“On a cold day in February, John Gruber traveled from his home in Philadelphia to New York City for a meeting. At a posh hotel near Central Park, the 39-year-old tech blogger was greeted by Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president for worldwide marketing. For the next hour, Schiller performed one of the company’s signature product presentations: this one to unveil the latest Mac operating system,” Mark Milian and Adam Satariano report for Businessweek. “‘I got an Apple press event for one,’ Gruber later wrote in a 2,300-word post on his blog Daring Fireball, which draws 5 million visitors a month. ‘This was new territory for me, and I think, for Apple.'”
“Apple has opened its inner circle to select bloggers, Gruber chief among them. His bare-bones site consists mainly of links to other articles with a few sentences of commentary, along with the occasional lengthier analysis on topics such as screen resolution,” Milian and Satariano report. “The former software developer takes pleasure in needling Apple’s rivals—first Microsoft (MSFT), now Google (GOOG)—and challenging those who criticize the Cupertino giant. Steve Jobs used to check Daring Fireball regularly. Gruber sometimes managed to score a few minutes with Jobs at company events. Still, he says his access into the company goes beyond the C-suite: ‘My contacts at Apple have always been in the rank and file.'”
Milian and Satariano report, “Gruber celebrated Daring Fireball’s 10-year anniversary last month. He quit his day job at software startup Joyent in 2006 when revenue from T-shirt sales and ad sponsorships on the site picked up. During that time, the Philly native had to dip into his savings to support his wife and then-2-year-old son. These days his one-man operation brings in more than $500,000 a year, according to a person familiar with his financials who is not authorized to speak on the matter. Gruber would not confirm the figure.”
Read more in the full article here.
Rather light in the meat…
Gruber has been pushing his ‘fair and balanced,’ i.e. bullsh!t side lately. I can go to plenty of other sites if I’m looking for ‘fair and balanced’…
Putting aside the obvious Fox News comparison (which I’m sure JG would find annoying), should we deduce that you prefer being pandered to?
Ouch! C’mon, so he can’t stand fair objective coverage of Apple. Not everyone acts like a rational adult.
No, Grigori, I prefer not being lied to or misled.
It seems to me that in an effort to avoid being pegged as a “fanboi,” Gruber goes out of his way to be nice to the strugglers. It doesn’t look good on him.
So Dan,
Post some links and the proof of your accusations, and be very carefully to not confuse Grubers “personal opinion” as being nonobjective.
Gruber makes it very clear to separate his personal opinion to facts based on news that has been released.
I am very interested in that information and I am sure allot of others are also.
It’s called being objective Dan, you should try it sometime. Contrary to opinion around here Apple is not the end all be all for technology, there is other good stuff out there.
Where?
I like fair and balanced, but sometimes when one side is crappy and the other is at least normal, reporters try to call them both out equally.
I do agree the Apple isn’t perfect. However, over the past 14 years, they have been on the plus side a lot more than their rivals.
Vaguely related: what the FUCK is up with the MS Internet Explorer ad? A TV advert for a FUCKING browser?!?! WIth dubstep?!?! Jebus Crispy, that is F’d the F up.
“Objective” isn’t pretending that something is worthy of attention when it isn’t, “Truth”. Gruber seems to be doing a lot of that lately…
Apple and many other big companies’ higher staff always provided exclusive sneak peaks for its products to highly visible media people, nothing new here.
Gruber’s 50% full of shit. Sadly, he’s better than most.
Because Sturgeon’s Law implies 90% of anything is crapola.
I read MDN then Gruber.
It’s like the Shoot first; ask questions later, thing.