John C. Dvorak - Technological Predictions

Technological Predictions

Dvorak's pithy style often attracts critics who criticize his erroneous provocative predictions. One of his most famous predictions was made in 1984, while he was a writer for the San Francisco Examiner, stating as a reason the Macintosh would fail: "The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse'."

Another example includes his 2007 advice offered in his 2007 article for Marketwatch, regarding the iPhone. "If smart, it will call the iPhone a 'reference design' and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else's marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures. It should do that immediately before it's too late."

Although he later admitted having been wrong about its success, he criticized Apple's iPad when it first appeared in 2010, stating that it was no different from other previous tablets that had failed: "I cannot see it escaping the tablet computer dead zone any time soon."