The amount of (seemingly intentional) misinformation in LTT and ShortCircuit content about anything made by Apple (and featuring Alex) is alarming

[just_dave]

Before I get called a fanboy - I do use Apple products and enjoy it very much. But I am also a developer and especially on macOS, there are many, many problems that need to be highlighted and addressed. These products/platforms are not perfect and criticism is necessary. But misinformation that is intentionally misleading is definitely not. 

 

I hope I am not the only one, and I think the last ShortCircuit video proved it, as the now-pinned comment contains many replies sharing the same feeling. 

 

Over the last year or so, I noticed a very strong trend in almost all LTT and ShortCircuit videos where incorrect specifications are stated/presented or completely dumb assumptions are being made.

 

It makes it seem that either the writers for these videos are completely stupid and incapable of actual research and writing, or it's being done intentionally to drive interaction and views. 

 

Let me give a few examples with timestamps:

 

1. Mac Studio SSD Swap video at 9:30 - 9:50 ish. Alex says that macOS recovery has been removed and it's not longer possible to reinstall the OS etc. and Linus reacts to it by saying how badly Apple treats their customers.

 

What even is that? Did anyone with IQ over 80 spend more than 30 seconds working on that video script? This literally takes 5 seconds to Google: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/intro-to-macos-recovery-mchl46d531d6/mac

 

2. Mac Users Deserve Better  - at 6:12 - 7:20 Alex here just straight up says that the single external display support on M1/M2 is a software limitation and that the Thunderbolt 3 ports can support more than external display physically. It actually isn't true at all, because the external display hardware exists for only 1 display output on the M1/M2 die. Proving this is hard (as of now), because Hector Martin (the developer of Asahi Linux for Apple Silicon) has since deleted his Twitter (because of Musk) and his tTwitter account had all of this information documented (AT THE TIME OF RELEASE OF THE VIDEO WOULD COME UP IN REGULAR SEARCHES ON THIS TOPIC) along with die shots, die layout estimation etc. However, he posted it on hackernews, so there is only this comment thread available https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32175939

 

3. Windows doesn't have an answer - 15:01 webcam comparison, again the video is terribly written with incorrect specs for the webcams and Alex making a big deal out of it (I understand you need clickbait views). 

This time people corrected it and it was actually pinned, so that's at least some improvement. 

 

 

Linus and Alex always say how they want to perform in-depth testing for products, how they want to share transparent results and be the trusted place for consumers to come for information about what products to buy.

Well, this definitely doesn't inspire any confidence in that.

[RollinLower]

jup, techquicky and the likes are quantity over quality all day.

Some of the stuff they miss is just dumb too, like the stuff you mentioned usually takes a 5 minute google search to find out.

[Budget DIY]

This is a hard one IMO... What's bigger. My hate towards Apple, or my hate towards LTT and their clickbait/low-grade vids. Can I hate both?

 

*Sidenote, aside from already having a LTT forum account, I will be picking up a used apple product today. But hey, at least I won't be overpaying. It's going to be cheap as can be, for the hardware I'm going to get. Maybe I need to hate less?!?

[manikyath]

i'm gonna add some 'benefit of the doubt' here, not that i necessarily think LTT needs it, but because the world simply isnt black & white:

 

1. i have no experience reinstalling apple silicon macs, but from a cursory read from your linked article, it seems possible that all reinstall options require an installation of mac OS to be present on the disk, as opposed to a 'boot from usb' type of situation.

 

2. that's probably a bit of a nitpick imo. largely, supporting multiple displays on one displayport interface is a driver thing, and imo if the hardware cant do it, that's even worse, because it implies that more than one external display will never happen. either way, i feel like it's safe to assume they didnt investigate a removed twitter profile for this, and assumed it's a driver thing, like most dock-related things on mac OS are.

 

as for your views on it being done intentionally...

do not ascribe to malice, that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.

mistakes happen, and when you have lots of content, more mistakes will happen.

