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Funny - I've stopped reading every article from the marco.org site. I can't stand his style and I really can't stand his blind Apple - cult thinking. But to eve
by brusch 14y ago
Funny - I've stopped reading every article from the marco.org site. I can't stand his style and I really can't stand his blind Apple - cult thinking. But to everyone his own's.
- achompas 14y agoI can't stand his style and I really can't stand his blind Apple - cult thinking. He is leap years better than Gruber and Daring Fireball. His posts are witty without being cynical, and he's frank without being rude. He also has much more to say on entrepreneurship (given his first-hand experience with the App Store).
- wyclif 14y agoI agree; I've thought for a long time that as far as Apple Cult bloggers go, he's better than Gruber on a number of fronts: less groupthink, less cynicism, less David Foster Wallace fanboyism, and less irrational Google hatred. The only thing Gruber has going for him now IMO is his continued Stanley Kubrick advocacy.
- guelo 14y agoGruber does seem to have good inside Apple sources which makes some his predictions worth reading. He's almost an official Apple info release channel.
- toyg 14y ago"Almost"? He clearly coordinates with Apple people. He's to Apple what a surrogate is to a presidential candidate: an attack dog free to say what the candidate will only think. (Note: I don't dislike it, I just take him for the biased source he is.)
- Tyrannosaurs 14y ago> (Note: I don't dislike it, I just take him for the biased source he is.) This is the way to handle it. Gruber is what he is. The fact he spends so much time writing about Apple is both why you should read him if you're interested in Apple (because he's got the time, the knowledge and to a degree the access to have some genuine insight) and why you should be slightly sceptical about what he has to say (because it's almost impossible to spend that much time looking closely at something and not end up taking a side). Plus he's not exactly secretive about his views. Anyone who has read more than 100 words he's written or quoted should be pretty clear about where he's coming from.
- ToesByNoon 14y agoWhy is it irrational to hate Google?
- mattacular 14y agoI don't know who any of these people are but if that was a DFW diss let me know so we can fight it out...
- neutronicus 14y agoDavid Foster Wallace, for my money, is the best writer of the past 25 years, so I can't hold that against Gruber.
- sanderjd 14y agoSorry to take this further off-topic, but was your choice of 25 years arbitrary or do you actually have someone in mind who Wallace picked up the torch from around that time?
- neutronicus 14y agoI didn't want to pick a period of time that included the '60s, so it wasn't entirely arbitrary, but I didn't have anyone specific in mind. I just don't like to pick arguments with people who like things from the '60s. :p
- brusch 14y agoTo be honest - I can't stand Daring Fireball too. They both are not really interesting if you are not into Apple's products. I'm just interested in them from the standpoint of - let's look what's going no over there. And to give my Apple fanboy friends a little bit of grief.
- TillE 14y agoAs someone who's fairly ambivalent with respect to Apple, Daring Fireball is really good when Gruber is writing in-depth about Apple. It's from a certain perspective, but it's definitely insightful. Sadly, he's utterly vapid and agenda-driven when talking about Android and Google, or writing snarky one-liners responding to criticism of Apple. I'd love to get a feed of Daring Fireball with just the longer pieces.
- alexwlchan 14y ago> I'd love to get a feed of Daring Fireball with just the longer pieces. You’re in luck: http://daringfireball.net/feeds/ http://daringfireball.net/feeds/ > A feed containing only the longer, feature articles (like the “old” DF feed) is available as a less-frequently-updated alternative: http://daringfireball.net/feeds/articles http://daringfireball.net/feeds/articles
- technoslut 14y ago>Sadly, he's utterly vapid and agenda-driven when talking about Android and Google A big part of the element not being discussed is money. Less people who use Apple products probably means less page views for Daring Fireball. I don't think it was a coincidence that the focus of his enmity has turned from MS to Google since Android became a threat to Apple's most financially successful products. The same goes for Marco. I expect him to have a bias towards Apple and developers because he makes his money off of Instapaper for iOS and he is a developer. Gruber is a very talented writer but we all can be colored by how we get our paychecks. I will say that he amuses me which is rare among the blogging cynics.
- numbsafari 14y ago
- elmuchoprez 14y agoHe is leap years better than Gruber and Daring Fireball. Or Jim Dalrymple, who in my opinion, took the on the role of official Apple apologist for the 5by5 Network when Gruber left. He also has much more to say on entrepreneurship (given his first-hand experience with the App Store). He was also the lead developer behind Tumblr during its rise, which I imagine involved some entrepreneurial thinking.
- achompas 14y agoThe Dalrymple thing doesn't surprise me--once Gruber left, he filled that role of communicating with ardent Apple fans. As for Tumblr, Marco was also a co-founder! I think he has much more to say about businesses than Gruber, who often analyzes businesses by comparing them to Apple.
- ToesByNoon 14y agoJim has better sources than Gruber, he just won't reveal as much which kinda sucks.
- benatkin 14y agoMatt Gemmel has earned himself a place among the great Apple apologists, too. http://mattgemmell.com/2012/07/23/closed-for-business/ http://mattgemmell.com/2012/07/23/closed-for-business/
- nachteilig 14y agoI'm with you here. I had to stop reading Gruber completely because I find his arrogance difficult to swallow. Marco can be pretty funny and insightful though.
- leephillips 14y agoAnyone who behaves decently online [1] is leap years ahead of Gruber, who has admitted [2] to receiving fawning personal attention from Apple's PR people. [1] http://lee-phillips.org/music/whoIsTheDick/ http://lee-phillips.org/music/whoIsTheDick/ [2] http://daringfireball.net/2012/02/mountain_lion http://daringfireball.net/2012/02/mountain_lion
- jmduke 14y agoI'm sorry, but in the first link, you basically bash a dude's music and then use that as proper grounds for him being sued; demonizing Andy Baio, presumably because you don't particularly like his music. This is not an example of 'behaving decently online'. I wonder how Baio would feel if I downloaded Kind of Bloop and offered it here, free for the taking? Of course, I would put it through a little bit of filtering, to “transform” it first. Would that be fair? You're using the rhetoric of a middle schooler. (That being said, I agree with your point that someone who's unabashedly part of the Apple PR machine isn't a good source for unbiased Apple news/criticism/feedback.)
