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I'm embarrassed to admit that my heart sunk when I read this, because I imagined thousands of dedicated dislikers-of-Apple immediately declaring, "See! He favor

I'm embarrassed to admit that my heart sunk when I read this, because I imagined thousands of dedicated dislikers-of-Apple immediately declaring, "See! He favored Apple all along!" It's ridiculous, of course. I always felt he and his staff were extremely objective and by volume, the vast majority of AnandTech's coverage was non-Apple in nature. The whole idea of "picking sides" is so silly anyway...

psbp 12y ago
I haven't seen anyone do that. It's truly an indefensible position given Anand's track record.
- phaus 12y ago
  I agree, now if it were the Boy Genius or one of the folks from the verge, it would be easily defensible. Anand was a great hardware reviewer. The only other reviewer I think of that compares to him would be Lisa from mobiletechreview.com. Her reviews aren't as technical, but not everyone needs that. What's important is that she's got integrity.
  - arrrg 12y ago
    How is that in any way a defensible position for The Verge? It’s an absurd and delusional position.
    - phaus 12y ago
      I like the verge too,but let's be serious.
- nizmow 12y ago
  Unfortunately it's what all of the pro-Android Apple-haters at my office immediately said. I don't think he was in any way biased, just passionate. If his reviews of Apple products were in any way more detailed than those of Android products (which I'm not sure they were), I'm certain it was simply due to the frequency of releases and that Apple products tend to be much more interesting technically.
  - gress 12y ago
    The pro-Android Apple-haters aren't likely to suddenly have a change of heart whatever happens.
mtdewcmu 12y ago
I never sensed that type of bias on anandtech. The present career change does seem a bit like selling out. As the downvotes are starting, I feel like pointing out that I don't blame him for accepting the offer. My point is that it's a point that can legitimately be made, whereas claiming that he was in Apple's pocket all along seems to me baseless.
- gress 12y ago
  How on earth can you make that point?
- whyenot 12y ago
  > The present career change does seem a bit like selling out. Why? To quote wikipeida, "selling out is the compromising of integrity, morality, authenticity or principles in exchange for personal gain, such as money." That seems like an awfully strong accusation considering how little information there is on what he will be doing and what he will be getting in return for it.
  - mtdewcmu 12y ago
    I think it would be loss of authenticity, and I am sure Apple can afford to pay more than could pay himself at Anandtech. At the very least, he no longer has to worry that his paycheck might ever bounce. The concept of "selling out" has always been a murky and subjective one, and it usually has as much to do with the values of the observer as the actions of the subject. But in a case where someone had been arguably on the side of the consumer for many years and presumably turning down lucrative offers in order to tell the unbiased truth, and then suddenly accepts one of those offers, well, it looks sort of like selling out. Now, I'd be a hypocrite if I tried to make that case myself, because I stopped reading Anandtech a couple years ago, and I couldn't with a straight face demand that Anand care more about it than I do. I stopped largely because the news got dull and repetitive once 1) Intel decisively won the CPU war, and 2) the GPU market became a permanent stalemate between AMD and nVidia (plus a little bit of Intel). If Anand basically retired because there was no longer an interesting story to tell, well, I can relate to that.
ksec 12y ago
This is so true. These days is like even Publisher have to pick a side. (Is that because America's culture just like doing it this way? Much like their news report on political issues. Please dont take it as offense, i am genuinely wondering.) Most site are either Pro Apple or Pro Droid. Bashing one of them is easier and attack on one side. You can read the iPhone 5S article, on a Droid user switching to iPhone for weeks experience. It perfectly capture the essence and explain the "reason" behind certain design decisions from Apple. You may not agree with it, hence you can choose a different platform. But there is certainly nothing wrong with the "decision" in itself. And people are just keep bashing Apple and bashing sake. Being Apple, there must be a reason they do things in certain way. Be it cost? Performance? Battery Life etc? All these technical details Apple just wouldn't explain to you because Apple think you shouldn't care about the technical side of things and you should concentrate on the experience. But being geek as we are, Anandtech will go deep and dig out all the information they can, then try to explain it, explaining the "reason" behind all these decisions. I mean the rivalry, especially the hate from FansDriod these days are getting insane. I dont see this with AMD and Intel. Heck even AMD fans would admit Intel have better products. And in my view Anandtech reviews lots of Android phone as well. So i dont understand why people would label him as an Apple servant.
- JohnBooty 12y ago
  > Is that because America's culture just like doing it this way? I live in America, but I haven't lived in any other countries, so I can't compare. I see two reasons for everybody "picking sides" in America. The second one might be somewhat unique to America. 1. We have lots of advertising where one brand talks negatively about the other brand. People see these ads and think they have to "pick a side." But I think this is true everywhere in the world, right? 2. In America most people are stuck with their mobile phones for 2 years. The mobile phone providers mostly want to sign you up to 2-year contracts and pay for your phone slowly over those 2 years. There are ways around this but most people wind up stuck with their phones for 2 years and so sometimes they feel like they have to "defend" the phone they picked. I think "picking sides" is dumb. I use Linux, OSX, and Windows pretty equally. I like my Android tablet and my iOS phone. I also had Sega Genesis AND Super Nintendo as soon as I could afford both. I believe that if you are truly a fan of technology... why wouldn't you want to try/use them all? :)

psbp 12y ago

I haven't seen anyone do that. It's truly an indefensible position given Anand's track record.

