8 ms·

John Gruber jumps the shark

128 points by bdfh42 16y ago

raganwald 16y ago
Nit: "Jumped the shark" or "Jumping the Shark" does not mean "Has started to suck." It's a specific subset of suckage where the subject is clearly aware that they have no new ideas and resorts to ever-more desperate tricks to try to appear fresh and new.
- noonespecial 16y ago
  I know (especially by the quick upvotes) that you are preaching to the choir here, but I have noticed a lot of non-thechnical, non-geek, never-even-heard-of-happy-days types beginning to use this phrase (incorrectly) just in the past few months. I've given up explaining who the Fonz is and just accepted this new reality. Once a meme goes mainstream, the primary idiom dilutes with use until its just a curios catch phrase. I just nod, smile and go to my happy place where there's a guy water-skiing in a leather jacket...
  - deleted 16y ago
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  - raganwald 16y ago
    Well, I don't mind so much that the origin is lost, it becomes a pleasant bit of trivia I will inflict upon my hapless colleagues one day, just as I now explain exactly what the phrase "core dump" really means. But in this case I do like keeping true to the specific meaning even if the origin is lost in antiquity. I feel it's a useful distinction to make. As an example, I would say that some years ago John Dvorak jumped the shark when he turned his public personal into a troll. As a counter-example, Joel Spolsky didn't jump the shark: He woke up one day and decided that his blog had run its course. I hope we are able to save some of its distinct meaning until some other phrase comes along with a similar usage.
    - noonespecial 16y ago
      "Shaka, when the walls fell."
      - Woabeebight 16y ago
        "With sails unfurled."
    - dhimes 16y ago
      A few years ago I heard Henry Winkler (who played "the Fonz," for those who don't know) give an interview on some radio show (probably NPR). They asked him about the phrase, and he said what was interesting to him about it was that after the "jump the shark" episode the show began attaining its highest ratings ever.
      - jerf 16y ago
        To me, that's a critical aspect of the term. They are out of ideas, they know it, and they shoot straight for pandering. People pander for a reason. It works. There's also a signaling mechanism involved in the use of the term, which is probably part of why everyone leaps so fast to declare that everything has jumped the shark. "I, sophisticated me, have noticed that X is out of ideas and is now just pandering and spinning. You, the plebians, may still tune in for a while, but I in my sophistication have already noticed the downfall beginning." In my opinion, to really know for sure when a shark was jumped takes time. It's like trying to declare five days after an album comes out that people will consider it a classic in 30 years; you really can't do that, or at least you can't actually be sure. The only way to apply the test of time is with time.
        dhimes 16y ago
        I agree with you about signaling, but I thought there might be another effect here. The people that started the term sounded like they watched the show when they were young. It could have simply been that they revisited the show when they were a bit older, and realized "it sucks." Not because the show was very different, but because they were. I didn't watch the show (although I was/am the right age to have done so), so I don't have an opinion as to whether the show got better, worse, or stayed the same after that episode.
  - ekanes 16y ago
    > Once a meme goes mainstream, the primary idiom dilutes with use until its just a curios catch phrase. I don't know if it'd qualify as a meme, but the term "hacker" would be another example of this.
- ZeroGravitas 16y ago
  Is self-awareness of your lack of originality really vital? The guy who claims to have come up with the phrase doesn't seem to think so: http://web.archive.org/web/20000817233601/www.jumptheshark.com/about.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20000817233601/www.jumptheshark.c... Q. What is jumping the shark? A. It's a moment. A defining moment when you know that your favorite television program has reached its peak. That instant that you know from now on...it's all downhill. Some call it the climax. We call it "Jumping the Shark." From that moment on, the program will simply never be the same.
  - raganwald 16y ago
    Thanks for a great reply! Looking at the original episode of "Happy Days," I find it difficult to believe that the producers were not keenly aware that they had walked away from the show's concept and were now milking cheap popularity for all it was worth. I suspect that the definition you give and the one I use are compatible even though they differ. Under the definition you give, the defining moment is really set by the viewer. It's the instant you know it's all downhill from here, not the actual peak. So Gruber's phrase might be the defining moment for Hank. It's also possible, as was the case for Happy Days, that the producers turn cynical and start resorting to cheap tricks like throwing out all character development and turning the show into a parody of itself, focusing on a caricature minor character rather than the more well-rounded principals. That's the definition I prefer. They could go together, and I would say there's value in combining them, as in: "I realized that HN had Jumped the Shark when Paul introduced the Date-a-Hacker feature."
  - deleted 16y ago
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commandar 16y ago
"It was probably an off-hand comment, but it speaks volumes about where John's current psyche is. He said: iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way." That line actually bothered me too, but for me it was triggered by John's recent decision to start attacking Android for somehow using private APIs on the sly because he couldn't be bothered to A. understand the basic architecture of Android (those pesky facts; things that anybody who'd spent 20 minutes skimming the intro to the Android SDK could tell you) and B. the fact that he almost willfully ignores that Android is architected differently than the iPhone, and that things that would be system-level calls on the iPhone are handled at the application level via public system calls, even for Google's own applications. This just happens to be something I can put my finger on; like the article's author, there's just been something about his tone recently that's been kind of off-putting to me. He seems quicker to jump at things simply for the sake of snark over correctness, which is a little bothersome for somebody who has a reputation for being a stickler for detail. It sucks because he's somebody that in the past I saw as being able to trust to get a take on things that was at least fair, even if I disagreed with him. Lately I find myself rolling my eyes at his posts often as not.
- ubernostrum 16y ago
  I guess I take it a bit differently -- the stuff he's usually responding to is from "respected industry commentators" like Rob Enderle or Paul Thurrott and, well, the record kinda speaks for itself. Mainstream coverage tends to pretty consistently publish a lot of things which are flat-out not true (e.g., the oft-repeated claim that iPods can only play music purchased from the iTunes store). And, for better or worse, that's what Gruber is typically harping on.
  - mtts 16y ago
    I'm under the impression that the amount of writing about other tech writers on Daring Fireball has increased during the last few months at the expense of writing about, well, tech. Which makes the site less pleasant to read for me. And in a sense it's "jumping the shark" - having run out of ideas, the John Gruber show is starting to fill episodes with unlikely, contrived subplots that have nothing to do with the original premise of the show, which was to write, in depth, about Apple products.
niceguy101 16y ago
From the comments: 'Gruber even edits his posts without disclosing it. I saw him call Apple's decision to ban an app as a "nameless individual App Store reviewer" fault and not Apple's!' The irony is that Gruber's fame originates from the outrage related to his app rejection.
- gjm11 16y ago
