7 ms·

What a painfully bad article. Press releases can be disingenuously upbeat and straight-jacketed. From the hip snark this over the top is just as bad. Even inno

What a painfully bad article. Press releases can be disingenuously upbeat and straight-jacketed. From the hip snark this over the top is just as bad. Even innocuous statements in the release are torn apart. What a joke.

praptak 15y ago
I believe that's just this author's style of writing about anything except Apple.
rcthompson 15y ago
Agree. Easy target. http://xkcd.com/114/ http://xkcd.com/114/
jvoorhis 15y ago
Have you read Gruber before? He has some winners, for sure, but he certainly writes for the sake of amusing John Gruber.
- code_duck 15y ago
  In my experience, he writes exclusively for the purpose of promoting Apple. Mercifully this article diverged from that singular goal.
mhw 15y ago
It's a specific format of response called Fisking: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisking Amongst other things it's been used many times previously to take apart the justifications that are often written to explain why a company's stupid moves aren't really stupid. The "high as a kite" line is somewhat obligatory and comes from the sadly-departed Mark Pilgrim's skewering of Joel Spolsky, who was trying to tell everyone that IE8 was going to be a really good web browser when it came to implementing web standards, and that the standards didn't really matter much anyway. You can relive this moment from web history here: http://web.archive.org/web/20110514122550/http://diveintomark.org/archives/2008/03/18/translation-from-ms-speak-to-english-of-selected-portions-of-joel-spolskys-martin-headsets http://web.archive.org/web/20110514122550/http://diveintomar...
- Indyan 15y ago
  I believe that Pilgrim took that "High as a kite" quote from Gruber himself. http://web.archive.org/web/20110131103908/http://daringfireball.net/2007/02/macrovision_translation http://web.archive.org/web/20110131103908/http://daringfireb...
  - mhw 15y ago
    Ah, right you are. The rabbit hole goes deeper than my memory does these days.
- Luyt 15y ago
  About Fisking, Robert Fisk himself wrote: "I have to be honest: I don't use the Internet. I've never seen a blog in my life. I don't even use email, I don't waste my time with this. I am not interested. I couldn't care less. I think the Internet has become a hate machine for a lot of people and I want nothing to do with it." [1] Robert Fisk seems to equate the Web with the Internet. You can't really blame him. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisking
fl3tch 15y ago
One thing that bothers me and that I do consider disingenuous is how every denial is specific ("not recording keystrokes"), while every affirmative statement of what they actually do is vague ("look at many aspects of a device's performance"). Oh really? Like what? Tell us exactly what gets sent to the carrier. Even if it varies by carrier, list some of the top things among all of them.
- killnine 15y ago
  This analysis is as on point as it gets
rickmb 15y ago
It's called humor. It may not be appropriate on HN, but neither is bitching about it every time the source is you-know-who. Also, there are no innocuous statements in press releases. And certainly not in this one.
- Deestan 15y ago
  > It's called humor. It may not be appropriate on HN [...] Humor, or as in this case snarky look-at-my-clever-phrasing passed off as humor, is no excuse for writing pointless shit. The article offers no insight or useful discussion. > [...] neither is bitching about it every time the source is you-know-who. andrewvc was only complaining that the article was bad in and of itself.
mcritz 15y ago
Are you defending CarrierIQ?

praptak 15y ago

I believe that's just this author's style of writing about anything except Apple.

rcthompson 15y ago

Agree. Easy target. http://xkcd.com/114/ http://xkcd.com/114/

jvoorhis 15y ago

Have you read Gruber before? He has some winners, for sure, but he certainly writes for the sake of amusing John Gruber.

code_duck 15y ago
In my experience, he writes exclusively for the purpose of promoting Apple. Mercifully this article diverged from that singular goal.

mhw 15y ago

It's a specific format of response called Fisking: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisking Amongst other things it's been used many times previously to take apart the justifications that are often written to explain why a company's stupid moves aren't really stupid. The "high as a kite" line is somewhat obligatory and comes from the sadly-departed Mark Pilgrim's skewering of Joel Spolsky, who was trying to tell everyone that IE8 was going to be a really good web browser when it came to implementing web standards, and that the standards didn't really matter much anyway. You can relive this moment from web history here: http://web.archive.org/web/20110514122550/http://diveintomark.org/archives/2008/03/18/translation-from-ms-speak-to-english-of-selected-portions-of-joel-spolskys-martin-headsets http://web.archive.org/web/20110514122550/http://diveintomar...

Indyan 15y ago
I believe that Pilgrim took that "High as a kite" quote from Gruber himself. http://web.archive.org/web/20110131103908/http://daringfireball.net/2007/02/macrovision_translation http://web.archive.org/web/20110131103908/http://daringfireb...
- mhw 15y ago
  Ah, right you are. The rabbit hole goes deeper than my memory does these days.
Luyt 15y ago
About Fisking, Robert Fisk himself wrote: "I have to be honest: I don't use the Internet. I've never seen a blog in my life. I don't even use email, I don't waste my time with this. I am not interested. I couldn't care less. I think the Internet has become a hate machine for a lot of people and I want nothing to do with it." [1] Robert Fisk seems to equate the Web with the Internet. You can't really blame him. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisking

fl3tch 15y ago

One thing that bothers me and that I do consider disingenuous is how every denial is specific ("not recording keystrokes"), while every affirmative statement of what they actually do is vague ("look at many aspects of a device's performance"). Oh really? Like what? Tell us exactly what gets sent to the carrier. Even if it varies by carrier, list some of the top things among all of them.

killnine 15y ago
This analysis is as on point as it gets

rickmb 15y ago

It's called humor. It may not be appropriate on HN, but neither is bitching about it every time the source is you-know-who. Also, there are no innocuous statements in press releases. And certainly not in this one.

Deestan 15y ago
> It's called humor. It may not be appropriate on HN [...] Humor, or as in this case snarky look-at-my-clever-phrasing passed off as humor, is no excuse for writing pointless shit. The article offers no insight or useful discussion. > [...] neither is bitching about it every time the source is you-know-who. andrewvc was only complaining that the article was bad in and of itself.

mcritz 15y ago

Are you defending CarrierIQ?