The BBC is a non-commercial organisation, so its not money orientated. Rory Cellen-Jones is their technology correspondent and he is totally obsessed with Apple. Its rare you see him without an Apple device attached to him, whether its needed for the story or not, and in his recent Windows 7 review said its ‘been years since he used windows’. How can he be a technology correspondent when he knows nothing about anything outside the Apple universe?
In another recent ‘article’ he compared smartphones and how easy it was to take and send multimedia. He decided iPhone won.. but had no Android or Winpho7 device in the test!

Good luck… hope you can view this as advice. If you find someone who’s opinion you can’t respect, you always have the option of simply not answering them rather than lashing out at them. Even with utterly foolish responses though, there’s always a way to respond without lashing out like “thats the dumbest argument I’ve ever heard” or “I’m guessing you didn’t read past the first paragraph before you got all proud of yourself for finding what you believed to be a logical flaw in my argument ” or the apparent willful misinterpretation of the dude who asked if you’d ever repaired an apple product, and you at first pretended it was about taking it into the shop, and then effectively mocked him for bringing up a very legitimate point

“but I won’t give you any more respect for being able to repair a computer than you should deride me for not being able to repair my own machines”

The lack of user upgradeability/repairability was extremely pertinent and I was quite suprised by how you handled the entire exchange with that particular user, who made pithy and pertinent points that simply did not jibe with what you liked… oh well, if you cant beat em… mock em I guess.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1282082/Why-I-hate-Apple-infuriating-cult-making-people-smug-bores.html

“Apple is the big brother Orwell warned us about. With Windows and Linux, the registry and code are yours once you have the OS. Your digital destiny is in your hands with these OSes, not so with Apple products. The only phone or ereader I will own now runs on Android. Windows has my PC and that’s enough of Microsoft for me, Android runs my phone & ereader, and Apple has nothing. I do not want those servers peeking in my PC ports.

This is a great line:
“you’ll see lines of cult followers passively standing in front of (Apple) screens, their faces riddled with the anxiety and discomfort of someone terrified they are behind the technological times”

and very true. There is nothing wrong with relying on Apple for your technological knowledge, but do so with some awareness and understanding of your relationship with the company, not with blind cult-like obedience. Apple is not for me, but I do wish I had their stock.
PC
- PC, USA, 30/5/2010 16:56

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1282082/Why-I-hate-Apple-infuriating-cult-making-people-smug-bores.html#ixzz14MJMBx2r“

An interesting read.

“He points to some Apple enthusiasts who went out and bought iPads despite complaining early on that the iPad didn’t offer much new, saying it was essentially a big iPod touch.

“That sort of loyalty and devotion would suggest that there’s something more than an objective appraisal going on, and it’s the same sort of faith and loyalty that we see in religions oftentimes,” he said.”

I likely will be passing on future articles by this writer.

Meant to say ‘Is it an UNhealthy bias.’ there.

The author misses a couple of very important (and ethically significant) issues though.

When the press selects news to cater to the whim of their audience in this way, it creates an ‘echo chamber’. When everyone compares any vaguely similar product to an Apple one – it give the appearence to people just entering the market that Apple is the market leader – even when they aren’t.

Case in point: the iPhone. Apple’s not the biggest maker. Nokia is. It’s not even the biggest smartphone maker: RIM is with Android in second place. Nor is it the biggest smartphone OS maker – that would be RIM again with Android in second place again.

Another one: walk into any Best Buy or go to their website. The iPad is listed in a section that’s titled “iPad and Tablets”. Music players are ‘iPod and MP3 Players’. When a customer comes in they don’t see a equal selection of devices – they see ‘iPod’ or ‘iPad’ THEN some other products lumped together in a faceless pile. That causes a sales bias.

By your OWN LOGIC, that would argue that most of the articles should be about Blackberries and Android phones, since more people (ie: a larger segment of the audience) owns them and is probably interested in reading news about the products they chose, when clearly that’s not the case.

I certainly don’t believe Apple actually bribes writers with money – but you’ve kind of alluded to it in this article – they bribe them with access and since every writer wants the scoop – they don’t want to risk losing that access, and Jobs KNOWS this (see the recent NYT kerfuffle).