 

that said...

if you see a mistake, call them out on it. if it gets to the right person it *will* get a correction somewhere on or around the video.

 

calling the end of LMG because they got a detail about the dock capabilities of the macbook wrong isnt helping the matter though.

for example, if you'd come in with a write- up on the details of macbook displayport limitations.. hey, that's easy clicky content, they'll probably make a video on it.

[just_dave]

29 minutes ago, manikyath said:

i feel like it's safe to assume they didnt investigate a removed twitter profile for this, and assumed it's a driver thing, like most dock-related things on mac OS are.

Back when that video came out, all of this information was still up on twitter and again, if you spent 30 seconds googling it, it would be one of the top suggested search results.

29 minutes ago, manikyath said:

i have no experience reinstalling apple silicon macs, but from a cursory read from your linked article, it seems possible that all reinstall options require an installation of mac OS to be present on the disk, as opposed to a 'boot from usb' type of situation.

Internet recovery downloads fresh OS install itself, Alex even mentions it in the video (but then says they removed it all)

[manikyath]

40 minutes ago, just_dave said:

Internet recovery downloads fresh OS install itself, Alex even mentions it in the video (but then says they removed it all)

i get that much, but what i dont find answers on (right away) is if that still works if there is "nothing" presemt on the local storage.

 

like i said - my point here isnt that you're "wrong"' about it, it's that i'd rather give them benefit of the doubt about it, because to me at least it seems likely that apple didnt account for the local storage of the mac being completely unreadable. if i implemented storage the way apple did, i'd put the recovery environment on the same storage as the OS - it's not meant to be user servicable either way, and i'm pretty certain apple flashes the storage outside of the device.

[ImorallySourcedElectrons]

9 minutes ago, manikyath said:

i get that much, but what i dont find answers on (right away) is if that still works if there is "nothing" presemt on the local storage.

 

like i said - my point here isnt that you're "wrong"' about it, it's that i'd rather give them benefit of the doubt about it, because to me at least it seems likely that apple didnt account for the local storage of the mac being completely unreadable. if i implemented storage the way apple did, i'd put the recovery environment on the same storage as the OS - it's not meant to be user servicable either way, and i'm pretty certain apple flashes the storage outside of the device.

Given the volume we're talking about, Apple probably gets the dies flashed at the manufacturer and gets them on a reel or in trays like that.

 

Also, they didn't rip on Apple's horrible horrible PCB layouts, which they really should. They just keep placing large BGAs along the the likely bend lines of the PCBs, among a few other stupid design choices.

[Dracarris]

3 hours ago, just_dave said:

15:01 webcam comparison, again the video is terribly written with incorrect specs for the webcams and Alex making a big deal out of it (I understand you need clickbait views). 

This time people corrected it and it was actually pinned, so that's at least some improvement. 

Apart from the straight out wrong webcam specs he also said some plain wrong things about the display brightness that are as well corrected in the pinned comment.

 

COME ON, LTT!

[just_dave]

@AlexTheGreatish @LinusTech @GabenJr

[WildDagwood]

1 hour ago, just_dave said:

Back when that video came out, all of this information was still up on twitter and again, if you spent 30 seconds googling it, it would be one of the top suggested search results.

Internet recovery downloads fresh OS install itself, Alex even mentions it in the video (but then says they removed it all)

Knocking someone for not exploring Twitter for technical information? Get real, guy. Dont care who posted it.

[just_dave]

6 minutes ago, WildDagwood said:

Knocking someone for not exploring Twitter for technical information? Get real, guy. Dont care who posted it.

No, at the time of release this sort of stuff would come up regularly in searches. Only now because it's been deleted it's impossible to find. Zero research was done on this topic.

[mdk777]

Well, my daughter works for Apple(corporate IT) just for reference.

 

My take it is that the coverage of Apple has actually been generous.

I just watched this VID

 

My take is that the average consumer should expect the specs to always get get ....not having to wait for a special edition to get back what they already had in the previous version.

Just saying...on average the coverage of APPLE i see on the site is more positive than mine.