  > The irony is that Gruber's fame originates from the outrage related to his app rejection. Huh? Gruber's fame, such as it is, originates from the fact that for years he has been writing a blog filled with mostly-Apple-related stuff that lots of people (mostly Apple users) like reading. Daring Fireball has been a big noise in Apple-land since before there even was an App Store.
  - jroes 16y ago
    He also did Markdown.
  - niceguy101 16y ago
    I stand corrected. Thanks for the info. I came to know about the site after that app rejection. Thought the site came into light after that issue. My bad.
    - Maktab 16y ago
      Gruber never had an app rejected and he doesn't have any apps in the AppStore. Are you sure you're thinking of the same site?
      - gjm11 16y ago
        He's posted quite a lot about some App Store rejections. I expect some people first heard about him in that context.
- thedjpetersen 16y ago
  Out of curiousity, which could somebody link to the post about app rejection?
tommorris 16y ago
The phrase "jumped the shark" has definitely jumped the shark.
pohl 16y ago
iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way. Essentially, anyone who has criticized the iPhone, or presumably Apple is just someone not dealing with the facts. Hank, your critique falls apart when you switch what should be an existential quantifier with a universal quantifier.
- jdminhbg 16y ago
  No, the error there is Gruber's. "Americans rarely get any exercise." "French people rarely bathe." If Gruber doesn't want it to be taken as "all iPhone critics," he should specify.
  - pohl 16y ago
    No, the error is Hank's, for not reading that sentence in context. John is addressing an existential claim made by Jason Snell: Snell’s argument is that Apple should do this to nip the argument that the iPhone is too closed. But if Apple did exactly what Snell argues, critics would still harp on the closed App Store.
    - jdminhbg 16y ago
      I'm not sure how that context changes the sentence. If you're saying Gruber is referring to those critics in particular (rather than all critics, or critics in general), he should have started his sentence with "These iPhone critics..." Or, to add context to my test sentences: "John Smith weighs in at an astounding 350 pounds, but that's not hard to understand. Americans rarely get any exercise." The second sentence still means what it meant before.
      - pohl 16y ago
        I'm not sure how that context changes the sentence. The context makes it obvious which sentences are part of the author's thesis, and which are snark. Quoting the snark in isolation tells you only that Gruber is capable of sarcasm. Edit: what's most interesting to me here is that Hank doesn't seem at all interested in Gruber's thesis, let alone in attacking it. He just seems interested in attacking Gruber.
gabrielroth 16y ago
Like all prominent bloggers, Gruber could use some insightful criticism. Too bad this post doesn't offer any. A thousand words that add up to "I can't really put my finger on it or name any specifics, but Daring Fireball seems more uncritically approving of Apple lately" is fine for pub conversation, but it's not much use as reasoned argument. How could Gruber respond to this? The only specific point of Gruber's that the author cites is "iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way." I'm sure there's something to criticize in that statement, but it's a pretty slender reed on which to hang a blanket condemnation of dozens of articles.
- bradleyland 16y ago
  I agree 100%. I think the reality is probably closer to this. In the past, Hank probably agreed with John more than he disagreed, so it was easy for him to resolve any internal conflict; there was little of it. This was during a time when Apple primarily made desktop/laptop computers with a standard desktop operating system -- as opposed to operating systems like iPhone OS -- that was sufficiently Unix-like to please most geeks with a bend toward the Unix mindset. The conflict comes in the fact that the Unix mindset allied with the hacker mindset. Some would argue they're one and the same. Apple's new direction (iPhone OS) cuts the hacker off from the Unix-y underpinnings of the device. To take it a step further, you can't easily run native software you developed yourself on a variety of devices. So there's a cognitive dissonance developing within many Mac users. Their Mac-self wants to continue to enjoy the use of tools from the one company who seems to share the same values as them (well-built products, Unix-y ideas), but their geek-self is struggling with the loss of access to the parts that satisfy the hacker inside. I can identify with Hank, because despite finding no logical flaw with Gruber's arguments, I disagree with him. There is an indisputable subjective component to selecting tools. Gruber's inner-hacker is also offended by Apple's stance of the walled garden, but he recognizes that this offense is separate and unrelated to whether or not the product is a "good product", and he realizes that most of the world aren't hackers. This leads him to generally positive-leaning comments. At least in the context of potential market success. To put it simply, most people don't care that they can't get to a shell prompt on their iPad. They're perfectly happy browsing their iTunes library, watching YouTube, and reading web pages. I wish I had a good wrap-up/ending, but I just kind of hammered that out on the fly. Maybe I'll use it as the basis for a blog post.
sounddust 16y ago
The author writes an entire article accusing Gruber of failing to follow his assumptions to a truthful conclusion without giving a single example of him doing so. I think that there's a lot of criticism toward Gruber because his opinions are not a carbon-copy of the unified public geek opinion that you'd see on a site like Slashdot. I think it's refreshing to see a solitary source of Apple commentary in which the author actually attempts to understand Apple's motivations rather than blindly lambast them. Gruber is not afraid to criticize Apple (I've read dozens of criticisms of the app store approval process, for example). And that's always been his attitude: The opinions from someone who is a long-time fan of Apple products and does not instantly overreact to every news story about them like most tech sites. You can't accuse someone of jumping the shark for consistently doing what they've been doing for years.
- cromulent 16y ago
  I would add that you also have to judge DF's trajectory against Apple's. In the six or so years that DF has been running, Apple's product range, market share, mind share, and market capitalization have all grown remarkably (if not their own internal attitude), and with that has come a flood of both supporters and critics. DF is not commenting on fringe products such as OSX 10.3 anymore. He's commenting on a major mobile phone manufacturer and the maker of an popular and unusual new computing tablet. I would venture that Gruber feels no need to feed the Apple supporters, but he does feel a need to call the critics out when they just don't understand Apple or advise Apple to behave more like other tech companies.
  - samps 16y ago
    In this light, maybe people have started to be annoyed more by Gruber because, although his style and opinions haven't changed, he's suddenly for the Empire instead of the underdog. I have a feeling there would be much less anti-Gruber vitriol if he were defending an Apple that still seemed to be the "alternative" rather than the "mainstream".
scottmagdalein 16y ago
Bloviating waste of time.
npp 16y ago
Gruber does approach technology from a pro-Apple viewpoint, but many of his articles are at least organized around verifiable facts, though some may argue with his opinions or conclusions. In most (though not all) Gruber articles, it is at least not hard to tell which part is the facts he started with and which part is the opinion that some may disagree with. This is so basic, but most blogs are a complete muddle.
- kmfrk 16y ago
  It wouldn't be gauche to accuse him of reaching the viewpoints because of his reasoning rather than the other way around, as tempting as it is to pin some predicate related to Apple on him. :)
eli 16y ago
If you're going to accuse someone of writing weak arguments, you should probably make sure that your own argument is really well supported.
watty 16y ago
One Apple blogger accusing another Apple blogger of being a fanboi? Does this really need to be top of HN? Edit: Can you at least reply when you down vote? I know this was voted to the top of HN so it deserves to be there.
