Slashdot Mirror
Are Media Writers Biased Towards Apple?
Art Vanderlay writes "Readers should not be surprised by overcoverage of Apple Computers since the tech writers and columnists for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and Fortune are all Mac users. According to John Dvorak of PC Mag, no one seems to point out the connection between the skewed coverage and the existence of this peculiar conflict of interest based on the national writers' use of Macs. He feels the newsroom editors are generally so out of touch that they can't see this bias and are also Mac users." From the article: "This reality is not going to change. In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer. With no Microsoft-centric frame of reference, Microsoft cannot look good. The company essentially brought this on itself with various PR and marketing policies that discouraged knowledgeable coverage. I'll save those complaints for a future gripe session."
I think some of the same could be said for Slashdot too.
Don't worry, I will post this anon.
Can the same be said for editors/readers of slashdot? .... broadcasting from an Apple Dual G5
Umm... Isn't it human nature to root for the underdog? Good vs. Evil? Et cetera?
More
And HA!
I am astounded that such an astute observer as Dvorak didn't seem to pick up on the fact that the virulent "Apple is Dying" meme in the 90s was perpetuated primarily by PC-using columnists...
After living through the 1988-2003 years where the media bias was pro-Microsoft, it's nice to have a new media darling. I'm sure it as more to do with the profit potential for investors than anything else, of course.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
Decides that writers are all using Macs, are biased and of course must be wrong.... because they have no frame of reference unlike himself who works for a magazine that talks of Windows Vista as being the second coming.
Hello Pot... have you met kettle?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
The pendulum is swinging....
This reality is not going to change. In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer.
Perhaps these happy Mac users are former Windows users? Dvorak is going on a limb by assuming they're techo-illiterates who haven't used Windows.
Trolling is a art,
Let's see, the author uses windows and is therefore microsoft biased. Should he declare this inbuilt bias in every column?
:))
The vast majority of the world has a Microsoft bias (myself included, sadly, tho I have an offsetting Unix bias as well
Since MS users are trained to handle an overly obtuse interface, we find Apple interfaces simplistic and limiting.
Min
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
Not meant to be a troll, but what splashy and cool stuff that's appealing to the public has Microsoft done lately outside of the XBOX 360 that might merit some coverage?
Several analysts pointed out that John C Dvorak might not be fully qualified to analyze Apple either due to his prolific tendency to spew forth useless garbage completely devoid of any logic or insightful content.
I'm not trying to be a troll or flamebait at all, but it seems to me that Apple is guilty of a lot of the same stuff Microsoft is, but gets away with it because they're the underdog (or the Apple-cult phenomenon). I mean, how many non-techie Mac users have anything except Adobe or Apple software on their systems? iTunes, iChat, iPhoto, Safari? Microsoft's got a horizontal monopoly, but it looks like Apple's going for the vertical monopoly.
Ugh. Of course MS won't get coverage if it doesn't do anything actually newsworthy -- but if it does, it will. Note how long it's been since XP came out (the service packs in fact get -much- more coverage than the free updates to OS X) and how much buzz there's been recently over Vista.
Also behold E3, one of MS' few opportunities to introduce cool new hardware like Apple does every five minutes.
I would like to use this opportunity to humbly request a new Article filter - a John Dvorak Filter. There's no reason to give this hack a moment of my time.
You can't draw that conclusion from the fact that Apple users feel no pain when they first use the machine. Windows causes pain, OS dosen't. If journalists (the ultimate end user with the power to change trends) don't complain about it, it's a good product in my opinion. Get them in front of a windows desktop and see how long it is before MS is brought to it's knees by bad press.
> connection between the skewed coverage and the existence of this peculiar
>conflict of interest based on the national writers' use of Macs.
So Mac users are biased and have a conflict of interest, while Microsoft users don't? That's ridiculous to suggest that someone can't be objective if they use a particular platform.
I knew that person who used to accuse me of being platform-biased since I use a Mac. I ignored it until once I responded to him, "Look, I purchased Microsoft Office, I purchased Microsoft Windows to work with Virtual PC. I have no problems using Windows, Linux, or whatever. I even own Microsoft stock. How much Microsoft stuff do I have to own for you to considered me unbiased?"
> From the article: "This reality is not going to change. In fact it will only get
> worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers
> who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer.
Dvorak's just trying to troll. Dvorak admitted years ago that he trolled for responses: calling the iBook a makeup case (1999), writing articles about fake dreams ("In my dream, Jobs was in line at a movie theater with Bill Gates..." from 1998), and my favorite,
He's just doing it again. Moreover, he's claiming "bias" without suitable proof -- and the burden of proof on Dvorak is a lot greater than "I could list 50". Hey, John, if you really think your fellow columns and analysts are biased, then name names. But waving around your secret list in order to troll is silly.
Crying bias! is just Dvorak's way of crying for help.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
The article does go on to say that many editors use macs, which would be one good reason why coverage would be a little more pronounced. But the fact that Apple makes a few products (their own) for a few systems (their own, for the most part) helps some too, I think. People are used to seeing innovation from Apple - products that at the very least look sleek and stylish, and in the best cases do amazing things as well.
The "press" is human as well, and I would find it hard to fault them for acting that way. To sum it up - a company that generally has interesting media events has another coming up. Wouldn't you be inclined to pay attention?
Is this Bill's Birthday or something ?
5 MS Stories on Slashdot homepage, many looking like marketing speak
Slashdot hire a MS PR Guy as of late ?
This says a lot.
People who write about technology are going to know a lot about it, and so they are going to be in a better informed position to choose what is best because they have both seen a lot of technology and thought about it a lot. They choose Macs.
Dvorak writes for a Windows magazine...
I'll save those complaints for a future gripe session.
Good indications that a story is not worth your time:
1. It ends with the above quote
Is it just not possible to post a story without invective? Can we not have stories that are not "gripe sessions" or full of "complaints"? What happened to "news for nerds, stuff that matters"? Gripe sessions and complaints are not news. This story had so much potential to be good, but, like so much in the media (especially sports reporting), a good story is ruined by childish presentation.
Hate to tell you this, but for the rest of the world, Jobs isn't a celebrity.
And your keyboard sucks as well! So there!
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Not surprised. It's no different than a liberal columist complaining about the medias "vast right wing conspiracy".
Well, you said it first buddy.
That said, I don't see a bias, its simply the fact that Apple are releasing a lot of new, interesting and highly popular products lately, while Microsoft simply aren't. Just wait until Longhorn or the XBox 360 are released, and you'll see that the big media will cover Microsoft's products just as eagerly.
about. And honestly, how many "enthusiastic" windows users do you know? Not to knock the capabilities of windows, it does a certain job, and admittedly does serve some niches very well. However, I know a lot of computer users, and I know of Linux enthusiasts, Mac enthusiast, even an BeOS enthusiast, but I have NEVER met a windows enthusiast who isn't making money off of Microsoft or supporting their stuff.....Honestly it just doesn't offer much to get excited about.
Monstar L
And those who have Macs also experience the irritating crashes of MS Word the lack of support from MS beyond Office. Examples are an outdated Internet Explorer, no Access database or Publisher, etc. when others send you those proprietary documents and say all you have to do is to install them from your Office CD, those writers feel and see the MS push for vendor lock-in.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
If you look for bias you'll find bias. The editors of Car and Driver/Autoweek/etc. all have to drive some car to and from work, maybe that means they're biased when they drive a Hyundai. The point is, if you keep looking for an excuse, you'll find one. Caveat emptor.
...no spam.
I don't need no estinkin'
Jeepmeister
Everyone who bashed the Mac has never even used one. Tons of Windows users hate Microsoft. At least it's good to know that the people who gush over their own computer are Mac users. Hmmm... what could that mean???
The bias for Apple is clearly obvious (full disclosure: I'm a Machead). However, look back at the early 90s when Apple was clearly not doing as well. It's not like media coverage was overwhelmingly in favor of Apple then. Was it that Apple made interesting products that caused media coverage or media coverage that caused Apple to make interesting products? I think it's the former. I remember reading/seeing good coverage in favor of Microsoft when it came out with Windows 95, Internet Explorer, and the XBox. What have they done since then that's all that interesting or even good? Until they come out with products that are as interesting as their milestones in the past, they're not going to get good media coverage. My point is that you're essentially missing what the cause is and what the effect is. No matter what, there will be bias, but look beyond that, and you'll see that the coverage itself has merit.
Apple bias?
And what if the Tech Reporters are simply doing their job well, testing all alternatives, and decicing that, as far as they are concerned Apple offers the best platform for their money?
As far as I am concerned, I'd rather trust a reporter who has done his/her job and decided to buy a Mac, than Mr Dvorak, or the countless drones that go on and on about how wonderful Windows Vista is going to be when it's released.
Oh, sorry, that's right, it is a Dvorak article. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. Carry on.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Dvorak's 1984 view of the Mac
"The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse'. There is no evidence that people want to use these things."
enough said
"less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer"
This just cracks me up. We are talking about technology journalists here.
Looks to me like Dvorak is the dumbass to me, not the people he is criticising.
Um...last time I checked Apple's "service packs" were quite expensive.
Apple is more than a computer company. Ride the train someday and count the little-white earbuds. Ipods are becoming as ubiquitous as cell phones. While IBM, HP, and Microsoft are turning microchips and source code into corporate/industrial tools (you know, exciting, like a forklift, or a conference room), Apple has been turning chips and code into a lifestyle. How many people buy magazines about fashion, about sexy-looking cars, about rock and role? Next Question: how many people buy magazines about high efficiency diesel generators?
Gee, I wonder why apple gets some attention.
Not to sound pro-M$, but Microsoft is primarily a software shop. Sure they make keyboards, mice and now X-Box, but mostly it's software. Microsoft doesn't have to go around touting the new hyperthreaded chip or whatnot. Intel does that.
TANSTAAFL
Hmmm.... so people who like Macintoshes enough to use them should be disqualified from voicing their opinions because they've demonstrated a preference for Macs? Any possibility that, you know, they use Macs for good reason?
This reality is not going to change. In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer. With no Microsoft-centric frame of reference, Microsoft cannot look good.
Ok, so, I think I'm beginning to understand. You need some genius-level technical prowess to get a Windows computer to work, so as coverage is turned over to normal people, they're bound to prefer Macintoshes. Without being Microsoft-biased, Microsoft cannot look good.
The company essentially brought this on itself with various PR and marketing policies that discouraged knowledgeable coverage.
Huh? Which company? Apple? So Apple "brought this on themselves", the 'this' being good press, by various marketing/PR policies? In other words, their marketing/PR is effective? Is that a criticism?
Or does he mean Microsoft brought it on themselves by marketing with FUD? And finally...
He feels the newsroom editors are generally so out of touch that they can't see this bias and are also Mac users.
From the news I see, I'd say editors are generally so out of touch that they can't see any of their biases. Or else they're paid off by their advertisers, as PC Magazine seems to be.
Whenever Steve Jobs shows all those media quotes at his keynotes praising apple products, there is always one from the new york times, and the writer is always David Pouge. He is highly qualified to write articles on the Mac beat, he used to edit macworld (I think, or was it macuser) and he wrote Macs for Dummies and many other books. He is probably the most extreme example of what DVORAK is talking about. But, his articles are generally good, they aren't fan-boy by any strech, he explains why the apple experience is better for the end user, but he does often have a lot of complaints about apple products. Now, I work in a newsroom myself, for a very small newspaper, we are mac based. Every time somebody new comes on they are like "Oh, I don't get macs" and spend the first couple weeks complaining about them, but within a year, 90% of them have bought Macs for themselves, after experiencing OS X, they want it for themselves. It makes sense to me that editors would have no problem with pro-apple articles, nor should they. Yes, they use macs, but they use them for a reason: they are better.
But I thought Windows was supposed to be easy to use... Perhaps Dvorak is right, and everyone who isn't a CS major should give up Windows and switch to Macs.
Good idea, John!
"With no Microsoft-centric frame of reference, Microsoft cannot look good."
In other words, if you're not already on board, you reject Microsoft. If Microsoft's SW were better than Apple's, Mac users would look on in envy, not superiority. When that has been the case, they have. Dvorak is just a projecting Microsoft chauvinist who can't admit that Microsoft SW looks bad when people have an alternative. Interesting that he is able to accidentally admit that when he thinks he's saying something quite different.
--
make install -not war
Current main page:
5 Microsoft related articles.
1(this one) Apple related article.
We have two data points. First, the writing seems to be slanted in favor of Apple (I don't know if that's true, but I'l concede it here). Second, the big tech writers are using Apples (again, I'll take his word on that).
Dvorak says that there must be a causal relationship between those two factors -- because the tech writers use Apples, they tend to root for Apple.
It's more reasonable to assume that both of those data points correlate because they were both caused by the same thing -- namely, that people who know what they're doing and have options would rather run Macs. Maybe the tech writers see everything, and choose to run Macs because they like them better. And maybe what they write reflects that.
So Dvorak's saying that tech writers say Macs are better because they use Macs, not that tech writers use Macs because they think Macs are better?
Think about the "observers" who only know how to use MS Windows, and are presented with the task of writing an article about Linux on the desktop. To paraphrase the article, "With no Linux-centric frame of reference, Linux cannot look good" under those circumstances.
This content filter of mine is very simple, yet I have never gotten around to writing it. It would look for the keywords "John Dvorak" and "Apple" or "Mac" and simply block indiscriminately every page fitting the description. I would proceed to sell it as donationware for $5 USD and make a mint from the generosity of fellow Mac users who also cannot stand the continual drivel emanating from the keyboard of John C. Dvorak. For, try as I may, I can never bring myself to treat his worthless flame-bait missives merely as pieces of humor. Of course, to my chagrin, his "Apple to make Intel PCs" prediction finally came to pass. I suppose, as Sam Sneed quipped, "the sun shines on a dog's tail sometimes."
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
Microsoft gets bad press coverage for something other than bad coding and evil buisness practices! Film at 11!
...and so is Slashdot.
This is only a test, be not afraid.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Microsoft doesn't get any press when they release a new patch measured in a matter of hours, not months. It's all the media's fault that Apple gets all the good press. It's got nothing to do with being an underdog company, with miniscule market share, that has pulled itself out of debt and has started building and selling products that can be instantly identified as Apple products. Apple has a good game plan, and it shows in what they do. I've seen bad press on the Nano flaws, and god knows nobody likes the ROKR. I wonder if Dvorak would feel the same way, back about 22 years or so. Hmmmm Microsoft gets all the good press, why is it Big ol' IBM can't get any good press these days? Dvorak, go back to living under your rock, you're much more fun when you're the village idiot.
Dvorak didn't just jump the shark with this one, he did a backflip, danced on its snout, and drank a tall glass of Microsoft Kool-Aid while doing it...
First of all, "it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer"? Is Dvorak really insinuating that only the elite use Windows these days? I mean, c'mon, by virtual of nothing less than market share Windows is used by the vast majority of people who still wonder what that cup holder thingy is supposed to do. Mac users by and large tend to be infinitely more technically astute than Windows users. His argument as as asinine as it comes here.
The fact is that Macintosh has undoubtedly attracted a large following with members of the media. Dvorak's essential thesis is right on the money. Time might as well be a division of Apple's PR department. Walter Mossberg gives glowing reviews to anything Apple. David Pogue at The New York Times tends to be a big Apple booster as well. Apple users are known for their fanatical devotion to the brand, and Apple has a lot more mindshare in the media industry than Microsoft.
The problem with Dvorak's article is that it takes a good argument and turns it into a piece with all the coherency and logic of a USENET troll. Let's face it, at least Apple boosters are part of the in crowd. People who continually make such ad hominem excuses for the fact that Microsoft is losing mindshare at a massive rate end up looking like a bunch of crochety Kool-Aid guzzlers. Yes, Apple has a disproportionate influence in the media, but its hard to argue with the fact that much of it is due to the fact that they make a better set of products and they work harder to ensure customer loyalty than Microsoft.
To me it points out two things.
1)People with a pulse on whats happening choose macs.
