The despicable MacFixIt

MacJournals News : The despicable MacFixIt:

Ever since founding editor Ted Landau sold MacFixIt years ago, the site has been on an increasingly shrill trajectory of fomenting fear and uncertainty about installing any software, largely in an attempt to instill in its readers an unnecessary dependency on the site's blessing before proceeding with, well, anything. The "be very afraid" subtext has always been clear in the current MacFixIt's installation "advice," but it's refreshing that the site has finally come out and said so, to remove any doubts.

I've always felt that MacFixit strongly overplays both the seriousness of problems, and just how widespread they are. they're also very quick to blame Apple, and very slow to correct that impression (just like so many publications, the headline is on page 1 in 60 point type, the correction off with the obituaries...)

When I worked at Apple, I read a lot of the mac-oriented sites and blogs. In the last year, I've been paring them down based on which ones are well-written, balanced, and how good they are at creating original content (as opposed to "discovering" things posted on other blogs, or sometimes even linking to them and giving them credit. The number's a much smaller number than it used to be. For instance, I only read one "rumor" site now, because, frankly, if it's on one of the sites, it's on all of them almost immediately -- so why bother?

Macfixit was one of the first I deleted when I left Apple, and this piece explains it perfectly.

Update: the list of Apple sites I follow these days is here:

http://chuqui.typepad.com/chuqui_30/2007/10/chuqui-30-the-d.html

Comments

[Scott Lawton (Blogcosm)]

I agree: please name names!

[Flip]

In the old days, a problem had to be reproducable by a number of people before it would get posted on MacFixIt.

Now they just post anything.

I also got turned off by their postings going behind a pay wall.

[Norman Ferguson]

So come on already, Chuq; give [wry grin]. What is your current list of Mac-focused sites that deserve your attention?