Amazing.
I wrote a piece a few hours ago and noticed that someone had posted it to Hacker News. I never know when one of my pieces will get posted there or Reddit or wherever, so it is always pleasant to see.
The piece was about my concern about law enforcement and its role in the Apple Gizmodo situation and now the AT&T Goatse situation.
The piece got at least 10 points, and made it to the front page... where it was then killed.
This is amazing to me. I am not really a part of the Hacker News community, but the fact that apparently they censor articles because they disagree with the content is incredible. I thought the idea was, if people don't like something then that is reflected in the voting. But I guess sometimes Mr. Graham (the HN proprietor), knows best what is safe for people to read.
Next thing you know I am sure I will be banned from *reading* Hacker News. I'm sure its coming.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Law enforcement has apparently become an arm of AT&T and Apple
I feel like we are living in what I thought was the fictional world of the movie RoboCop. In that movie law enforcement is turned over to private company OCP with the cyborg RoboCop leading the way. We're not quite there yet, but these last few months have exposed a frightening ability of corporate America to get official law enforcement to do its bidding.
First a little background.
As everyone who reads this blog I am sure knows, several months ago, the Gadget blog Gizmodo purchased a then secret unreleased iPhone from someone who claimed to find it in a bar. Gizmodo then wrote a major article about the phone and then gave it back to Apple.
What has followed is an investigation by local police, kicked off with a search warrant executed on the home of Jason Chen editor of Gizmodo, looking for evidence to support a criminal case against him for "theft" of the already returned phone. They broke down his door, when he was not home, and took all of the computers out of his house.
Fast forward to last week.
On Wednesday, Gawker published an article about a major security flaw in iPads discovered by Goatse Security. Goatse did not publicize the security flaw until it had already been closed there was no opportunity for the flaw to be exploited. AT&T then blamed their security failure on the whistleblowers.
The fact that AT&T chooses to blame the people who found the problem and reported it is bad enough. It is pretty clear to everyone in the tech universe that what Goatse did was a service to the community and that blaming them is lame. But what follows is truly shocking.
Today the leader of the Goatse team, Andrew Auernheimer, had an FBI search warrant executed against him.
Are you getting the pattern now?
Unfortunately, it gets worse. In executing the search warrant, the FBI found drugs, and arrested Auernheimer on possession charges. Now I have no idea if Auerheimer is an overall good guy. And I am not a drug user and personally dont like the idea. But the idea that the FBI gets to ransack your home because you told on some huge corporation who couldn't give a hoot about your security unless they are publicly embarrassed about it is the ultimate example of no good deed going unpunished.
And while there will be lots of talk in the coming days about AT&T, security, and the Goatse situation, I want to focus on a larger issue.
Why is it so easy for these huge private companies to get law enforcement to do their bidding?
In the Apple case, I'd really like to know how easy it would be to get a "task force" to search for evidence that *MY* **RETURNED** phone was "stolen".
Ridiculous.
The truth is that if you are just some regular schmo, and you go to the police and tell them your kid is missing, they will tell you you have to wait 24 hours, no matter how egregious the situation. But in the case of a lost but quickly returned phone, they have no problem sending in a crew of cops to ransack someone's house.
We all know that in the case of Apple, their beef isn't that Gizmodo bought the phone. Their beef is that Gizmodo wrote an article about their secret phone. If Gizmodo had bought the phone and returned it without writing the article, do you think there would be an investigation?
But Apple doesn't have a legal right to secrecy. They have to achieve that secrecy through vigilance. If they fail, there is no legal remedy unless it is some form of breach of contract in connection with a non-disclosure. It is certainly in no case criminal. But what law enforcement is really doing here is creating a punishment for having exposed Apple's secret, because even if they don't ultimately pursue a case, the horror of being searched and investigated by the police is a powerful deterrent.
To suggest anything else is patently absurd.
In the case of AT&T of course we don't yet know all the facts. But if things play out the way they look, its more of the same. Law enforcement is punishing someone for exposing an embarrassing corporate secret. This should not be the role of law enforcement in our society.