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  > Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- foljs 16y ago
  no, we can't.
isleyaardvark 16y ago
It was probably an off-hand comment, but it speaks volumes about where John's current psyche is. He said: iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way. It does say a lot about John's thinking. He's thinking that there is a lot of criticism of the iPhone is not based on facts. Not only did he link to an earlier article that very day that had 10 reasons not to buy an iPad that Gruber says got 9 out of 10 reasons factually wrong (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/warman http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/warman), but the very same article that quote appears in discusses misconceptions about the iPhone that are factually wrong. (Can I load my own videos and music on it, or only stuff I buy from Apple?)
- smackfu 16y ago
  Here's the full context: "Snell’s argument is that Apple should do this to nip the argument that the iPhone is too closed. But if Apple did exactly what Snell argues, critics would still harp on the closed App Store. iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way."
ZeroGravitas 16y ago
Funnily enough, my own thoughts about Gruber becoming annoying recently (after reading him for years) is because Gruber has started commenting on things he doesn't understand the facts of e.g. codec patents. He'll just come up with some pro-Apple spin and go with that, actual reality is often replaced with spiteful snark. e.g. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/android-battery-life http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/android-battery-... The first thing I did with my iPhone 3G was turn off some battery draining options I didn't need. Some people, not me, actually turned off 3G altogether. No, it wasn't fun. iPhone and smartphone battery life is an issue for everyone. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/google-pictures http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/google-pictures Actually Bing shows a random professional image, not one of your choice from your photo album. Is that not an important enough difference to stand in the way of publishing this hilarious jab at Google. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/05/21/webm-patents http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/05/21/webm-patents Uncritically passing on patent threats just because it suits Apple's strategic posturing? Adding commentary to make it seem like a done deal rather than posturing? Ignoring the fact that they'd said they would do this before Google even announced VP8 and indeed have said similar about Vorbis for a decade?. Also, much like Steve Jobs's one liners, you do get the feeling that cutting and pasting a link is such hard work on the iPad that you're luck to get more than a couple of words of commentary.
- danh 16y ago
  Also (from right now) it seems that Gruber doesn't know what browser sniffing is (or at least pretends to), but still has an opinion: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/04/html5-safari-opera http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/04/html5-safari-ope...
  - Lewisham 16y ago
    Yeah, this piece really riled me. I agree with the original post, he has been pushing harder and harder on Apple doing the right things with its control complex, whereas previously he wouldn't have done. If you swapped "Apple" from some of the pieces on the App Store and HTML5 stuff with "Microsoft" or "Adobe", you could be sure he'd be a frothy mess. I loved the Gruber of old. Where's he gone? Why is it just "If you don't love Apple, you can git out?" Fortunately, at least Wil Shipley has been holding his feet to the fire on Twitter, but I don't know why Gruber's gone this route at all.
adolph 16y ago
I think another interesting quote is: "I used to trust John Gruber. Now I will just read him." I'm not certain what there is to trust about Gruber--follow the links and read things through if it is interesting. I'm mostly a fan of "claim chowder," so maybe the author is focused on other things.
- smackfu 16y ago
  Wow, I hate the "claim chowder". The worst kind of journalism.
  - cpr 16y ago
    Why? Shouldn't journalists (including Gruber) be held to some kind of truthy standard about their claims?
    - smackfu 16y ago
      He spends a lot time calling out predictions by financial analysts. I'm not sure what the point of that is. It's just like, "Ha! iPad was not a failure, in your face for predicting it would do poorly!"
      - Anechoic 16y ago
        He spends a lot time calling out predictions by financial analysts. I'm not sure what the point of that is. To point out the (un)reliability of these analysts whose opinions people may trust (at act upon) because of their positions as "analyst." All things being equal, I will take the word of a police officer over the word of an accused criminal, but if I provided with facts that the officer is often wrong/lying, I won't automatically trust the officer's report.
      - SixtySe7en 16y ago
        The point is how many news agencies, blogs, and pundits quote these same analysts day after day without questioning their track record, motives, or experience. I think its good to have someone calling them on their "expertise" from time to time.
llimllib 16y ago
> To be clear I am not suggesting Gruber is being in any way disingenuous in his arguments Yes, you are. That is in fact exactly what you are doing.
antidaily 16y ago
Gruber is so angry these days. There's no more excitement. It's all defensive and pissed-off writing.
- danudey 16y ago
  I'm guessing you didn't read DF after the iPad announcement. The sense I got from Gruber was that he knew it was world-changing, but until you've used it you don't really understand why. He was thrilled about the potential but couldn't explain it to anyone. He was very excited, make no mistake.
KirinDave 16y ago
So, Protip: The word “fanboi” is as ridiculous and juvenile as ”M$”, ”demorat”, “republiscams”, or any other goofy little pun moniker. I half expected the final paragraph to close with an “All Your Base” reference after seeing the word “fanboi”. I know people don't read Hank for the cleverly barbed and expertly crafted prose... but, really? Fanboi?
- frou_dh 16y ago
  This needs to be broadcast to the entire internet population. It's incredible how widespread (and instantly reached for) the term and its conventionally spelled sibling have become.
  - WiseWeasel 16y ago
    The difference is that there are (seldom) times when it's socially acceptable to use the word "fanboy", but it's never OK to say "fanboi".
    - deleted 16y ago
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    - mturmon 16y ago
      The fanboy phenomenon is real: people, usually guys, often younger, who idolize one brand of hardware, usually because it's what they own. It's just like: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/08/28/automobiles/0830-deucecoupe_index.html http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/08/28/automobiles/0830... So, we might as well have a word for it.
      - rictic 16y ago
        True, but actually calling someone a fanboy is a very reliable way to end a productive conversation and debate (or prevent one from starting). It's an indication that you're not going to listen to anything the other person is going to say because they're so heavily biased. That's why I wish people wouldn't use the word.
tjmaxal 16y ago
It's pretty bad when the author continuously does what he is accusing the rest of the world of doing wrong.
ryanwaggoner 16y ago
I'm not at all sure I see the difference in Gruber saying "iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way." and Williams saying "Of course in the current climate, conservatism seems to be becoming more "fact free" (think Obama birth certificate and death panels), so there are fewer reasonably argued ideas to embrace."
- WiseWeasel 16y ago
  Well, to be pedantic, one is an absolute judgment, the other is a relative one. "Seldom" implies that a significant majority of iPhone critics do not let facts get in their way. "Becoming more" implies that there is a trend towards freedom from facts, but does not place a judgment on the absolute degree of fact-freedom.
pauljonas 16y ago