Then there’s a more subtle bias. The Mac has long been the system of choice for artists and people in the news/publishing biz. It’s not THAT surprising that ads for Windows based products often end up with MacBook Pros standing in for a PC laptop – most of the art department has one and that’s what they like – so it goes into the layout.

It’s SO insane that one company who makes 3D desktop model scanners shows their product plugged into a Mac – when their software isn’t even available for a Mac. I asked them why they did this and the answer as ‘well, we think it looks nicer and you can always run Windows on your Mac’. True, but portraying their product this way is borderiine fraud.

Is the answer really as simple as ‘this is what most people want to read?’ I don’t believe so. I think what actually happens is that the Apple fans (who have been shown over and over in many psych studies tend to tie their ego to their purchases) go to techsites and ‘swarm’ – causing a skew in their representation. Couple that with the fact that bloggers tend to be writers and artists, and so have more Mac/Apple users in their population that normal and voila – instant feedback loop.

That leads to more than a statistically reasonable number of pro-Apple articles (and usually a corresponding increase in the number of anti-Microsoft articles) which actually attracts MORE Apple fans – skewing the bias ever further. The bloggers then write more pro-Apple stuff on the grounds that they’re writing for their audience (which is kind of true) and so on.

Eventually, Apple starts sending the most supportive cites samples or invites to special events and it kicks into high gear.

So, it is bias?

Yep – sorry – plain and simple – for whatever reason you want to chalk it up to – it’s bias. Is it a healthy bias? Well, if you’re a site called “MacRumours” then no.. but if you’re “Engadget” or “Gizmodo” or “PCWorld” then yeah. And if you’re “Good Morning America” or “The Motley Fool” or “The Wall Street Journal” then it’s a serious problem because when you write articles that uncritically promote a company or it products – well, we have a word for that – it’s called ‘shilling’ and it’s never a good thing.

The public turn to the press to povide them with useful information and a big part of that is a press that’s – if not unbiased – then at least critical and prepared to points out flaws all around. When they sweep problems under the table for one company – but hold another to a bright and glaring searchlight – it doesn’t no one good.

I find it somewhat laughable when reviewers sing the graces of “new, revolutionary features” that have existed elsewhere for ten years, then blatantly ignore devices with said features.
Or when a reviewer considers the N8 great in most respects but gives the device a 5/10 simply because the UI quality doesn’t match their favourite phone.
Or posting up a “usability showdown” pacing an obvious longterm iPhone user against a technologically retarded short term N8 user.

I have an N8. My wife has an iPhone. I do highly rate the crisp, fluid UI and application store of one, and the powerful technology, media offering and openness of the other.

And I did read the article too. The whole thing. Sounds like if he could eat/have sex with apple products he would.

Everything you wrote is from personal experience or opinion, none is based off fact and/or research. The day you use research instead of opinion to write articles, you can start calling yourself a journalist.

Incidently if you ever do write that piece on ownership bias you would have one reader for sure already :)

Now only if there was a way to get a significant sample size and use a little econometrics on it…

If you’re saying Apple machines are underpowered, you are implicitly making a comparison, and therefore you’re implying two things. 1. There are specific tasks that buyers want to perform that a Mac cannot handle. 2. Macs are not as powerful as comparably priced machines. Is an iMac underpowered for gaming tasks? Sure. But in most ways, primarily tasks that don’t require heavy lifting from the graphics card, Macs are powerful enough for the tasks at hand. They are certainly powerful enough for Apple’s built-in software, which is superior to other consumer-grade software packages on PCs, and they are powerful enough for Apple’s own pro software, which is at least comparable too, if not better than similar software packages from Adobe and Sony, for instance. In a direct price comparison, as has been proven over and over again online (see LaptopMag’s piece here: http://www.laptopmag.com/mobile-life/mac-myths-debunked.aspx?page=2#axzz13awAkvDc), the so-called Apple tax is rendered almost insignificant because of the less tangible benefits of owning a Mac. And I’m not talking solely about status, I’m talking about customer service and reliability, two issues to which I can directly attest.

Have I ever tried to repair a Mac? No. I’ve never repaired a PC, either. I don’t repair my own machines. I don’t value that as a skill in my own life. If you value your computer repair expertise, more power to you, but I won’t give you any more respect for being able to repair a computer than you should deride me for not being able to repair my own machines. It’s a matter of priorities, not intellect. But your original point was not about whether the buyer can repair the machine. You said Apple products are “un-repairable.” That’s wrong. If you want to change the argument so that you can be right, I’m no longer interested.

