I understand that journalists want to be cynical and to claim “objectivity.” But when 11 bloggers at ZDNET write over 50+ negative blog posts in a little over a week for a product NOT even out yet? What is that? Proof they are smarter than us? … and more cynical? Proof they are mad at Apple because they haven’t gotten a test unit?
Sure, I’m as guilty of making presumptions about the iPhone but I don’t think I’m going on a limb to say it’s going to sell well on Day 1 and that if Apple/Steve Jobs demos a product, it will pretty much work like that, it’s not some behind-the-scenes CGI at work. I too have reservations about a touchscreen but the tiny chiclet keyboard we have had so far on other phones is obviously not a real resolution either so why not a touchscreen? Isn’t it presumptuous to declare that since every touchscreen so far is not so good, Apple’s won’t be either? How do we progress anywhere with that attitude? As a John Cleese’s caveman character was quoted, “This round thing, you call it a wheel, who would want this?”
So, as we covered already – opinion is all over the board and sometimes from the same person who forgot they love it on Monday and by Wednesday is complaining about no spinning beachball or something equally pointless … but ZDNET is really spewing …
ZDNET has over 11 blogs that touch upon Apple so of course, the writers are attempting to increase page view counts to get a bigger bonus and at the end of the year, their bosses won’t notice how they got there but out of some 60+ posts in the last week or so, there were about 2 that were positive and 2 that was neutral … really, Apple & the iPhone is such a horrible product that it warrants nearly 50+ negative blog posts and that’s just the last 10 DAYS or so?!
How much hate can you direct at something not even out yet … would there be this much hate for a carbon-mercury spewing autobot baby seal killing machine?
Even when they post news or just a press release, they have to add a snarky comment while most other companies in another blog post just simply get their press release info mostly re-posted with a few neutral or positive comments – are they trying to show they are immune to the “reality distortion field” or the so-called hype?
And who exactly is creating this hype? Is one keynote, one official press conference, 5 ads and now 3 press releases really “hype?” There’s more hype over M&M’s changing color … is it not “hype” when ZDNET chooses to write 60+ articles by 10 different people?
And the guy who write the Apple blog doesn’t seem to like Apple or their products very much, however the Blackberry guy gushes about Blackberries … nothing wrong there? Of course, the real oddity is they have a guy who is an actual Microsoft employee blogging for them – how objective can he be? Sure, you can always criticize “future” specs on a product but what about looking at the iPhone and thinking, “10 million iPhones = An ideal platform for malware.” That takes quite a stretch – especially since a few days earlier, the same guy claims there’s no way he could see how Apple could sell 10 million iPhones but of course, if they did, 10 million will automatically be infected … even if you agree 100% with these guys, it must be pretty depressing to hang around with people who see the glass as not just half full but the water is full of chemicals and the glass must be dirty.
The 11 blogs …
APPLE CORE
“Apple beefs up iPhone battery specs” (amazing – a whole ZDNET blog news post without a snarky comments)
“10 things wrong with touchscreens”
“6 reasons not to switch to Safari on a PC”
“Only AT&T corporate stores to carry iPhone”
“Apple canceling Personal Shopping appointments for 29 June”
““Sleep Camp” nixed, you still have to reboot”
“Apple lulls developers to sleep at hardware-less WWDC”
“Beta Nazi: No Leopard for you”
“iPhone acquisition strategies (Update 2)”
“iTunes Plus tracks contain user info”
“Fortune: Apple TV a “dud”
“iPod that you can drive over” (drives over his Shuffle – still works – positive)
HARDWARE 2.0
“Apple’s reality distortion field in action – iPhone feature comparison”
“iPhone’s improved battery life” (must resist snarky comment, nope can’t do it – QUOTE – is the battery user-replaceable? Oh, and how usable is the virtual keyboard?)
“Firefox is on Steve Jobs’ hit list!”
“Safari for Windows – Do we really need another browser?”
