Gruber coming on too strong, twice

I love John Gruber for his sharp analyses. Apple haters accuse him of Apple fanboyism, but I find that he usually distributes his criticism evenly. Alas today, two posts weren’t up to his usual standard. Comments in brackets are mine.

1. Claim Chowder on Yours Truly

Me, back in March 2006:

One nice side effect of the continuing growth and success of Apple’s iPod / iTunes / iTMS platform is that we’re no longer subjected to moronic business and tech pundits proclaiming that Apple, despite its initial success, is “making the same mistake with the iPod that they made with the Macintosh in the 1980s.”

Maybe the most wrong I’ve ever been. (Thanks to DF reader Tim Ricchuiti.)

[Interesting. A mea culpa that is actually about telling others that they are wrong.]

2. How Sun Almost Bought Apple in 1996

Chris Preimesberg for eWeek:

Would there be iPhones, iPads and iPods on the market today if Sun Microsystems had been able to close a deal to buy out Apple in the mid-1990s?
No, says former Sun CEO Scott McNealy. “If we had bought Apple, there wouldn’t have been iPods or iPads … I’d have screwed that up,” McNealy conceded in a talk Feb. 24 with another former Sun CEO, Ed Zander, at a Churchill Club dinner at the Santa Clara Convention Center.

Refreshingly honest.

[Refreshingly honest? Pseudo-honest, rather. Apple was in incredibly bad shape in the mid-1990s. Many stars aligned to make the iPod happen. Not making an iPod would not have been a case of screwing up, but a case of failing to perform a miracle.]

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