At Slate magazine, Jack Shafer wonders why the mainstream press coverage of Apple is so sycophantic, as most recently demonstrated by the ludicrous amount of puffery for the lacklustre iPod with Video. He writes:
What explains the press corps' exuberance for Apple in general and the iPod in particular? After all, the portable video player isn't a new product category — Archos, RCA, Samsung, and iRiver got there months and months ago. The excitement can't be due to the undersized screen, which measures only 2.5 inches diagonal, or the skimpy two hours of battery life when operated in video mode. As I paged through a Nexis dump of the V-iPod coverage, I searched in vain for a single headline proclaiming "Apple Introduces Ho-Hum Player" or an article comparing the V-iPod's technical specs to those of competing brands. At least the techie readers of Engadget, free of the Apple mind-meld, recognize the V-iPod as a deliberately crippled by copy protection, low-res, underpowered video appliance that is merely Apple's first try in the emerging market of video players.
Comment: Shafer is talking about the US, but Apple press coverage in the UK is usually just as slavishly uncritical. However, you don't get US-style rivers of drool, just puddles.
