Sure, and respected camera review websites like DPReview get the majority of their revenue through people clicking through their site to purchase cameras. Is it a conflict of interest? Oh hell yes, and you should keep it in mind. Does it make the review wrong? Well...probably not, but keep it in mind.

I think Apple has plenty of incentive not to yank reviewable units from people who've gotten them early in the past, when/if they get a bad review.

Taints the whole point of doing reviews.

> Taints the whole point of doing reviews.

It certainly does, which is why you can never trust an early review of an Apple product. https://www.cultofmac.com/255618/how-apples-blacklist-manipu...

Okay but there’s no concrete examples there. There’s a bunch of broad claims that Apple will blacklist journalists for X, Y, and Z but no names or evidence that it’s actually happening.

I can believe that Apple might do this (especially since he also cites openly breaking rules by doing things like live-streaming when it’s been explicitly forbidden) but this article doesn’t convince me it’s happening or educate me on how much of a problem it really is.

The article links to a few concrete examples. You'll have to use the Wayback Machine to access them.

No it doesn’t. It contains a link to an article about supposed “whitelisting” and one about supposedly giving WaPo and exclusive interview in retaliation to the NYT’s critical reporting. These are both the exact opposite of the blacklisting the article asserts exists. Then it links to an article about blacklisting but dismissed it as inaccurate. So there’s nothing linked about actual blacklisting examples by Apple unless I’ve missed something. Elgan doesn’t even say why he is blacklisted.

This article is about somebody who got a loaner, which means they are specifically whitelisted as my article's link says, which means that they are uncritical of Apple products. I don't know why you are hung up on blacklisting specifically as I have not mentioned that, only that prelaunch reviews of Apple products are not credible.

Because this comment chain, including your original reply, was about blacklisting critical reviewers.

Also because the article you linked is about blacklisting.

It is also about whitelisting, which is the relevant section for this review ("an early review of an Apple product"). I never mentioned the term "blacklisting" until you brought it up.

Now that we have that out of the way, do you agree that early reviews of Apple products can only be done by reviewers that Apple considers favorable?

The article is extremely weak and then tried to explain way why some publications who say negative things don’t get blacklisted.

That doesn't make their reviews advertisements.

why would ppl keep trusting them if they keep writing bogus positive reviews.