My issue is more with his tone. Describing critics of Apple as 'parade rainmakers' offering 'shill contempt' simply isn't very professional, in my opinion. This sort of angry commentary certainly implies dogma, if not religiosity. It is itself disrespectful and insulting of those who hold differing opinions on Apple products.
My point is that if the site permits emotionally-invested articles which are laced with disdain and disrespect for critics, then there really can't be much complaint when such critics respond in similar fashion through the means open to them.
If this was a neutral blog like Gizmodo or Engadget then I'd agree that articles would be better presented in a neutral way but this is a blog about Apple and weighted in favor of people who are Apple fans. If people read the language directed at Apple critics and don't like it, then it's usually (but not always) the case that they are Windows and/or Android users and are not really the target audience for the site because their interest in Apple is typically in seeing Apple fail. This site isn't here to invite critics of Apple nor is it intended to be a neutral site about Apple. Windows/Android users often come here thinking that they should be able to say whatever they like. There are degrees of freedom in any discussion and criticism isn't stifled here much but fans of any particular thing get tired of hearing the same kind of attacks over and over. In this example about 64-bit, we have the same issue that crops up every time where commenters elsewhere say things like "Apple didn't invent 64-bit" (someone actually wrote that) and people look for obscure examples of someone else getting to market first like:
Feb 26, 2012 - "Even more impressive is that the K3V2 is a 64-bit processor, rather than the standard 32-bit offered in other phones. Huawei said it developed the processor in-house with a partner company, but was coy about naming which company it was."
This was ARMv7 so not likely fully 64-bit and 32-bit software but they use the example all the same because it fits their conclusion that Apple doesn't invent anything or push the industry forward. It's the same tired old way of diminishing Apple's success. Apple is driving a large change of a flagship product to have 64-bit apps, OS and full 64-bit hardware and this hasn't been done in the market and Apple can do it in one update. When Apple critics publish articles or comments trying to play down the move to 64-bit then reporters here have every right to counter them. They can use a professional tone but that's usually boring and doesn't get people emotional about it. Should critics be emotional in response? They can be, but on blogs and forums intended for Apple critics. Same way that on Android forums that run "anything but Apple" competitions:
they aren't setting articles up as an invitation for criticism from fans of competing products. It's not that this kind of thing means the entire site is closed off from rational debate and in need of people to correct that, some people just like having places to share appreciation of a particular thing with like-minded people. I can see that some Apple fans will also have an issue with the tone of the article as it reflects on the community here to an extent but there needs to be forceful articles put out into the media to strongly counter the ones that attack Apple at every turn and I think Daniel's articles fit the bill.
I agree that "there needs to be forceful articles put out into the media to strongly counter the ones that attack Apple at every turn" and that sometimes "Daniel's articles fit the bill".
I complimented DED on this article, though I think the "Hands On" designation is deceptive.
What I do not like are the DED articles that stretch or elide the truth, frequently quoting himself (or one of his alter egos) to give the perception of consensus or settled science.
After a while it becomes tedious or offensive. It took me several years to reach this conclusion -- by following DED, on his blog roughlydrafted.com, and here on AI (under his names Daniel Eran Dilger, Prince McLean, Mickey Campbell and Corrections). Now, I can often tell from the headline that the article is written by DED -- and after reading a paragraph, or so, decide whether the article is worth of reading and discussion... or if it is just another DED diatribe ProTrolling his own agenda and biases -- often playing fast and loose with the facts. Currently, about 50% of the time, I just move on -- who needs this crap?
As an example of what I am talking about:
Sunday, July 14, 2013, 11:33 am PT (02:33 pm ET)
Editorial: Google's Android haunted by Steve Jobs' warnings on app signing security
By Daniel Eran Dilger
In May 2007, I interviewed Steve Jobs on the subject of native apps for the iPhone months before the new phone first went on sale. Six years later, his answers are now haunting Google's rival Android platform because the search giant has failed to heed the advice leaking from the top of Apple's ship.
I did read the article and posted asking for a citation.
Others posted that they were present at an Apple Shareholders meeting and, apparently, DED pushed others aside to grab the microphone and ask Steve a question,
That was hardly an interview -- so the entire premise of the article fails.
If people read the language directed at Apple critics and don't like it, then it's usually (but not always) the case that they are Windows and/or Android users and are not really the target audience for the site because their interest in Apple is typically in seeing Apple fail.