We should all have equal access to the law, and certainly there is no way in hell that I could get the police to investiate someone who returned my missing property. Ever. Of course I know that in this country you get as much access to the law as you can afford, but the fact that Apple can induce a criminal investigation that no regular person or even regular corporation could is scary.
Similarly, as far as I know, there has never been a case of the FBI investigating someone for exposing a security exploit even if they did so before the exploit had a chance to get fixed, which it did in this case. This case represents a new danger to all of us if security researchers are now punished for exposing their discoveries.
The bottom line is that if we are not careful, we are at grave risk of our freedoms being eroded. The usual concern about such issues is that government is too big. That is not my worry because no matter what, government will, by necessity, be big. My concern is who controls it. Because if Apple's or AT&T's vote counts more than mine and yours, we have a problem.
First a little background.
As everyone who reads this blog I am sure knows, several months ago, the Gadget blog Gizmodo purchased a then secret unreleased iPhone from someone who claimed to find it in a bar. Gizmodo then wrote a major article about the phone and then gave it back to Apple.
What has followed is an investigation by local police, kicked off with a search warrant executed on the home of Jason Chen editor of Gizmodo, looking for evidence to support a criminal case against him for "theft" of the already returned phone. They broke down his door, when he was not home, and took all of the computers out of his house.
Fast forward to last week.
On Wednesday, Gawker published an article about a major security flaw in iPads discovered by Goatse Security. Goatse did not publicize the security flaw until it had already been closed there was no opportunity for the flaw to be exploited. AT&T then blamed their security failure on the whistleblowers.
Unauthorized computer “hackers” maliciously exploited a function designed to make your iPad log-in process faster by pre-populating an AT&T authentication page with the email address you used to register your iPad for 3G service.
The fact that AT&T chooses to blame the people who found the problem and reported it is bad enough. It is pretty clear to everyone in the tech universe that what Goatse did was a service to the community and that blaming them is lame. But what follows is truly shocking.
Today the leader of the Goatse team, Andrew Auernheimer, had an FBI search warrant executed against him.
Are you getting the pattern now?
Unfortunately, it gets worse. In executing the search warrant, the FBI found drugs, and arrested Auernheimer on possession charges. Now I have no idea if Auerheimer is an overall good guy. And I am not a drug user and personally dont like the idea. But the idea that the FBI gets to ransack your home because you told on some huge corporation who couldn't give a hoot about your security unless they are publicly embarrassed about it is the ultimate example of no good deed going unpunished.
And while there will be lots of talk in the coming days about AT&T, security, and the Goatse situation, I want to focus on a larger issue.
Why is it so easy for these huge private companies to get law enforcement to do their bidding?
In the Apple case, I'd really like to know how easy it would be to get a "task force" to search for evidence that *MY* **RETURNED** phone was "stolen".
Ridiculous.
The truth is that if you are just some regular schmo, and you go to the police and tell them your kid is missing, they will tell you you have to wait 24 hours, no matter how egregious the situation. But in the case of a lost but quickly returned phone, they have no problem sending in a crew of cops to ransack someone's house.
We all know that in the case of Apple, their beef isn't that Gizmodo bought the phone. Their beef is that Gizmodo wrote an article about their secret phone. If Gizmodo had bought the phone and returned it without writing the article, do you think there would be an investigation?
But Apple doesn't have a legal right to secrecy. They have to achieve that secrecy through vigilance. If they fail, there is no legal remedy unless it is some form of breach of contract in connection with a non-disclosure. It is certainly in no case criminal. But what law enforcement is really doing here is creating a punishment for having exposed Apple's secret, because even if they don't ultimately pursue a case, the horror of being searched and investigated by the police is a powerful deterrent.
To suggest anything else is patently absurd.
In the case of AT&T of course we don't yet know all the facts. But if things play out the way they look, its more of the same. Law enforcement is punishing someone for exposing an embarrassing corporate secret. This should not be the role of law enforcement in our society.
