There have been some real gems in the last year, like when Gruber took it upon himself to declare the A4 the most advanced mobile computing chip ever created (despite knowing essentially nothing about what the A4 actually was).

I'm not sure we do, 'boucher.

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/04/html5-safari-ope...

I agree with the original post, he has been pushing harder and harder on Apple doing the right things with its control complex, whereas previously he wouldn't have done. If you swapped "Apple" from some of the pieces on the App Store and HTML5 stuff with "Microsoft" or "Adobe", you could be sure he'd be a frothy mess.

I loved the Gruber of old. Where's he gone? Why is it just "If you don't love Apple, you can git out?" Fortunately, at least Wil Shipley has been holding his feet to the fire on Twitter, but I don't know why Gruber's gone this route at all.

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/04/modernizr

Apparently after reading HN:

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/04/df-hn

> The demos below show how Apple’s Safari web browser supports the capabilities of web standards such as HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript.

Gruber’s point is this: if Opera wants some better “HTML5” demos (presumably that work across browsers, and don’t just “use HTML5 as a buzzword”) they can easily make some themselves. Why should Apple be responsible for making sure their Safari promotion showcase works perfectly in every other browser?

As for why they block other browsers: probably some or most of the demos break in some way or another. If a naive user with (say) Firefox visited a page and the layout looked like shit and nothing worked, the user would quite reasonably think that Apple’s site was broken.

Because the whole point of the exercise is to show how standards-compliant, open, web apps work so great on iPhone OS. Except by excluding every browser but Safari, it may as well be a front for the App Store. It might be standards-compliant, but it sure as heck isn't open or inclusive. In that regard, even Flash runs in more browsers than this showcase does.

Instead, as far as I can tell, the primary point is to promote Safari and prove that Flash is unneeded to make pretty neat graphics/interactive thingums.

Opera is maybe justified in being miffed if Apple can get traction off the back of using “open” and “HTML5” as buzzwords, but I really don’t think the primary audience for this showcase knows or cares much one way or the other what HTML5 really means.

Just sayin.

("Opera for the iPhone" is using a mediator service, and as such is not a real web browser).

I think you kind of missed the point. To whit: putting an image behind the search engine homepage is a stupid gimmick which adds nothing to the value to my search results.

Just because you don't appreciate it doesn't mean it's a "stupid gimmick".

EDIT: clarify a point

what about (back in the day) microsoft, (recently) adobe and (since the january battle call) google?

all the time?

Yes. Numerous times. I’m not really in the mood to go skimming through the several months of archives it would take to find a good example.

To be honest though, Microsoft is much easier to ridicule, because they have much looser control over their messaging, and so it’s not terribly surprising that a generally Apple-oriented commentator could consistently poke fun at them.

If you think he's annoying, stop reading what he posts?

There are a people pushing words around on the Internet that are outlandish or that others don't agree with. Thankfully, most of them don't result in hundreds of comments and discussions over their shortcomings.