2)It says windows is harder to use than a mac
I just don't get it
When did Dvorak become such a douchebag? Like Microsoft has anything to worry about?
"This reality is not going to change. In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer."
doesn't that, sort of, imply that windows is too difficult to, you know, use?
when the "underdog" sleeps with the enemy.
I think it was Wilt Chamberlain who said, "Nobody roots for Goliath".
Someone (here?) recently made a very convincing argument that journalists consistently give light-and-thin laptops much better ratings (on average) than heavier notebooks, even though the two are really for two different things. Why? Because all journalists seem to have roughly the same usage pattern - cart laptop around on plane, use it to take notes at the conference, post stories from hotel room using WiFi, and so forth. Thus, journalists need a smaller laptop, and thus give them better reviews, but unfairly bash larger ones as being inadequate. They are - but only if you're a journalist who's running around all the time. A college student who just wants something he can leave on his dorm room desk, but easily take home on break, is probably going to prefer a larger, more powerful notebook or DTR.
I'm not sure if this is as true for Macs, but it probably enters the equation somehow. If the writer says "I would never give up my Mac for anything, and I hate Microsoft and Linux even if they were better, yada yada", there's certainly some emotional bias involved, and they should probably think twice about their journalistic integrity before submitting the review for publication. Certainly the _editors_ should be concerned about the reputation of their publication.
Ideally, a computer review shouldn't be just one person's thoughts on it - they would have a team of three or four people (the gamer, the journalist, the businessman, the IT guy) that each post their own thoughts on how the computer performs for them, and how well it meets their expectations given cost. They should be reasonably open-minded about different operating systems, and also be skilled with all of them (not as hard as it sounds, really).
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Guys, it really shouldn't surprise you to learn that our friend Mr. Dvorak has a long, tired tradition of bashing Apple whenever the opportunity arises. A brief history:
Anyway, you really ought to take anything the guy says with a saltshaker.
In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer.
As opposed to the current "qualified" observers who cannot be bothered to use anything besides a Windows computer? Maybe like you, John, who admitted that you didn't understand Creative Commons, and therefore it must be worthless. Or saying that large hard drive storage only serves as a replacement for the VCR. Or that the PC has become bland, boring, useless? Maybe it has, if your nose is stuck up the ass of Microsoft.
If it's anything different from the current "Microsoft can do no wrong" mainstream press, I'm all for it. The real question should be can PC Magazine survive?
The World is Yours.
After reading John C. Dvorak's stuff for over a decade (my dad used to subcribe to PC Magazine when I was a kid), the only trend I've accurately noticed is his penchant for self-indulgent snarky writing.
I guess Zonk thinks the media should be reporting on all of Microsoft's great product releases over the last couple of weeks. Like ... umm ... err ...
I'm sure it'll be different when Longhorn or XBox 360 are released, and we'll see that these "horribly biased" media companies report on Microsoft. And when the Playstation 3 comes out, the media will report on Sony. It's only to be expected. Reporting on new products that are likely to make a HUGE market impact is a sensible thing for a tech writer to do, and right now Apple's innovation machine is in overdrive.
Good one. I'm still ROTFL. Made my day. Hey, that's a good one. Gotta love it. Good going. A winner.
Umm, all the PC Magazines are published and printed with Macs, and always have been. Doesn't stop them from writing about Microsoft, the x86PC, or any of that stuff. A lot of ads for PCs, PC gear, PC software, etc are laid up on Macs. Doesn't stop them from selling PC gear.
What's changed is the company and it's products (Apple); in particular the iPod. In fact, the player is really the one responsible; everyone, including PC users, seems to have bought one and that's what's creating the buzz. Before the iPod, people kind-of-sort-of knew there was probably a difference but didn't really pay attention. Now, they are curious and the media simply reflects that by talking about it more (a lot more).
Is it only me who noticed that Dvorak is writing about Macs in an article about too much Mac coverage?
Saying a good tech writer is biased towards Apple is like saying your average person is biased towards clean drinking water that doesn't cause dysentery. Any writer that prefers MS Windows over Mac OS X for daily tasks should be suspect of mental defect.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
Who cares? Anything that mitigates the Microsoft monopoly, is a good thing. If MS has 90% of the market, does that mean that we want to hear about MS 90% of the time?? NO!!!
What a load of shit.
End the bias: Media writers must use Underwood manual typewriters. Or IBM Selectric.
Oh, and does John Dvorak still do that column with seemingly-random bolding? He should get his ctrl-B key fixed!
Honestly when I first read the article I thought it seemed plausable, but the more I think about it the less sure I am. What I really think causes the coverage of Apple is the constant stream of new products, MS really hasn't released anything new or different in many years... even Vista really isn't different enough for the average person to care.
Apple times its releases at specific times and as such ensures coverage at intervals throughout the year. I think it is actually a result of the fact that Apple is a Consumer Electronics/OS/Hardware manufacturer that gives it three times the coverage of other companies which only are in one or two markets.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Apple really is a kickass company worthy of praise for constantly pushing the envelope in a relatively stagnant electronics industry. And no, I don't own anything from Apple, but I wish I did.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
They get plenty of coverage every time a new IE vuln is exposed. Does that count?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
From TFA: "As big and as important as Microsoft is, the coverage of the company is quite mediocre. This is particularly true in the mainstream press. The reason for this is that today's newspaper and magazine tech writers know little about computers and are all Mac users."
No, John, the reason for the coverage being mediocre is because Microsoft has been spewing nothing but mediocre products for the past several years. There is no innovation coming out of Redmond anymore - they're just circling the wagons.
#DeleteChrome
I'll start out with some wild speculation.
1) Have these people ALWAYS been mac users? If not, then I think that in itself speaks highly of the platform
2) Quark XPress and other layout programs commonly used in the publishing industry have traditionally been mac applications.
3) less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer are less likely going to be biased twoard microsoft. If they find it troublesome to learn windows due to crashes & viruses, then they're pretty representative of the general population. Nobody's bashing on Dvorak because he can't write code in SPARC assembler -- giving him a firm anti-Sun bias of course.
4) A writer for the windows-centric PC Magazine is quite possibly the least qualified person to make these accusations. So little journalism goes on over there anymore, that I was surprised to even hear of such an outspoken editorial.
All in all, I'm now placing Dvorak down there with Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Tim O'Reilly, and Jack Thompson.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Let's not forget that NY Times' David Pogues has written a whole book on using Windows XP, so he is probably able to use a Win PC ... and to compare between Windows and Mac OS.
and anybody who says otherwise shows bias.
I think he has a bridge to sell too.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
Come on guys, we've just had a flamefest yesterday (quad G5s), and one this morning (Vista and WMP 11 are awesome OMGLOL!!!) I don't think she can take it any more capt'n!
Let's settle this now (yeah, right):
OS X is not perfect. Apple is not perfect.
Out of the box, XP is not as secure, efficient or intuitive as OS X.
WMP is not as useful as iTunes.
OS X has a more stable process and memory management and scheduling than XP
The only people who bitch about the high cost of MacMinis are whiny babies, who would bitch if Minis shipped with a blonde virgin, stating that they prefer brunettes.
What else. iPods are not as versatile as some other players out there, but they are very well integrated with software.
What else, I dunno.
Oh yeah, games.
What do I care, I got a used gamecube for 50 bucks and unplugged my windows box from the network...
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
I'm somewhat in agreement with this statement, even though John Dvorak usually overreaches with his generalizations.
Apple products are boutique items. They are products with style and image for people who care about such things (and with the money to pay for it).
In the educational world, Mac still has a dominant influence (where educational discounts abound). I once took an graduate instructional technology course and was amazed to find that all the computer labs we used were Mac based. (That was 4 years ago, when open source was still viewed with suspicion).
I don't like windows, and lots of open source people probably don't either. So by default does that mean we love Macs?
Well, no. For me, I am cost conscious. When talking about the MS tax, we must not forget that Mac hardware just is out of the league to comparable PC products.
The ipod/itunes products have represented major advances in their respective industries (although not too advanced;; dollar for dollar the iriver (for example) matches better against ipods, and even supports open source codecs like ogg. Itunes has innovations, yes, and usability, but more importantly they have implicit support from content providers and can cobrand their products with the music they sell. Pretty clever, but....how does that help consumers wanting to find new, cheap and independent music?
Here's an excerpt from a letter I wrote to the NYT in 2003 complaining about the inordinate amount of coverage of itunes/pay musical services...
"If 90-95% of all mp3's out are by unsigned artists who allow downloading and if the only download methods mentioned in your articles are subscriptions with multibillion dollar media companies, what does this say about the journalistic integrity of the New York Times? I know New York Times accepts advertisements from all of these companies, and this seems to be an example of how the Times is compromising its journalistic integrity by ignoring the vast majority of legal ways to obtain mp3's for free. These articles seem designed more to appease advertisers than to provide reliable newsworthy information."
(To be fair, after I sent that letter, NYT did provide light coverage of free and nonDRM download services. But every three months or so NYT does the obligatory roundup of pay music services, and every time it concludes that the best "deal" is to buy DRMed music from Universal/Sony/etc. )
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
Relying on Dvorak to give unbiased reporting on Apple is like relying on Jerry Springer to give unbiased peer-reviewed research on marital discord.
The joke is on MS by continuously changing their features and protocols. You can only get the development system ripped out from under you so many times before you get pissed off and move to something stable. In example, anyone remember trying to port VB4 to VB6, or VB6 to VB.NET? It doesn't happen... Open-source applications will keep catching up and surpassing MS because MS requires its developers to re-implement whatever they develop when MS changes its OS/Developer systems. We will see Vista cause the same problem. Sure, it will be backwards compatible. However, to take advantage of the new features, you must adhere to their new standards. It's always been the thorn in developer's sides with MS, and as long as Linux doesn't do that to us, MS will get left in the dust within the next few years.
Development notes at http://devscribbles.blogspot.com
It has been patently obvious for years now that Dvorak is intentionally caustic to generate banner ad impressions on his web column. DON'T FEED THE TROLLS.
Maybe, but I'd rather see a slick-looking Mac quietly in the background of a crime drama than hear THAT ******* INTEL JINGLE.
Huh. I didn't pay anything for 10.4.1 or 10.4.2. You need a new Apple representative. Is Mike Cox' MS rep working for Apple now?
what a crock of crap, the line about journalists not knowing how to use windows or a windows word processor is rediculous. the only person i have ever known to be older than say 5 or 6 and ONLY know how to use a mac and not windows is my girlfriend, and she picked up windows in a matter of minutes.
(but yeah she never used a wintel machine till she was 19, crazy)
-- lol pwned
When the Dvorak Reality Distortion Field is fully engaged, it's possible to rail on other members of the press for bias while ignoring your own.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
is seeing a network news story on teevee discussing some webpage of topical interest and the main graphic used is that of Safari displaying the webpage, while local stations invariably use a shot Internet Explorer maximized on a WinXP desktop. A few years ago, you could Netscape, as well.
I mean, who actually decides on the graphic? Someone in the Art Department? The reporter? Someone in IT? To my mind, both seem a bit odd, if not inappropriate.
Maybe part of the problem is that Windows today is as much of a toy as DOS 3.3 was 15 years ago. When you actually experience a solid OS where you don't have to worry about virusses, spyware and vendor updates arbitrarily breaking parts of your system, it's kind of hard not to become biased. Just a thought...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Hand it to Dvorak to take a thoughtful argument and throw in some utter bullshit (the ipod video comments) to make him sound like the hack he is. He's wrong about the video ipod in so many ways. TV episodes are NOT free, as you have to watch commercials (and pay with your time), or pay money for a TiVo-like service to remove them. You most certaily can not watch older episodes unless it's in syndication and you need the previously mentioned Tivo-like service to record them. Also, you don't need the iPod video to watch the TV shows. You are free to download and watch them right in iTunes. Fuck you Dvorak. You are as biased as those you are bitching about. Instead of discounting out of hand, any product that Apple creates, why don't you give it some intelligent consideration first? The little iPod you hate sells the fuck out of any other mp3 player on the market.
A lot of media writers use mac, this is a hangover from Apple's once total dominance of the publishing sector.
Therefore I would expect media writers to be biased towards mac in exactly the same way as windows/linux admins are biased against them - people always prefer what they know, and people always have a little fear about whay they don't.
It's human nature, and even the most professional journalist can't escape a little bias.
Also, and this is unfortunate, current journalistic style seems to be leaning towards open bias. Think Fox. To my mind even the BBC dosen't always seem quite so impartial as it used to.
It's a natural bias. Media Writers use apple. And Media Writers are biased towards Media Writers. Just as there are so many movies about movies, how the content of the Internet is biased towards computers, how so much Hip-Hop is about making Hip-Hop, how journalists make a sensational news from a journalist being assaulted. Just see such rage from journalists if, say, laws of a farmer get broken that way!
It's a natural bias, that authors of given media are creating works about their media. And since media writers use macs, they write about macs. Nothing strange here.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
Eh, just read a different columnist. I'm a big fan of Bob Qwerty, he seems to have his head screwed on right.
*runs for cover*
Please help metamoderate.
Would it make more sense if they were to say "Apple is best" while using MS products? IMHO that they prefer one platform and they use that platform is perfectly sensible...
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Look it up. Am I the only one that gets the creeps everytime I see a Windows desktop on an important piece of hardware, like in banks, airplane terminals, etc.? 90 odd percent of the computers in the planet run an unstable OS. M$ reaps what it sows in terms of the press. Dvorak can moan and groan about Mac (and Linux) press coverage. But these guys are doing it right. To quote an embattled airline slogan: 'Good goes around'. Hell, I wish corporate IT departments would get smacked in the head and replace laptops with Powerbooks. I mean, combine a crappy OS with a crappy rig (D(H)ell) and you get a crappy, shitty platform to work. I wouldn't complain as much if my corporate lappy was an IBM/Lenovo piece. I lost about 10 minutes of productive work time yesterday trying to boot into Win2K! Oh, and the Pendejo word? If you're ever around spanish speaking persons, use it wisely.
the future is but past forgotten
Actually, it's not bias. Publishers use Apples because they are better for what they do. All the requisite software is available, the monitors and so on, which are apple branded and come kit with the computer are generally better. Publishers are generally more productive on Apple.
I'm not interested in a flame war, so if you're interested in how my claims are true, look it up.
Secondly, publishers are not generally reporters. I am an editor and don't have time in my week to write articles. We buy them or have them submitted, but we don't write them.
People who write articles generally buy the best hardware for the job, which is generally a computer that can run Word.
If there is bias in the media towards Apple, then it is due to the beautiful aesthetic, graceful degradation in performance, up to date hardware support etc... Most media/politics/sociology students, during there undergraduate degrees will study a media unit, and anyone in the industry knows, we live in a pluralist society. The media does not set the agenda as much as people would like to think it. If they are wrong, the public will tell them.
If someone from another planet would watch our movies, he would think all the computers we use on Earth are Macs.
So he's afraid that technology journalists soon won't be able to figure out how to use Windows? It's not that bad just to use, as long as you have a competent IT staff. Anyone who can figure out OS X can figure it out, and in fact any small child. If a point comes about where most tech journalists have never had any serious experience with Windows, that probably would reflect many other segments of the population;
At any rate, his argument is the same as "Since Brian Williams is not from Nebraska, he is inherently biased against it and would not report the Second Coming of the Lord if it happened in Omaha." Or perhaps "Many people drive Toyotas. There are people who have never driven a Chevrolet. These people cannot competently discuss an Impala if the need arises, even if they have read about them." Just makes no sense.
And of course, Dvorak (most likely tapping away on a PowerBook or an iMac) seems perfectly capable of discussing Windows.
Apple was the original personal computer darling and Jobs played a big role behind that. Apple has long been a media favorite for doing things their way and bucking the Microsoft wave.
Everyone already knows about Windows, its not something to love, its sorta, you have it, like the electric company. MS gets its press releases but everyone figures out the story sooner or later so if you are going to report, report on Apple and Linux and what's going on out there in the world beyond "the utility."
This is my sig.