For me, the Gruber-bot jumped the shark a long time ago. I really don't get the appeal of his writing — other than an occasional Apple apologetic, it appears to be nothing more than a tumblelog of Apple bits, but yet he's paid a premium for it, due to high profile linkage…
bonaldi 16y ago
Gruber hasn't changed in the slightest. The only thing that has changed is sentiment here towards Apple. Because you disagree with him, you're more likely to judge him harshly. I don't agree with him entirely often either, but god am I glad there's someone making the case for the App Store, mostly coherently. Tech is driven by sentiment much more than people would like to admit. Android was a not-quite-there until IO 2010, now it's the new hot. What changed? Very little, technically. A lot, rhetorically. Same here.
- kmfrk 16y ago
  I have grown to like Gruber more in the last couple of months---heck, I've just grown to like him at all. I don't think it has anything to do with him changing, but rather myself or my perception of him. It could be both, too, of course. I still think he should refrain from talking about politics, though, but the idiosyncrasy of the blog is also a part of its charm. I just wish he would ditch this one.
SixtySe7en 16y ago
The difference between Gruber and Williams? Gruber makes very clear (in his columns and Twitter feed) that he is brutally honest about his subjectivity on all issues. Willams pretends he is "objective", the same way Paul Thurrott, John Dvorak, Rob Enderle and Joe Wilcox all claim to be "objective" about Apple specifically, and other issues in general. Who has jumped the shark?
mandingo551 16y ago
What was it that Gruber called web apps? Oh, right. Shit sandwiches.
billymeltdown 16y ago
Y'know, I used to think he was a blow-hard, but his writing style has really grown on me. The guy is thorough, and thoughtful (if sometimes extremely caustic), and I think he helps raise the bar of commentary by way of example as well as ridicule. I wonder how many of his detractors have actually unsubscribed from DF in their feed readers?
col_kurtz 16y ago
Gruber continually comments about topics unrelated to why people are reading his blog. It's like, great dude, you like Stanley Kubrick. Great dude, you're a liberal. Great dude, you like baseball. No one gives a fuck! Write about apple and tech. DF is too popular to digress and distract into a personal blog like it still has only a few thousand hits a day.
- sirsean 16y ago
  Yeah, what a waste. You should cancel your subscription to save all the money you wasted by reading those 20-word snippets of text. What? It's still free? And people are still allowed to write about what they want to, and not what YOU want them to? That IS weird.
  - col_kurtz 16y ago
    Because staying on point isn't a civil rights issue, jackass. This is why most blogs aren't considered real journalism and require, as Jobs said this week, "oversight" to be considered fully legit. If Walt Mossberg suddenly digressed into his favorite movie or what he likes for dinner while he's reviewing a product, I would call that unprofessional. So what it means is people like Gruber are pseudo-professional journalists who are mixing amateurish diary entries about their personal life and topics they don't know about along with the commentary that actually brought them alot of hits in the first place. And don't even get started about "free". Because it's not subscription but he gets paid thousands through advertising, but I'm not "paying for it"? Just like more legit journalists do. And if something's free I can't complain I suppose... case closed.
    - EpiStemIc 16y ago
      "Gruber continually comments about topics unrelated to why people are reading his blog. It's like, great dude, you like Stanley Kubrick. Great dude, you're a liberal. Great dude, you like baseball. No one gives a fuck! Write about apple and tech. DF is too popular to digress and distract into a personal blog like it still has only a few thousand hits a day." An epic fail col_kurtz because you were overly snide and because you failed to see the elucidation to your gripe within your own missive. "Because staying on point isn't a civil rights issue, jackass" ... not only vapid, but again, anomalous. If staying on point is of no consequence why get soooo perturbed about it? Does Gruber randomly digress during a product review? I personally have never noticed any such skylarking, besides, even if he has occasionally or even if he did habitually, so what? that would be his MO and thus would partially explain why you either enjoy his discourse or not, evidently you don't. "most blogs aren't considered real journalism". "people like Gruber are pseudo-professional journalists" "legit journalists do" (as in get paid?? I think??) It is necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff, obviously, just because a writer is paid to write does not imply that that writer is good (look up the word "good" in a dictionary as it covers a lot of ground, seriously look it up) and just because a writer is not paid does not automatically deem them to be bad (see dictionary for "bad")
mandingo551 16y ago
What I love most about Gruber is his inexplicable nature to post links without commenting on it. The sheer brilliance of it is amazing. It's like an escape hatch—it gives him the opportunity to say whatever he wants without owning up to anything. Like the Foxconn suicides. "I linked to the “hey, Foxconn’s suicide rate sounds high but it’s lower than China’s overall rate” thing not as proof that everything is just fine at Foxconn, but for context" Right, sure pal. Whatever you say.
- cpr 16y ago
  This almost isn't worth replying to, but if you don't know the history of Daring Fireball, you might be correctly confused. He used to split his feeds into an occasional commentary and sometimes several-times daily links. He combined them a while back, so now you get mostly links mixed in with very occasional commentary in a single feed. I.e., nothing has really changed.
turkeyneck 16y ago
I'd just want to quibble a bit about the 'jumping point.' Rather than the extended MacBook hack, the more recent breast-beating defense of Apple's questionable behavior about the lost iPhone prototype fiasco is what got me to suspect the shark has been left aways behind by DF. The guy's not a legal scholar and I doubt he'd claim any expertise in this dept. but yet EARLY ON in the ordeal was parroting the legal talking points that law-and-order types were breaking out about how Gizmodo was way out of its journalistic bounds and ever-so-guilty of outrageous criminal activity. The actual circumstance of a friggin' cell phone being left in a bar by a drunk employee wouldn't produce much notice from anyone but this stupid incident managed to get folks to line up defending one side or the other in a matter that will be obviously moot in a matter of weeks. Then and now. What's the BFD, I gotta ask Gruber? But he's gotten quite defensive of late. Like today about this thread.
wolfish 16y ago
I started feeling the same way a few months ago. It is hard to define exactly what changed. Some of the time I question whether it might have been me that changed rather than Gruber. It's validating that other's are starting to feel the same way though.
foljs 16y ago
My take on DF: http://bananaranha.com/post/285263169/can-you-guess-the-blog http://bananaranha.com/post/285263169/can-you-guess-the-blog
tomica 16y ago
(all from gruber in 2007) http://daringfireball.net/2007/06/wwdc_2007_keynote http://daringfireball.net/2007/06/wwdc_2007_keynote Web Apps as the Route for iPhone Development [...] It’s insulting, because it’s not a way to write iPhone apps, and you can’t bullshit developers. It’s a matter of spin. [..] If all you have to offer is a shit sandwich, just say it. Don’t tell us how lucky we are and that it’s going to taste delicious. (compare to anything from gruber on web apps in 2010) http://daringfireball.net/ http://daringfireball.net/
ahrencode 16y ago
My uninvited opinion posted on Hank's blog, and adding here (based on Gruber's recent post pointing here): Gruber is a smart, measured and often witty commentator, but if you want him at his irrational best, look not for Apple apologia, but his vacant WordPress sneers and attacks (themselves stand-ins for animus towards the GPL, I think). (here's my comment on one such instance: http://ahren.org/code/bit/john-grubers-15-minutes-of-schadenfreude http://ahren.org/code/bit/john-grubers-15-minutes-of-schaden...)

