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Comment by binaryapparatus | Hacker News Reader

John Gruber from daring fireball doesn't sound too happy about getting review unit after all those youtube "stars".

> Thank god Apple seeded Mike Allen with an iPhone X review unit. Such great insight from his fucking nephew, the emoji expert.

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John Gruber thinks a great deal of himself! I've never been quite sure why.

Agreed.

Because most of us tend to think a great deal about ourselves. The difference being: he has a lucrative, popular blog and we don't.

I mind me of the fit he pitched over Atwood et al. attempting to bring some sanity to the farrago of Markdown variants a couple years back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8264733

I'm glad his blog gets him paid! Everyone should have a way to make a good living. But I'm not sure why his blog getting him paid requires that I or anyone else take him as seriously as he so often seems to do.

I think his beef is more with the vapid content of the review rather than the fact that Mike Allen got a review unit.

This new phone comes out and it’s got some new stuff that we’re really not sure about - no buttons, Face ID, the notch - and the reviewer relays a story about his nephew and an emoji. It’s hardly insightful journalism, is it?

The review does mention other stuff like Face ID as well, though: https://www.axios.com/axios-am-2503582568.html?rebelltitem=2...

It just leads with an aniemoji anecdote. For a lot of users it's probably every bit as important as discussion of the notch.

Because it's not journalism. It's entertainment.

I think that's post 3/3 in a series of "Thank god Apple gave X a review copy before me" — it's incredibly bitter and a bit unseemly, to be honest.

To be fair to Gruber, I think his criticism of the PR for the X is that it displays a lack of taste. If Google picked slack-jawed YouTubers to be the first wave of press for the Pixel 2 I bet he’d have a similar, if more derisive, reaction.

> “Thank god Apple gave X a review copy before me”

Ah yes. Excellent usage of quotation marks for your interpretation of Gruber’s thoughts. Nothing at all dishonest about that.

Just to give a bit more context. Three recent posts use almost exactly this wording [0-2], but none of them include "before me".

[0]: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/10/30/allen-iphone-x

[1]: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/10/30/fashion-iphone-...

[2]: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/10/30/iphone-x-highsn...

I don't get the impression that he was denied a review unit, just that his embargo clears later. The Youtubers don't seem even to have been given a unit at all — just access to them in Apple facilities.

He got a review unit 24 hours ago, per his most recent post.

Right, so the youtubers were just sort of teaser reviews. I do think it's disdainful, and slightly obnoxious/elitist, but I don't read it as personal bitterness.

Eh, that's just Gruber's style, always a bit of an asshole. Sometimes it's amusing and sometimes it really grates, but you've got to admit it seems to be working for him.

Anyway, underneath the presentation, he has a good point that it's pretty weak that Apple chose complete puff-piece reviewers to get initial seed units.

Probably drives a Mercedes, but not so bad as a BMW.

That particular criticism (aside from being pretty mean to a 19 year old) struck me as especially silly - one of the key iPhone X features is a silly animated emoji face. Of course it makes more sense to get a young person to review it instead of John effing Gruber. If anything he ought to be angry at the feature, not that he isn't first choice to review it.

> ... one of the key iPhone X features is a silly animated emoji face.

I think we should all take a step back and let that sink in a bit.

I don’t dislike Gruber, but has he earned the entitlement he seems to be suggesting? Gruber is very “inside baseball” — average consumers don’t really care about his opinion. Sure he’s “tech famous” but I don’t think anyone that isn’t already using an Apple product really cares what he thinks — and even most Apple users probably aren’t making a decision from a Gruber review.

A negative review from him would probably be pretty damning and deter lots of techies who are stilly trying to buy the phone.

No one ever looks good complaining they didn't get invited to the dance, but I think he's earned it to the extent such a thing can be earned.

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