I would RTFA but my heart can't take the sizeable dose of salt that Dvorak's articles require.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
OK, we know that Apple is merely the 5th largest brand in terms of computer sales in the US (after Dell, IBM, HP and Gateway).
But to be honest, only Apple does stuff in the consumer space that's newsworthy. All the other brands release new computers all the time... but they aren't risk-taking, innovative computers - they're the same old stuff with a new model number and new clock speeds.
It took Apple to do something like sell a product other than beige. You know who notices? Everyone! That kind of stuff, no matter how stupid, is news WORTHY. That's why.
Furthermore, if anything, the Mac is less popular in the press than it was 10 years ago, completely deflating any argument that the Mac gets press because people in the press use Macs. Where were these reporters 10 years ago?
Oh yeah, at that time, Apple WAS selling beige computers.
Apple does have a big advantage here - they're looking to be a consumer brand. On the flip side, the other manufacturers are catering mostly to business, and any home consumer sales are gravy.
What I find interesting is this story yesterday in the largest Swedish morning news paper and The Register. After a Dvorak column a few days earlier.
Is Dvorak (of all nitwits!) so much copied!? Is this some sort of campaign?
I remember reading at least a decade of rah rah articles about Microsoft, up to being declared guilty in their big trial. And quite a bit after.
(-: I mean, it is a well known phenomenon that big advertisers get terrible press. So of course Microsoft gets slaughtered in the press. :-)
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
One point of view might be that tech writers are exposed to all the options the tech industry has to offer, and overwhelmingly, choose Apple products.
"better ways of doing things eventually just replace the inferior things" - Linus Torvalds 09-08-07
I definitely agree that there is bias, but I don't think its the driving factor. I think that Apple gets so much coverage because there is so much secracy and showmanship around their releases. There are tons of websites out there dedicated to Mac rumors thinksecret.com, macrumors.com, etc. You never know just what they are going to release until Steve Jobs starts the that speech. But there is plenty of room for speculation, and media LIVES for speculation. You generally know whats in the pipeline for Microsoft. We've known about Vista (Longhorn) for YEARS, so its really nothing new. At the same time I remember how rabid people were getting to see the new XBox 360 until it was released. And don't forget Halo 2...sweet sweet Halo 2. When it comes down to it, Apple has great showmanship and they are the underdog. Who doesn't enjoy that?
Maybe tech writers use Macs because they are attuned to the details of technology, and they have a budget to buy them.
Apple gets a lot of coverage right now because a) they have new products to cover right now, b) they have a history of important innovation, c) they are one of the largest computer makers in the world, and d) they are succeeding at a strategy that all computer makers are trying--transitioning to a large consumer electronics company.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I mean... really?
I'd sooner listen to G. W. Bush on things computerized than Dvorak.
Oh! Dvorak! You been served!
Actually a fantastic article just was written about this.
check out:
http://www.slate.com/id/2127924/
and
if you want, read my rants about apple and the media
http://smick.net/index.php?n=Main.AppleRants
from Slate's article:
"The inordinate amount of attention paid to Apple's launches must be, in part, a function of the company's skill at throwing media events, stoking the rumor mills, and seducing the consuming masses. All this, plus the chatter-inducing creativity of Apple's ad campaigns, and its practice of putting its machines in pretty boxes make writing about Apple products more interesting than assessing the latest iterations of the ThinkPad or Microsoft Office."
...::----::...
I am in no way affiliated with this sig.
Whenever I read articles like this, I can't help but see that there is a fundamental problem with modern journalism. Modern journalism covers one thing reasonably well and that is politics: once you get outside of this realm, journalism is by and large atrocious.
Why is this? Almost every reporter worth his salt is much more interested in pretending to be Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein rather than writing about the latest bugfixes from Microsoft. Political coverage is glamorous in the world of journalism: it provides access to power and it can make you a legend like Woodward and Bernstein, whereas other areas aren't as accessible and won't let you make a name for yourself.
Thus the middling and poor quality reporters are shuffled off to areas like tech reporting. These reporters are poor enough that they don't see their biases or simply don't care and they don't bother to research things, either.
The technology pages in major newspapers should be headed up by someone with a passion for technology, the type of person who reads Slashdot and Boing Boing simply because they love the technology. Someone with great passion for technology will be able to report effectively on any new technology, whether it comes from Apple or Microsoft or any hardware manufacturer or the open source community. It doesn't matter who makes it, what matters is the ability to change people's lives. Coupled with the ability to write well, this is the recipe for a good newspaper technology page, not making it the bastion of reporters who couldn't cut it on the political or society pages.
I'm not saying every tech reporter is bad, I'm simply saying that the proportion of bad reporters covering tech and science stories is rather high compared to political news.
So, if you're a big-name tech reviewer - i.e., you pay for none of your own gear - you have a preference for stylishly designed, high-end equipment? Who woulda thunk it?
What kind of hardware / software platform is the Matrix using?
Windows, Mac, Linux it doesn't matter!
They can all make life very easy and very hard!
"as you HAVE to watch commercials or pay money for a TiVo-like service to remove them"
You do not HAVE to watch commericals, you can leave the room. And you don't HAVE to pay money to Tivo! You can record them on VHS and fast forword through the commercials. You can build your own PVR and skip them. You can build a MythTV PVR and it'll automatically remove the commericals.
TV shows are not free to make, but they are free to watch and record.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
He is, you know. Apple keynotes given by Jobs actually get reported on the mainstream news in the UK. Frankly, Apple's still newsworthy because they're still one of the biggest computer manufacturers around, despite the market share of their system vs Windows. And, of course, iPod is the biggest product BY FAR in the neo-Walkman market.
I'm sure I'll be modded into oblivion for saying it, but come ON. Even (especially?) Slashdot is guilty of this.
It's all iPod, all the time here. Apple released a "video iPod" and everyone hails it as genius--conveniently ignoring the Archos and the new Neuros video player that were out long before this.
And I'm not talking just announcements, either--it's also about continuing coverage. Did anyone dissect the Neuros 442 to see how it ticks? What about the Archos? Heck, even iAudio has their own combined video player/audio player but when did you hear about it in ANY media? But Apple hitches up to the bandwagon and suddenly it's news.
It's grossly unfair as well. The market is already falling to Apple solely based on hype. I personally love Neuros but I fear for their long term survival because of this. They have a great product, they're very open source friendly (something that should have endeared them around Slashdot, but it hasn't...they're just not COOL like Apple I guess, despite releasing the code to the FIRMWARE of their players no less). But they get no coverage at all. None. The Neuros 3 is in development and they are openly ASKING their customers what they want--heck, Joe Borne even participates on their forums. Every ONE of you OGG fanatics should be over there, because they're quite happy to oblige you.
Bias? Hell yes. Unless it's Apple, it's not news. But kudos to Slashdot for at least daring to ask the question of overexposure.
"10 percent of computer users are Mac users, but remember, we are the top 10 percent."
- Douglas Adams
And yes, I selected that quote free from any bias whatsoever.
Not one word out of his mouth has ever been close to being right as a analyst, and he has shitted on every single new technology that we today take for granted (mouse anyone?) I keep trying to figure out why in hell anyone still uses his flawed analysis in their publications or new services.... then I remember this is the country who actually lets wackjobs like Jack Thompson have a platform.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Why would that be weird? Is it weird if the entire newsroom were Microsoft Machines? Would it be weird if they were all Dells?
I often confront these guys with this assertion, and they, to a man (I've never confronted a female reporter about this),
Wait... I just need to stop here. Why do we care if he's ever asked a woman? Ok, forget it, let's go back...
I often confront these guys with this assertion, and they, to a man (I've never confronted a female reporter about this), all say that they use a Mac "because it is better." Right. And that attitude doesn't affect coverage now, does it?
Yeah, so when a tech columnist sits down to write an article about new/cool technology (sort of their job), they choose to write about the technology that they, as professionals, believe to be "better". Yeah, I'm still completely failing to see the problem here.
Microsoft should make some headway with this biased crowd once the fanciful Xbox 360 arrives. It's got a creative GUI, is easy to use and navigate, and kind of has a Mac look to it. It also interfaces perfectly with the iPod. "Oh golly gee whiz wow!" And that feature alone will be the clincher.
If he's so utterly unbiased, why does he care so much when Microsoft will 'get their due'. And, well, yes, it's been a while since a release of Windows or Office, so releasing their first major product in several years will probably get them into tech columns. Having a great GUI and the ability to interface with the most popular MP3 player around certainly won't hurt. So... what's all the whining about?
Go off-topic with John C. Dvorak
Oh, he's not just off-topic, he's irrelevant, and apparently a bit out of his mind as well.
Anonymous Coward writes "Readers should not be surprised by overcoverage of Unix-based operating systems since the tech writers and columnists for Slashdot, ThinkGeek, Sourceforge, and freshmeat are all *nix users. According to John Dvorak of PC Mag, no one seems to point out the connection between the skewed coverage and the existence of this peculiar conflict of interest based on the national writers' use of *nix-boxen. He feels the newsroom editors are generally so out of touch that they can't see this bias and are also *nix users." From the article: "This reality is not going to change. In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer. With no Microsoft-centric frame of reference, Microsoft cannot look good. The company essentially brought this on itself with various PR and marketing policies that discouraged knowledgeable coverage. I'll save those complaints for a future gripe session."
So let me get this right: He's complaining that people write good things about something they found is so good that they've decided to have it as their daily tool of work?
Sounds like honest journalism to me. You know, much better than those foreign correspondents writing about a country they never visited.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
When Apple announces a new technology direction, it's newsworthy because it's reasonably likely everyone else will be following suit pretty soon.
When Microsoft announces a new technology direction, it's newsworthy because it confirms beyond any doubt that an idea pioneered by somebody else (often Apple) is both feasible and marketable.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I can't wait to see how this plays out on Slashdot.
If you admit that preferring Mac to a PC will bias how each is reported in the mainstream media what does that say about a political bias?
What are the political affiliations of the writers / editors of those publications and how does that affect their reporting? I would be willing to bet that they are more Liberal than Conservative.
My thought is that yes, the primary use of Mac's by the reporting outlet will bias their view. How can it not? Daily use of the tool promotes a deeper knowledge. Same with political affiliations. In reporting you must consider the source.
I understand that the technical aspect is more relevant to Slashdot but the political aspect is arguably more important to the larger population.
If you don't admit that preference creates bias how do you support your argument? Presumably, if you spent money to buy the thing you did research. Your research led you to the conclusion, a purchase, and that conclusion will color your reporting. IE " I can se the benefits of PC but..." Again how does this translate to the political aspect of reporting?
Also, does that mean that Mac's are primarily used by Liberals (media, education, marketing and design) and PC's by conservatives (business & industry)? Is the Mac vs. PC war a mirror of political life in America and what conclusions can you draw from it's current state?. Now I really ranting.
Nuts. The mere use of a word like "overcoverage" means that the report is subjective, not objective. Where's the objective standard for the correct amount of coverage? Or, too little coverage? What's "correct"? "What's "too little"? If you think that some writer is payng too much attention to Apple, then stop reading that writer. Don't start making absurd claims about "overcoverage".
As for the logic behind the assertion that the use of a particular brand of computer compels media people to write about that brand, well, that's as logical as claiming that a food critic who eats Cheerios ever day for breakfast is driven to review only packaged cereals. Why are people so willing to attack alleged driven behavior in others while claiming they themsevles are exempt?
Frankly, one of the reasons that media people don't write a lot about Intel boxes, as opposed to Apple hardware, is that they're all essentially the same. So what if Dell or H-P repackage the usual mix of boards, chips and drives and slap on a new name? Who cares?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I would have agreed with this statement, had you not used the word comparable. Comparable Mac and PC hardware lands within 5-7% of cost on both sides, every time I price it. Assuming you add the same stuff like gigabit ethernet, firewire, etc to the PC.
There are bargain-basement PCs with crap like shared video, cacheless procs and such that don't exist on the Apple side. This is what makes them seem cheaper on the whole. If you actually have comparable parts in both, they come out awfully close.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
And to be fair to the NYTimes, could it be possible that most music listeners in the US today generally will want mainstream music that they've heard on the radio, which is almost always *not* going to be available as a free/non-DRM download online?
Didn't Dvorak write a column for MacWorld back in 88 or 89?
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
Am I the only guy who remembers the time period when you were hard pressed to find an Apple-related article that didn't include the word "beleaguered" to describe the company? The same time period when (IIRC) a MacWorld columnist named John Dvorak pronounced the platform dead and went over to the other side?
Journalists prefer Macs now because Apple has gotten their shit together since the advent of OS X and the iPod, and has been putting out good stuff. The journalists have found modern Macs usable enough to try them out for longer periods of time, and have found that they like what they're seeing. Historically, people who have a decent amount of experience* with both platforms overwhelmingly prefer Macs.
~Philly
* "Decent amount of experience" = Having done actual work on a Mac, not spent 5 minutes playing around with a one in an Apple Store before prnouncing it 'lame' or 'stupid' and going home to their 'leet gaming rig.
... why Microsoft software sucks so much that my Hoover looks bleak compared to it! That's why: all PR people are Mac users! I see now! :D
And this writer doesn't work for a tech company - it's his job to point out various media flaws.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2127924/
"This reality is not going to change. In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer. I'm not a writer, but I use both platforms every day. Windows is clunky and irritating. Every time I am forced to move to my Win box, I am reminded of why I am such an Apple fan. Maybe that's where all the gushing writers are coming from too. Come to think of it, Dvorak is clunky and irritating too. Maybe he's too identified with MS products and the distortion lies in him.
Go figure!
I'm hoping you're aware of the circularity of that argument, given that the subject is media bias towards Apple?
I demand Slashdot put a new option to identify any slashdot posting that contains a link to a John Dvorak piece of trash article. I filtered out JonKatz a long time ago when all I saw were whiny repetitive stupid opinion pieces with no real insight. John Dvorak is the same way, and I go out of my way to avoid his trash. Please someone put this in so I can just skip over these postings, too.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Dvorak's comments make sense to me. Apple is the flashy, style, radical, celebrity, hype, media focus's tech company, and the meticulously cultivate that image. Microsoft is the grey cubicle, work 60 hours a week, flyover country tech company. I associate Apple with "looking cool", and the PC world with "work". Its probably because I have had PC's at almost every job I've hard. We've all had jobs with aging, nasty, dustbunny PCs performing some menial function. You rarely if ever see Mac's in that role unless you are in the publishing/marketing world.
The analytical comments by Cringely and a few other journalists - more often than not, question Apple/Jobs approaches. The other journalists are lemmings and are easily impressed by what's "cool". It seems that if they like "cool" - that makes them "cool" too. The fact that Apple/Jobs is afraid to compete in the market place with overpriced products seems to escape these writers. The fact that Apple/Jobs produces products - which are predisposed to attempting to create a monopoly - for example the audio formats for the iPods, or the OSX can only run on Apple Intel boxes, or when only Apple's Superdrive could be used with their DVD software and so on. Price? I remember an article in MacWorld which shows the cost of parts for the MacSE was $350 - but cost me $3000. Its too bad these writers don't bring "Right Livlihood" into their stories. Then they would evaluate Apple differently - and would ask if any particular Apple product is "being all it could be" for the USER. Just look at Apple approach to H264 - which is marginal at best in terms of profiles and levels laid out in the spec. Even worse Apple Quicktime 7 h.264 interoperability sucks - sucks badly.
Am i the only one who thought this was totally backwards? I no longer pay much attention to mainstream news, but i've seen countless stories about viruses, trojans, system failures stranding US Navy ships, and so on, never with any mention of the fact that these problems are specific to Microsoft platforms. I can see some argument that in the case of things like ship navigation computers failing, the general public doesn't really care what OS the thing was running (i don't really believe that argument, but i think it could be made with a straight face). But the fact that end users could protect their home computer from the very threat that stories about viruses and the like are reporting on is directly relevant to the story at hand for the general public. The fact that i've never heard this mentioned at least suggests the existence of a pro-Microsoft bias in the stories.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
"This reality is not going to change. In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer...."