128 points by bdfh42 16y ago

Nit: "Jumped the shark" or "Jumping the Shark" does not mean "Has started to suck." It's a specific subset of suckage where the subject is clearly aware that they have no new ideas and resorts to ever-more desperate tricks to try to appear fresh and new.

noonespecial 16y ago
I know (especially by the quick upvotes) that you are preaching to the choir here, but I have noticed a lot of non-thechnical, non-geek, never-even-heard-of-happy-days types beginning to use this phrase (incorrectly) just in the past few months. I've given up explaining who the Fonz is and just accepted this new reality. Once a meme goes mainstream, the primary idiom dilutes with use until its just a curios catch phrase. I just nod, smile and go to my happy place where there's a guy water-skiing in a leather jacket...
- deleted 16y ago
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- raganwald 16y ago
  Well, I don't mind so much that the origin is lost, it becomes a pleasant bit of trivia I will inflict upon my hapless colleagues one day, just as I now explain exactly what the phrase "core dump" really means. But in this case I do like keeping true to the specific meaning even if the origin is lost in antiquity. I feel it's a useful distinction to make. As an example, I would say that some years ago John Dvorak jumped the shark when he turned his public personal into a troll. As a counter-example, Joel Spolsky didn't jump the shark: He woke up one day and decided that his blog had run its course. I hope we are able to save some of its distinct meaning until some other phrase comes along with a similar usage.
  - noonespecial 16y ago
    "Shaka, when the walls fell."
    - Woabeebight 16y ago
      "With sails unfurled."
  - dhimes 16y ago
    A few years ago I heard Henry Winkler (who played "the Fonz," for those who don't know) give an interview on some radio show (probably NPR). They asked him about the phrase, and he said what was interesting to him about it was that after the "jump the shark" episode the show began attaining its highest ratings ever.
    - jerf 16y ago
      To me, that's a critical aspect of the term. They are out of ideas, they know it, and they shoot straight for pandering. People pander for a reason. It works. There's also a signaling mechanism involved in the use of the term, which is probably part of why everyone leaps so fast to declare that everything has jumped the shark. "I, sophisticated me, have noticed that X is out of ideas and is now just pandering and spinning. You, the plebians, may still tune in for a while, but I in my sophistication have already noticed the downfall beginning." In my opinion, to really know for sure when a shark was jumped takes time. It's like trying to declare five days after an album comes out that people will consider it a classic in 30 years; you really can't do that, or at least you can't actually be sure. The only way to apply the test of time is with time.
      - dhimes 16y ago
        I agree with you about signaling, but I thought there might be another effect here. The people that started the term sounded like they watched the show when they were young. It could have simply been that they revisited the show when they were a bit older, and realized "it sucks." Not because the show was very different, but because they were. I didn't watch the show (although I was/am the right age to have done so), so I don't have an opinion as to whether the show got better, worse, or stayed the same after that episode.
- ekanes 16y ago
  > Once a meme goes mainstream, the primary idiom dilutes with use until its just a curios catch phrase. I don't know if it'd qualify as a meme, but the term "hacker" would be another example of this.
ZeroGravitas 16y ago
Is self-awareness of your lack of originality really vital? The guy who claims to have come up with the phrase doesn't seem to think so: http://web.archive.org/web/20000817233601/www.jumptheshark.com/about.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20000817233601/www.jumptheshark.c... Q. What is jumping the shark? A. It's a moment. A defining moment when you know that your favorite television program has reached its peak. That instant that you know from now on...it's all downhill. Some call it the climax. We call it "Jumping the Shark." From that moment on, the program will simply never be the same.
- raganwald 16y ago
  Thanks for a great reply! Looking at the original episode of "Happy Days," I find it difficult to believe that the producers were not keenly aware that they had walked away from the show's concept and were now milking cheap popularity for all it was worth. I suspect that the definition you give and the one I use are compatible even though they differ. Under the definition you give, the defining moment is really set by the viewer. It's the instant you know it's all downhill from here, not the actual peak. So Gruber's phrase might be the defining moment for Hank. It's also possible, as was the case for Happy Days, that the producers turn cynical and start resorting to cheap tricks like throwing out all character development and turning the show into a parody of itself, focusing on a caricature minor character rather than the more well-rounded principals. That's the definition I prefer. They could go together, and I would say there's value in combining them, as in: "I realized that HN had Jumped the Shark when Paul introduced the Date-a-Hacker feature."
- deleted 16y ago
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commandar 16y ago

"It was probably an off-hand comment, but it speaks volumes about where John's current psyche is. He said: iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way." That line actually bothered me too, but for me it was triggered by John's recent decision to start attacking Android for somehow using private APIs on the sly because he couldn't be bothered to A. understand the basic architecture of Android (those pesky facts; things that anybody who'd spent 20 minutes skimming the intro to the Android SDK could tell you) and B. the fact that he almost willfully ignores that Android is architected differently than the iPhone, and that things that would be system-level calls on the iPhone are handled at the application level via public system calls, even for Google's own applications. This just happens to be something I can put my finger on; like the article's author, there's just been something about his tone recently that's been kind of off-putting to me. He seems quicker to jump at things simply for the sake of snark over correctness, which is a little bothersome for somebody who has a reputation for being a stickler for detail. It sucks because he's somebody that in the past I saw as being able to trust to get a take on things that was at least fair, even if I disagreed with him. Lately I find myself rolling my eyes at his posts often as not.

ubernostrum 16y ago
I guess I take it a bit differently -- the stuff he's usually responding to is from "respected industry commentators" like Rob Enderle or Paul Thurrott and, well, the record kinda speaks for itself. Mainstream coverage tends to pretty consistently publish a lot of things which are flat-out not true (e.g., the oft-repeated claim that iPods can only play music purchased from the iTunes store). And, for better or worse, that's what Gruber is typically harping on.
- mtts 16y ago
  I'm under the impression that the amount of writing about other tech writers on Daring Fireball has increased during the last few months at the expense of writing about, well, tech. Which makes the site less pleasant to read for me. And in a sense it's "jumping the shark" - having run out of ideas, the John Gruber show is starting to fill episodes with unlikely, contrived subplots that have nothing to do with the original premise of the show, which was to write, in depth, about Apple products.

niceguy101 16y ago

From the comments: 'Gruber even edits his posts without disclosing it. I saw him call Apple's decision to ban an app as a "nameless individual App Store reviewer" fault and not Apple's!' The irony is that Gruber's fame originates from the outrage related to his app rejection.

