I used to be a big fan of Gruber, but I'm getting increasingly tired of his "defend Apple at all costs" mentality.
When Apple was the underdog, it all seemed to be about not what was possible, but what was fair, and what was right. Now it's a "Well, of course Apple would do that, wouldn't you?"
And he then punts on the biggest question of all:
What if Microsoft did this with Windows, and, say, tried to require Apple to pay them 30 percent for every purchase made through iTunes on Windows? To that, I say: good luck with that.
Not "well I'd certainly write a slam piece about it", not "well, that would definitely require competition regulators", not "that would be a dick move." Just "they couldn't do it anyway, so your hypotheticals mean nothing."
The way I put it (crassly) is "When you're Top Dog, you don't need to play like a bitch." Which is what Apple is doing, and honestly, they're turning me off from their products. And that's not about "Oh well, Apple likes to make money, and why shouldn't they be allowed to?" It's about looking like you're above it. Brands like Costco and Amazon make a huge chunk of change, but you don't see them getting into petty stuff like this.
What I like about Gruber, even when I disagree with him, is that I think he understands, better than any other outside commentator, how Apple's management team thinks and works. He's not a leading expert on business, or on technology, but I'd call him a leading expert on Steve Jobs' mind.
This understanding is part of why Gruber often seems like an Apple apologist. Even when he disagrees with Apple' decisions, he can generally give a good explanation of why the decision was made and why Steve and Tim and company probably think it is the right one. And of course, when he is writing from the point of view of Apple Inc., the primary question is always "What is best for Apple?"
(This also explains why I hate Gruber's writing about competiting companies like Microsoft and Google. I don't think he understands how those companies think and work at all, so his commentary on them totally lacks that insight and usefulness.)
I think where this gets annoying is when it becomes impossible to discern when Gruber is just "explaining what Apple is thinking" and when he is putting forth his own opinion. Its tiresome to criticize his Apple apologism and constantly run into the counter-argument that "he isn't really saying that its OK for Apple to engage in X practice, he's just explaining it", because it is often difficult (if not impossible) to discern if that's the case.
I do think Gruber intentionally blurs that line to insulate himself from criticism. And I think that's pretty dishonest and petty-- much like his irritatingly self-satisfied one-off comments aimed at his opponents. (Technology related and otherwise).
> This understanding is part of why he often seems like an Apple apologist. Even when Gruber disagrees with Apple' decisions, he can generally give a good explanation of why the decision was made and why Steve and Tim and company probably think it is the right one. And of course, when he is writing based on Apple's point of view as a corporation, the primary question is always "What is best for Apple?"
Yet he rarely qualifies that with, "While I don't agree" or something similar. He does sometimes, which leads me to believe that he usually is talking about what he believes.
But that's just the thing... People often act like Gruber is writing about how things should be, but more often he's just writing about how things are (or how he thinks they will be), and why.
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As a side note... I got my first Mac in 1989. I've been reading the Mac press for over 20 years, and Daring Fireball for about 7 or 8 years. There was a time in the "dark ages" of the 90s when even the most die-hard Apple fans had a "love the product; hate the company" mentality, because it seemed like Apple's management was doing everything they could to screw things up.
Daring Fireball is entirely a product of the Steve Jobs II era, with much more competent management, so it hasn't had quite as much reason to gripe. But Gruber has had some long-standing disagreements with Apple. He bitched for years about how much worse the Finder was in OS X. (I think the only reason he stopped is that he gave up hope that it'll ever be fixed.)
I found it pretty hilarious when Gruber quoted Upton Sinclair: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
Gruber owes his good fortunes to being the premier Apple shill, and no amount of logic, reasoning, facts or ethics is going to change that.
He earns money from ads, do you think he would earn less should he write critically about Apple?
(All of this seems very much beside the point, though. Discussions about Daring Fireball have become so predictable. Nobody seems to be even interested in talking about the arguments, everyone wants to throw dirt around.)
