
John Gruber jumps the shark - bdfh42
http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2010/06/john-gruber-jumps-shark.html
======
sounddust
The author writes an entire article accusing Gruber of failing to follow his
assumptions to a truthful conclusion without giving a single example of him
doing so.

I think that there's a lot of criticism toward Gruber because his opinions are
not a carbon-copy of the unified public geek opinion that you'd see on a site
like Slashdot. I think it's refreshing to see a solitary source of Apple
commentary in which the author actually attempts to understand Apple's
motivations rather than blindly lambast them. Gruber is not afraid to
criticize Apple (I've read dozens of criticisms of the app store approval
process, for example).

And that's always been his attitude: The opinions from someone who is a long-
time fan of Apple products and does not instantly overreact to every news
story about them like most tech sites. You can't accuse someone of jumping the
shark for consistently doing what they've been doing for years.

~~~
cromulent
I would add that you also have to judge DF's trajectory against Apple's.

In the six or so years that DF has been running, Apple's product range, market
share, mind share, and market capitalization have all grown remarkably (if not
their own internal attitude), and with that has come a flood of both
supporters and critics.

DF is not commenting on fringe products such as OSX 10.3 anymore. He's
commenting on a major mobile phone manufacturer and the maker of an popular
and unusual new computing tablet.

I would venture that Gruber feels no need to feed the Apple supporters, but he
does feel a need to call the critics out when they just don't understand Apple
or advise Apple to behave more like other tech companies.

~~~
samps
In this light, maybe people have started to be annoyed more by Gruber because,
although his style and opinions haven't changed, he's suddenly for the Empire
instead of the underdog. I have a feeling there would be much less anti-Gruber
vitriol if he were defending an Apple that still seemed to be the
"alternative" rather than the "mainstream".

------
ZeroGravitas
Funnily enough, my own thoughts about Gruber becoming annoying recently (after
reading him for years) is because Gruber has started commenting on things he
doesn't understand the facts of e.g. codec patents. He'll just come up with
some pro-Apple spin and go with that, actual reality is often replaced with
spiteful snark.

e.g.

[http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/android-
battery-...](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/android-battery-life)

The first thing I did with my iPhone 3G was turn off some battery draining
options I didn't need. Some people, not me, actually turned off 3G altogether.
No, it wasn't fun. iPhone and smartphone battery life is an issue for
everyone.

<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/google-pictures>

Actually Bing shows a random professional image, not one of your choice from
your photo album. Is that not an important enough difference to stand in the
way of publishing this _hilarious_ jab at Google.

<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/05/21/webm-patents>

Uncritically passing on patent threats just because it suits Apple's strategic
posturing? Adding commentary to make it seem like a done deal rather than
posturing? Ignoring the fact that they'd said they would do this before Google
even announced VP8 and indeed have said similar about Vorbis for a decade?.

Also, much like Steve Jobs's one liners, you do get the feeling that cutting
and pasting a link is such hard work on the iPad that you're luck to get more
than a couple of words of commentary.

~~~
danh
Also (from right now) it seems that Gruber doesn't know what browser sniffing
is (or at least pretends to), but still has an opinion:

[http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/04/html5-safari-
ope...](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/04/html5-safari-opera)

~~~
danh
But he does now (a couple of hours later):

<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/04/modernizr>

Apparently after reading HN:

<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/04/df-hn>

~~~
KuraFire
More likely from seeing my tweet:
<http://twitter.com/KuraFire/status/15401140612>

------
gabrielroth
Like all prominent bloggers, Gruber could use some insightful criticism. Too
bad this post doesn't offer any. A thousand words that add up to "I can't
really put my finger on it or name any specifics, but Daring Fireball seems
more uncritically approving of Apple lately" is fine for pub conversation, but
it's not much use as reasoned argument. How could Gruber respond to this?

The only specific point of Gruber's that the author cites is "iPhone critics
have seldom let facts get in their way." I'm sure there's something to
criticize in that statement, but it's a pretty slender reed on which to hang a
blanket condemnation of dozens of articles.

