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Most mainstream writers are bias Mac-users?

updated 05:25 pm EDT, Wed October 19, 2005

Bias Mac writers?

Microsoft is getting the short end of the stick as far as media coverage, because today's newspaper and magazine tech writers know little about computers and , according to John C. Dvorak of PC Magazine. The top columnists in the news and business magazines fit this model as well, while tech writers and tech columnists for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and Fortune are all Mac users, according to Dvorak. "This reality is not going to change. In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer." Dvorak says that probably the best thing Microsoft could have ever done was copy as much of the Mac OS look-and-feel as it could, and says that "Microsoft should make some headway with this biased crowd once the fanciful Xbox 360 arrives. It's got a creative GUI, is easy to use and navigate, and kind of has a Mac look to it. It also interfaces perfectly with the iPod."

by MacNN Staff

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haveaduff2
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Sep 2005

0

10/19, 06:13pm | report spam | close Reply |
Oh My God.

This guy is shameless. For years, the press fawned over Microsoft. Now, they aren't. And that's because the writers are slanted toward Macs? Please.

micklb
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Joined: Feb 2005

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10/19, 06:19pm | report spam | close Reply |
Bell Curve

100 percent exist. 60 percent can balance check book. 30 percent can be bean counters. 3 percent can work higher mathematics. 1 percent can apply higher mathematics to engineering. 0.1 percent can be creative in higher mathematics, art and science (real humanities). Apple users make the cut at 3 percent which allows an understanding of the machine capabilities and choose Apple.

scotty321
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Joined: Nov 1999

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10/19, 06:22pm | report spam | close Reply |
Yeah, right...

Can you believe this Dvorak guy? He thinks that Microsoft should be getting press for COPYING Apple Computer? Rad his article -- he comes right out and admits that everything Microsoft does is a COPY of Apple Computer. Microsoft has NEVER innovated a day in their entire existence, Microsoft is one of the worst companies on the face of the planet, everything they do is derivative & DOESN'T WORK -- and Dvorak wants the press to somehow cover this non-news? The reason Apple is loved by the press is because they come out with innovative products years before their competitors have a chance to copy them. Only Apple sees the future & grabs it. Anyone who works for Microsoft should be ashamed of themselves. Anyone who uses a PC should have their heads examined.

JeffHarris
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Joined: Oct 1999

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10/19, 06:44pm | report spam | close Reply |
Hit Fisher

Dvorak is fishing for hits to his article so he can prove his relevance as a tech writer. HAH, I say!

Apple gets press because Apple takes chances, Apple innovates, Apple breaks new ground for others to follow. What Apple does and where Apple goes is where the industry will follow... eventually. THAT'S why Apple gets so much press.

Microsoft blatantly copies Apple innovations, then implements them poorly and we're supposed to care?

Dell changes the color of a generic PC case or adds a plastic panel with some slots and curves and this is innovation?

And Dvorak wonders why tech writers write about Apple?

ryanjo
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Joined: Oct 2001

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10/19, 06:46pm | report spam | close Reply |
Classic Dvorak

This is pure John Dvorak, all hype and bluster, designed to get attention. The guy hasn't been real for years. He's meaningless.

LordJohnWhorfin
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Joined: Aug 2002

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10/19, 06:54pm | report spam | close Reply |
Dvorak is a pure genius

Just when you think he's run out of idiotic things to say, he always comes up with a whopper.

Feathers
Grizzled Veteran

Joined: Oct 1999

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10/19, 06:54pm | report spam | close Reply |
Dvorak must die!!!

Dvorak the spankweasel Microsoft lickspittle does it again but this time he's saying that the dumber you are, the more likely you are to use a Mac and that all tech columnists are idiots (except him?)!!! Well, I agree with the proposition that tech writers are getting dumber! ...and the new generation will be incapable of using Windows because...er it's a s*** interface maybe? This guy should be working for George Bush! Mind you, being a Bill Gates sycophant and all round MS-a**-sniffer is a pretty close second!

MacScientist
Junior Member

Joined: Feb 2000

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10/19, 06:56pm | report spam | close Reply |
Oh really now

I get the feeling that Dvorak has his tongue planted firmly in his cheek.

lazarus001
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Joined: Aug 2005

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10/19, 06:58pm | report spam | close Reply |
Heheh

Heh, wow it's getting deep, get you're hip waders while supplies last.

SoGood
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Joined: Dec 2001

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10/19, 07:02pm | report spam | close Reply |
Speechless!

Read the full article and I am left speechless. If ever there's a PC/Windows evangelist, this is not one. The central arguement of the article is as flawed as the war on Iraq. For any reader with any IQ, one can't avoid but ask the question of why are so many professional writers with tight deadlines use Macs? Do those top writers (assumed given their high profile newspapers/magazines) know some something that Dvorak don't?