gjm11 16y ago
> The irony is that Gruber's fame originates from the outrage related to his app rejection. Huh? Gruber's fame, such as it is, originates from the fact that for years he has been writing a blog filled with mostly-Apple-related stuff that lots of people (mostly Apple users) like reading. Daring Fireball has been a big noise in Apple-land since before there even was an App Store.
- jroes 16y ago
  He also did Markdown.
- niceguy101 16y ago
  I stand corrected. Thanks for the info. I came to know about the site after that app rejection. Thought the site came into light after that issue. My bad.
  - Maktab 16y ago
    Gruber never had an app rejected and he doesn't have any apps in the AppStore. Are you sure you're thinking of the same site?
    - gjm11 16y ago
      He's posted quite a lot about some App Store rejections. I expect some people first heard about him in that context.
thedjpetersen 16y ago
Out of curiousity, which could somebody link to the post about app rejection?

tommorris 16y ago

The phrase "jumped the shark" has definitely jumped the shark.

pohl 16y ago

iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way. Essentially, anyone who has criticized the iPhone, or presumably Apple is just someone not dealing with the facts. Hank, your critique falls apart when you switch what should be an existential quantifier with a universal quantifier.

jdminhbg 16y ago
No, the error there is Gruber's. "Americans rarely get any exercise." "French people rarely bathe." If Gruber doesn't want it to be taken as "all iPhone critics," he should specify.
- pohl 16y ago
  No, the error is Hank's, for not reading that sentence in context. John is addressing an existential claim made by Jason Snell: Snell’s argument is that Apple should do this to nip the argument that the iPhone is too closed. But if Apple did exactly what Snell argues, critics would still harp on the closed App Store.
  - jdminhbg 16y ago
    I'm not sure how that context changes the sentence. If you're saying Gruber is referring to those critics in particular (rather than all critics, or critics in general), he should have started his sentence with "These iPhone critics..." Or, to add context to my test sentences: "John Smith weighs in at an astounding 350 pounds, but that's not hard to understand. Americans rarely get any exercise." The second sentence still means what it meant before.
    - pohl 16y ago
      I'm not sure how that context changes the sentence. The context makes it obvious which sentences are part of the author's thesis, and which are snark. Quoting the snark in isolation tells you only that Gruber is capable of sarcasm. Edit: what's most interesting to me here is that Hank doesn't seem at all interested in Gruber's thesis, let alone in attacking it. He just seems interested in attacking Gruber.

gabrielroth 16y ago

Like all prominent bloggers, Gruber could use some insightful criticism. Too bad this post doesn't offer any. A thousand words that add up to "I can't really put my finger on it or name any specifics, but Daring Fireball seems more uncritically approving of Apple lately" is fine for pub conversation, but it's not much use as reasoned argument. How could Gruber respond to this? The only specific point of Gruber's that the author cites is "iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way." I'm sure there's something to criticize in that statement, but it's a pretty slender reed on which to hang a blanket condemnation of dozens of articles.

bradleyland 16y ago
I agree 100%. I think the reality is probably closer to this. In the past, Hank probably agreed with John more than he disagreed, so it was easy for him to resolve any internal conflict; there was little of it. This was during a time when Apple primarily made desktop/laptop computers with a standard desktop operating system -- as opposed to operating systems like iPhone OS -- that was sufficiently Unix-like to please most geeks with a bend toward the Unix mindset. The conflict comes in the fact that the Unix mindset allied with the hacker mindset. Some would argue they're one and the same. Apple's new direction (iPhone OS) cuts the hacker off from the Unix-y underpinnings of the device. To take it a step further, you can't easily run native software you developed yourself on a variety of devices. So there's a cognitive dissonance developing within many Mac users. Their Mac-self wants to continue to enjoy the use of tools from the one company who seems to share the same values as them (well-built products, Unix-y ideas), but their geek-self is struggling with the loss of access to the parts that satisfy the hacker inside. I can identify with Hank, because despite finding no logical flaw with Gruber's arguments, I disagree with him. There is an indisputable subjective component to selecting tools. Gruber's inner-hacker is also offended by Apple's stance of the walled garden, but he recognizes that this offense is separate and unrelated to whether or not the product is a "good product", and he realizes that most of the world aren't hackers. This leads him to generally positive-leaning comments. At least in the context of potential market success. To put it simply, most people don't care that they can't get to a shell prompt on their iPad. They're perfectly happy browsing their iTunes library, watching YouTube, and reading web pages. I wish I had a good wrap-up/ending, but I just kind of hammered that out on the fly. Maybe I'll use it as the basis for a blog post.

sounddust 16y ago

The author writes an entire article accusing Gruber of failing to follow his assumptions to a truthful conclusion without giving a single example of him doing so. I think that there's a lot of criticism toward Gruber because his opinions are not a carbon-copy of the unified public geek opinion that you'd see on a site like Slashdot. I think it's refreshing to see a solitary source of Apple commentary in which the author actually attempts to understand Apple's motivations rather than blindly lambast them. Gruber is not afraid to criticize Apple (I've read dozens of criticisms of the app store approval process, for example). And that's always been his attitude: The opinions from someone who is a long-time fan of Apple products and does not instantly overreact to every news story about them like most tech sites. You can't accuse someone of jumping the shark for consistently doing what they've been doing for years.

cromulent 16y ago
I would add that you also have to judge DF's trajectory against Apple's. In the six or so years that DF has been running, Apple's product range, market share, mind share, and market capitalization have all grown remarkably (if not their own internal attitude), and with that has come a flood of both supporters and critics. DF is not commenting on fringe products such as OSX 10.3 anymore. He's commenting on a major mobile phone manufacturer and the maker of an popular and unusual new computing tablet. I would venture that Gruber feels no need to feed the Apple supporters, but he does feel a need to call the critics out when they just don't understand Apple or advise Apple to behave more like other tech companies.
- samps 16y ago
  In this light, maybe people have started to be annoyed more by Gruber because, although his style and opinions haven't changed, he's suddenly for the Empire instead of the underdog. I have a feeling there would be much less anti-Gruber vitriol if he were defending an Apple that still seemed to be the "alternative" rather than the "mainstream".

scottmagdalein 16y ago

Bloviating waste of time.

npp 16y ago

Gruber does approach technology from a pro-Apple viewpoint, but many of his articles are at least organized around verifiable facts, though some may argue with his opinions or conclusions. In most (though not all) Gruber articles, it is at least not hard to tell which part is the facts he started with and which part is the opinion that some may disagree with. This is so basic, but most blogs are a complete muddle.

kmfrk 16y ago
It wouldn't be gauche to accuse him of reaching the viewpoints because of his reasoning rather than the other way around, as tempting as it is to pin some predicate related to Apple on him. :)

eli 16y ago

If you're going to accuse someone of writing weak arguments, you should probably make sure that your own argument is really well supported.

watty 16y ago

One Apple blogger accusing another Apple blogger of being a fanboi? Does this really need to be top of HN? Edit: Can you at least reply when you down vote? I know this was voted to the top of HN so it deserves to be there.

steveklabnik 16y ago
> Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
foljs 16y ago
no, we can't.

isleyaardvark 16y ago

It was probably an off-hand comment, but it speaks volumes about where John's current psyche is. He said: iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way. It does say a lot about John's thinking. He's thinking that there is a lot of criticism of the iPhone is not based on facts. Not only did he link to an earlier article that very day that had 10 reasons not to buy an iPad that Gruber says got 9 out of 10 reasons factually wrong (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/warman http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/warman), but the very same article that quote appears in discusses misconceptions about the iPhone that are factually wrong. (Can I load my own videos and music on it, or only stuff I buy from Apple?)

smackfu 16y ago
Here's the full context: "Snell’s argument is that Apple should do this to nip the argument that the iPhone is too closed. But if Apple did exactly what Snell argues, critics would still harp on the closed App Store. iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way."