~~~
bradleyland
I agree 100%. I think the reality is probably closer to this.

In the past, Hank probably agreed with John more than he disagreed, so it was
easy for him to resolve any internal conflict; there was little of it. This
was during a time when Apple primarily made desktop/laptop computers with a
standard desktop operating system -- as opposed to operating systems like
iPhone OS -- that was sufficiently Unix-like to please most geeks with a bend
toward the Unix mindset.

The conflict comes in the fact that the Unix mindset allied with the hacker
mindset. Some would argue they're one and the same. Apple's new direction
(iPhone OS) cuts the hacker off from the Unix-y underpinnings of the device.
To take it a step further, you can't easily run native software you developed
yourself on a variety of devices. So there's a cognitive dissonance developing
within many Mac users. Their Mac-self wants to continue to enjoy the use of
tools from the one company who seems to share the same values as them (well-
built products, Unix-y ideas), but their geek-self is struggling with the loss
of access to the parts that satisfy the hacker inside.

I can identify with Hank, because despite finding no logical flaw with
Gruber's arguments, I disagree with him. There is an indisputable subjective
component to selecting tools. Gruber's inner-hacker is also offended by
Apple's stance of the walled garden, but he recognizes that this offense is
separate and unrelated to whether or not the product is a "good product", and
he realizes that most of the world aren't hackers. This leads him to generally
positive-leaning comments. At least in the context of potential market
success. To put it simply, most people don't care that they can't get to a
shell prompt on their iPad. They're perfectly happy browsing their iTunes
library, watching YouTube, and reading web pages.

I wish I had a good wrap-up/ending, but I just kind of hammered that out on
the fly. Maybe I'll use it as the basis for a blog post.

~~~
jordanroher
I agree wholeheartedly with the inner conflict aspect, but I wonder about
Gruber's inner hacker as it applies to the App Store.

From his projects page, it seems that Gruber works on small command-line tools
and extensions to other people's software. I'm not trying to impugn his coding
credentials; his writing doesn't hinge on how far he's made it past HELLO
WORLD. But none of the software he writes would be the sort of thing that
would make it on to the App Store even if Apple fired their reviewers and
opened the floodgates.

He takes the "Apple does X because it's in their best interests to do X"
stance because his livelihood doesn't hinge on whether the App Store is open,
closed, or purple.

I suspect we'd have a very different Daring Fireball if he finished his dream
mail app "Letters" and tried to release it on the App Store. Would it be
rejected because it "duplicates existing functionality?" Or because someone
can use it to e-mail the Kama Sutra? Or some other arbitrary rule Apple has
yet to invent? Or would he not even bother, for fear of wasting time
developing software that he couldn't sell?

~~~
bradleyland
Despite John being one of the two people behind Markdown (a pretty significant
programming contribution), I see what you mean about him being in a "I don't
have a horse in this race" position. However, I think that allows him to
objectify a little bit more than others... I can almost feel the rumble of the
laughter in the audience. Let me provide some examples.

John _doesn't like the way the App Store functions in its current state_ , but
he understands why Apple operates it the way they do. As evidence that he
doesn't like it, I'll offer some excerpts:

<http://daringfireball.net/2010/06/iphone_os_too_closed>

Jason Snell: "All Apple needs to do is add a new feature, buried several menu
items down in the Settings app, that mirrors the one found on Android devices:
an option that lets you install Apps from 'unknown sources.'"

John Gruber response: "Personally, I’d welcome such a move, but I don’t think
it would have the effect Snell envisions."

A lot of what John Gruber says could be interpreted as back-handed agreement,
were you not to trust him. But the body of his writing suggest that he's
genuine.

\-------------

<http://daringfireball.net/2010/05/nack_control>

John Nack: "The effect on product development and innovation can be chilling.
Yes, it’s easy to point to 200,000 apps on the App Store; it’s harder to note
all those that aren’t there — serious apps that will be created only if
developers know they’ll get a truly fair shot to innovate and compete."

