5 ms·

An alternating circus of asymco, marco, and daring fireball all trying to spin everything in the iPhone's favor, each referencing each other as moral support.

by ergo98 16y ago

GHFigs 16y ago
The post references neither Asymco or Daring Fireball. It's almost like you commented on something you didn't read, but I know that can't be the case because that would be childish.
- ergo98 16y ago
  No, it's like I've paid attention to the various posts by Asymco, Daring Fireball, and Marco over the past couple of months. I fully anticipate Gruber will link to Marco's piece, Asymco will add some sort of twisted perversion of data that supports it, and so on. I read the piece and thought it added nothing that hasn't been debated and discussed countless times before. Yet, the market has spoken, hasn't it? A year ago such was the argument about why Android could never succeed, with so many confusing choices and options against the iPhone's simplicity. Android has done pretty good for itself in spite of that, I suppose. In fact I thought the current angle was "of course Android would do well with so many handsets and so many options".
  - spiffworks 16y ago
    Reading Asymco makes my head spin. I can never understand what the hell he's talking about, and I do computational modeling by day.
  - GHFigs 16y ago
    I fully anticipate Gruber will link to Marco's piece, Asymco will add some sort of twisted perversion of data that supports it, and so on. Does that make any of them wrong? If that didn't happen would that make any of them right? I'm not really getting the significance here. It's the internet. People link to things. You don't have to pay attention to any of them.
    - ergo98 16y ago
      >It's the internet. People link to things. Absolutely. And of course people who believe the same thing naturally come together. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with that. It's how it is supposed to work. However there is a perspective lens when the posts from the same group are widely propagated, reinforced through repeated assertion. It's an opinion bloc more than valuable or interesting insight. No one cares when a couple of guys at the bar rabble off about their opinions. When they're, say, Glen Beck and his cohorts of a certain sphere, though, the discussion of course changes because their opinion is propagated widely. Stop the presses: Glen Beck and all his cohorts disagree with something the administration does.
      - GHFigs 16y ago
        I guess what I don't understand is what the significance of pointing to this effect other than to poison any chance of there being a reasonable discussion about the submission.
  - Pewpewarrows 16y ago
    I agree, it's been pretty amusing watching and reading the re-structuring and re-wording of arguments on the Apple circle-jerk of blogs this past year. It's similar to the current "browser wars." We're all over-privileged and spoiled to have 4 (soon to be 5) standards-compliant, fast, extend-able browsers to choose from on any platform we want. It's basically just nit-picking and personal preference at this point. It's the same way with smartphones now. We have dozens of handsets that come in a bunch of different flavors (Android, iOS, Windows Phone) that are for the most part very well designed. We're just as spoiled with them as we are with browsers right now. Isn't it enough that we can all choose our favorite equally-awesome version of a smartphone without having to trash the slightly different competitor and write dissertation after dissertation over-analyzing how the other will fail or is bad (when clearly they are succeeding and a large portion of the market enjoys the product)? Marco, Gruber, and co: you can stop. We get it, you like Apple. Good for you, not everyone else does. Isn't there something more productive you can be doing with your time?
    - bryanlarsen 16y ago
      Yes, all the choices are awesome technically, which is why the debate is about consequences and morals, freedom and openness. The Apple defenders have to be so strident because Apple rarely has the high ground in these debates, except perhaps for its Flash position. The Google defenders have to be so strident because freedom and openness are important but invisible attributes.
    - martythemaniak 16y ago
      >Marco, Gruber, and co: you can stop. We get it, you like Apple. Good for you, not everyone else does. Isn't there something more productive you can be doing with your time? No they don't, and I'm not being facetious. They are all Apple Tech Writers, not Tech Writers. They don't understand or care much about technology beyond Apple, so if they didn't glowing pro-Apple articles, they wouldn't have much to write about.
      - the100rabh 16y ago
        Actually calling them Tech writers is blasphemous, they can only be termed as Apple writers. Nothing more nothing less
  - btipling 16y ago
    You were not wrong: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/01/13/hardware-choice-tradeoff http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/01/13/hardware-choice-...
