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Color me surprised to read another frothing fluff piece for an Apple product from arch-apparatchik Gruber. Doubling the display density of a laptop screen qual

Color me surprised to read another frothing fluff piece for an Apple product from arch-apparatchik Gruber. Doubling the display density of a laptop screen qualifies Apple for the Nobel Peace prize now, or something.

pooriaazimi 14y ago
I'm not sure what your critique is. He's not a politician or TV host getting paid by the bad Apple to write/say nice lies about them... He writes about Apple, and people visit his website to read what he writes. It's that simple. If you disagree with any of his points, please post them in this topic. But don't go dismissing it just because it's from arch-apparatchik Gruber.
- cageface 14y ago
  As he himself has written on his blog, in exchange for this kind of PR he gets invited to private meetings inside Apple.
  - arrrg 14y ago
    Does he? What are you referring to? The Mountain Lion presentation? Apple invited loads of journalists to that, they just also included Gruber there.
    - cageface 14y ago
      http://daringfireball.net/2012/02/mountain_lion http://daringfireball.net/2012/02/mountain_lion And instead of a room full of writers, journalists, and analysts, it was just me, Schiller, and two others from Apple — Brian Croll from product marketing and Bill Evans from PR.
      - arrrg 14y ago
        Sure. And? What’s your point? Apple met separately with loads of journalists. I don’t see anything special about how they treated Gruber.
        cageface 14y ago
        Yeah you're right. An exclusive, face-to-face meeting with the senior vice president of marketing is nothing special. I'm sure things like that don't influence his writing about Apple at all.
        pazimzadeh 14y ago
        That meeting happened in 2012. Gruber's been writing Daring Fireball since 2002. http://daringfireball.net/archive/ http://daringfireball.net/archive/
        cageface 14y ago
        I've been reading him on and off the whole time. Once upon a time he was actually worth reading but I don't even bother now because I can practically write his tech-Pravda pieces in my head.
        drchiu 14y ago
        I agree. Also, I wonder how many more rMBP are sold as a result of people reading this? (assuming the would-be buyer is sitting on the face between a regular non-retina vs retina macbook) The thing reads like a praise-review hidden beneath a veneer of typography fetish.
        rglullis 14y ago
        How many of these journalists are known to be critics of Apple, or write about them in a more direct, non-ass-sucking way?
        pooriaazimi 14y ago
        They invited correspondents from The New York Times. Don't tell me the iEconomy articles wasn't the biggest blow to Apple this year (after the ruling that they had to say Samsung wasn't cool enough to copy them, of course!).
      - bobbles 14y ago
        ..and from the very same article: "It’s Phil Schiller, spending an entire week on the East Coast, repeating this presentation over and over to a series of audiences of one." He wasn't the only one getting the special treatment, they were communicating to tech journalists.
arrrg 14y ago
Why the hate, dude? Can you point out anything that is actually wrong with the piece?
- cageface 14y ago
  I could quote specific claims from the piece but it's just too annoying to enumerate all the breathless reasons he gives why this is yet another Apple product that makes everything that came before it trivial and irrelevant. I'm fed up with this kind of PR masquerading as tech journalism. He's not a journalist. He's part of Apple's third-party marketing arm and he gets compensated for writing this kind of trash with exclusive meetings etc. at Apple.
  - arrrg 14y ago
    So you can’t. Noted.
  - rimantas 14y ago
    You don't even read what he writes, right?
    - cageface 14y ago
      I started reading him in the mid-2010's but his utter lack of objectivity lost him a place in my RSS aggregator long ago. If I want to read perceptive analysis of Apple products I prefer to read real, objective journalists like John Siracusa.
      - delackner 14y ago
        You are welcome to your opinion, but on your suggestion I just went and looked at John Siracusa's blog and for this entire year we have: 1: a discussion about various ways you can read his Mountain Lion Review. 2: How to cook pasta. 3: summer movies. 4: summary of 2011. That's it. He writes also on Ars. In 2012, he has posted a single article, his review of Mountain Lion. Might I ask, and I am being completely sincere, what DO you read regularly for "perceptive analysis of apple products" that goes beyond once a year OS reviews?
heretohelp 14y ago
Let me just be straight up. I'm normally an Apple skeptic and I work primarily on Linux. That said, I don't think anybody else would've bothered to make retina display available to the general public until Apple forced their hand and made it available themselves...
- FrankBooth 14y ago
  That said, I don't think anybody else would've bothered to make retina display available to the general public until Apple forced their hand and made it available themselves... The technology was coming, it was just a matter of time. Apple are in the unique position of controlling both the hardware and the software, which makes it far easier for them release this in a nice way where the OS and much of the software works well as soon as they made the hardware available.
  - jopt 14y ago
    Lucky Apple, always getting there first with the inevitable.
  - melling 14y ago
    Sure, it's always coming. Many of us were waiting for someone to make an "iPhone" for a decade. I used to explain to people at work that I shouldn't have to carry a Palm and a phone, for example. How long would we have had to wait if Apple didn't build it? Another 5 years? I'd like everything a half a decade sooner. Apple gets ripped for not being innovative. What they really do is identify when good technology is ready for mass consumption then ship it. Remember when they went with USB? I was a PC user back then, building my own computers. I waited years before USB became widely adopted on affordable motherboards. Within 12-24 months I'd say Apple's entire product line will be Retina. Hopefully, there'll be enough buzz that it catches on with the Dell's and HP's.
    - FireBeyond 14y ago
      "I used to explain to people at work that I shouldn't have to carry a Palm and a phone, for example." You didn't - instead, you could have carried a Blackberry, for one.
bpatrianakos 14y ago
So? He likes the display. So do I. It's awesome. When you read a Gruber article you know what you're getting into before you even read it so I don't see why anyone would complain. The difference between Gruber writing about the things he enjoys and someone else who say, loves Free Software or something or even another Apple lover, is that Gruber can write and is an excellent storyteller (the two don't always have to go together by the way).
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

