Recent Apple thoughts

[jason]

Ok, this isn't meant to be a shot across the bow or anything (ok, maybe a little one ). But I do have a question for Mike, Kent or any other fanboys on the forum.

With the recent spat of missteps/problems by Apple, have you fanboys been able to realize that they aren't really all that perfect?

1) iPhone lock-in. They're fighting tooth and nail to keep you from using your phone the way you want to use it. You break their rules...they brick your phone.

2) Malware. Guess you guys aren't immune after all...

3) Data loss bug. You didn't really need that data anyway, did you?

Let's just admit it. They're a big company now. monopolistic and somewhat incompetent...just like the others.

P.S. Care for some light reading?
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2193639,00.asp

P.P.S. I'm bored tonight

 

[alaskaflyer]

Their products are slick and intuitive. Your 2nd point above really isn't their fault, now is it? (IOW they - or their customer base - are a victim of their increasing success.) Their business practices leave something to be desired from a consumer standpoint. This doesn't exactly distinguish them from anyone else.

I like the iPhone. I like the iPod. All things being equal I would have either of them over anything else. Prob is, all things aren't equal. They are too expensive and "niche" you into a corner.

I don't like the Macs anymore. I owned one for three years (2002-2005.) As much as I hate to say it, when xp came out and proved its stability relative to previous MS OS I came back to MS. The things I still hate about MS (and they are legion) I avoid by using third-party applications (such as alternatives to the Office suite and Explorer.) Actually I like Windows Media Player compared to most other media applications.

I'm not savvy enough to use linux-based OS such as Ubuntu.

Every body has an angle.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Ok, this isn't meant to be a shot across the bow or anything (ok, maybe a little one ). But I do have a question for Mike, Kent or any other fanboys on the forum.

*cough* Sorry, choked on my Kool-aid.

With the recent spat of missteps/problems by Apple, have you fanboys been able to realize that they aren't really all that perfect?

Nobody ever said they were perfect.

In fact, us Mac faithful really friggin' HATE Apple sometimes. But, we mostly keep it to ourselves, lest the Windows fanboys rub it in forever.

Speaking of fanboys, they're just as bad on the M$ side if not worse sometimes. Do you realize I've actually argued with WinFanBo.ys that have told me that Microsoft invented QuickTime?

1) iPhone lock-in. They're fighting tooth and nail to keep you from using your phone the way you want to use it. You break their rules...they brick your phone.

And, there are a lot of unhappy Apple fanboys. But, they don't brick your phone for "using your phone the way you want to use it." They brick your phone for unlocking it from AT&T. Why? They have to, as they have a 5-year exclusive deal with AT&T. They also get revenue from the AT&T subscriptions. Gee, a corporation wants money. Shocking!

The third-party app issue on the iPhone is a bit different. They didn't brick any phones for having 3rd-party apps. I had 3rd-party apps, I installed the 1.1.1 update, my phone still works fine and I hacked it again and installed 3rd-party apps again. I can understand WHY they release the phone without 3rd-party app support: If they had allowed apps from day one, and people started installing all kinds of crazy crap that was unstable and crashed, guess who would get the blame? "Jeez, I know somebody who has an iPhone and it crashes all the time blah blah blah Apple sucks." Now that the phone has been out and works well (and people know it), Apple will be releasing the iPhone SDK in February and 3rd-party apps will be perfectly OK with them.

2) Malware. Guess you guys aren't immune after all...

Oh no... ONE TROJAN!!! Note that said trojan not only requires user intervention to work in the first place, it also (like any other program being installed under Mac OS X) requires the user to type in their Administrator password. Not exactly a big security hole there.

3) Data loss bug. You didn't really need that data anyway, did you?

Huh... Sho'nuff, I was able to duplicate the bug, though not to the extent this guy did - The partially-copied data was still on the other drive, but the original was deleted. I'd never run into this myself, though, as I pretty much never do a "move" disk-to-disk. An average user won't even know the trick (holding the command key during a copy) to doing this to begin with. That said, it does need to be fixed.

Again... ONE bug does not make an OS "buggy" just as ONE trojan does not make it "vulnerable." Nobody's perfect. I just feel Mac OS is more perfect than Windows or Linux.

Let's just admit it. They're a big company now. monopolistic and somewhat incompetent...just like the others.

Everything except "just like the others." The "others" don't seem to design their products with the user experience in mind.

P.S. Care for some light reading?
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2193639,00.asp

Ooo, a fanboy-bashing article. Never seen one of those before.

 

[mikea]

2) Malware. Guess you guys aren't immune after all...