- leephillips 14y agoNowhere do I even come close to saying that he deserved to be sued because I don't like his music (which is just a lousy interpretation of someone else's music). That's just silly. He deserved to be sued because he deliberately violated a photographer's copyright. And I don't "demonize" Baio at all; I just think he made some mistakes and was rightfully compelled to pay for them. I might come close to demonizing Gruber, because of the nasty way he attacked Maisel. (These escalating internet attacks on the photographer, who is in his 70s, actually turned into physical attacks on his house, orchestrated by another of Baio's supporters.) My "middle school" passage that you quote was meant as a parody of Baio's arguments that, at least in my judgement, amount to the claim that a trivial modification of someone else's original artistic work gives you the right to distribute the modified work. Out of context it might sound juvenile, but it was meant to goad people into thinking about his claims of "fair use".
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- guelo 14y agoI agree but I think this is an unfair comparison. Marco is a talented entrepreneur and developer, his main effort isn't blogging as with Gruber.
- runjake 14y agoI don't know whether he is for sure, but I have noticed that he tweets and blogs (and sometimes podcasts) throughout the day. And he's clearly being mentored by or adopting Gruber's blogging and advertisement style. If his main effort is, at this time, programming, I bet it won't be for long. He's clearly trying to build a Gruber-esque personal brand.
- wisty 14y agoNotice how many times he links to instapaper?
- thechut 14y agoIf I could punch just one tech blogger squarely in the face, it would without a doubt be John Grubber. Who would you choose? Disclaimer: This is in no way meant as threat of any kind of harm to Grubber or anyone else. It is simply a hypothetical thought experiment.
- beatpanda 14y agoEasy: M.G. Siegler
- technoslut 14y agoI expect him to have certain biases but I don't find it unbearable like I do with Benjamin Brooks and Matt Gemmell where I always get a sense of anger, contempt and general negativity in their writing.
- ruswick 14y agoMarco is far more negative then Ben Brooks. Whereas I think Ben plays up the negativity because it's his shtick, Marco is just genuinely very sarcastic, passive-aggressive and negative in general.
- technoslut 14y agoThat's your opinion. I've read a post from Ben Brooks calling anyone who uses a stylus on an iPad an idiot. In that time frame, Marco bought a Cosmonaut stylus and enjoyed it. A month or two later, Brooks bought the same. It didn't bother me that he was wrong. It bothered me that he called everyone an idiot for using a stylus on an iPad. This is the kind of person who will criticize sooner than give thought. I would not want to read what he has to offer or be around him for any length of time. This is one of many posts of his site or his Twitter account.
- da_n 14y agoHey, Engadget comments called, they want you back.
- leephillips 14y ago"blind Apple - cult thinking" He treats us to this deadpan irony: "it’s a good opportunity to try a read-later method such as Safari’s Reading List, which Apple invented completely on their own." That clearly puts the lie to your assessment.
- pyre 14y ago> This is not a quick read, so it’s a good opportunity > to try a read-later method such as Safari’s Reading > List, which Apple invented completely on their own. This bit of sarcasm is definitely not towing the Apple Groupthink line.
- telcodud 14y agoI take it then that it was invented by Marco?
- robterrell 14y agoI can't tell if you're being sarcastic or just unaware that Marco is the developer of Instapaper.
- cag_ii 14y agoI think he's just pointing out that "read later" style bookmarks/link sites have been around for a long time, much longer than instapaper, as a matter of fact.
- chipotle_coyote 14y agoI don't think there have been services like Instapaper around "much longer than Instapaper." I'm not sure Instapaper was the first of its kind, but it was certainly one of the first.
- stephencanon 14y agoToeing the line. </pedantry>
- ruswick 14y agoI've done the same. It's more so because he seems very passive -aggressive and often offers no support for his views. It's not that his views are necessarily wrong, but most everything he writes is an assertion with no evidence or something that he has determined intuitively. I care about people who are able to give insights through logic and data. That's why I read Asymco and listen to Hypercritical with John Siracusa. Those are both very logical, very objective people. Marco usually just throws out opinions and rarely offers real insight. There's just no reason for me to respect his writing when he offers nothing but his own thoughts and no support. This is especially true because the things he writes are often pseudo-correct or highly debatable. But my real problem is how he responds to his criticism. On several occasions I've challenged his arguments or asked him to elaborate via Twitter. His response is usually to get angry, make some kind of sarcastic remark at me, and treat me as if I were antagonizing him. It's an incredibly childish response. It's as if anyone who tries to debate his points is not only wrong, but a dick as well. Frankly, if his is unwilling to accept critiques and entertain a discussion, why does he even blog? More importantly, why should I read him?
- smackfu 14y agoI like his Apple stuff, but on his podcast sometimes he wanders into Windows territory, despite basically not knowing any Windows users, and not using Windows since XP. Not surprisingly, he ends up sounding pretty ignorant and I just fast forward.
- epo 14y ago"Funny - I've stopped reading every article from the marco.org site. I can't stand his style and I really can't stand his blind Apple - cult thinking. But to everyone his own's." So why even bother commenting? And if this is typical of your comments then I'm going to stop reading them because they are self-serving and content-free.
- deltasquared 14y agoWow, a Review-Reviewer-Review ^_^ Now, who reviews the reviewers reviewers reviewer?