We should all have equal access to the law, and certainly there is no way in hell that I could get the police to investiate someone who returned my missing property. Ever. Of course I know that in this country you get as much access to the law as you can afford, but the fact that Apple can induce a criminal investigation that no regular person or even regular corporation could is scary.
Similarly, as far as I know, there has never been a case of the FBI investigating someone for exposing a security exploit even if they did so before the exploit had a chance to get fixed, which it did in this case. This case represents a new danger to all of us if security researchers are now punished for exposing their discoveries.
The bottom line is that if we are not careful, we are at grave risk of our freedoms being eroded. The usual concern about such issues is that government is too big. That is not my worry because no matter what, government will, by necessity, be big. My concern is who controls it. Because if Apple's or AT&T's vote counts more than mine and yours, we have a problem.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Told ya so...BP RIP
This morning, I was reading an article in the New York Times that triggered me to look back on what I was saying about the spill back in May, and where we are now.
Back then I refuted the then common wisdom that the spill would cost 2 or 3 billion dollars. I said I thought such estimates were "ridiculous" and that I though the damages were going to be in the tens of billions and that, "I think the damages that come from this have the potential to mortally wound BP."
Finally, everyone has caught up to the obvious. BP's share price has fallen by 50% since the crisis and I don't think its done falling by a longshot. That BP is in a fight for survival has gone from a fringe viewpoint to conventional wisdom.
From today's New York Times:
And then later in the same article.
This is the kind of stuff I'd rather be wrong about.
Back then I refuted the then common wisdom that the spill would cost 2 or 3 billion dollars. I said I thought such estimates were "ridiculous" and that I though the damages were going to be in the tens of billions and that, "I think the damages that come from this have the potential to mortally wound BP."
Finally, everyone has caught up to the obvious. BP's share price has fallen by 50% since the crisis and I don't think its done falling by a longshot. That BP is in a fight for survival has gone from a fringe viewpoint to conventional wisdom.
From today's New York Times:
The ultimate cost of the disaster remains uncertain. Wall Street estimates have put the bill for BP at anywhere from $17 billion to $60 billion, including penalties, damages and cleanup costs for the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
And then later in the same article.
“The costs are going to be significant, yes, and potentially they are an existential threat to BP,” said Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University.
This is the kind of stuff I'd rather be wrong about.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Sometimes it *is* a conspiracy
I am the guy that is generally annoyed by unsubstantiated conspiracy theories from the political left and the right about things that supposedly the other side did. Conspiracies are hard to pull off because they generally involve, well, people conspiring. That means talking. And big conspiracies require *more* people conspiring. And making sure people STFU is hard. There is always someone who can't keep their mouth shut. That is why big conspiracies have a hard time surviving, particularly in the Internet age.
But sometimes conspiracies get pulled off. At least for a while. That doesn't mean that big conspiracies can ultimately be kept secret forever, but sometimes they can be kept quiet long enough for the dirty deed to get done.
And this is what I fear has happened in South Carolina.
Last Tuesday Alvin Greene won the South Carolina democratic nomination for senate.
If you think this adds up, I have some BP shares I'd like to sell you.
But sometimes conspiracies get pulled off. At least for a while. That doesn't mean that big conspiracies can ultimately be kept secret forever, but sometimes they can be kept quiet long enough for the dirty deed to get done.
And this is what I fear has happened in South Carolina.
Last Tuesday Alvin Greene won the South Carolina democratic nomination for senate.
- Mr. Greene is unemployed, but managed to come up with the $10,400 South Carolina filing fee.
- Mr. Greene currently being prosecuted for a felony obscenity charge.
- Mr. Greene did no campaigning. None.
- Mr. Greene got no press coverage before winning. None.
- Mr. Greene raised no money. None.
- Mr. Greene had no campaign staff or workers. None.
- Mr. Greene has a hard time completing sentences.
