gdgt

First of all, I would really be interested if Ryan or Peter (the creators of this site) answered this because Peter founded Engadget in 2004, and Ryan served as the editor-in-chief until 2008 (when Joshua took over)

As a reader of many tech blogs, I am going to answer this as best I can.

There is no significant bias towards Apple

Apple gets a lot of media coverage. Why? Because they are (one of) the biggest tech companies in the world. Thus they always have something going on and are making headlines. It may then seem that there are more stories about Apple than other companies. This is not bias, this is how news works. They write about Apple frequently because people want to read about Apple.

If you are reading my post here and are already in disagreement with it, there is a good chance you dislike Apple products, or have a negative Apple-bias. When someone reads an article with a negative bias, they are more likely to see the article as biased if the content does not match their views.

I am not saying it is a bad thing to have a bias, as everyone does to some point. I even have a little bit of bias in a certain direction for one of my old employers which is a direct Apple competitor. I do not wish to reveal it here as to not discredit my opinions I post. I like to uphold the virtues of journalism integrity as I am sure the staff of any good website does.

Apple products are used in comparisons to other products for 2 good reasons I can think of right now:

1. Apple makes good products
2. They are popular enough that people can use then as a reference

If the first point wasn't true, Apple would have no sales. That is capitalism. To extend the second point, If I am reviewing an Android phone lets say, people would be more familiar if I compared its performance to the iPhone then a phone by ZTE. It is about giving the readers something they can relate to.

So to wrap this up, people want to read about Apple, so tech websites post more about them. Just like the phone and tablet markets, the news market is just as competitive. Pages like Gizmodo, the Verge, and Engadget battle for readers and they try give the readers what the readers want.

I'm not sure that gdgt is the forum for discussing this, but what the hell.

I can tell you that while there are definitely some bloggers and some blogs that have an inclination towards Apple, in general all of the big ones go to great lengths to be very fair in their coverage.

Tech blogs write a lot about Apple because Apple is the most influential and profitable company in the tech industry. Everything they do is a big deal because they are such a huge part of the industry, both in terms of their leadership (they are one of the few companies that where almost anything they do defines the direction of the industry) and because they sell so many products to so many people that you would not be doing your job if you didn't cover them closely.

The good news is that most big tech blogs aren't ignoring other companies at the expense of Apple -- have you seen how much Computex coverage there has been on Engadget? When I was running Engadget (and Gizmodo before that) my policy was to try and write about EVERYTHING that I thought was interesting or newsworthy, regardless of what company was behind it, and for the most part they are still doing that.