ZeroGravitas 16y ago

Funnily enough, my own thoughts about Gruber becoming annoying recently (after reading him for years) is because Gruber has started commenting on things he doesn't understand the facts of e.g. codec patents. He'll just come up with some pro-Apple spin and go with that, actual reality is often replaced with spiteful snark. e.g. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/android-battery-life http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/android-battery-... The first thing I did with my iPhone 3G was turn off some battery draining options I didn't need. Some people, not me, actually turned off 3G altogether. No, it wasn't fun. iPhone and smartphone battery life is an issue for everyone. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/google-pictures http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/google-pictures Actually Bing shows a random professional image, not one of your choice from your photo album. Is that not an important enough difference to stand in the way of publishing this hilarious jab at Google. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/05/21/webm-patents http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/05/21/webm-patents Uncritically passing on patent threats just because it suits Apple's strategic posturing? Adding commentary to make it seem like a done deal rather than posturing? Ignoring the fact that they'd said they would do this before Google even announced VP8 and indeed have said similar about Vorbis for a decade?. Also, much like Steve Jobs's one liners, you do get the feeling that cutting and pasting a link is such hard work on the iPad that you're luck to get more than a couple of words of commentary.

danh 16y ago
Also (from right now) it seems that Gruber doesn't know what browser sniffing is (or at least pretends to), but still has an opinion: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/04/html5-safari-opera http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/04/html5-safari-ope...
- Lewisham 16y ago
  Yeah, this piece really riled me. I agree with the original post, he has been pushing harder and harder on Apple doing the right things with its control complex, whereas previously he wouldn't have done. If you swapped "Apple" from some of the pieces on the App Store and HTML5 stuff with "Microsoft" or "Adobe", you could be sure he'd be a frothy mess. I loved the Gruber of old. Where's he gone? Why is it just "If you don't love Apple, you can git out?" Fortunately, at least Wil Shipley has been holding his feet to the fire on Twitter, but I don't know why Gruber's gone this route at all.

adolph 16y ago

I think another interesting quote is: "I used to trust John Gruber. Now I will just read him." I'm not certain what there is to trust about Gruber--follow the links and read things through if it is interesting. I'm mostly a fan of "claim chowder," so maybe the author is focused on other things.

smackfu 16y ago
Wow, I hate the "claim chowder". The worst kind of journalism.
- cpr 16y ago
  Why? Shouldn't journalists (including Gruber) be held to some kind of truthy standard about their claims?
  - smackfu 16y ago
    He spends a lot time calling out predictions by financial analysts. I'm not sure what the point of that is. It's just like, "Ha! iPad was not a failure, in your face for predicting it would do poorly!"
    - Anechoic 16y ago
      He spends a lot time calling out predictions by financial analysts. I'm not sure what the point of that is. To point out the (un)reliability of these analysts whose opinions people may trust (at act upon) because of their positions as "analyst." All things being equal, I will take the word of a police officer over the word of an accused criminal, but if I provided with facts that the officer is often wrong/lying, I won't automatically trust the officer's report.
    - SixtySe7en 16y ago
      The point is how many news agencies, blogs, and pundits quote these same analysts day after day without questioning their track record, motives, or experience. I think its good to have someone calling them on their "expertise" from time to time.

llimllib 16y ago

> To be clear I am not suggesting Gruber is being in any way disingenuous in his arguments Yes, you are. That is in fact exactly what you are doing.

antidaily 16y ago

Gruber is so angry these days. There's no more excitement. It's all defensive and pissed-off writing.

danudey 16y ago
I'm guessing you didn't read DF after the iPad announcement. The sense I got from Gruber was that he knew it was world-changing, but until you've used it you don't really understand why. He was thrilled about the potential but couldn't explain it to anyone. He was very excited, make no mistake.

KirinDave 16y ago

So, Protip: The word “fanboi” is as ridiculous and juvenile as ”M$”, ”demorat”, “republiscams”, or any other goofy little pun moniker. I half expected the final paragraph to close with an “All Your Base” reference after seeing the word “fanboi”. I know people don't read Hank for the cleverly barbed and expertly crafted prose... but, really? Fanboi?

frou_dh 16y ago
This needs to be broadcast to the entire internet population. It's incredible how widespread (and instantly reached for) the term and its conventionally spelled sibling have become.
- WiseWeasel 16y ago
  The difference is that there are (seldom) times when it's socially acceptable to use the word "fanboy", but it's never OK to say "fanboi".
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - mturmon 16y ago
    The fanboy phenomenon is real: people, usually guys, often younger, who idolize one brand of hardware, usually because it's what they own. It's just like: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/08/28/automobiles/0830-deucecoupe_index.html http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/08/28/automobiles/0830... So, we might as well have a word for it.
    - rictic 16y ago
      True, but actually calling someone a fanboy is a very reliable way to end a productive conversation and debate (or prevent one from starting). It's an indication that you're not going to listen to anything the other person is going to say because they're so heavily biased. That's why I wish people wouldn't use the word.

tjmaxal 16y ago

It's pretty bad when the author continuously does what he is accusing the rest of the world of doing wrong.

ryanwaggoner 16y ago

I'm not at all sure I see the difference in Gruber saying "iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way." and Williams saying "Of course in the current climate, conservatism seems to be becoming more "fact free" (think Obama birth certificate and death panels), so there are fewer reasonably argued ideas to embrace."

WiseWeasel 16y ago
Well, to be pedantic, one is an absolute judgment, the other is a relative one. "Seldom" implies that a significant majority of iPhone critics do not let facts get in their way. "Becoming more" implies that there is a trend towards freedom from facts, but does not place a judgment on the absolute degree of fact-freedom.

pauljonas 16y ago

For me, the Gruber-bot jumped the shark a long time ago. I really don't get the appeal of his writing — other than an occasional Apple apologetic, it appears to be nothing more than a tumblelog of Apple bits, but yet he's paid a premium for it, due to high profile linkage…

bonaldi 16y ago

Gruber hasn't changed in the slightest. The only thing that has changed is sentiment here towards Apple. Because you disagree with him, you're more likely to judge him harshly. I don't agree with him entirely often either, but god am I glad there's someone making the case for the App Store, mostly coherently. Tech is driven by sentiment much more than people would like to admit. Android was a not-quite-there until IO 2010, now it's the new hot. What changed? Very little, technically. A lot, rhetorically. Same here.

kmfrk 16y ago
I have grown to like Gruber more in the last couple of months---heck, I've just grown to like him at all. I don't think it has anything to do with him changing, but rather myself or my perception of him. It could be both, too, of course. I still think he should refrain from talking about politics, though, but the idiosyncrasy of the blog is also a part of its charm. I just wish he would ditch this one.

