It isn't anymore, but if you go back a decade or two, it really was that zealous. He really did used to blindly defend Apple (e.g. things like this: https://daringfireball.net/2006/09/open_challenge), but I think he's grown more skeptical of Apple lately.
I don't want to split hairs over what constitutes as overzealous, but I will say that Apple ~20 years ago earned more praise than Apple does today. This is probably reflected in the writing.
