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There is always a lot of careful insight in Gruber's posts that I like but it is tainted with a type of enthusiasm that doesn't belong in journalism. Even if he

There is always a lot of careful insight in Gruber's posts that I like but it is tainted with a type of enthusiasm that doesn't belong in journalism. Even if he is correct, being a cheerleader with liberal praise isn't analysis. It's opinion, and Gruber often reads like an opinionist. Apple is an amazing position to build all kinds of wonderful technology, and Samsung does come across as a shallow copy cat that throws shit on the wall and sees if it sticks, and it's good someone points that out, but Samsung is also really good at being a copycat, and they make amazing displays and their software is getting better even as they plaster it with more junk apps. It's just not so black and white, and to always frame it in such a way hurts credibility. I've tried in the past to follow Gruber regularly but there is just too much defensive negativity in his posts. I can only check it off and on, reading him every day would make me unhappy.

pinaceae 12y ago
he is an apple-centric blogger writing for his own site. where exactly does journalism ever come in play here? don't think gruber ever claimed to be a "journalist".
- leorocky 12y ago
  "Journalism is a method of inquiry and literary style that aims to provide a service to the public by the dissemination and analysis of news and other information."[1] Is that not what he's doing? Is he just gratifying a need to be heard or something? I don't think so, it looks like he's attempting to perform journalism as described by this paragraph, and he falls short in some ways. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism
  - function_seven 12y ago
    Just because "A is B" doesn't mean that "all B are A." I think it's apparent to most that Gruber isn't a journalist, nor does he pretend to be one.
  - akifbhatti 12y ago
    hi
thrownaway2424 12y ago
The other problem is he just doesn't know anything about the industry he's writing on, because he's been a tunnel-vision mac fan for decades. Current example: just below this article he credits Amazon with inventing a button that connects you to live customer service. The counterexample to that claim is Bloomberg, whose terminals have a dedicated Help key. Striking this key once gets you a help screen, but if you hit it twice someone from Bloomberg calls you immediately. Bloomberg has had that for decades.
- seiji 12y ago
  credits Amazon with inventing a button that connects you to live customer service. oh my glob. Willfully misunderstand the world much? He's talking about consumer devices. How many devices in your home that aren't $10,000/month stock terminals have live under-5-second video support?
  - thrownaway2424 12y ago
    Maybe he should just learn to write, then, because his statement is totally unqualified. "unique" "no one" and "anything" all appear in this statement. These are words with meanings. "That’s truly remarkable, and a unique Amazon advantage. No one else has anything like this." -- Gruber
    - function_seven 12y ago
      The pumps at the local gas station also have such a button. Should he have mentioned those? A reasonable reader understands that "unique", "no one", and "anything" are referring to the market Amazon is selling the device in.
      - thrownaway2424 12y ago
        On your way to absurdism you skipped over a bunch of legitimate prior art in the consumer space, such as the OnStar roadside assistance system (press a button in your car, OnStar service rep starts talking through your radio), or even dialing zero on your phone.
bane 12y ago
He's among the most obvious and ridiculous shills out there in the tech world. He's usually not interesting or insightful and I flag his articles 9 out of 10 times I see them. But this is above average for him and I didn't flag it. It could be edited to half length if you cut out the apologia, but he's brought forward some interesting points that I think are the nucleus of an interesting discussion this time. I actually sort of just wish he posted the quotes from this article without any of his ridiculous commentary.
gregoire 12y ago
I agree with you, Gruber's posts are indeed sometimes tainted, but Gruber has always claimed that DF is a column, as he explained in an article [0]: If asked to describe Daring Fireball with just one word, I would not choose weblog. Rather, I would call it a column. Given a few more words, I would call it as a Mac column in the form of a weblog. He stated it again in an interview[1]: In 2002, when I started Daring Fireball, doing a sort of columnist-style weblog simply felt like something I was compelled to do. I could write whatever I wanted, however I wanted. [0]: http://daringfireball.net/2003/07/independent_days http://daringfireball.net/2003/07/independent_days [1]: http://shawnblanc.net/2008/02/interview-john-gruber/ http://shawnblanc.net/2008/02/interview-john-gruber/
jimejim 12y ago
Can we just call a fanboy a fanboy? He'll always frame discussions of Apple in a positive way. Occasionally, he'll have an interesting insight into the Apple ecosystem, but I had to stop reading since far too often he's making little trollish jabs at everyone else. I also still disagree with this article. This year was a surprising high note in the amount of stuff that came together assuming it all holds up well after you get past the marketing they're good at. We'll have to wait and see if this is a continuing trend for them or we just got lucky this year. I would love to see it continue.

