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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fanboy2000" data-source="post: 5848942" data-attributes="member: 19998">Hmmm....haven't checked out this thread in a while. I wonder what's going on. I feel a strange urge to click on it.Oh, hey. I've been summoned. Cool.Charges of fanboyism in the tech field are kind of strange. In pop culture, it's easy. When someone says something like: "Why did you read X? Why is so much better." Then we have a fanboy. (I'm an expert.) Another fanboy favorite is, "You like X? Well you should watch Y, it's soooo much better." It's like a recommendation, but, depending on tone of voice, it can come across as the recommender patting themselves on the back for being able to discover Y before you did and having better taste.Books, movies, and tv shows have a subjective quality that makes those kinds of comments superfluous unless someone has an agenda. But tech products are supposed to be useful. If X helps you achieve a goal, then there you go. But Y may be legitimately better depending on your goals.When a product is popular, I don't think charges of fanboyism are appropriate because usually one of the defining factors of fanboyism is snobbery. I mean, nobody claims that MS Office's success is because of all the Office fanboys out there. Sometimes, Office really is the best choice for a person. Usually, fanboys are the one's decrying how bad the popular product is and how good some alternative is.With Apple and iPads, I think part of the confusion is that Apple is the #2 product in desktops and laptops but #1 in phones and tablets that it simultaneously has "alternative" and "mainstream" status in tech.</blockquote>

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