John Gruber: "I agree with much of this piece by John Nack today, regarding
what everyone — developers, users, and even Apple itself — is missing out on
because of Apple’s tight control and management of the App Store"

\-------------

Back from 2008: <http://daringfireball.net/2008/09/app_store_exclusion>

Fraser Speirs: "Apple’s current practice of rejecting certain applications at
the final hurdle — submission to the App Store — is disastrous for investor
confidence."

John Gruber: "Exactly right. If you only find out at the end of the
development process that your app has been rejected — not for a technical
problem that you can address but because Apple deems the entire concept to be
out of bounds — then who is going to put serious time and talent into an
iPhone app?"

John Gruber conclusion: "Either way, something is seriously wrong."

\-------------

<http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/middleware_and_section_311>

John Gruber: "I don’t know that Apple is right. As I said above, de Icaza’s
perspective — that these decisions and risks should be up to individual
developers to make — is utterly sensible. Siracusa is exactly right that this
is a wager from Apple. Apple is betting its entire mobile future that their
developer platform is better than everyone else’s."

It's especially evident that he's conflicted here. He doesn't necessarily
agree, but he understands Apple's position.

\-------------

There are a myriad of other places where he's been critical, yet understanding
of the forces driving Apple. What's concerning is that recently, John has been
reconciling this conflict -- seemingly as much for himself as for his audience
-- by pushing the Web Apps as an alternative approach. I'd love to provide a
link to support that, but it's more of a tone than a specific rant.

Based on the nine occurrences of "Web App" on Daring Fireball right now, as
well as the injection of some links supporting criticism of the lack of a
robust Web App IDE, I'd suspect that a thoroughly vetted rant is in the works.

~~~
jordanroher
Wonderful list of quotes. I read DF a lot, often gritting my teeth, and this
is an accurate summary of his points regarding the App Store.

I agree on John's recent insistence that web apps are the solution to App
Store woes. But that feels like a cop-out. Apple hasn't fixed the three
problems Gruber identified in October 2008 from his article on "The Fear",
which are:

(1) App Ideas Are Rejected Only After the Apps Are Actually Built; (2) There
Exist Secret Unpublished Rules Regarding What Is Allowed; and (3) When Apps
Are Rejected for Violating the Unpublished Rules, Apple Refuses to State Just
What These Rules Are

<http://daringfireball.net/2008/10/the_fear>

They've gotten a little better on point 3. When My Frame was rejected, the
developer did get a phone call and an e-mail from Steve jobs saying that they
now refuse an entire category of apps. It's not much better, as Apple didn't
give any justification for why they sent this rejection. Are they planning
their own desktop environment? Do they think the app competes with the built-
in photo frame functionality of the iPad? Who knows?

It depresses me that Gruber doesn't see the "build your software as a web app"
angle as a cop-out. Instead of fixing these reasonable problems with the App
Store that it would be in Apple's best interests to fix, Apple ignores them
and highlights an entirely other method of delivering content to users.

I imagine a restaurant with chicken and fish on the menu. The chicken will
randomly come out poisoned, but the fish always comes out fine. When someone
complains about being sickened by the chicken, the owner says, "just order the
fish."

------
raganwald
Nit: "Jumped the shark" or "Jumping the Shark" does not mean "Has started to
suck." It's a specific subset of suckage where the subject is clearly aware
that they have no new ideas and resorts to ever-more desperate tricks to try
to appear fresh and new.

~~~
noonespecial
I know (especially by the quick upvotes) that you are preaching to the choir
here, but I have noticed a lot of non-thechnical, non-geek, never-even-heard-
of-happy-days types beginning to use this phrase (incorrectly) just in the
past few months. I've given up explaining who the Fonz is and just accepted
this new reality.

Once a meme goes mainstream, the primary idiom dilutes with use until its just
a curios catch phrase.

