tl;dr - gruber knows exactly what he is doing, which is generating page views. the market for information is greatly surpassed by the market for confirmation
clearly he is a reasonably intelligent guy who puts a lot of thought into his writing. whether or not he really believes everything he posts, i don't know and don't care.
the thing is these type of posts serve a very specific purpose: to activate the apple fan's and generate page clicks.
we live in a world where the way to drive traffic in the tech blogosphere is to post rumors, and predictions about apple (and to some extent, other big tech cos). readers then seek out stories that confirm their pre-existing views--the market for information is greatly surpassed by the market for confirmation (see: fox news). and this works both ways, i imagine that gruber/seigler are getting lots of page views from people are angered by the whole apple fanboy thing, and want to have the satisfying feeling of knowing that gruber/seigler are just two more unthinking fanboys.
I had a bit about the irony of Gruber quoting PG's "Trolling" essay, but took it out. It really seems like Gruber trolls for views and ad money at this point.
I don't think you'll missing anything. I just go there when I like to read a bit of the holier-than-thou attitude of Apple fanboys. Reminds me of the earlier Ruby / Git attitude which has, fortunately stopped. I couldn't stand these weenies.
It's tragic what is being lost in this race to the bottom for increased pageviews/audience share.
I really want to believe that people like Gruber (who I, at least used to, have a great deal of respect for) are above it, but watching things change over the past few years does make me wonder…
clearly he is a reasonably intelligent guy who puts a lot of thought into his writing. whether or not he really believes everything he posts, i don't know and don't care.
the thing is these type of posts serve a very specific purpose: to activate the apple fan's and generate page clicks.
we live in a world where the way to drive traffic in the tech blogosphere is to post rumors, and predictions about apple (and to some extent, other big tech cos). readers then seek out stories that confirm their pre-existing views--the market for information is greatly surpassed by the market for confirmation (see: fox news). and this works both ways, i imagine that gruber/seigler are getting lots of page views from people are angered by the whole apple fanboy thing, and want to have the satisfying feeling of knowing that gruber/seigler are just two more unthinking fanboys.