Article: Is the Mac Web Stale?

Regular readers of this site know that we don’t try to be self-righteous too often. Sure, we might have some shameless plugs, tongue-in-cheek posts, or the reviews with random references that don’t belong in such “respected” print publications—we’d like to think of ourselves more like The Daily Show than CNN.

I read MacSurfer almost every day, as well as numerous RSS feeds and a few other sites. In the past, there used to be gems of commentary, but these days it seems like every site is just jumping on the Zune-bashing or iPhone-or-other-next-big-thing bandwagon. Is it that there isn’t anything else worth talking about?

I’m not saying that what we do is important, but as a consumer of the Mac media, it seems that there really isn’t anything going on. Perhaps we’ve hit a slow news month or slow news half-year? We’re at an interesting time, I think. Intel chips have found their way in every new Mac, and Apple’s iPod lineup looks the best it’s ever been in years. A new version of OS X is on the horizon, and some hardware is due for replacement.

In some ways, I think that this predictability and boringness across the Mac Web is because the Mac world is the best it’s been in years. When I started writing around 2000, the iPod didn’t exist, Macs were still considered “weird” by many, and Apple was off the radar of many. Although attractive and competitively-priced hardware existed and was helping Apple’s comeback, various writers felt the need to share their thoughts on the state of the Mac. Today, it seems much like any other technology-oriented community, just that we don’t have to deal with the blue screen of death.

I don’t particularly have one answer or another, but I’m wondering why we’re not seeing people ask the hard questions anymore, or even write about things other than FUD. Furthermore, there seem to be more new sites starting up that do a few posts and then die off. I know there are plenty of exceptions, but they’re just that, exceptions.