Locked down – if that’s your definition, then you are locked down. I don’t disagree.

As far as interoperability, nobody is forcing you to use a Mac. Nobody is forcing you to buy an iPod or an iPhone. I listen to FLAC files all the time on my Mac. Congratulations on your wonderful understanding of computer processing architecture, but if I had to worry about MIPS and pipelines in my computer buying decision, I’d shoot myself in the face. Are there limits in using Apple products? Of course there are. There are limits in every product. I wish my crappy old Toyota Camry ran on natural gas, but I’m forced to use petrol. But that’s my choice to buy the car I own.

Also, LALALALA YOU SAID LINUX LALALALA. There’s a huge difference between products that use Linux behind the scenes and trying to run an X-Windows interface on top of an open source build. Of all the products you mentioned, I’m sure a vast majority of buyers do not realize they are running Linux, and if they did, the manufacturer has definitely failed in its design mission.

You also did not address any of the other points i made, simply went “LALALALA YOU SAID LINUX LALALALA”.

I tried to bing up other points as well as the lack of support for non commercial OS (lets toss *BSD and opensolaris in there as well) with apples products.

ever try to repair a mini on your own. or your iMac? no i don’t mean bring it to a genius bar, i mean something simple like add ram, or replace the harddrive. How about replace the harddrive or battery that died in your ipod.

Locked down, for example; no carrier choice, no open access for any app i want to run. you can only use of apple tools to make apps. Yes the imac, mac mini, macbooks, and macbook pros are unlocked(currently), but none of the things apple gets most of it’s coverage for are “open”.

As far as choice sure, i could go elsewhere, but then i run into those interoperability problems. So unless you know how to sync my FLAC audio collection on my MIPS based computer running linux with an iPod I stand by my opinion that there is limited choice when dealing with apple products.

I’m a journalist. I try to avoid making up facts. I don’t have numbers to prove that Apple gets disproportionate coverage. Anecdotally, I believe this to be the case. That’s why I said “probably.”

I’m guessing you didn’t read past the first paragraph before you got all proud of yourself for finding what you believed to be a logical flaw in my argument and decided to jump down here to the comments. Good job, way to save time.

I agree with the author on many points, but I think the next step is whether and to what extent a news outlet is setting out an agenda.

Gizmodo, for example, used to be like SlashGear and used to report on everything tech. A few weeks ago, however, in a totally annoying and obnoxious move, they wrote an article talking about how the N8 wasn’t worth reviewing. Well, that’s fine that they think so, but it was an obvious ploy to set out their anti Nokia stance.

I think that the overall tone of the news outlet sets the pace, and I’ve read articles here that seem to be right there in bed with Apple, and others that are ripe with anti-Apple sentiment.

First, let’s talk about why there is actually an Apple bias in the media

To see that he’s not trying to clame there is no bias at all.

“Apple products are not the best for everyone in every category, and some discussion on tech sites about what those short comings are would go a long way to lowering the perceived bias.”

a short list; underpowered, expensive, un-repairable, locked down, limited interoperability, limited choice, black turtle necks.

Calling it “a capitalist issue” is a bit of a euphemism. Writing to peoples emotional reaction is also known by another term… “pandering”. The fact that it’s about a “tech” item rather than soley about some emotional issue obscurs this… but doesn’t fundamentally alter the ultimate motivation or the intended end result.

Journalists set the discussion by choosing the topics that are widely discussed and the information which is widely disseminated. Phillip makes some good points, however, it’s still a problem… this “capitalist issue” under discussion still represents the journalist setting the discussion and the tone, but now with the added factor of blaming the consumer for the end result of bias and division.

If nothing else, by your very articles, you stir up the very “fuss” which you then claim to be the driving factor behind what makes a topic meets the criteria as “news”. How can you not claim responsibility as the driving force? Sure… maybe your writting articles that ellicit responses from readers… but the use of this type of capitalistic criteria behind article selection means that you’re not writting “tech news”… instead it’s just one of many forms of advertisement disguising itself as news.

Next time, please read past the title. I promise the rest of the story is more interesting than the first few words.