“10 million iPhones = An ideal platform for malware”
“Users won’t care about iPhone keyboard usability”
“Malware could turn innocent iTunes Plus users into file-sharers”
“Each AppleTV costs $237 to make”
“iTunes Plus – Getting more than you bargained for!”
“iPhone – Out June 29th”
QUOTE – ” …still find it hard to see how Apple is going to shift 10 million iPhones in 2008″
“Scoble: AppleTV “left the door open to its competitors””
IP Telephony, VOIP (real imaginative blog title there)/BLACKBERRY BEAT (same guy write both blogs)
“Eight hours of iPhone battery life? Ain’t gonna happen too often” (aka: trust me, I know it all and I’m never wrong because in my dreams where I’m holding an iphone, it goes dead after 7 hours!)
“Safari for Windows main problem? Mac cultists”
“Report: iPhone cool stuff access will require two-year data plan”
“Plan to buy an iPhone June 29? “Undoubtedly there will be shortages”
“Poll: do you care that iPhone is missing a physical keyboard?”
“This AT&T store is taking an iPhone waiting list: “If you’re here you’ll get it”
“Windows Users: drop everything and install Safari for Windows now” (sarcasm)
“iPhone ad secret Apple probably doesn’t want you to know”
“Apple TV chips cost breakdown here”
“As iPhone is released, AT&T BlackBerry support’s probably gonna suck”
“BlackBerry vs. iPhone: Google iPhone search brings up BB Curve Sponsored Link”
“What would it take for you to switch from BlackBerry to iPhone?”
JON CARROLL – DEVELOPER (A MS employee)
“Thoughts on HTC’s iPhone competitor” (somewhat positive)
QUOTE – “Clearly, I favor Microsoft products, which shouldn’t surprise anyone. I was a fan of the company’s technology long before I was employed by them in May of 2005.”
“Thoughts on Apple TV” (surprise, doesn’t like it – imagine that from a MS employee).
“Countering Apple’s ad campaign” (his ad suggestion for MS – I think there’s a reason this guy works for MS and not Apple or Nike).
MOBILE GADGETEER
“GotVoice brings some iPhone functionality to your current mobile phone”
“The iPhone will cost me at least US$2245, how about you?”
“HTC beats Apple to the touch”
“Is the Apple iPhone really that fast?”
“Steve Ballmer:Windows Mobile 60%+ vs Apple iPhone at 3%” (actual comments neutral)
WEB 2.0 EXPLORER
“No iPhone for me, thanks to AT&T!”
“Finally! An Apple web strategy”
“Safari on Windows? The real reason behind the new release”
“Dear Steve Jobs (I want subscription music)”
“Dot Mac Dead?”
BERLIN’S TESTBED (Under the Hood of Technology)
“Author of Gas.App mines his Web logs for iPhone specs (and finds them)”
“Will Apple’s boost to iPhone’s battery life be enough?”
“With respect to iPhone, Microsoft rolls over and plays dead”
QUOTE – “But the many discouraging aspects of the iPhone is not really what this blog post is about, or is it?”
ALL ABOUT MICROSOFT (Unblinking Eye on MS – um, unblinking eye, is that the LOTR’s thing?)
“And in case you haven’t seen it, there’s the Fake Steve Ballmer blog.”
“Leopard looks like … Vista”
Yea, hard to top this one, she tries a few days later to claim that yes, she wrote ‘Leopard Looks Like Vista,’ but we misquoted her … after all, you could interpret those 4 words many different ways … maybe if you read it Yoda-style, it might sound different?
ZERO DAY (Virus/Trojan)
Okay, this guy is definitely a black cloud guys since he writes about exploits, viruses and spyware – hard to find any positive articles on his blog to begin with on any topic.
BETWEEN THE LINES (General Tech Blog?)
“Apple, Jobs and the UPOD iPhone strategy”
Most of article about battery life and new screen but what’s a ZDNET without a negative presumption? QUOTE – “At least until you drop it and have to buy a new one.”
“Poll: Fake Steve Jobs matters more than the real thing”
“Blurry, but fast: Safari’s fonts”
“Safari for Windows: Embracing and extending” (actual neutral in tone)
“Update: ZFS will be in Leopard–sort of” (does anyone really, really care?)
