From reading my blog it’s clear that I’m a pro-Apple guy. I like the company and own lots of Apple products. This is not because I’m a sheep and feels smug. I just love the effort and care Apple puts into designing the best products for consumers. And from my experiences, these products work well and fits in my daily work flow.
Of course, I do pay an extra premium for these devices. But guess what, it’s my choice and I don’t think I should be insulted for buying an Apple device. In the same way, an individual who bought a cheaply built Galaxy tablet 10 should not be ridiculed for their choice.
Anyway, let me address the real premise of this post, which is the disproportionate level of harassment faced by writers from anti-Apple commentators.
First of all, it’s mind-boggling how a user enjoying their great Android smartphone can hate Apple. If it wasn’t for this so-call Evil company you wouldn’t have that beloved Android. And that is a fact.
The anti-Apple mob has infiltrated the commentary sessions of many top technology websites/blogs and it appears that they rantings are taking its toll on what the editors of these blogs are publishing.
Here are John Gruber and Marco Arment take on this situation some months back:
[quote] Gruber
Samsung Series 5 and 7 Slates Ring a Bell
Serious question for The Verge: how do you run an article about these things without even mentioning that the industrial design is a blatant rip-off of the MacBook Air?
Who has less integrity: Samsung for “designing” this, or The Verge for pretending it’s legitimate?
Arment
Harry Marks on Engadget’s coverage of the HP iMac
It’s a bit odd when something so obvious isn’t even mentioned in passing.
Like The Verge, Engadget naturally made no mention of the HP One’s many obvious similarities to the iMac.
Big “gadget” blogs depend on maintaining very friendly relationships with the companies whose products they cover so they can continue to get exclusives, interviews, press badges events, and early access to products. Maintaining these relationships while retaining credibility isn’t always an easy choice for many sites, and many choose poorly.[/quote]
Of course, Josh didn’t take this accusation and promptly posted a reply on his personal blog here:
[quote] I wanted to make this brief, because I have more important things to do with my time than respond to bullies who like to play-pretend that they know things they don’t. But, just as I felt compelled to respond to Michael Arrington when he attacked the work I (and my team) did at Engadget, I am now responding to Marco Arment, John Gruber, and anyone else who sets up a minimal WordPress blog and thinks that the ability to publish text onto the internet gives them insight into what journalism is or what I do for a living.
To be as succinct as possible, recently both Gruber and Marco have accused (yes Marco, you made an accusation about us, no matter how dumb you play it in your Tweets) The Verge of covering products which resemble or outright boost the industrial design of an Apple product then purposefully withholding mention of this fact for some kind of gain. To be crystal clear, they are suggesting that we are covering products which look like an Apple product, but avoid mentioning that they look like an Apple product on purpose. They’re suggesting we have ulterior and possibly nefarious motives.
Marco outright claims that we are doing it to win favor with the company we’re covering. Gruber has a slightly different conspiracy theory. His conspiracy is that we’re scared of our readers so we go out of our way to say nice things about non-Apple companies. This argument has been made before, and it’s just as weak now as it was then[/quote]
Here is the thing, no matter how much Josh tries to deny these accusations, I believe John Gruber’s theory on the technology blog is true.
And to prove my point lets look at this recent editorial piece written by Jon Fingas on Engadget:
[quote] Asking Amazon and Google to just stop making Kindle Fire and Nexus devices to “rescue” the industry would be more than a little naive, not to mention a disservice to those who really need the prices or software. But there’s a sense that both the companies and we, as customers, need to back away from the edge. Tablet makers selling a complete range at that break-even level could ultimately whittle down the market to those who either produced a winning formula at the right time (Apple) or have deep enough content stores and bank accounts to willingly give up large parts of their potential hardware profit (Amazon and Google). The subsidized approach may even be volatile — it’s only successful as long as overall business is successful, which isn’t very reassuring when Amazon has lately faced a few rough quarters. As for us shoppers? We need to have fewer knee-jerk reactions to certain price points. A $50 or even $100 premium isn’t the end of the world if it’s what any normal company would charge to stay in business, particularly when there are more features included at the same time.[/quote]
This posted was very insightful and thought-provoking in my opinion, I believe Jon should be commended for speaking the truth. However, the anti-Apple commentators thought otherwise and soundly criticize Jon and Engadget for biased reporting.
Here is MG Siegler take on what happened next:
[quote] Instead, what I read was a compelling and thoughtful argument as to why the race to the bottom by two behemoths in the tablet space may end up hurting innovation in said space. An opinion piece, sure — but one full of good thoughts worth discussing.
Then I got to the end.
Update: Clarifications and apologies are in order.
The f**k?
What followed was two paragraphs of backtracking and apologizing. I’m still not quite clear why. I read the entire piece again. Then the apology again. Still no clue.
As the unnamed update editor tells it, the piece should have had more examples and “set a more neutral tone”. Um, why? To ensure that it’s yet another boring-as-f**k piece that no one would even get through let alone think about ever again?
As a writer, I feel disgusted seeing such an update. As a reader, I feel even worse. It reads as if the Engadget editors think their readership to be morons who can’t think and/or reason for themselves beyond what they’re told.
Again, I just don’t get it.
The of the update may yield one big clue:
“The intent of the editorial wasn’t to excuse the iPad mini’s pricing.”
So it sounds as if the editors of Engadget were getting flamed about the framing of the post around the iPad mini. When you look below and notice that the post has over 4,000 comments and many of them are written in troll gibberish, you can almost be sure that was the case. (And that’s clearly what John Gruber was thinking as well when he shared the November 3 post this morning.)
But I still don’t understand why anyone would feel compelled to make such a visible and apologetic update? It was a provocative editorial. Success![/quote]
So there you have it. This exactly what I meant, when I stated that Tech Blogs Are Giving Into Their Anti-Apple Commentators.
Thankfully, Tim Stevens saw the stupidity in all of this and took the appropriate actions. According to MG Siegler, “Engadget has since removed their own update to the story in question and left the rest of the editorial untouched. I spoke a bit with editor-in-chief Tim Stevens who not only agreed with my take, but assured me that he was not aware of the incident beforehand and immediately made the moves to correct it. He’ll be chatting with his team on the topic. All good.”
Phew!! Long live freedom of expression.
