Hacker News Reader

Comment by siglesias | Hacker News Reader

Do you have a point or are you simply taking the obligatory ad-hominem cheap shot at Mr. Gruber? His reviews have, as you might recall, correlated quite well with customer satisfaction ratings and market performance of the products under discussion, and he gives considered reasoning for his viewpoints. If he's wrong about something, let's by all means discuss it.

View on HN

My beef is not so much with his factual accuracy, as that he buys in hook, line, and sinker with (and actively promotes) Apple's marketing narrative. The things he mentions are those things Apple mentions in their marketing spiel. Hell, he even refers to "retina and non-retina images" on the web, as if the Internet is a mere extension of an Apple product and, like third-party apps, has simply yet to catch up to Apple's vision.

The ad hominems against Gruber (and they are ad hominems) stem from the fact that he shows no ability to think, or write, anything that Apple doesn't deem he should think and write (in regards to Apple). He is, for all intents and purposes, a member of their marketing department, yet he is at least nominally an independent blogger and reviewer.

There's nothing wrong with liking Apple. They make great products. But to so uncritically buy into the hype and narrative, then claim independence of thought and word, rubs many people the wrong way.

> My beef is not so much with his factual accuracy, as that he buys in hook, line, and sinker with (and actively promotes) Apple's marketing narrative.

To the extent that Apple's marketing narrative is factually accurate (which you readily admit), why is accepting it bad?

Our new product, cocaine, is a real life-changer! You'll lose weight, gain confidence, and feel more energetic! Feel awkward at parties, never knowing what to say? Cocaine will have you making deep conversation in no time! We're confident that once you try cocaine, you'll want to do it all the time!

Factual accuracy is not the be-all and end-all of what makes a marketing narrative a good thing on which to base your opinions and what you tell others.

>(which you readily admit)

I did no such thing. I said they make great products.

the fact that he shows no ability to think, or write, anything that Apple doesn't deem he should think and write

This is not true. He shows some ability. Three recent examples:

1) http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/10/26/against-skeuomor... 2) http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/01/19/ibooks-author-eu... 3) http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/03/13/att-4g

Gruber likes every Apple product, even the ones that aren't doing well (such as Ping and Safari for Windows), and, moreover, liked every Apple product even when Apple as a whole wasn't doing well. Gruber's opinions of Apple products (always positive) don't correlate particularly well with their products' market performance (usually positive as of late, but varied).

Demonstrably false.

I'm not going to bother digging through his archives to prove this (it wouldn't take much to do, but you're not actually arguing against Gruber as much as your skewed conception of Gruber), but I'm fairly certain that Gruber's reaction to Ping is "confusion" (at best) to "dislike" (at worst), not like.

It's not hard to find cases where Gruber has had a negative reaction to something that Apple has done, or where he's said something negative about an Apple product.

I actually did do research before posting. He was excited about the possibilities of Ping: http://daringfireball.net/2010/09/how_ping_might_grow

That's close enough to "liked Ping" in my book.

Obviously, Gruber doesn't like every little thing about every Apple product. But I'm pretty sure it's not an exaggeration to say that he likes every Apple product.

Agreed. Gruber is consistently ambivalent about Ping.

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=...

There's no evidence he's ever used Safari (or iTunes, for that matter) for Windows.

Gruber is also consistently down on Apple for their opaque and arbitrary App Store policies, especially when they hamstring potentially great apps.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gruber/6648080689/in/photostrea...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com