I just nod, smile and go to my happy place where there's a guy water-skiing in
a leather jacket...

~~~
raganwald
Well, I don't mind so much that the origin is lost, it becomes a pleasant bit
of trivia I will inflict upon my hapless colleagues one day, just as I now
explain exactly what the phrase "core dump" really means.

But in this case I do like keeping true to the specific meaning even if the
origin is lost in antiquity. I feel it's a useful distinction to make. As an
example, I would say that some years ago John Dvorak jumped the shark when he
turned his public personal into a troll. As a counter-example, Joel Spolsky
didn't jump the shark: He woke up one day and decided that his blog had run
its course.

I hope we are able to save some of its distinct meaning until some other
phrase comes along with a similar usage.

~~~
dhimes
A few years ago I heard Henry Winkler (who played "the Fonz," for those who
don't know) give an interview on some radio show (probably NPR). They asked
him about the phrase, and he said what was interesting to him about it was
that after the "jump the shark" episode the show began attaining its highest
ratings ever.

~~~
jerf
To me, that's a critical aspect of the term. They are out of ideas, they know
it, and they shoot straight for pandering.

People pander for a reason. It _works_.

There's also a signaling mechanism involved in the use of the term, which is
probably part of why everyone leaps so fast to declare that everything has
jumped the shark. "I, sophisticated me, have noticed that X is out of ideas
and is now just pandering and spinning. You, the plebians, may still tune in
for a while, but I in my sophistication have already noticed the downfall
beginning." In my opinion, to really know for sure when a shark was jumped
takes time. It's like trying to declare five days after an album comes out
that people will consider it a classic in 30 years; you really can't do that,
or at least you can't actually be sure. The only way to apply the test of time
is with time.

~~~
dhimes
I agree with you about signaling, but I thought there might be another effect
here. The people that started the term sounded like they watched the show when
they were young. It could have simply been that they revisited the show when
they were a bit older, and realized "it sucks." Not because the show was very
different, but because _they_ were.

I didn't watch the show (although I was/am the right age to have done so), so
I don't have an opinion as to whether the show got better, worse, or stayed
the same after that episode.

------
commandar
"It was probably an off-hand comment, but it speaks volumes about where John's
current psyche is. He said:

iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way."

That line actually bothered me too, but for me it was triggered by John's
recent decision to start attacking Android for somehow using private APIs on
the sly because he couldn't be bothered to A. understand the basic
architecture of Android (those pesky facts; things that anybody who'd spent 20
minutes skimming the intro to the Android SDK could tell you) and B. the fact
that he almost willfully ignores that Android is architected differently than
the iPhone, and that things that _would_ be system-level calls on the iPhone
are handled at the application level via public system calls, even for
Google's own applications.

This just happens to be something I can put my finger on; like the article's
author, there's just been something about his tone recently that's been kind
of off-putting to me. He seems quicker to jump at things simply for the sake
of snark over correctness, which is a little bothersome for somebody who has a
reputation for being a stickler for detail. It sucks because he's somebody
that in the past I saw as being able to trust to get a take on things that was
at least fair, even if I disagreed with him. Lately I find myself rolling my
eyes at his posts often as not.

~~~
ubernostrum
I guess I take it a bit differently -- the stuff he's usually responding to is
from "respected industry commentators" like Rob Enderle or Paul Thurrott and,
well, the record kinda speaks for itself. Mainstream coverage tends to pretty
consistently publish a lot of things which are flat-out not true (e.g., the
oft-repeated claim that iPods can only play music purchased from the iTunes
store). And, for better or worse, that's what Gruber is typically harping on.

~~~
mtts
I'm under the impression that the amount of writing about other tech writers
on Daring Fireball has increased during the last few months at the expense of
writing about, well, tech.

Which makes the site less pleasant to read for me.

