[Chinney]

Apple did the right thing. It was a mistake. It corrected it quickly.

[Kraetos]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 I'm biased and and I'm right. It's totally doable!

You're joking, but on some level, you're also right. Apple is the world's most successful company... they must be doing something right, contrary to what Apple-haters seem to believe.

[pscates2.0]

Gruber's apologist leanings aside, he kinda has a point.

Think about how most big companies handle public stumbles and foul-ups.

They'd put out some goofy statement (possibly in the form of a video with their CEO, professionally styled to look as "of the people" and "regular guy" as possible, maybe sitting on a desk, holding a puppy ), swimming in feel-good corporate-speak (that actually says nothing meaningful or real), and take 15-20 minutes to say what shouldn't take more than one. That's what big companies do. I've worked for enough to know, and see it first-hand. Nothing's ever just quick, to-the-point and simple. They'd have about two months' worth of meetings about it, etc.

Apple screwed up, and then un-screwed up, in the course of a week. Without a bunch of finger-pointing, justification, blame-deflecting, defensiveness, "circling the wagons" or all the usual stuff that takes place when big companies (or famous, powerful individuals - politicians, celebrities and pro athletes) screw up.

It's refreshing, that sort of candor and brevity from a major outfit. We've seen, dozens of times, the other way they could've handled it.

"We were wrong, our customers were disappointed and we're going to go back to the way it was."

Done, end of story.

Granted, maybe a little more thinking or analysis on the front end, as Gruber says, could've avoided this whole thing completely. It was a brouhaha that never had to be, really. Surely they realized they were going to shoot their foot off a bit, doing that? They have to know how certain entities go about making their purchases. Or were they willing to give that up in pursuit of the consumer space? I don't know, but surely those discussions took place.

But what's done is done. The important thing is they're not too big to be wrong (and admit so when they should).

[chucker]

I think Gruber has become a bit too tendentious in the iOS era. At least it feels like that. Regardless, he's still an excellent writer, and frequently insightful. Should you take his assertions as factual? No. But you shouldn't do that with anyone's.

[Kraetos]

I think that's just the direction that Apple is taking. I know a number of Linux nerds who refer to 2000-2005 as the "Golden Era of Apple," in the sense that they were focused on Macs above all else, they made several long-lasting open source contributions (hello, WebKit) and they worked closely with both Google and Microsoft.

All of that changed on January 7th, 2007. It happened gradually, but Apple is a completely different company than it was 10 years ago, when Gruber started DF. Apple has become more contentious and more competitive, and for better or worse, the shift in DFs topics reflect that.

[chucker]

Meh. Darwin and most of their other open-source projects were kind of doomed from the start. WebKit and LLVM/clang/clang-sa/LLDB, OTOH, are huge contributions on their part, and work as excellent mutually beneficial projects.

Linux nerds hate that iOS is hugely successful, because they don't understand that restrictions, absurdly enough, are actually beneficial, in that they let the mind focus on decisions it cares about. Paradox of choice and all that.

[splacid]

Originally Posted by Kraetos Looks like you missed this: And this:

I didn't miss those, I just feel that his pro-Apple declarations are more amplified (and long-form) than his short, occasional posts that are critical of Apple. I can't recall him giving any in-depth constructive criticism against Apple in some time, at least not since the App Store approval controversies some years ago. I enjoyed reading his site then because I felt his views were more balanced.

Originally Posted by Bryson I went through a little bit of this recently with Boing Boing. Some of their "causes" or biases made me infuriated. And then a zen-like calmness came over me and I realised that I could still enjoy their content without neccessarily agreeing with it. Try it on for size.

I do this with all news sources, not only with Apple-related sites. There's no denying Gruber is a great writer (his tribute to Steve was one of the few that made me genuinely emotional), but as his audience has grown, I've found him to become more extreme in his views, rather than more balanced. However, as you correctly point out, one can simply choose to stop going to his site.

Originally Posted by chucker I think Gruber has become a bit too tendentious in the iOS era. At least it feels like that.

I agree completely. As a Mac user since 1987, I remember when Apple was a totally different company, and sites that covered Apple had a much different tone. I'm of the belief that a little humility would serve us Apple fans well, which is why Gruber's bluster can sometimes rub me the wrong way.

Didn't mean to derail the thread, and good on Apple for making things right. Reed Hastings could learn a thing or two from Mansfield's letter.

[pscates2.0]

That's the Netflix guy, right? Yeah...that's a PERFECT example of how not to go about this sort of thing. Holy crap, that was awful.

[PB PM]

Originally Posted by chucker Linux nerds hate that iOS is hugely successful, because they don't understand that restrictions, absurdly enough, are actually beneficial, in that they let the mind focus on decisions it cares about. Paradox of choice and all that.

Bingo, this is what some many people in the tech community miss. They are always moaning about how closed Apple is, but hey, too many choices leads to indecision and in the end people just pick the cheapest crap they can get, even if they hate it. People are learning that they would rather spend more to have something they like, that works, than being lost with no idea of what direction to go.

[Kraetos]

Originally Posted by splacid I didn't miss those, I just feel that his pro-Apple declarations are more amplified (and long-form) than his short, occasional posts that are critical of Apple.

Both of those posts I linked were longer than the "pro-Apple" post you linked. And as pscates has pointed out, Gruber's comment is accurate: when most companies have to apologize for something, they tend to beat around the bush and get really long-winded. Apple didn't, and that's commendable.

But in general, yes, his pro-Apple posts are longer than his Apple-critical posts. What did you expect? He runs an Apple blog, he writes about what he wants to write about. You would say the same about Bray and posts about Google or Bott and posts about Microsoft. They like the companies they choose to write about so they tend to write good things about those companies.

If you don't like it... don't go there... anything important he says will make it to AppleNova anyways, so you're not really missing much.

[Moogs]

Wow. Didn't take long for Apple to right that ship. Good for them.

[Dorian Gray]

I'm very pleased to see this U-turn. Apple can afford to make its products easily recyclable, and should. And if Apple's contention is that EPEAT doesn't recognise other important environmentally friendly attributes of Apple products, when it should, then Apple should use its leadership position to push for new EPEAT standards. Apple seems to recognise all of this in Bob Mansfield's letter.

[Kickaha]

Indeed. It appears that once again, Apple was tired of waiting for the watchdogs to catch up, and forced the issue.

As long as throwing their weight around is to promote advancement of the common good, instead of giving them a special advantage, I really don't have a problem with corporations getting testy.

[zippy]

This is a pretty interesting quote with some telling numbers from Matthew Panzarino of thenextweb.com:

Originally Posted by Matthew Panzarino So, they trotted out Bob Mansfield, weeks from retirement, to take the hit on this one. He outright says that Apple made a mistake when it removed its products from EPEAT and says that they’re coming back. Sure enough, all 40 of Apple’s products are back on the EPEAT registry and all of them have a Gold rating. As the ever-astute Apple Spotlight points out on Twitter, only 57% of Dell’s products, 47% of HP’s products and 68% of Samsung’s products meet the Gold standard. Apple gets a 100% Gold rating.