I believe that the HN crowd is educated enough not to fall for cheap manichaeism. It is true that Apple is a brand that tends to polarize opinions, but if a critic against Apple is well backed I don't think that people that usually support Apple would downvote it just out of spite or loyalty.
I agree that a lot of Apple criticism is poorly backed or even unfounded, but I also believe that it's far easier to dismiss criticism for not being well backed than it is to dismiss praise for the same reason. While much of the Apple criticisms that get repeated don't have a ton of substance to them, you could easily say the same thing for the commonly repeated pro-Apple soundbytes.
