WayTools_Support

Some big picture here - to sift past the fresh spin, and the deliberate confusion in ericpeet’s post.


Press Coverage on New Tech and its Challenges

Publications don’t stop coverage when new tech gets delayed.  It happens a lot, and that’s still newsworthy too.

AI and MR didn’t stop reporting on AirPower while it got delayed for 2 years.  They both reported on it, even after it was canceled.  All of that was newsworthy.

Phil Schiller didn’t lie to reporters when he announced on stage in 2017, that Apple knew how to do AirPower, and it would ship in 2018.  

Apple experienced unexpected technical challenges that slowed them down, and ultimately caused them to cancel and never ship it.

That didn’t hurt MR or AI reputations for covering it.  They just reported the news.  No one blamed the publications for Apple’s travails.


Targeted Abuse of a Journalist 

So what is different here?

The operative reason MR stopped coverage was because of a targeted campaign of abuse, aimed specifically at their editor.

There was genuine concern for safety, because of the extreme nature of the harassment.  

We saw it ourselves on our forum too, where threats were made to physically harm people, by the same alter egos posting here now, 3 years later.

But the primary assault here was on the reporter’s reputation as an objective journalist.

This was a brute force tactic to intimidate the reporter, who did nothing more than write the news and tell the truth.

News about activity of any manufacturer, good or bad, obviously does not reflect upon the integrity of the messenger. 

If a reporter thought a manufacturer were doing something wrong, they’d just call them out on it in a story, and affirm their objectivity.

But what happened here was more complex, and darker.


Reputation

The abuse here was a personal attack on the reputation of the reporter, by alleging some kind of paid promotion, when there was none.  

Especially for an honest reporter, who scrupulously never compromises objectivity, a personal attack on reputation was particularly disturbing.  

That’s what forced the intervention, ending coverage, just as the abusers hoped to achieve.  

It was a cold and deliberate calculus by the abusers, likely for a paid purpose, with no regard to the emotional stress to an honest person.


Fresh Spin

The posters here now retry the same spin tricks documented earlier within this thread.  They conflate two issues to try to weave a lie.  

They now claim that simply covering our work could somehow affect the reporter’s reputation.

But reporters can report anything, good or bad, with no bearing on their reputation.  The news is the news.

And these multiple pseudonyms know better.  They were in fact the ones attacking the reporter’s reputation themselves, in posts.

Their multiple id’s were accusing the reporter of doing a favorable story for money, which clearly didn’t happen.

Such an accusation can’t be fixed by writing a story.  Instead, the editor had to personally defend in posts, and categorically deny corruption.


But the abusers kept at it relentlessly, ignoring the clear declarations, and repeatedly maligning the editor’s integrity.

As the reality of first treg shipments approached, they amped it up significantly, through multiple pseudonyms.  The reporter finally had enough.

There was an announcement about the intolerable level of abuse, and the harm being done to reputation by the false accusations of paid articles.

Coverage was stopped, to put an end to the abuse from these accusatory posts.

So the pseudonyms got their prize, and then stopped harassing the reporter.


Present Day

We saw a similar pattern brewing here, from the same players, and we outed it to prevent a replay.  They’d likely try to mute William.

Having now been outed, they have tried to cover their tracks.  They try to hang it on the technology provider, by blending and conflating the reputation issue.

The reporter’s reputation was not a function of the technical progress of the vendor.  It was instead about the accusations of taking bribes.

And that was wholly contrived by these same actors to disrupt the press coverage of a very real, and significant advance.

Now, it’s much harder for them to pull off such a pressure campaign.  The product is mature now, and in use daily by the reporter who wrote AI’s article.

William’s comments came from months of personal use of the product, not a brief impression.  The product is very real, and has been relied on for years now by many customers, and William has probed them.

William chose what to write, and when to write it.  He wasn’t paid to say anything.  Whatever he’s said are his authentic views as a first-person user.

He’s also a person who takes a very strong stand on matters of principle, and pushes back quite hard when he sees principle transgressed. He has no compunction about  calling out choices even made by Apple, if it is warranted.

Before treg users began, a competing interest could try to suppress news coverage, if it were just one brief impression vs. another.  But at this point, too many people have primary data, and personal experience with it that they know is true.


Why 

Going as far as we’ve seen these pseudonyms go here, this is pretty hardcore and chronic.  It’s a lot of work, and it’s not the causal work of a grumpy individual.

It’s not normal.  Why would the same pseudonyms who did that to a reporter, show up again as the product matures?, As it returns to the news in prelude to general release.

