

Wozniak: Facts in Steve Jobs movie look 'atrocious' - mactitan
http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/30/tech/innovation/wozniak-jobs-movie/index.html?hpt=hp_bn5

======
sethbannon
The neatest part of this article is where Woz talks about Aaron Sorkin's
upcoming Steve Jobs film, which he is consulting on and says will "play out in
three extended scenes, shot in real time, that depict Jobs at three product
rollouts: the Macintosh, Jobs' non-Apple product NeXT, and the iPod."

Now that's something to look forward to.

~~~
tolmasky
Seems strange to leave out the iPhone product announcement, especially since
the iPod announcement was pretty low key (
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN0SVBCJqLs> ), and was not an obvious hit at
the event. Compare that to the iPhone announcement where everyone went wild
right then and there, and truly felt like the culmination of Steve's vision of
what computing should become (the iPod in retrospect seemed more like a side
project that didn't really "mesh" with his general philosophy on computing).

~~~
samstave
I think the iPod is the spark of the Apple that we know today, and as such is
momentous.

Given that Apple's stock was ~$9 when the iPod was announced and Apple is now
the most valuable company, this really was the first step - and further - we
pretty much know the rest of the history after that.

It would not necessarily make sense to skip the iPod and jump to the iPhone as
it was an iterative revolution that made them what they are now.

Some of those steps in the iterations were obvious, some predictable, others
surprising but all were mind-blowingly successful.

~~~
tolmasky
I agree the iPod was important to Apple's financial history, but I don't think
it was particularly important to Steve (I understand I can't know this for
sure), nor does it fit the narrative of what Apple brought to this world. I'm
not saying that the iPod announcement should be left out, just that it
shouldn't _end_ with it. If the movie's point is that this was the beginning
of the turnaround for Apple's financial woes, then it misses the point of what
Apple (and Steve) have been trying to do for computing since the beginning. I
think this is a common mistake, and could be done even worse by ending the
story with the announcement of the iMac for example. If the story focuses on
the iPod as the "comeback", then it is really a laymen's interpretation of
Apple history, and will be quite disappointing (of course I haven't seen the
movie so for all I know there is a completely separate point they want to make
which will be great for other reasons). However, if the point is to analyze
Steve _the man_ behind Apple, then leaving out the iPhone is a bad start.

In a lot of ways, the iPod is the antithesis of the battle Steve and Apple
have been metaphorically fighting. The software on the iPod was junk, it was
very much a device in the spirit of the way things "used to be done", a
product that would have felt equally at home under the Sony brand as the Apple
brand. From the Mac to the iPhone and finally the iPad, you can see a clear
vision of not having computers be generic hardware with forgettable software,
but rather finely crafted hardware in _the service of_ amazing software.
Apple's treatment of the iPod post-iPhone (and Fidel's subsequent leaving of
the company shortly thereafter) are very telling.

I have to disagree whole heartedly that the iPod was a "step" towards the
iPhone. The iPhone is very much in the "family tree" of the Mac, and not the
iPod. The iPod was ultimately just a toy. Everyone at Apple knew this as well.
The iPhone was _the next step_. Ending the story with the iPod is telling it
through the eyes of a financier and not as a technologist or a philosopher or
a student of Mr. Jobs. And under any interpretation its hard to argue that it
is simply missing the end of the story.

~~~
lukifer
At one point in the iPhone's development, there was an internal battle at
Apple on whether to use the iPod OS, or a minified OS X. Many were skeptical
that a desktop OS could run well on a pocket device. It seems an obvious leap
in hindsight, but it wouldn't have been then.

The iPod also established credibility with the public that Apple could do
great things beyond making shiny computers. The iPhone (and iPad) probably
meant a good deal more to Jobs than the iPod, but I think it's clearly part of
the lineage.

> a product that would have felt equally at home under the Sony brand as the
> Apple brand.

Jobs admired the founder of Sony a great deal; as they say, this would be a
feature, not a bug. :)

~~~
tolmasky
_> The iPod also established credibility with the public that Apple could do
great things beyond making shiny computers. The iPhone (and iPad) probably
meant a good deal more to Jobs than the iPod, but I think it's clearly part of
the lineage._

So are a great number of other things that we can draw conclusions about. We
could argue that the Apple laptops were incredibly important, as they were the
first steps in making OS X run under "mobile conditions". In fact, you could
say that the introduction of OS X itself should be on display because it is
what runs basically everything Apple does now from desktops to phones to
tablets to apple tvs. I could actually make an incredibly academically
interesting argument that Pixar was crucial to everything else that happened
at Apple because in many ways it restored the credibility of Steve Jobs, and
made him fabulously wealthy. However, if you are making a movie that focuses
on just 3 events in Jobs life, you probably would not choose the moment he
decided to invest in Pixar. Any number of events and devices were precursors
to the iPhone.

Supposedly this movie is going to be about him preparing for these
announcements. He will perhaps be reflecting or ruminating about the
importance of what he will present. Prior to the iPhone announcement, Apple
and Steve had everything at stake in a way unlike any other event since the
Mac, and certainly moreso than the iPod. Had the iPod failed, it would have
been just another forgotten Apple consumer electronic, like the Newton or
Apple printers. Yes, perhaps that would have then indirectly lead to a domino
effect of other products not being created, the iPhone included. But with the
announcement of the iPhone, the very meaning and philosophy of the company
were put on display. I was on the original iPhone team, and I can distinctly
remember the way he would talk about the iPhone before it was released, it
meant something more to him. And if you are going to make a biopic about Steve
Jobs, the iPhone _needs_ to be a part of that. Just watch him introducing the
iPod, and then the way he introduces the iPhone. Think of it another way, if
you could go back in time and talk to him before the iPod announcement or the
iPhone announcement, which would you choose?

Again, I haven't read the script, for I know its covered in some other way.
However, just from a surface understanding that it is just going to cover
those 3 events in a vacuum, I don't feel very confident about this film. But I
will of course reserve judgement until I see it.