Hold on - because I'm not willing to subject myself to an intentionally crippled, mee-too operating system with world-class-ly obtuse interface elements, the worst security record on the planet, a loaded-dice browser and a word processor with over 1,100 menu items, I'm an unfit judge of technology?
At least even as a mac user I know you can put the windows task bar on another edge of the screen - something that never ceases to cause ark-of-the-covenant-blinding awe in the vast majority of windows users when I do it.
Which may only be topped by the revelation that you can take the marketing stickers off your laptop case. I've seen them five years old on the palmrest and rubbed raw.
Which is only topped by my taking the features sticker off the DISPLAY of the year-old digital camera I was handed the other day to take photo as a favor...
Please John, take off the tinfoil hat and do some journalism.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
From the article: "This reality is not going to change. In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer"
So they use Macs because they can't use a Windows computer? I think that says it all right there. Macs are easier for normal people to use. I use Linux, but I got a Mac for my wife.
... Mac's just rock in general so you can't blame the press for getting excited.
Q: When was the last time you saw something really sexy and easy to use come out of Redmond???
A: Never!!!
If Dvorak would say interesting things, I'd be tempted to read them.
-- Stephen.
Does the "media" have a bias towards Linux too?
The simple fact of the matter is that compared to OS X, or Linux (or hell even BSD for that matter) running KDE or GNOME, Windows looks and feels antiquated. Thats it - its that simple.
It does not even have a strong command line interface for experienced users. I think what we're seeing is that the media is following the progress of innovation.
Dvorak writes about Apple, complains about people writing about Apple.
Kind of reminds me of this famous exchange:
HEAD KNIGHT: He said the word again!
ROBIN: I was looking for it.
KNIGHTS: Aaaaugh!
ROBIN: Uh, here, here in this forest.
ARTHUR: No, it is far from--
KNIGHTS: Aaaaugh!
HEAD KNIGHT: Aaaaugh! Stop saying the word!
ARTHUR: Oh, stop it!
KNIGHTS: Aaaaugh!
HEAD KNIGHT: Oh! He said it again!
ARTHUR: Patsy!
HEAD KNIGHT: Aaugh! I said it! I said it! Ooh! I said it
again! That's three its!
KNIGHTS: Aaaaugh!
Packaging and Content is an almost orgiastic celebrated experienced Apple orchestrates (I mean look at this engadget piece of gargantuan designer-porn for heavens sake). It's showbiz. The media just looooves showbiz. I you've ever watched Fox News you immediatly recognize that they just serve a giant horror flick that tries to scare you - but it's a movie "based on real events" as they say in showbiz.
Asking if the showbiz is biased towards showbiz is like asking, if the fat kid is biased towards candy.
I think John C. Dvorak has an inherent anti-showbiz attitude that I give him great credit for. If you visit This Week in Tech, Episode 22 you will hear from 7:30 on that he holds an ipod in his hands for the first time in his life and he says it's pretty cool. This is the effect this product has on many people and mostly people connect to this positive experience.
On another point - media is expected to cover events of interest to the general populace. As Apple tends to implement certain changes earlier in their finished, shipping consumer product (USB, WIFi, iTMS, ZeroConf, mac-mini-formfactor, Quad processors come to mind) they do provide a nice outlet of new and upcoming tech trends in consumer tech land. So while there may be a correlation between showbiz-loving cutting-edge consumers and their reports on a showbiz-cutting-edge consumertech corporation I do not think it is necessarily a causality.
Code is Speech. No to Censorship.
I worked in journalism for 10 years. Maybe the percentage of Macs around was a bit higher than you'd find in the general business population, but not by much. Most media companies have large LANs full of Windows boxes. Sorry, but the offices of the New York Times and Time magazine aren't some Mac utopia where there's a Mac on every desk. There's a Dell on every desk. And most of the laptops are Thinkpads or Dells.
This is just Dvorak being a nut again.
Considering the source, so what? Dvorak does nothing but trash Apple. Everyone of his articles is Microsoft slanted. He's basically a MS Fanboy who probably gets paid well on the side by MS to say nice things.
After years of Dvorak's predictions of doom and gloom about the demise of beleagured Apple, he's probably just pissed that his predictions weren't only wrong, but that Apple's enjoying some success. So he does what everyone else does--blame it on the media.
go Astros!
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
If one's choice of hardware and operating system play such a key role in determining their journalistic bias, then it might usefully be argued that journalists and newsrooms that use Microsoft software running on Intel hardware would find it impossible to view Apple software & hardware in a positive light.
If this is so, then it might also explain the second-banannadom that Apple has suffered over the years. Mod me down if you like, O Macolytes, but part of the fervency of your devotion is that, for many years, you have gotten short shrift in the press, in the form of constant ruminations of Apple's imminent collapse. At best, Apple was damned with faint praise.
Personally, I think the present fuss has more to do with Apple's absolutely killer marketing and branding, which far surpass anything that the competition has yet been able to muster up. Their Stalinist level of control over everything--software, hardware, accessories, look, feel, heft, etc--has given their products a very consistent look across all lines. Even the name "Apple," is technical, nonthreatening, and cuddly.
Not a day goes by without two or more gratuitous articles about MS or its fearless leaders. Most of these are pure puff pieces and seem more like product placement than news. The MS pieces seem to make the headlines every day regardless of how new or relevant the content is. Most seem to have no other purpose than to put the company in the headlines.
Mine gets quarantined by SpamAssassin (or Postfix's blacklists).
I talk about stuff.
...I've been a Windows user since 3.0, and I still prefer my Macs for my day to day computing needs. Am I qualified to write stories about Apple products?
And I lift my glass to the awful truth which you can't reveal to the ears of youth except to say it isn't worth a dime.
I agree with Dvorak: it's those darn, girly-man, librul blue state writers that are making Mikersoft look bad! Why, every red-blooded Amurrican uses some kind of Mikersoft product, it's the patriotic thing to do!
Wasn't Linnix made by some Eurotrash guy? Probably French. Gosh Darn Them!
"My Operating System, Right or Wrong"
</sarcasm>
6.2
"If god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him" --Voltaire
They already seem to be doing that. They are abusing their near-monopoly position in the online music market and the victims of that are the poor record company executives and share holders.
By refusing to increase the price of songs and albums on the iTunes Music Store, these people now have a hard time scraping a living and feeding their children.
I think it is time for the DoJ to step in and end this unfair business practice.
Google + Apple = Goople!
Well at least Microsoft hase Kim Komando (and John Dvorak) to give us the real lowdown on Apple and Microsoft!
Microsoft is a sleeping giant. In the old days, let's call it the "Billic" period, the giant caused a pretty big ruckus. Thrashed about, threatened and stomped on competitors, etc. Remember? It was big, unstoppable, growing daily. The head was becoming the world's richest man, and thus had that extra bit of power besides the forces of momentum of the monstrous company beneath him. When the Bill-head spoke, people listened... for a while. Until things coming out of the Bill-head's mouth stopped making sense and reflecting reality. The final crumble of the Bill-head was the whole DOJ thing. The Bill-head made no sense anymore, and the giant was too long distracted to really worry about. Heck, it had stopped growing too, and drifted into a coma, hadn't it?
Then the Bill-head moved to the left shoulder and the Ballmer-head sprouted above the sternum. The Ballmer-head hasn't made sense at all. Everything the Ballmer-head seems to say is lost the next day. How many times has the giant _said_ it was going to focus on (i.e. crush) something and it not come to pass? The giant's body has actually gone into a coma -- things are still humming along, yet nothing too strenuous or dynamic, and certainly not novel or "run for the hills" earth shattering. The Ballmer- and Bill-heads are still yammering and murmuring though, respectively. The "Ballmeric" period is quite mild compared to the "Billic" period.
Now, let's look at the Apple giant. Yup, they were and are a giant, but for a while there, they were sinking. Really, if they weren't, what was it that Jobs turned around? If it was so swell, why did it not remain status quo? The Jobs-head of the Apple giant was very good at chewing on its extremities and saying the right things at the right times -- called "MacWorlds". It fell off for a while there, but the body lopped off its replacement head and stuck the Jobs-head back on... with some rather hefty glue. Things have been rosey and lickable ever since.
The Microsoft giant could awaken, pop out of its coma, given the right double-decapitation and replacement, but that's a rare event - and a tricky one too. The giant _will_ thrash though. At some point, the coma will cause more atrophy than the body can handle, and the giant will actually get up and _do_ what the head says at the time, with all the force of self-preservation. That could be a big mess or a big welcome change, depending on that whole decapitation thing.
To the media coverage of it all: rarely do journalists rate themselves in the masses. They are the educators, the seers, the guidance of the masses. Thus, they like to think of themselves as _peers_ to the giants. In their minds, elevated to a level noticeable by those giants (pro or con) but still respected by the giants, and definitely a level well above their readership. The giant that suits their personality best and maintains that lofty status will be their bias. Underdog (Linux), slick (Apple), friendly (Google), gynormous (sic - Microsoft)... whatever.
Bottom line, when the giants change, so do the loyalties.
It's not about a cult of personality, it's about Apple delivering clever, sleek, well-designed products that anyone can use. Whether it's UI, industrial design, services integration, whatever, they do a great job and set the standard for others to follow. It's natural that that type of org would get positive ink.
Besides, Mac users are always interested in what Apple will do next because most of the time it'll be interesting, cool, and sometimes will change the way we go about our lives. With MS, who gives a shit about paying attention to a follower and a bully?
..a damn tool!!!
Unless you've so thoroughly bought into the Windows environment, you cannot fail to see it for what it is: a deeply flawed, stagnant system. Network effects and Microsoft's (continuing) predatory monopolistic behavior are the only real reasons to use it.
-esme
Slate's Jack Schafer recently echoed Dvorak's points (or vice versa)
Ok, I'm a PC user, always have been. I like the idea of Macs, but I'm a gamer, so I have PCs. With that in mind...
So what he's saying is that mac writers are biased towards the benefit of Apple... They have Apple computers, they use Apple computers, they like Apple computers, and so they write about Apple in a positive way.
Now, think about the bias of windows users. They have Windows, they use Windows, they hate Windows, they write about Microsoft in a negative way (or not at all).
This is not just about bias because Apple computers are what people happen to use at the time. This is bias because Apple has created a product that its users appreciate. This is why Apple is in a position right now where its products are almost universally lauded, while Microsoft's are often reviled. The media reflects this.
It's Microsoft not living up to peoples' expectations, while Apple gives them a superior experience (and the people are glad for it). So yes, I guess you could say that people are biased towards getting what they want.
As far as I'm concerned it's not bias, it's karma.
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
I stare at computers all day, I do all sorts of crap with Windows, Linux, and what not. When I get home I don't want to dick with my computer, I want to use it. I dick with computers all day long. At home, I want something that just works and does what I want to do. With linux I had to carry a tool kit with me to install the simplest of things and god forbid you ask for help in doing it.
It just works. Windows didn't for me without spending money every year on anti-virus crap or my wife managing to get some malware emailed to her by her un-educated computer friends. It'd not shut down right, it'd take forever to come up, it'd blow up or need a new device driver for the next software package every time I tried to install something new.
It doesn't on my Mac. That's what happens when you trust a company that controls the hardware and the software, they don't have to work on the lowest common denominator because they control all ends of the spectrum. If you don't like it, don't buy it. But don't assume those of us who were building computers in a local computer store 15 years ago like to do it every year when we get home. It gets boring after a while and I'm not into the neon & blinky lights thing, I'm into the OS not getting in the way and a decent set of applications. I don't need 50,000 ways to read RSS, I need a good one. On the Mac I seem to find that more than on Windows.
I use Windows all day at work on my laptop, I use linux on my servers, and at home I get away from it all and run on my Mac.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
At the risk of being blasted for going 'off topic' - if it's possible that most mainstream media computer pundits are mac users and therefore they are biased towards macs, is it, maybe just possible that since the majority of journalist consider themselves 'liberal,' there is a liberal bias in the media? I don't mean to troll or anything, but I don't understand why the idea of a 'liberal media' is rejected flatly by plenty of people. There's no arguing agianst the fact that the vast majority of journalists consider themselves liberal; i don't have the data to back this statement up, but there have been plenty of studies. So why is it that so many people have trouble beleiving the idea that the media has a liberal bias?
My blog
In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer.
Heh. Now there's an argument the WinMedia didn't use against Linux. I'm not sure it speaks well of Windows though.
Meanwhile, some of the Unix sysadmins I know have recently switched to a Mac.
Therefore, if the non-technological end of the market goes to Apple because they 'simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer' and the tech-savvy are running Linux (and/or Mac's), what will become of Windows?
It sounds almost like Dvorak is trying to say 'Windows is dying!'??
--
Baremetalbits: A minimalist barebones computer review site
Geeky modern art T-shirts
Who submits an entry about the bias toward Apple and includes vituperance against Microsoft? How does bias rectify bias? Come on.
Anyone see a simalarity in the verbal feces they spew?
[warning... rant follows] ...was the last magazine I ever subscribed to. Why? Because the very first issue that came in the mail several years ago, they had switched their entire publishing system to Apple computers. I think that's great, because they are using a more efficient and wonderful system. But this magazine that covered cool science articles through the years, suddenly took a 180 degree turn and spent this entire article dedicated to being Apple's fanboy. Talking about how great Apples were, ad nauseam. I paid for this? The other magazine I subscribed to before turning into a coorporate shrill was Popular Electronics. The first issue they announced they were changing their name to Computers and Electronics and there went all the cool projects and the art of analog was lost.
Media journalists nowdays just want new toys. They get them not by spending their paychecks, but from hyping and begging through their print. Good riddance!
With no Microsoft-centric frame of reference, Microsoft cannot look good.
That MS is not looking so good?
MS would look better if the New York Times used PCs?
Everything looks better if you don't use it.
Exactly how "qualified" does one have to be in order to use Windows? Dvorak seems to be suggesting that Windows use requires some special college degree, but Macs can be used by everybody.
If so, then this just proves Apple's point and the point of the people writing the stories he is complaining about: Windows sucks because it is hard to use, counter-intuitive, and a kludge, while the Mac is elegant and user-friendly.
right now because I'm using an OSX machine at home. But when I get into work -I will comment from my 03 server (if it stays up long enough).
Dvorak writes:
"As big and as important as Microsoft is, the coverage of the company is quite mediocre. This is particularly true in the mainstream press. The reason for this is that today's newspaper and magazine tech writers know little about computers and are all Mac users. It's a fact."
Yes, it is also a fact, Dvorak is a moron. Microsoft coverage is mediocre because it is a mediocre company. The reality is that creative people CHOOSE to use Macs for specific REASONS. This is fact. Dvorak fails to mention that FACT.
Also, in reality, Windows users who don't have experience on non-Windows operating systems are not qualified to comment on Macs. I used to administer and use HP-UX unix for five years in a high performance CAD/CAM environment. I've also administered and used Windows NT 3.51, NT 4.0, 2000 Pro and XP. When I switched to Windows (forced) I found Windows NT to be a lacking, buggy, unstable operating system. NT 4.0 was a little better and 2000 was a lot better than 4. XP has shown to be better than 2000. However, Microsoft has yet to crack the Fortune 500 nut, which is the holy grail of computing. Inability to compete at the Fortune 500 level looks very bad. Windows dominance on the desktop has a lot more to do with IBM's missteps and Microsoft's marketing strategy than it has to do with a good operating system.
"...customers doing AB comparisons between the Mac and the PC--which kept the PC on the desktop."
Right, Dvorak. This was factually addressed in the previous paragraph. You just keep those rose colored glasses on. Choose your rip!
"Microsoft should make some headway with this biased crowd once the fanciful Xbox 360 arrives. It's got a creative GUI, is easy to use and navigate, and kind of has a Mac look to it. It also interfaces perfectly with the iPod. "Oh golly gee whiz wow!" And that feature alone will be the clincher."
Now that's funny! In reality Mac users think XP looks like Fisher Price designed the GUI. Some even think the XP makover was like putting lipstick on a pig.
To be honest I use a Mac because I do some niche, non-mainstream computing. If it weren't for that I'd be using a Window's box in a heartbeat. Things like browsing, blogging, shopping, emailing, word processing, music, photo editing, video editing, burning CD's and DVD's and some SFTP. You know, all the things that Windows sucks at.