Why would these same actors immediately jump on the next reporter who weighs in?

Why for example, would they recall some obscure good-cop / bad cop post routine to cite from 3 years ago?  - Because they wrote both sides of it.  

And they strip just a snippet out of context, wagering that no one will waste the time to look at all the back and forth flame chat from an old thread.

The art of spin relies on speed and volume.  Lots of posts in a short time, and so much false information that it takes time to untangle it all.
 

No customer who didn’t get their AirPower, or yet receive their TextBlade, would do this.  No real customer would target a reporter’s reputation.

They amp it up again now, because they are exposed.  We’ve touched a nerve, and they know they’re culpable.

So like a purse-snatcher yelling ‘stop thief!’ to distract from what they are doing, they try to accuse us to distract from their misdeeds.


The anonymous, collective pseudonym ericpeet, et al, knows all this, because he was in on it back then, and is doing it again now, with his documented spin on this thread.

Just on a gross basis, why in the heck would a legitimate customer do this to any reporter, especially after clear declarations of their policy?

AppleInsider isn’t likely getting flame mail saying “Damn you for promising me AirPower.  Apple must have paid you to write about it.”

A real customer would just take a refund and move on.  They wouldn’t spend so much time and writing to malign a reporter, unless they were paid to do it.

It is surprising to us to see how hard some interests would work to interfere with this product.

it must be of consequence.

 

TextBlade vs AirPower 

It’s interesting to compare - TextBlade’s story is very different from AirPower.

WayTools tackled problems too, but instead, faced them down, and did not cancel or give up.

Through perseverance, challenges were overcome, and shipping, while limited, did indeed start.  Hundreds have been shipped to customers, who have validated that it’s definitely worth the wait. It’s a genuinely new and better technology.

We’ve also doubled-down on the firmware to facilitate general release, and won’t let up until everyone gets their TextBlade, even more powerful than initially spec’d.  

That steadfastness is something we are very proud of.  It took much sacrifice, and more time and cost to us, but has produced something that users love.

And this advance did not get made by any other company, including Apple.  Even with plenty of time to study what we had accomplished.

It’s not an easy thing to do, but it is very much worth doing.

We’re grateful to all who encourage and accelerate our release. 








 

Ericpeet - maybe have a look at the bullet points in our post, if you like answers more than questions.  Or perhaps your point is to frame knowns as unknowns.

Alexonline - people have already received properly working units.  Since you don’t have an order, and you say it’s vaporware, it’s curious you still spend time on it.

A bit of background -

Trolls are part of the landscape of the internet, and for whatever reason, they occasionally fixate.

Some context for Rolanbek (pseudonym) - 

His hits began at the start, before any delay in shipment.

He was refunded to resolve his gripes.

He refused the refund.

We preemptively shipped hm a paper check, which he cashed only after a prolonged delay.

He threatened bodily harm to forum members - something about using a TextBlade to impale a body in a somewhat graphically violent manner.

We removed his posting rights.

He jumped over to the macrumors forum, where he could post unchecked.

He stalked, overloaded, impugned the integrity of reporting, and ultimately so spooked the editor, the only option was to end coverage.

And he works with confederate pseudonym id’s too.

Why he does this is unclear.  Why he tries to block others from enjoying the product is unknown.  A proxy for other interests? A hater? Who knows.

As to the questions he lobs now at AI, those are more of same.  A provocation to hassle a writer who happens to like the product.

We gather that it’s likely a competing PR strategy to suppress press coverage of our technology.

Some facts on topic -

- Design HQ is in Santa Monica (Silicon Beach, where William visited).

- Production is in Malaysia.

- Pallets from factory, containing 320 hardware sets per carton, were seen on William’s visit.

- General Release will be held, until new firmware infrastructure tests good for mass release.

- Essentially that new firmware gives us lots of running room to respond to user requests to advance the product, as well as support.

- TextBlade is more computer than switchbox.  The firmware is like apps on your phone.

- You wouldn’t buy a new phone just to get a new app with new functions.

- TextBlade is that kind of platform, so the firmware needs to make lots of new apps easy, without replacing hardware.

- This is unprecedented for a keyboard, but it’s now possible.

So to William, expect rolanbek to at first engage in friendly questioning, but then to drop the hammer and challenge journalistic integrity.

That is his M.O. for a ‘denial of coverage’ attack.  He tries to harangue people to muzzle them.

