A while back I decided to choose between subscribing to Gizmodo and Engadget, because they’re very similar and I’m not that gadget-obsessed.

First I removed both hoping friends would forward me the interesting stuff. That didn’t happen because I guess I’m a really big know-it-all jerk. I then picked Gizmodo, but switched to Engadget because they leave commenting on.

Spurned love

The thing that turned me off wasn’t so much their selection of articles as the inability of their editors to pass up a snide reference to Apple in nearly every article.

For instance, the proverbial last straw for me was this one where the editor inserted: “[Apple’s statement] wasn’t quite the flat-out denial we were expecting for a situation like this.” Umm, given that Apple contracts out all their manufacturing to other companies in Taiwan and China, what sort of “denial” could they give? You’d think they still believe all of Apple’s products are still made in robotic factories.

Here is another favorite. In an article about Dell’s banding problem in LCDs, the editor can’t pass up an opportunity to make an anti-Apple dig in a completely unrelated article: “Here’s one situation where we’d rather Apple would take a page out of Dell’s book.” He somehow forgot to mention that Apple LCDs actually don’t have this problem, that Dell’s problem affected their entire line, and that the “fix” only works for one of the three video modes (DVI is Desktop Video Mode). (In their defense they do mention that the fix is simply to disable a feature of the monitor.) Not exactly the best article to hold a mirror up to Apple’s lack customer support issue transparency.

In the comments the standard ploy to “refute” someone is to refer to Apple people as “Apple fanboy.” Next thing you know they’ll be branding these people terrorists, French, liberals, or other such “evildoers.” It looks like an engadget-corrolary of Godwin’s law is in order.

I used to think this was a reaction to their old pro-Apple flag-waving in order to drive hits to their site (a la John Dvorak), but now I think it was that simple equation: the biggest pro-(anti-X) zealots are formerly pro-X ones. For X you can insert Sony (v. Microsoft or Nintendo), Apple (v. Microsoft), Nikon (v. Canon), Dyson (v. the evil-large-vacuum-cleaner-monopoly (whoever they are)) or any other company with the right mix of marketing and design to inspire mindless brand loyalty.

Who am I supposed to be hatin’ this week? Oh Engadget please tell me, please!

Back to Gizmodo

You should probably rejoice if you read Engadget because you will be spared my snide “this passes for a digital camera blog entry?” comments.

In any case, today I read this article on Gizmodo and I couldn’t help but think if this article would ever appear in Engadget even though they’re totally obsessed with exploding shit (yes, they couldn’t pass up an dig on Apple products). And if they did, how would they spin this into a snide comment on Apple?

(Yes, I realize that exploding batteries aren’t exactly Dell’s fault. Life in the world with lithium batteries.)