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Comment by RexRollman | Hacker News Reader

"We'll never see this fixed until Gruber gets the error."

Awesome.

Are there examples of things that were fixed by Apple specifically because Gruber blogged about it?

Back when there was all the controversy about really stupid and occasionally offensive App Store rejections, Gruber took the rare approach of actually criticizing Apple on his blog. So Apple VP Phil Schiller personally responded to Gruber's latest post and Apple began making some sweeping changes to their review processes.

And just to completely deaden the joke, this was clearly a facetious little bit of hyperbole, not a statement of actual fact.

Well, yes, but it's funny because it's resembles actual fact.

Well Gruber did give his reply to this story:

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/08/12/itunes-account-h...

> In Hanselman’s case, though, he admits he was using PayPal, > not a credit card. Perhaps it’s therefore safer to use a > credit card instead of PayPal for iTunes Store payments?

I don't see how that makes a difference if your iTunes account is compromised. Or perhaps it's because your creditcard company is more likely than Paypal to alert you to suspicious activity?

He's just saying that there's an extra authentication step. Which wouldn't do him jack-all if he had a keylogger on his computer.

who is gruber.. Forgive me for being naive..

rtfa.

http://daringfireball.net/colophon/

To be more verbose than molecule: Gruber is an Apple-focused blogger who gained a lot of influence in the Apple world over time. A lot of people interested in the Apple "world" follow his blog. So, if he were to get this problem and blog about it, Apple would make sure it'd be fixed fast…

I very much doubt that assertion. Gruber complains quite a bit, I can’t recognize any pattern of Apple fixing specifically the problems he has faster.

Supporting evidence: the lack of Markdown support in the Mail app

Or on Apple discussion forums.

Fair enough. I don't have any evidence either way to be honest, I was mostly explaining why he was mentioned in the post.

Though, in any case, one thing you can be sure of is that when he blogs about something, it gets significant attention in the tech sphere. You wouldn't be able to link a fix directly to him afterwards, but I think it's fair to say that his blow-horn is loud enough to have some influence.

It's result #2 in a Google search for "Gruber".

Dude, the word "Gruber" is a hyperlink in the article. Just click on it.

Where on Gruber's website is his relevance to the subject made clear?

EDIT: No, seriously. If someone has no idea who Gruber is and they click through to his site, tell me where on the screen they would see information that answers the implicit question "Who is Gruber and why would him finding out about this problem aid its resolution".

You're right. It's not like the title of his page is "Gruber: Mac Fanboy #1"

I retract my snark, or at least a little bit of it.

Duly upvoted! I appreciate your willingness to keep an open mind.

Daring Fireball blog author

Google "Gruber Apple" is your friend.

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