Yeah, very true. My grumpiness gets the best of me sometimes.:(
I guess I wish the HN response to a Gruberish article would be people analyzing it for what it is, not people gloating about how they think their team is, uh, winning or whatever, then arguing about the numbers that they think proves it. Maybe the post I was responding to was some sort of pro-Android Gruber parody or something. If that's the case, then it was awesome, because it really captured some very subtle nuances about how that brand of commentary operates.
I'm just fascinated by the myth-making that surrounds Apple.
How could anyone read an Apple pundit claim that profit is the only metric that matters and not nearly die of cognitive dissonance after so many years of excuses/reasons why beleaguered Apple's Mac OS 9 and X was better. And yet it's par for the course.
And now here's an article which claims to be about Ballmer (a figure of fun for the Apple crowd) but is really about how Apple is morally superior for not being capitalist!?
It's hilarious, fascinating and a bit sad. And strange to be at the inflexion point where they go back to all the stories from the Windows vs Mac OS days e.g. they've already cast both Google and Samsung, to play Microsoft's role as the evil villain who copied all their good ideas and didn't deserve success.
And have you read the Appleinsider piece that gets trotted out to defend Apple's profit share lead? It's a very, very odd read. But you mention that Apple have not got the profit lead anymore and you get several links to it, and several repetitions of the "Samsung numbers are dodgy" talking point. It's a very organised media bubble.
And the "Google copied Apple" trope is such garbage. Danger, Inc. was the innovator here, releasing their first Hiptop/T-Mobile Sidekick 5 years minus 3 months before the iPhone. Danger co-founder Andy Rubin left them a year later (let's hear it for non-compete unenforceablity in California!) to co-found Android, Inc., which was bought by Google in another couple of years, still 2 years prior to the iPhone's release.
There's no way in hell the first Android phone could have been released 5 quarters after the iPhone without it being long in gestation.
And here you are, pretending not to have been proven wrong about Samsung's profit share, elsewhere in the same thread.
The linked article is not claiming apple is morally superior. It is claiming that Apple is strategically different, and highlighting Ballmers's focus on short term profitability as a mistake.
Amazon is another example of the same thing.
You seem to be obsessed with bashing Apple and some putative 'apple crowd'. If you calm down and read what has been written you'll see that nobody else here is bashing anyone or making derisive assertions about other groups of people.
I guess I wish the HN response to a Gruberish article would be people analyzing it for what it is, not people gloating about how they think their team is, uh, winning or whatever, then arguing about the numbers that they think proves it. Maybe the post I was responding to was some sort of pro-Android Gruber parody or something. If that's the case, then it was awesome, because it really captured some very subtle nuances about how that brand of commentary operates.