And in a sense it's "jumping the shark" - having run out of ideas, the John
Gruber show is starting to fill episodes with unlikely, contrived subplots
that have nothing to do with the original premise of the show, which was to
write, in depth, about Apple products.

~~~
ubernostrum
I don't agree that there's been an _abnormal_ increase recently; any time
Apple launches something major, there's always a followup period in which
Gruber does a bunch of his "claim chowder" or similar posts. Similarly,
there's usually a short burst of them around quarterly-filing dates, going
after market commentators. And, true to form, he's been doing a lot of that
lately with iPad coverage, and those posts will probably start tailing off
soon.

------
isleyaardvark
_It was probably an off-hand comment, but it speaks volumes about where John's
current psyche is. He said:

iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way._

It does say a lot about John's thinking. He's thinking that there is a lot of
criticism of the iPhone is not based on facts. Not only did he link to an
earlier article that very day that had 10 reasons not to buy an iPad that
Gruber says got 9 out of 10 reasons factually wrong
(<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/warman>), but the very same
article that quote appears in discusses misconceptions about the iPhone that
are factually wrong. ( _Can I load my own videos and music on it, or only
stuff I buy from Apple?_ )

~~~
smackfu
Here's the full context:

"Snell’s argument is that Apple should do this to nip the argument that the
iPhone is too closed. But if Apple did exactly what Snell argues, critics
would still harp on the closed App Store. iPhone critics have seldom let facts
get in their way."

------
KirinDave
So, Protip: The word “fanboi” is as ridiculous and juvenile as ”M$”,
”demorat”, “republiscams”, or any other goofy little pun moniker. I half
expected the final paragraph to close with an “All Your Base” reference after
seeing the word “fanboi”.

I know people don't read Hank for the cleverly barbed and expertly crafted
prose... but, really? Fanboi?

~~~
mikeklaas
_shrug_ , I feel the same way about "Protip"

~~~
KirinDave
I feel the same way about saying physical gestures like " _shrug_ ". And also
about "Wow. Just Wow." But I can master my distaste for those; they're not why
I mentioned it. Who knows what the line is?

Maybe it's more because using gay terms as pejoratives is a nasty habit and we
should stamp it out rather than try and equivocate just because they're
familiar.

~~~
kscaldef
I don't believe the gay community has a monopoly on the use of the misspelling
"boi", if that's what you're trying to suggest. It's certainly not the context
in which I first saw it commonly used.

~~~
KirinDave
I don't think you understand what fanboi originally meant. Go read the
definition and think about it. "Mac Fanboi" was originally part of the "Macs
are for fags" school of insults.

~~~
kscaldef
No, I guess I don't. Could you provide a link to the definition you have in
mind or some discussion of the etymology of the term?

------
pohl
_iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way.

Essentially, anyone who has criticized the iPhone, or presumably Apple is just
someone not dealing with the facts._

Hank, your critique falls apart when you switch what should be an existential
quantifier with a universal quantifier.

~~~
jdminhbg
No, the error there is Gruber's.

"Americans rarely get any exercise."

"French people rarely bathe."

If Gruber doesn't want it to be taken as "all iPhone critics," he should
specify.

~~~
pohl
No, the error is Hank's, for not reading that sentence in context. John is
addressing an existential claim made by Jason Snell:

 _Snell’s argument is that Apple should do this to nip the argument that the
iPhone is too closed. But if Apple did exactly what Snell argues, critics
would still harp on the closed App Store._

~~~
jdminhbg
I'm not sure how that context changes the sentence. If you're saying Gruber is
referring to those critics in particular (rather than all critics, or critics
in general), he should have started his sentence with "These iPhone
critics..." Or, to add context to my test sentences:

"John Smith weighs in at an astounding 350 pounds, but that's not hard to
understand. Americans rarely get any exercise."