SixtySe7en 16y ago

The difference between Gruber and Williams? Gruber makes very clear (in his columns and Twitter feed) that he is brutally honest about his subjectivity on all issues. Willams pretends he is "objective", the same way Paul Thurrott, John Dvorak, Rob Enderle and Joe Wilcox all claim to be "objective" about Apple specifically, and other issues in general. Who has jumped the shark?

mandingo551 16y ago

What was it that Gruber called web apps? Oh, right. Shit sandwiches.

billymeltdown 16y ago

Y'know, I used to think he was a blow-hard, but his writing style has really grown on me. The guy is thorough, and thoughtful (if sometimes extremely caustic), and I think he helps raise the bar of commentary by way of example as well as ridicule. I wonder how many of his detractors have actually unsubscribed from DF in their feed readers?

col_kurtz 16y ago

Gruber continually comments about topics unrelated to why people are reading his blog. It's like, great dude, you like Stanley Kubrick. Great dude, you're a liberal. Great dude, you like baseball. No one gives a fuck! Write about apple and tech. DF is too popular to digress and distract into a personal blog like it still has only a few thousand hits a day.

sirsean 16y ago
Yeah, what a waste. You should cancel your subscription to save all the money you wasted by reading those 20-word snippets of text. What? It's still free? And people are still allowed to write about what they want to, and not what YOU want them to? That IS weird.
- col_kurtz 16y ago
  Because staying on point isn't a civil rights issue, jackass. This is why most blogs aren't considered real journalism and require, as Jobs said this week, "oversight" to be considered fully legit. If Walt Mossberg suddenly digressed into his favorite movie or what he likes for dinner while he's reviewing a product, I would call that unprofessional. So what it means is people like Gruber are pseudo-professional journalists who are mixing amateurish diary entries about their personal life and topics they don't know about along with the commentary that actually brought them alot of hits in the first place. And don't even get started about "free". Because it's not subscription but he gets paid thousands through advertising, but I'm not "paying for it"? Just like more legit journalists do. And if something's free I can't complain I suppose... case closed.
  - EpiStemIc 16y ago
    "Gruber continually comments about topics unrelated to why people are reading his blog. It's like, great dude, you like Stanley Kubrick. Great dude, you're a liberal. Great dude, you like baseball. No one gives a fuck! Write about apple and tech. DF is too popular to digress and distract into a personal blog like it still has only a few thousand hits a day." An epic fail col_kurtz because you were overly snide and because you failed to see the elucidation to your gripe within your own missive. "Because staying on point isn't a civil rights issue, jackass" ... not only vapid, but again, anomalous. If staying on point is of no consequence why get soooo perturbed about it? Does Gruber randomly digress during a product review? I personally have never noticed any such skylarking, besides, even if he has occasionally or even if he did habitually, so what? that would be his MO and thus would partially explain why you either enjoy his discourse or not, evidently you don't. "most blogs aren't considered real journalism". "people like Gruber are pseudo-professional journalists" "legit journalists do" (as in get paid?? I think??) It is necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff, obviously, just because a writer is paid to write does not imply that that writer is good (look up the word "good" in a dictionary as it covers a lot of ground, seriously look it up) and just because a writer is not paid does not automatically deem them to be bad (see dictionary for "bad")

mandingo551 16y ago

What I love most about Gruber is his inexplicable nature to post links without commenting on it. The sheer brilliance of it is amazing. It's like an escape hatch—it gives him the opportunity to say whatever he wants without owning up to anything. Like the Foxconn suicides. "I linked to the “hey, Foxconn’s suicide rate sounds high but it’s lower than China’s overall rate” thing not as proof that everything is just fine at Foxconn, but for context" Right, sure pal. Whatever you say.

cpr 16y ago
This almost isn't worth replying to, but if you don't know the history of Daring Fireball, you might be correctly confused. He used to split his feeds into an occasional commentary and sometimes several-times daily links. He combined them a while back, so now you get mostly links mixed in with very occasional commentary in a single feed. I.e., nothing has really changed.

turkeyneck 16y ago

I'd just want to quibble a bit about the 'jumping point.' Rather than the extended MacBook hack, the more recent breast-beating defense of Apple's questionable behavior about the lost iPhone prototype fiasco is what got me to suspect the shark has been left aways behind by DF. The guy's not a legal scholar and I doubt he'd claim any expertise in this dept. but yet EARLY ON in the ordeal was parroting the legal talking points that law-and-order types were breaking out about how Gizmodo was way out of its journalistic bounds and ever-so-guilty of outrageous criminal activity. The actual circumstance of a friggin' cell phone being left in a bar by a drunk employee wouldn't produce much notice from anyone but this stupid incident managed to get folks to line up defending one side or the other in a matter that will be obviously moot in a matter of weeks. Then and now. What's the BFD, I gotta ask Gruber? But he's gotten quite defensive of late. Like today about this thread.

wolfish 16y ago

I started feeling the same way a few months ago. It is hard to define exactly what changed. Some of the time I question whether it might have been me that changed rather than Gruber. It's validating that other's are starting to feel the same way though.

foljs 16y ago

My take on DF: http://bananaranha.com/post/285263169/can-you-guess-the-blog http://bananaranha.com/post/285263169/can-you-guess-the-blog

tomica 16y ago

(all from gruber in 2007) http://daringfireball.net/2007/06/wwdc_2007_keynote http://daringfireball.net/2007/06/wwdc_2007_keynote Web Apps as the Route for iPhone Development [...] It’s insulting, because it’s not a way to write iPhone apps, and you can’t bullshit developers. It’s a matter of spin. [..] If all you have to offer is a shit sandwich, just say it. Don’t tell us how lucky we are and that it’s going to taste delicious. (compare to anything from gruber on web apps in 2010) http://daringfireball.net/ http://daringfireball.net/

ahrencode 16y ago

My uninvited opinion posted on Hank's blog, and adding here (based on Gruber's recent post pointing here): Gruber is a smart, measured and often witty commentator, but if you want him at his irrational best, look not for Apple apologia, but his vacant WordPress sneers and attacks (themselves stand-ins for animus towards the GPL, I think). (here's my comment on one such instance: http://ahren.org/code/bit/john-grubers-15-minutes-of-schadenfreude http://ahren.org/code/bit/john-grubers-15-minutes-of-schaden...)