In an article entitled “Apple crushes forecasts again…” the Reuters “reporters” rely almost entirely on the words of one Tim Cook, who just happens to be Chief Operating Officer of… you guessed it, Apple.

On the same day, Intel’s PR department was explaining that there had been some strong purchasing in the past quarters and current numbers represent modest results, despite headlines like “Intel’s sales shine, defy PC growth fears” or “Intel’s earnings leap on business demand for PCs“.

So now look at the MacObserver version of this: “Apple Crushes PC Market with 28% Growth in Mac Sales“. Wow, impressive. Also, again, lots of quotes from Tim Cook. In fact a lot of similarities with the Reuters article, only everything bigger, and now for the fun quotes:

“IDC pegged Apple’s March quarter market share at 8.5%, up from 7% in the year-ago quarter” – Though half a year ago we were reading this: “Apple’s now third largest PC vendor in US with 10.6 percent market share“. That was from Engadget, but don’t be fooled, that could be a different type of market share. Now look at this article from just about a week ago: Gartner rivals IDC to report Apple fifth largest, with 9.3% share of US PC market.  Ah, ok, now Gartner thinks the market share is higher, but look closely at the chart! Yes, that is a vendor list, it isn’t Apple vs. Microsoft, it’s Apple vs. Toshiba. That’s the same stat as the other two articles! Not only that but the stat that is consistently chosen by Mac fan sites are the vendor lists, not the OS comparisons, why? SPIN! Apple is still tiny in the PC Market and the most recent OS specific market share numbers (averaging 7 different reports March 2011) Microsoft 87.5%, Mac 7.12%. On phones, Android has more than TWICE (4qtr 2010 Gartner) the market share, despite the headlines.  Now just for laughs, how do you like this one from Apple fanboys pretending to be reporters in January 2009 (yes, 2009, that’s no typo) “Apple market share tops 10%, Windows share lowest since tracking began“. So in January 2009 it was 10% and now it is 8.5% and this is fantastic news? That’s what Apple wants you to believe. BTW, the “Windows share lowest ever” had Windows at 88.7%. Gulp, they lost 1.2% share in more than 2 years. At this rate anyone else has a chance at getting just half the market share in, oh, roughly 75 years.

Apple has tapped into some powerful fuel. Firstly, fanboys. Fanboys are so completely loyal that they completely ignore any logic or factual information for the sake of their cause. They create faux IT news sites, blogs, and even magazines to promote their cause. The second, the tendency of news to really emphasize small things while downplaying the truly large. In other words, straining at gnats and swallowing camels. Hence the title of this article. Just don’t be fooled, there is a LOT of fluff, especially in the APPL stock price.