I 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.
"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.)
> (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.
Sorry 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?
I 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
Anyone 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.
I'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.)
Nowhere 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".
Just a reality check here: for someone asking for people to behave decently online, you're being argumentative, calling people names, assuming the worst possible motivations, and pretty much blowing off a - in my eyes - honest criticism. Never mind that you're basically spamming your site here and derailing the conversation.
"being argumentative": I felt I was misrepresented and thought I had a right to point that out. I replied to someone who put words in my mouth and claimed I took a position that in fact seems ridiculous to me.
"calling people names": Where in this thread did I do that?
"assuming the worst possible motivations": I'm puzzled by this; can you be specific?
"blowing off a - in my eyes - honest criticism": You actually read my piece and think that I said that Baio deserved to be sued because I don't like his music? Really? Because if you think the criticism is "honest" you must agree with this reading, which is off the wall. Since I never came close to saying that, how is the criticism "honest"?
"spamming your site here": I include a link to something I wrote instead of repeating it here to make my point. Is this against some kind of HN guideline? Is everyone who does this "spamming", or just me?
"derailing the conversation": I didn't mean to. I did not introduce these topics, but was replying to a thread started by others with something that I thought, in context, was relevant and interesting. But I can understand if it doesn't seem exactly on topic - neither was the thread, not started by me.
"reality check": Apparently your term for your opinion, in the form of a series of baseless accusations.
In your blog entry that you linked here - the one titled "Who's the Dick?" - you called John Gruber a scumbag, presuming that he dug for dirt instead of maybe following conversations where someone pointed info out, and then insisted that the music and artwork was both trivial and substantially transformative enough to, in your opinion, suck.
If you want to write about being decent online, you need to write more clearly and less muddled. And if you feel like something you've previously written is relevant, link it, but don't contort too hard for a connection, because non sequitur reasons - like the one about Apple fawning over him - read like spam rather than someone trying to be part of the conversation.
I misunderstood: I thought you meant I had called someone a name here in the comments. In my linked article I tried to lend some support to Maisel, whom Gruber had obscenely attacked, repeatedly calling him a "dick", by saying "If Maisel is a 'dick,' then John Gruber is a scumbag". You are welcome to characterize this as "calling people names", but I think that's an odd characterization. In the article I supply plenty of supporting evidence for "scumbag", which I nevertheless entomb in a contingent clause.
"presuming that he dug for dirt instead of maybe following conversations": I presumed nothing; he himself linked to the article that I claim he used disingenuously. He told us where he got the "dirt".
I notice that you don't seem to try to defend your other claims, but I'm having some trouble making grammatical sense out of a few of your comments. You seem to be complaining that my writing is "muddled", but I can't be sure, because the very sentence where you are trying to do that is a syntactical trainwreck.
I thought you might have had a point about me not being on topic, but the upvotes on the comments you are complaining about give me some reassurance.
The 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.
To 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.
As 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.
> 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
>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.
Or, it could just be that they both happen to like Apple products.
Gruber was writing snarkily in a pro-Apple manner for years before it was his source of income.
Marco has written pretty intelligent posts about his decision not to pursue an Android app on his own, that would be a very good read for any entrepreneur.
Gruber seems to take politics in the US relatively seriously. I've seen posts where he supported the protests on the 1% within the past few months yet he has never written one post on how Apple keeps well over half of their profits overseas to avoid US taxes and how Apple is lobbying for a tax holiday. However he will talk consistently about Apple's financial success. These are very serious issues which he has sidestepped.
I don't want to hold Apple's feet to the fire since they're not alone. Google, Apple, MS and a whole host of other companies are doing the same.
>Marco has written pretty intelligent posts about his decision not to pursue an Android app on his own, that would be a very good read for any entrepreneur.
I understand Marco's decision and I may be wrong about him. The problem for me is that everyone I know will rationalize their opinions and how they make money. I have a hard time believing that Marco is the exception to the rule after reading his blog for two years.
Please stop assuming that those of us who want to do something about the growing income inequality and shrinking middle class are also those who think the government should get money from its citizens.
It's possible to think that the evaporating middle class is a bad thing, without thinking that the solution is "more tax revenue and more government {operations, spending, regulation, etc}".
Whenever you think the answer is "get the government to help fix it", you do not fully understand the question.
to sibling poster: He has written about the New York Times reporting on Apple’s taxes. You can say that he’s just being an Apple apologist here, but it’s not as if he has ignored the topic:
That was about Apple paying taxes on what profits they bought into the US. I'm talking about the offshore tax havens where most of their money is kept.
Does Apple actually keep money in off-shore tax-havens? They are legitimately making tons of cash everywhere in the world (the majority of their revenue and profit) and that money is stuck there and they can’t bring it to the US. It’s not like they moved the money out of the US to flee some tax, they just didn’t make it in the US but elsewhere.
It’s seems to me that this is the main driver here for Apple.
It would be inaccurate to say "he has". Marco has stated on his podcast that he has had absolutely nothing to do with Instapaper for Android. If I recall correct he said it was an entirely-clean room implementation by Mobelux.
He didn't cut the code but he doesn't have nothing to do with it.
He wrote the code for the API the app uses and runs the servers (or hires someone to) that API runs on, plus it was developed in partnership and with his agreement so I'm guessing he was involved in the design.
I specifically mentioned Instapaper for Android, NOT the server-end. And your guess is wrong. As I stated, he mentioned on his podcast that he had nothing to do with the design and implementation of Instapaper for Android.
Did you even read my comment before clicking reply?
Well, given they're both in general Apple bloggers I'd be surprised if you weren't into Apple products you'd enjoy them. Kind of like I'm not into boats and find boat blogs really uninteresting.
I 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.
I'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.
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).