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.

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.

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.

> “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.