I have recently had the experiences of meeting more than one person (not super-technical engineers, but tech-literate IT people) who were very negative about even the idea of owning Apple products, but also without prompting made statements like "I hate what Google is becoming", and "everyone used to like them but now they're evil". So I can assure you the sentiments aren't limited to such a small community.
Even if this were not so, complex criticisms of a technology business would reasonably be expected to originate within a skilled technical community with a demonstrated preference for an alternative. So if these critiques did happen to be limited to this community, this would still be no reason to conclude that they do not reflect Google's behavior.
Your statements like: And the reason is clear: since 2008 Android has represented the biggest single threat to Apple's increasing dominance. are clearly an ad-hominem because you are implying that their criticisms stem from loyalty to Apple as a company, as opposed to them actually reasoning that Google's products and strategies have become counter to their specific values.
I'd say it's just as reasonable to suggest that Android amongst other things has caused Google itself to change its values, and it is this change of values that people are calling out.
Saying things like "none of this speaks to the legitimacy of.." and "Some of it is deserved.." does nothing to mitigate the ad-hominem.
If the criticism is legitimate, or the statements are deserved, then it doesn't matter what phone someone has in their pocket.
You need to check your netiquette documentation, because that's not what ad hominem means. I'm not arguing with Apple users and trying to tarnish their reputations via unrelated attacks.
I'm making the specific point that their loyalty drives their opinions (frankly I don't even see why you even think this is controversial -- it happens everywhere, in every subject). And that because of their (your) preponderance in this community (again a very uncontroversial fact), it seems like (this is my conclusion drawn from above) more people are souring on Google than is really true. QED.
Now, maybe you disagree with some of those facts. But none of that argument is based on attacking anything unrelated about you guys.
You didn't address any of the points I made, and that's a straw man definition of ad-hominem. Ad-hominem is not specifically about tarnishing reputations, or unrelated attacks, although these can be part of it.
You'll see that it conforms to what I said in my previous comment.
You have clearly indicated that you think the position of Apple users is less valid because of their loyalty to the company. That is ad-hominem - attacking the position by pointing out a characteristic of the person rather than the position, and is a fallacy designed to mislead the audience.
You also think that negative positions about Google are more prevalent amongst Apple users. On that point we have agreed from the beginning, but I haven't argued against that so repeatedly defending it is just another straw-man.
[edit: You added 'go away troll' to your comment after I posted this. That doesn't make your argument seem very strong.]
I have recently had the experiences of meeting more than one person (not super-technical engineers, but tech-literate IT people) who were very negative about even the idea of owning Apple products, but also without prompting made statements like "I hate what Google is becoming", and "everyone used to like them but now they're evil". So I can assure you the sentiments aren't limited to such a small community.
Even if this were not so, complex criticisms of a technology business would reasonably be expected to originate within a skilled technical community with a demonstrated preference for an alternative. So if these critiques did happen to be limited to this community, this would still be no reason to conclude that they do not reflect Google's behavior.
Your statements like: And the reason is clear: since 2008 Android has represented the biggest single threat to Apple's increasing dominance. are clearly an ad-hominem because you are implying that their criticisms stem from loyalty to Apple as a company, as opposed to them actually reasoning that Google's products and strategies have become counter to their specific values.
I'd say it's just as reasonable to suggest that Android amongst other things has caused Google itself to change its values, and it is this change of values that people are calling out.
Saying things like "none of this speaks to the legitimacy of.." and "Some of it is deserved.." does nothing to mitigate the ad-hominem.
If the criticism is legitimate, or the statements are deserved, then it doesn't matter what phone someone has in their pocket.