- Mr. Greene is a black man in a state that, lets just say, isn't the most racially open minded state in the country.
- Mr. Greene got 60% of the democratic primary vote, *whipping* the leading candidate, a well known former judge and state legislator.
If you think this adds up, I have some BP shares I'd like to sell you.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Apple fears the killer app
Ok, so were finally getting down to it. On at least two fronts, Apple has now essentially thrown out its draconian rules on what developers can and cannot do on its platform, and replaced them with essentially, no rules. The new "rules" appear to be, "its OK to do what you want in your app if we say so. And we'll figure that out *after* you've fully invested in our platform." In other words, you serve at the pleasure of the queen.
Now the truth is for the vast majority of app developers this is totally fine. People developing the uninspiring apps that mainly make up the App Store have nothing to fear. But those creative few that want to do something interesting with a UI, or want to use hardware in a new way, or who want to use a more advanced code execution technique are at grave risk.
For now, I will leave it to others to debate the impact of this strategy. I want to explore something different.
What is motivating Apple?
Apple claims its goal with all these rules is to keep out bad applications. But if that is the case, they are failing miserably because a lot of apps in the App Store, perhaps the majority, are total crap. Their stated rationale is, I believe, baloney. In fact, not only do I think Apple couldn't care less about whether apps are crap, I think they *love* the crap, and that their goal is in fact to keep out the awesome.
I know this sounds over the top. Let me explain.
I think Apple is fearful of any truly ground breaking stuff coming from a third party. Apple does not really want even a handful of awe inspiring market moving 3rd party apps. They want hundreds of thousands of decent or even mediocre or crappy apps. The rationale for this thinking is actually pretty reasonable. Its great to be able to claim having more apps than any other platform. Numeric superiority is a huge marketing tool. No one cares if your tens of thousands of apps are mainly crap.
And yet, in the history of computing, we know that its not the number of apps that make a platform, but the existence of "killer apps." Whether it was VisiCalc, or Lotus 123, or PageMaker, or Microsoft Office, the truth is users don't really want hundreds of apps, they want one or a small number that are really meaningful.
The good news about killer apps for platform vendors is that they can drive the platform into the stratosphere. This is certainly great for early stage platforms like the Mac with PageMaker in the 80's, or even with Facebook and Farmville in the last several years. But as platforms mature, Killer apps from third party companies pose more risk.
I think Apple has come to the conclusion that any killer apps for the iPhone need to be from Apple, and that those that are not from Apple are hugely dangerous. And this well may be true. Because if some third party invents something that fundamentally changes what it means to own a mobile device, and that software is available on other devices, overnight Apple is in the position of being the supplicant.
If that killer app vendor decides to support Android more effectively than they support Apple, or if for some reason they decided to drop the iPhone, that one vendor could have a devastating effect on Apple's position in the marketplace. This is the position that Apple was in with Adobe in the 90's and Jobs has made it clear he is fearful of ever being in that position again. Others have discussed this but it is usually framed in the context of why Apple doesn't want Adobe on its platform. But I think the broader issue is they don't want *any* companies generating hundreds of millions of dollars through some new mobile technology which Apple doesn't control.
The greatest support for my thesis is that there are not yet any third party companies that have made a huge amount of money on the iPhone. Has there been success? Yes. Has there been enough to support a major exit, or to even put someone on that trajectory? No. And I think Apple will work hard, through whatever rule changes and market behavior is necessary to guarantee that that never happens, at least with any non-vertical technology.
So I guess the question here is what to make of all of this. And I think the answer is clear. If your goal is to build a major company, iOS is probably not the place to make that investment. Certainly it may be a great place for an entrepreneur who wants to build a lifestyle business, though even there risks abound. And for games I think the iPhone is fine platform since games are probably not strategic. But for anyone else, either entrepreneur or investor, who aspires to build a truly market moving mobile company, I strongly suggest you think different. Apple isn't the only game in town, and as I have written previously, I don't think it will even be the biggest game in town much longer.
