This really, really sucks. I like Marco's take on development (both software and career) and entrepreneurship, and he has a "no bullshit" approach to technology.
But what the heck is going on today? He questions The Verge's integrity (despite having nothing more than the absence of a iMac/HP Spectre One comment), tries to backpedal on it, then starts blocking sites he's feuding with?
Lame. He's normally the most level-headed of the popular Mac bloggers.
The Verge's "integrity" has now been questioned by both Marco and Gruber[0], both of whom appeared On The Verge[1,2]. In both cases, they demonstrated a veneer of level-headedness for the sake of their own "integrity", but it was obvious from the subtext what their real feelings on the matters discussed were.
I wouldn't take either of their opinions seriously. The Verge is the best tech website out there period, and there's no reason to believe that its journalists are biased. They are doing some amazing reporting and really trying to revolutionize online journalism.
And fuck Instapaper - Marco was such a douchebag about Android support. Use Pocket[3], they have beautiful apps for all platforms and don't inject their personal opinions and biases into their software. You can export your articles from Instapaper and import them into Pocket, so there's no excuse for not switching.
There is a very important distinction with regards to integrity, though. Marco imputes an incentive to appease manufacturers to keep review copies coming; Gruber speculates that they don't want to rile up the eternal "other side" of the Apple vs. the World debate.
The former is an attack on their journalistic integrity, Gruber's much less so - although still an attack, nevertheless.
Gruber knows to temper his rhetoric, being a guy with journalistic sentibilities himself. Marco is just a guy with a blog.
That's true. After all, Gruber is (at least in name) a journalist. Marco's blog is just a place for him to express the opinions/emotions he wears on his sleeve. The only reason anyone pays attention to him is because of the popularity of Instapaper.
I have tried to follow Marco and DF on and off for years, because I like to keep up with what Apple is doing and they seem to be pretty good at talking about that.
Unfortunately they are also pretty good at being utter children about near everything else, and seem to live their (public internet) lives in some kind of us vs. them bubble, ripe with snide bickering and pointless hatemongering.
They seem to be, unfortunately, the Fox News of tech journalism.
HP comes out with an all-in-one. Instead of resembling a generic monitor, which would be the obvious choice for a computer meant to look like a simple display, it resembles an iMac to a bizarre degree. (Note: I don't even like how the iMac looks)
How do you defend writing a long article about it without mentioning the resemblance even once? I'm not suggesting motives; I just can't understand it. Yes, I've heard the "oh it was obvious so it didn't need to be said" defense, I just don't get that.
As somebody that's pretty good friends with somebody that's been a long-time writer/editor at a couple of well-known tech sites, the simple answer is they just plain get tired of it.
These guys look at gadgets all day long. What it comes down to is they get tired of ripping on every new gadget that comes out with "lol, they ripped off Apple" and instead focus on other things because there's absolutely nothing interesting about writing the same thing over and over and over again. After a while, it does get to the point that it's so obvious that pointing it out becomes superfluous.
And I mean, in the case of the Spectre One, it's not even as direct a knock-off as the Envy line. The stand design is bulky and inelegant compared to the iMac. When viewed from the side or rear, it's fairly clear there are far worse offenders in the "steals from Apple" category.
Which isn't to say it isn't there and it isn't a shameless aping, just that if you look at gadgets for a living, it doesn't really stand out enough in that regard for it to feel worth the energy to point it out.
>How do you defend writing a long article about it
This may be a bit of a nitpick, but both the posts Marco accused of shilling for HP are under 500 words; that's not really a long piece at all.
But what the heck is going on today? He questions The Verge's integrity (despite having nothing more than the absence of a iMac/HP Spectre One comment), tries to backpedal on it, then starts blocking sites he's feuding with?
Lame. He's normally the most level-headed of the popular Mac bloggers.