In closing I'd like to say how Dvorak reeled everyone in just to push their buttons. He is one of the most obese Trolls I have ever seen.
A well-known, convicted monopolist releases buggy, unreliable software.
A well-known, convicted monopolist then seeks to sell a 'protection' service to keep said buggy, unreliable software working, and much of the media sees this as a boon.
A well-known, convicted monopolist releases 'leaks' of a 'Next-Generation' operating system, whose primary features are a new GUI, whose primary characteristics change substantially between each set of 'leaks'. Yet every tech journalist and their mother OOHs and AAHs these 'leaks'.
A well-known, convicted monopolist releases 'interviews' with the characteristics of a press release, discussing how growing markets represent a grand opportunity for the company. This same company, whose 'Next-Generation' operating system is extremely late and feature triaged to the point of unrecognition, is portrayed as setting itself up for a 'win' in that it will 'beat' current market leaders by providing features they've provided for years.
Yep; tech journalists are biased. Mr. Dvorak, please keep telling me about how Apple is doomed; it gives me a great way to discredit you with any PHBs who might actually be _reading_ your tripe.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Even if it's true that Apple gets favorable press coverage (which is obviously debatable), investors always seem to find a reason not to be optimistic on the company.
Apple was under-reported, and/or faced a more or less hostile press from probably 1995 until 2004.
Maybe the renewal of attention is because Apple is worthy of coverage. There is innovation and they are once again establishing the direction not only in the technology industry, but also seeding popular culture with technology.
To any writer worth his paycheck, this is a story to be on top of. There is no need any private agendas of biases to explain the interest in Apple. It's a positive natural thing.
It's good to see that he's keeping with the times. This is the same argument that the neocons use to galvinize their base.
Just like the oh-so-threatened christians out there, the PC users are being oppressed by the nasty minority! Woe is them! Oh, the humanity! The unjustness of it all!
How dare this minority continue to exist and, worse, be noticed!
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
In both cases users interact with the computer through some operating system, both systems run applications, have some sort of GUI interface, some filesystems, etc. The big idea is the same, ony the details differ.
The first computer I ever used ran VMS. Since then I used lots of operating systems and I have never had any problem switching from an operating system to another. I am a normal user, a theoretical physicist, not a software developer or computer scientist.
Whatever computer or OS I use, I do the same things, solve equations, write papers, surf the web, check my email, Give me a MACOSX machine, a Solaris machine, an AIX or HP Unix, or Windows or Linux machine, it is all the same to me.
The thing is, and here's where media coverage is biased, Steve Jobs is charismatic. The reality distortion field is nothing more than that. He's a strong and interesting leader that can make people feel the way he wants them to feel. He's a skilled orator.
Bill Gates, on the other hand... Isn't. He's dull, both to look at and to listen to.
Pretty and interesting people get more coverage in the media because they "give good face." Steve Jobs is probably the most stylish tech personality there is. That's why the media listens to him.
Shinma
Microsoft Corporation is a company that writes software most people just want out of the way so they can get to work.
One name inspires commerce, and the other name inspires thoughts of trips to the dentist's office.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
Ah, funsightful, or maybe insightfun.
Recent studies show that almost all of the press is biased towards Microsoft because almost every company uses Windows as their desktop environment.
(Okay, it's at 20% troll at the time of this posting, but, c'mon... only 20%??)
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
Whining or not, the idea that "newer" observers are not familiar with Windows shows how completely out of touch Dvorak is (at least on this point). Colleges (where writers are trained) are so PC-centric these days that it's almost unbelievable. At private schools where computers (usually laptops) are an obligatory item, the college frequently will provide one as part of the tuition package... and you can almost gaurantee that it will be a Dell.
Most journalism students in college these days grew up in the Windows-centered world that computing has become. I think you'll find that Apple has almost completely lost the educational market, and that most elementary and secondary schools use and teach Windows.
This is just nonsense.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
I think one of the main premises in the story is just outright wrong. The idea that windows requires more sophistication to use than Mac just doesn't cut it. Is it easier to use OS X than windows? Well quite likely if for no other reason than the UI is more consistant.
However, this has nothing to do with any sophistication required. It isn't that one needs more computer sophistication to use windows. It is just harder for everyone to use because the UI isn't as well thought out. Unlike other problems with windows this isn't really MS's fault. OS X started from the ground up quite recently and got to learn from all the problems with windows while windows needed to cater to the huge installed base.
Finally while this question of bias may be an interesting one to look into one shouldn't jump to conclusions. It *could* be that journalists are biased towards apple for cultural reasons. Alternatively if *could* be that apple really is better and it is everyone else who is uninformed. We need more than this to decide the issue.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Surely Dvorak hasn't simply ignored the possibility that people who say they use the Mac because it's better are honestly telling the truth?
It sure sounds like it.
So, um, if they are out of touch with technology, things like SOA, WinFS, XML quite frankly mean nothing to them. Those things mean nothing to my mother, she is a consumer. If a little application that takes your picture and does silly little special effects excites these reporters, or if a good looking and thinner (yes, thinner - hey it's THINNER) gets their hands all clammy - then, well, is that not a measure of a similar impact amongst other "out of touch" consumers?
Why would it surprise anybody that journalists who gives lots of positive coverage to Apple use Macs themselves? Wouldn't it be far more surprising - even suspect - if they were writing one warm recommendation of Apple products after another, while still just sticking to using a Windows box?
Newsrooms use Macs because they're publishing companies, which is one of the vertical markets Apple is strong in. This isn't a techie/English major issue; people on magazines have always embraced new technology. Back in the '80s, periodical publishers were laying out their periodicals on mainframes. Computerization helped get to press faster. Apple became strong in this market way back then, when the first desktop publishing applications came out for Mac first.
Dvorak's other premise is that coverage of the iPod reveals Mac bias, whereas in reality, iPods and Macs are different, but related, products. iPods were successful for reasons unrelated to the fate of the Mac.
My favorite point was when he said the Xbox 360 would end the bias. What does he think, that publishing houses would shift print production from a Mac/Adobe/Quark platform to the Xbox 360?
It's always lovely to hear Dvorak's extremely biased voice saying shit like this.
After all, the Newton was just a rehash of...well...um...er...Oh yeah! Apple actually DEFINED the term PDA.
Once again, Dvorak is to be ignored. Why do people read his slanted crap anyway?
Jory
Since when is an AC's link to an eight-year-old news article "insightful"?
...just makes me want to THROW A CHAIR!!!
"It's a wonderful idea. But it doesn't work." -- Tad Danielewski
... Microsoft cannot look good." Wouldn't someone who isn't Microsoft-centric be more likely to say good things about them? In Microsoft's case, familiarity breeds contempt.
Apple, back in the day, gave tremendous discounts to schools and learning institutions, in order
to get the personal computer into people's lives. What better way to INDOCTRINATE people, than
getting them to be exposed to the Apple product first? A ONE button mouse, for the easily confused,
nice easy GUI. Good graphics and sound capabilities.
The PC indusrty simple dropped the ball on this one. It is not magic. Most of those writers grew
up with Apple machines. Therefore the 'bias". QED.
They all cover Apple so heavily because its products are making waves, even with the glass ceiling imposed by Microsoft. When Apple succeeds, it's a feel-good story, because the better team is winning, despite how dirty the other team is playing. It gives the masses hope that something better is coming.
Quote: "With no Microsoft-centric frame of reference, Microsoft cannot look good."
Of course it can, in the same way Apple does: by making better products, which empower and enable, rather than taking up people's valuable time with administrative tasks. There's no unfairness here; if anything, there's evidence of a natural balancing force at work.
And there's nothing stopping Microsoft from using its power to change the world for the better. They certainly could, with over 90% of the market in their control; they simply choose not to.
The superiority of the ipod... or Its rather....
I am very intreged by your ability to be manipulated. Please contact me directly.
Thank You
R. Hubbard
The whining is getting a little crazy. Eric Alterman, in his book, "What Liberal Media?" calls it "working the ref." As a Mac user during the plague years, I can tell you the media was full of stories like, "Why Doesn't Apple Just Fold Up and Die?" for years. When there was any mention of the Mac at all. Every new triumph of the boring box with the Start menu-- I dare not say its name -- was heralded as the second coming. Now, of course, we can't believe the generally good stories coming out of the media because it's all commun-- er, evolution boosters-- er, gays-- er, people who use Macs! Ohmigod, did you know that 90% of journalists are communists who hate God, smoke and drink and believe your grandfather was an ape? Since Jobs came back, the Mac's gotten cool again, both because the box has improved tremendously, gotten UNIX on it, and integrated better with the, uh, box with the Start menu and the viruses and malware. So now, a few reviewers -- shudder -- have grown favorable to the Mac. (Dvorak, too, if you read him at all. In fact, he thinks the Start menu company whose name I don't dare speak -- the bucktooth-and-hornrimmed-glasses crowd-- is in rapid decline.) It couldn't be that the Mac HAS gotten better, has put together a powerful and easy-to-use box that integrates well with DV cams and iPods and the iTunes Music Store, No, it's a little clique of devil-worshipping, corrupt writers who are biased against God's Operating System!
Don't you people with mod points feel even slightly annoyed by someone yelling out what you should do with your mod points? If this guy really cared he'd be the king of meta-moderation and have mod points himself. You probably worked hard, slaving over a hot computer diligently meta-moderating to get those points, and this guy wants to take the easy road by just yelling at everyone. I think it's shameful really.
um. wasn't it less than ten years ago that the media were biased pretty drastically *against* Apple? every day saw stories of its impending buyout by (insert one of the following: disney, microsoft, sun, hp, sony, rupert murdoch), making the phrase "beleagured computer company" a cliche when describing them.
how much has really changed in the media since then? or to put it differently, how many of the people have changed?
i imagine there are oldsters still fighting technology, trying to sumbit their work in manuscript or manual typewritten form. so are the fogies that are running and editing things - they can hardly have an opinion based on their platform of choice, unless it's ballpoint versus fountain pen. it's the younger guys that are all writing for the internet and so comfortable with technology that they submit stories from their sidekicks and crackberries, that are so attached to their ultra-slim laptops that losing it is like losing a limb. and how many of them were still in J School when Apple was beleagured? so they were working on PCs in their formative years, and remember using windows to write and work on. whether they use macs now or not, they know *all about* windows and microsoft.
do you think maybe *that's* why some reporters are biased towards Apple?
hell, this is like dvorak saying that newspaper reporters are biased toward the literate.
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
That point is, that no other company with Apple's record on financial performance, or product innovation, would get the kind of applause it gets.
Now, this may strike you as unkind, but before reaching for the keyboard, have a look at
http://quicktake.morningstar.com/Stock/Income1 0.asp?Country=USA&Symbol=AAPL&stocktab=finance
Whatever we might feel, this is not the record of a great growth company. Its the record of a company managing to avoid disaster by the skin of its teeth. You don't agree? Take a look at the identical reports for Dell or Cisco. Like it or not, their performance sets the standards for excellence, and Apple's just doesn't match it. Not even close.
Then, if you look at innovation, you also have to look at product quality, and you have to look over time. What we are looking for in this league is a track record. Consistent performance. Well, remember the Performas? The 4400? 8.0? 10.0? Read Ars Technica on the various hardware issues. Read the forums on what screens you can and cannot use with the Mini.
Now, I am not saying all this is terrible or a total disaster. Not at all. It is pretty much run of the mill, quite reasonable. It is by no means at the bottom of the class. Its mediocrity with occasional flashes of inspiration, mediocrity punctuated by a few real hits. Could do much worse. But I am saying, with Dvorak and Slate, that this performance would never get the uncritical praise that Apple gets, if it were coming from another company. Surely you cannot argue with this, if you look at the facts.
Now, as to why. That's a really interesting question. Its about feeling. You can see the feelings in this thread. Why they get attached to Apple I do not know. But their nature is clear. There is felt to be something about identifying with this company and its CEO that in some way will make us special, give meaning to our lives, mark us out as being special. We will be Apple people. We will be, in the words of the Time Magazine article, among the "chosen of the earth". We will be associated with a CEO who is really looking out for us, and only takes $1 a year in compensation. Excluding stock options....
How buying one particular product can do that, well, those of us on the outside will not understand, really do not want to, and find these kinds of feelings, and their overwrought public expression, one of the worst aspects of the whole Apple phenomenon.
Ah yes, the low accuracy and low leve of knowledge illustrated in the first few sentences.
It is NOT and NEVER HAS BEEN "APPLE COMPUTERS".
See http://www.apple.com/ for more info.
This is sort of funny. For years, there was Microsoft/Intel bias in nearly everything that came out of the mainstream media. Apple could not get out of the footnotes.
Now, Apple has revolutionized portable music. People have finally started paying attention, giving Apple some fair non-biased coverage. Microsoft and it's supporters are in the unfortunate position of accepting the reality that not only are they with the wrong OS now, they were wrong all along. This is not going over very well... indicated by the whining we are now hearing. "Windows doesn't get enough press!" "Stop saying such good things about our OS's mortal enemy!" "All those reporters are Mac-using hippies, tell them to get a "real" computer!"
Come on folks. Face up to reality, windows is taking it from both ends: Desktop and Server, because it is now competing against products with such high quality that they can't even lie about them effectively.
Bill, the correct way to handle this is:
catch ( ResearchBudgetTooSmallException e){
researchBudget++;
prAndLegalBudget--;
}
Where you have:
catch ( ResearchBudgetTooSmallException e){
while (true) {
FUD.deploy();
}
}
"This reality is not going to change. In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer."
I've been a windows admin and developer for different companies... And I've used win 3.1 to server 2k3 (except for ME) including CE and Pocket PC.
I've used OS 9 (OS 9 did suck, but to be fair I only used it for a month or two), OS X and various Linux distros (I've used BSD and Solaris, but not enough to claim that I know how to use them well).
After using Linux and windows, I can tell you that OS X is a great product. And pretty much what I want the desktop on Linux to become (except I do like apt-get, which isn't GUI, but is a part of the OS). After using these things, you realize just how clumsy windows is (I didn't realize that I was UI abused, at first).
Oh, and about the newer part, I also belong to generation "Y". So don't worry Dvorak, the next generation will be fine, and besides, it's not like you really write about specific technology anyway, just company strategy and such.
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
I am a freelance newspaper reporter, and I use a Mac.
My mother is a newspaper editor, and she also uses a Mac.
THEREFORE, we can extrapolate from my family that 100% of reporters use Macintosh computers.
That's some mass-media-quality statistical research right there!
My experience with the media in this country (Belgium), is that they tended to bash Apple, even though many newspapers and magazines run on Macs. Face it: they have to write articles and make lay-outs on Macs all day long, and have a Mac overdose at the end of the day. My guess is that many of the reporters have Windows PCs at home, to take a break from the Mac environment they have to spend their working hours in. Not many people want to be reminded of their work all the time when they get home.
But after Apple had become cool because of the iPod, reporters tend to be more enthousiastic about other Apple products too, although Apple's non-iPod products still get little media coverage in this country. Apple's general image has simply changed, from "the company that makes weird computers that don't flow with the stream", to "the company that creates cool and stylish appliances". People who write newspapers don't want to fight the opinion of most people, they want to sell newspapers, therefore they follow this general image.
So I don't think there is any positive relation between the using of Macs by most writers and what they write about Macs. If there's any relation, it might more likely be negative. I believe the recent success of the company has a much more profound impact.
So David Pogue, the author of Windows XP Pro: The Missing Manual has no Windows frame of reference? How much of an idiot does Dvorak think the average reader is? As much as he is?
(That never happens on Slashdot!) Point well taken.
I admit that there _are_ colleges and universities that are mixed, or even where Apple is prefered (art schools?). I just think it's unlikely that there are going to be many college graduates who are completely clueless about Windows, as Dvorak is suggesting.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Crow T. Trollbot
dvorak.org/blog
I get no spam.
Here in Australia, the verb "to root" often has another meaning, and to make it more or less clear, the one doing the rooting is (more often than not) on top.