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
Anechoic 16y ago
Nokia E71 owner here. Marco's post described my experience to a T. Last summer I was looking to upgrade to a touchscreen phone. I like the iPhone, but I can't get an unlocked one in the USA (not easily at least) so it wasn't an option. So I looked at Android. I wanted an unlocked GSM Android phone, so I looked at http://www.htc.com http://www.htc.com as well as the various Android phone comparison pages and was quickly overwhelmed. Of course I follow various tech publications that always talk about the next great Android phone which will be released in the coming months. Add to that my sister's experience with her 13-month old Droid being considered "out of date" (with respect to buying accessories locally) and I just kept putting off the decision for another day. I've since decided to stay with Nokia because I've come to rely on the free GPS with downloadable maps. But for people like me who really want to get the best phone for the money, there is a tyranny of choice here and Google/Android phone makers ignore that at their peril.
- pavel_lishin 16y ago
  > there is a tyranny of choice here How do you buy cars?
  - gcb 16y ago
    I search on craigslist for used cheap ones. I don't fall for the tyranny of choices that forces me to believe that just because there are 200 options all of the same insane high value that the insane value is somewhat sane.
  - malyk 16y ago
    People have been buying cars forever. New cars only come out once a year. Cars are very feature/price segregated (on equivalent models). The phone market isn't like that at all. Smartphone's are only a couple years old. New android devices are coming out at the rate of a few per month (or so). With carrier incentives and discounts you have a choice of 2, 4, 8, etc. phones for the same essential price ($99, vs. $149, vs. $199) are basically the same (when compared to $12,000, $16,000, and $19,000 in the car market). So yes, there are a lot of cars to choose from. But people have been buying them long enough to know the basics about each manufacturer, they only come out with new models once a year, and they are priced in easily recognizable bands.
MrScruff 16y ago
Most commentators aren't neutral, this is nothing new. I'm not, and you yourself clearly aren't, based on your extremely one sided posting history on this subject. Would you prefer it if other HN readers read and responded to the content of your posts, or dismissed them as trying to spin everything in Androids favor?
- blinkingled 16y ago
  You should rethink that first sentence. Slippery slope. There are still some neutral and reasonable commentators - Leo Laporte, Ryan Paul- left. If we accept bigotry (and there is plenty of history to asymco, df and arment to attest that all they ever do is turn everything into pro Apple circle jerking. There is no insight, alternative view, logic, reasoning, probability or anything closely resembling. Just one view - Apple is glory, Apple is right. That is ridiculous.) we will soon end up with compartmentalized world where everyone hears and subscribes to what they like - not progress to say the least.
  - MrScruff 16y ago
    That's hyperbole. Daring Fireball, Asymco and Arment are advocates for Apple, no doubt. That doesn't prevent them from being able to provide an interesting perspective from one side of the argument. There are plenty of Android advocates out there making the opposing case, and they also get linked on HN. Also, if you're talking about Ryan Paul of Arstechnica, then I certainly wouldn't regard him as neutral. He's an advocate for open source software. I disagree with his stance on many subjects. Doesn't stop me reading his articles though.
    - blinkingled 16y ago
      Key difference here is that Ryan Paul doesn't go on a hyperbole, make numbers up, show poor logic and clear bias in advocating against what he doesn't subscribe to. That is why you don't stop reading his articles. It is because DF/Arment/Asymco do outrageously illogical, facts-be-damned, bigotry-without-fail that I stopped reading their articles. If even once they offered a balanced view point I will reconsider. To make it clear - If for example Paul went and started telling people on a daily basis that don't use Windows as it gives too much hardware choice, kills puppies, gives your data to NSA, Windows will never succeed and what not - that is totally different than what he does currently - covers open source and may be hints at "you should try this" which is way more reasonable. As far as I know he hasn't done the former.
martythemaniak 16y ago
The elitist out-of-touch circle. These guys like their iPhones, because they believe them to be "The Best". They just can't understand why other people would want anything else, and if people DO get something else, then there must be something wrong with them.
- guywithabike 16y ago
  Building flimsy straw men and knocking them down is an activity for children. (See what I did there?)

