“People from left and right across the web are taking minor issues and blowing them out of all proportion to create this false sense of ‘outrage’ against some perceived threat from the cupertino company,” Fitzgerald writes. “It seems the politics of ‘phoney [sic] outrage’ has become so prevalent in the world of political discourse that it’s seeping into the mindset of everyone with an axe to grind.”
Fitzgerald writes, “[Take the recent] email exchange between Gawker’s Ryan Tate and Steve Jobs. Steve is calm and collected and Ryan is in my opinion childish and hot headed… As with many of Apple’s innovations, Apple has created a widely successful product that defines a genre, and then a group of highly vocal commenters rails against it because they think the product should actually be defined their way, not Apple’s, and because it’s not their vision that is somehow limiting choice.”
Full article – recommended – here.
if you don’t like the restrictions don’t buy, and if you buy, then jailbreak.
Gawker is shady and therefore loses respect
flash sucks, adobe doesn’t innovate or shange with the times, let alone optimize existing software
Apple isn’t doing anything wrong, the problem is they are doing everything right!
Apparently it takes longer for some people to smell the coffee
Waiting for the political posts that link the phony outrage against Apple to the phony outrage against Obama in three… two… one…
If you want real outrage and not the phony type… trying being a European resident with an open wireless router that had personal information stolen from the Google Mapping team. I’m surprised that MDN hasn’t linked to the New York Times article (or many others) yet…
As people seek out others with insightful visionary thoughts, content and products they will leave behind the dusty old school ways of the past.
Ryan needs to keep up that drinking so he will have something to do in the future.
Nothing phony about my level-headed outrage towards the tyranny of MAC’s proprietary, overbearing, monopolistic, ports-challenged products that continue to suck hard-earned money out of the wallets of smug cultists who need the latest shiny toys from MAC. I bet most of you lemmings don’t even know how to turn on your I-Pads. You just parade around like some fancy-pants trying to be part of the ‘cool’ crowd.
I get so worked up sometimes about MAC’s behavior, but then I workout rockin’ some Dokken on my Zune which eventually calms myself down. Until someone walks into the gym with an I-Pod. Then I wanna punch ’em in the face.
MAC is only good at one thing. Marketing. And legions of MAC fangirls still buy their products. Who wouldn’t be outraged?
Your potential. Our passion.™
@WriterGuy:
“Waiting for the political posts that link the phony outrage against Apple to the phony outrage against Obama in three… two… one…”
ZERO!
“Phoney”!?! Where have you been for the past year or so???
– C2
Good article. I guess this is the price to have protected freedom of speech. Even the clueless and pretend to have a clue.
Hi Zune Tang,
I had to chuckle at your fake, troll bait. BTW it’s Mac not MAC, and iPad not I-Pad. Keep your fake posts coming, it keeps people on their toes, separating real posts from inflammatory jokes. I bet in reality you’re the biggest fanboy of us all.
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Remember the pen is mightier than the sword. In the right hands, its a powerful tool, that has the potential to change a mass amount of peoples ideas and philosophy. Bloggers, specially immature, childish, selfish, spoiled aholes like Tate, clearly abuses this powerful tool. Bloggers should never, ever be considered true journalist. Bloggers like Mr. Ahole there is a prime example of someone who does not deserve the title “Journalist” in everyones book.
Zune Tang is a sexually frustrated, closeted, Republican gaylord.
@Macanatic: Those folks should be happy it was just Google and not some hacker looking to clean out their bank accounts. I’ll pick up home WiFi networks from the bus on my iPhone, and a scary number of those are unprotected.
Bottom line folks: you don’t like the iPad or how Apple controls the App Store, don’t buy the dang thing. Simple as that.
@Rosswell
You’re new here aren’t you?
He’s got it right all the way!
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the iPhone/Pad isn’t some closed nanny-state system. If you want to watch porn on it, go on the internet. What Mr. Jobs means is that, unlike a typical computing experience, you can hand your phone to your 6-year old and they are not going to be getting pop-ups and other crap that isn’t appropriate. He’s done the right thing, anything is available if you want it but it’s basically a family friendly functional device that won’t shove inappropriate material down your throat if you don’t want it. Personally, I’ve had no trouble accessing inappropriate material whenever I like so all of you protesting obviously haven’t ever owned one of these things and think that it’s all just permanently blocked. I’m worried about my son using regular computers due to the usual ads, I’m much more confident leaving him for a few minutes with my iPhone.
@Macromancer
Not new, but mostly read-only! I sometimes report news items to MDN.
I am a longtime Apple loyalist for home use, and now lucky to work at a place that is Mac/UNIX only. Recently the happy owner of an iPad that has provided hours of entertainment .
@macanatic. I happened to send the google article to MDN within minutes of it being published and found it odd they didn’t think it was newsworthy.
Apple has done its own share of “phony outrage” recently.. most notably with the feigned outrage about the lost iPhone.
Note to Apple: Turn it down a bit, please.
