Comment by kaolinite | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kaolinite | Hacker News Reader

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(For what it's worth I've upvoted your post - not sure why it's been down-voted so much. You definitely made me think and check myself, however having considered, I still feel there's a lot of bad reporting out there. I don't think it's a tribal thing. You made good points though.)

Whilst I don't feel like digging through Twitter for links to poor reporting regarding Marco's article, it doesn't take long at all to find some examples of recent poor Apple reporting.

Here's Reuters claiming that Apple Watch is a "tough sell" because only 31% of Americans (that's 75 million adults) intend to buy it (a product that they haven't touched yet). It's based on a very small sample size, of course - completely flawed - but that apparently won't stop them writing an article about it.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/13/us-apple-watch-idU...

That 'study' was then published in many other publications:

http://business.financialpost.com/2015/03/16/apple-watch-may...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2993902/Apple-Watch-...

But that's not all, how about this article from ReadWrite. Apple Watch will disappoint users apparently - not that the author has used one yet. That didn't stop the author from claiming that it's hard to launch apps, unintuitive, etc. http://readwrite.com/2015/03/19/apple-watch-expectations-dis...

If that's not enough, how about the NYTimes reckoning that Apple Watch (and other wearables, too, although Apple Watch is mentioned the most frequently) could cause cancer (original headline: "Could wearable computers be as harmful as cigarettes"). http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/19/style/could-wearable-compu...

This isn't a conspiracy. Anti-Apple reporting gets a lot of page views. People click on articles claiming that a massive company is failing more than articles about how a massive company is continuing to do well.

"it doesn't take long at all to find some examples of recent poor Apple reporting"

That has absolutely nothing to do with what I asked. Apple is an enormous company. They have enormous influence, and their products are used by the majority of Americans, if not world citizens. Is it really notable that there are negative stories? Is it not exactly that sort of tribal mentality that makes one react to such banal noise? I see a stupid story and move on, but some seem to really hang onto it and see it as some grievous injustice.

The other poster is dead on when they say that Marco's words were amplified because he is typically so strongly pro-Apple. But from an outsider that is a problem with Marco's words, not with the perception of them. If indeed you have nothing but praise, you do naturally lose the rational actor perspective.

"This isn't a conspiracy. Anti-Apple reporting gets a lot of page views."

And so does pro-Apple reporting. We all have a confirmation bias though, so if you're sure everyone is against you, it's going to seem like it is. There are thousands (millions?) of news reports published every single day, and some cynical take on watches, or profit margins, or ipads or bendgate or whatever are in strong competition with stories about Apple taking over the living room (new Apple TV coming out soon!), building cars, taking on Google, releasing the next greatest thing, putting the Swiss all out of work, making more profit than the rest of the universe combined, etc.

The problem is that the poor reporting does have an effect. Such as my partner's sister deciding not to get an Apple Watch because it needs to be charged multiple times a day. Or my parents refusing to use Apple Pay because their details can apparently be stolen. Or people disabling Touch ID because it can be broken into. Or people disabling iCloud backups because of some privacy article they read (and then losing all of their photos of their children). Or, frankly, people staying on a crappy Windows laptop because they read something about Apple's software quality declining.

I don't care about Apple's bank balance or stock price. But as someone who loves tech, and thinks that tech can improve people's day-to-day lives, I want my family and friends to make informed decisions about which tech to buy and whether it'll help them. Not worrying that their Apple Watch will give them cancer.

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