Oh, bad writers on the Internet. Why can’t you be more like good writers on the Internet?
Let’s start with another top-ten list gem from eWeek’s Don Reisinger: Apple iPad’s Reign as Top Tablet Won’t Last Forever: 10 Reasons Why
This is, quite frankly, an utterly useless collection of bunny pellets. Because of what the Macalope assumes is an editing error, it isn’t even ten items, as the list repeats the Kindle Fire twice, once with the wrong picture. The list is a collection of repeated statements of fact not entered into evidence, such as the idea that once there are a ton of different kinds of crappy Android tablets out there, people will have to start buying them!
The Macalope’s not sure what Don Reisinger and eWeek’s problem is: Why do they keep churning out these bland top ten lists, devoid of any value? He’s coming around to the idea that they look at writing the same way your average bored teenager looks at assembling burgers at a fast-food joint: Slap ‘em together and throw ‘em under the light.
And if you think the Macalope’s mixing metaphors by calling eWeek’s output both rodent poop and fast-food hamburgers, well, then you haven’t worked in the fast-food industry, brother. Or read eWeek lately.
If what eWeek’s serving isn’t stomach-cramp-inducing enough for you, drive over to the virtual pages of Laptop Magazine, where you’ll learn that the Lenovo ThinkPad tablet won the 2011 Tablet World Series. How was the winner of the 2011 Tablet World Series determined? Apparently not by sales. The iPad 2 got eliminated in the the first round, losing to the Asus Eee Pad Slider. Surely, you’ve heard of this iPad killer. No? Well, maybe you haven’t been to the bargain bin of your local Best Buy recently. Or a dumpster.
Not surprisingly, the iPad didn’t win last year, either, losing out to the mighty Exo PC which quickly overtook the iPad in market share hahahaha never heard of it. Last year’s Tablet World Series winner? Are you sitting down? The BlackBerry PlayBook. No, the Macalope is not [swear word] [other swear word]-ing you. (How would someone even do that?)
What is the point of all this? It’s not a scientific survey. The Macalope assumes it’s supposed to be fun, but it’s about as fun as Chutes and Ladders is for adults. It’s pointless.
OK. OK. Let’s climb down off this ledge before someone gets hurt, and turn to something that’s good and pure in a world gone horribly wrong.
You may have heard of Horace Dediu. If he doesn’t get more traffic than eWeek and Laptop Magazine combined, times infinity, it’s a crime. Horace is ostensibly an “Apple enthusiast”—that is to say he finds their products more appealing than the competing products and has a healthy respect for the company’s business acumen.
But Horace has a background in the smartphone business and an inquisitive mind. The Macalope was struck by this recent post in which he delves into the problem of Samsung not reporting its smartphone sales figures (because they’re too awesome, apparently) to see how one might best estimate them.
See, any moron can just regurgitate the widely reported estimates of Samsung’s smartphone shipments from Strategy Analytics, claim the company is killing Apple, and slap it up on Business Insider under the name “Henry Blodget.” Horace, on the other hand, wants to check their work.
That’s smart. And it has value. The Macalope just doesn’t get a publication that doesn’t care enough about its work to write something meaningful. It doesn’t have to be favorable to Apple but, sweet alfalfa, at least make it have a point and make sense.
[Editors’ Note: In addition to being a mythical beast, the Macalope is not an employee of Macworld. As a result, the Macalope is always free to criticize any media organization. Even ours.]