Hi, I like Apples

On Wednesday, I wrote a post on TUAW detailing my experiences with push notifications on the first generation iPhone running OS 3.0 gold master. Below is the original post that I wrote:

If you bought the original iPhone, you have the pride of being the first to own one… but you will also be left out when you install and use some of the nice new features in the iPhone 3.0 update.

Push notifications could also end up being a flop for other iPhone users too. Due to the structure of the service, push notifications can get lost in transit, and pushes to the same app (possibly all pushes) kick older ones out of the push queue.

In the post, I give a brief overview of the basic differences between the two iPhone cell networks, and why you cannot tie up a data connection and expect to receive phone calls. With push notifications, your iPhone will consistently maintain a semi-permanent connection to Apple’s servers (this is in keeping with the push technology). In the post, I mentioned that it “may” affect iPhone users on EDGE networks — I never said the problem would be widespread, nor that it would affect all users. I simply noted that due to the nature of EDGE, 1st gen users might be left out. See this video for a demonstration of the problem.

Some people contacted me after the post was written and told me that they never experienced the problem that I was writing about — they very well might not have experienced the problem. I experienced the problem. I wrote about it. I thought that this was a problem because I could recreate the problem any time I wanted to. As a technology blogger, I thought it was in keeping to write about it and explain what I had seen.

What I don’t agree with is TUAW’s “editors” trying to explain what I had experienced, and try to apologize for me, when I had done nothing wrong. I was not spreading incorrect rumors, nor was I trying to make up (or “sensationalize”) the problem that I was experiencing and had seen with my own eyes. Someone at TUAW wrote a post and basically slapped me in the face for writing my post on Push Notifications. The truth is that most of the people trying to apologize for me didn’t, in fact, even have an iPhone — much less one running iPhone 3.0GM. Sure, they might have been doing “damage control,” but they were not being true to themselves. Being unbiased is what good journalism is about, but being biased and not allowing any work to go out that speaks bad about a company/product is just completely wrong.

Some might see this as a little fight between bloggers, but coming from the inside, I can tell you that it’s more than that. This is all that I want to say right now about the situation, but I shall reveal more in the future. I wanted to clarify and I hope this helped the situation. I appreciate all of my readers and don’t want to lose any of them. However, I cannot let a situation like this pass me by without explaining myself. I’m sure that some people would like to see me fail, but there are even more people that want to see me succeed. I’m writing this letter to the people who believe in me.