My critique of lazy pundits echoing old narratives

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Those podcasters are professional commentators on Apple, they”re not cranks, uninformed, or Mac only. They’re not just trotting out tropes, they’re saying how they feel about what Apple’s doing with the products. Of course, some people buy an iPad every 5 years and it’s fine for them, but the Podcasters are taking a much more informed view from a much higher vantage point.

Yes, millions of people have bought an iPad in 2023, but the number of sales is down by Millions too. If you compare iPad sales in 2022 ($31.4bn] against 2023 ($25.9bn), a drop of 17.5%

None of them are saying that the iPad is a bad product (like they have when they say that Apple’s vision for the Mac Pro seems flawed) they’re saying that it was a bad year for iPad. They’re criticising Apple, not the products.

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I’d never say that. Everyone should use whatever works for them, regardless of what works for anyone else.

I just take issue with the claim sometimes made (not by you!) that an iPad can replace a laptop for the things laptops are best at.

An iPad isn’t “just as good” for those things, any more than a laptop is “just as good” as an iPad for lying on your back watching movies or as an ereader, even though you can do them on a laptop.

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Although from marketing and user standpoint, the same devices can fairly be said to be (a bit) worse products in 2023/4 than they were when they were released in 2022, and if Apple doesn’t update or replace them, they’ll be even worse products in 2025.

The original Macs and IBM PCs may have been fine products in their day, and as devices they can do everything they ever could (if they’re still working), but they’d be very poor products if released today.

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IMO most podcasters are no better informed than the rest of us who get our information from the same sources.

Yes, Apple didn’t release any new iPads in 2023 and sales were down. But revenue from iPad sales was 96% that of Macs.

Apple doesn’t care what we buy as long as we buy from them. “Apple product is obscenely profitable for a hardware manufacturer. But Apple services almost double the profit margin, which is why Apple is doubling down on sales of music, storage, news, movies, TV shows, and in-app purchases.”

73%: This 1 Number Shows Why Apple’s Future Is In Services Not Devices

Macs and PCs aren’t going away in the near future but things are changing. Just about any type of computing can now be run in the cloud. A powerful computer with lots of storage is no longer a requirement for many jobs.

FY23_Q4_Consolidated_Financial_Statements

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Agreed with @WayneG, most of the podcasters in the Report Card are not more informed. I think there are many of us that have used Apple products and followed the company closely for decades have the same insight based on the same sources. As paid pundits, I’ll grant that they should be better informed than the general public about Apple history, rumors of upcoming hardware, knowledge of the details of the hardware, etc, but ultimately they are offering opinions. Beyond that podcasters have technical expertise in terms of audio recording and production.

As I argued in my post, yes, indeed, they often do just trot out tropes. And on the iPad specifically they repeatedly trot out tropes. And on the iPad specifically, they’ve done a poor job of offering anything close to analysis.

Regarding your point about sales of iPad being down, yep, they are. And yes, it would be safe to say that this is likely due to a year without updates, I’ve got no problem with that particular statement. For years they have offered opinions on iPadOS and iPad hardware and the available app ecosystem that are often based on a simple lack of facts. For example, this time last year I wrote a similar post in which I call out Marco Arment for such an error. It often seems that such statements are made because the pundit has simply not used the iPad enough to know all the features. But it does actually happen quite often. Often enough that I noticed it and started blogging about it. Why? Because these guys are, as you suggested, “professionals”. But in reality are pretty loose and casual about the facts on which they base their opinions. That’s why I’m critiquing them. Why should the public trust their opinions if those opinions are likely based on them not having made an effort to understand the topic being discussed? A topic on which they are trusted to be informed.

Too much Apple coverage today is guys bantering about rumors and far too little effort towards informed commentary.

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I am just someone who uses their iPad a lot. I also use my Mac and many things could theoretically but done by either but I find one or the other better.

I my experience iPads are very reliable and I have had them for years. For a company trying to have an endless income stream it is a little bit of a problem. In days gone by, hardware rapidly became so outdated that people reliably replaced Apple products regularly. That model does not work as well now. I can understand Apples enthusiasm for Services. They provide a regular stream of income.

The InstaPot was a popular piece of kitchen hardware that was very popular and apparently fairly well-built. What could go wrong? Well, lots of people bought one and then they had no need to ever replace it and revenue dried up and the company ran into problems.

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In their defense news about Apple products is usually feast or famine. Gurman or Apple will mention something and everyone on the planet will report the same thing for the next week. Then there will be no new news for weeks or longer. One reason I’ve stayed with MPU since late 2010 or early 2011 is because it isn’t an Apple news and rumor podcast.