The second sentence still means what it meant before.

~~~
pohl
_I'm not sure how that context changes the sentence._

The context makes it obvious which sentences are part of the author's thesis,
and which are snark. Quoting the snark in isolation tells you only that Gruber
is capable of sarcasm.

Edit: what's most interesting to me here is that Hank doesn't seem at all
interested in Gruber's thesis, let alone in attacking it. He just seems
interested in attacking Gruber.

------
npp
Gruber does approach technology from a pro-Apple viewpoint, but many of his
articles are at least organized around verifiable facts, though some may argue
with his opinions or conclusions. In most (though not all) Gruber articles, it
is at least not hard to tell which part is the facts he started with and which
part is the opinion that some may disagree with. This is so basic, but most
blogs are a complete muddle.

~~~
kmfrk
It wouldn't be gauche to accuse him of reaching the viewpoints because of his
reasoning rather than the other way around, as tempting as it is to pin some
predicate related to Apple on him. :)

------
turkeyneck
I'd just want to quibble a bit about the 'jumping point.'

Rather than the extended MacBook hack, the more recent breast-beating defense
of Apple's questionable behavior about the lost iPhone prototype fiasco is
what got me to suspect the shark has been left aways behind by DF.

The guy's not a legal scholar and I doubt he'd claim any expertise in this
dept. but yet EARLY ON in the ordeal was parroting the legal talking points
that law-and-order types were breaking out about how Gizmodo was way out of
its journalistic bounds and ever-so-guilty of outrageous criminal activity.

The actual circumstance of a friggin' cell phone being left in a bar by a
drunk employee wouldn't produce much notice from anyone but this stupid
incident managed to get folks to line up defending one side or the other in a
matter that will be obviously moot in a matter of weeks. Then and now.

What's the BFD, I gotta ask Gruber? But he's gotten quite defensive of late.
Like today about this thread.

------
eli
If you're going to accuse someone of writing weak arguments, you should
probably make sure that your own argument is really well supported.

------
bonaldi
Gruber hasn't changed in the slightest. The only thing that has changed is
sentiment here towards Apple. Because you disagree with him, you're more
likely to judge him harshly.

I don't agree with him entirely often either, but god am I glad there's
someone making the case _for_ the App Store, mostly coherently.

Tech is driven by sentiment much more than people would like to admit. Android
was a not-quite-there until IO 2010, now it's the new hot. What changed? Very
little, technically. A lot, rhetorically.

Same here.

~~~
kmfrk
I have grown to like Gruber more in the last couple of months---heck, I've
just grown to like him at all. I don't think it has anything to do with him
changing, but rather myself or my perception of him. It could be both, too, of
course.

I still think he should refrain from talking about politics, though, but the
idiosyncrasy of the blog is also a part of its charm. I just wish he would
ditch this one.

------
adolph
I think another interesting quote is:

"I used to trust John Gruber. Now I will just read him."

I'm not certain what there is to trust about Gruber--follow the links and read
things through if it is interesting. I'm mostly a fan of "claim chowder," so
maybe the author is focused on other things.

~~~
smackfu
Wow, I hate the "claim chowder". The worst kind of journalism.

~~~
cpr
Why? Shouldn't journalists (including Gruber) be held to some kind of truthy
standard about their claims?

~~~
smackfu
He spends a lot time calling out predictions by financial analysts. I'm not
sure what the point of that is. It's just like, "Ha! iPad was not a failure,
in your face for predicting it would do poorly!"

~~~
SixtySe7en
The point is how many news agencies, blogs, and pundits quote these same
analysts day after day without questioning their track record, motives, or
experience. I think its good to have someone calling them on their "expertise"
from time to time.

------
mandingo551
What I love most about Gruber is his inexplicable nature to post links without
commenting on it. The sheer brilliance of it is amazing.

It's like an escape hatch—it gives him the opportunity to say whatever he
wants without owning up to anything. Like the Foxconn suicides.

"I linked to the “hey, Foxconn’s suicide rate sounds high but it’s lower than
China’s overall rate” thing not as proof that everything is just fine at
Foxconn, but for context"

Right, sure pal. Whatever you say.

~~~
cpr
This almost isn't worth replying to, but if you don't know the history of
Daring Fireball, you might be correctly confused.