LOFL. The indignation of you all! The humanity!! Apple users being so offended at the implication that you may be biased because you use Apple products. Has there ever been a group of people so collectively biased and zealous as Apple users? Not that there is anything wrong with that, it's just that every argument you make and the outrage you show just proves this point. Too effing funny.
Dvorak is missing one vital difference between Apple and Microsoft.
Apple is a hardware and software company. Microsoft is an almost purely software company.
The buzz around Apple is almost always related to their hardware.
Microsoft, on the other hand, releases software which is much more difficult to review in a way that the average reader can understand.
If you searched against a news database and could find away to effectively filter out hardware related stories, you would likely see that Microsoft receives a whole lot more coverage than Apple when considering software alone.
It is interesting, however, that Apple does have this advantage over Microsoft. If Apple wants to explore new device markets, it has the freedom to do so on its own. Microsoft, however, has to cajole hardware vendors to create something they can put their software on. They are able to do this from time to time, but it hasn't been very successful (Pocket PC, Windows CE phones, tablets). This gives Apple the ability to define markets with Microsoft in the role of playing catch up with "me too" devices. In other words, Microsoft won't be successful until the market reaches the point of commoditization.
So they're...sheep who suck at their jobs, which is ostensibly objective news reporting?
I can't believe that so many people would argue that there is no bias towards Apple in the media. When I teach the concept of "suspension of disbelief," i.e. little illogicisms you're willing to overlook to move the plot along, the example I always give is that in the movies and on TV, everyone, no matter whether they're accountants or FEMA employees, everyone uses the brand-spankin'-newest Macintosh, with a big glowing logo on the side. And, you know, the reason that happens has nothing to do with endorsements, it has to do with the movie & TV makers wanting to support Mac. Flash or not, if less than 5% of the population prefers Mac to Windows (ditto for you Linux people), there is too much coverage of Apple. I mean, look at the ROKR--if that were made by anyone but Apple, it wouldn't have been covered at all! (What am I talking about, it was made by everyone, and with 10x the HD and for half the price, and the media was willing to pretend Apple was making something new!) and while their products are stylish and have religiously loyal followers, really have never been
--Colin Jensen
colinandbethany.com
I'd like to see some hard evidence that supports his claims. He says: "...today's newspaper and magazine tech writers know little about computers and are all Mac users. It's a fact."
But in typical Dvorak fashion, provides no evidence to support his positions. Where are the hard numbers that he based his conclusions on? There aren't any, because he pulls his supposed "facts" out his ass and presents them to the world. Typical Dvorak BS.
"...90 percent of the mainstream writers being Mac users..." --- Support your facts John. Where'd you get your numbers?
"I could list 50." -- So, then there's only 55 newspaper and magazine tech writers in the media? What a load of crap.
...Apple is no longer beleaguered?
Hehe, couldn't resist!
Most people are biased AGAINST Microsoft, not FOR someone else in particular. If, let's say, hamburgers were rammed down your throat every day for years, you'd be biased against hamburgers after about a week, and if you also were a writer, you'd praise the virtues of hamburger-free diet. Not because it's necessarily good, but because you HATE fucking hamburgers.
Same here. Plus, Apple makes some stunning products from time to time. This helps, too.
>>Oh, I don't, know, maybe the new OS they're planning on releasing next year called Windows Vista? >>Perhaps? The new Internet Explorer? The new Windows Media Player? The new Hotmail? The new MSN Search?
The new hotmail? Copying Gmail. And the New Yahoo. Bottomline: The let hotmail become a disgrace, and it collasped in on itself. They had to upgrade it to save it.
The new internet explorer? You mean "the less secure firefox knock-off"?
The new windows media player? You USE windows media player?
The new MSN search? You mean Google?
Look, people at MS use google to search MSDN. They don't use MSN, they don't use MSDN. They use iPod+iTunes. They use Firefox. Not everyone. YMMV. But MS is having trouble doing anything but following anyone, and back when Billg "had that revelation about the road ahead" and turned the company on a dime to focus on the internet, they were leaders. Not anymore. They let things stagnate, and that's death in this industry.
Sony is a big company like MS that faces this problem. Many times, sony's releasing divisions are competitors. Sony's DVD players let you pirate DVDs -- including ones from Sony Pictures. It happens.
MS doesn't do this -- they try to "bundle" all their products. And the end result so far is a whole worth less then the sum of the parts. So many of these lackluster products aren't "newsworthy" because all they're doing is catching up to their competitors.
I would be more concerned if the "bias" was contrived, i.e. some faction outside of the staff was influencing the content of the stories. Instead, this seems like reasonable human behavior when describing their world.
I would still expect objectivity in the form of stating facts without distortion, but in a subjective sense, how can a person NOT inject bias into any content they create?
That settles it, now I *have* to buy one. Refurbished Mac Mini here I come, just as soon as I've got the extra $$$. (I'm still a cheap skate. :-) )
Furry cows moo and decompress.
done by people who came out of Xerox (as did the GUI, as did the LAN, as did Smalltalk adn object-oriented programming.)
Apple created the field of desktop publishing because everything was in place to do it. But Apple DID create desktop publishing.
And they're a major force behind desktop video publishing, music publishing (iPod and iTunes,) and they're going to go into personal video making with the iPod big time.)
STOP THINGING OF THEM AS A COMPUTER MAKER! Apple isn't a computer maker. Dell is a computer maker. The thousands of mom-n-pop shops putting Windows boxes together are computer makers.
Apple are computer USERS and make stuff for computer USERS because computers are capable of doing it.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Apple is constantly having events, has a great image, works to make themselves visible and desirable. Of course they get media bias.
What's the alternative?
HEADLINE: MS STILL DOING THE SAME THING THEY WERE 4 YEARS AGO
Apple puts out updates very regularly, usually substantial updates. They have not only pretty software, but pretty hardware. They have an image. To put it simply, they're easy to make into a story.
As opposed to your whining bitching complaints which really boil down to your insecurity and jealousy. Turd.
Cuz last time I looked all the PC/Developer Mag were Microsoft centric and so biased towards Microsoft that you'd think the only computer os in the world was Windows. What's the difference? Oh I guess because the Wall Street Journal, et al are no longer ringing the death kneal for Apple that he's pissed. Apple actually survived and is now starting to make inroads while Microsoft just stagnates.
It's not a Windows world, it's not a UNIX world, it's not a Mac world (technically same thing as UNIX just better branding). It's a computing world.
I'm sure that there have been a lot of writers in the publishing world that has lost a lot of time and patience to Microsoft. Now it's pay back since the entire 90's was nothing but Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft. They stayed in the closet. The 21st century is all about getting out of that closet and enjoying the fact that you run an Apple computer. Like the 1st days of computing. When the only fun computer was an Apple. Hey, the only fun computer has always been an Apple for me. Go figure
Save Pangaea!! Stop Continental Drift!!
With 90 percent of the mainstream writers being Mac users
Where does he get 90%? Is there a poll out there questioning tech writers at random as to their computer preference? If that is true and the tech media is so bias toward Apple, then people must not read their columns because 90% of users use Microsoft. I personally think 99% of cnet columnist use PC's because they are so bias towards Microsoft.
I just 99% out my ass
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Sorry... got caught up in the moment. Carry on.
All of the arguements against Dvorak have been stated but we have to remember he's doing this to get attention to his article, company, to make money. News sells.
It might help your argument if the ROKR were in fact actually made by Apple, but alas, it's not. Do note, too, that coverage of the ROKR has been lukewarm at best and derisive at worst (which of course could reflect this Apple bias, since it's not an Apple product that's getting the mediocre-to-poor reviews the ROKR is getting, but it doesn't particularly reflect well on Apple that this disappointing thing is the phone that can use iTunes, for the moment).
What news? He's not reporting news, he's justifying his own bias by making up statistics that he provides zero support for.
"This reality is not going to change. In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer. With no Microsoft-centric frame of reference, Microsoft cannot look good."
So, less qualified observers won't be able to use Windows? I don't know a single person who can't at least write a paper with MS Word on Windows. I know lots of people that look at the Mac with fear. I personally am one of the few people in my group that is a Mac owner, user, and preferrer (over Windows... I also use an SGI), so I don't feel like I try to hang out with only my own crowd of Windows zealots. I just don't believe that the differences between the basic user experience of Windows or Mac OS are so completely different that a Mac user could not sit down and write a paper on a Windows user, and vice versa. Heck, even the document writing software can be the same - Microsoft Word.. or OpenOffice.
Anywho, I don't see why being able to use Windows vs MacOS makes you more or less qualified to observe the industry and comment on its changes... a completely impartial observer that used typewriters would probably be a better tech columnist anyway.
Dvorak sounds like one of the dinosaurs defending any older technology that is being passed by. He also sounds like a typical PC elitist... which is no better than a Mac elitist. To say that the Windows system is soo much more complicated than the Mac system... Mac elitists claim that the Mac is soo much easier to use than a Windows system. They have the same file-system user interface structures (disks and directories filled with files), the same web browsers, the same icons to launch the same applications, the same names for menus (file, edit, view, help, etc.), the same buttons to maximize/shrink/close windows, and only slightly different methods for switching between open applications. What's the big deal? I'm not claiming that they are so the same that there is no difference, but the basic UI elements are so similiar in base-level functionality that a user of one system should not be totally thrown by the other system.
I feel your pain. You buy your Apple products but you are still not cool. Girls won't talk to you and Bono won't return your emails.
It's ok. Macs are so easy to use. They let you be so carefree! It's simple to forget who you are and why you are here.
When Apple switches to Intel you'll be half way there! Halfway to a real computer, a real OS, and a real life. The next step in weaning you off the Apple mind control teat is to JUST LET GO. It's ok to spend $599.00 on a kick-butt computer that is useful and will hold it's value for years to come. You don't have to spend $2500.00 on a "Super Computer" that is all shine and no huevos. You can spend the money you save on Dinner and Movie - which is so much more tried and true than hanging in a coffee bar with your shiny Mac. They ain't gonna bite. And you will finally end that dry spell you've had since 1984 - the year of the big let down.
Won't somebody please think of the children?!...
I remember back when the Macs first came out. I was about 19 or so at the time, and doing some work where my father was employed, CSC. And an interesting phenomenon started to happen once the office got a few Macs for word processing work.
There were 5 Macs, and over a dozen PCs around, that could be signed up for to do the work. This was prior to everyone having a PC at their desk. Most guys didn't need one there.
The 5 Macs had a waiting list of a few days for doing word processing. You could walk in at any time and use a PC, no worries or hassles over someone else using one. Why?
Because when you used a word processor on a Mac, what you saw on the screen was what you saw on the paper when you printed it. Plain and simple. You could use any word processor on a PC, and it wouldn't be a truetype font, no matter what you used. So, folks started to fight over the use of the Macs to get a proper visual representation of what their document would look like.
That sentimentality really took hold with journalists. They really wanted to see what that article was going to look like, so it went to the editor with a better presentation. And a mindset was born.
Add to that the prevalence that most schools/universites had for Macs through special programs that Apple has/had, and journalists came out of school knowing the Mac more often than they knew the PC outside of gaming. And with the lack of games for the Mac, it carries are more "workplace computer" air than the PC does.
Apple is very good at product placement, too. If you watch any movie that has someone that does writing, they always seem to have a Mac laptop in hand, or a Mac in their office. It's a deliberate ploy by Apple to make sure their computers are viewed as journalist friendly.
Today, you can do all of that with a PC, for sure. But, the mindset of most journalists have been set.
As someone who supported 5000 machines, mostly made up of Windows PCs I can say that I like the Mac better. It's the reason that I use a Mac as my main computer. I have a Windows PC, but I only use it to play City of Heroes, I see no other use for it. It's not because I don't know how to use it, it's because the Mac offers a better user experience, IMO.
Apple gets better reviews, even for mediocre product releases, because they have built up a history of innovation. It's the same reason that even when Mercedes releases a stupid car it still gets a somewhat positive review.
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
... the meaning of "invention" and "innovation"
Those bastards! I just noticed they're using some stupid banner advertising which actually overlaps and hides the right side menu. Even my FF fell prey to it's mighty marketroid claws. You bastards!
/. overlord bastards!
By the way, anyone else notice that model used in the "Yahoo HotJobs" banner looks like Norm McDonald??
I for one reject my new
After all, the Newton was just a rehash of...well...um...er...
The Go Company pen computer
The Momenta Company pen computer
The PI Systems Company pen computer
Just a few that I can remember from the time. There were others.
Apple never does anything new. It puts other people's good products into an Apple package and puts out a press release. Then the news media people, who all use Apple computers, go bonkers.
Apple products are like the products of the high fashion industry. High style, pretty people, good quality fabrics and tailoring, fantastic press coverage. But completely worthless for the mass marketplace.
Listen carefully...ALL media is biased in some way or another. If I used a computer, any computer, and really enjoyed it, I would obviousely have a bias towards it. What's your solution? Give them all PCs? What the people who write about PCs, does that make them biased. I bet any media person who writes good things about Linux owns a Linux box. Is this biased?
Bottom line is, if you can't deal with the media biases then don't listen to the media. Don't take it out on the company their biased towards.
This reality is not going to change. In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer.
So either Windows is so difficult to run that technology observers aren't able to run and maintain it correctly (and thus opt for the much easier OSX) or these less qualified observers have decided that they don't want to be bothered with Windows and it's assortment of viruses (apprently decisions like this make them less qualified in Dvorak's eyes).
DVORAK: Bill, did you see my latest column?
BILL G.: Yeah. Great work.
DVORAK: Where's this week's check?
Back in '96, I don't think I read one positive article about Apple computer, though there were literally thousands of articles praising Microsoft. Dvorak is simply a Hypocrit.
This is a good idea. Seriously. Whenever I read any of the shit that this guy writes in the name of journalism, I feel strong need to punch him, and I'm not normally a violent person. I think there is also something about his stupid mugshot that adds to my rage, too.
If Douglas Adams is so smart, how come he's dead?
Bite the hand.
I have used both platforms and have thrown my mouse against the wall with a "Fuck You Bill Gates" more than once and have never been so provoked by frustration with Mac. Is this due to media spin or my user experience?...I think the later.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
The media has a left-wing, apple bias. But... did you notice that you can't spell Microsoft Windows XP without the letters F-O-X N-W-S. That's right, Fox News, fair and balanced, pro MS
Yes, I'd say you are the backwards one.
system failures stranding US Navy ships...never with any mention of the fact that these problems are specific to Microsoft platforms
That case was a lot of publicity blaming NT for what was an application failure: divide by zero in a distributed database app. The bad press was based on misleading statements from one Navy computer tech, sour about not being involved in the decision making process.
Not all bugs originate in Redmond, WA, as the Firefox team is learning.
All other things being equal, doesn't this just mean that Apple products are more, for lack of a better word, worthy of coverage?
If people who, presumably, know more about technology than the average person choose to use Macs, what does that imply?
Linux is for people who hate WIndows.
Macintosh is for people who love computers.
Windows is for people who don't know any better.
The Admin and the Engineer
You know, 15 years ago or so I was routinely pointing out to writers like Mr. Dvorak how badly they were skewed towards writing about Microsofft and Windows, because it was what they were running, but the complaint fell on deaf ears.
So for all of these years, these "tech writers" have been helping to prop up Microsoft by writing puff pieces about their products, and have been able to make a living by doing so. But now that these same tech writers see a newer batch of tech writers which are moe interested in what Apple does than what Microsoft does, they just can't take it.
Well Mr. Dvorak (and your ilk), suck it up. You're the pot that calls the kettle black, and thus I have no sympathy for your position.
Yaz.
Come on, people! John Dvorak will say ANYTHING to get people to read him. "Overcoverage"? Who is he trying to kid? Media writers aren't biased toward the Mac or Apple. Take a look at all the negative press the iPod Nano got. Also, isn't the media saying what a huge FLOP the video iPod is going to be?\
Let's do a quick check of Google News:
"Microsoft" Results 1 - 10 of about 46,900 for Microsoft. (0.30 seconds)
"Apple" Results 1 - 10 of about 24,700 for Apple. (0.31 seconds)
Just over half as many news articles covering "Apple" as covering "Microsoft".