 

 

 

[Sarra]

I can say that I ignore 99% of the Apple content on LTT channels.

 

I can also say that my opinion of Apple couldn't get any worse, so it's immaterial, as far as I'm concerned, as to how reasonable or truthful LTT's Apple content is.

[Radium_Angel]

9 hours ago, Budget DIY said:

I will be picking up a used apple product today.

I bought a "trash can" Mac. I love it. switching to that in July full-time when support for Embedded 8.1 ends.

[Budget DIY]

1 minute ago, Radium_Angel said:

I bought a "trash can" Mac. I love it. switching to that in July full-time when support for Embedded 8.1 ends.

I've gotten the thing, but I got scammed. I was supposed to be buying an iPhone 6, 16gb for only 20 euros. It was also supposed to have very minor exterior signs of usage.

Turns out: there were zero external signs of usage. And it came with a case/wallet thing. (not listed item) But the biggest scam part was: it was an iPhone 6, 32 gb version.

[Radium_Angel]

4 minutes ago, Budget DIY said:

I've gotten the thing, but I got scammed. I was supposed to be buying an iPhone 6, 16gb for only 20 euros. It was also supposed to have very minor exterior signs of usage.

Turns out: there were zero external signs of usage. And it came with a case/wallet thing. (not listed item) But the biggest scam part was: it was an iPhone 6, 32 gb version.

The horror, the horror.

[Roswell]

8 hours ago, manikyath said:

i get that much, but what i dont find answers on (right away) is if that still works if there is "nothing" presemt on the local storage.

 

like i said - my point here isnt that you're "wrong"' about it, it's that i'd rather give them benefit of the doubt about it, because to me at least it seems likely that apple didnt account for the local storage of the mac being completely unreadable. if i implemented storage the way apple did, i'd put the recovery environment on the same storage as the OS - it's not meant to be user servicable either way, and i'm pretty certain apple flashes the storage outside of the device.

Internet recovery (and other boot tools) exist at the firmware level, they’re not stored on the SSD, just like a PC doesn’t store BIOS data on the SSD. You can wipe the entire volume and it still boots into recovery.

 

9 hours ago, manikyath said:

call them out on it. if it gets to the right person it *will* get a correction somewhere on or around the video.

They get corrected on countless videos here on the forum and rarely, if ever, correct it. You can almost assume at this point that every video they put out will have misinformation, it’s pretty bad. 

 

[WildDagwood]

7 hours ago, just_dave said:

No, at the time of release this sort of stuff would come up regularly in searches. Only now because it's been deleted it's impossible to find. Zero research was done on this topic.

7 hours ago, UndefinedException said:

Not knocking someone for not exploring Twitter, just knocking someone for not googling

 

Didn't have that same tone in the OP, or the follow-up for that matter. Literally only referenced a Twitter post and a comment in a Hackernews thread.

 

10 hours ago, just_dave said:

2. Mac Users Deserve Better  - at 6:12 - 7:20 Alex here just straight up says that the single external display support on M1/M2 is a software limitation and that the Thunderbolt 3 ports can support more than external display physically. It actually isn't true at all, because the external display hardware exists for only 1 display output on the M1/M2 die. Proving this is hard (as of now), because Hector Martin (the developer of Asahi Linux for Apple Silicon) has since deleted his Twitter (because of Musk) and his tTwitter account had all of this information documented (AT THE TIME OF RELEASE OF THE VIDEO WOULD COME UP IN REGULAR SEARCHES ON THIS TOPIC) along with die shots, die layout estimation etc. However, he posted it on hackernews, so there is only this comment thread available https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32175939

9 hours ago, just_dave said:

Back when that video came out, all of this information was still up on twitter and again, if you spent 30 seconds googling it, it would be one of the top suggested search results.

By all means, give constructive feedback, but I think you went a little too hard in the paint on that one.

[divito]

I'm confused, that latest video was primarily pro-Apple, and it's a ShortCircuit; not some in-depth review, teardown, research piece. 

