“I, Cringely” is a very popular technology blog/column on the PBS site. Here’s how it works. Mark Stevens, the author, writes a column about a hot technology topic every week. What makes it funny (and, I guess, popular) is that he almost never understands the topic or knows what he’s talking about.
For some reason, “I, Cringely,” has stayed in my NetNewsWire subscriptions for a few years now, and every year or so I seem to get irked enough to write an entry. Perhaps if Gruber took Cringely on a proper jackass-of-the-week ride, I could finally let go.
Anyway. Today’s 1500-word Cringely entry on the Apple TV, for example, is based on two things. First:
…if you are like me you are wondering what that 40-gig hard drive is doing inside. I’m guessing we won’t know for sure until later this year, though of course I also think I know the secret answer, too. … It will be interesting to hear Apple’s explanation for the hard drive.
Well, if you actually watched the keynote, or, say, visited the Apple TV web site, you’d already know: the hard drive is there for a simple reason. It makes it possible to sync an Apple TV with iTunes. Exactly like you sync an iPod with iTunes. In other words, it’s there to make the experience easy and familiar.
But wait, there’s more:
I’ll tell you my theory about the Apple TV in a moment, but first I want to riff a bit on the other components in the new ministack — the Mac Mini and the new AirPort Extreme Base Station. All three components have the same form factor, very similar cases, and they stack beautifully one atop the other. But why? Under what circumstance would you even want to stack all three together? It makes no sense to me.
Mark continues with this idea of stackability and the mysterious hard drive for the rest of the piece. And it would be interesting, if true. Alas, these devices do not form a “beatiful ministack” — the Apple TV is 1.2 inches wider and deeper than the Mac Mini.
Oops. It would’ve been a nice 1500-word analysis if the whole premise wasn’t wrong.
Of course, this week’s article is not an isolated incident. Let’s go back one week to DRM Catcher, which is another piece greatly enhanced by the author’s complete misunderstanding of his topic:
Dropping DRM would probably mean iPod users could subscribe to Real’s Rhapsody music rental service, for example. Real would make the technical effort for that to happen because reaching those 90 million iPods might (but probably wouldn’t) explode demand. Same goes for every other music service, including any directly sponsored by the major music labels. The lure of all those iPods is simply too strong.
Soo, let’s see… if the studios drop DRM, who benefits? Oh, of course, it’s the companies pushing music rental, the only digital music business model that actually requires DRM to work!
You just can’t make this stuff up. Perhaps Cringely has become a true Dvorak, sent to us to fill the void after Dvorak himself confessed to just baiting the Apple crowd for page views?
Oh well. I guess we all could just be reading Dilbert.