“Safari development for the iPhone” (almost positive)
“Smart move: iPhone opens up to Web developers” (positive)
ED BOTT”S MICROSOFT REPORT
“Is Jobs planning a hostile takeover of the Windows desktop?”
QUOTE – “So, my prediction: Come October, when Leopard ships, Apple will announce that anyone buying a new Mac can order an Apple-customized version of Windows Vista pre-installed on the same system.”
By the way CNET/ZDNET, it’s 2007 – maybe that’s why you hate the iPhone 1.0, you’re in 2006 and you hate having to wait until 2007 to use this technology … the other reason could be even you hate technology so much YOU don’t even bother to read to the bottom of your own pages.
TWO A DAY 
Nice compilation of links! Not surprising at all.
I think that its not so much Apple hating, and more a matter of ZDNet click-whoring at its finest; they know, more than most, how they can drive up hit counts by mentioning Apple.
Negative mentions? Twenty times the hits.
Its all about the clicks with these guys-which is why every ZDNet blog, regardless of supposed “specialty” or “focus” gets involved. At least the Apple Blog guy has an excuse, as that IS his beat-the rest are just desperate for the clicks, and seriously, who the hell would rely on George Ou for actual Security info, or Mary Jo Foley for insight on Microsoft? Or that Linux fogey for..anything? Of course they have to branch out to Apple stories; how else are they going to get any readers at all? :p
Hi, I was seeing a lot of ZDNet links on macsurfer.com, and after checking out a couple of them I knew not to waste any more time with the rest of them. They are usually anti-Apple for whatever reason.
It`s a pitty that you have no digg button there, I have seen all the negative ones myself. It`s a mircrosoft thing ad zd.
20+ million Macs. Still not a perfect platform for malware…
There are a lot of big players that are very nervous over this product. I have noticed that quite a few negative articles on the iPhone have been coming out through “Cox News Service” outlets, usually Cox owned newspapers. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that Cox Communications offers wireless phone service in many areas, and is adding more?
Why the hell is there music playing on this page!?! Ugh. Are you a DJ? Is this a music download site? No, then please, no music (or other annoying sounds for that matter). I know, I know, you’re gonna say “you can turn it off by clicking the pause button”… but then I need to search your whole webpage looking for a music control… all the while music is playing and most likely interrupting either my silence or my own music. This is one of the most annoying developments on the web right now… much like flaming logos were a few years ago or printed pages with 25 different fonts during the DTP craze. Please, think before you wield technology.
Oh ya, and ZDNet is totally pulling a hit job on the iPhone. I’ve actually stopped reading it entirely because they are so obviously biased against a product they haven’t even seen. Doesn’t really give me the warm and fuzzies about their journalistic integrity.
TIZMANIAN – (Lighten up, Brad. The Sonific player has the pause button right smack under the volume control so there is no need to ‘hunt’ anything. Plus, that really cool slider thing modulates the volume so you can slide it all the way to left to knock the sound out as well. I tell you what – I’ll leave it to a vote among 2ADay readers. Post up here if you vote yea or nay to the addition of the Sonific music player. No ballot stuffing, Brad. I’ll cap votes after one week and report back with a post with the results.)
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[…] As a consumer of the internet, please realise just how you are being played by these (and other) people. […]
http://blog.whybird.net/post/3871256
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NO MUSIC please – suggest, but dont throw it on our faces.
I like the rest of the article.
AM
anybody who doubts that Apple can claim at least 1% of the mobile phone market must be smoking some kind of strange weed…..! Just watch it go even beyond that once a second version appears and it’s sold outside the U.S. as well. What’s so great about the existing phones including my regular freeze-up called at Treo 650?
Can it sell beyond 10+Million by 2008, no body really knows because no one in the wild has ever used one.
I can imagine that the iPhone will be in shortage in the first few days of the launch. The next sales figure will have to be decided to how well the product really goes.