An alternating circus of asymco, marco, and daring fireball all trying to spin everything in the iPhone's favor, each referencing each other as moral support.

by ergo98 16y ago

An alternating circus of asymco, marco, and daring fireball all trying to spin everything in the iPhone's favor, each referencing each other as moral support.

GHFigs 16y ago

The post references neither Asymco or Daring Fireball. It's almost like you commented on something you didn't read, but I know that can't be the case because that would be childish.

ergo98 16y ago
No, it's like I've paid attention to the various posts by Asymco, Daring Fireball, and Marco over the past couple of months. I fully anticipate Gruber will link to Marco's piece, Asymco will add some sort of twisted perversion of data that supports it, and so on. I read the piece and thought it added nothing that hasn't been debated and discussed countless times before. Yet, the market has spoken, hasn't it? A year ago such was the argument about why Android could never succeed, with so many confusing choices and options against the iPhone's simplicity. Android has done pretty good for itself in spite of that, I suppose. In fact I thought the current angle was "of course Android would do well with so many handsets and so many options".
- spiffworks 16y ago
  Reading Asymco makes my head spin. I can never understand what the hell he's talking about, and I do computational modeling by day.
- GHFigs 16y ago
  I fully anticipate Gruber will link to Marco's piece, Asymco will add some sort of twisted perversion of data that supports it, and so on. Does that make any of them wrong? If that didn't happen would that make any of them right? I'm not really getting the significance here. It's the internet. People link to things. You don't have to pay attention to any of them.
  - ergo98 16y ago
    >It's the internet. People link to things. Absolutely. And of course people who believe the same thing naturally come together. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with that. It's how it is supposed to work. However there is a perspective lens when the posts from the same group are widely propagated, reinforced through repeated assertion. It's an opinion bloc more than valuable or interesting insight. No one cares when a couple of guys at the bar rabble off about their opinions. When they're, say, Glen Beck and his cohorts of a certain sphere, though, the discussion of course changes because their opinion is propagated widely. Stop the presses: Glen Beck and all his cohorts disagree with something the administration does.
    - GHFigs 16y ago
      I guess what I don't understand is what the significance of pointing to this effect other than to poison any chance of there being a reasonable discussion about the submission.
- Pewpewarrows 16y ago
  I agree, it's been pretty amusing watching and reading the re-structuring and re-wording of arguments on the Apple circle-jerk of blogs this past year. It's similar to the current "browser wars." We're all over-privileged and spoiled to have 4 (soon to be 5) standards-compliant, fast, extend-able browsers to choose from on any platform we want. It's basically just nit-picking and personal preference at this point. It's the same way with smartphones now. We have dozens of handsets that come in a bunch of different flavors (Android, iOS, Windows Phone) that are for the most part very well designed. We're just as spoiled with them as we are with browsers right now. Isn't it enough that we can all choose our favorite equally-awesome version of a smartphone without having to trash the slightly different competitor and write dissertation after dissertation over-analyzing how the other will fail or is bad (when clearly they are succeeding and a large portion of the market enjoys the product)? Marco, Gruber, and co: you can stop. We get it, you like Apple. Good for you, not everyone else does. Isn't there something more productive you can be doing with your time?
  - bryanlarsen 16y ago
    Yes, all the choices are awesome technically, which is why the debate is about consequences and morals, freedom and openness. The Apple defenders have to be so strident because Apple rarely has the high ground in these debates, except perhaps for its Flash position. The Google defenders have to be so strident because freedom and openness are important but invisible attributes.
  - martythemaniak 16y ago
    >Marco, Gruber, and co: you can stop. We get it, you like Apple. Good for you, not everyone else does. Isn't there something more productive you can be doing with your time? No they don't, and I'm not being facetious. They are all Apple Tech Writers, not Tech Writers. They don't understand or care much about technology beyond Apple, so if they didn't glowing pro-Apple articles, they wouldn't have much to write about.
    - the100rabh 16y ago
      Actually calling them Tech writers is blasphemous, they can only be termed as Apple writers. Nothing more nothing less
- btipling 16y ago
  You were not wrong: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/01/13/hardware-choice-tradeoff http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/01/13/hardware-choice-...
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