pinaceae 12y ago

he is an apple-centric blogger writing for his own site. where exactly does journalism ever come in play here? don't think gruber ever claimed to be a "journalist".

leorocky 12y ago
"Journalism is a method of inquiry and literary style that aims to provide a service to the public by the dissemination and analysis of news and other information."[1] Is that not what he's doing? Is he just gratifying a need to be heard or something? I don't think so, it looks like he's attempting to perform journalism as described by this paragraph, and he falls short in some ways. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism
- function_seven 12y ago
  Just because "A is B" doesn't mean that "all B are A." I think it's apparent to most that Gruber isn't a journalist, nor does he pretend to be one.
- akifbhatti 12y ago
  hi

thrownaway2424 12y ago

The other problem is he just doesn't know anything about the industry he's writing on, because he's been a tunnel-vision mac fan for decades. Current example: just below this article he credits Amazon with inventing a button that connects you to live customer service. The counterexample to that claim is Bloomberg, whose terminals have a dedicated Help key. Striking this key once gets you a help screen, but if you hit it twice someone from Bloomberg calls you immediately. Bloomberg has had that for decades.

seiji 12y ago
credits Amazon with inventing a button that connects you to live customer service. oh my glob. Willfully misunderstand the world much? He's talking about consumer devices. How many devices in your home that aren't $10,000/month stock terminals have live under-5-second video support?
- thrownaway2424 12y ago
  Maybe he should just learn to write, then, because his statement is totally unqualified. "unique" "no one" and "anything" all appear in this statement. These are words with meanings. "That’s truly remarkable, and a unique Amazon advantage. No one else has anything like this." -- Gruber
  - function_seven 12y ago
    The pumps at the local gas station also have such a button. Should he have mentioned those? A reasonable reader understands that "unique", "no one", and "anything" are referring to the market Amazon is selling the device in.
    - thrownaway2424 12y ago
      On your way to absurdism you skipped over a bunch of legitimate prior art in the consumer space, such as the OnStar roadside assistance system (press a button in your car, OnStar service rep starts talking through your radio), or even dialing zero on your phone.

bane 12y ago

He's among the most obvious and ridiculous shills out there in the tech world. He's usually not interesting or insightful and I flag his articles 9 out of 10 times I see them. But this is above average for him and I didn't flag it. It could be edited to half length if you cut out the apologia, but he's brought forward some interesting points that I think are the nucleus of an interesting discussion this time. I actually sort of just wish he posted the quotes from this article without any of his ridiculous commentary.

gregoire 12y ago

I agree with you, Gruber's posts are indeed sometimes tainted, but Gruber has always claimed that DF is a column, as he explained in an article [0]: If asked to describe Daring Fireball with just one word, I would not choose weblog. Rather, I would call it a column. Given a few more words, I would call it as a Mac column in the form of a weblog. He stated it again in an interview[1]: In 2002, when I started Daring Fireball, doing a sort of columnist-style weblog simply felt like something I was compelled to do. I could write whatever I wanted, however I wanted. [0]: http://daringfireball.net/2003/07/independent_days http://daringfireball.net/2003/07/independent_days [1]: http://shawnblanc.net/2008/02/interview-john-gruber/ http://shawnblanc.net/2008/02/interview-john-gruber/

jimejim 12y ago

Can we just call a fanboy a fanboy? He'll always frame discussions of Apple in a positive way. Occasionally, he'll have an interesting insight into the Apple ecosystem, but I had to stop reading since far too often he's making little trollish jabs at everyone else. I also still disagree with this article. This year was a surprising high note in the amount of stuff that came together assuming it all holds up well after you get past the marketing they're good at. We'll have to wait and see if this is a continuing trend for them or we just got lucky this year. I would love to see it continue.