Now the truth is for the vast majority of app developers this is totally fine. People developing the uninspiring apps that mainly make up the App Store have nothing to fear. But those creative few that want to do something interesting with a UI, or want to use hardware in a new way, or who want to use a more advanced code execution technique are at grave risk.
For now, I will leave it to others to debate the impact of this strategy. I want to explore something different.
What is motivating Apple?
Apple claims its goal with all these rules is to keep out bad applications. But if that is the case, they are failing miserably because a lot of apps in the App Store, perhaps the majority, are total crap. Their stated rationale is, I believe, baloney. In fact, not only do I think Apple couldn't care less about whether apps are crap, I think they *love* the crap, and that their goal is in fact to keep out the awesome.
I know this sounds over the top. Let me explain.
I think Apple is fearful of any truly ground breaking stuff coming from a third party. Apple does not really want even a handful of awe inspiring market moving 3rd party apps. They want hundreds of thousands of decent or even mediocre or crappy apps. The rationale for this thinking is actually pretty reasonable. Its great to be able to claim having more apps than any other platform. Numeric superiority is a huge marketing tool. No one cares if your tens of thousands of apps are mainly crap.
And yet, in the history of computing, we know that its not the number of apps that make a platform, but the existence of "killer apps." Whether it was VisiCalc, or Lotus 123, or PageMaker, or Microsoft Office, the truth is users don't really want hundreds of apps, they want one or a small number that are really meaningful.
The good news about killer apps for platform vendors is that they can drive the platform into the stratosphere. This is certainly great for early stage platforms like the Mac with PageMaker in the 80's, or even with Facebook and Farmville in the last several years. But as platforms mature, Killer apps from third party companies pose more risk.
I think Apple has come to the conclusion that any killer apps for the iPhone need to be from Apple, and that those that are not from Apple are hugely dangerous. And this well may be true. Because if some third party invents something that fundamentally changes what it means to own a mobile device, and that software is available on other devices, overnight Apple is in the position of being the supplicant.
If that killer app vendor decides to support Android more effectively than they support Apple, or if for some reason they decided to drop the iPhone, that one vendor could have a devastating effect on Apple's position in the marketplace. This is the position that Apple was in with Adobe in the 90's and Jobs has made it clear he is fearful of ever being in that position again. Others have discussed this but it is usually framed in the context of why Apple doesn't want Adobe on its platform. But I think the broader issue is they don't want *any* companies generating hundreds of millions of dollars through some new mobile technology which Apple doesn't control.
The greatest support for my thesis is that there are not yet any third party companies that have made a huge amount of money on the iPhone. Has there been success? Yes. Has there been enough to support a major exit, or to even put someone on that trajectory? No. And I think Apple will work hard, through whatever rule changes and market behavior is necessary to guarantee that that never happens, at least with any non-vertical technology.
So I guess the question here is what to make of all of this. And I think the answer is clear. If your goal is to build a major company, iOS is probably not the place to make that investment. Certainly it may be a great place for an entrepreneur who wants to build a lifestyle business, though even there risks abound. And for games I think the iPhone is fine platform since games are probably not strategic. But for anyone else, either entrepreneur or investor, who aspires to build a truly market moving mobile company, I strongly suggest you think different. Apple isn't the only game in town, and as I have written previously, I don't think it will even be the biggest game in town much longer.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Apple will be hugely profitable, but not dominant
There is a popular meme that Apple will dominate media markets as well as the smart phone market. Certainly Apple is currently the largest digital music vendor and Apple has made incredible gains against RIM that would scare the crap out of me if I were them.
But the most interesting question to me is where all of this leads. And at the end of the day, I see Apple remaining the largest and most profitable vendor in these markets, but not the dominant technology. The reason for this is simple. One vendor cannot provide sufficiently diverse distribution channels, form factors, feature sets, and designs.