This grassroots outrage smells like astroturf. So often with hateful chatter against a company, when the bases are blown-out-of-proportion irrationalities, it turns out to be subterfuge by competing companies. Apple’s transcendent products have been disruptive to so many huge outfits, from music labels to cell phone makers, to computer and software firms, etc. When they can’t compete, their hostile energy doesn’t go away. A few years ago an annual report summery from Clear Channel explained a $4B write down of assets by blaming it on the iPod (rather than their inflexible business model). That wasn’t even a direct competitor, more like collateral damage. The landscape is littered with enemies who may stoop to any tactic.
Let’s face the fact: whether we like it or not, we are all in one form of walled garden or another from the time we were born until the time when we hit the bucket. Control is the universal law of nature. Control has a duality: it is good when it is used wisely, but become bad when it skirts on the boundary of abuse. So is freedom. Freedom is good when it can be controlled; it becomes bad when it is abused. Think of the case of substance abuses such as narcotic, alcoholic intemperate and sexual incontinences. A drug addict, a sexual miscreant or an alcoholic have no capacity to control their behavior and choose to have the freedom to abuse themselves and thus self-destruct. These are all freedoms that have gone haywire and have turned into bondage instead.
Remember when you were a baby? Your parents surrounded you with a walled garden; you were protected, loved and taught. Do your parents abandoned you to the freedom of a street urchins? When you attended school, worked for an organization or you run your own business, aren’t wall gardens being erected so that it is protected and safe? Do Google or Microsoft allow any Dick, Jane or Harry to wander into their premises without having to check themselves at the guardhouse?
It is very sad to see that many American firms has fallen for rhetoric of “freedom” as expounded by Wall Street. Qualities that have made America great were slowly been adulterated. The recent economic meltdown caused by the greed of Wall Street was the result of regulators removing the wall-garden of prudence, control and responsibility. Banks were given the freedom to self-regulate themselves and to sell toxic products to the American public without any control from the regulators. This freedom leads to self-destruction to the financial fabric of the nation.
Many companies were led astray by Wall Street into short-termism where mediocrity is celebrated. Apple, to its credit, has not succumbed to Wall Street’s wisdom and seduction and has thus escaped from the mediocrities of the PC commodity producers. Apple has followed the traditional control of thrift, innovation and long-termism and thus enjoyed the freedom from indebtedness, lack of focus and mediocrity of the PC world. The PC world is saddled with the freedom of being lackluster, me-too imitators and dog-eat-dog behaviour.
I prefer the certainty of a wall garden than to the freedom of the jungle.
Anytime the word “choice” comes up, you know it means the choices made, are not the choices they want you to make.
@ Zune Tang
“Nothing phony about my level-headed outrage . . .”
Instant classic.
Dear Ms. Loon-Tang,
You are a very unusual windoze user, hanging out with those of us who’ve chosen a modern OS. Don’t you have Registries to clean, DLL conflicts to resolve, viruses to scan, fix packs to apply? Oops, your pc just blue screened again. You better get back to fixing your computer (or “gaming” as you windoze-masochists like to call it).
I agree with him in that Windows and Linux users who resent Apple’s success are using fear to undermine Apple’s efforts to open an alternative route to the future.
The Windows platform has become lackluster and mundane and no one can argue their “side” has failed just to keep pace with Apple, much less dethrone them in the marketplace. The iPhone continues to raise the bar, increasing Apple’s lead on the hardware front, however, it’s the App Store that is the crown jewels of the market.
Nothing like software to make the old seem new again and with the release of each new hardware and OS upgrade it reinvigorates the Store’s value for both consumers and developers who, together are the catalyst for perpetual success.
Now with the advent of iPad, Apple has ensured their road to the future will be paved in gold.
The iPad’s appeal can only grow exponentially as “non-techies” discover a computer for the rest of us. When they realize the complicated mess that is their desktop computer can be relegated to server-status, and their iPad becomes a substitute human interface with the internet, they will, for the first time, experience the joy of computing made easy.
When grandma and grandpa get their hands on the iPad, and word begins to spread across that “silver network”, there will be no stopping Apple. Gifting the iPad will become giving’s prized possession.
To those who would begrudge Steve Jobs’ effort to distinguish Apple as an alternative to the computer lifestyle 90 percent of the world has embraced for decades, are still clinging to the hope they are on the right side of history; they chose the superior computing platform with the most promise for a future of a life without chains; that Microsoft’s efforts would transcend the ball and chain that is computing in the world of Windows.
Unfortunately, the high-priests of the tech world would have you believe there is no alternative to the Windows platform and that computing is hard and complicated and better left to the chosen few to unravel its mysteries.
The Windows zealots, like Kevin Poulsen, Roger Kay, Rob Enderle, John Cook, and Ryan Tate are talking nineteen to the dozen to paint Steve Jobs and his company as heretics; that their success will be short-lived because computing is supposed to be complicated for mere mortals and only those who unlock its mysteries can know the meaning of life.
Their only recourse in the future will be to plug their ears when people like us say to them, I told you so!
@Macromancer…. if they don’t get the joke, explaining it to them won’t help. Some people just don’t understand.
ZT snags another newbie! (two if you count Tom Strong)