But the Apple Vision Pro broke me. After the first two days I was marking podcasts played as fast as I could swipe. By the second week I was unfollowing shows that were still featuring AVP. Most of the podcasts left on my player are regular news, finance, general tech and security related.

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So I see it is likely (but not provable) that it wasn’t Einstein. But then… who was it? No-one really knows.

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Did that error stand for at least a few episodes? And did you actually call him out with direct feedback? One of the reasons ATP is almost my “last tech podcast left standing” (certainly of the panel/conversation format) is that all three of them routinely accept corrections and admit that they were wrong. I disagree with each of them frequently, but it never stops me listening. Well… there is ONE topic (that’s not tech) that comes up every now and then that makes me reach for the skip forward button.

One podcaster, who shall remain nameless but who definitely falls in the purview of this discussion, is widely lauded but, in my experience, very narrow in their views when challenged. So much so that I quit several podcasts.

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“News” articles, standard format:

“Here’s us quoting Gurman.”
“Here’s us paraphrasing what Gurman said, only much more clumsily and with 3X the words.”
“Now here’s us quoting somebody else quoting somebody else paraphrasing Gurman.”
“Here’s us drawing conclusions that have no basis in what Gurman said, despite the fact that the article contains nothing but paraphrases of Gurman.”
“Is this article long enough to click ‘post’ yet? I need a beer.”

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I probably should have phrased that differently. No, I didn’t send feedback. I almost never listen to ATP and it was just chance that I happened to sample that one. Or it may be that they mentioned in a post or show notes that they discussed the iPad so I gave it a listen. I generally post my thoughts on my blog and also share/engage on Mastodon. If I note something like that in the future I’ll email them.

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:rofl::joy: Exactly. Out of curiosity I just popped over to MacWorld to have a look at the current front page. Most of the articles with the category of “News” assigned to them are either rumor speculation or announcements of latest beta releases. Several Deals posts with affiliate links, two hardware reviews and the rest opinion pieces. No software/app reviews.

15 years ago this was a magazine that always published relevant reviews on important new apps. Today? Not so much.

I’ve bemoaned this before on these forums. I get it, time to move on. It’s worth remembering though that there was a time when Apple coverage was not click-bait rumor and hot-takes. That’s a loss.

By contrast I’ve kept a blog for 20 years. I’ve often written about Apple including quite a few lengthy reviews of apps I find useful. I’ve never sought to make a penny. I write and share because I wish for and want to create a web where people share helpful, relevant information with one another for that end alone.

It’s odd that so many for-profit “creators” now focus on income via affiliate links and ads while at the same time provide no actual content that is not trying to generate income. It’s exactly what Cory Doctorow has described as enshitification.

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@Denny, not sure if you are a listener of Upgrade, but they talked about the report card this week. Jason made some of the exact same points I think you are making on people being pretty harsh on any category that doesn’t have something new and shiny. I thought they both (but especially Jason as it’s his report card) provided a very balanced conversation on the scores this year.

I do find it interesting how much of the tech blogosphere “penalizes” Apple when something new doesn’t come out. It’s almost like the stock market making Apple show “growth” that a lot of the commentators bemoan. Yet many do the same thing to Apple just in different ways.

I absolutely think the blogosphere is becoming sort of an echo chamber where they are all saying the same thing (so many cross links to the exact same articles make me want to dial back who I follow). But I also think they do a lot of good work/reporting and thought pieces on Apple. Also, while I don’t know them personally, they sure seem to be like good people doing what they believe is good work, even though we may disagree with them.

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Thanks for the heads up on Upgrade. That’s one I’ve stopped following but will give this episode a listen!

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I agree with @Denny’s reaction to the pundits on this topic. Like most of us here, I’ve been reading technology reviews and commentary for years — probably since the mid-80s for me. I recognize that one of the things that drives product innovation and improvements are commentators who criticize product failings. Criticism is a vital part of commentary. So, will calling out iPad/iOS shortcomings motivate Apple to drive both the hardware and software forward? I hope so.

But that does not seem to be what’s happening with the punditocracy when it comes to iPad coverage. The coverage feels misleading to me, because the main point I glean is that these “power users” just want to trash a product that they don’t like, don’t want to use, or would like to be different, despite the fact that they know full well that the product does work great, solves a lot of problems for a lot of people, and Apple sells a ton of them.

It’s the lack of recognition of what the iPad is and how great it works that diminishes the value of the criticisms, and to me, shows them for what they are. When commentators knock Apple, for example, for not releasing a new model last year as some kind of circumstantial evidence that the iPad is dying when there are plenty of other valid reasons for delaying a release that would demonstrate the exact opposite, it cheapens their opinions. Apple has stated plainly that “the iPad is the clearest expression of our vision of the future of personal computing.” Clearly, there is something else motivating the delay in releasing a new iPad that does not have anything to do with the platform’s demise.