Apple is currently flying high, and so, in spite of it's burgeoning reputation as a near-universal evil, is Microsoft.
Why does Dvorak have a problem with this?
It's even worse in the design media. While many journalists in general media are Mac users, designers and design publications are overwhelmingly Mac-based. If you look at design magazines like I.D., Dwell, How, etc., you'll see that they practically pee themselves over every Apple product that comes out.
Even when Apple has gotten things right, reporters have wrongly criticized their actions, likely creating a negative sales impact. A little praise is long overdue and certainly won't sway the religious PC user. And yes, it's deserved. Apple represents the high-end computer market, a niche no one else wants. And no, an Alienware box does not compare, as sexy as their cases can be. Apple has been jabbed at by just about every magazine and news service over the years. I even remember an episode of Computer Chronicles where the hosts vocally criticized Apple's decision to offer CDROM drives... "People don't need that much storage! Apple seems to be lacking the business sense IBM has with their PC." Apple was criticized for ending the floppy drive and even criticized about dropping legacy serial ports to embrace USB, a standard they helped create. See a trend?
Meaning, with even a neutral frame of reference, Microsoft would not look good. Microsoft can only look good if you're coming at them from a MS-centric frame of reference. Maybe this guy's onto something.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
in the movies and on TV, everyone, no matter whether they're accountants or FEMA employees, everyone uses the brand-spankin'-newest Macintosh, with a big glowing logo on the side. And, you know, the reason that happens has nothing to do with endorsements, it has to do with the movie & TV makers wanting to support Mac.
I'd wager it has more to do with the fact that Apple pays (paid) for product placement. StargateAtlantis uses a lot of Dell laptops on their show. Do you think that's because the producers love Dell or because they were paid to use Dells.
When in doubt, follow the money.
I resemble that comment, sort of. I'm not new, because I've been using PCs since 1987, Microsoft crap even. Less qualified? I'm wondering what qualifications it takes to dig through the M$ GUI. I don't know but that's probably because I don't have any M$ certs, but I'd hate to call myself a less qualified observer when I'm a proficient coder and administrator and master of six or seven free GUIs. Can I use a M$ computer? Yes, but it's painful and sucks life.
It might be that all those large organizations use anything but M$ because M$ simply sucks. In that case, the writers are not biased, they are knowlegable.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Editors at automobile magazines are more likely to drive expensive models which is why their coverage of low end Fords and Chevys is poor given their high marketshare and BMW has more coverage than its marketshare warrants.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I worked at a media company and did hardware, software and gadget reviews. Maybe it was just me, but I tended to purchase the products that I gave good reviews to as opposed to those that I thought sucked. Thus, I bought Macs, Apple software and iPods.
IOW:
Objective review -> Personal buying decision
Bias would've been if I had some vested interest in giving a positive review to an Apple product or negative review to others.
I also worked in content syndication and did analysis of what news/reviews were more popular. Apple stories always rated waaaaay higher than their market share would indicate. This is more due to the interest in their products, company and CEO personalities. They almost always have a good story or angle.
Over-covering Apple in this regard isn't showing bias...it may be selling out and not upholding high journalistic standards, but it's not bias.
Meanwhile, companies like Microsoft have blown their editorial interest wad on viruses, spyware, trojans, etc... And how many *news* articles can you do about Windows XP turning 1 year old, 2 years old, 3 years old...6 years old? Or how Internet Explorer may someday have the features found in other browsers for the past few years?
The entire article must immediately be marked - 5 Troll/Flamebait.
-5 Critical of Apple
-5 Trolling for MacBigots
-5 Flamebait, facts do not praise Apple
+5 Interesting
+5 Informative
Final Score:
-5 Balsphemous
This post: -1 Redundant, everyone knows this already.
A decade ago, about one decade after the launch of the Macintosh, virtually EVERY mention of Apple by the press attached the adjective "beleaguered" to the word "Apple." It was as if the press had universally decided to change the name of the company to "Beleaguered Apple Computer Inc." They spoke in glowing terms about such industry darlings as Gateway and Compaq. (heh) Mr. Dvorak, who spent a stint as a columnist at MacUser magazine in the Mac's first peak years ('88-'94), followed the herd and became the tech journalism's leading Apple-basher. He, more than any other industry pundit took it to the logical extreme and repeatedly pronounced Apple dead. Or near dead. Or almost nearly kind of dead. Over, and over and over again.
Now, Jobs has managed to turn Apple around, and make it into an industry leader once again. Mr. Dvorak's favorite monopolists have become the General Motors of the tech industry (read: bland, predictable, flawed, and boring - producing pablum with zero innovation or appeal.) The herd is all flocking to Apple now. Big deal.
Now Dvorak has stopped writing anything particularly useful, and his just become a industry gadfly; saying stupid things to piss people off. He hasn't stopped beating this anti-Apple drum for the past 10 years. Why? It gets him attention. That is all. He has decided to just be a black sheep. Same herd, just a different coat. Just because.
The thing that is odd, is that in some ways he was right. Apple is dead. The old, Performa/Quadra/Michael Spindler/John Sculley/Pink/Taligent/Copland Apple is dead. The Apple of today is nothing like the Apple of a decade ago. Nothing. Thank Jobs.
The technology journalists aren't "biased" they are just praising a set of quality products from a quality company. The fact that they actually USE the products isn't a bias, it just is.
--chuck
Why must slashdot report every silly rant that this Dvorak fellow has ever made? The guy's an idiot - we only needed a number of these slashdot articles to prove that. He doesn't have any real control over the computer industry. He's just a public troll, and I'm a firm believer in the idea that one should not feed the troll.
Is there a way to filter out Dvorak articles from slashdot?
Just sour grapes. Is Mac superior to Windows? In every way, unless you want to play games. Games. That's all you've got with Windows, but it keeps it on desktops and got it into the server room. Think about it, if you are capable.
The interesting thing though, is the amount of Powerbooks in TV and movies you see with their Apple logos blanked out (usually a gray disc over the Apple logo). TV shows and movies often uses Apple simply because they look like a computer should look (in the eyes of studio execs I guess). I suppose its possible Apple paid for these placements as well (albiet less than if the logo was displayed), but it seems unlikely.
Don't post them unless they're about the keyboard layout.
Yes, OS X was a stylized rehash of, basically, FreeBSD. They took a PC operating system, ported it to PPC, and threw an Apple-ish GUI on top. How is that not a stylized rehash of a PC product? BSD had been on PC's for years.
And yeah, I know he predicted the move to Intel but stand that one success up against the staggering trail of wrong predictions in his career and you've got a guy who has made a career out of pulling things out of his ass. It's like the old saying: even a stopped watch is right twice a day.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
These days, many people who are very involved in technology *don't* build their own machines any more, because they're starting to realize what a waste of time and effort that is. I spent close to 10 years preaching the benefits of "rolling your own" home-built PC, but know what? I highly doubt I'll ever do it again if I need a whole new computer. The only reason I've messed with it at all lately is because I've still got a good quality Antec tower case here with enough good, working parts in it that it's been more economical to do a motherboard swap and a hard drive upgrade to it than to sell off the entire box and start over. But come the next round of upgrades? The whole thing will probably go, because now I'm looking at the need for all new cards (PCI Express) and different RAM for the next motherboard and CPU, plus most likely, a new power supply to handle it too ... and by then, my SCSI DVD-ROM slot-loader drive will make sense to replace too.
I run into people who "hate Apple computers and everything about them" all the time too, but when you quiz them on all the "whys" behind their stance, you almost always find that they haven't spent more than 5 minutes in front of OS X and they're still griping about some miserable MacOS 8.x or 9.x experience on a Performa machine from 1996 or 97. Furthermore, some take a purely political stance, claiming that since Steve Jobs is a Democrat, they won't support his company or products. (WTF? Even Rush Limbaugh has gone on the record saying how much he likes Apple computers.)
I'm not a technology writer by trade, but I do computer support for everyone from graphics artists and designers to newspaper columnists and book authors who work from home, and Macs are seen in these scenarios much more often than not.
Myself? I use both PC and Mac - but my last few computer purchases have been Macs. I home built a MythTV box running Linux, and I've used Linux on a Dell server in the past as a web and development server for a project I was doing with some friends. I'm pretty comfortable using whatever platform and OS I choose. But for the computers I use every day for email, web surfing, typing up papers, editing video and photos, and a little game playing on the side too - the Macs have been just as reliable or more reliable than anything I've built from parts on my own. They do have a price premium, but I consider that the cost of the OS and bundled software - and I'm ok with that.
Obviously. But, why?
Is it just to garner some kind of perverted form of celebrity? An, "If they all hate me then they know who I am" sort of thing?
Obviously the publication he works for is somewhat biased, but most of that publication has been becoming more level about the whole Apple thing. What makes him such an "anti-Mac zealot"?
I have been unable to locate the "story" he recently wrote in which he claimed that he wasn't anti-Apple. I seem to recall one recently. I think it was a comparison of Vista and Tiger which was skewed in the regular Dvorak way...
I can only think of you with pity for having encoded all 8000 songs in WMA, and then not being able to use them with a decent portable player.
You can use the iPod and never once have a DRM song touch your player. I have hundreds of CD's and they ripped just fine to DRM free MP3's.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Those who know a lot about technology build their own machines and, nowadays, are putting GNU/Linux and other free software OSes on them.
You are confusing people who have a lot of free time with and know about technology with the wider set of people who know about technology.
I used to build my own computers, and install and run Slackware on them. Heck I even had to fix a broken ethernet card driver once long ago and did so happily.
As I get older though I don't have as much free time and my interests technologically speaking are more oriented to making personal web sites work and the like, not making my OS work. My OS is a tool I use to get other things done - therefore I use a Mac.
Now at work I contiue to use Linux where I can simply because it's a better choice for what I do (development). But at home I want at least one computer taht is simply going to work without fuss and that's what Apple provides.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Well, here's the problem. The Mac, and the entire Apple experience, is intuitive for a certain kind of person. Artists, fashion mavens, leftists, and other creative personalities can sit in front of a 12-inch PowerBook and just "get it," but accountants and everyday pencil-pushers don't have a prayer. Unattractive squares should stick to Linux and Windows. Macs are for different thinkers.
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Evidence?
http://img399.imageshack.us/img399/5269/img01318b
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/3639/img66457j
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/4251/img02729p
http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/7792/img08079i
http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/3600/img10156rv.
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/2539/soho0uj.j
http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/5614/img66606p
http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/6756/img64271jj.
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/5082/bleeder0w
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/1672/img85083c
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/7234/img82642a
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/787/img60047ow
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/4819/img58719t
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/9681/img46882w
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/8519/img45081g
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/3102/img39464t
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/7783/img07414p
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/5816/img07328r
http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/5096/img07309m
Versus:
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/3118/ms1by.jpg
http://img270.imageshack.us/img270/7789/linuxnylu
Ah, typical. Make up stories to try to make yourself feel better about your lack of cash and reality. Too bad you live next to that dump driving that POS Yugo and have to rape hookers to try to take your pent up frustrations out on somebody that at least pretends to care about your pitiful existence. Next time you're masturbating while torturing small animals and punishing yourself, keep telling yourself, it's all Apple's fault that I am such a turd.
With no Microsoft-centric frame of reference, Microsoft cannot look good.
Even then, you still Can't Polish a Turd.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer
I think he meant to add "any longer" - sounds like Dvorak has been using beta copies of Vista and Office with the new UI.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you want to write an exciting article about all the next-generation OS technology and improvements coming out, you can either wait 2-5 years to write the Windows article, or you can write the same article about Apple -- today.
Clippy has been old news for years. NT has been old news for years. XP has been old news for years.
This article by Dvorak represents something of a huge milestone for Apple. It was just a few years ago that the media was all over Apple - in a bad way! Everything that you read about Apple indicated that it was a sinking ship (or already sunk). I was at Apple's World Wide Developer's Conf. just after Jobs came back to Apple, and he said that step #1 for Apple was to stop the bad press (which he admitted was well deserved). Step #2 to empower developers (gotta say that at a WWDC), and step #3 was to produce great products. He's been sticking to the plan. The bad press slowed down, then for a couple of years you didn't hear anything about Apple in the press (most thought they had gone away). Now Dvorak has confirmed that they're back - in a big way. It's been an amazing turnaround!! If I recall, Dvorak was one of the ones in the media leading the charge in smearing the Apple - only difference between now and then is that back then he had lots of company and he was lov'n it. Now he's pretty much alone, so all he can do is whine.
Apple: Are Media Writers Biased Towards Windows?
Art Vanderlay writes:
"Readers should not be surprised by overcoverage of Microsoft Windows since the tech writers and columnists for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and Fortune are all Windows users.
According to John Dvorak of PC Mag, no one seems to point out the connection between the skewed coverage and the existence of this peculiar conflict of interest based on the national writers' use of Windows. He feels the newsroom editors are generally so out of touch that they can't see this bias and are also Windows users.
"From the article:
"This reality is not going to change. In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Apple computer. With no Apple-centric frame of reference, Apple cannot look good.
The company essentially brought this on itself with various PR and marketing policies that discouraged knowledgeable coverage. I'll save those complaints for a future gripe session."
~hylas
"Just because people use the products or are even advocates of it doesnt mean they are bias in their work."
/.?
They've got a picture of broken Windows and Gates as a Borg, and you're saying there's no bias on
Vote for Pedro
You're right, because, well, we *all* know blanket statements are awesome, and never wrong. We also all know that the basis of your experience should be used as the metric against which all other experience is measured. Plus, using the term 'M$' truly lends weight to your opinion - it doesn't make you sound or seem like a zealot at all. Really!
They're talking about exposure. If you've never been exposed to a windows PC to get day-to-day things done, it WILL be harder. Just like someone having to use a Mac with no exposure to them will find that harder. Given the choice, people take their own path of least resistance. It's not simply "X sucks, Y is better".
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Before joining Ziff-Davis, John Dvorak
had a column in Infoworld. He left almost
at the same time as Steve Jobs left Apple.
In his last column for Infoworld, Dvorak
heaped p_ss and s_it on Jobs.
The article is not online. Any Slashdotter
has access to it and would be ready to
post it here? It is really enjoyable.
I see good ol' John Dvorak has changed is tune over the years... Anyone remember that Apple should be dead by now? (How many times has he predicted it?) Now he is lamenting that there are large portions of the computer using population who have no Microsoft Windows experience? My, my, how times have changed.
"...observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer."
They report about Macs, because Macs are computers that people can use.
I think MS Rep comment on this topic would be something like that:
MS Rep: What is this about Windows having no coverage? Microsoft has Rob Enderle to speak for us.
? . . . [ thinks ]
?? . . . [ thinks and taps his fingers ]
??? . . . (enderle = moron) + (enderle->public_opinion = MORON) . . . (speaking -> us) . . . = suicide ???
??? . . . UAAAAAHHH?
[screaming, but without Ballmers patented friendly gesture like throwing chairs]
[runs into the sunset waiting for his XBox 360 to get HD-DVD support]
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
I stopped reading at: According to John Dvorak
I'm posting this so that you (the moderator) have some context to consider twitter and not mod him up whenever he posts his filler preformatted rants about installing Knoppix or Mepis or whatever that unfortunately get him karma every single time and allow him to continue posting his trademark toxic crap (read on) day in and day out. You may consider this a troll - I consider it community service. And I ain't kidding.
If you're a /. subscriber, I invite you to look through some of his posting history. I guarantee that you'll be hard pressed to find someone that is more "out there" than twitter. You'll also probably notice he's got quite an AC following. Don't just read his posts, make sure you go through the replies.
To get an idea of what I'm talking about, check this post out. This is an article about email disclaimers. The parent of the post is complaining about the ads in the linked page and so on, and twitter actually goes off on a rant to blame it on Microsoft and recommend Lynx, because "is teh free".
