It's not a matter of tone necessarily. I care less that the article is about Apple and more about the metaphor - this isn't an Apple fanboy thing. I'm not even saying it's a bad metaphor, it just doesn't work for me. The Death Star DOES have an evil connotation for me, I would imagine most people who have seen Star Wars. The rebels never spun the Death Star around and used it for "good". It was always an instrument of evil.

"I call this the Apple Deathstar. Like its Star Wars counterpart, Apple has created a kind of interplanetary weapon that has the capacity to quickly raze entire planets, or at least entire companies."

The Death Star was built with the purpose of destroying planets. Apple was not started to destroy other companies. I'll grant that he uses the words "has the capacity" not "actively uses to".

Maybe words like "stole" don't have a moral connotation in this context, but the sentence "Apple gutted a host of firms, all of which were reliant on the same customers." seems a bit aggressive or accusatory. I understand that in context, it kind of makes sense, but when you stack up the title, and some of the verbiage, the article could be mistaken (by fools such as myself) as having a tone.

Again, this isn't an Apple thing. I just don't like his metaphor. I think thenewgreen was right, the "hyperbolic title" hooked me and got me to read it... so perhaps it's perfect.

(embarrassed confession - I had been reading too many articles too late the other night and confused this article with another that was written by a woman - hence all of the feminine pronouns in my first comment)