He used to split his feeds into an occasional commentary and sometimes
several-times daily links. He combined them a while back, so now you get
mostly links mixed in with very occasional commentary in a single feed. I.e.,
nothing has really changed.

------
antidaily
Gruber is so angry these days. There's no more excitement. It's all defensive
and pissed-off writing.

~~~
danudey
I'm guessing you didn't read DF after the iPad announcement. The sense I got
from Gruber was that he knew it was world-changing, but until you've used it
you don't really understand why. He was thrilled about the potential but
couldn't explain it to anyone. He was very excited, make no mistake.

------
tomica
(all from gruber in 2007)
<http://daringfireball.net/2007/06/wwdc_2007_keynote>

Web Apps as the Route for iPhone Development

[...]

It’s insulting, because it’s not a way to write iPhone apps, and you can’t
bullshit developers. It’s a matter of spin.

[..]

If all you have to offer is a shit sandwich, just say it. Don’t tell us how
lucky we are and that it’s going to taste delicious.

(compare to anything from gruber on web apps in 2010)
<http://daringfireball.net/>

------
ryanwaggoner
I'm not at all sure I see the difference in Gruber saying _"iPhone critics
have seldom let facts get in their way."_ and Williams saying _"Of course in
the current climate, conservatism seems to be becoming more "fact free" (think
Obama birth certificate and death panels), so there are fewer reasonably
argued ideas to embrace."_

~~~
WiseWeasel
Well, to be pedantic, one is an absolute judgment, the other is a relative
one. "Seldom" implies that a significant majority of iPhone critics do not let
facts get in their way. "Becoming more" implies that there is a trend towards
freedom from facts, but does not place a judgment on the absolute degree of
fact-freedom.

------
billymeltdown
Y'know, I used to think he was a blow-hard, but his writing style has really
grown on me. The guy is thorough, and thoughtful (if sometimes extremely
caustic), and I think he helps raise the bar of commentary by way of example
as well as ridicule.

I wonder how many of his detractors have actually unsubscribed from DF in
their feed readers?

------
wolfish
I started feeling the same way a few months ago. It is hard to define exactly
what changed. Some of the time I question whether it might have been me that
changed rather than Gruber. It's validating that other's are starting to feel
the same way though.

------
ahrencode
My uninvited opinion posted on Hank's blog, and adding here (based on Gruber's
recent post pointing here): Gruber is a smart, measured and often witty
commentator, but if you want him at his irrational best, look not for Apple
apologia, but his vacant WordPress sneers and attacks (themselves stand-ins
for animus towards the GPL, I think).

(here's my comment on one such instance: [http://ahren.org/code/bit/john-
grubers-15-minutes-of-schaden...](http://ahren.org/code/bit/john-
grubers-15-minutes-of-schadenfreude))

------
SixtySe7en
The difference between Gruber and Williams? Gruber makes very clear (in his
columns and Twitter feed) that he is brutally honest about his subjectivity on
all issues. Willams pretends he is "objective", the same way Paul Thurrott,
John Dvorak, Rob Enderle and Joe Wilcox all claim to be "objective" about
Apple specifically, and other issues in general. Who has jumped the shark?

------
scottmagdalein
Bloviating waste of time.

------
llimllib
> To be clear I am not suggesting Gruber is being in any way disingenuous in
> his arguments

Yes, you are. That is in fact exactly what you are doing.

------
tjmaxal
It's pretty bad when the author continuously does what he is accusing the rest
of the world of doing wrong.

------
pauljonas
For me, the Gruber-bot jumped the shark a long time ago.

I really don't get the appeal of his writing — other than an occasional Apple
apologetic, it appears to be nothing more than a tumblelog of Apple bits, but
yet he's paid a premium for it, due to high profile linkage…

------
mandingo551
What was it that Gruber called web apps? Oh, right. Shit sandwiches.

