[twoodfin]

I'm glad Gruber seems to be writing more of these long form pieces. Short and snarky is not as much of a strength for him as he thinks it is.

On the content: Right on. I will definitely be surprised if the words "thinner" and "lighter" do not feature prominently in Apple's keynote, both vs. the Retina iPad and the Google/Amazon competition.

[tambourine_man]

I'm glad Gruber seems to be writing more of these long form pieces. Short and snarky is not as much of a strength for him as he thinks it is.

My thoughts exactly. His recent talk with Siracusa must have helped.

[edit]

From the show, 1h24m23s: “You haven't done one of those in a while where you do like screen shots and stuff, you used to do that more…”

He also changed his favicon soon after Siracusa remarked that it wasn't retina ready, so he probably listens him. http://daringfireball.net/graphics/favicon.ico?v=005

[alphang]

He also expressed a slight desire to adjust his focus, in a post from earlier this year - http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/05/25/three-things

Slightly off topic: The Atlantic had an article yesterday about DF's 10th anniversary (http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/12/08/happy-10...), and it had this bit of astute criticism:

The past year, DF hasn't been as enjoyable as its been in the past. Apple, Gruber's Beatrice, is engorged as a company, and seems now to be veering from interestingly complex to dully complicated. [...] But, in light of that victory, his renegade confidence has become an assured superiority. He hasn't written, for a long time, an engaging description of a laptop or an account of an anthropomorphized interface element.

To which Jason Kottke agreed: http://kottke.org/12/08/an-appreciation-of-10-years-of-darin...

So perhaps Gruber is consciously responding to these critiques and upping his game - which is nice, because this post was a great read.

[thomasjoulin]

That, and the hints that he is interested in doing Siracusa-style iOS reviews. I love long form pieces by Gruber, but if it's also inspired by the great detailled reviews of Siracusa, I think it will be awesome.

[recoiledsnake]

He still manages to come up with gems like this:

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/08/01/nokia-nail-polis...

He and Siegler come off as partisan hacks and nothing else. Hence mostly only Apple fans seem to think he writes great. I do not know why they have to hate other competing platforms so immensely to love Apple.

[shinratdr]

Even outside impartial observers see the Nokia situation just getting worse and worse, and Windows Phone doing absolutely nothing to pull them out of the hole they're in.

I appreciate Gruber because he's unapologetic about something like that. We can dance around it forever, but judging by sales and in-the-wild presence of WP7, that briefly if crudely summarizes the Lumia & WP7 ecosystem to date. Doing this stupid old world stuff like distributing nail polish that matches your phone isn't distracting anyone from the increasingly untenable situation Nokia is sliding into right now. Moreover, moves like that make it seem like they're treating their situation flippantly.

It's not about "hate", it's about not candy coating things to appease certain groups. We heard for the last two years about how beautiful and fast and revolutionary WP7 is and how nice the Lumia hardware looks. Now it's time to put up or shut up and they just haven't. That's a fact, and I don't see why someone should have to ignore that and paint a happy face on the situation to not be considered a "hack". Moreover, I don't think you can extrapolate from that that Gruber hates Nokia, the Lumia or WP7. It's just a snarky observation.

If your issue is with the joke itself, I'll give you that. It wasn't all that funny or anything. I also agree he's a much better writer when in long form, and his snark does get over the top. I see where he's coming from here though.

[cooldeal]

See, even you managed to write many more words than him. It's not just that one post linked which is bad, it's a whole series of posts especially about Google and Android full of smugness, snark and sneering designed for his target audience, Apple fans and apparently, Google haters. It's like some of his posts are inside jokes at a fraternity club, and frankly are of that quality. It's tabloid journalism and nothing else, frankly.

You think any article by someone calling Ping a brown piece of shit would ever be featured on HN? Hell, even Paul Thurott's Winsupersite is hellbanned on HN.

[ghshephard]

It took me a few reads before I realized he was making a meta-joke about the (brown) Zune, another product that was strong on fundamentals - but just never got traction.

Gruber has made it clear he likes what Microsoft is trying to do with the WP7, and he has positively reviewed some of the Lumia devices. Agreed, he's partisan, but he's a witty partisan, which is why I still read him, while many of the other apple bloggers, like Dalrymple, who has good sources, just seems to frequently come off as just being mean without the cleverness.

[myspy]

It's not hate, just being realistic.

But Apple fans bend their picture of their company, as much as fans of other companies do it. Therefore neither understands, or is willing to understand, the other.

[SquareWheel]

  Short and snarky is not as much of a strength for him as he thinks it is.

The snark is why I had to stop reading Gruber. He's a great blogger, but his attitude made me have to walk away every few articles and just take a breather. It's not an endearing trait.

[skue]

I've had the same reaction and gone for long periods without reading Gruber for this reason. I do agree that he has toned down - far fewer jackass awards (which always seemed unnecessarily petty).

I wonder if some of his gentler tone has to do with Apple's success. It's easier to be gracious when you feel you are on a winning/popular side, and there are certainly fewer reasons for Apple users/fans to feel persecuted by misinformed pundits nowadays.

What's funny is how Apple whose very core has always been counter cultural has now become mainstream, and Android has become the new counter cultural reaction (even though Android is just as much the product of large corporations and not exactly the product of a new youthful startup). Samsung's marketing team has certainly been effective at reminding us that the hipster crowd is aging - and becoming less cool. Apple itself needs to decide whether it wants to become a mature company or somehow hold onto that more youthful "stay hungry, stay foolish" mantra.

[huggyface]

I wonder if some of his gentler tone has to do with Apple's success. It's easier to be gracious when you feel you are on a winning/popular side, and there are certainly fewer reasons for Apple users/fans to feel persecuted by misinformed pundits nowadays.

I would observe that it has been exactly the opposite -- it was at the height of Apple's success, during the period when they essentially owned the market, that Gruber got that obnoxious swagger and ill suited confidence. With Apple becoming a player instead of the player, Gruber seems to be maintaining relevance by removing the attitude, to very good effect.

[alanfalcon]

When "The Tablet" piece came out, I was sold on Gruber's ability to really analyze Apple and think through details in an informational and insightful way. I was impressed enough that I sought out and read some of his much earlier long-form essays, mostly about the nascent days of OS X. He's always had this in him, but I agree the snark has been pushed way too far over the course of recent years to the detriment of the blog.

[rahoulb]

This is probably my favourite DF piece http://daringfireball.net/2003/05/the_problems_with_click-th... - the fact that it's from 2003 is telling and I'd like to see him do more like this.