The previous post mentioned John Gruber in passing but didn’t elaborate on him or his role in defending the iPhone’s honor. The truth is, John Gruber is the single greatest warrior in the army of Christ Apple, and like the greatest warriors, his skill is not in armed combat, but rather in his mastery of debate and argument. Have you seen the film Thank You For Smoking? He’s basically that guy, except pudgier and kind of a hippie.
Gruber has been engaged in the business of outing what he calls “iPhone doubters”1 for quite some time. How deep does these doubters’ lack of faith run? One such doubter outed by Gruber, Rob Waugh dared to write the following:
Part- mobile, part-iPod, it has a touchscreen that’s set to sweep away memories of tapping furiously at unresponsive old Palm Pilots – and it looks delicious. But does it live up to the hype? As a phone, the answer is ‘no’.
It’s not like he then goes on to explain what specific phone features the iPhone will not ship with that makes it not, in his estimation, live up to the absolutely monstrous hype the iPhone has gotten. Oh wait, actually he does. Right in the next paragraph. And then he praises the usability of the iPhone’s interface.
Of course, Gruber ignores that, and simply accuses him of complaining about the phone without actually using one. Except that none of his complaints did stem from usability issues, but rather the plain as paper features that Apple has explained are present in the phone. Thankfully Gruber, being the genius debater that he is, doesn’t allow you to post comments to his website, and therefore protects himself from anyone bringing up that minor trivial detail.
Gruber also follows the great rule of debate: don’t acknowledge the that there’s another side to the debate. Namely that there has been an incredible amount of positive press on the iPhone without people actually using one. I would say that it’s surprising that Gruber’s litmus test doesn’t cut both ways, but it’s not.
In Gruber’s world, facts like that aren’t important. It’s not about who has or hasn’t used an iPhone, it’s about faith in the glory of Jesus the iPhone. Last Friday he took another disbeliever, Slate’s Jack Shafer, to task.2 Gruber writes:
The press largely ignored the fact that video-capable MP3 players already existed and treated Steve Jobs as if he was the reincarnation of Thomas Edison.Apple has gone on to sell tens of millions of video-capable iPods. Unless Shafer is willing to argue that the iPod’s continuing success is the result of the media coverage, the video iPod’s popularity justifies the press coverage. (The press paid a ton of attention to the Segway, too.)
Gruber’s ability to form a an airtight rebuttal to an argument is absolutely top-notch. The financial success of the video iPod proves beyond all reason that the press did not misrepresent facts in presenting the video iPod as the first of it’s kind. I mean, obviously.
Debate Tactic #3: Ask a rhetorical question with obvious answer, but ignore said obvious answer.
Writes Gruber:
Apple’s stock price jumped $4 on the battery news. Was that a result of the press coverage, too? Three additional hours of battery life is a significant difference.
Ummm… yes, when the news media reported the increase in battery life the stock price jumped up. Had the new media not reported it, no one would have known about it, and the stock price wouldn’t have changed. Isn’t that just basic logic? I mean, that’s just cause and, like, effect, right?
He continues:
The Ocean does look like a cool phone. But does Shafer really want to get into a pissing match feature comparison between the iPhone and Ocean?
Maybe it was just to transition into a discussion of how awesome Billy Ocean is? A transition he failed to execute, in typical cynic fashion!
Gruber is, however, not without his faults. He makes the little tiny minor mistake of completely conceding that he’s full of shit:
It is, of course, entirely possible that the original iPhone will be a disappointment.
It’s possible?! Then why the fuck are you calling out all these “iPhone doubters”, John? If you, the faithful, aren’t 100% confident in your Lord and Savior mobile phone then what the hell are we, the reasoned and sensible, to think?3
Gruber concludes:
What is Shafer’s argument? That the press should ignore the fact that hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people are going to line up hoping to buy an iPhone at 6pm on the first day it’s available? Is it not possible that the iPhone deserves tremendous media attention?I thought his argument was that the press is sucking up to Apple and eschewing accuracy in their overwhelmingly fanatical praise of their latest product. But I guess since that’s not argument you were debating it’s not really important, now is it? And really, isn’t that what good debate is about? Saying whatever the hell you feel like about someone else whilst calling them names and generally insulting the intelligence of the audience?
Yes, but only if you truly believe it is.
- One can only assume that the term “infidels” was already taken by some other a-hole blogger.↩
- Interestingly enough, Shafer is refered to as an “Apple cynic”, which is, I assume, far worse than being merely an “iPhone doubter”. To be a cynic of Apple is, well, just fucking Communist!↩
- Answer: John Gruber is an iPhone doubter.↩
Tags: Apple, iPhone, Things That Suck
Man, this site looks ugly… you colorblind or something?
Yes, I do have a ridiculously large penis.
I’m sorry, what was the question?
This is a very silly article. Gruber has his faults, but he has an established position as a serious pundit with a very solid track-record (go and do some research–you know, read stuff–for a change). In contrast, I’ve never seen this website before, and neither the color-scheme nor the content will make me long to ever get back. Jeez, I’ve been wasting enough time here already.
Good points. I like reading most of Gruber’s stuff, but I get a bit tired of all the (and yes, it is) Apple Fanboy-ish-ness of ALL of his articles. I can agree with this, though.
I read Gruber a lot, too, and I don’t consider him an Apple fanboy at all. I don’t always agree with him, but that’s beside the point. He is more than willing to take Apple to task as needed. And hey, he also prints corrections quickly and rethinks/refines his position from time to time. You really can’t ask more than that. Well…maybe reducing the number of Kubrick posts per month ;o)
Oh, I forgot to mention why he doesn’t allow comments on his website. IIRC, it’s because he wants his readers to read the entire post, instead of skimming it and then rushing to the comments section. It’s a valid argument, especially given how well-known he is in the Mac universe. If he chose to allow comments, then they probably would be similar to YouTube comments–mostly noise with a few nuggets sprinkled about.