------
foljs
My take on DF:

<http://bananaranha.com/post/285263169/can-you-guess-the-blog>

------
col_kurtz
Gruber continually comments about topics unrelated to why people are reading
his blog. It's like, great dude, you like Stanley Kubrick. Great dude, you're
a liberal. Great dude, you like baseball. No one gives a fuck! Write about
apple and tech. DF is too popular to digress and distract into a personal blog
like it still has only a few thousand hits a day.

~~~
sirsean
Yeah, what a waste. You should cancel your subscription to save all the money
you wasted by reading those 20-word snippets of text.

What? It's still free? And people are still allowed to write about what they
want to, and not what YOU want them to?

That IS weird.

~~~
col_kurtz
Because staying on point isn't a civil rights issue, jackass. This is why most
blogs aren't considered real journalism and require, as Jobs said this week,
"oversight" to be considered fully legit.

If Walt Mossberg suddenly digressed into his favorite movie or what he likes
for dinner while he's reviewing a product, I would call that unprofessional.

So what it means is people like Gruber are pseudo-professional journalists who
are mixing amateurish diary entries about their personal life and topics they
don't know about along with the commentary that actually brought them alot of
hits in the first place.

And don't even get started about "free". Because it's not subscription but he
gets paid thousands through advertising, but I'm not "paying for it"? Just
like more legit journalists do. And if something's free I can't complain I
suppose...

case closed.

~~~
EpiStemIc
"Gruber continually comments about topics unrelated to why people are reading
his blog. It's like, great dude, you like Stanley Kubrick. Great dude, you're
a liberal. Great dude, you like baseball. No one gives a fuck! Write about
apple and tech. DF is too popular to digress and distract into a personal blog
like it still has only a few thousand hits a day." An epic fail col_kurtz
because you were overly snide and because you failed to see the elucidation to
your gripe within your own missive.

"Because staying on point isn't a civil rights issue, jackass" ... not only
vapid, but again, anomalous. If staying on point is of no consequence why get
soooo perturbed about it?

Does Gruber randomly digress during a product review? I personally have never
noticed any such skylarking, besides, even if he has occasionally or even if
he did habitually, so what? that would be his MO and thus would partially
explain why you either enjoy his discourse or not, evidently you don't.

"most blogs aren't considered real journalism". "people like Gruber are
pseudo-professional journalists" "legit journalists do" (as in get paid?? I
think??)

It is necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff, obviously, just because
a writer is paid to write does not imply that that writer is good (look up the
word "good" in a dictionary as it covers a lot of ground, seriously look it
up) and just because a writer is not paid does not automatically deem them to
be bad (see dictionary for "bad")

------
tommorris
The phrase "jumped the shark" has definitely jumped the shark.

------
watty
One Apple blogger accusing another Apple blogger of being a fanboi? Does this
really need to be top of HN?

Edit: Can you at least reply when you down vote? I know this was voted to the
top of HN so it deserves to be there.

~~~
steveklabnik
> Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate
> for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going
> to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this;
> there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also
> comment that you did.

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

------
niceguy101
From the comments:

'Gruber even edits his posts without disclosing it. I saw him call Apple's
decision to ban an app as a "nameless individual App Store reviewer" fault and
not Apple's!'

The irony is that Gruber's fame originates from the outrage related to his app
rejection.

~~~
gjm11
> The irony is that Gruber's fame originates from the outrage related to his
> app rejection.

Huh? Gruber's fame, such as it is, originates from the fact that for years he
has been writing a blog filled with mostly-Apple-related stuff that lots of
people (mostly Apple users) like reading. Daring Fireball has been a big noise
in Apple-land since before there even was an App Store.

~~~
niceguy101
I stand corrected. Thanks for the info. I came to know about the site after
that app rejection. Thought the site came into light after that issue. My bad.

~~~
Maktab
Gruber never had an app rejected and he doesn't have any apps in the AppStore.
Are you sure you're thinking of the same site?

~~~
gjm11
He's posted quite a lot about some App Store rejections. I expect some people
first heard about him in that context.

