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Hate to be a hater, but I don't take anything David Pogue writes too seriously. He pretends to write impartially, but he's definitely very very pro-Apple. Asi

by wayne 18y ago

Hate to be a hater, but I don't take anything David Pogue writes too seriously. He pretends to write impartially, but he's definitely very very pro-Apple. Aside from his article about the Mobile Me fiasco, I don't think I've ever seen him write anything bad about Apple or anything nice about its competitors.

pxlpshr 18y ago
Not trying to sound like a fanboy but perhaps that's because -- aside from Apple's minor faults that any armchair critic can pick out in retrospect -- they are truly one of the few consumer technology companies driving the market forward aggressively.
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  Maybe it's because Jobs has a firm policy of shutting off access to anyone who reports anything bad about them. Combine that with their continuously releasing hot new products and using a humongous (and well-spent) marketing budget to whip America into a fever over them, and you've got a situation where reporters have financial incentive to be biased toward Apple. People tend to follow their incentives, and Pogue is one of them.
  - unalone 18y ago
    I know we've had this argument before, but you know, it's possible that Pogue just really likes Apple products. For what it's worth, I've never read a review of his that didn't make good points on both sides. If Pogue's in Apple's pocket, he's doing a very good job of being fair to both sides.
    - mattmaroon 18y ago
      I won't disagree that Pogue likes Apple products. I just disagree that it's reasonable to expect Jobs's perverse incentives to not impact journalists, or to not be suspicious of anyone that tight with them. Any reporter given the sort of access he has is in a feedback loop where bias begets access which in turn begets bias. To pass it off as "Apple just rocks and Pogue knows it" is naive.
      - unalone 18y ago
        Suspicion is one thing. But Pogue has never played the part of the Apple fanboy. He's pretty thorough with his reviews, no matter what the product's for, and he's good at spotting the good and the bad with everything. He was the first reviewer to say he didn't like the iPhone keyboard, for instance, in his original review. With the Storm, he's being much more dismissive than usual, hence the suspicion - but he's dealing with a product that's visually and feature-wise a direct face-off with the iPhone, only with added layers of abstraction and difficulty inherent in using the device. Pogue's very clear about all of that. To read this review and say that Pogue's being negative because of the messed-up incentives is missing that Pogue is in fact reviewing an inferior product. I mean, I suppose there's some bias in my statement, since I do trust Apple and its products, and therefore I tend to see straight in this only with people who are in a similar place. So in my mind, Pogue is only doing the logical thing when he slams down this phone as being a cheap Blackberry knock-off. The Apple journalist deal is one that gets a bit argumentative. I think that Apple fully has the right to only give products to journalists that like Apple, and I don't think that there's a bribe inherent in that. And I know I'm in the vast minority for people that think that, too. In my mind, though, Apple gives those devices as a favor, not as a responsibility, and they are sensible when they only hand out to people that happen to like Apple. That's my inherent bias in this discussion: I think that Apple's in the clear for this.
sanj 18y ago
In the 15 years I have been following Pogue, I have never felt him to be any sort of fanboy.
jm4 18y ago
The article is clearly a review, and the point of a review is not to be impartial. Readers expect the reviewer to take a stand. The piece, arguably, should have been in the opinion section since that's obviously what a review is, but it's absurd to slam a reviewer for not being impartial.

by wayne 18y ago

pxlpshr 18y ago

Not trying to sound like a fanboy but perhaps that's because -- aside from Apple's minor faults that any armchair critic can pick out in retrospect -- they are truly one of the few consumer technology companies driving the market forward aggressively.

mattmaroon 18y ago
Maybe it's because Jobs has a firm policy of shutting off access to anyone who reports anything bad about them. Combine that with their continuously releasing hot new products and using a humongous (and well-spent) marketing budget to whip America into a fever over them, and you've got a situation where reporters have financial incentive to be biased toward Apple. People tend to follow their incentives, and Pogue is one of them.
- unalone 18y ago
  I know we've had this argument before, but you know, it's possible that Pogue just really likes Apple products. For what it's worth, I've never read a review of his that didn't make good points on both sides. If Pogue's in Apple's pocket, he's doing a very good job of being fair to both sides.
  - mattmaroon 18y ago
    I won't disagree that Pogue likes Apple products. I just disagree that it's reasonable to expect Jobs's perverse incentives to not impact journalists, or to not be suspicious of anyone that tight with them. Any reporter given the sort of access he has is in a feedback loop where bias begets access which in turn begets bias. To pass it off as "Apple just rocks and Pogue knows it" is naive.
    - unalone 18y ago
      Suspicion is one thing. But Pogue has never played the part of the Apple fanboy. He's pretty thorough with his reviews, no matter what the product's for, and he's good at spotting the good and the bad with everything. He was the first reviewer to say he didn't like the iPhone keyboard, for instance, in his original review. With the Storm, he's being much more dismissive than usual, hence the suspicion - but he's dealing with a product that's visually and feature-wise a direct face-off with the iPhone, only with added layers of abstraction and difficulty inherent in using the device. Pogue's very clear about all of that. To read this review and say that Pogue's being negative because of the messed-up incentives is missing that Pogue is in fact reviewing an inferior product. I mean, I suppose there's some bias in my statement, since I do trust Apple and its products, and therefore I tend to see straight in this only with people who are in a similar place. So in my mind, Pogue is only doing the logical thing when he slams down this phone as being a cheap Blackberry knock-off. The Apple journalist deal is one that gets a bit argumentative. I think that Apple fully has the right to only give products to journalists that like Apple, and I don't think that there's a bribe inherent in that. And I know I'm in the vast minority for people that think that, too. In my mind, though, Apple gives those devices as a favor, not as a responsibility, and they are sensible when they only hand out to people that happen to like Apple. That's my inherent bias in this discussion: I think that Apple's in the clear for this.

sanj 18y ago

In the 15 years I have been following Pogue, I have never felt him to be any sort of fanboy.

jm4 18y ago

The article is clearly a review, and the point of a review is not to be impartial. Readers expect the reviewer to take a stand. The piece, arguably, should have been in the opinion section since that's obviously what a review is, but it's absurd to slam a reviewer for not being impartial.