Near the end of November, Adam L. Penenberg scrawled out a doozy of an Apple FUD-fest for Fast Company.
We covered it here: FUD Alert: Fast Company publishes Apple hit piece – November 27, 2007
Now, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber takes an enjoyable crack at dissecting Penenberg’s article with “Yet Another in the Ongoing Series Wherein I Examine a Piece of Supposedly Serious Apple Analysis From a Major Media Outlet and Dissect Its Inaccuracies, Fabrications, and Exaggerations Point-by-Point, Despite the Fact That No Matter How Egregious the Inaccuracies / Fabrications / Exaggerations, Such Pieces Inevitably Lead to Accusations That I’m Some Sort of Knee-Jerk Shill Who Rails Against Anything ‘Anti-Apple’ Simply for the Sake of Defending Apple, and if I Love Apple So Much Why Don’t I Just Marry Them? – December 19, 2007
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Linux Guy And Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
toonie,
It’s not “the facts regarding Windows” that don’t matter to us. It’s simply Windows that doesn’t matter to us. We aren’t that way just to spite you guys. Really we aren’t.
@ Ampar
Thanks! Though with my friends… Sometimes I can’t tell what’s a costume and what’s not.
@ LorD1776
It only matters if you *BELIEVE!!!*
“Christina Wiley – the voice of ChrissyOne’s Photography Page photo site”.
I always knew you were a lesbian.
I’m close to someone who works for Fast Company. He/she (protect their identity…) said that, although some of the article is factual, it’s primary purpose was to generate controversay and thus interest in the magazine, the Fast Company website, and ultimately advertising. Also, Apple isn’t one of their advertisers so they wouldn’t p*** off a client that is spending money on them. He/she also said that Apple and Steve Jobs were an easy choice because Mac/Apple users tend to be rather passionate about their products and the company…i.e, easy targets… Then there are the Apple-haters who lap up anything anti-Apple. So bottom line, Fast Company is using anyone who bothered with the article. They don’t care if it’s hack journalism, it served its purpose.
@ ChrissyOne’s Chomp Chomp
Yeah, cause that was a big secret. ;P
C1: I think Chomp Chomp’s trying to call you to the carpet.
;-p
And I BELIEVE ! ! ! Oh Lord, grant me the privilege of overwhelming tumescence and traffic-stopping turgidity.
<i>[H]e makes a salient point – that the article is written in a “Hollywood Blockbuster” style<> and that is reason for his OTT rebuttal.
Yes the knives are out for Apple all over the place. They talk about ‘disruptive technology’ but few realize the scale of the disruption that is Apple is wreaking reaching far beyond the world of technology as it is understood by most.
@ChrissyOne
This is a different point of view on the universe, entertaining and well……
Thunderbolts of the Gods
@ Gandalf
Thanks for the link, I hadn’t seen it yet. Interesting, but at times a little on the sensational side.
“Every single time we think we have it all figured out…”
No responsible scientist should ever think like this. I hate it when science documentaries oversimplify to sound dramatic. But once that awful narrator finished, it got much better. Great stuff!
John Gruber: The voice of reason. I love that Einstein quote.
Penenberg is a moron, just like all of the artists of FUD. It’s a waste of time even reading this crap, and a bigger waste considering that Apple is poised to grab double-digit market share in terms of computing and has the majority of the MP3 market already.
fm
Uh, I got nuthin’
TowerTone: Mouth of the South
Multi-Touch on Apple’s iPhone & iTouch
are simply UNTOUCHABLE by any other competitor.
I have toyed with the others also. as ChrissyOne mentioned.
And BTW – c.j. wiley one very cool lady. Your posts are well taken.
Keep up the great photography and wonderful photo-manipulation work.
A.D. / Senior Designer at Wunderman (wcj)
C1, I’d swear my system was working properly … but … no “voice”?
Guys, I was not siding with Penenberg. All I was saying was that the Gruber went way overboard complaining about inconsequentials and picking at nits. For example … “house of Jobs”. This snipe – accurate, but still a snipe – hardly deserves a response. Apple – a successful Apple – has pretty much depended on having Jobs at the helm. You all know the history, tell me where I’m mistaken.
If I’m tiresome, don’t read my comments. My name is on the top. I don’t hide my identity behind fake names or change it to make a point. No pain for me.
Dave
Mmmmm – lesbians.
I DO believe, I DO believe, I DO believe in …..
No – my name is not Doug… not even close.
Which is something I would have advised you and everyone else to do. That is, to stay virtual about your identity. You don’t have to see it as a paranoia yet rather as simple privacy.
It’s everyones choice.
Nevertheless, wonderful seeing your work. Congrats!
Oh great. Couldn’t you have said that BEFORE I used my real name? My parents were gonzo for the Revolutionary period.
“No – my name is not Doug… not even close.”
Is it Melvin?
Surely it’s not Shirley.
Rumpelstiltskin? Rumpledforeskin? Am I close? Let me know ’cause I really don’t want to get too close.
Yes MDN is all fanboy sometimes. Gruber? Not at all. Gruber is one of top must reads for the occassional gem like this. It was a hit piece and he took it apart savagely, with humor and style. Just what the piece deserved.
Subsequently he’s noted that the author has actually done some important work.
I forget the issue, but it was reading a Gruber piece that I finally got it — old media is doomed to die. Because old media is, frankly, just not that good. It never was. It was once what we had to settle for.
Unfortunately none of this hit pieces have any traction in the market… can’t talk this damn stock down. I blinked and missed that dip into the $150s.
And the big Apple story is see coming isn’t even on anyone’s radar: mobile handheld OSX touchscreen device PLATFORM. Apple leverages the ipod to outflank Microsoft and become the Windows of handheld devices.
I sure wish I were a Cocoa programmer….
waaaay back up there DLMeyer said:
>Apple had the same talented engineers in house while Jobs was “away” and the product went down-hill.
that’s not even close to true! when Jobs got NeXT acquired by Apple, he brought over not only a huge _quantity_ of serious talent, but a whole different Unix-oid mindset… in fact, over the past decade the engineering overturn has been non-trivial if not tremendous, and while I hesitate to assert “almost none of the same talented engineers” are there (since almost-none is hard to quantify), I’d absolutely, whole heartedly assert it’s a whole lot closer to none-the-same than “the same.”
how can anyone look at the OS and think those are the same engineers? it’s just not even close to true… that’s just for starters, since someone asked…
AAAANYway… “what yet-another-steve said” about Gruber not being fanboy at all. disagree on old media dying (as in completely dead), but definitely totally agree that Gruber is not a fanboy. he can get on a good rant, mind you… often at Apple’s expense… yup, he can rant, but apparently so can all of us. ;^)