I don't see why we have to categorise people in such a binary way. I use both OS X and Windows 7; I like both and can see that each has advantages and disadvantages. Equally, I use an iPhone, but I can see that Android does some things better (and other things worse).
The problem with dividing people into 'us and them' is that it becomes almost impossible to have an objective discussion about the industry, because you can't criticise Apple without people assuming that you want to see them fail. Why would an Android user typically want to see Apple fail? That doesn't make sense. Most people aren't nearly that emotionally invested. At the end of the day, we're talking about a phone. It's metal and glass and transistors and source code, not life or death.
I also find it a bit dubious from a discussion perspective if DED has several different personas on the same site. It can easily give the impression that a point of view has more support than it actually does, which is why most forums discourage or prohibit it.
<span style="line-height:1.4em;">If people read the language directed at Apple critics and don't like it, then it's usually (but not always) the case that they are Windows and/or Android users and are not really the target audience for the site because their interest in Apple is typically in seeing Apple fail.</span>
I don't see why we have to categorise people in such a binary way. I use both OS X and Windows 7; I like both and can see that each has advantages and disadvantages. Equally, I use an iPhone, but I can see that Android does some things better (and other things worse).
The problem with dividing people into 'us and them' is that it becomes almost impossible to have an objective discussion about the industry, because you can't criticise Apple without people assuming that you want to see them fail. Why would an Android user typically want to see Apple fail? That doesn't make sense. Most people aren't nearly that emotionally invested. At the end of the day, we're talking about a phone. It's metal and glass and transistors and source code, not life or death.
I also find it a bit dubious from a discussion perspective if DED has several different personas on the same site. It can easily give the impression that a point of view has more support than it actually does, which is why most forums discourage or prohibit it.
I agree with this...
Though, periodically, this site is inundated with posters whose sole purpose appears to be to denigrate anything Apple and muddy the waters to prevent any kind of reasoned discussion. Often there will be several people doing this -- supporting each other in ping-pong or tag team fashion.
This happens often enough that the "regulars" are over-sensitive to a possible onslaught.
DED, sometimes, posts good articles -- and they are frequently linked by other sites.
Often, though, DED publishes articles that stretch the truth or ignore facts -- and, IMO, they do a disservice to Apple, Apple supporters, AI and those seeking facts reasoned discussion.
Even with all this dissonance, I have not found a better site than AI for discussion of "things Apple"... but I am actively looking!
You mean because he wasn't holding the phone? I think it still qualifies as a hands-on when it's someone else's hands. It usually just means an interactive demo of the product. Maybe "eyes on" would have been more appropriate but that typically just means photos.
I don't see why we have to categorise people in such a binary way. I use both OS X and Windows 7; I like both and can see that each has advantages and disadvantages. Equally, I use an iPhone, but I can see that Android does some things better (and other things worse).
The problem with dividing people into 'us and them' is that it becomes almost impossible to have an objective discussion about the industry, because you can't criticise Apple without people assuming that you want to see them fail. Why would an Android user typically want to see Apple fail? That doesn't make sense. Most people aren't nearly that emotionally invested. At the end of the day, we're talking about a phone. It's metal and glass and transistors and source code, not life or death.
It's not binary characterisation, it's just plain old stereotyping - a significant number of members who prefer to criticize Apple also happen to be Windows and/or Android users. A lot of these people do prefer outcomes in which Apple fail e.g are happy when Apple's patents are invalidated, when they lose court cases, when they have products close to being banned from import, when they lose marketshare. It makes a lot of sense why that would be. If your preferred manufacturer succeeds then it's likely that you will have that choice of product for a long time and the eco-system you invest time and money in will survive and improve. If Apple's marketshare falls, Android users can bring out the criticisms of iOS software exclusives by saying they have 80% marketshare (even though they don't), same with hardware support.
I know there is such a thing as constructive criticism and this is fine, it just happens to be that the criticism from Windows/Android users is rarely constructive. When people suggest that the iPhone gets widgets, big screens, cheaper models* like Android does and Apple is falling behind, that's not entirely constructive when it comes from the same people who suggest iOS 7 is ripped off from Android's UI as is the notification panel and control center and who are eager to see Samsung become more profitable than Apple. The criticism there is designed to validate their claims that Apple had to catch up to Android if they implement those features. You may wonder why people would be that emotionally invested in it but that's how it is. I don't suppose it's much different from cheering your favorite sports team - that's just poor people watching millionaires knocking something around in a field and cheering that their preferred millionaires are better than someone else's; seems like nonsense when you think about it but it's quite popular.
