Goatberg, your ass is mine


So here’s the inside story. We gave iPhones to 10 very special media people but we put them all under super-strict NDAs. One of the rules was that they could not even tell people they had the devices. So what does Goatberg do? The very day he gets his iPhone he goes to some conference sponsored by the Chronicle of Higher Ed and shows the thing off to the audience and starts saying what things he does and doesn’t like about it. I wrote about it here. What I didn’t write about was the fact that I chewed him out bigtime after this happened and now we’re in this big feud. Which is partly why he’s preparing his big hatchet job. Frankly I wanted to take back his iPhone since he violated the NDA terms but our PR people said we couldn’t do that because Walt is too important.

Embargo on reviews ends Tuesday at 6 p.m. so you’ll probably see some of these a-holes posting at 6:01. Or hell for all I know Walt won’t honor that agreement either and he’ll put his review up early. Who knows? The great Goatberg can do as he pleases, apparently, and doesn’t have to honor legal agreements. Well even if he hatchets us we’ll likely get good ink elsewhere. Pogue at the Times has one, naturally. Also Bob Levitus of the Houston Chronicle (cough asshole cough) and Jason Snell of Macworld.

Bit of a warning to Walt: You’re on thin ice, brother. I’m this close to never letting you have another one of our products to review. Keep that in mind when you sit down to write your review.