In macrumors case, he accused an editor of getting paid to write a puff piece for ad dollars.  But macrumors never takes money for advertorials ever.  They farm out all ads to google ads, so the ads are all blind.  

Macrumors didn’t take a dime to report on this new tech, that over time has proved to be indisputably real, and powerful.  That editor told the truth the whole way, and when this guy would not let up with the harassment, the topic was stopped - which was his target. This all occurred before any treg shipments had started.

Trolls exist, so we just acknowledge it and move forward.

There’s lots of customers who need great typing, and the fun part is how happy they are when you deliver it to them. 

Peace is a good thing ericpeet.

Thanks for copping to the fact that you are not a customer, you don’t have an order, and you’ve not experienced the product.  It lends context to your comments.

Your courtesy to advise us on Latin came wrapped in a jab against authentic users - paying customers, whom you dismiss as mere minions. 

You’re smart enough to know the parallel between Latin plurals - Quora and Fora.  But alas, you could not resist another dig.  The folks at Quora must be uneducated too.

Finally, for someone with no order or skin in the game, it’s amazing with how much time you waste on something that you’re not going to buy.

People who find your presentation credible will surely not buy our product, as you have worked hard to lobby.

All is settled, and peace to you.

The Art of Spin

As to the post just prior to the one above -

More of same, which illustrates the pattern well, and will likely continue to dribble on, with new id’s as needed.

More of what exposes the rhetorical sleight of hand -  ericpeets earlier posts shown in dark grey highlight bands -

- You've sent them out to testers (not really customers).

When a fact is too established to controvert, the tack is to try to diminish it.  But one really can’t. 

People who bought the product online, and use it, are indeed customers.  They have no relationship to us other than buying it.

They send us feedback, which isn’t any different from you sending Apple a bug report on another product you’ve been using for years.

There’s then an accurate quote from our facts -

 “There have already been close to a hundred written reviews posted by paying customers ”

Which a few lines later, gets hacked and rephrased with the tools of the trade - 

- First of all, their "reviews" are not accurate because (and correct me if I'm wrong) they don't have the final model

The hundreds of TextBlades in use by customers are from the production tools and processes. It’s clearly the product.  

And most users now say I like this, ship it. We’ve also posted a lot about the firmware infrastructure upgrade we’re doing now for general release.

So by coining a ‘final model’ rubric, any comment posted last week about say, an iPhone, isn’t real and doesn’t count.  Because this week it got an iOS update.

So, there's the MacRumors article, the "hundreds" of "customer reviews", and this one.

Notice the subtle turn of phrase here - in just a few lines, the accurately quoted factual statement is morphed into something false.  

‘Close to a hundred’ (true) becomes - ‘hundreds’ of ‘customer reviews’ (false).  Which is ascribed to us with quotes.

This juxtaposition compactly documents this technique. The mutual contradictions are right there, served up on a platter. The original quote, and then the blender. 

That’s how spin works.  Distort what was said into something else, and then attack that.

It has shifted from the prior assertion that there were no reviews for years (inarguably false), to an new angle of semantical gamesmanship.

And when you point out what’s misrepresented, the reaction then pivots to ad hominem jabs - bully, delusional, mistreat customers, etc. 

So you won’t assuage a person who’s purpose is not really to get his goody and be happy. His message is don’t buy the thing. Don’t accelerate its release.

When we buy products on amazon, we look at reviews by customers who actually use it.  That’s the most referenced kind of standard for buyers today.

Here, both journalists and customers have used it and written about it, and the observations are consistent.  It’s all online on the Reviews topic on our forum.

A public discussion board can’t staff vetting who’s real, or truthful.  It’s simply too much work.  Some folks count on that, to fracture facts to ply their message.

It’s eye-opening to see a real world example of this happening.  Something useful is learned by watching how this is done.  

We’ll see plenty more of it.  But this example teaches a lot about the pattern.

It doesn’t end with general release, either.  Just have a look at the Tesla forums before quarterly earnings.  Short-seller shills abound, and that’s for a 25 billion dollar company shipping hundreds of thousands of cars.  Which owners overwhelmingly love.  It’s done to Apple too.  Salvos of distortion are sold as fact.  That’s the Internet for you.

A good time is had by all.

One more thing - the spin usually follows whenever a user says something interesting about the product, which is what most readers come here to learn about.

So for thesevociferous comments from those without an order, or any experience using the product, the idea is to not let favorable news sink in, but quickly distract with some new dissonance.  Always shifting the focus away from the merits of the product.  

Which speaks for itself.