phaus 12y ago
I agree, now if it were the Boy Genius or one of the folks from the verge, it would be easily defensible. Anand was a great hardware reviewer. The only other reviewer I think of that compares to him would be Lisa from mobiletechreview.com. Her reviews aren't as technical, but not everyone needs that. What's important is that she's got integrity.
- arrrg 12y ago
  How is that in any way a defensible position for The Verge? It’s an absurd and delusional position.
  - phaus 12y ago
    I like the verge too,but let's be serious.
nizmow 12y ago
Unfortunately it's what all of the pro-Android Apple-haters at my office immediately said. I don't think he was in any way biased, just passionate. If his reviews of Apple products were in any way more detailed than those of Android products (which I'm not sure they were), I'm certain it was simply due to the frequency of releases and that Apple products tend to be much more interesting technically.
- gress 12y ago
  The pro-Android Apple-haters aren't likely to suddenly have a change of heart whatever happens.

mtdewcmu 12y ago

I never sensed that type of bias on anandtech. The present career change does seem a bit like selling out. As the downvotes are starting, I feel like pointing out that I don't blame him for accepting the offer. My point is that it's a point that can legitimately be made, whereas claiming that he was in Apple's pocket all along seems to me baseless.

gress 12y ago
How on earth can you make that point?
whyenot 12y ago
> The present career change does seem a bit like selling out. Why? To quote wikipeida, "selling out is the compromising of integrity, morality, authenticity or principles in exchange for personal gain, such as money." That seems like an awfully strong accusation considering how little information there is on what he will be doing and what he will be getting in return for it.
- mtdewcmu 12y ago
  I think it would be loss of authenticity, and I am sure Apple can afford to pay more than could pay himself at Anandtech. At the very least, he no longer has to worry that his paycheck might ever bounce. The concept of "selling out" has always been a murky and subjective one, and it usually has as much to do with the values of the observer as the actions of the subject. But in a case where someone had been arguably on the side of the consumer for many years and presumably turning down lucrative offers in order to tell the unbiased truth, and then suddenly accepts one of those offers, well, it looks sort of like selling out. Now, I'd be a hypocrite if I tried to make that case myself, because I stopped reading Anandtech a couple years ago, and I couldn't with a straight face demand that Anand care more about it than I do. I stopped largely because the news got dull and repetitive once 1) Intel decisively won the CPU war, and 2) the GPU market became a permanent stalemate between AMD and nVidia (plus a little bit of Intel). If Anand basically retired because there was no longer an interesting story to tell, well, I can relate to that.

ksec 12y ago

This is so true. These days is like even Publisher have to pick a side. (Is that because America's culture just like doing it this way? Much like their news report on political issues. Please dont take it as offense, i am genuinely wondering.) Most site are either Pro Apple or Pro Droid. Bashing one of them is easier and attack on one side. You can read the iPhone 5S article, on a Droid user switching to iPhone for weeks experience. It perfectly capture the essence and explain the "reason" behind certain design decisions from Apple. You may not agree with it, hence you can choose a different platform. But there is certainly nothing wrong with the "decision" in itself. And people are just keep bashing Apple and bashing sake. Being Apple, there must be a reason they do things in certain way. Be it cost? Performance? Battery Life etc? All these technical details Apple just wouldn't explain to you because Apple think you shouldn't care about the technical side of things and you should concentrate on the experience. But being geek as we are, Anandtech will go deep and dig out all the information they can, then try to explain it, explaining the "reason" behind all these decisions. I mean the rivalry, especially the hate from FansDriod these days are getting insane. I dont see this with AMD and Intel. Heck even AMD fans would admit Intel have better products. And in my view Anandtech reviews lots of Android phone as well. So i dont understand why people would label him as an Apple servant.

JohnBooty 12y ago
> Is that because America's culture just like doing it this way? I live in America, but I haven't lived in any other countries, so I can't compare. I see two reasons for everybody "picking sides" in America. The second one might be somewhat unique to America. 1. We have lots of advertising where one brand talks negatively about the other brand. People see these ads and think they have to "pick a side." But I think this is true everywhere in the world, right? 2. In America most people are stuck with their mobile phones for 2 years. The mobile phone providers mostly want to sign you up to 2-year contracts and pay for your phone slowly over those 2 years. There are ways around this but most people wind up stuck with their phones for 2 years and so sometimes they feel like they have to "defend" the phone they picked. I think "picking sides" is dumb. I use Linux, OSX, and Windows pretty equally. I like my Android tablet and my iOS phone. I also had Sega Genesis AND Super Nintendo as soon as I could afford both. I believe that if you are truly a fan of technology... why wouldn't you want to try/use them all? :)