“Oh my gosh, I dared to criticize something Apple in my column, and out of the woodwork, as always, come the Mac fanboys, with their ever-so-polite and mature commentary,” Andrew Kantor blogs on his Kantor.com website.
Kantor writes, “I save some of the mail I get, and the folder structure shown below should tell you all you need to know. (And yes, it’s real — it’s been that way since the first screaming Mac-fan fits.
Kantor writes, “John Dvorak has a perfect take on it.”
You can read the comments and add your own at Kantor’s site here.
It’s telling that Kantor points to the video of John Dvorak admitting that he baits Mac users for hits in a “weasely way” to gain hits to his articles. It truly is the “perfect take” on what Kantor does, too.
As for predictability, Kantor has the market cornered:
1. Bait Apple/Mac fans
2. Bait some more if they don’t respond
3. Gather the responses and collect the hits
4. Pick and choose the worst of the responses and post them on his site
5. Wait awhile, lay low, and then repeat the process
Are we supposed to ignore his “review” of Apple’s unfinished iPhone (that he admits he hasn’t even touched) and his “advice” to millions of USA Today readers that “business users may want to look elsewhere?”
We’d rather shine what spotlight we can on him for all to see than let his stuff go unchallenged and therefore accepted by a greater number of people.
Related articles:
USA Today writer: Apple iPhone is an ‘ordinary, average product’ at heart – January 12, 2007
USA Today tech writer: Apple’s Boot Camp will get Mac users to switch to Windows – April 14, 2006
USA Today columnist calls Mac users and Apple fans a ‘cult of blind little lemmings’ – September 16, 2005
USA Today: Apple’s iPod nano ‘a beautiful piece of hardware’ – but ‘the competition has caught up’ – September 16, 2005
USA Today writer: Apple’s iTunes Music Store’s ‘restrictive license’ fosters rampant piracy – March 25, 2005
USA Today writer unhappy with MacDailyNews and some Mac users’ emails – October 18, 2004
USA Today writer attempts to downplay Apple’s role in Virginia Tech supercomputer – September 03, 2004
Dvorak tries damage control – June 20, 2006
Video: Dvorak admits to baiting Apple Mac users for hits – June 10, 2006
I dunno, I’d have to go with Kantor on this one. MDN gets way too frothy at the mouth when people don’t absolutely gush over all things Apple. Get a grip MDN. You make us all look bad.
Jings,
Kantor baits Apple product users for hits and you blame MDN?
Kantor is the one calling Mac and Apple product users “fanatics” and “reviewing” an unreleased product he never touched and suggesting in USA Today that people “may want to look elsewhere.”
Real journalists like David Pogue of the NY Times and Walt Mossberg of the WSJ refuse to review iPhone or any other product until they can spend real time with the finished product.
You have a seriously warped perspective, Jings.
Kantor has zero credibility.
Any reviewer worth his salt is waiting to review the iPhone until it’s done. Form PC Mag to the NY Times to the WSJ. USA Today is a rag.
What I wrote to Kantor:
Mr. Kantor,
Have you used, touched, or even seen the iPhone in person?
David Pogue (who actually spent an hour hands-on with the iPhone) reported in the New York Times, “at the moment, the iPhone is in an advanced prototype… [and] the software is still unfinished, and many questions are still unanswered.”
Don’t you think you should do as Pogue and Mossberg both did – not do a review, but a preview – and not start recommending that business users or any other users look elsewhere?
Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/11/technology/11pogue.html
http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20070111.html
Do you see the possibilities of the iPhone UI taken to future iPods and also to larger screen Mac tablets and devices? Can’t you see the future? Or are you for some reason upset that Apple has been granted and applied for over 200 patents that will allow them to protect their innovations from Microsoft et al. this time?
Thank you for your time.
Keep it civil and Kantor has no valid response.
Kantor and Dvorak are trolls. Like lousy street performers, they relish a little attention and some coins in their jar (via article hits). Pay no attention to them.
As for Mac-fan ire, I see it this way: you can criticize Apple, but you’d better be absolutely right and have your facts straight. Mac fans can spot even the slightest BS and baiting, and aren’t afraid to call it as such.
Besides, ever notice it’s mainly the Windows camp that baits? Aren’t they satisfied or secure with their choices? Maybe misery really needs company. If I fought a PC all day I’d be half-nuts ugly too.
I don’t see why USA Today would employ someone as a reviewer who is obviously anti-Apple (see his related articles above) if not just for the hits from people who use Apple products and can clearly see his lies.
In reading MDN’s response:
USA Today writer: Apple iPhone is an ‘ordinary, average product’ at heart
I see nothing at all wrong with anything MDN wrote. Unless it’s wrong to write the truth.
What I wrote to Kantor:
You are a dum Micro$oft user!
<i>Apple’s FairPlay (ha!) digital rights management scheme<i> from Kantor’s article.
Sounds like baiting to me.
Kantor is a troll. Read about his stupidity on MDN, but don’t give him any hits.
Andrew Kantor can’t get people to read his articles based on their own merits, so he has to resort to Dvorak’s formula.
Kantor is such a sad, little man.
No Sir, were not critisizing your take on the Apple iPhone or Apple in general. We’re criticizing your ability to do your job as a reporter and base your assertions on facts, not what may or may not be true on a product you have never actually touched. We’re criticizing your ability to report properly, objectively, you know – something you get paid to do.
Andrew Kantor is a manipulator and a bad one at that. Dvorak’s better at it. They both come off as whores with no credibility.
MDN MW: “class.” That which both Kantor and Dvorak lack.
Why oh why?
Mark,
Excellent post and advice.
Is it my imagination or are these comments being censored and removed if alternate opinions are being expressed?
Like Morrissey once said “that joke isn’t funny anymore.”
MDN: Are we supposed to ignore his “review” of Apple’s unfinished iPhone (that he admits he hasn’t even touched) and his “advice” to millions of USA Today readers that “business users may want to look elsewhere?”
No, you are doing the right thing by calling attention to his lack of credibility and pointing out his many errors.
Keep up the good work.
jiggy,
who’s the dumb one?
If you’d spelled ‘dum’ correctly, it would have made more of an impression.
No hits for you!
I’d have to go with Kantor. MDN was over the top on this one. Let it go…
Kantor equates “Mac Fans” and “Creationists.” I assume he thinks both are crazy.
So, does Kantor think he’s God and knows all?
He must if he can give buying advice on a device he’s never even seen in person and he seems to know how the Universe began.
MOTM,
Please tell us how MDN was “over the top” with their response. It’s here:
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/12286/
SteveJack was right:
The massive FUD campaign against Apple’s iPhone ramps up
1. Go To USA Today and request that USA today investigate him.
A. Is he taking money from Microsoft or others to constantly bash Apple?
or
B. Is he doing this simply for web hits from Mac fans, and people who can’t believe a column this negative of spin would exist – and why?
Tell them, as did I, I would send out a Private Investagator of my own money if I could afford it to figure out what is going on here… He is slanted in every blatent sense of the world.
Finally, tell USA Today you will not subscribe to their paper – or drop them if you currently get it – and will no longer visit their website until something is done.
Not giving web hits to USA Today, and especially Kantor is the quickest way to shut this guy up.
PERHAPS WE SHOULD START A PETITION ON DRIVE-BY-MEDIA SLANT FOLK, and those who sign refuse to click to their articles and demand full disclosure of:
1. What stocks they own.
2. Whom they consult for.
3. To have them removed from true Journalistic practice until full disclosure has been made.