As usual, it’s OK if you’re Apple | Hacker News Reader

As usual, it’s OK if you’re Apple

edbott.com

21 pointsjhack7 comments

Its interesting to see all of the blog postings which exist solely to point out bias in some other blog posting. Since blog postings are like the worlds biggest 'opinion' section one might think that pointing out bias is unnecessary.

So what do folks who point this stuff out hope they will achieve? Does anyone reading MG Siegler think he is anything but a total Apple Fan? Or Gruber? And do their readers not know this?

I get the angst about "Gee this person with a really big soap box is saying things that distort the 'truth.'" Where truth is defined as an opinion. But I always wonder about the point. I tell my Dad that Fox News distorts the way they report on issues to favor the conservative viewpoint, but it doesn't change either how he feels about their journalism, or his desire to share 'juicy tidbits' with me.

Well, true - but I don't think it's automatically invalid, therefore, to call him out on a double standard.

Let's face it, it's not going to change anything Siegler writes, nor likely to change opinions of his fans, but hell, he makes Gruber sound entirely objective.

Everyone needs a dose of reality sometimes. And arguments such as these can bring about new ideas and changed perspectives.

These so called "Apple Fans" often seem to have the perspective that Apple's ways are inherently better. It's good to see people showing why it's not better, it's just different.

Certainly there is value in having alternative view points and other sources available, and folks who are critical consumers of information will seek them out. And I found the detail and data sources in the rant very persuasive that Microsoft's actions were no more nor less 'good' than Apple's efforts at dumping late breaking fixes into the market.

I read a great exposition on Gamasutra once which very crisply derided game companies for 'squeezing' a couple more months of development time by putting out what was beta quality at best CD's with games on them during the 'shopping rush' and having a patch available basically Christmas day when most of those sales would be unwrapped and installed. High speed internet is a curse for folks who want to play 'old' games from that period, since the 'real' game, the one that was the best build, can no longer be downloaded as a patch from the manufacturer. But it didn't need to call out specific manufacturers, just example games.

So I find calling out MG Seigler to be unnecessary, as the exemplar author of a poorly articulated piece sure, but as part of the argument on whether or not big after ship patches are 'good' or 'bad', well it doesn't add value for me. I know, I'm too sensitized to this stuff and should just ignore and move on.

It's amusing to watch those two go at it, but the truth probably lies somewhere in between their two extreme positions.

Is it a bad sign for Microsoft to be patching Win8 in response to OEM and enterprise feedback now? No, probably not. Bott is right that this should be expected because of how MS's ecosystem is structured. However, there could be a whole new set of bugs and deficiencies uncovered by end-users in the weeks and months following Win8's release that could require more patches.

I'm going to go out a limb and say that Win8 will require some pretty serious patches by January. I'm not saying this because I think MS is incompetent. I don't. I say this because W8 is ambitious. There's so much new stuff that some of it is bound to need fixing. Mountain Lion, on the other hand, was a relatively unambitious upgrade and it still needed extensive fixes. What does that say about Apple? Again, I don't think it says Apple is incompetent. It says this stuff is hard.

New OS versions, even relatively unambitious ones, can cause growing pains. Win8 is not unambitious. There will be problems, and smart people will mellow out and give MS a chance to fix them.

Usual sort of 'inside baseball' with bloggers getting upset about other bloggers' opinions. This applies to political pundits, sports pundits, gaming pundits, and, obviously, tech pundits.

These aren't the interesting thoughts you're looking for.

It sounds like Rush Limbaugh complaining about some Democrats. I meant it goes both ways.

Edd Bott to Microsoft is like MG Siegler to Apple.

So, why give these Elitists any attentions at all?

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