If you ’re not one of the the great unwashed who follows the Mac blogosphere , you may have missed last workweek ’s storm in a teapot involve Intel Inside stickers , journalistic demeanour , and the zealousness of that same blogosphere . As one of the people responsible for fan the flames , I felt it was deserving looking at what find — and what it teach me about how different medium and dissimilar points of view can make an unobjectionable comment into a unusual sort of malicious gossip .
Stickergate
This whole matter started during Apple ’s August 7 announcement event at the Town Hall theatre at 4 Infinite Loop on the Apple campus in Cupertino . I was there , along with three of myMacworldcolleagues . As common , we plow the case live , as did several other vane sites . The way that coverage works is that we madly type what ’s pass on , and you see it on the other end — either as a string of unprocessed blurts or , in the case ofMacworld , as a constantly - updated intelligence write up . Suffice it to say that our Peter Cohen does a terrific job of converting my unrefined blurts into something that ’s more decipherable than your average inst - message conversation .
Anyway , at the end of the event — which is now available as a telecasting stream from Apple.com — there was a rare Q&A session with Apple executives Steve Jobs , Tim Cook , and Phil Schiller . The Q&A school term was n’t admit on the telecasting stream , so the world only got to hear about the Q&A school term through the fingers of us chop-chop typing and take notes at the result in Cupertino .
By my notes , it was the 2d question of the Q&A that end up generate the Web storm last week . Here ’s how Macworld cut through it :
“ We care our own stickers better , ” Jobs said . “ Do n’t get me wrong . We love crop with Intel . We ’re proud to ship Intel product in Macs . They ’re screamers , and combined with our OS , we ’ve tuned them well . It ’s just that everyone know we practice Intel processors . We ’d rather not tell them about the product that ’s inside the box . ”
Gadget blog Gizmodowrote :
A : We like our own stickers better . We do n’t want to make you tear off stickers and junk when we get a computer . Steve : What do we want on our product when we take it out of the corner ? The solution is nothing .
Gadget blog Engadgetwrote :
Steve : “ What can I say ? We care our own sticker better . Do n’t get me wrong , we enjoy Intel , compound with our O , we ’ve really tuned them well together . Everyone knows we use Intel processors , we ’d rather tell them about the product inside the box . ”
Phil : “ Too much stuff on PC boxwood , stickers on laptop computer , trialware , You do n’t have to discase stuff off . ”
In the room , the question seemed a little unpaired — I take note that it was inquire by a newspaper guy , and that seemed about ripe because it was such an off - topic ( and old - newsworthiness ) question . But on the connection , I judge those au naturel schoolbook account made the doubtfulness seem dumber than it seemed in person . Because the chemical reaction was fleet and impregnable .
“ Book of Job offers a rarefied hazard for a public Q&A and someone asks why they do n’t booger up their information processing system with horrid stickers ? ” wroteJohn Gruber . “ Will someone please secernate me who asked this interrogation so I can name him jackass of the calendar week ? ”
MyTwitterlist exploded with questions from across the Web . Who call for this question ? Everyone wanted to eff . Crazy Apple Rumors eveninvented an identityfor the mysterious querier . I knew that we recorded the case for our Macworld Podcast , and after a twenty-four hour period of constant speculation without any answers , I determine to fag up the audio file and incur out who asked the query . I cropped out the question ( and its reply ) , saved it as an MP3 , andposted it to our web waiter . I also call for our own Dan Moren to write something up about it for MacUser , and suggested that being a bit tongue - in - impudence would belike be fitting for a story as silly as this one , even intimate the breathless “ World Exclusive ! ” for the headline . Dan skillfully obliged .
IdentifyingBob Keefe of Cox Newspapersas the bozo who asked the question did n’t precisely call for a huge amount of skill — I mean , he suppose his name right on there on the recording . But it was like flinging bally meat into thewater off the Farallones .
Of course , that set out the attention of the man himself , and Keefewrote a replythat was much more good natured than I expected , but it was still clear that he had been stick by all the criticism . He specifically took MacUser to task , clearly not finding our tongue - in - cheek write - up to be mirthful , and complaining that nobody had actually bothered to call and ask him about it .
comely enough . I straight off shot Bob Keefe an e - mail and asked him about the experience . “ candidly , I ca n’t conceive the traction something so unobjectionable as a game newsperson asking a question to a chief executive officer is getting , ” he save to me in an atomic number 99 - mail .
Turns out that Keefe was writinga story about Intel ’s “ Intel Inside ” marketing curriculum . When he expect Apple PR for a input , he says they gave him the brush - off and suggested he expect Steve Jobs himself . And so Keefe did .
So was it a safe head ?
Here ’s the complete copy of Keefe ’s motion and the Apple solution :
SJ : Uh . What can I say ? We like our own gummed label better.(laughter and applause)Don’t get me ill-timed . We love working with Intel . We ’re very proud to ship Intel products in macs . I mean , they ’re screamers , and combined with our operating system of rules , we ’ve tune them well together . So we ’re very proud of that . It ’s just that everyone live we utilize Intel processors . And so I retrieve that order a lot of stickers on the boxful is just redundant . And we ’d rather narrate them about the product that ’s inside the boxwood . And they know it ’s got a great Intel processor in it .
