Uh oh.
One of the world's biggest Apple fanboys sounds like he might be deserting the company for another.
There are lots of Apple-lovers on the Internet, but few of them are as ardent as MG Siegler, the former TechCrunch staffer who is now a full time VC and part-time columnist.
Siegler once wrote a post for TechCrunch titled: "You're Damn Right I'm A Fanboy."
In the post, Siegler said that he was, at the moment, an Apple fanboy.
But he said that could change.
I’ve been an Apple fanboy, a Google fanboy, a Twitter fanboy, a Facebook fanboy, a Foursquare fanboy, a Gowalla fanboy, and yes, even a Microsoft fanboy…As always, my only requirement for being a fanboy of a product is that it has to (in my mind) be the best. Right now, in some cases those are Apple products.
But that’s the funny thing about being a fanboy — you can be a fanboy of anything. You can switch your alliances at a moments notice. There is nothing tying you to the love of a certain product. As I’ve written numerous times before, in the 1990s I would have been called a Microsoft fanboy — I loved Microsoft products and hated Apple ones. Today, I’m called an Apple fanboy. Times change. And they’ll change again.
Well, late last night (not so late on the West Coast, where MG is based), Siegler began to make noises on Twitter that indicate he might be about to change his allegiances.
His new love might be Google.
His inspiration: Google's new touchscreen laptop, The Pixel, which launched yesterday.
The Pixel, which runs Google's Chrome OS, is a rival to Apple's MacBook Air.
It costs ~$1300 and has the best, brightest screen of any laptop in the world. It doesn't run any Mac or PC apps, though. Just Web stuff. (See big beautiful pictures of it here.)
Here is what Siegler had to say about it in a series of tweets:
I mean, there's no way around it: price aside, the Chromebook Pixel is pretty amazing.
— MG Siegler (@parislemon) February 22, 2013
Yeah, this thing is a winner. No real qualifiers needed. People will balk at the price but the screen is amazing. A couple body quibbles.
— MG Siegler (@parislemon) February 22, 2013
Siegler even responded to a challenging question from another gadget writer, Wirecutter's Brian Lam, who wrote:
@parislemon are you sure you’re not thinking theoretical/future vs right now?
— brian lam (@blam) February 22, 2013
@blam I mean I'm 30 mins in but yeah, it's just a really solid laptop. fast as fuck for the web. great screen. touch fun but we'll see.
— MG Siegler (@parislemon) February 22, 2013
Siegler is very vocal about still loving all of his Apple products. He tweets about his iPad, iPhone, and Macbooks all the time.
But he's clearly impressed with Google right now.
You have to wonder if he's a canary in the coal mine for Apple.
Google is one step away from becoming the world's most innovative, exciting company. It's working on Google Glass, self-driving cars, and now getting into hardware.
The next step is wide consumer adoption of those technologies.
It's a big step. One that Apple has taken, obviously.
One of the Internet's other big Apple bloggers echoed this thought in his reaction to the Pixel.
John Gruber said: "$1299 for a laptop that only runs Chrome, with janky touchscreen scrolling. Great idea. I bet it outsells the Nexus Q."
The Nexus Q was Google's most recent attempt at selling a set-top box for TV. It was revealed with much fanfare last summer – but it was quickly discontinued after very few sales.
On February 28, Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, joined 31 other media groups and filed a $2.3 billion suit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses suffered due to the company's advertising practices.