[LAwLz]

I've said this before and I'll say it again. Do not watch LTT videos for information.

The amount of misinformation their videos contain is not just limited to Apple products. They constantly get things wrong all the time. Watch them for entertainment if you want, but don't watch them to be educated. 

 

 

I think Linus said that he wanted to be the Top Gear of tech. I don't think he has really succeeded in that. I think he is more like the Pimp My Ride of tech.

[05032-Mendicant-Bias]

LTT also has several hilarious roasts of Apple's "special" design decision.

 

Like when Linus found out the Apple monitor had no removable power cord. Except it had! Except it needs a proprietary tool.

Which is the most Apple design decision.
 

[johnno23]

I use both Macs and PC's as I work on Mac play on PC. Best of both worlds for my own use case.

If i could say one thing about the number of mistakes made I would say give me less but be more precise. I get the feeling that LTT as a business model is pumping out plenty for any return on investment at the cost of time needed to clarify and confirm a percentage of what they post. is it a lot a little or just now and again ???

Mistakes are made and no you need not be classed a Macfan or PC elitist to mentions these issues. But I can fully understand how when you hear something about an item you have a good understanding of being incorrect it is dammed annoying as this misinformation/mistake reaches millions of ears and the whirlwind of misconception and rumour can take over as a consequence.

[mdk777]

20 minutes ago, 05032-Mendicant-Bias said:

Like when Linus found out the Apple monitor had no removable power cord. Except it had! Except it needs a proprietary tool.

Which is the most Apple design decision.

Sorry, misread the tone of your post, I guess you agree that:

 

If you need a proprietary tool to remove the power cord, by definition it is not removable.

The " Apple design decision" is what is being discussed.

 

Apple by design makes their products difficult to service and tries to do the the most absurd convolutions to convince their customers that is actually a good idea.

 

"Yeah our cord is different than ALL OTHERS, but that makes is special....it is by design superior."

 

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by mdk777

[nhand42]

On 2/1/2023 at 9:40 PM, just_dave said:

Before I get called a fanboy - I do use Apple products and enjoy it very much. But I am also a developer and especially on macOS, there are many, many problems that need to be highlighted and addressed. These products/platforms are not perfect and criticism is necessary. But misinformation that is intentionally misleading is definitely not.

 

LTT definitely has a pro-Android pro-Windows bias. It's not just what they get wrong, as in those examples you give, but even the tone of their Apple coverage is very negative despite Apple being overall a force for good in tech. It doesn't bother me but I acknowledge your frustration. But at the end of the day this is just entertainment - somebody else said its like Top Gear for Tech and that's a good analogy - they're not trying to be neutral because that would be boring. Casting shade on Apple is part of their shtick and it works, the viewer counts prove it.

[hishnash]

On 2/3/2023 at 2:21 AM, 05032-Mendicant-Bias said:

Except it had! Except it needs a proprietary tool.

Which is the most Apple design decision.

Linus should know better after all he has started down the line of designing thier own products soon enough they will build something that requires certification and suddenly be faced with the option of either submitting for the design to be accepted as a new standard in every nation of the world or intentionally modifying the design so that it does not fall under the spec of what would need certification.

That is what happened with the power cable. Had apple made it easily removable (given the depth of the display) the only option would be to submit and have certified a new consumer power plug in every region they want to sell the screen. Since you cant ship a product with mains voltage detachable plugs that are not certified.  But this does not apply to internal connectors or connectors not intended for consumers to detach (including accidentally).  So apple had to make the plug harder to remove so that it cant be considered a consumer plug but rather an internal connector.. Apple does not want to do this, it is much effort for apples staff in apple stores (this costs apple $$ as apples rents for these stores are high so every minute a staff member is working on detaching a broken cable is rent and lots of it). They would much prefer (from a profit perspective) if it were as simple as just pulling a cable off the wall and telling the customer to do it themselves.  

 

But given the design team wanted to build a screen of that thickness and did not want to have a power brick this is the option they have.