Mailbag: The Apple bias episode

Hey, everyone, I'm Molly Wood, and welcome to the CNET Mailbag, the show where we take your feedback and answer your questions about the stuff we're doing here at CNET. In the Mailbag spotlight today, I want to show off some brand new features we just launched at CNETTV.com! If you?ve got sharp eyes, you might notice that the video player is actually larger, because, uh, we?re all about video. Also, there are a few design changes. But the big deal is this new Subscribe button, here, which makes it WAY easier for you to subscribe to our shows as podcasts. If you?re watching a show or a First Look and want to get the podcast version, just click the Subscribe button. Then you can choose Podcast, HD Podcast, or RSS Feed, which is just a link you can plug into your podcast software, if it?s NOT iTunes. If you choose Podcast or HD Podcast, it?ll launch iTunes and download the latest episode. Plus, there is this little drop-down menu so you can so you can actually choose any show or any category that you want to subscribe to right here. BOOM! Super easy. Nice, right? Let me know what you think! Ok, on to the mail. Many of you wondered what happened to Mailbag last week. Matt said: Just wondering why Mail Bag wasn't on this week? Has it been cancelled or are you just taking a break? Hope to see it soon :) It wasn?t cancelled! Don?t panic! We just took a week off because Sarah, who produces and edits the show, was on vacation. Judging from the panic in your emails, I probably should have warned you. Sorry about that. In other mail, Brian Tong?s Prizefight between the iPhone and the T-Mobile G1 Android phone caused some heated emotions. This guy wrote in to say: The T-Mobile G1 totally beats the overrated over publicized iPhone. Havent we had enough already of the stupid apple lovers and the iPhone lovers. Now I like Apple too. I have a macbook running Ubuntu. Ubuntu is better than mac anyway. Sure Apple is cool, But totally overrated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love CNET, But Brian Tong is an apple fanboy! Most royally annoyed CNET fan, Someone who does not to have his name featured on mailbag, although he wants this message on mailbag. And Robert the Soviet said: Now that Brian Tong has his own show "The Applebyte" he inevitably has a mental association with Apple. With this said, why does he still host Prize Fight? With the last show being about the G1 vs iPhone, I felt as if he didn't look to the iPhone's faults nearly as much as he did with the G1. In fact, he even admitted it himself in the video! He wasn't "trying to bash" the device, but he was. And then when he goes to the flip side and talks about the iPhone I hear nothing negative... Is the Tongster still a viable judge for Prize Fight? It just bothers me I guess. And that? a valid point, so I thought this would be a good time to let you guys know that all the Prizefight matches are written in conjunction with our review editors. In fact, most of them show up as text, and not just video. The iPhone vs. G1 prizefight was judged by Bonnie Cha, NOT an Apple fangirl, Nicole Lee, NOT an Apple fangirl, and Brian Tong, who is a mild Apple fanboy. Brian is not the only judge for Prizefight, so even if he IS biased ? and I still think he?s more professional than that ? he?s bound to get overruled by his fellow judges. Happy? Cool. Now, let?s counterpoint with a little Lovermail for Prizefight: I just wanted to let you know that the CNet Prizefight over the browsers was amazing. Great work! Someone deserves a raise! Nerd97 Someone always deserves a raise around here, eh, Nerd97? But yes. That was some nice work. Next, some concern from Emily, who writes: I come to you with a serious question: Are females being discriminated against on CNET? Evidence shows that in many of Dan Ackerman's video laptop reviews, he refers to the laptop as "this guy"...but has he ever called the laptop being reviewed "this girl"? The answer, as you may have guessed, is no. Now, as a fun, casual little gesture, could you please ask Dan to call one of the laptops that he is reviewing "this girl"? Or, at least please tell him to stop implying that the laptops are male. This favor is not asked for me, but for females everywhere...because every laptop shouldn't be a male. What if every human were male? Oh, Emily. Stop being so sensitive. Everyone knows that cars and boats are girls and laptops are dudes. It?s just a thing! And finally, Allen from Taiwan writes in with a mystery: I saw something weird in the background when I was watching 2008/Nov/11 Loaded. When Natali said "When the ticket as suppose to free and ....", about 3:35minute into show, I think I saw something flew across the window. It's dark and blurry. What is it?? Allen ps. I hope no one go thrown off the CNET building. That would be horrible. Now. Do you really think we wouldn?t stop down if a person got thrown off the building? But yeah, I saw that, too! It was totally weird! I think it was a bird. Creepy pigeons. AND that'll do it for this week, everyone. Keep that feedback coming! Mailbag@cnet.com, or send me a postcard. 235 2nd St., San Francisco, CA, 94105. See you next week!