the future of tablets is still bright, calling the current lull in sales a mere “speed bump.”

Now that Apple’s acquisition of Beats has finally been made official, Eddy Cue and Jimmy Iovine took the stage at the the inaugural Code Conference tonight to give a peak behind the scenes of deal, as well as glimpse at what’s to come in 2014 – including the best product pipeline the company has seen in 25 years.

The interview comes as Apple is preparing for its annual developer’s conference in San Francisco next week where it’s expected to announce new versions of iOS and OS X, and while will have to wait to see if any hardware will come out as well, Eddy Cue is already hard at work hyping Apple’s upcoming products.

Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg led the conversation with Eddy Cue starting things off by parroting Tim Cook’s statements that Apple acquired Beats for three reasons: Talent, Headphones, and a Music Subscription Service, before revealing these eight new tidbits on the deal as well as the future of Apple:

Elusive Apple CEO Tim Cook will skip his annual sit-down interview with tech journalists Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg. Instead, Apple is sending two of Cook’s top lieutenants to sit in the hot seat during the Code Conference this May.

Analysts have been trying to convince Apple for some time that it needs a range of iPhones to better compete with rivals like Samsung, but CEO Tim Cook doesn’t agree.

During his interview at D11 last night, Cook explained to Walt Mossberg that Apple doesn’t want to become “defocused” with multiple iPhone lines. He did suggest, however, that the Cupertino company may address different consumer needs in the future.

Tim Cook’s appearance at the AllThingsD conference (D10) last year was his first as the main man in charge of Apple. He talked about Apple’s role in the invention of the tablet form factor, the increaseing relevance of the Apple TV, and cleverly avoided other topics. The highlights of his chat can be found online, as well.

This year, he returns to D11, kicking off the conference with another interview with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.

Apple has been granted what has been described as “the mother of all software patents,” which covers a whole host of features that Apple pioneered with the iPhone. Not only is this huge for Apple in its fight against copycats, but it could have a significant affect on almost every single device that rivals the iPhone or the iPad.

The flaws and future of Siri, his thoughts on Steve Jobs, the long rumored Apple television – Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage at the 10th annual All Things D conference, and boy, did he have a lot to say.

Join us in our brand new CultCast episode as we pick apart Tim’s D10 interview and tell you why he possibly confirmed the existence of Apple’s long-rumored, top-secret television.

And is the Mac Pro about to get the axe? We’ll tell you what we think.

All that and our answers to your questions on our brand new CultCast. Subscribe now in iTunes and read on through for our show notes.

Mike Daisey, the author behind The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, who was forced to admit that he fabricated some of his claims about worker mistreatment in Apple’s supply chain, has criticized Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher for being too soft on Tim Cook during their interview at All Things D’s D10 conference earlier this week.

After offensively branding Swisher as lazy for her use of the word “fictional,” in a post on his blog, Daisey continues to blast the pair’s “weak” interview questions and suggests how they can “do [their] job better.”

Speaking at an interview at D: All Things Digital today with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted at some new directions for Siri.

“I think you’re going to be pleased with where we’re taking Siri.” Cook alluded to more breadth from the voice-enabled assistant, as well as admitting that there is more the technology could do.

During his interview at the D10 conference today, Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked point blank by Kara Swisher about how Apple plans to change television.

He replied by praising the current set-top box Apple sells for $100. The Apple TV sold 2.8 million units last year and 2.7 million this year. “It’s an area of intense interest for us,” said Cook, “It’s not a fifth leg of the stool. It’s not the same size as the phone or Mac or tablet business.”

Walt Mossberg, co-interviewer, asked directly if Apple could just make a box and continue leaving the panel to others. Cook replied, “Can we control the key technology? Can we make a significant contribution far beyond what others have done in this area?” That’s the question Apple asks, and Cook seemed to be very interested in what the future may hold for his company’s future contributions.

Tim Cook took a moment at the D10 conference today to defend Apple’s reliance on supply chains and its willingness to micromanage them when they fall short of expectations.

Cook said that no one else is measuring working hours in China, nor reporting on it. “We took a position to say we want to bring this down,” he said. “We’re measuring working hours for 700,000 people.”

Talking with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher today at the D: All Things Digital conference, Tim Cook explained why the iPad wasn’t the same as the Mac.

“The tablet is different,” said Cook. “It can do things that aren’t encumbered by what the PC was. We didn’t invent the tablet market, we invented the modern tablet.”

Ouch! Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen took stage today at the All Things Digital D9 conference to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg.

Watch the smug get slapped right off of Narayen’s face after he laughably tries to claim that contrary to Steve Jobs’s argument that Flash is a dead technology, it’s currently running on 130 million Android devices.

Windows Phone 7, Microsoft’s three-years-late response to Apple’s iOS, is officially being released in Europe today, and even though America won’t get the first WP7 handsets until November, the European release means that review embargoes are over and the first blushes are starting to trickle in.

The good news? Most reviewers agree Windows Phone 7 is a significant improvement over its predecessor, and even a pretty smart mobile operating system… but it’s still about a year behind iOS.