Currently Apple's biggest distribution challenge is the fact that iPhones are only avaliable on AT&T. But even when Apple eventually cuts a deal with Verizon, I think it will be at a distribution disadvantage. While Apple's phones today are in my estimation somewhat better than the best Android phones, markets don't collectively assess products that way. Imagine what the average consumer will do when going to a phone store and being confronted with ten phones that seem very similar, where one is an iPhone and the other nine are Androids. Odds are they will buy one of the Android models.
None of this means that Apple will be in any trouble. Apple will continue to be a wildly successful company because they will by far be the most profitable company in the mobile market. I don't think Apple is trying to maximize market share at all. That is a nice bonus, but what Apple wants is to be optimized for making the maximum amount of money possible.
By the way, in my example above where the consumer is presented with one iPhone and nine androids, I didnt include RIM. Why is that? Because its fairly clear that RIM cannot survive as a market leader. They are destined to become the next Palm. Not next week, or next month, but within 18 months their current 35% of the smart phone market will be below 20%. There is no magic in what RIM can do around delivering mail, but replicating the sexiness of the iPhone OS (just renamed iOS) and Android is not in their organizational DNA. They can't do it, and the gap between RIM and everyone else is going to become increasingly obvious. They may get bought, perhaps by a desperate Microsoft, or they may just whither, but there will be no competitive RIM OS, and so there will be no competitive RIM.
But the most interesting question to me is where all of this leads. And at the end of the day, I see Apple remaining the largest and most profitable vendor in these markets, but not the dominant technology. The reason for this is simple. One vendor cannot provide sufficiently diverse distribution channels, form factors, feature sets, and designs.
Currently Apple's biggest distribution challenge is the fact that iPhones are only avaliable on AT&T. But even when Apple eventually cuts a deal with Verizon, I think it will be at a distribution disadvantage. While Apple's phones today are in my estimation somewhat better than the best Android phones, markets don't collectively assess products that way. Imagine what the average consumer will do when going to a phone store and being confronted with ten phones that seem very similar, where one is an iPhone and the other nine are Androids. Odds are they will buy one of the Android models.
None of this means that Apple will be in any trouble. Apple will continue to be a wildly successful company because they will by far be the most profitable company in the mobile market. I don't think Apple is trying to maximize market share at all. That is a nice bonus, but what Apple wants is to be optimized for making the maximum amount of money possible.
By the way, in my example above where the consumer is presented with one iPhone and nine androids, I didnt include RIM. Why is that? Because its fairly clear that RIM cannot survive as a market leader. They are destined to become the next Palm. Not next week, or next month, but within 18 months their current 35% of the smart phone market will be below 20%. There is no magic in what RIM can do around delivering mail, but replicating the sexiness of the iPhone OS (just renamed iOS) and Android is not in their organizational DNA. They can't do it, and the gap between RIM and everyone else is going to become increasingly obvious. They may get bought, perhaps by a desperate Microsoft, or they may just whither, but there will be no competitive RIM OS, and so there will be no competitive RIM.
Yes, NYT, of course the Internet causes A.D.D.
Its great when the New York Times catches up with something I wrote about a long time ago. Their article the other day, "Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price" is something I wrote about in May of 2008, "The Internet Causes A.D.D. (Attention Deficit Disorder)". I love being a little bit ahead of my time!
Friday, June 4, 2010
John Gruber jumps the shark
I have been using Macs since February 1984. From just about the day the Mac was announced I was writing software for it from my college dorm room using one of the school's two $10,000 Apple Lisa computers. The Lisa was, at that time, the only tool you could use to write Mac software, and no one else at The University of Pennsylvania seemed to know what to do with it, or even care.
I say all that to say, from the beginning of the Mac's life, I have been a fan. As an entrepreneur, I have built Mac hardware and software businesses and I think Apple, and Steve Jobs have indeed changed the planet. And as impressive as is Apple's long past, its current and next generation products such as the iPhone and the iPad are no less revolutionary.