~~~
lukifer
Agreed that the iPhone announcement is clearly more significant than the iPod
one. People forget that the latter was perceived as a dud on day one; the room
was small, the fanfare was minor, and it was much more expensive than people
were used to paying for music players. I was referring to the overall history
of the product; the announcement itself does seem like a bizarre inclusion.

You're also spot-on about OS X. I'm excited that NeXT is going to be part of
the film; Apple wouldn't have rebounded as powerfully without it. It's easily
the most wildly successful flop in history.

------
artursapek
It was clear when it was announced that this was going to be the inaccurate,
sexy, mainstream Hollywood version of a Jobs film. It stars Ashton Kutcher for
god's sake.

I think everyone on HN is unanimously looking more forward to Aaron Sorkin's
film. Most of the mainstream non-tech-world Hollywood-Ashton-Kutcher audience
has not seen the actual product announcements nor do they even know they
exist. For most people, the iPod announcement was word of mouth and TV ads.
Meanwhile a lot of the type of people who read HN somewhat worship the Steve
Jobs keynotes. I know _I've_ watched nearly all of them.

In fact I'm sure there will be a spike in "everyone else" watching them for
the first time if Sorkin's movie is popular and brings them to the mainstream.
For now they've just been a total geek thing to indulge in. :)

~~~
philwelch
Why would we look forward to Aaron Sorkin's film if we _don't_ want an
"inaccurate, sexy, mainstream Hollywood version"? Did we forget _The Social
Network_ that easily?

~~~
artursapek
Aaron's won't be that. I don't think his goal is the same as was with The
Social Network.

~~~
pavanky
But Aaron Sorkin did write The Social Network. Any evidence to point that he
is working on a truer rendition for the Jobs' movie ?

~~~
Sodel
Well, Woz is involved, and he seems optimistic.

~~~
vidarh
Woz has also been out of the picture in Apple since before the Mac. He's been
an outsider for close to 30 years, and has publicly stated that he was not
close to Jobs.

It's not clear that his involvement means much in terms of making it an
accurate portrayal.

~~~
danso
Yeah...but Woz was very close to Jobs pre-Macintosh. Considering Apple's early
years consisted mostly of Woz, Jobs, and Mike Markkula, I think Woz would be
essentially to understanding the early part of Jobs' success, without which
the post-Macintosh days would've never happened.

------
donebizkit
Sure it's not a biography but the issue is that it will be perceived as such
by regular movie goers. That's the power of Hollywood as a propaganda machine.
People will be referencing events from the movie as if they were 100%
accurate. They will make character judgements; and on the long run those
judgements will transcend from the movie to reality.

~~~
astrodust
Zuckerberg found _The Social Network_ to be significantly less than 100%
accurate, but perhaps a better movie because of it.

------
Apocryphon
I'm disappointed in that unlike The Social Network, which had no other film as
a reference to compare to, this film already has Pirates of Silicon Valley as
a precedent. While Jobs didn't care for the film, Woz thought:

"The personalities and incidents are accurate in the sense that they all
occurred but they are often with the wrong parties (Bill Fernandez, Apple
employee #4, was with me and the computer that burned up in 1970) and at the
wrong dates (when John Sculley joined, he had to redirect attention from the
Apple III,not the Mac, to the Apple II) and places (Homebrew Computer Club was
at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) ... the personalities were very
accurately portrayed." (<http://www.woz.org/taxonomy/term/2>)

~~~
kylec
Jobs must have liked it somewhat though, otherwise he wouldn't have had Noah
Wyle reprise the role in an Apple keynote:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIClAanU7Os>

~~~
laumars
Looks to me like Jobs uses the entire exchange as a way of undermining Noah's
performance in the movie:

 _"I invited him here today to see how I really act"_ etc

~~~
bitwize
It's a fairly standard comedy pattern: start with a celebrity impersonation,
then have the impersonated celebrity come out and critique the performance.
SNL uses it a lot, e.g., (the real) George H. W. Bush coming on and critiquing
Dana Carvey.

