And this guy seems like he could be hired by Apple's Official Blog -
"So, it's not like I sit there and feel the same way I did with iPhone where I say, 'Oh my God, Microsoft didn't aim high enough.' It's a nice reader, but there's nothing on the iPad I look at and say, 'Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.'"
I actually expected to read a blog post talking about how Gruber's basically become Apple's official blogger in the wake of Steve Jobs replying to an email about the 3.3.1 fiasco redirecting the person he was writing to to Gruber's blog post defending the changes.
To me that email kind of validated the idea that Gruber is a real-life Apple shill. Meaning, on the take from Apple to publish their desired propaganda.
The first link currently on Gruber's blog is about an iPad DHCP problem. The first long essay currently on his blog criticizes Apple's app store policies (something Gruber does on a regular basis - see also his recent posts on the rejected app by the Pulitzer winner). Then there's his criticism of the HTC lawsuit...
Certainly Gruber is a fan of Apple, but so are a lot of people if Apple's consistently increasing sales are any indication. I get sick of people labeling him a "shill" because he happens to like the company, and/or has developed an insight into what Apple's management is thinking. Throwing around those sorts of accusations is the paranoid style of tech punditry, and a disservice to rational discussion.
As a daily reader of his blog, there still is this deep, deep seated arrogance against any company other than Apple. Apple gets a fair set of positive and negative coverage, but any other company almost always gets _only_ negative coverage.
For example, the current frontpage has depressing things to say about Flip(Cisco), Adobe, RIM, Motorola, Goldman Sachs, Palm, Sony and Ning.
Positive mentions: Just 2. One each for Adobe(this is rare, and only because of hard evidence -- 2x speedup in Photoshop CS5) and Google. (One neutral mention of Unity).
The more worrying concept is that he is widely read by all of Apple's employees, all the way up to the top. Clearly some of his views resonate _in_to the company as well, so even if he is not on their payroll, I very much consider him an Apple evangelist, and take every negative comment of his with a huge pinch of salt.
I'm not sure how likely it is that they're actually paying him money; seems like a bit risky thing to do. It could simply be that incentives align: being the most prominent public Apple defender is a role that pays well, in ad-views/influence/etc., even if Apple isn't literally paying you. And he could, you know, just really like Apple; the company has a lot of pretty earnest fans, who, like fans everywhere, tend to be keen to defend their heroes.
