I like how Gruber can take an idea that seems completely obvious to me, but when ever I try to explain the idea and the reasons behind it I come up short. I don't have good examples or details. I end up looking dumb. So I keep my ideas to my self.
Its kind of like he takes what my intuition tells me, and then takes the time to explain why and give examples.
Before you down vote me, this is a personal opinion. I can understand if you think I'm crazy. If you disagree with Gruber's view (and I have a few times), then in your view my intuition is wrong and his articles are contrived -- and this may be true.
You act like your the "first" to do something (or at least since the jetsons), then when someone calls you on it you fall back to a subtly different claim to be the "first to do it right" where right is a subjective opinion that can be argued with, but not an objective fact that can be disproved like your first claim.
It helps if you and your audience are both american and have little idea of what has been done and/or done right in telecommunications for years overseas. Then you can focus on the Android phone that introduced front facing cameras to the world last month as your benchmark for better.
Personally, I think video calling will be niche, but having a front facing camera will open the door to all kinds of cool 3rd party software like photo manipulation software similar to Photobooth on Mac OS X or the software built into the Nintendo DSi, or eye-tracking etc. This is where the policy that Apple only ships hardware that it finds a slick 1st party use for falls down. I have a video camera on my Macbook, only ever used for Photobooth and Skype, never video iChat.
Its kind of like he takes what my intuition tells me, and then takes the time to explain why and give examples.
Before you down vote me, this is a personal opinion. I can understand if you think I'm crazy. If you disagree with Gruber's view (and I have a few times), then in your view my intuition is wrong and his articles are contrived -- and this may be true.