Face it, those so called iPhone “preview”, “review”, “hype”, “bashing”, and god knows what doesn’t really mean anything since the writer, of course, have never even touched one (in exception of Walt of course…)
OMG…
“Leopard looks like … Vista” ?!?!?!?!
That one pisses me off the most…
WTF? Just WTF.
*Note to self*
Never click on a ZDnet link… ever.
ZDNet has figured out a brilliant scheme. By saying bad things about Apple, they please the pro-Microsoft readership and advertisers, and they also trap the pro-Apple readers into writing comments defending Apple and rebutting the author’s theses.
There’s no satisfaction reading or commenting at such sites. I guess Apple is going to have to overwhelm the FUD with increased market cap and market share. That will eventually shut them up. I’d like to see a new generation of writers, who didn’t grow up with memories of the 1980s and 90s. That’s part of the problem too. These idiots are reliving their glory days of Windows 95.
Here’s the thing with your sound widget, it’s so nicely designed and fits very seamlessly into your blog that it’s a little hard to find, to be honest. I heard this strange humming sound that took me a while to figure out was background music before futiley searching for whatever the hell was making that sound.
The amusing thing is that with websites like myspace these sound widgets usually stick out like a sore thumb so they’re that much easier to spot.
Your blog, your decision regarding the music, but I’d have to vote nay myself, it’s just really annoying, even if I happen to like the music being played. It just feels intrusive.
I’m sorry, I have to say that I don’t wish to hear music on a page of this kind. It does just feel intrusive.
No music, please.
I just had to cycle through all my open tabs trying to figure out where the noise was coming from. It’s not as simple as just clicking on a control to turn it off – you’re assuming that this is the only page/window someone has open at any given time.
They are just sore that it doesn’t run Linux or Winblows mobile like all the other crappy mobile devices they have.
iPhone is aimed at the mainstream market not a bunch of geeks that want to install crappy nieche software on everything they own.
The music is annoying and it took me a while to work out where it was coming from.
I can’t believe the collective hysteria that is gripping the media and the acres of speculation and comment over this as yet unreleased product. I just wish they would all shut up about it.
The only prediction I will make about this shiny gewgaw is that unless it can make your breakfast for you, locate the lost city of Atlantis, and part the Red Sea, there will be lots of negative reviews that will not stop it from selling as fast as Apple can make them.
Why Apple can compare iPhone to other phone and claim it is better but ZDNet blogger can not?
You guys are talking about music playing in the background, but all I’m getting is this incredibly irritating atonal droning noise that sounds really monged and druggy.
And yes you can switch it off quite easily, if not for the fact that it switches itself back on again when you make a post.
No music please by default. The particular song I got wasn’t too bad but I didn’t even realise there was a music control until I read your comment. I thought it was an Ad so I was already ignoring it 🙂
Music was cool thanks. =)
If I’m reading news, I usually open 10+ windows in background, while I scan the titles in the aggregator. Now… think about hunting down where the music just started, covering my own music? 😉
You’ll notice that it’s more than annoying. 🙂
~
About the article, nice sum up. I think that the answer is in the comments: talk badly of Apple and you’ll get 20x pageviews
It’s quite clear – indeed – that we shouldn’t talk about ethics… A pageview is money! *sst* 😉
I noticed the same thing you did. It’s really too bad.
There is ONE area in which I think the iPhone will suffer, and that’s in business environments. The lack of real, Exchange-based push email will be a problem.
My editorial is here, and that’s about all I have to say that’s even somewhat negative about the iPhone. This aspect aside, I think it will kick all sorts of ass.
ZDnet is a highly repudiable and responsible company with the very highest journalistic standards! Believe whatever they say!
Interesting post. ZDNet is pretty much following a Dvorak strategy for getting hits.
Music: I vote for music off as a default, with the option to listen. Perhaps a little blurb to provide more info/incentive to check out the music would be good.
Ok, the votes have come in for the music on this blog and there will be some changes made. First, sound will be off as a default. Second, the player will be made more noticeable rather than seamless so it is easier to find. I will post a new thread commenting about the player, how it works, and where to lob virtual rocks if you still hate it being there.
