Call me naïve (“You’re naïve” – World), but I thought the age of the rabid Apple fan was on the decline, possibly replaced by a new brand of crazy army: Love Android Or Die. And then I wrote Mac App Store UI is so hideous that it makes me want to kick a swan, which spread fairly wide and attracted the loving gaze of those who feel the need to coddle Steve Jobs in cotton wool.

What’s interesting is the lack of balance in many of the comments, despite balance existing in what I wrote. While I laid into the UI of the Mac App Store (which I think is a perfectly justifiable thing to do, given that it’s awful) and the lack of UI care in general at Apple since the days of brushed metal, I also said the process of buying apps “seems flawless” and that “Apple’s also done some extremely aggressive pricing on its own products, which is great to see and should encourage more people to buy rather than copy software”.

The measured, calm response from a surprising influx of commenters included gems such as “You’re a fucking idiot and a shitty designer”, and my personal favourite:

You people wouldn’t know good design if it turned into a swan and kicked you back in the balls. Apple has hit another HOME RUN with the mac app store and you people just don’t get it.

I’m sometimes guilty of rushing to the defence of Apple, but I certainly don’t believe the company is above criticism, even in its best products. The iPhone 4 is an amazing piece of hardware. It’s convergence that truly works, with a perfect screen, great camera, decent videocamera, and so much functionality that if you took it back to the 1990s and showed it to someone, their head would probably explode. But the glass back is an odd decision, the antennae break placement has caused problems for many users, and proximity bugs mean that while the iPhone 4 is generally a fantastic handheld device, it can be a shitty phone that cuts off calls.

Had everyone just kissed Steve Jobs’s balls, Apple would have gone away smug and happy. But they didn’t. Instead, Apple got (admittedly over the top) criticism, and I bet the majority of flaws in the iPhone 4 will be gone in the iPhone 5. That device in turn will likely have its own exciting new flaws, which people will criticise, and that will be dealt with for the iPhone 6, and so on.

The same is true for all other Apple products. Many perceived holes in iOS were fixed in iOS 4.x, and Steve Jobs said that many of the changes were due to user feedback. Updates to iPhoto were driven in part by user demand and criticism. And so with the Mac App Store, it makes perfect sense to complain and criticise when you see something that doesn’t work as you’d like it to.

Clearly, I and others who hate the UI might be in the minority. If that’s the case, our wishes will vanish into the ether. But maybe users will love the weirdo toolbar but complain that prices are indistinct on the entry pages, and perhaps enough criticisms along those lines will tip the balance at Cupertino. Regardless, constructive criticism is one of the things that helps Apple improve its products, and many Apple fans (and fans of other companies) need to realise that critique is not the same as attack; instead, it’s often helpful, beneficial and useful.

WMPoweruser.com reports that a NES emulator has been blocked from Windows Phone 7‘s store. Matt Bettcher ported an open-source emulator to the platform, but Microsoft advised him it won’t be allowed on Marketplace.

Bettcher has started a campaign on YouTube, but good luck in changing Microsoft’s mind. Not only is Nintendo notoriously litigious, but Bettcher admits the current code is “unoptimised” (running as low as 10 frames per second), and so it’s hardly a shock Microsoft’s taken the decision it has.

The WMPoweruser.com article points to Apple allowing a number of emulators on its App Store, which include Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum, along with Sega’s own Mega Drive single-app ‘ports’, but these are fully licensed and released with the blessing of the IP owners. By contrast, Nintendo’s already feeling the strain in the handheld market, with the DS losing marketshare to iOS devices. Nintendo’s hardly likely to allow the dark horse in the smartphone race (backed by Microsoft’s gaming network) to release NES IP when it can do so itself (again and again) for its own mobile gaming systems.

Hat tip: iPhone Games Bulletin

So, Vince Cable says what everyone’s thinking—that Rupert Murdoch needs taking down a peg and his takeover of BSkyB needs to be stopped. And then he’s stripped of the role, humbled, and watches as the BSkyB takeover became the responsibility of Jeremy Hunt. Well, gosh, I WONDER WHAT HIS DECISION WILL BE? (Hint: Armando Iannucci links to a Hunt article that may as well be titled “Why I wuv Rupert and want to have his babies”.)

Cable was, of course, stripped of the role for making Rupert Murdoch cry and for being impartial, and not at all for going against Tory wishes to see the BBC killed by its commercial rival. After all, it’s not remotely hypocritical to demote Cable when David Cameron referred to the prospect of BBC cuts as ‘delicious’. Clearly, that little nugget wasn’t at all impartial and wrong.

