ZDNET hackette backs down under Apple fan boy threats

ZD NET'S Volish correspondent, Mary Jo Foley, has broken under pressure of abuse from Apple fan boys who were miffed that she dared to suggest that Leopard looked the same as Vista.

Foley made the grave mistake of coming away from Apple messiah Steve Jobs' Leopard plug conference not humming the company tune and daring to think that Apple had copied the Microsoft OS. This is of course a heresy to the Apple cult which claims that Microsoft always copies Apple and never the other way around.

Within minutes of her blog going up Apple fan boys had predictably made her life an absolute misery.

She received comments which suggested that she find a "new career" to “see a doctor about your time/space problem you seem to have,” to “you should be running a car wash in Frezno.” Foley had tried to write to her accusers but, much to her shock, found that they didn't have the courage to put their real email addresses on their abusive posts.

Clearly this is the first time that Foley has dealt with Apple fan boys. I have wasted some of my best put downs on fake names and addresses from illiterate cowards who are too terrified to stand up to a decent intellectual argument. Maybe they are just worried I will report them to their mums for swearing.

Foley said that she got abuse from Windows users who thought the Mac OS X was far superior to Vista. She also got comments from Apple users who said they thought Leopard would be a weak Mac OS X release. Quite a few Mac folks who thought Jobs' keynote was too much of a rehash from January and a lame representation of what Apple has coming on the operating system front.

Most of the Apple fanboys, including the one which got in touch with her boss in a bid to get her fired, seem to have missed the point about her article, said Foley.

Translated into INQspeak it was a "point of view bog" and despite what Apple fan boys seem to think, people are allowed to have points of view that have not been written for them by the Apple press office.

But then again how can Foley expect people of the intellectual caliber of a Mac fan boy to have an original or dissenting thought? Telling Mac fan boys that they are foaming at the mouth about an operating system not a religion does not work either.

More here. µ