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Thanks for the article. In the end, I think I’ll wait to hear what other consumers have to say about it. Often I’ve found reviews to be wrong, skewed, and biased toward some companies. So, I’ll wait and see for myself……
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Am I the only one to feel it’s good to hear negative reviews of a product? Is it so bad that columnists will restrain the lemming fanboys from a blind purchase “in the name of Apple”? Sure, it will seamlessly blend with my G5 environment but from that point on I definitely need to see it tested for some time before buying it. With a 2 year AT&T plan + 500$ price + data plan this is not smth you need to rush buying.
The one thing I always hate about Apple is their religiously fanatical crowd seeing Microsoft everywhere. Now that the iPhone is coming out they are taking it to absurd dimensions -and it’s not a cure for cancer, it’s last year’s technology FFS. I ‘d prefer it if Apple stayed in computing and get on with Leopard instead of wasting time in a flop. By the time it’s Xmas, every other company will have 4 new phones with better specs + price and Apple will be still blueprinting iPhone 2.0. If they don’t ditch it altogether.
Now are we really that negative. A point by point response.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=5437
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Apple fanboys sure are sensitive. Have you ever considered the possibility that it just sucks? That’s definitely the case for the Windows version of Safari — I personally know many who downloaded it, and zero who used it more than a day after trying it.
That was also the verdict of a cell-phone freak friend who gave the iPhone a 4-hour test drive: Slick UI, no lag, but an occasionally unresponsive touchscreen that’s a chore to keep clean, a horrible keyboard, and not worth it at half the price.
I wonder how much TEH EVIL M$ paid him to say that?!?!
I have heard so much talk about the iphone price being to expensive. They think no-one will buy it. Let me see; I have a ipod video in my left pocket (listening to it right now) a blackberry on my belt and a treo in my right pocket. with I phone i could replace it least two of these. Saw a news story the other day about teens being the largest consumers of 5 dollar cups of coffe and sushi. Will they by an iphone? of course they will. No keyboard… my 16 year old daughter can text message faster than you can type with her standard phone clicking the 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 multiple times for each letter with taking the phone out of her pocket. People are going to buy the iphone because it is cool. It going to be big. people are going to buy it and buy it again when newer versions come out. We have 5 cell phone in my home. If anybody in my homes gets one we are all going to want one. ZDNETDON’TGETIT. Of course they do. They just want clicks.
zdnet has always slammed apple and macs.. cnet does too and is the queen of it.
negative press gets 10x as many readers and viewers than good press.. and honestly, not a single one of these oh so esteemed “bloggers” has even seen or used an iphone and is just parroting what they’ve read elsewhere.
blogs are still blogs, where 90% of them are still places for idiots to espouse an opinion. and you know what they say about opinions and a$$holes…
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Gee, What a surprise!! ZDNet has been a Microsoft whore since the days of the original “OS Wars” (Windows/DOS vs OS/2). Back then, it was the same tripe – always end an article with something negative about OS/2 so the MS$$ keep coming. Once a whore…
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So uncool… Special Interests Mo’Fo!!
vote: Sonific down
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To Jonny D’s response:
The iPhone isn’t out yet. So until it’s out and people actually USE IT, there is no point in writing an article – good or bad about it because you can’t say anything definitive.
You talk of a “religiously fanatical” crowd of Mac users, and yet you’re being “religiously fanatical” in being anti-Apple. It works both ways. Usually anyone using the term “Fanboy”, “Cultist” or “Fanatic” is one themselves, they’re just on the other side of the fence.
As for the ZDNet/CNET articles – they have always bashed most things Apple. It’s one thing to have a real opinion about things – but when you can’t be even a slight bit objective then there is definitely something wrong with that picture. Online “journalism” has become so extremist that it seems to shatter to pieces what it means to be a journalist with the result that most people just align themselves with the blogger that thinks the same way they do. Where’s the objectivity? Where’s the open-mindedness?
It’s all a joke.