------
beggi
Unrelated to this article but more based on what I've read elsewhere - to me,
this movie just doesn't seem very innovative, unlike the subject. It feels
like the producers wanted to cram Steve's whole life into a one and a half
hour film without any compromise. On the other hand, I love the idea of Aaron
Sorkin's movie, with three scenes of Steve getting ready for important product
announcements. I think that's a great compromise and much more in the spirit
of Steve Jobs's work ethic.

Of course, I have not seen the movie, just basing this off of articles I've
read :)

------
eloisius
This is like inception misrepresentation. An article about Wozniak condemning
the accuracy of a movie, which is itself very misleading.

I was at the talk, and I can say first hand that the tone of the talk never
came anywhere near the way this editorialized paragraph would suggest:

> "Totally wrong. Personalities and ... the ideas of computers affecting
> society did not come from Jobs ... . His idea was to make a $20 PC board and
> sell it for $40 to help people... build the computer I'd given away ... .
> [H]e always saw a way to make a quick buck off my designs (this was the 5th
> time). The lofty talk came much further down the line."

The theme was closer to how he and Jobs were a great team because he would
come up with designs and Jobs always had a way to make them money from it even
saying explicitly, "...and we'd always split the profit."

------
TechNewb
I will be posting the full video of Woz's very informative and inspiring talk
on YouTube with highlights as soon as it gets approved by legal. Hopefully
that will be this Monday...

~~~
lukifer
Please do. I never get tired of listening to Woz speak. :)

~~~
TechNewb
Here is the full Woz conversation!
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIKTes4BzXo>

------
elorant
As atrocious is Kutcher's performance. The guy will ridicule Jobs legacy with
his poor acting. I saw the trailer and it was awful. And the guy they choose
to play Woz resembles more Hurley from Lost rather than Wozniak.

~~~
lutusp
I knew Jobs personally, and I have to tell you, an accurate portrayal of his
behavior by an acting prodigy -- or a straightforward documentary using real
footage -- would do more harm to his reputation than a shallow script and
modestly talented performer.

~~~
daimyoyo
Why do you say that? I think the closer someone could get to portraying Steve
Jobs, the better it would be.

~~~
lutusp
> I think the closer someone could get to portraying Steve Jobs, the better it
> would be.

Okay, if by "better" you mean more accurate and unvarnished, of course I
agree. I was referring to those who want Jobs to be portrayed as a
technological saint.

~~~
duaneb
I don't want an accurate portrayal of Jobs. That would probably make for
horrible entertainment. This is a movie that is clearly not intended to be
accurate so much as entertaining, much like The Social Network. I would have
much higher accuracy standards for a documentary.

~~~
lutusp
In that case, we're talking about two different things. BTW I happen to agree
that the film is meant as an entertainment, not a documentary.

------
danso
It's a shame. The truth of their relationship is entertaining and fascinating
in itself. I suspect it would be even more so if Woz wasn't such a humble
mensch and would rather be polite than talk trash. It's just a shame that he
doesn't get more popular respect so that more people aspire to be like
him...for every Jobs, we need someone as good as Woz

~~~
mactitan
The more I learn of Woz I'm more impressed. Like listening to him. I agree
that he's a good role model But is his personality conducive to driving a
business? It seems the tyrants are more successful.

~~~
goostavos
Just a side note on the subject of "learning about Woz," If you haven't
already, I highly recommend his book iWoz. it's a really interesting
recounting of his early days as an engineer.

~~~
grey-area
folklore.org also has some great early apple stories, including many about
woz.

------
JacobIrwin
Vuze search rendered zero results for "jobs"+"sundance"

However, I was able to find a short clip from the film, here:
[https://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-
movies/kutcher-...](https://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-
movies/kutcher-portrays-apple-founder-jobs-article-1.1248737)

Please let me know if you find a source of the full movie, thanks!

------
dsr_
It doesn't really matter. This isn't a biography or a documentary, this is
entertainment. Was THE SOCIAL NETWORK true? No, it was entertaining.

The best you can hope for any biopic is that it won't distort positions
unrecognizably far from reality, and perhaps it will inspire someone.

~~~
sarvinc
I'm not sure why you draw a distinction between biographies, documentaries and
entertainment.

The Social Network was not true. I'm pretty sure we would've been just as
entertained by the truth.

The best we can hope for is that we learn something from the truth while
simultaneously being entertained by it.

I'm not sure when we decided that we must sacrifice everything but the names,
of those involved, at the altar of entertainment

~~~
tolmasky
I think you can make an even stronger argument in the case of The Social
Network that what we got was a less entertaining story because of it. I think
the story that was told was a much lazier one, forced to fit old prototypes
and thus was simultaneously less entertaining and had less to teach. The story
behind Facebook, and the people that participated in it, is probably pretty
interesting, but instead we got the tired trope of "ostracized nerd channels
social frustration to super ambition - only to find himself alone". The
characters were flat and one sided, the lessons were obvious. The story has
been told countless times already, it is boring, unrealistic, and doesn't
leave much to learn from.