PS : It ’s not just about Intel in spite of appearance . When you buy any off - the - shelf PCs , the corner are get across with mix up Word and substance and image . You open it up , there ’s sticker to uncase off displays and keyboards , they ’re all over the place , and then you lead off it up and you find junkware all over your desktop and in your menus , they ’re littered with it , stress to up - betray you on junk , and that whole philosophy … you bonk , we examine to just give you a neat mathematical product that you ’re going to love , and you do n’t have to flake stuff off to make it see better .
SJ : You know , we put ourselves in the customer ’ shoe and we say , what do we require stuck on our product when we take it out of the box ? And the solvent is , nothing .
“ I recollect Jobs ’ answer was good and insightful and it ’s high in my forthcoming story , ” Keefe wrote to me . And I ’ve got to say , any question that can get such a with child reception is probably deserving enquire , in the heroic strategy of things .
However , as someone who covers the Mac every day , I felt like it was a question that had emerged from a wormhole from June 6 , 2005 , when Apple announced the switch to Intel central processor . Not a bad question , but an old one .
Yes , access to Jobs is special . So I can see why a reporter like Keefe would use the opportunity to ask Jobs a question and get a quote for a story he was work on . It ’s not something I imagine I would ’ve done , because to me it ’s a selfish enactment that makes everyone in the room subservient to one writer ’s deadline and level idea . But thisisa business organisation where reporter are often crawl over one another and shouting inquiry at people from George W. Bush to Paris Hilton . ( Perhaps this is why I decided very early on in my career that newspapering was not the animation for me . )
But I ca n’t objurgate Keefe for necessitate the interrogative . I would n’t have call for it , and it was a bit mouldy and off topic , but imprecate if its death effect was n’t a great distillate of Apple ’s product ism . ( A late question from CNet ’s Molly Wood about Apple ’s goals for Mac marketplace part was also derided by some Mac pundits , but also generated afantastic response from Jobs about why Apple does n’t make mown - rate microcomputer . )
Of course , I asked my own question that daylight — a clearing about iWork ’ 08 ’s Excel compatibility — that evoke a one - countersign reply from task : “ No . ” ( Turns out I should n’t have been asking about Excel Macro backup in Numbers . If I had asked Jobs about AppleScript support instead , I might have take up atomic number 79 : turns out Numbers is totally bereft of scripting sustenance . Drat ! ) By the standards of many of Keefe ’s critics , I am also a total loser , because I asked an uninteresting question that could ’ve just been cleared up by Apple PR later . Okey dokey .
What I check from all this
In these days of prompt - hit Web coverage , it ’s too well-to-do to skip a step and not get through the soul you ’re writing about . doubly in the last three calendar month I ’ve been confront with this fact . A few months back , I compose a story about iPhone battery - life misconception in which I quoted Apple ’s Greg Joswiak at distance . A blogger who had covered the same story wrote to me and mention that he had wished he had talked to Apple and quote them in his piece .
It ’s canonical journalism hooey , and yet we seem to be blowing by the direct quotation more than we should . Maybe it ’s because of time press , which we all experience on the World Wide Web . Or perhaps it ’s a number more subtle , because it ’s a tidy sum easier to rend a “ Gotcha ! ” on someone if they do n’t have a probability to oppose themselves . Keefe respond to my e - mail in less than an hour , and I should have absolutely ask Dan Moren to drop him a ancestry and get a comment on the whole sight . It would ’ve made that MacUser web log submission considerably .
I also discover that the plethora of medium jackasses , as John Gruber is prone to call them , have trained many of us in the Mac human beings to shoot first and ask questions later . Yes , there are indeed many people write about technology out there who are clueless about Apple and the Mac , who unprofessionally spread out misinformation and fear . And yes , they call for to be put in their shoes . I ’ve done it myself , not that I consider it to be my all right hour .
But maybe we ’ve flummox a piece too well-heeled with the attacks on people who do n’t behave precisely as we suppose we would .
( To be middling , not everyone on the entanglement bop Keefe . Matt Deatherage , Derek Powazek , andAndy Ihnaktoall have interesting adopt that mistily jibe with my own . The Macalope , though , thinksridicule has its blank space . )
“ I have get plenty of hate mail from Mac aficionados in the past , ” Keefe wrote to me . “ My favorites have always been from folk who say I ’m obviously a Microsoft lackey , even though I have four Macs in my habitation and Cox is probably the biggest Mac shop of any media company . ”
I may mildly disagree with Bob Keefe ’s option of question , and it ’s unfortunate that his genu - jerk answer to the whole thing was to dredge up that old “ Cult of Mac ” line of work . But did he deserve to be ripped a new one by half of the Mac blogosphere ? I ’ve become to say no .
