Whatever happened to Zak Islam and Wolfgang Gruener?
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Apple
- Tom's Hardware
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xpeh
March 21, 2013 3:13:07 PM
DarkMantle
March 21, 2013 4:10:42 PM
xpeh
March 22, 2013 4:59:19 PM
I'm not clear on what a "pro-Apple article" is. Tom's reports the news, we don't make it up - and we certainly don't spin. Generally I make it a rule not to engage in threads like this one, but I've reviewed the content in bulk and I'm not seeing what you are saying about pro-Apple or advertising (and I personally happen to loathe Apple).
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xpeh
March 22, 2013 8:20:03 PM
jpishgar said:
I'm not clear on what a "pro-Apple article" is. Tom's reports the news, we don't make it up - and we certainly don't spin. Generally I make it a rule not to engage in threads like this one, but I've reviewed the content in bulk and I'm not seeing what you are saying about pro-Apple or advertising (and I personally happen to loathe Apple).There were seperate articles about Steve Jobs having a yacht, and no technical info about the yacht. Then there were articles about the iPod Nano coming in different colours, and a seperate article about the iPod Touch coming in different colours, and other not-so-important info involving Apple that wouldn't have been posted if another company did the same thing. The ratio of Apple articles to other articles was 60:40. I loathe Apple as well.
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xpeh
March 26, 2013 7:56:57 AM
jpishgar said:
Can you link me to the article about the Steve Jobs' yacht? Did he buy this before, or after his passing? Because one of those would be newsworthy, I'd imagine.http://www.tomshardware.com/news/steve-jobs-yacht-boat-...
To be honest, I don't believe that this is newsworthy. As I said before, if Bill Gates or Larry Page had some strange-looking yacht, Tom's wouldn't have reported on it. Also, the article was written by Wolfgang Gruener
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sam buddy
April 12, 2013 9:18:51 AM
xpeh said:
I haven't seen new articles from them in some time, or maybe I just didn't pay closer attention. The lack of Pro-Apple articles and advertising got me wondering.A bit late but... I've seen some of Wolfgang Gruener's articles on Tom's IT Pro, along with the usual brief resume in the end. For 18 years experience in IT, as the resume states (IIRC), he is far too biased for Apple. I remember that, just by reading the title, I could easily guess which articles were written by him. Apart from writing pro-Apple articles, he also used to just bash on it's direct rivals. Example (worth reading the comments, too):
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/nokia-lumia-800-7100-smartphone-branding-marketing,news-13014.html
A huge article considering what it was written for and, still, failing to report on what Nokia really meant with that name. Also failed to report on Apple's choice of Siri. The commenters fixed it all, though!
That's an example of bad journalism.
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I think you are seeing things there. It mentions Apple's naming policy and conventions in a positive light. Few would dispute the marketing/brand power of Apple's name selection for their products. I don't see this as bashing - this is playful jibing, and certainly an apt article. I own a Lumia - and I had no idea until you linked to this that it was synonymous with "prostitute". Doesn't make me like my phone any less, or like Apple any more. But I know now.
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sam buddy
April 12, 2013 10:38:27 AM
jpishgar said:
I think you are seeing things there. It mentions Apple's naming policy and conventions in a positive light. Few would dispute the marketing/brand power of Apple's name selection for their products. I don't see this as bashing - this is playful jibing, and certainly an apt article. I own a Lumia - and I had no idea until you linked to this that it was synonymous with "prostitute". Doesn't make me like my phone any less, or like Apple any more. But I know now.I really want to believe he's not writing anything on purpose, but he's got a bad track record. Anyway, everybody looks at it from a different perspective, but taking a look at the comments, looks like I'm not the only one who's seeing things.
I don't dispute Apple's marketing either, and by mentioning Apple's name selection, you're confirming my point. He mentions Apple's naming policy positively by bashing Nokia, and somehow fails to notice how Siri means what it means in japanese (oops! as he'd have said), while at the same time failing to state what Lumia meant for Nokia. He stated that a simple google search is enough to find Lumia means prostitute, but I had a hard time finding anything back then. On the contrary it was very easy (1st page on Google search and relatively high) to find this:
http://web.archive.org/web/20111030160718/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumia
This article does not exist anymore, it has been replaced by this I guess:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Lumia
Now, I say bashing, because his harshness was uncalled for. As I said, a huge article for something like that, and still missing important infromation which would have made it a tiny bit more neutral.
I'll have to agree, I don't own a Lumia, but I've used one and liked it, too. And the meaning of its name in spanish is a Plus!
Anyway, I like my articles more neutral, in a roughly expository style, but that's just me. Thanks for sharing your view.
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sam buddy
April 13, 2013 3:02:26 AM
jpishgar said:
I think it's still a bit of an overreaction.You could be right, but I have been reading all his articles, and that's what he always does. Jane writes a lot of Apple articles, too, but I like her style so far. Anyway, as I said, maybe it's just me. His articles are out there for anyone to read and draw his own conclusions.
randomizer said:
sam buddy said:
For 18 years experience in IT, as the resume states (IIRC), he is far too biased for Apple.I don't see how experience and personal preferences are in any way related.
They're not. I was only saying that he's a veteran journalist, and I would expect him to be more neutral, and present *all* the facts.
Then, he could present us with his personal views, and make us think. Of course, I'm not a journalist, and I cannot/will not tell anyone how he should do his job. That's only my impression of his articles, and I do have a clue what journalism in general is all about. No offence to anyone, I still like Tom's!
Have a nice weekend.
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teh_chem
August 2, 2013 7:20:43 AM
I have to be honest, I always found Zak Islam's contributions to be entirely biased toward Apple, despite the previous statement in this thread that he posted more Samsung-related news than Apple-related news. But that doesn't mean that what he posted doesn't have slant. In a majority of his posts (of course, not all), there was clear Apple-positive slant, and it really bothered me. If the same slant were integrated into Android or PC posts, that would bother me too. While he did post news articles/stories (and did not create the content/conduct interviews), there was enough added unrelated content painting Apple in a positive light to consider it more of an editorial/opinion piece than trustworthy news.
I can't find the news post at the moment (and I can't figure out how to search news articles by poster name, and it appears as if Zak Islam never existed on this site), but I recall one news article he wrote; though the content is a vague recollection to me at the moment, the gist (and the article title) was maybe about iOS 6 and the maps flop, but then it discussed in more content than the subject of the article about how Apple posted record profits in their desktop/laptop segment. Perhaps this wasn't the specific situation, but it is essentially the gist; despite how the original subject of an Apple story was "negative," Zak Islam always integrated more info that was completely off-topic to paint Apple in a positive light. That's what bothered me. If I come in to an article discussing iOS6/maps app, I don't expect 3/4 of the content to be about something completely different with the obvious goal to cast a positive light/slant.
I can't find the news post at the moment (and I can't figure out how to search news articles by poster name, and it appears as if Zak Islam never existed on this site), but I recall one news article he wrote; though the content is a vague recollection to me at the moment, the gist (and the article title) was maybe about iOS 6 and the maps flop, but then it discussed in more content than the subject of the article about how Apple posted record profits in their desktop/laptop segment. Perhaps this wasn't the specific situation, but it is essentially the gist; despite how the original subject of an Apple story was "negative," Zak Islam always integrated more info that was completely off-topic to paint Apple in a positive light. That's what bothered me. If I come in to an article discussing iOS6/maps app, I don't expect 3/4 of the content to be about something completely different with the obvious goal to cast a positive light/slant.
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