∞ Gruber, Arment and honesty in publishing

Daring Fireball’s John Gruber and Instapaper founder Marco Arment took two prominent Web sites to task for recent articles they wrote. My interpretation of their critiques come down to one thing — honesty in publishing. Having a difference of opinion is fine and expected, but not being honest with your readers to make a company happy is not right.

Gruber on David Pogue’s New York Times piece suggesting we should “praise Google for its noble experiment” with the Samsung Chromebook:

Really? Why? Would everyone have praised Apple for its “noble experiment” if the $500 iPad had been too big and heavy, felt like it was worth only $180, and was “a 3.3-pound paperweight” when offline?

Marco Arment on Ars Technica’s review of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1:

Translation: Android tablets have managed to copy the iPad’s hardware well enough — the easy part — but have failed to provide good software and significant third-party app choice — the hard part.So, with similar hardware with similar capabilities selling at similar prices, why should someone choose an Android tablet over an iPad?

Update: Marco as posted an apology and explanation for his comments “An apology and clarification on ‘softball’ reviews