As regular Irreal readers know, I mostly avoid the tech wars and especially tech wars involving Apple. I use Apple products and like them very much. I also use Linux, FreeBSD, and various other platforms so although I admit to admiring Apple products, I don’t think it accurate to describe me as a fan boy. Nonetheless, a recent Register article has such an outrageous headline that I’m forced to leap to Apple’s defense.
The article in question is headlined Apple’s poisonous Touch silently kills the GNOMEs of Linux Forest. That’s a lot of red meat so you might think it’s about Apple sending out their covert operations ninjas to sabotage the powerful GNOME opposition. But no. It turns out Apple’s dastardly plan was to do UIs correctly. By unfairly realizing that tablets and laptops have different UI needs and failing to conflate those needs into a single desktop environment, Apple poisoned the GNOME project.
Seriously? That’s what the Register calls “Apple’s poisonous touch?” Actually, the article itself is a reasonable exposition of the difficulties that the GNOME project finds itself in and the reason for those difficulties. It hardly mentions Apple at all except as an example of doing things right. GNOME’s problems are of their own making just as they’ve always been. Apple has nothing to do with it.
Judging from the disconnect between the headline and the article itself, it’s likely that the sensational headline was written by an editor with a feverish imagination rather than the author himself. No matter. At the end of the day the Register bears responsibility for an outrageous and irresponsible headline. If you were wondering why the technical press is so often the object of ridicule, now you know. I can hardly wait to hear what Gruber has to say.