You can bet that, when reviewing smartphones, Consumer Reports magazine appears to have a blind spot towards Samsung; maybe a few blind spots. How so? Well, I’ll get to that shortly.

Now on the surface, CR ought to be the perfect review source. Unlike most other publications, online or print, it actually buys tested products from retail stores. That includes luxury cars costing over $100,000 if need be. So, in that area at least, it should be incorruptible. Compare that to regular publications that contain reviews, most of which receive free samples from the manufacturers.

Indeed, when I announced recently that Vizio sent me a 4K TV for review — with no preconditions as to how I rate the product — I got a comment from a reader suggesting that my article would somehow be tainted. But I’ve been reviewing tech gear received on that basis for over two decades, and it’s definitely not a factor. Never has been.

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I don’t know why I have to repeat the obvious, but far too many tech commentators just don’t have a clue.

So here we go again.

As most of you know, the iPhone X will not ship until November 3rd. Orders will be taken beginning on the previous week. What’s more, there have been rampant reports of alleged production problems with the new device, focusing mainly on components for the Face ID system. If true, it would mean that supplies will be severely constrained and it may take weeks or months for production to catch up with demand.

I don’t disbelieve the claims of production issues, since Apple is manufacturing parts that are very different from previous models, and that includes the OLED display. So anything is possible, and it may well be that Apple might have waited even longer to deliver the iPhone X, except that we’re closing in on the holiday season and they wanted to build the backlog as soon as practical. On the other hand, there are now published reports that production of the iPhone X will catch up with demand quicker than expected.

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It does appear that the media is sometimes just aching to find bad news about Apple, even if it’s indirect evidence. It represents the ongoing viewpoint that years of success has all been a fluke. It was a stroke of luck, and if the fates had behaved properly, Apple would have disappeared long ago, or would have remained strictly a personal computer company struggling in a declining market. In other words, yesterday’s news.

Or maybe it represents the efforts of one or more competitors to feed fake news to bloggers in order to skew Apple coverage negatively. That doesn’t mean I believe the usual offenders are dishonest; some of them may actually believe Apple will soon confront a negative reality.

It is true that, after years of stellar growth, the iPhone stumbled for a quarter or two before increasing again. But the increases have been modest, no doubt representing saturation of the market. Apple’s tougher prospects in China haven’t helped, and it also explains why it’s expanding to other developing countries, such as India, hoping to gain traction.

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Raw sets of statistics can often be interpreted in many ways. Taking them out of context can also put those numbers in a very different perspective.

So you can point to the recent industry analysis that indicates that Mac sales decreased in the September quarter and say some nasty things about Apple. But it’s fair to remind the reader that surveys from Gartner and IDC often undercount real Apple sales. They are, after all, surveys and not expected to be completely accurate. The only genuine sales figures are the ones posted by Apple as part of its quarterly financials, and the numbers for the last quarter won’t be announced until early November.

Further, you can rightly point out that PC sales, overall, have also decreased. Yes, it appears that Apple is doing worse, if the numbers can be taken seriously, but it may be a part of an overall trend as much as less interest in buying new Macs.

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