> He earns money from ads, do you think he would earn less should he write critically about Apple?
Well, he has stated on many occasions that he has "sources" inside of Apple where he gets alot of his information from. If he started to be overly critical of Apple and his sources suddenly dried up then his writing would suffer, his readership would go down and his ad revenue would decease.
So I'd say it's pretty easy to make the case that he would indeed earn less if he was overly critical of Apple.
Scrap "overly critical", I just want him to be critical.
And what is the incentive of the Apple insiders? While Gruber may not, they are perfectly capable of forming their own, independent opinions on what Apple proper does, as orthogonal as they may be.
Why? When 99% of the media sledges Apple with no reason, why do you care if 1% supports Apple with no reason?
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The thing that gets me about the Apple vs $var debates, is that most of the people screaming about how they hate Apple have never tried Apple. Whereas the people supporting Apple against $var have almost invariably tried $var and found it lacking.
One side brings informed opinions, the other brings baseless bile. Whenever I see that happen, regardless of the topic, I know which side of that divide I want to be on.
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True story: today I went down to the local $non_profit and helped out one of the guys get his new Apple laptop hooked up to the network and the network printer. The network worked immediately after entering the WEP password. The printer didn't work first time, so I deleted it and tried with new settings. It worked the second time. I also tried to persuade him of the virtues of buying a 1-2TB drive and using Time Machine.
It was so easy it was embarrassing.
I contrast that with some work I did with a startup last year. I bought one of their own Windows laptops into their HQ, and trying to get onto their own wireless network was a nightmare, even though I had a room full of techies to help. I strongly suspect that in the end the tech support guy just turned off the wireless router and left it off because it was too much trouble.
I'll do Apple support for love (ie free support for friends and family) , but you couldn't pay me enough to do Windows support. I fully appreciate the guys that do take on that thankless task, but I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
Does that make me an incoherent raving Mac fanboy? Some would say so. But at the same $non_profit I stood and patiently nodded while one of the 70 year old blokes told me about his Windows experiences. At the end I fully commended him (he's running anti-virus, anti-spam and does regular backups) for his efforts, and I assured him that he was doing the right thing with the backups, to keep doing exactly what he is doing. I didn't preach to him about Apple at all, I don't see the need. If he's happy, let him be happy. If he is doing everything right but has some nagging feeling that he should be doing something else, I will reassure him that he's miles ahead of the rest of the pack.
It's an indirect effect. Majority of his readers are Apple fans and need a constant reminder why their platform is better than others. ( Think about it in terms of being a sports fan. You'll rarely subscribe to a beat writer who tries to uncover scandals in your team and tries to find faults ).
He earns money from software and services which run in Apple-based platforms. ( Pixelmator, for example ). If he constantly undermines Apple, will Pixelmator be happy?
He has to give an air of legitimacy by pointing out Apple's faults once in a while and competitors' good products now and then. His primary audience is Apple fans. and he writes for them.
This was true until iBooks came out. Keep in mind that a 70% cut for the publisher for books is better than most authors traditionally get. Meanwhile, record labels' cuts are usually more than 90%.
Definitely agree. Plus defending every single part of Apple's policies makes him set up straw men and false dichotomies like nobody's business.
Take his summation: "iOS isn’t and never was an open computer system. It’s a closed, controlled console system..." The implication being that iOS users have no right to complain because they signed up for a "closed" system.
Systems are never just "open" or "closed." Apple's move here is making the system more closed.
Ad hominem. You should address logical flaws and false statements.
And he was critical of Apple in two of the four points, so your premise is false.
Edit: This discussion is also something of a strawman, attacking none of the important arguments made in the article.
The point about what Gruber would say if Microsoft had done this is simply a preemption of an ad hominem attack against himself and it's quite unfortunate that he chose to address it. It has absolutely nothing to do with Apple's fairness in charging 30%, which is what we should all be talking about because it's a very important topic.