pooriaazimi 14y ago

I'm not sure what your critique is. He's not a politician or TV host getting paid by the bad Apple to write/say nice lies about them... He writes about Apple, and people visit his website to read what he writes. It's that simple. If you disagree with any of his points, please post them in this topic. But don't go dismissing it just because it's from arch-apparatchik Gruber.

cageface 14y ago
As he himself has written on his blog, in exchange for this kind of PR he gets invited to private meetings inside Apple.
- arrrg 14y ago
  Does he? What are you referring to? The Mountain Lion presentation? Apple invited loads of journalists to that, they just also included Gruber there.
  - cageface 14y ago
    http://daringfireball.net/2012/02/mountain_lion http://daringfireball.net/2012/02/mountain_lion And instead of a room full of writers, journalists, and analysts, it was just me, Schiller, and two others from Apple — Brian Croll from product marketing and Bill Evans from PR.
    - arrrg 14y ago
      Sure. And? What’s your point? Apple met separately with loads of journalists. I don’t see anything special about how they treated Gruber.
      - cageface 14y ago
        Yeah you're right. An exclusive, face-to-face meeting with the senior vice president of marketing is nothing special. I'm sure things like that don't influence his writing about Apple at all.
        pazimzadeh 14y ago
        That meeting happened in 2012. Gruber's been writing Daring Fireball since 2002. http://daringfireball.net/archive/ http://daringfireball.net/archive/
        cageface 14y ago
        I've been reading him on and off the whole time. Once upon a time he was actually worth reading but I don't even bother now because I can practically write his tech-Pravda pieces in my head.
        drchiu 14y ago
        I agree. Also, I wonder how many more rMBP are sold as a result of people reading this? (assuming the would-be buyer is sitting on the face between a regular non-retina vs retina macbook) The thing reads like a praise-review hidden beneath a veneer of typography fetish.
      - rglullis 14y ago
        How many of these journalists are known to be critics of Apple, or write about them in a more direct, non-ass-sucking way?
        pooriaazimi 14y ago
        They invited correspondents from The New York Times. Don't tell me the iEconomy articles wasn't the biggest blow to Apple this year (after the ruling that they had to say Samsung wasn't cool enough to copy them, of course!).
    - bobbles 14y ago
      ..and from the very same article: "It’s Phil Schiller, spending an entire week on the East Coast, repeating this presentation over and over to a series of audiences of one." He wasn't the only one getting the special treatment, they were communicating to tech journalists.