Can't believe PCMag still employ that guy!

Paul Huang
Dedicated MacNNer

Joined: Sep 1999

0

10/19, 07:08pm | report spam | close Reply |
lack of logic

Ground-breaking design is found at company X. Wannabee styling (not design) is found at company y.

Which publication is going to be so retro and report on company y?

benhur
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Joined: Jan 2001

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10/19, 07:08pm | report spam | close Reply |
amazing

He is sooooo stupid.

He's probably right about the Xbox 360 though.

C'mon Apple and Sony, team up on the PS3 and end this before it gets started.

jerryfrit
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Joined: Feb 2004

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10/19, 07:30pm | report spam | close Reply |
Relax

Like MacScientist, I too detected a tongue in cheek tone to the article. In fact, this has also been the case with D's other Mac-bashing articles.

Lebodde
Forum Regular

Joined: Dec 2000

0

10/19, 07:31pm | report spam | close Reply |
Pardon my ignorance but

... wasn't there a John Dvorak who was writing the last page in the old MacWeek or some such magazine? Is this the same dude?

FastAMX79
Junior Member

Joined: Sep 2000

0

10/19, 08:35pm | report spam | close Reply |
This guy has

brass buttons to just be that blunt. Maybe the fact is the younger crowd belives a real computer does what its supposed to. Not typing 100 lines of DOS code, or fighting blue screens of death. But he forgot to mention how M$ likes to buy companies with decent products (like bungie for example) and make it their own. And if everyone started using Macs... we wouldnt need geek squad, or IT people, or M$ certifications for fixing a c*** OS

nitram_again
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Joined: Nov 2001

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10/19, 08:49pm | report spam | close Reply |
DOS? BSOD?

Hey FastAMX79: "typing 100 lines of DOS code, or fighting blue screens of death".

WTF are you talking about? No DOS in XP. Haven't had a BSOD in a loooong time (like, months).

I own a Mac, I use a Mac, had one since 1994 (first one was LC III, 25 MHz, running System 7) but if you're going to knock PC users, at least try to sound credible.

How about trying this angle: given the ubiquity of Microsoft Windows computers, it is difficult to believe Dvorak's claim that newer tech writers (as opposed to dinosaurs) simply can't use a PC and only ever use a Mac. What is more believable is that they have used Windows, but simply prefer a Mac.

Zaren
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10/19, 09:21pm | report spam | close Reply |
Yeah, but...

he gets no spam! :)

ThePeterFilesBlog
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10/19, 10:05pm | report spam | close Reply |
Can't Handle Apple Wins

I think a question that you may be missing is WHY are so many media ventures using Mac systems to do their jobs.

The answer is simple.

The mass media environment does not have time to waste time to deal with the blue screen of death. Things have to happen consistently in real time or they are fixed or abandoned and that is all they wrote.

They don't have time to wait for contractors to give them months of excuses, and contract delays.

Things work when installed in the production loop or they are pulled out until they do.

The Mac operating system has always been a clean, simple, graphics friendly easy to use environment that could do the core functions that businesses needed when they needed them.

Hard nosed news editors grown up with the mantra "If your mother says she loves you, check it out" were not likely to be fooled by Big Blue salespersons arguments of quality by the numbers, that is we are the biggest so that we must be the best, and the Mac OS system's advantages in the Media World gave it a byte into that world that the PC could never displace it from.

Why?

Better quality.

Those same people would have tossed Apple in a minute had it failed to perform. But time after time Apple computers managed to serve its CORE market and save itself until it has grown itself out into its current happy state of affairs.

There is a difference between bias and experience.

Bias is a state that occurs when you have only experience with one system and assume that that system is better than the other.

I find it hard to believe though that all these newswriters have had NO experience with PC systems before coming into their current jobs. The darn things are just everywhere. I've spent most of my working life using them. My attitudes towards Mac OS X and its Force Quit feature which has meant that I have had to reboot less than 12 times in the last 3 years and have suffered no data losses due to software failures that I can see are based on experience.

Now that creates an attitude. Sure. But feeling that PC operating systems are still very unstable comparitively is not a bias. It's experience.

As to feeling like the raves about the iPod are much ado about nothing, I beg to differ.

The story is a huge one.

After lagging for years as a tiny player in the market, quality nonwithstanding because of the pro-pc bias of scardy cat business ownsers and pc managers some of whom may have been enticed by "incentives" to go Blue and stay Blue or Microsoft or other related products creating fierce loyalty regardless of corporate benefit, Apple was able to create a huge inroads into the music market on the basis of the iPod, iTunes, and pricing tripod, enabled by brillance of design in the iPod design strategy and the multi-operating system programming strategy of the iTunes pl

ThePeterFilesBlog
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Joined: Oct 2005

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10/19, 10:07pm | report spam | close Reply |
Can't Handle Apple Con'

After lagging for years as a tiny player in the market, quality nonwithstanding because of the pro-pc bias of scardy cat business ownsers and pc managers some of whom may have been enticed by "incentives" to go Blue and stay Blue or Microsoft or other related products creating fierce loyalty regardless of corporate benefit, Apple was able to create a huge inroads into the music market on the basis of the iPod, iTunes, and pricing tripod, enabled by brillance of design in the iPod design strategy and the multi-operating system programming strategy of the iTunes player.