Very sorry to see this community of rationalists fall for a refutation of something that's irrelevant to the main discussion.
Ad Hominem? He said only one thing about 'Gruber' that he is tired of him. Rest of his comment was about Gruber's arguments and non arguments. I didn't see any Ad Hominem attack in the original comment.
And how is Gruber's overall argument right if he is critical of Apple in two of the four points? How does that even make sense?
>>I used to be a big fan of Gruber, but I'm getting increasingly tired of his "defend Apple at all costs" mentality.
Contains a claim that Gruber's mentality is to defend Apple at all costs. Since Gruber does not do this in the post, it is a false claim.
This claim is used to lend credence to the idea that Gruber is in fact misrepresenting his feelings about Microsoft since the situation presented would force Gruber, with the presumption that he defends Apple at all costs, to say otherwise than what he said he would say. Except that the premise is false.
All of this makes you wonder why OP would single out this point to begin with since it's the least salient to the thrust of the article. This makes OP's point something of a straw man and character attack.
Does anyone know of a browser plugin that will automatically eliminate from view any Hacker News comment containing the phrase "ad hominem?" Ad-Hom Block Pro or some such?
And add "Strawman" to Ad-Hom Block Pro. The moment I see somebody use that word I think, "This person learned to 'argue' by reading Internet forums. Disregard."
Few things grate as much as the self-satisfied "strawman" police.
And instead of issuing snide remarks about categories of bad arguments, why not tell me why you don't think the label fits, and if it does why you don't feel compelled to address it?
Well said. I die a little inside, every time I read those words (and the inevitable dissection that veers away from the actual content of the discussion, and towards the process of deciding who's 'right').
Debating is good and fine - but (imo) sometimes, concentrating on the minutia isn't as worthwhile as expressing an idea.
Discussion can exist without this constant battle to score 'points'.
Funny running into you on this thread, after our earlier discussion. I want to thank you for identifying for me what it is about online discussions that turn me off. You really hit the nail on the head with: "Discussion can exist without this constant battle to score 'points'."
I've (tragically) spent far too many hours trying to convince various developers that tables aren't good for layout - my motives are sincere - but I admit, it's a conversation that's more than enough to turn anyone off :)
I meant what I said about emailing if you'd like some tips about CSS - I had few 'a-ha' moments that really made my life easier.
At least the phrase gives you a point of attack if you disagree. You get to say "it isn't ad hominem because of reason X".
I find this far better than responding to arguments that deliberately attempt to obfuscate avenues of attack by couching everything in terms of "opinion" or "I have opinion X, but".
"well, that would definitely require competition regulators"
No offense, but the idea that the government needs to step in is a nonsensical argument that is getting repeated with increasing frequency whenever Apple does something controversial. There is not a single market in which Apple competes where they have a monopoly (caveat: tablet computers right now, but that market is revving up to be hyper competitive in the very near future, and who would want the government intervening there at this nascent stage). A monopoly is required for antitrust investigations.
Do you know who Apple's "competition regulators" are? Google, Microsoft, RIM, Nokia, Palm/HP, et al.
Your comment essentially assumes "someone who disagrees with me so much, couldn't possibly be sincere!" Please don't do that, that's bad discourse.
<em>Brands like Costco and Amazon make a huge chunk of change, but you don't see them getting into petty stuff like this.</em>
No, you don't - because you're a developer, not someone who has to argue with them in the areas where they <strong>do</strong> do petty shit like this.
If you're monetizing your content via adsense then they're taking 32% of your profit.
It's been repeated over and over again that this is about content publishers. eg. Selling magazine subscriptions.
Apple provides access to a large number are: A) affluent, B) have credit cards in the system C) are conditioned to buy via that medium, to me it's worth 30% to get access to that market.