And it’s not like The Labour Party comes out of this smelling of roses either. It had the perfect opportunity to play bipartisan politics and also to appeal to Lib-Dem MPs and voters alike. It doesn’t need Murdoch until 2015, and could have reduced his power over media and the voters. Instead, Ed Miliband leapt on the chance to smack Cable and score a couple of short-lived politics points, saying “Vince Cable should have gone”. Rather than weakening the government, this likely strengthened it, but it has weakened one of the few people in Cabinet seemingly trying to at least some things that aren’t entirely reprehensible.

So screw you, David Cameron and your Tory buddies for so openly going against the wishes of the people and tearing down one of your government’s best MPs time and time again.

Screw you, Nick Clegg for not having the balls to back one of your own, instead choosing to provide a ‘united front’ that will see your party wiped from Parliament in 2015 (well, apart from you, because you’ll likely be wearing blue by then).

And screw you, Ed Miliband for proving you’re just like every other tosspot Labour leader, playing reactionary politics when you had yet another opportunity to do something different.

Ricky Gervais on WSJ’s Speakeasy:

It’s strange that anyone who believes that an all-powerful all-knowing, omniscient power responsible for everything that happens, would also want to judge and punish people for what they are.

Amen to that.

I get how companies have to big up their products, but RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie needs to lay off the crazy juice. As reported by AppleInsider and others, Balsille got a little over-excited and bullish when RIM beat Wall Street expectations with its quarterly earnings call, and, not for the first time, he decided to take a pop at Apple. The iPad was the target, with Balsille claiming RIM’s PlayBook is “way ahead” of Apple’s device. This being the PlayBook that’s not actually out yet, and won’t be out until March, according to Macworld, an entire month before the iPad 2’s likely to show up.

But what, specifically, makes the PlayBook so special? Balsille eludicated in a rant that some poor bastard at Yahoo transcribed in full. Some highlights follow.

I think the PlayBook redefines what a tablet should do.

Fair enough. It’ll be great to have some massive competition for the iPad, to kick Apple’s arse and ensure it continues to innovate. Do tell us exactly how you’re ahead…

I think we’ve articulated some elements of it

You’ve “articulated some elements of it”. Uh, OK. That sounds… positive.

and I think this idea of a proprietary SDK and unnecessary apps—though there’s a huge role for apps—I think is going to shift in the market, and I think it’s going to shift very, very quickly.

Those would be the unnecessary apps that are selling like hot cakes? And the proprietary SDK demanded by devs furious at Steve Jobs when he initially told them to bugger off and make web apps? Uh, OK.

And I think there’s going to be a strong appetite for web fidelity and tool familiarity.

Areas the iPad utterly fails in, what with its excellent web browser and consistent, usable interface, along with increasingly strong support from the likes of Google with web apps designed to work better on the iPad than any other platform.

Now, how do you align or go over the top on carriers and content providers? Well, we have different strategies, and that’s fine, and there may be room for more than one model, who knows.

It’s good that you’ve thought this through. You’re making Steve Jobs’s responses during Apple’s earnings calls look shoddy and ill-prepared by comparison. (Top tip: “Who knows?” doesn’t make for a confident-sounding co-CEO when you use it once. When it’s seemingly your favourite phrase, you need to be locked in a cupboard until you can learn to speak without embarrassing your entire organisation.)

And, you know, it’s a very dynamic market. Plus, there’s enormous growth and shifts happening around the world, you know.

The biggest shifts being from analysts who said the iPad would fail and who are now trying to pretend that they knew from the start it’d be huge, along with people who claimed Android tablets would immediately wipe the floor with the iPad, despite, in the main, not actually being much better than something you’d wipe from your arse.

How many fronts people want to take on contention, that’s a question you can ask. Do you want to go over the top of banks, do you want to go over the top on content, do you want to go over the top on carriers, do you want to go over the top on video content providers? I mean, who knows, you know? What part of it’s good strategy and what part of it’s a bridge too far? I mean, who knows?

And who knows what you’re talking about at this point? I’m pretty sure I don’t. More worryingly, I’m pretty sure you don’t.

There’s a lot of moving parts, but I think we’re just well ahead on the PlayBook, well ahead internationally, and extending very very well.

This being the PlayBook that’s being released in March 2011, remember.

And so, people can have their views on sentiment, but when is it a good entry strategy, and when is it a bridge too far? Who knows? We have turbulent ecosystem right now. How do you work with banks, how do you work with carriers, how do you work with content, how do you work with enterprise ecosystem?

How do you work with a co-CEO who doesn’t know what they’re talking about? Still, RIM’s certainly ahead in terms of babbling, ‘something exciting that might happen in the future, if its own bluster is to be believed’ and in looking at something successful in a market it wants to enter and yelling ‘you’re doing it wrong’ while the competition makes money hand over fist.