It's important to distinguish between what is permitted on the forum and what is welcomed too. People are allowed to criticize Apple but unconstructive criticism and perpetual criticism is not welcome and it suggests the reason for being here is to be disruptive. What other reason would there be for someone to be a member of an Apple forum and constantly criticize Apple? There's a remote possibility that the most profitable company in the world has been going about their business entirely the wrong way and these perpetual critics are just trying to help them improve but I'd say it's unlikely.
* there are valid reasons for preferring these things, these are just examples
I also find it a bit dubious from a discussion perspective if DED has several different personas on the same site. It can easily give the impression that a point of view has more support than it actually does, which is why most forums discourage or prohibit it.
There aren't several personas. There was an author that went under the author name Prince McClean a long time ago and that name hasn't been used for a while. There is at most one forum account to an author and they probably have to make new accounts to post on the forum as these things tend to be separated on websites for security reasons. Treat them as you would other forum members. Would you say another member's post was 'drivel', if not then the same applies to the article author.
All the apps on the iPhone 5s will be 64-bit. And it will not be difficult for third parties to enhance their apps. Even if a specific app has little to gain from moving to 64-bit, it will still work against Apple's 64-bit system libraries and benefit from more efficient compiling via Xcode's support for the modernized 64-bit ARMv8/AArch64 instruction set.
The move to 64-bit in desktop Intel/PPC systems was largely motivated by the 4GB barrier of addressable RAM. That's not the case in mobile devices. There is an entirely different motive for moving to 64-bit ARM. Stop repeating what you think you know and read about it.
What is the "entirely different motive"? From this stackoverflow thread (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2378399/are-64-bit-programs-bigger-and-faster-than-32-bit-versions), it seems that any performance increase from 64 bits would mainly affect cpu-intensive programs such as matlab. On the desktop, the programs that see the most performance increases from 64 bits have probably been running in 64-bit Linux on high performance workstations well before the mainstream OS's switched to 64 bits. Thus Windows and OS X converted mainly because of the memory limitation, and they took their sweet time because it wasn't until the last few years that laptops and desktops started coming with more than 4gb of ram. Are many iOS programs cpu-bound?
Comments
I agree that "there needs to be forceful articles put out into the media to strongly counter the ones that attack Apple at every turn" and that sometimes "Daniel's articles fit the bill".
I complimented DED on this article, though I think the "Hands On" designation is deceptive.
What I do not like are the DED articles that stretch or elide the truth, frequently quoting himself (or one of his alter egos) to give the perception of consensus or settled science.
After a while it becomes tedious or offensive. It took me several years to reach this conclusion -- by following DED, on his blog roughlydrafted.com, and here on AI (under his names Daniel Eran Dilger, Prince McLean, Mickey Campbell and Corrections). Now, I can often tell from the headline that the article is written by DED -- and after reading a paragraph, or so, decide whether the article is worth of reading and discussion... or if it is just another DED diatribe ProTrolling his own agenda and biases -- often playing fast and loose with the facts. Currently, about 50% of the time, I just move on -- who needs this crap?
As an example of what I am talking about:
http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/07/14/editorial-googles-android-haunted-by-steve-jobs-warnings-on-app-signing-security
I did read the article and posted asking for a citation.
Others posted that they were present at an Apple Shareholders meeting and, apparently, DED pushed others aside to grab the microphone and ask Steve a question,
That was hardly an interview -- so the entire premise of the article fails.
Why bother?
If people read the language directed at Apple critics and don't like it, then it's usually (but not always) the case that they are Windows and/or Android users and are not really the target audience for the site because their interest in Apple is typically in seeing Apple fail.
I don't see why we have to categorise people in such a binary way. I use both OS X and Windows 7; I like both and can see that each has advantages and disadvantages. Equally, I use an iPhone, but I can see that Android does some things better (and other things worse).
The problem with dividing people into 'us and them' is that it becomes almost impossible to have an objective discussion about the industry, because you can't criticise Apple without people assuming that you want to see them fail. Why would an Android user typically want to see Apple fail? That doesn't make sense. Most people aren't nearly that emotionally invested. At the end of the day, we're talking about a phone. It's metal and glass and transistors and source code, not life or death.
I also find it a bit dubious from a discussion perspective if DED has several different personas on the same site. It can easily give the impression that a point of view has more support than it actually does, which is why most forums discourage or prohibit it.