This is all very simple, Apple caused a paradigm shift which resulted in a whole market having to redirect focus to usability of their phones from the easily managable hardware upgrades that have dominated the lifecycle of a product.
Why does this scare the competitions so much? Easy, they can’t see the road ahead, what is the right thing to do and what’s a dead end. They just don’t know how to top Apple, they’ll even have a couple of years infront of them just to match their current product.
Well, it should be noted that people are just not experienced with iPhone, and not one is. Until the mass market tries the device, there is no telling just how popular it might become.
As far as security issues, I am Mac user, I have my built in firewall on, which is not even necessary. I have several PCs as well. I have realized that my mac is more secure and resistant. I use my mac as my PC’s anti-virus, ie. I will take a look under parallel or crossover. I digress.
I have great faith in the Apple’s ability to secure the underlying system, as it is freeBSD, and OSX for all it’s glory is a great GUI that these advantage of the system. I believe the iPhone will be Apple’s finest hour, and bring a new-era for combined devices.
I have a iPod, Sansa E280, Macbook, Powerbook, 2 PCs, 1 Razor, 1 PalmTX, I need something to lighten by load. iPhone will the be first phone+mp3 player that I am willing to carry around everyday.
Phone plus iPod = killer product.
Oh, it has wifi as well? And OSX? And a large keypad that I can see? And simple and intuitive software? I can listen to podcasts in the car and NOT miss a call? Wow!
I’ll take it!
How much? I dont care – if you knew how PISSED OFF I am with my useless Razr…..
And just Like W. cheng, I have an iPod, a Razr, two Macbook Pro’s, a Palm Tx…….I can lose the ipod and the Razr and the TX, and I wont need a Macbook with me all the time.
This is the beginning of the decline of M$ and the rise of Apple…..
I’m not sure why so many people seem to think the touchscreen will be a terrible idea. My Nintendo DS Lite is basically a cheap plastic toy and it has a really nice touch screen. I think you could pull off this software keyboard idea on the DS’s screen (no stylus needed) and it’s pretty obvious Apple’s device is going to be more precise, sturdier, etc. ($500-$600 versus $120 for a reason). I think the iPhone will do very well, but I’m going to hold off for a bit as I don’t like to deal with cell phones (one of those people, heh). Anyway I just bought a MBP with the new Santa Rosa C2D, so I’m good with Apple products til ’08.
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You also forgot to mention two of the most virulently anti-Apple guys frequently on TV: Herb Greenberg and John Dvorak (who admits he makes outrageous comments just for the heck of it). Neither of these guys have been right about APple. I’m always hearing about the “high P/E.” I bought Apple stock in 1987 at $19 and two splits ago. Bottom line: Apple performs and has been mentioned – they keep coming out with great products. There’s more than the iPhone. Look at the market share overall. Look at kids on college campuses. These are the kids who’ve had iPods since they were ten now they’re buying MacBooks, etc. Apple is solid and the iPhone will ultimately change the industry.
I agree that ZDnet uses anti Apple titles just to get clicks. The articles are basically useless material written to just to get readers to respond. I refuse to waste my time on ZDNet anymore. Example: by Mary Jo: Leopard looks like Vista. This should have been Vista looks like Tiger.
I could care less about computers or manufacturers, as I am a technology “USER-enthusiast”…not what some techno-nerd CAN or COULD do…but what a particular tool lets “the rest of us” DO.
Apple has proven to me that its products are easiest to learn, easiest to use…and “empower” me throught what I can easily (and enjoyably) do with the tool. Plus they listen and continually improve their products. If that makes me an Apple “fan”…ok.
While I am an unabashed Apple fan, I am no fan of AT&T. I think Apple has made a big mistake pairing itself with AT&T. I encourage everyone to wait to purchase their iPhones until they can be used with some other wireless service. AT&T’s customer service is the worst in the industry–it doesn’t exist. If you have a problem don’t call them–you’re call is routed to India and the poor people you speak to there have no idea what you’re talking about and use a script that has no relation to any real problem.
Why wouldn’t they hate these iTards?