Unless I totally misunderstand how this site works, then the story is on the first page because a bunch of people voted for it. That's the idea, to expose stories people might be interested in. One thing you _can't_ say here is that no one is interested in the topic.

If you don't want to read "another damn Apple story" then _don't click on the link_...

The key point is that the site is named "Hacker News" and not "Apple news". Of course i understand how the site works, but if you can't see the total disproportion of apple news vs. the rest of it world, then i don't know. In general, if Steve Jobs farts, there will be more then one link on the "New" page from which 1-2 are getting to the frontpage. The point is, that when Sony releases a new notebook or MP3 player of mobile phone, no story will be here. If it's from Apple, several stories will be here + Stories about the stories and blog posts with one persons feelings about the story.

I already figured that the most people on Hacker News use Macs (from the photo thread of peoples workplaces many had Macs).

When i compare the numbers of how much Apple is mentioned versus the rest... look for yourself (taken from google search results):

  Apple: 8070
  Steve Jobs: 1030
  iPhone: 5880
  iPad: 2730
 
  Microsoft: 4280
  Steve Ballmer: 150
  Bill Gates: 347
  Microsoft Courier: 181
  Nexus One: 326
  Motorola Droid: 271
  Vaio: 313
  Xperia: 5

Now look at the market: Most Computers are PCs with Windows, most phones are not iPhones. You don't see the disproportion, do you?

Also, if you take this story. This is not news, this is just one guy praising Apple, why is this posted here!? Is this some blog aggregator? This is just not news.

As someone who has worked in and out of the news business for over 30 years I can tell you that news is what people are interested in. Hacker News is news that hackers are interested in. If it's getting posted by hackers and getting upvoted by hackers then ...

If you are seeing a lot of Apple posts then maybe, just maybe, it's because there are events and commentary about Apple that the readership of this site are interested in. If Sony (or whatever) isn't getting enough upvotes then maybe, just maybe, no one really cares about that story.

For what it's worth, there are plenty of stories on HN that I'm not especially interested in. Rather than adding irrelevant discussion to a topic I'm not interested in, I simply don't read those articles. I move on and find stories that I _am_ interested in. If there's not enough news to catch my interest, or more possibly to the point, too much news that disagree's with my outlook, then I decide this site isn't for me and go looking for greener pastures...

Of 30 articles on the front page, only two are Apple related. Is it really that difficult not to click on an article you're not interested in?

In fairness, the day the iPad came out, 16 out of the 30 were Apple related. Most of the articles were rubbish, I really can't understand why people would upvote tbem. As somebody who at best doesn't care about Apple, and at worst despises what they are doing to computing (from a freedom point of view, that they're doing it with shiny things isn't hugely relevant to me), Apple news is all noise to me.

When so much of the stuff here is noise, it becomes pretty hard to just not click on an article I'm not interested in. There are no articles that I am interested in, but I still have assignments that I'd rather be procrastinating, you know?

I would agree with the GP. There is a disproportionate amount of Apple news here. I mean I know that's because people here find it interesting... I guess I'm feeling more and more disillusioned with this place in general. But when Apple actually do something, more stories are about Apple than not (it's not that big a deal when Apple release a product, is it? Lots of companies release products every day). And when Apple aren't releasing a product, there is still perpetually two to five articles on the front page that are Apple related when there is no Apple related news at all. Bah. I don't like it anyway. I understand where the GP is coming from.

Amen.