Love what you love
Saturday, September 29, 2012 at 5:37PM The emotion that has crept into the mobile world over the past year has reached a point where almost every site is having to battle with anger, upset and complete bias from its readers. Take a look at the likes of BGR, The Verge and any other large tech site and read the comments- you will see what I mean.
BGR is one of the worst for this from what I can see, but then again I have little sympathy. Any site that takes forever to load and then throws advertising pop-ups in your face does not deserve to have a decent readership. It has become the tabloid website of the tech world. Aside from BGR, it happens everywhere now and in particular between Apple and Google fans. Fans? There are, yes really, fans of large corporations and the bits of plastic (or glass) that they produce.
Having an attachment to a device like a smartphone is somewhat normal, and I would say that wouldn't I, but getting worked up and aggressive about competition is not. I don't understand that even if some people think that I can be far too aggressive when it comes to failures of devices and companies.
Let's start with Apple. A company that I criticise often for a number of reasons. This is an organisation that can spin the world on its own Apple-shaped axis when it comes to product releases and euphoria. People queue up to be the first to get the new iPhone or iPad, the tech media writes endless words about such releases and everything the company does is covered in minute detail. Apple loves the attention because it creates sales and the company knows how to work it perfectly. And so it follows that when the company mis-steps, the negative press will follow. Good or bad, Apple will receive lots of attention and it amazes me how many people get upset when the tables turn and negativity strikes. You can't have it both ways and Apple has got itself into this position. It calls iOS the 'World's most advanced mobile operating system'. Well, if you are going to do that you can expect jeers, negativity and laughs at your expense if you release something as poor as Apple Maps which was described on the Apple site as the ‘most powerful mapping service ever'. That has since been removed.
The perception is that the anger directed at Apple is more than at other companies. This may be the case at times, but the perception Apple gives of itself to the outside world is one of taking time to get things right, sweating the small stuff and not just jumping on the latest bandwagon. This is fine, but then when still things go wrong after all of that sweating the inevitable criticism will follow. The other half of the perception comes off as arrogance and this is why the media and the world jumps when things go wrong. You cannot have it both ways in a democracy.
I feel that arrogance and it is not something I am comfortable with, but I own an iPhone 5, iPad 3 and an iMac and they all work splendidly thank you. That does not mean that I hate Android or people who use Android phones. That does not mean that I am a massive Apple fanboy who cannot take criticism of Apple or its products and I won't jump to the defence of the company when times get tough like so many journalists and others have been doing the past week.
It's time to realise that Apple does not do everything right. As per The New York Times-
The Times claims "numerous interviews" with former Apple employees "made it clear that Mr. Jobs and other executives rarely paid as much attention to Internet services as they did to the devices for which Apple is best known."
That is apparent is it not? iMessage has not worked for me over the past week. The iTunes store is incredibly buggy at the moment, iCloud is still very slow for me and I just don't trust Apple with web stuff. MobileMe, iCloud and the rest; always a sense that it will stop working at some point.
And then there is Google, a company who I much prefer to use for my Cloud needs. A company who now seems to have many, many fans on the jumping on to every website to run down Apple and to explain to us the 25,000 things their Android phone can do that others cannot. It's becoming a virtual war between the two sets of fans, a war caused by their preference for a phone. It sounds ridiculous, but wars have been fought over many stupid things in the past and this isn't really a war is it. It is just an exponentially growing argument that people are wasting far too much of their time on. People like me trying to understand why it is happening.
One thing I am proud of with Lost In Mobile is the discussions that take place. They are almost always respectful and understanding of other reader's choice, but even here the occasional snarky comment is starting to come in about the iPhone and Android phones. I don't want this site to become like the rest and a destination for silly arguments that do no one any good. I want it to remain above the line that so many have chosen to fall below. Yes, I write things that people will not like from time to time so feel free to criticise me, but don't do it to each other.
With that in mind, love what you love and enjoy the variety of choices we have available to us. I don't want to sound over the top, but far too many people in the world have a lot to be upset about. A phone should not be one of them.
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Reader Comments (12)
Loud applause from Suffolk, Virginia, USA!
Well said that man!
Agree Donald.
This year I have had one iPhone and 2 Samsung phones and now the iPhone 5.
I chose the 5 over the S3 because the 5 made me feel good.
I still will look at Nokia Lumnia and I use RIM for work.
And they're all good.