Here's another. In this post twitter not only calls the OP a troll but attempts to "tell it like it is" while making some vague argument about "GNU". Yes, if you're confused, you're not alone. The reply (modded +4) proceeds to simply destroy his bogus argument. You will notice he did not reply. This is what some people call "drive-by advocacy". A sort of I'll just leave you with my thoughts here and move on to the next flamebait kind of deal. In fact, he almost never replies because he knows that his fanatical arguments simply do not hold up to any sort of discussion. It's not that he's chosen the wrong cause - he's just going at it in a completely wrong way.
Here's that drive-by advocacy and FUD in motion: twitter goes on about some topic and then drops the usual "oh and M$ is teh evil" because "WMP phones home" or some such. Called on his FUD, he then claims that WMP stores every song and movie you've ever played in a file, somewhere. Pressed further, he just sort of slithers out of sight, his FUD-spreading complete. This is not about some Microsoft technology that nobody likes anyway; it's about lying for the sake of lying. Way too many of his posts are exactly like this one.
More? Just read though this post and the subsequent replies. I guess this stands on its own. Or these two. Or this one. Or this one.
Still not convinced? This is what twitter considers "humour" while going about his daily "M$" routine.
M
>>Hate to tell you this, but for the rest of the world, Jobs isn't a celebrity. The "rest of the world" doesn't read tech articles either making your statment pointless. In the tech world he IS a celebrity. Regarding the news blurb I think the claim is rubbish. Why? Apple has simply been innovating non-stop since Steve came back. And that leads to news. If the claim was correct then the following wouldn't be worthy news: iPod nano. iPod with movie playability iTunes tv downloads available G5 Dual Core CPU's arrive Those are all valid tech news therefore the claim is flat out rubbish. By comparison what has the "wintel" side of things innovated on lately deserving coverage by those media sources in the last 2 months? How about the last 4,6,8? Heck how about a year? - Very little, and part of the reason is wintel is disjointed, made up of many different companies so the few innovations go relatively unnoticed. disclaimer: I'm a wintel and lintel user so I'm not a "mac"addict. I simply recognize recognition no matter who/what does it.
try light mode
The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place."
- Douglas Adams
Keep fucking those penguins up the ass while you tell yourself about how it's ok to work for sub-minimum wage emptying the port-o-lets. At least you have your refurbished Wal-Mart Lindows special to make yourself feel important and accomplish nothing. Hah!
Another classic twitter post!
.
Please try to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
"Folks, the Mac platform is through... ." - John C. Dvorak, 1998
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Apple is the company that wrote MS word for Microsoft when they first started out. Wonder why a M$ product has been around so long...its becasue Apple laid out the foundation.
I value a large and innovative game selection. Wouldn't use Windows otherwise, but no other PC platform can match it.
Pre-OS/X Mac was a lot easier to program than Windows. Haven't tried it since, but I imagine it's still comparitively easy. Why don't more game companies release things on Mac the same time as Windows? Gamers would leave Windows behind, and shortly thereafter, the rest of the world would follow the innovation.
Also, they should run on my SE/30 running System 7.
Writers overwhelmingly use Macs because they can't afford the effort required to keep them running, or the downtime when they are stopped cold by viruses. They are certainly being "objective" in the choice of machine that they demand for their work. They can't afford to be "impartial" about their bread-and-butter. That should say something.
I have two author friends. Both run Macs. The first one used a pc until he lost weeks trying to keep the damn thing running. No he doesn't have an"IT" guy to maintain a firewall, virus software, malware software, and daily windows fixes. He took my advice and bought a iBook. He never regrets it.
Be heard || Be herd
This is just like in the movies. The next time your watching some movie that subtley includes computers you'll notice that all the bad guys use pc, while all the good guys use macs. It's pretty appaling.
Well, maybe Microsoft should do some hard thinking about that!
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
If most of the journalists at the NY-Times etc were, say, liberal, would that too constitute bias?
~Yawns~ Huh... Devorak spouting more bull shit again.... ~yawns~ Wake me when he says something worth either reading or reporting on.
What's that, slashdot karma points??? HA! I got your karma points right here!!
Geez, people. This guy's a boob and a bore. Why is Slashdot biased towards reporting his columns? His only talent is irritating people. I always find his worthless column being hawked on Slashdot as if he warrants any attention. If you want to provoke thought and you don't care if it's through abrasiveness, you can pick any number of irritating people out there who have extensive real experience in the computer world who know what they're talking about technically (though they might lack the common sense it takes to get out of the rain).
Its hard for me to believe that these writers are so incompetent
that they can't manage to use Windows.
On the contrary its more likely that these professionals, who use
computers to get their job done every day, are exceptionally
discriminating in the selection of the tools that they use.
Their careers depend on it. They can't afford to
constantly stub their professional toe and skin their knuckels using
cheap hobbyists tools that they picked up on special in the bin under the
big red cardboard sign near the exit of a discount store.
Computer software that is a constant security risk and whose security can
only be improved according to its manufacturer by installing
a dysfunctional service pack needs no one to give it a bad name.
Software that refuses to save a file for no apparent reason doesn't need
a bad rap it creates its own truthfully bad rap.
Pushing stupid spin statistics about how everything else out there
is just as defective and insecure will fool some people but not people
who truly value their time and just want to get their job done. For these
people the boolshite detector has a hair trigger. They don't worry about a few
hundred dollars price difference when a cheap piece of trash sucks down a half
a day of their professional time because they didn't happen to know something that
means nothing and relates to nothing but the fact that the people who manufactured
the software fracked up. For the rest of the population it seems
that a good cleverly spun explanation/argument using statistics about
why a PC is dysfunctional (but lets not forget inexpensive and fast)
is a 100% substitute for a computer that actually is functional.
Its quite and interesting social phenomenon.
Maybe the problem is that Dvorak doesn't distinguish between trash knowledge
and real knowledge. Trash knowledge is all the things that you have to know
to use a PC without stubbing your toe and skinning your knuckles while trying to get
your work done without the help of a professional IT staff whose main job
is to limit the use of the machines to the narrow range of things
that they can do well without trashing files and fracking up in general.
Its a sad fact that many noncomputer professionals are strutting proud of the
fact that they can master a PC. They act as though there should be something to
master in the first place. How did we get to a situation where its the user
who feels inept when its the software manufacturer who should be
subjected to class action law suits and prosecution for fraud.
Wow, what a fanboy! It seems like Apple can do no wrong in your eyes. You don't seem to mind the price gouging, unreliable products, poor service & support, and poor performance of Apple's products and OS, do you?
Uh, sorry but Windows sessions still always look butt ugly. Even in Fischer-Price mode.
My recent experience with service pack 2 is a great example
of the big deal. While I've occasionally had a bad experience with my Macs,
on average, my Windows systems, far and away, generates the biggest nonproductive computer suck on my time.
I'll take the occasional hit from the Macs but I just don't need a steady quarterly beating that
Windows meets out to me, especially when I have a deadline or the security ( in the sense of
protection from corruption as well as in the sense of protection from bad guys) of my data
is involved. What is most disturbing about all of this is that I have no choice but to use Windows.
Because of Microsofts subversion of industry standards there are websites that I must use
that only work with versions of IE that only run on Windows. Our government is complicitous
in this matter because some of these sites are US government sites.
There is nothing objective, even handed, or remotely noble in pretending that the quality of these
operating systems is remotely comparable or in promoting the idea that Microsoft is just another company
producing just another good quality product. I'm sick of hearing people who don't value thier time
telling me that they have no problems using Windows. "no problems" is obviously a much more interesting
phrase for them than it is for me.
You don't have to kill people to be evil. Most professional thieves are not mass murderers. Taking billions of dollars from millions of people via an illegal monopoly certainly doesn't kill anyone, at least not outright. On the other hand, anything that takes billions of dollars out of the economy without putting something back of near equal value will probably skew mortality rate statistics in a slightly negative way. Billions of dollars is a lot of money. I suppose that it is possible to maintain a perspective from which Microsoft products are a good value. Even in the fantastical situation where they were a good value there would still be the problem that the purchase of these products have become an effective tax by a private company on the general public because they are necessary and there is no longer any viable competition.
But, most importantly, you are right, it is possibly idiotic ( though it need not be said in a such hostile way) to compare Hitler with Bill Gates. Bill Gates isn't remotely as bad as Hitler. He would never kill even one person outright just because of their race or ethnicity. But this isn't exactly a brilliant recommendation for Bill Gates and any halfwit will tell you that it does not prove that he is not an evil man. On the otherhand maybe we should worship the guy who figured out how to get 95% of the computer using public to feel like it was their fault that they had so much trouble using software that they paid for. He also figured out how to get all of these same people to be happy about the disappearing options in a supposedly free market competitive system that was effectively destroyed by his obsession with nothing less than controll of the information systems of planet earth. If he succeeds then we'd all better hope that somewhere in their is a saintly person that is yet to manifest itself.
The oil monopoly was finally broken by the government. This, ultimately more critical, information technology monopoly has already survived the governments efforts to tame it. So even though Bill Gates isn't as bad as Hitler and Stalin there isn't anything to cheer about because his interests and yours are at odds whether you want to believe it or not and he is in the drivers seat. A lot of extremely bad doodoo can happen long before things hit rock bottom. Its not like there's some sort of reason to celebrate the successes of this man and its not like there are any remaining checks and balances that will be effective against the kind of power represented by the Microsoft bank account. It brings to mind some quotation about the effect of ultimate power on otherwise decent people.
. . . considering that I've worked in a newsroom, and for most reporters, computers in general are a Windows-based means to an end and Macs are frustratingly foreign. Hearing the reporters explain to me how to point and click on a Mac was hilarious.
Mac OS X is not built upon FreeBSD. It is built upon Mach and the NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP framework. It does use some userland utilities from FreeBSD, but at its core it is Mach-based.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Mac users use macs because they want to,
Windows users use windows because they have to.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Funny thing, that's how you knew who the bad guys were in the first season of 24.
Where the white kid stands up in his high school history class and shouts without irony:
"yeah, well how come you don't see no WHITE history month?!"
Because you fool, it's white history by default.
Analogously, Apple is still a "marginal" player. These guys miss the fact that MOST coverage is Windows-oriented, or is Windows-oriented by default. The only place where Apple really controls the group-think is with the iPod.
Am I even trying?
The whole world uses MS Windows. Why aren't we complaining about businesses, Government agencies, and Universities being biased toward windows? My govt job makes me use a Wintel box. My school makes me use a Wintel box. Most of the companies i do business with use Wintel boxes. Don't EVEN presume that there is a Mac bias in the media. By the way, there is a Mac bias in the media but so what. From the Time magazine covers to the Apple II controlling the fate of the island on LOST. Macs are all over print, TV, and magazines.
And this writer doesn't work for a tech company Are you blind to the url you gave?
They used PCs. I should have been clearer... :)
Hmmm... seems to me that Apple is undercovered is the media, if anything.
The clueless not being able to use windows: Oh come on, the clueless use windows something like a rate of 75+%
Now as to an OS that IS overcovered: Linux, and windows with their contentless press releases just to stay in print. (Not to mention both of these OSes have better magazines devoted ENTIRELY to their OS, and a great deal more of coverage in the trade rags. What mac magazines there are, are pretty poorly written, and mainly entirely non-technical... Books for the mac are pretty few and far between as well, or at least those dealing with MacOS specifics v. general unix.)
I find it amazing that anyone should take Dvorek seriously when comparing MACs to PCs as he was Apple bashing even when he wrote for a MAC specific magazine. He was tauting the demise of Apple back in the early 90's.
...to the so-called media bias referenced in the article.
But, before I toss in my two cents, does anybody here ever recall hearing a baseball player, or a movie star being interviewed and asked a question about politics, or some recent political event? It happens, and any rational person will, no doubt, say, when they here the celebrity's half-baked response, "Well, what the fuck does a shortstop know about foreign policy, anyway??" And that is an appropriate response. By the same token, what makes a reporter a technically educated individual capable of comparing similar, but very different tech approaches to sometimes generalized, often times specialized user applications? Answer? Nothing. I mean, fuck the Wall St. Journal. I'm a subscriber, too, and guess what, i use the Macintosh despite the fact that Mossberg thinks they're great.
I use a Macintosh, primarily, but am very comfortable in the Windows environment, and recently had the pleasure [actual fun] of working in Ubuntu Linux (Gnome defaults). The flipside to all that media stuff and the design-centric criticisms of what prompts people towards Macs, is simple: In the real world, the ppc/Mac is incredibly marginalized. I'm telling you, Mac users, like myself, are paying for this shit, big time.
My Powerbook runs OS X, naturally, but also has a heavy VirtualPC installation [very handy] and the Ubuntu insatallation, yet, once again, I am back in OS X-land, despite the blast I was having, for 6 weeks or so, getting acquainted with Linux. Why? Multimedia. [with the problem of "fonts", which really make typeset documents NOT cross-platform...as great as OOo, is, it isn't ready for the big leagues, because of stupid fonts, not the suite, itself, that's sad, and someone needs to get down on the font reverse engineering thing, pronto]
There just isn't support for the slim market of ppc in the Linux world. I received tons of advice, even in my limited exposure to the really helpful Linux community, but could not get simple DVD playback without dropped frames, or syncing problems when the material shiftwed into VOB2, VOB3, etc...it was pathetic. No support for the broadcom chip in the Airport Extreme, which isn't a Linux issue [it's a broadcom/Apple proprietary issue], but it's a helluva I-wanna-run-Linux-on-my-Mac issue, regardless. Why no reverse engineering? PPC market too small to bother with. The craziest thing is, i was using a Matias keyboard, that the Mac, itself, even with the correct driver, would fail to 'recognize', intermittently, BUT, on my first install of Debian, the hardware recognition moduleor whatever, in the initial setup, recognized it, and its internal USB hub, instantly...but couldn't see the second monitor.
I live in spanned desktops, but gave them up, for a month, in an effort to get the spanning to "just work" under linux. It was no-go. setting a simple RightOf, or LeftOf, etc, resulted in a wacky situation. The problem, really? Not enough other Mac users on Linux who knew what they were really doing, on the lower levels. [Me included, obviously].
It was very frustrating, not in angry sense, just in a so close, yet so far, sense. Really too bad. My basic view on Linux is that it is Unix-like OS for Windows. [With KDE being the XP pastel desktop version, and Gnome as the Mac-like version...I liked Gnome a lot]. You see there are features in Windows [most obvious being right-click cut/paste] that should have been on the Apple boxes, ages ago. But there they are in linux on ppc. very nice, kinda like the best of both worlds on a lean, powerful operating system with no layered, incompatible filing system and "Carbon" 'Finder' [what a load of shit that is] to get in the way. So much promise. Linux runs faster on my Aluminum Powerbook, than OS X, and trust me, I know how to rev up OS X. Apple Corp is going to be in for a rude shock when people get to compare a "real" unix-like OS on the same intel architecture, against the schizonphrenic Apple OS. I want to see that.
Make no mistake,
Krispy Kreme donuts.
Hummers (the vehicles)
The bloody stupid International Harvester CXT "SUV".
Etc.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
If Douglas Adams is so smart, how come he's dead?
From years of people forcing him to use Windows? *ducks*
Track your TV Shows with your iPhone - FREE
...says it all.
When I flick on the local radio at 6 I expect to get up-to-date news about todays local, regional and international events. I do not expect "sponsored" items pushing some second-rate portable audio player that has become little more than a fashion accessory.
So I flick on the telly just in time to catch the news, and there it is again. This time some hotshot journalist is investigating the "latest craze in digital audio".
I'm just amazed they didn't include a "This paid news item was brought to you by Apple Computer Inc." notice at the end.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
That's why you're given the preference to have topics not displayed. Check your your preferences sometime, pal.
John Dvorak knows a lot more about computers than me, I'm sure.... but that doesn't prevent him from being an elitist douche-bag.
"The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse.' There is no evidence that people want to use these things." - JCD in the SF Examiner, 1984
"UNIX is dead, but no one bothered to claim the body." - JCD, 1985
"Folks, the Mac platform is through -- totally," - JCD in PC Mag, 1998
...
-- if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic - Lewis Carrol
...karma whoring to nirvarna...