But all that said, I am also, at times, critical of Apple. Sometimes very critical. I try to be a totally dispassionate truth teller. Needless to say that is very hard to do, I obviously sometimes fail, but I do try to filter my biases. That said, in recent years, as Apple has gotten bigger, more successful, and more powerful, there have been some issues that cry out for criticism. But being highly critical of Apple is not a historically natural stance for me. In fact this blog's name and first post were really an homage to Apple. But based on recent facts, I think criticizing Apple is the right thing to do.
I have been a fan of John Gruber, and his website, daringfireball for some time. For those of you that are not familiar with him, John writes, generally positively, about Apple. Gruber has always been far more pro Apple than me. And that has been ok for me. I have enjoyed reading him because his defenses have generally been pretty air tight, and he has seemed willing to criticize Apple when appropriate. He has not been, it seemed to me, a rabid illogical fanboi.
But recently, my sense has changed. I hadn't been able crisply describe any single bit of writing that was obviously problematic, but as a whole, his defenses and promotion of Apple have seemed more zealous. I no longer feel like I am listening to someone who I can get the straight scoop from. I am starting to feel like he is devolving into a pure Apple partisan.
To put this in a political context, I am a Democrat. And while I definitely lean left, particularly on economic matters I have a great appreciation of well made, logical, conservative arguments. That does not mean I always agree, but it means I am open to seeing the other side's point. In fact I always try hard to. And sometimes I do indeed agree. Of course in the current climate, conservatism seems to be becoming more "fact free" (think Obama birth certificate and death panels), so there are fewer reasonably argued ideas to embrace. But I digress.
The point is that many years ago I used to enjoy the David Brinkley version of the Sunday morning talk program This Week. And aside from enjoying Brinkley's acerbic wit, I really used to enjoy conservative commentator George Will on the show. I liked him because I felt like he was a conservative who followed logic and reason and would tell the truth as he saw it, regardless of ideology. He was willing to criticize Republicans as well as Democrats, and that gave him extra credibility in my mind. And because his language was so crisp and powerful, it was fun to watch him do it.
But times have changed. And while I do not think George Will is some Rush Limbaugh scale wacko, I no longer feel the same way about him.
Unfortunately, such is becoming the case with John Gruber. It used to be that while I knew he came from a very specific computo-political perspective, Gruber was willing to speak what was obviously the truth, regardless of where the chips fell. But I just no longer feel like that is the case.
To be clear I am not suggesting Gruber is being in any way disingenuous in his arguments. I think he is a thoroughly decent fellow, and I believe he believes his writing is thoroughly logical and fact based. But I do believe he is *much* less likely to follow logic to its natural conclusion when that conclusion is not favorable to Apple. There just seems to be more cheering, and less dispassionate analysis. I think, like all politicians and opinion givers in the modern age, it is very difficult to remain a moderate. Wildly divergent opposing forces insist that you pick sides. It is much harder to have truly fact driven political debate than it used to be. And it seems that is the case with the politics of computing as well.
And while this sense of a shift with Gruber has been coming for at least several months, the thing that triggered me to write this piece was something that Gruber said yesterday in a blog post. It was probably an off-hand comment, but it speaks volumes about where John's current psyche is. He said:
Essentially, anyone who has criticized the iPhone, or presumably Apple is just someone not dealing with the facts. The only reasonable position one could have after looking at any iPhone related facts is, generally, acceptance and approval.
Ridiculous.
Yes, it is true that many iPhone critics are unmoved by facts. But so too are iPhone supporters, a.k.a. fanbois, who would more likely dine on Steve's output rather than accept even the slightest criticism of Apple.
And so, for me, John Gruber has officially jumped the shark. And while his often insightful analysis will still be in my regular rotation, just as I still occasionally watch George Will on the latest incarnation of This Week, it will never be the same. I used to trust John Gruber. Now I will just read him.
I say all that to say, from the beginning of the Mac's life, I have been a fan. As an entrepreneur, I have built Mac hardware and software businesses and I think Apple, and Steve Jobs have indeed changed the planet. And as impressive as is Apple's long past, its current and next generation products such as the iPhone and the iPad are no less revolutionary.