The iPad has been a tremendously powerful and useful tool for me (and many—but not all—others). I read the iPad commentators and realize often they are wrong about a great number of things because I regularly do a certain task that they are saying is too hard or impossible on an iPad. (I apologize, but I don’t have an example at my fingertips.) Or they mislead readers by making them think something is harder to do on an iPad than a Mac when it isn’t. (I believe I’ve written about that phenomenon elsewhere on this forum.) That’s the part that I see as laziness.

Certain computing tasks are actually easier or more efficient on an iPad than on a Mac, unless you try to perform the task the same way you’d perform it on a mac! The Files app that so many people complain about works great. True, it’s not as robust as Finder on my Mac. But pretty much all of the day-to-day file management activities I need to engage in are just as easy to do on my iPad as on my Mac, and the Files app can probably handle 90% of all my file-management needs. This is where I especially agree with @Denny regarding the laziness of the commentators.

I’ve written volumes on MPU about the iPad: what I love; what I hate; pain points; joys, etc. I am not trying to convince anybody that the iPad is or should be right for them. What I do think the iPad deserves, though, is recognition that, despite meritorious criticisms, it is a very, very capable device.

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I didn’t say more informed than a tech geek, although the journalists and podcasters do have better sources than we do, I meant more informed than your average iPad user.

You and I aren’t going to agree on this. I think that 30+ Apple commentators giving similar grades suggests that Apple still has work to do on the iPad, especially the Pro models. Yes, millions of people surf the web and do email on iPads every day, but Apple sells it as a computer and by putting Pro in the name it’s targeting prosumers and up, it is capable of doing more, and Apple hamstrings it, E.g. Allowing separate audio sources to be recorded separately. The iPads Pro are not that far from the MacBook Air in hardware, iPadOS limits their potential massively.

If it works for you as it is, then great, I respect that position. That doesn’t mean that as a device it can’t do more. It’s not laziness on the part of podcasters, which I think is disrespectful of those people, especially implying that they all say the same thing, which isn’t true. They’re hoping for the iPad to be unlocked to its full capability, and only Apple can do that.

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None of them are claiming that the iPad is dieing, I’d love to see any quote from someone saying that who would lie within the type of People @Denny is calling out.

They say that:

  • the iPad lineup is a mess (which it is)
  • The hardware is fantastic (Which it is)
  • The OS still doesn’t allow some great use cases, e.g. recording multi track audio (true)
  • no iPad was released in 2023 (which is true)

As you say, yes only Apple can decide to release new hardware, but all of the iPads are outside their usual refresh periods. The hardware should keep pushing and the OS should catch up.

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Luke Miani published a video last October entitled “Is the iPad dying?” He seemed to conclude that it was.

True that they say this, but what does it even mean? How is it a criticism of anything meaningful? Whose problem even is it whether the line up is bad? Apple’s because they won’t be able to sell the correct mix of devices? It’s a criticism just to make a criticism.

Yes, this is true. We all agree this is true. Many of us wish these use cases were available now, but hope they become available in the future All good points. All good criticisms. But they miss @Denny’s point (and mine, for that matter). Those points are offered to denigrate the iPad as a whole. It’s one thing to state that the ipad has missed the mark becuase it does not enable multiple audio channels. It’s another to imply that the device is worthless as a class because of that. Or is only useful for checking email or surfing the web because of that.

The issue is not the validity of some criticisms, it’s the suggestion that such criticism damns the whole platform.

Yes, it’s true that no ipad was released in 2023. But many—not all—of the commentators are using that to draw an inference (or suggest such an Inference to their readers/listeners) from the absence of a release that is a negative about the iPad line. It’s not a bald assertion of a true fact, it’s used to persuade readers of some greater point that the commentator wishes to make.

One can turn a blind eye to that if one wishes, but then they are not understanding the specific point that @denny is making. @Denny is not criticizing criticism. He’s criticizing groupthink and commentators who repeat the same cliched narratives. He’s criticizing the lack of candor. He’s criticizing the absence of objectivity. All those things are fair criticisms of some of the iPad commentary.

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This thread is kind of ironic. It demonstrates exactly why the pundits make these posts/podcasts. It causes debate/clicks. Regardless, there just isn’t enough Apple news in a week to maintain these sites, they have to come up with something to talk about.

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Well said. And, I learned a new word! “punditocracy.” Love it and will use it!!

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