iPhone 4S "fast losing luster"?

"Oppa, I'm a big Apple fan, but please stop taking pictures of me with that
not wholly new, uncompetitive, losing luster iPhone 4S. Shirǒ!"

Various people in the K-blogopshere have noted that the Korea Times seems to have it in for Apple's iPhone, leading some to even suggest that they might be on the take from Samsung, Apple's home-grown rival (note, however, that the iPhone is full of Samsung innards).

This KT article on the release of the iPhone 4S seems to fit that mold. While I can see a number of reasons not to buy the iPhone 4S (I have an iPhone 4 purchased in June 2010 and I had passed on the iPhone 3Gs a year earlier), the article seems to overstate the case a bit. This sentence in particular stands out as sounding contrived:

"I dropped my plan to buy the iPhone 4S. It’s not wholly-new and also there are big problems relating to hardware-related issues. I am a big Apple fan. But I’m very disappointed by the uncompetitive iPhone 4S," said Park Yeon-gee, a 31-year-old office worker in Seoul, who’s been using the iPhone 4.

This is an all-too-common technique used by Korean reporters (though I know from first-hand experience that American reporters are guilty of it as well): massaging an actual quote to fit the reporter's narrative, or removing it from its original context. Although it's possible Ms Park referred to the iPhone as "not wholly new" (an unfair criticism, methinks), I have doubts that she referred to it as "the uncompetitive iPhone 4S."

And how would this "big Apple fan" know about the "big problems" relating to hardware-related issues (that's a lot of relating) if she actually hadn't bought one?

Ultimately, unless I see similar "losing luster" articles on Samsung, or see a more balanced one about Apple, I'm going to have to go with my running theory that the Korea Times is in Samsung's pocket. You can't spell on the take without KT.

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