arrrg 14y ago

Why the hate, dude? Can you point out anything that is actually wrong with the piece?

cageface 14y ago
I could quote specific claims from the piece but it's just too annoying to enumerate all the breathless reasons he gives why this is yet another Apple product that makes everything that came before it trivial and irrelevant. I'm fed up with this kind of PR masquerading as tech journalism. He's not a journalist. He's part of Apple's third-party marketing arm and he gets compensated for writing this kind of trash with exclusive meetings etc. at Apple.
- arrrg 14y ago
  So you can’t. Noted.
- rimantas 14y ago
  You don't even read what he writes, right?
  - cageface 14y ago
    I started reading him in the mid-2010's but his utter lack of objectivity lost him a place in my RSS aggregator long ago. If I want to read perceptive analysis of Apple products I prefer to read real, objective journalists like John Siracusa.
    - delackner 14y ago
      You are welcome to your opinion, but on your suggestion I just went and looked at John Siracusa's blog and for this entire year we have: 1: a discussion about various ways you can read his Mountain Lion Review. 2: How to cook pasta. 3: summer movies. 4: summary of 2011. That's it. He writes also on Ars. In 2012, he has posted a single article, his review of Mountain Lion. Might I ask, and I am being completely sincere, what DO you read regularly for "perceptive analysis of apple products" that goes beyond once a year OS reviews?

heretohelp 14y ago

Let me just be straight up. I'm normally an Apple skeptic and I work primarily on Linux. That said, I don't think anybody else would've bothered to make retina display available to the general public until Apple forced their hand and made it available themselves...

FrankBooth 14y ago
That said, I don't think anybody else would've bothered to make retina display available to the general public until Apple forced their hand and made it available themselves... The technology was coming, it was just a matter of time. Apple are in the unique position of controlling both the hardware and the software, which makes it far easier for them release this in a nice way where the OS and much of the software works well as soon as they made the hardware available.
- jopt 14y ago
  Lucky Apple, always getting there first with the inevitable.
- melling 14y ago
  Sure, it's always coming. Many of us were waiting for someone to make an "iPhone" for a decade. I used to explain to people at work that I shouldn't have to carry a Palm and a phone, for example. How long would we have had to wait if Apple didn't build it? Another 5 years? I'd like everything a half a decade sooner. Apple gets ripped for not being innovative. What they really do is identify when good technology is ready for mass consumption then ship it. Remember when they went with USB? I was a PC user back then, building my own computers. I waited years before USB became widely adopted on affordable motherboards. Within 12-24 months I'd say Apple's entire product line will be Retina. Hopefully, there'll be enough buzz that it catches on with the Dell's and HP's.
  - FireBeyond 14y ago
    "I used to explain to people at work that I shouldn't have to carry a Palm and a phone, for example." You didn't - instead, you could have carried a Blackberry, for one.

bpatrianakos 14y ago

So? He likes the display. So do I. It's awesome. When you read a Gruber article you know what you're getting into before you even read it so I don't see why anyone would complain. The difference between Gruber writing about the things he enjoys and someone else who say, loves Free Software or something or even another Apple lover, is that Gruber can write and is an excellent storyteller (the two don't always have to go together by the way).

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]