ParisLemon — The Apple Blogs Vs. Brooke Crothers

Congratulations to CNET’s Brooke Crothers for writing one of the most ridiculous things I’ve read in a while — and successfully getting myself (and undoubtedly many others) to link. Even more impressive: he didn’t have to break 400 words to do it. My guess is that he wrote this in 10 minutes. If not, that’s just sad. 

You used to see a lot more of these types of posts a few years ago. But once those writing them started getting exposed as fools, they slowed down. You see, the argument used to be that those constantly writing positively about Apple were both morons and brainwashed — Apple was insignificant in the all-important PC market at the time, so those who liked the products were obviously whack jobs on the fringe of humanity. 

Then a funny thing happened.

Apple became one of the most successful companies and the most valuable company in the world. They transformed the entertainment landscape, the retail landscape, the mobile landscape, and did something all the naysayers said was impossible: created an actual market for tablets. Now most companies around the world are trying to copy at least part of Apple’s business.

It’s hard to call those writing positively about Apple “lunatics”, “brainwashed”, and “fanbois” when they’re, well, right. But Crothers is apparently trying to revive the lost art.

Brushing aside the linkbait issue for a second, the real problem with Crothers’ argument is how naive and irresponsible it is. He attacks Daring Fireball as a “fanboi site” without actually speaking to John Gruber to get his perspective. How’s that for “informed insight”?

It can’t be that Gruber writes mainly positively about Apple because they’re kicking ass and making great products. Nope. He’s clearly only doing it because he’s delusional. But if that’s the case, so are the millions of consumers who make Apple one of the most profitable businesses on the planet. 

To back up his argument, Crothers’ cites another Apple-focused site, AppleInsider, pointing out potentially negative data about the Kindle Fire. You see, the Kindle Fire runs Android software: Apple public enemy #1. 

What he fails to note that is the Kindle Fire is actually no friend of Google either. Sure, it runs Android, but it doesn’t run anything remotely close to Google’s version of the software. What Amazon is doing is actually the biggest threat to Google in the mobile space right now. And Google knows it.

But it can’t be that sites are pointing out that the Kindle Fire simply isn’t very good because it isn’t — it’s some anti-Google conspiracy that somehow involves another major Google rival. 

I also love this part of Crothers’ post:

And what about the new Honeycomb-based Motorola Droid XyBoard (aka Xoom 2)? Not even close to the iPad, right? Wrong. I think it’s iPad 2 good.

(I have been using a 10.1-inch 4G-capable XyBoard and like it enough to drop my iPad 2–for a while at least. It’s got the weight distribution thing down. It’s very thin. And has all the apps I need to use every day. And, hey, it’s even got a very capable Siri-like voice control/navigation that I can use pretty much the same way I use Siri.)

“Think”, “for a while at least”, “capable”, “pretty much” — such conviction in his statements. This joker is going to be using an iPad again in a month and we all know it. He’s probably reading this post on his iPad. 

I’m sure Crothers will say I'm unqualified to critique his jackassery because I’m also an Apple “fanboi”. But such a dismissive stance would simply encapsulate the problem with his entire post. He’s making an argument (and attacking people in the process) without realizing that something much more simple may be going on. 

I’m a fan of Apple’s work because it’s great. I suspect my peers he would criticize would say the same thing. I’ve been a fan of Apple’s products for about 6 years now. Before that, I didn’t own one. You could even say that I hated Apple products back in the 1990s when I was going to midnight launches of Microsoft products. Why did that change? It’s not some spell or some bullshit marketing. It’s all the hard work and attention to detail Apple put into their products during the second Jobs reign. I wanted the best, Apple made the best.

If Apple’s products start slipping again, I’ll drop them again. The loyalty isn’t to some magical unicorn tear voodoo — it’s to the best products. But Crothers can’t write such common sense in 10 minutes and get the same reaction. So he went the other way.