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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

Seriously, you can't take a Mac advocate's casual blog post, post it here yourself, and then argue that it isn't fair and balanced enough. It is not Jon Gruber's job to shout from the rooftops when things go wrong with Apple products.

And chances are, if it is a real problem, there will be a starred long-form blog post forthcoming from Gruber describing it in more detail.

This is among the more tiresome recurring complaints on HN. "Gruber is biased". Shocking! Next you'll tell me John Nack really isn't critical enough about Adobe! Can we give this a rest?

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It is not Jon Gruber's job to shout from the rooftops when things go wrong with Apple products.

No, it's not, but given the influence that his blog has, being widely read both inside and outside Apple, it's a real shame that he doesn't. It would be a wonderful thing if he held Apple to account more often.

This makes no sense to me. He practically started the blog to write glowing things about Apple. He has the influence has has because he is an extremely good writer; he's tight, pithy, is relentlessly creative, and has a unique voice; he's also very well-sourced, which sets up a virtuous cycle for him. He didn't get his donation as a line item grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and he doesn't owe us anything.

I actually don't agree with the narrative that Gruber is a shill, but even if we stipulate that he is to avoid an unproductive argument: so what?

I've read Gruber for years, and it used to be a mix of "interesting stuff in the Apple world", "Kubrick/Baseball/BBedit/Applescript/typography nits" and "criticisms of Apple" (usually centred around lack of attention to detail, interface annoyances or not being faithful to the pre-OS X way of doing things).

As an Apple owner and fan, I enjoyed reading those intelligent criticisms. Clearly this has changed, but lets not go rewriting history.

The last line of his first blog post:

"But if it’s the latter — that is, if pro users are giving the finger to Mac OS X — things could get ugly."

I wonder why he felt more able to criticize them when they were "beleaguered" than now, when they're on top of the world. Possibly it's no more than being a crotchety OS 9 user thrust into the strange and uncomfortable world of early OS X. Some evidence of that here:

http://daringfireball.net/2002/09/welcome_indeed

On the other hand maybe he's checked his stats and found that trolling pays better.

And just for fun here's some claim chowder from one of his early posts:

"a vaporware Apple-branded mobile “iPhone” is getting a lot traction. Go ahead and read it, but remember that it’s all bullshit speculation at this point."

He said that in 2002.

That was a merely an amusing-in-hindsight observation, I even telegraphed it with the introduction of "just for fun".

Maybe the tipsters were right and there was a skunkworks project working on the iPhone even then (Jobs says the iPhone grew out of iPad work that must have been going on for years before we saw the iPhone, never mind the iPad) or alternatively maybe Apple picked up the name for their product from the rumours. Either way I find it interesting, and it underscores the old adage that making predictions is a mug's game.

Actually, I wasn't complaining. Just observing. I don't know why I should not be allowed to note all the instances where Gruber's bias show up.

Here's a hint: you didn't just spot another elusive occurance of the fabled Gruber bias. He wears it on his sleeve.

Sleeve? It's damn near tattooed on his arm :)

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