I agree with this...
Though, periodically, this site is inundated with posters whose sole purpose appears to be to denigrate anything Apple and muddy the waters to prevent any kind of reasoned discussion. Often there will be several people doing this -- supporting each other in ping-pong or tag team fashion.
This happens often enough that the "regulars" are over-sensitive to a possible onslaught.
DED, sometimes, posts good articles -- and they are frequently linked by other sites.
Often, though, DED publishes articles that stretch the truth or ignore facts -- and, IMO, they do a disservice to Apple, Apple supporters, AI and those seeking facts reasoned discussion.
Even with all this dissonance, I have not found a better site than AI for discussion of "things Apple"... but I am actively looking!
You mean because he wasn't holding the phone? I think it still qualifies as a hands-on when it's someone else's hands. It usually just means an interactive demo of the product. Maybe "eyes on" would have been more appropriate but that typically just means photos.
It's not binary characterisation, it's just plain old stereotyping - a significant number of members who prefer to criticize Apple also happen to be Windows and/or Android users. A lot of these people do prefer outcomes in which Apple fail e.g are happy when Apple's patents are invalidated, when they lose court cases, when they have products close to being banned from import, when they lose marketshare. It makes a lot of sense why that would be. If your preferred manufacturer succeeds then it's likely that you will have that choice of product for a long time and the eco-system you invest time and money in will survive and improve. If Apple's marketshare falls, Android users can bring out the criticisms of iOS software exclusives by saying they have 80% marketshare (even though they don't), same with hardware support.
I know there is such a thing as constructive criticism and this is fine, it just happens to be that the criticism from Windows/Android users is rarely constructive. When people suggest that the iPhone gets widgets, big screens, cheaper models* like Android does and Apple is falling behind, that's not entirely constructive when it comes from the same people who suggest iOS 7 is ripped off from Android's UI as is the notification panel and control center and who are eager to see Samsung become more profitable than Apple. The criticism there is designed to validate their claims that Apple had to catch up to Android if they implement those features. You may wonder why people would be that emotionally invested in it but that's how it is. I don't suppose it's much different from cheering your favorite sports team - that's just poor people watching millionaires knocking something around in a field and cheering that their preferred millionaires are better than someone else's; seems like nonsense when you think about it but it's quite popular.
It's important to distinguish between what is permitted on the forum and what is welcomed too. People are allowed to criticize Apple but unconstructive criticism and perpetual criticism is not welcome and it suggests the reason for being here is to be disruptive. What other reason would there be for someone to be a member of an Apple forum and constantly criticize Apple? There's a remote possibility that the most profitable company in the world has been going about their business entirely the wrong way and these perpetual critics are just trying to help them improve but I'd say it's unlikely.
* there are valid reasons for preferring these things, these are just examples
There aren't several personas. There was an author that went under the author name Prince McClean a long time ago and that name hasn't been used for a while. There is at most one forum account to an author and they probably have to make new accounts to post on the forum as these things tend to be separated on websites for security reasons. Treat them as you would other forum members. Would you say another member's post was 'drivel', if not then the same applies to the article author.
All the apps on the iPhone 5s will be 64-bit. And it will not be difficult for third parties to enhance their apps. Even if a specific app has little to gain from moving to 64-bit, it will still work against Apple's 64-bit system libraries and benefit from more efficient compiling via Xcode's support for the modernized 64-bit ARMv8/AArch64 instruction set.
The move to 64-bit in desktop Intel/PPC systems was largely motivated by the 4GB barrier of addressable RAM. That's not the case in mobile devices. There is an entirely different motive for moving to 64-bit ARM. Stop repeating what you think you know and read about it.
What is the "entirely different motive"? From this stackoverflow thread (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2378399/are-64-bit-programs-bigger-and-faster-than-32-bit-versions), it seems that any performance increase from 64 bits would mainly affect cpu-intensive programs such as matlab. On the desktop, the programs that see the most performance increases from 64 bits have probably been running in 64-bit Linux on high performance workstations well before the mainstream OS's switched to 64 bits. Thus Windows and OS X converted mainly because of the memory limitation, and they took their sweet time because it wasn't until the last few years that laptops and desktops started coming with more than 4gb of ram. Are many iOS programs cpu-bound?
You ought to look up the definition of the word "perception".
As I said, it doesn't have to be true. It simply has to exist.