"The best thing that could happen for iPhone users would be for the Android and/or WebOS communities to start shipping apps that make iPhone owners jealous. Google Voice for Android is the best example so far." (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/08/10/torrez-android)
I think it's a shame that you're attacking him for a counterfactual.
You went searching through the DF archives to find some damning praise and that's the best you could come up with. In each case you selectively chose what you thought was a compliment (protip: His friction comment was not a compliment), yet if you quoted the whole entry you would see that it's damning praise. A compliment sandwich wrapped around a "it's a second class platform" filling.
It's also interesting that the best you could find was from over a half a year ago.
Most criticism of Daring Fireball has to do with how it has turned so rabidly one-sided over the past few months. Gruber has somehow taken up the battle as a personal mission, now valiantly defending Apple against the evils of Google or Adobe. While before he did the whole "compliment sandwich around an insult" thing, now he doesn't even bother with that and it's instead just all criticism.
I expected you to move the goalposts. "Would he post a praise-filled entry lauding their innovation, heralding this great new functionality? Maybe I'm just being a jerk, but I think he would viciously attack it." He has complimented innovation, and in all those cases he did not "viciously attack it".
I'm disappointed that many of the comments on this thread have to do with the version of John Gruber in your head, and are attacking his character instead of his real arguments, as opposed to the arguments he makes in your imagination.
I didn't move the goalposts. We're talking about the now. Gruber is on a personal mission now to act as a one-man army against Google and, strangely, Adobe (the guy has a real hate on for Adobe that he suddenly developed once Jobs got his anti-Flash lean). The whole point of most DF complaints are that he went from being an Apple fan that wrote on technology to being an Apple fanatic that wrote critically about anything that threatens Apple.
"The email client adds support for Exchange and, moving ahead of the iPhone’s MobileMail, adds support for a combined “all accounts” inbox view." (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/10/27/android-20)
"Interestingly, browser scrolling in Android 2.0 seems to have far less “friction” than the iPhone — flick the page and it seems to scroll until you stop it." (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/10/28/engadget-droid)
"The best thing that could happen for iPhone users would be for the Android and/or WebOS communities to start shipping apps that make iPhone owners jealous. Google Voice for Android is the best example so far." (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/08/10/torrez-android)
I think it's a shame that you're attacking him for a counterfactual.