For Apple to jump from 4-7% of the market to capture 75% of the market in anything, and continue to do so, week after week, year after year now, is just as much of a legitimate story as the thousands of Microsoft dominance stories that I have suffered through over the decades. Get used to it. Its not over by any means.

Oh, the small screen. One more thing....

Apple gets attention not because it has bamboozled the writers but because it has something to sell, something colorful, exciting, useful, fun, innovative, s*** and very useful.

They keep improving the tools to work with it too.

That remote control that comes with the new iMac with 6 buttons.

Brilliant.

Oh, you can get a bigger picture on the 1 lb PSP. Good luck getting that in and out of your pocket protector

Oh and if you want to know where to find $25 White Sox Tickets to the World Series just go to http://thepeterfiles.blogspot.com/2005/10/want-25-chicago-white-sox-world-series.html or go to The Peter Files Blog of Comedy, Commentary and Satire at http://ThePeterFiles.blogspot.com

ThePeterFilesBlog
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Joined: Oct 2005

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10/19, 10:10pm | report spam | close Reply |
No slights intended

Just for the record, I did not mean to really make fun of pocket protectors per say. That just sort of slipped out. I have myself used one in the past, back in the days when bic quality control left something to be desired and I had to climb up and down 6 stories between classes in 90 degree weather in high school.

$25 White Sox World Series Tickets Available?

Foe Hammer
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Feb 2005

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10/19, 10:23pm | report spam | close Reply |
Tongue-In-Cheek For Sure

Tongue-in-a**-cheek, that is.

What's he talking about? Microsoft gets all kinds of press. Especially every time another virus comes out, another security hole is exposed, another system crash takes out a major installation dumb enough to have invested their technology budget in them. Heck, Microsoft has even given the business world 52 holidays a year: Patch Tuesdays!

Dvorak remains the comic relief in the world of technology professionals.

Paul Huang
Dedicated MacNNer

Joined: Sep 1999

0

10/19, 11:14pm | report spam | close Reply |
Flash Friday!

Patch Tuesdays? I want Flash Fridays.

ggirton
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Nov 1999

0

10/19, 11:23pm | report spam | close Reply |
I loved Dvorak ...

Back in the day. I admit, though, I haven't read him for at least 5 years, since my PC Magazine stopped coming. He was always on page 75, tweaking everyone's noses.

Now there are only a few noses left to tweak, and even though I think I could do a better job than Dvorak, I'd rather take pictures and make videos and ... WRITE. On my Mac.

And so sorry, John, but Windows is the day job. Looks like you're wrong. Again.

Ta ta! For now!

tpower
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Joined: Oct 2005

0

10/19, 11:27pm | report spam | close Reply |
this guy has a point

I think this guy has a point. All tech writers are really biased pro-mac users. It just isn't fair for poor Microsoft. Its a wonder they still can make any money, with all this slander in mass media. Perhaps we should take out a collection on behalf of Microsoft.

nat
Junior Member

Joined: Mar 2002

0

10/20, 12:07am | report spam | close Reply |
tongue in cheek?

my my, how you're giving this guy a free pass. was that tongue in cheek when he described ALL mac users as perverts? not fanatics, not obnoxious, but perverts. how about the "book" review when in the book the guy called jobs an a**. end of review for dvorak, from that point he spent the rest of the "review" telling why apple stock holders should dump their stock (jobs is an a**, dump the stock). tongue in cheek my a**. he's an amoral b*******.

dona83
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10/20, 12:35am | report spam | close Reply |
Haha

Poor Microsoft? They have like what 90% of the computer OS marketshare and poor Microsoft? I'm so glad I switched to Mac OSX after realizing that they only got Windows XP almost right. My current 1.2Ghz iBook G4 doesn't quite knock the boots out of my old AMD XP 2000+ desktop but I'm definitely enjoying computing a lot more. And this doesn't count the spyware and viruses because I was good at fighting those things and I actually kind of enjoyed fighting those things. Maybe I'm just bitter because I never realized that prior to service pack 1, Windows did not support hard drives over 137GB thus when I tried to move files to a preformatted 200GB HD, I lost all my photos which I could never get back. Yeah I know I should've backed up, but smooth move M$...

