Brooke Crothers on CNET:
Take the blog Daring Fireball. It offers some solid analysis. But in the end it’s a fanboi site, assailing the misinformed or pointing out how wrong or disliked the Android competition is. That kind of attitude gets in the way of informed insight.
I’ll tell you this — If there was a panel talking about technology, I’d stand beside Gruber over anyone at CNET. See my definition of a fanboy from yesterday.
I stopped reading CNET years ago. I read Daring Fireball everyday. Wonder what that says about the quality of the two sites.
He didn’t have a solid answer on yesterday’s The Verge when asked about his bias, for example when picking out a negative line in an overall positive review on a piece. He stuttered.
Here, here.
Geeze, saying Apple tech sites have a bias is like pointing out dairy farms have cows. No duh.
It’s obvious Gruber has a bias. It’s wrong that he’s a fanboi (unless we use your definition, Jim, which is good but also nonstandard I think). Also, WTF CNet? I thought you’d already hit bottom, but now you need to troll for hits from personal attacks on *bloggers*?
Pretty much. Gruber might be a Fanboi but he is up front about it. He pushes his site as Apple Centric.
Unlike Cnet that claims to be a neutral NEWS site and pushes a heck of a lot of bias and rumors. And a lot of it is very anti Apple. Or at least very pro anything that isn’t Apple
The problem is some people uses the F-word to discourage people from having an opinion. I’d rather read people whom have an opinion, like Gruber, than someone pretending to be neutral. The truth is neutral pieces are usually really boring to read.
I don’t think anyone can honestly say Gruber is unfair in his writing or writes with an agenda. That’s BS. Gruber has opinions but he’s not unfair. I rather read someone like that then the shit they call journalism at CNET.
Exactly!! CNet folks thinking of how they drive traffic to their site:
1. Say that Apple sucks.
2. Say that Steve Jobs sucks.
3. Even better, say that Gruber sucks cuz that drive more traffic than 1 and 2 combined and Gruber isn’t dead.
Re: verge…
I generally think that sites like Engadget and the Verge (whence Josh came) can’t give ANY objective reviews because they have to depend on Advertising dollar (CNet included).
I know Josh seems to love Android, but when you add things up, Android is a risk in sooo many ways (plus, no phone manufacturer has any vested interest in updating old handsets, they only want to sell new ones).
So…
The standard media reviews an iPad, and then rates it. They then go off and review an Asus Tab, Xoom, Galaxy whatever as if they are equivalent, as if they are trying to be balanced, equal, objective, etc. (because they try so hard not to want to inflate Apple and sound like fanboys themselves. Mossburg does this)
APPLE and THESE OTHERS don’t play in the same ballpark. They are not equivilant. Don’t compare them as if they were. (ecosystem, content, continued support, scrolling, malware, attention to detail, etc, etc). Sadly, the public is mal-informed by sites like these.
I think that John was trying to be polite to Josh on his show and NOT come out and tell him that his pandering to all gadget makers and trying to equate them to Apple was BS and lame. It provides no objectiveness because it is trying to play nice to all so that it maintains it’s advertising.
Josh’s reporting is poor and actually biased, he is too far up Google’s XXs trying to placate all. John’s tell’s it like it is – no holds bard.
Jeff
An overall positive review is an over all positive review.
Here’s the thing, and I don’t know whether to blame the lazy press, or Fox News, or political correctness run amok.
This idea of “balance”, where one must present two sides? It’s bullshit. It’s why we have the imaginary Evolution/Creation debate. There is no debate. Evolution is a scientific fact supported by evidence. Creationism is a myth. End of story.
If I review a product and I love the product, it does exactly what I need, it has a good price and works well with other devices, I am under no obligation whatsoever to try to include “cons” just so I shield myself from accusations of bias. If I miss hardware problems or ignore instabilities or review a product I don’t actually use then I’m just a shitty reviewer. A review is an opinion. It’s inherently biased. Pretending you are escaping bias by having a laundry list of pros and cons doesn’t make you a better reviewer, especially if you are equivocating a “this would be nice” with a “FAIL!”. Witness the people that pretended that the iPhones lack of cut and paste was some kind of damning design disaster (hint: it wasn’t), and it certainly wasn’t an omission on par with oh, selling a device on a feature it didn’t actually possess (got your Xooms back yet?).
If an Apple centric blog points to a number of respected tech reviewers who are universal in their disappointment with the Kindle Fire, guess what? That’s a failure of the Kindle Fire, not bias.
With respect I disagree completley. Yes, sometimes having a blurred line between black and white can obscure facts. The BBC news site really annoys me with it’s lack of bias and it tends to loose a piece direction.
But in instances like these there really isn’t a clear winner. I love my HTC Desire but I’m very well aware of it’s flaws and I would hold off recommending Android straight away because of this. I appreciate the iPhone’s polish and control that Apple has over it (in a good way) but having smooth animation and prettier design and UX isn’t what I care about over the functionality of my device, and I would not own an iOS product yet because of that.
This I feel is a sentiment lost over these die-hard supporters of Apple. I appreciate Gruber doesn’t care for the lack of control and expansion of Apple devices and rightly so, but saying it as fact is bullshit.
I think it was Jonas Wisser (@jwisser:twitter ) who said in a blog post that at this point he despises phrases like “in my opinion” when writing on his blog. The things we usually say are our opinions; some might have more well-informed opinions than others, but in the end we write/say what we know.
So unless I get the feeling that someone researched a topic to the death and writes accordingly I will always take what anybody says witha grain of salt.
There is nothing wrong with writing opinionated pieces, also nothing wrong with bias, as long as it the authors makes it transparent.
Often a well written opinionated article or review is worth much more than an article that claims objectivity.