My iPhone uses iMessage really well with my wife, photo stream sharing and iTunes , google for mail, contacts and calendar, iCloud for everything else and viber for texts and calls via Internet to my kids, who use a blackberry and android.
So variety is good because you learn what's possible and what might suit you and others.
In reality the strange effect of the anonymous forums has been with us since the days when we had Symbian and Win Mobile fans. Nokia and SE fans fought all over the Symbian forums. I suppose technology has become an extension of ourselves.
Personally I've stopped many visiting many tech sites because of childish bickering and name calling just because someone prefers using one phone over another. I've been a happy chappy using an S and now an S2. I love it when friends show me their lovely i stuff and how it all works. I love having a play with it all and see how all their i stuff works so well together. I recommend the iphone to people who want a smartphone but don't want to fluff around. But I digress, all I wanted to say was that this site is one of the few places where people love technology and what one can do with it.
Like the desktop battles of the past there is a good reason why people are defensive of the platform they have chosen. If development of software for a platform stagnates the platform will die - look at what was happening to Mac OS in the mid-nineties. Having invested in a mobile platform, talking it up (and talking down the competition) is a defensive action to protect that investment.
I think LIM's readers have kirvined between platforms for years, Palm, WinMo, Symbian and UIQ in the past; iOS, Android and WP today. As a result we're all much more understanding of other's choices.
Also, unlike those other sites you mention, link bait doesn't make it onto LIM - which usually means the angry young men who have turned this into another techno-religion don't end up here to destroy the conversation.
Well said! As someone who reads the mobile sites on a daily basis I really do not understand the puerile wittering of some of the respondents. Why can't people put a point of view out there and receive a robust, but sensible response? Is this all a manifestation of the 'Titter', 'Facebook' era or another reincarnation of Warhol's 15 minutes of fame? Either way it is a turn-off, as mentioned in a previous comment, and makes one disinclined to read too many of the comments.
So, applause to LIM as the thinking man's (woman's) mobile site!
I think keeping it sane is essential, many sites I suspect have lost people who get fed up of reading posts non-representative of them.
A classic example is the BBC news "Have your say" - heavily hijacked by "political fan boys" (and I suspect more than a few paid activists). I don't visit it anymore, because it's just full of "vote for party X" etc, that have been given top rating (despite the two common rated parties getting less than 5% of the vote).
If these places were really representative, we wouldn't see the "general election results" (be that the real votes, or be that device purchases) that clearly show its not the case, and that extreme people are swamping the websites.
Even I get narky about the current favorite expression of "if you've bought apple you're clearly an iSheep who can't think for themselves."
Not quite sure what their counter argument is to those of us who own both.
Crapple fandroid!
Well said Shaun.
And if anyone's looking for an explanation to fanboyism/fangirlism, remember that the bell curve apples to almost anything where there are feelings or opinions or beliefs. Doesn't matter whether it's religion, politics, cars, or smartphones, you always get a vocal minority which goes along with the strong feelings, while the majority shake their heads and wonder what all the fuss is about. Strong opinions yes but along with intelligent discussion.
"the bell curve apples to almost anything "
Subliminal advertising? ;o)
Trusted Reviews did an editorial in a similar vein a couple of days ago: http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/discussion-over-lets-destroy-the-comments-thread-to-save-the-right-to-reply
We've always had this rivalry between different choices; the first I remember was Spectrum vs C64 but it probably started with walking on two legs vs four legs.
Part of it's trying to avoid buyer's remorse and part of it's what elbowz said (keeping your platform choice relevant). But most of it's because we're tribal by nature, and some of us just like to fight. The internet allows us to fight with virtually no consequence.
Why does LIM pretty much escape this problem? Probably because it's a small readership (and even smaller number of regular commenters) and the fanboys just haven't happened across the site. In the Trusted Reviews article I'd thought of citing this site as a place that gets it right, but I was wary of publicising it to people who might enjoy ruining that.
It probably also helps that this is more a blog than a review site. Posts are generally presented as opinion rather than fact, and when they aren't we're pretty quick at addressing that ;o)
Hot topic these days Android vs iOS, that's for sure. But I also think that many on board LIM come from a long history both in OS as well as in a relation and this contributes to a more mature environment.
Personally what I appreciate about this forum is the respect between people. Yes, occasionally someone goes off, but ultimately we all keep the wagon on the rails :-)
And sometimes, like this one, we have a moderator/administrator that rings the bell so people can calm down.
Shaun, I can only say that looking at the times we are facing, you keep doing a hell of a great job!