Rip Ragged

You know how I hate to call people asshats, assclowns, jackasses, dumbasses, morons, idiots and retards. And by golly, I won’t do it tonight either. Nice try, Don. Don Reisinger, over on a blog called “The Digital Home,” says some of the stupidest things I’ve read all afternoon. Yet I will refrain from calling him  by pejoratives related to subnormal intelligence. That just wouldn’t be nice.

Just for the sake of brevity, I won’t quote the whole post. You can read it here if you don’t have anything better to do. Feed the fish, dust the candlesticks, and polish the doorknobs first. No sense delaying anything important.

The point of the post is that Apple is getting a free pass in the press in spite of all the terrible things that are going wrong for Apple. How can Apple be so totally hosed – selling inferior products and offering lousy excuses – and still be the recipient of royal treatment in the press?

The whole asinine post is built on two reports of first generation iPod Nanos overheating in Japan.

He writes that Apple’s problems have stretched far beyond battery problems. He says the company is “facing trouble over its utterly crappy MobileMe.” He doesn’t say what “trouble” the company is “facing,” nor does he explain why “MobileMe” is crappy. MobileMe hasn’t had the number or severity of hiccups as Vista. Fortunately for Don, the blogosphere forgives lousy writing.

“Amid all those problems (and many more that I didn’t recount)…

When he can’t think of anything to say he amplifies his vapitude with a highlighted “etcetera.”

…, Apple’s satisfaction rating is the highest in the business, sales are stronger than ever, and there are no signs of either slowing down at any time.” 

“If you ask me, it has nothing to do with the products and everything to do with Apple’s marketing machine.”

The survey is not of people’s opinions of Apple’s ads, but of people who actually have bought and used Apple’s products – 85% of whom like them. According to Don, this is entirely marketing. He either didn’t read or is incapable of understanding the data he linked to. See, Don, people actually have the products in their houses. They like them. You can’t do that with a TV ad.

I’m skipping a particularly vacuous paragraph (a remarkable feat, here). 

“But are all Apple products really that much better? They suffer from the same instability problems, don’t work nearly as well as Apple fanatics want us to believe, and generally don’t offer the best of the best in any space. And yet, none of that matters.”

That’s because all of that is bullshit, Don. While it’s true that Apple products have the same problems as other similar products, they have those problems less often. They do work very well. You can measure that by reading your link to the 85% satisfaction survey of people who’ve bought the damn things. See, it’s just your opinion that doesn’t matter, Don.

More money quotes….

“Should we simply forget that Apple has no policy in place in its App Store and will single-handedly remove applications without warning consumers or the developers?”

Apple has a policy. Apple decides what apps can be distributed on the App Store. They said that at the very outset. Should we forget that? Sure. Unless we’re iPhone app developers. Then we should keep it in mind continuously.

“Should we forget that Apple’s batteries explode and burn up just like every other company’s batteries?”

Apple doesn’t make batteries. (See? I didn’t say “dumbass.”)

“Should we forget that a Mac is far more expensive than comparably-equipped Windows-based machines even though it offers little in the way of tangible benefits?”

I absolutely swear to you that is an actual quote from the post. I should get some kind of a medal for not calling Don Reisinger a moron with as much qualification for writing about computers as Clay Aiken writing about NFL blocking schemes.

Then, in the last couple of paragraphs, he pulls together all of that inane horseshit to formulate his conclusion. Basically, his conclusion is that people who buy and like Apple products are stupid and easily taken in by slick marketing. 85% satisfaction merely proves his point.

See there, Don? I got through the entire post without ever once saying you’re an assclown, in spite of finding – under your byline – the most ill-informed, poorly written piece of flamebait in days.

Just so you all know: If I decide to break discipline and call someone a dithering imbecile I have Don down as a candidate.

…

Jason D. O’Grady, over on ZDNet about the HTC Dream’s iPhone killer dreams:

Do you think that every time someone proclaims some new phone to be an “iPhone killer” Apple engineers tape it up in their lockers, Michael Phelps-style, for motivation? I do.

…

Smile. Who cares if you still have lettuce between your teeth?