It's like rent on a busy street, if you're selling trinkets with a minimal markup it's probably not worth it. If you're selling high end with lots of markup it's probably worth it. iOS isn't for everyone, it's a luxury brand, not every model is going to work on that platform. Want a marketplace where no one buys anything, there are confusing payment options, and your product is next to 10 task killer apps, well then there's a Marketplace for that.
If you're monetizing your content via adsense then they're taking 32% of your profit.
Right, and that's absolutely expected. Apple should feel free to take 30% of anything purchased in-app. What they shouldn't do is force vendors to charge everyone else 30% more for the same product.
It would be like Google saying, "if you want to show an ad on your blog, you have to give us 30% of the money you make at your garage sale". It simply makes no sense.
Want a marketplace where no one buys anything, there are confusing payment options, and your product is next to 10 task killer apps, well then there's a Marketplace for that.
I want one where I can pay $10 for a book on my Kindle and read it on my phone when I don't have the Kindle with me. Paying Apple an extra $3 so that I can read my books on my phone doesn't make much sense to me.
But that's why I don't own an iPhone. My phone is a chunk of circuit boards that fits in my pocket, not my life.
They're doing work there though--selling the ads. Apple is taking 30% of your sales when you're doing the work (other than the actual payment processing).
Google takes all of AdWords, since it's on their own site. They take a 32% cut of AdSense.
The thing is, advertisers could use other channels to put ads up on the web. They can advertise with Chitika or whatever and get a bigger cut than they would with Google. They typically don't, because AdSense adds a lot of value by targeting the ads well. On the other hand, if you want to sell software on an iOS device, the only way is through the app store. Apple doesn't need to add any value to protect their 30% cut from competition because they don't allow competitors.
I think the last argument is misframed. If you want to sell software on a tablet device, you can do it through Android, iOS, or probably a couple other ways. Apple's claim, presumably, is that the quality of iOS, the App Store, and of the hardware that runs iOS, adds at least that much value over Android. And, given how much more money people make on iOS apps compared to Android apps, they're probably right.
The argument about subscription issues is related but more complicated.
But Costco does publicise how much markup they put on their products as a maximum:
_Costco's maximum markup on merchandise is 14 percent, and "a lot of products don't come close to 14 percent," Sinegal said. By comparison, supermarkets commonly mark up merchandise by 25 percent and department stores by about 50 percent._
Costco is extremely cut-throat, there have been several articles about Costco and how if they aren't receiving the lowest price for a product they just won't have it on the shelves, the Coke dispute was pretty big [1].
Overall I find that Costco is pretty transparent when it comes to the products they offer, and how much they charge for them. So far Costco has been a great value for me as a consumer!
Well, we do know about Costco dropping Coca-Cola and Apple because Costco wasn't satisfied with the terms they were getting. They came to an agreement with Coke but Apple products are still gone.
If you're a retailer willing to drop Coca-Cola, we can pretty much assume you're a strong-willed company. Whether that leads to triumphs of principle over practicality or displays of pettiness is, I'd say, a matter of perspective.
When Apple was the underdog, it all seemed to be about not what was possible, but what was fair, and what was right. Now it's a "Well, of course Apple would do that, wouldn't you?"
And he then punts on the biggest question of all:
What if Microsoft did this with Windows, and, say, tried to require Apple to pay them 30 percent for every purchase made through iTunes on Windows? To that, I say: good luck with that.
Not "well I'd certainly write a slam piece about it", not "well, that would definitely require competition regulators", not "that would be a dick move." Just "they couldn't do it anyway, so your hypotheticals mean nothing."
The way I put it (crassly) is "When you're Top Dog, you don't need to play like a bitch." Which is what Apple is doing, and honestly, they're turning me off from their products. And that's not about "Oh well, Apple likes to make money, and why shouldn't they be allowed to?" It's about looking like you're above it. Brands like Costco and Amazon make a huge chunk of change, but you don't see them getting into petty stuff like this.