But all that said, I am also, at times, critical of Apple. Sometimes very critical. I try to be a totally dispassionate truth teller. Needless to say that is very hard to do, I obviously sometimes fail, but I do try to filter my biases. That said, in recent years, as Apple has gotten bigger, more successful, and more powerful, there have been some issues that cry out for criticism. But being highly critical of Apple is not a historically natural stance for me. In fact this blog's name and first post were really an homage to Apple. But based on recent facts, I think criticizing Apple is the right thing to do.
I have been a fan of John Gruber, and his website, daringfireball for some time. For those of you that are not familiar with him, John writes, generally positively, about Apple. Gruber has always been far more pro Apple than me. And that has been ok for me. I have enjoyed reading him because his defenses have generally been pretty air tight, and he has seemed willing to criticize Apple when appropriate. He has not been, it seemed to me, a rabid illogical fanboi.
But recently, my sense has changed. I hadn't been able crisply describe any single bit of writing that was obviously problematic, but as a whole, his defenses and promotion of Apple have seemed more zealous. I no longer feel like I am listening to someone who I can get the straight scoop from. I am starting to feel like he is devolving into a pure Apple partisan.
To put this in a political context, I am a Democrat. And while I definitely lean left, particularly on economic matters I have a great appreciation of well made, logical, conservative arguments. That does not mean I always agree, but it means I am open to seeing the other side's point. In fact I always try hard to. And sometimes I do indeed agree. Of course in the current climate, conservatism seems to be becoming more "fact free" (think Obama birth certificate and death panels), so there are fewer reasonably argued ideas to embrace. But I digress.
The point is that many years ago I used to enjoy the David Brinkley version of the Sunday morning talk program This Week. And aside from enjoying Brinkley's acerbic wit, I really used to enjoy conservative commentator George Will on the show. I liked him because I felt like he was a conservative who followed logic and reason and would tell the truth as he saw it, regardless of ideology. He was willing to criticize Republicans as well as Democrats, and that gave him extra credibility in my mind. And because his language was so crisp and powerful, it was fun to watch him do it.
But times have changed. And while I do not think George Will is some Rush Limbaugh scale wacko, I no longer feel the same way about him.
Unfortunately, such is becoming the case with John Gruber. It used to be that while I knew he came from a very specific computo-political perspective, Gruber was willing to speak what was obviously the truth, regardless of where the chips fell. But I just no longer feel like that is the case.
To be clear I am not suggesting Gruber is being in any way disingenuous in his arguments. I think he is a thoroughly decent fellow, and I believe he believes his writing is thoroughly logical and fact based. But I do believe he is *much* less likely to follow logic to its natural conclusion when that conclusion is not favorable to Apple. There just seems to be more cheering, and less dispassionate analysis. I think, like all politicians and opinion givers in the modern age, it is very difficult to remain a moderate. Wildly divergent opposing forces insist that you pick sides. It is much harder to have truly fact driven political debate than it used to be. And it seems that is the case with the politics of computing as well.
And while this sense of a shift with Gruber has been coming for at least several months, the thing that triggered me to write this piece was something that Gruber said yesterday in a blog post. It was probably an off-hand comment, but it speaks volumes about where John's current psyche is. He said:
iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way.
Essentially, anyone who has criticized the iPhone, or presumably Apple is just someone not dealing with the facts. The only reasonable position one could have after looking at any iPhone related facts is, generally, acceptance and approval.
Ridiculous.
Yes, it is true that many iPhone critics are unmoved by facts. But so too are iPhone supporters, a.k.a. fanbois, who would more likely dine on Steve's output rather than accept even the slightest criticism of Apple.
And so, for me, John Gruber has officially jumped the shark. And while his often insightful analysis will still be in my regular rotation, just as I still occasionally watch George Will on the latest incarnation of This Week, it will never be the same. I used to trust John Gruber. Now I will just read him.
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