

What’s Really Going On With Apple, Google, AT&T And The FCC - cwan
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/21/the-simple-truth-whats-really-going-on-with-apple-google-att-and-the-fcc/

======
tptacek
And see, here's a place where an ounce of credibility would really come in
handy for TechCrunch. And there you have it. Are these anonymous sources any
better than the anonymous sources they had for Last.fm?

~~~
gruseom
I don't think that's fair. They certainly have an "ounce" of credibility. This
piece struck me as pretty good journalism on something pretty important, and I
think it would be good for credibility all round to give them that.

Admittedly, the sources are anonymous, but could one expect otherwise given
the material? I also appreciate the piece's directness, which is a refreshing
contrast to the mealy-mouthed, there-is-no-truth-only-opposing-opinions
cowardice of the MSM. (Of course, if you're going to say outright that someone
is lying you had better be sure you are right.)

By the way, was the Techcrunch story on Last.fm definitively discredited?
(That's not a troll - I don't follow these things very closely and am
sincerely curious.) I was under the impression that it was left in an
ambiguous state with both sides insisting they were right.

~~~
tptacek
Good journalism? It's sourced entirely anonymously and interleaves editorial
commentary and prediction (!) with (supposed) factual reporting.

~~~
gruseom
If journalism is what gets practiced in leading newspapers, then being sourced
entirely anonymously is now standard practice. As for commentary and
prediction, ok, if your definition of journalism doesn't allow for that, we
can call this something else. Whatever the genre, this piece has some merit.
Give me a reason to believe that your hate-on for TC isn't simply knee-jerk.
(I'm not a huge fan of TC, mostly because I find the material boring. But the
hardcore anti-TC mentality is puzzling to me. Unless it's like the hipsters
who in 1990 were huge Nirvana fans until too many people started liking them,
whereupon Nirvana sucked and were sell-outs.)

~~~
tptacek
I like In Utero more than I like Bleach.

I stopped being OK with TechCrunch when they went after Blaine Cook personally
for Twitter's reliability issues.

I can point out lots of random incidents that have caused me to write off
TechCrunch (Last.fm being the most prominent). But those are just symptoms.
The disease is replacing the profession of journalism with clowns like
Arrington. The pathology that results is "publications" with:

* No sourcing policies

* No retraction policies

* No conflict of interest controls

* No separation between editorial and reporting

You're better off with a Murdoch paper than with TechCrunch. At least the WSJ
does great reporting outside the editorial pages. Here you're disputing
whether there's a non-knee-jerk reason to dislike TechCrunch, over a story in
which Arrington uses anonymous sources to assert that Apple is acting quasi-
unlawfully, in part over behavior that Arrington simply doesn't _like_. You
couldn't get this published in a column in a mainstream paper.

~~~
gruseom
_I stopped being OK with TechCrunch when they went after Blaine Cook
personally for Twitter's reliability issues._

I'd forgotten about that. You're right, that was awful.

Edit: I like pop songs. At least Bleach had one.

Edit 2: Did you know that the WSJ is Noam Chomsky's favorite newspaper?

~~~
apu
Do you have a source for WSJ being Chomsky's favorite newspaper?

And I don't know if there's that much difference between them and the Times
(except Editorials, of course) anymore. Both have very few real "reporters"
who do even the basics of journalism, such as checking facts and assertions
for correctness and not just "he said, she said"...

------
sil3ntmac
A very controversial post.

I do get tired of bloggers disputing what _should_ be fact by mixing it with
rumors or secondary sources...

[techcrunch quote]: "The first part of Apple’s argument, that they never
rejected the application, is “a total lie,” according to many sources with
knowledge of the Google Voice application process." ... "There is overwhelming
evidence that Apple did in fact reject the application."

[daringfireball quote]: "Google’s initial statement regarding this did not use
the word rejected either. Their spokesperson told TechCrunch: “Apple did not
approve the Google Voice application we submitted six weeks ago to the Apple
App Store.”"

Who is trying to mislead us here? Techcrunch throws unnamed "overwhelming
evidence" and unnamed "sources" at my face, while daringfireball talks about
Google's "initial" statement. Was there a second or third statement that
cleared things up?

Anybody have the facts?

~~~
wvenable

      re⋅ject
      3. to refuse to accept (someone or something);
      source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/reject
    

Seem to me like the "reject"/"not approve" disparity is splitting hairs.

~~~
mrshoe
I'm not going to claim to know how long Apple should be allowed to "ponder"
the Google Voice app, as they said they are doing in their answers to the
FCC's questions. Six or eight weeks seems like plenty of time to decide.

However, there _is_ a big difference between an app being still under review
and being rejected.

Arrington's language claiming that Apple's answer to the FCC was "a total lie"
reminds me of Dick Cheney talking about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
There's "overwhelming evidence"? And that's enough for you to accuse Apple of
lying to the FCC on TechCrunch? Obviously not all journalists hold themselves
to the same standards.

~~~
wvenable
There may be a big difference between an app under review and being rejected.
There's also a difference between an app being sold in store for months and an
app being pulled from the store! Reminder, it was Apple pulling 3 existing
Google voice applications that prompted questions to Google about the status
of their official app in the first place.

Google's response at the time sounded pretty final: "We will continue to work
to bring our services to iPhone users, for example, by taking advantage of
advances in mobile browsers."

------
sachinag
If Apple was so damned worried about Google controlling so much on their
default user experience, maybe they should have thrown Yahoo a bone past just
the Weather app. Or given AOL/Mapquest the Maps app. Apple has only itself to
blame for giving Google that much control over the default apps, and thus, the
default user experience.

~~~
bigbang
The stock app is also from Yahoo!(finance). Given that Maps/Youtube are from
google,that puts yahoo/google at 2 default apps each.

~~~
Skeuomorph
Two words: Push Email

Yes, there's a preset icon for both Yahoo and Gmail but iPhone supported push
email for Yahoo mail accounts, still does, and still does not have push email
from Google.

To get Yahoo push email working before the 3.0 with "push" for everyone, Apple
allowed Yahoo's mail a feature only shared on the iPhone by the MobileMe
subscription service.

------
zhyder
There's probably been a change in mindset at Apple over the last 2 years, from
seeing Google more as a partner to seeing it more as a competitor. Unless
something from Google (like Search/Maps/Youtube) is obviously of big value to
most iPhone users, Apple would probably want to keep Google on the outer side
of the wall.

------
buymorechuck
bias(TechCrunch) == CrunchPad

