Time and time again, I’m disappointed by the state of tech journalism online. Not a day goes by when someone feels the need to write a false or sensational article about a technological consumer product. All tech companies, big and small, are targets for such articles; Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon all cop a huge amount of criticism. Apple, though, seems to have a special place reserved as the target for baseless, ‘journalistic’ drivel.

Take, for example, the recent article Apple Watch will ruin your life and I’m ashamed to have one on my wrist… shared by Independent from The Washington Post, the writer attempts to convince his readers that the Apple Watch is a complete waste of money.

I understand that wearables aren’t for everyone, and even within this category of products, people have their perfectly justified preferences for Apple, Google Android, Pebble, Fitbit and others. Even as an Apple fan, I’m not so blindly entranced by the brand that I can’t see the advantages of other products and the shortcomings of Apple’s own.

Unfortunately, this piece is purely one of sensational opinion, designed to attack Apple, seemingly only because of some kind of tall poppy syndrome (I assume). The writer criticises the ‘slowness’ of Apple Watch, without so much of a reference to the fact that it is a first-generation product, or the fact that Apple has worked to achieve 7x faster app launch with the upcoming watchOS 3. Much of the ‘slowness’ up until now has been present mostly in third-party apps, and has been a result of Apple’s conservative use of memory in order to maximise battery life. It turns out that they over-shot and have plenty of memory to spare.

There’s also a lazy claim that Apple has “failed to capture the attention of the wider public”. This is baseless, because Apple hasn’t even released any official sales data to which the writer could refer. Furthermore, numerous analysts and statistical organisations have cited a huge jump in global smartwatch sales, spurred on by Apple Watch. Before Apple Watch, the wearable category was without a story or design standard. As some form of evidence, according to Strategy Analytics, smartwatch sales sky-rocketed 316 per cent between Q4 of 2014 and Q4 of 2015. Juniper also stated that Apple Watch accounted for over 50 per cent of smartwatch sales in all of 2015. Take this data as you will, but it’s certainly more evidence than what the clickbait article offers.

Disappointingly, the writer also inserts (without much of a subtle link or segue), a video with the caption: ‘Can Samsung beat the Apple Watch?’. What does this have to do with the quality of the watch? This article isn’t so much a fair critique of the product and where it can go in the future. It’s pure clickbait that attempts to perpetuate a meaningless dichotomy of Apple and Samsung in the tech space. Samsung is not Apple’s only competitor, and there are many companies doing interesting things out there than just these two companies.

I respect the opinion of this writer. If he doesn’t enjoy his Apple Watch, that’s totally fine. I just wish that tech journalists would lift their game in reporting on the strengths and weaknesses of products, regardless of who designs them, so that consumers can make informed decisions that will benefit their digital lives.