Anechoic 16y ago

Nokia E71 owner here. Marco's post described my experience to a T. Last summer I was looking to upgrade to a touchscreen phone. I like the iPhone, but I can't get an unlocked one in the USA (not easily at least) so it wasn't an option. So I looked at Android. I wanted an unlocked GSM Android phone, so I looked at http://www.htc.com http://www.htc.com as well as the various Android phone comparison pages and was quickly overwhelmed. Of course I follow various tech publications that always talk about the next great Android phone which will be released in the coming months. Add to that my sister's experience with her 13-month old Droid being considered "out of date" (with respect to buying accessories locally) and I just kept putting off the decision for another day. I've since decided to stay with Nokia because I've come to rely on the free GPS with downloadable maps. But for people like me who really want to get the best phone for the money, there is a tyranny of choice here and Google/Android phone makers ignore that at their peril.

pavel_lishin 16y ago
> there is a tyranny of choice here How do you buy cars?
- gcb 16y ago
  I search on craigslist for used cheap ones. I don't fall for the tyranny of choices that forces me to believe that just because there are 200 options all of the same insane high value that the insane value is somewhat sane.
- malyk 16y ago
  People have been buying cars forever. New cars only come out once a year. Cars are very feature/price segregated (on equivalent models). The phone market isn't like that at all. Smartphone's are only a couple years old. New android devices are coming out at the rate of a few per month (or so). With carrier incentives and discounts you have a choice of 2, 4, 8, etc. phones for the same essential price ($99, vs. $149, vs. $199) are basically the same (when compared to $12,000, $16,000, and $19,000 in the car market). So yes, there are a lot of cars to choose from. But people have been buying them long enough to know the basics about each manufacturer, they only come out with new models once a year, and they are priced in easily recognizable bands.

MrScruff 16y ago

Most commentators aren't neutral, this is nothing new. I'm not, and you yourself clearly aren't, based on your extremely one sided posting history on this subject. Would you prefer it if other HN readers read and responded to the content of your posts, or dismissed them as trying to spin everything in Androids favor?

blinkingled 16y ago
You should rethink that first sentence. Slippery slope. There are still some neutral and reasonable commentators - Leo Laporte, Ryan Paul- left. If we accept bigotry (and there is plenty of history to asymco, df and arment to attest that all they ever do is turn everything into pro Apple circle jerking. There is no insight, alternative view, logic, reasoning, probability or anything closely resembling. Just one view - Apple is glory, Apple is right. That is ridiculous.) we will soon end up with compartmentalized world where everyone hears and subscribes to what they like - not progress to say the least.
- MrScruff 16y ago
  That's hyperbole. Daring Fireball, Asymco and Arment are advocates for Apple, no doubt. That doesn't prevent them from being able to provide an interesting perspective from one side of the argument. There are plenty of Android advocates out there making the opposing case, and they also get linked on HN. Also, if you're talking about Ryan Paul of Arstechnica, then I certainly wouldn't regard him as neutral. He's an advocate for open source software. I disagree with his stance on many subjects. Doesn't stop me reading his articles though.
  - blinkingled 16y ago
    Key difference here is that Ryan Paul doesn't go on a hyperbole, make numbers up, show poor logic and clear bias in advocating against what he doesn't subscribe to. That is why you don't stop reading his articles. It is because DF/Arment/Asymco do outrageously illogical, facts-be-damned, bigotry-without-fail that I stopped reading their articles. If even once they offered a balanced view point I will reconsider. To make it clear - If for example Paul went and started telling people on a daily basis that don't use Windows as it gives too much hardware choice, kills puppies, gives your data to NSA, Windows will never succeed and what not - that is totally different than what he does currently - covers open source and may be hints at "you should try this" which is way more reasonable. As far as I know he hasn't done the former.

martythemaniak 16y ago

The elitist out-of-touch circle. These guys like their iPhones, because they believe them to be "The Best". They just can't understand why other people would want anything else, and if people DO get something else, then there must be something wrong with them.

guywithabike 16y ago
Building flimsy straw men and knocking them down is an activity for children. (See what I did there?)