Rincewind
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Joined: May 2000

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10/20, 02:47am | report spam | close Reply |
If they can't use Window

then that pretty much sums up the argument right there. The rest of it doesn't matter. If Dvorak really believes this, then he should expect and truthfully EMBRACE more Apple-biased coverage, because if M$ has truly screwed up Windows this badly (thank GOD I don't have to touch the damn things) then they outta throw in the towel right now, because they will never get the mindshare back. If he thinks that M$ can make an OS that he himself believes is harder to use than the Mac and that M$ should still get majority coverage then he's smoking some good stuff.

eswinson
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Joined: Jul 2002

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10/20, 07:48am | report spam | close Reply |
ho hum

When Microsoft talks we hear Charlie Brown's parents. When Apple talks we hear a sirene's song

eldarkus
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10/20, 08:16am | report spam | close Reply |
re: Oh really now

"I get the feeling that Dvorak has his tongue planted firmly in his cheek."

Don't you mean between MS's cheecks?

babble
Mac Enthusiast

Joined: Sep 2000

0

10/20, 08:34am | report spam | close Reply |
360?

"Microsoft should make some headway with this biased crowd once the fanciful Xbox 360 arrives. It's got a creative GUI, is easy to use and navigate, and kind of has a Mac look to it. It also interfaces perfectly with the iPod."

Mouahahahahahahahahaha!!!!

It has a Mac look!?

Hahahahahahahahahaha!

Feathers
Grizzled Veteran

Joined: Oct 1999

0

10/20, 09:17am | report spam | close Reply |
Tongue in cheek?

I'd love to believe that the article was tongue-in-cheek like I'd like to believe that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq! Yes, there is a tongue involved but I think Dvorak is placing it somewhere other than his cheek, best guess is somewhere in Redmond that the sun doesn't shine. I'm still totally baffled as to what he has to gain by all of this, though, maybe he just likes the taste!

pmiller396
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10/20, 10:10am | report spam | close Reply |
XBox 360

"Microsoft should make some headway with this biased crowd once the fanciful Xbox 360 arrives. It's got a creative GUI, is easy to use and navigate, and kind of has a Mac look to it. It also interfaces perfectly with the iPod."

Missed on a couple points (big surprise).

A "creative GUI" is not the same as a useful GUI. OSX isn't better because it's prettier. It gets attention and gets people to try because it's prettier. It makes converts and fans and zealots because it's better. It doesn't assume it's smarter than you, it is incredibly stable and secure, and it rarely gets in your way. Apple has made some backward steps (brushed metal interface???) but overall is lightyears ahead of anything else.

And saying that the XBox 360 is "Mac-like" is like the Ford Fairmont in the 1970's. Ford decided that people bought a Mercedes because of it's upright grill. So, they built a crappy car with an upright grill and expected to woo the same people who bought luxury cars. Dell et al think that the reason Macs get attention has something to do with curves and some special kind of plastic.

In both cases, it's the whole experience and the perceived quality. It's the way the doors slam on the Mercedes and the smooth feel of the iPod. You can't just pick points to copy -- you've got to offer a complete package.

Apple and Mercedes get it. That's why we love them.

JackNN
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Joined: Jan 2005

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10/20, 10:41am | report spam | close Reply |
Smarts

micklb, nice statistical analysis. While there are many highly intelligent people who choose Windows, I feel the mean intelligence of Mac users is higher.

Deal
Mac Enthusiast

Joined: Apr 2001

0

10/20, 10:46am | report spam | close Reply |
TROLL

That writer (he who must not be named), has resorted to nothing less than being a TROLL.

I am 100% positive that he wrote that article to tick off a bunch of people and see how many responses and new logins he could get. I refuse to respond and I refuse to sign up for that stupid forum so that they can boost their numbers and find more advertisement.

There is no need to log in and tell him that it is a load of dung because he already knows it.

My recommendation to everybody, GO ON TO THAT SITE AND CANCEL YOUR ACCOUNT, DELETE YOUR USER, WHATEVER IT TAKES! Get your name off of their list and that will stand as a true statement regarding that writers behavior.

Eriamjh
Addicted to MacNN

Joined: Oct 2001

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10/20, 12:23pm | report spam | close Reply |
Xbox?

Xbox2 won't make windows any better.

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Most mainstream writers are bias Mac-users?

updated 05:25 pm EDT, Wed October 19, 2005

Bias Mac writers?

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Recent Articles

Oh My God.

Bell Curve

Yeah, right...

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Classic Dvorak

Dvorak is a pure genius

Dvorak must die!!!

Oh really now

Heheh

Speechless!

lack of logic

amazing

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Pardon my ignorance but

This guy has

DOS? BSOD?

Yeah, but...

Can't Handle Apple Wins

Can't Handle Apple Con'

No slights intended

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Flash Friday!

I loved Dvorak ...

this guy has a point

tongue in cheek?

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ho hum

re: Oh really now

360?

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