The trojan claims to install a video codec necessary for viewing free pornographic videos on Macs, but when users click on the still images to view the content they are directed to a Web page stating that they must download a new version of a codec to play the movie file with QuickTime. Safari users who have checked the "Open 'Safe' Files After Downloading" option in General Preferences will find that the disk image which is downloaded to their Mac automatically mounts, and the installer application will automatically launch.

Proceeding with the installation installs the trojan horse, and requires users to enter their administrator password which grants the malicious software full root privileges. No codec is installed and users who return to the website simply receive another download request.

Yep. Other than that it's a really dangerous drive by installation.

 

[Ghery]

And when I worked in Silicon Valley I kept the January and February 1975 issues of Popular Electronics available to shoot down Apple Evangelists (and, yes, that was a job title at Apple) every time they started spouting off about how Apple invented the personal computer. Those issues were where the Altair 8800 was introduced. Where do you think Job and Wozniak got their inspiration?

Oh, and I have the business card of a guy who ran their wireless engineering group. Job title on his Apple business card? Supreme Commander, Wireless Engineering. Those folks do exhibit a rather quirky sense of humor.

 

[mikea]

And when I worked in Silicon Valley I kept the January and February 1975 issues of Popular Electronics available to shoot down Apple Evangelists (and, yes, that was a job title at Apple) every time they started spouting off about how Apple invented the personal computer. Those issues were where the Altair 8800 was introduced. Where do you think Job and Wozniak got their inspiration?...

C'Mon Ghery. When they hired the PR machine back inthe 90s to mold Bill Gates into the supreme nerd image they didn't mind when people said BILL GATES invented the PC.

Oh, and BTW, What Woz built was the first assembled ready made all-in-one personal computer were you only had to supply a TV to be in bidness. The MITS and Altair were not quite the same. You had to seek out S100 cards to finish them, much less a keyboard and display.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

1) iPhone lock-in. They're fighting tooth and nail to keep you from using your phone the way you want to use it. You break their rules...they brick your phone.

Let's just admit it. They're a big company now. monopolistic and somewhat incompetent...just like the others.


P.P.S. I'm bored tonight

Ever since the Mac came out, they always were that way. Wanted to write a Mac program? You needed CodeWarrior, which paid some sort of licensing fee. The compiler cost more than the computer! At least the PC had some sort of basic BASIC and asembler in the OS. Unfortunately, William the Conquerer is doing the same thing now- lots of money to buy Visual Studio. Want to program in VBA (you can do some very sophisticated applications in Excel Visual Basic)- Micro$oft office isn't cheap either.

IMHO a computer you can't program is like a firearm without ammunition.

What's keeping you up till 3AM?

And when I worked in Silicon Valley I kept the January and February 1975 issues of Popular Electronics available to shoot down Apple Evangelists (and, yes, that was a job title at Apple) every time they started spouting off about how Apple invented the personal computer. Those issues were where the Altair 8800 was introduced. Where do you think Job and Wozniak got their inspiration?

IIRC, Bill Gates made his first bundle with BASIC for the Altair- easier than coding assembly language.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Oh, and I have the business card of a guy who ran their wireless engineering group. Job title on his Apple business card? Supreme Commander, Wireless Engineering. Those folks do exhibit a rather quirky sense of humor.

Ya know what's on Jobs' business card?

iCEO.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Ever since the Mac came out, they always were that way. Wanted to write a Mac program? You needed CodeWarrior, which paid some sort of licensing fee. The compiler cost more than the computer!

Whoa, dude. CodeWarrior didn't come out until WAY WAY WAY after the Mac (like nearly a decade), and it was never required. Apple has always had free dev tools for the Mac... It's just that when CodeWarrior came out it was way better than Apple's dev tools, so people ran out and bought it.

 

[skyflyer8]

Who are you calling a fanboy...

 

[jason]

*cough* Sorry, choked on my Kool-aid.



Nobody ever said they were perfect.

In fact, us Mac faithful really friggin' HATE Apple sometimes. But, we mostly keep it to ourselves, lest the Windows fanboys rub it in forever.

Speaking of fanboys, they're just as bad on the M$ side if not worse sometimes. Do you realize I've actually argued with WinFanBo.ys that have told me that Microsoft invented QuickTime?



And, there are a lot of unhappy Apple fanboys. But, they don't brick your phone for "using your phone the way you want to use it." They brick your phone for unlocking it from AT&T. Why? They have to, as they have a 5-year exclusive deal with AT&T. They also get revenue from the AT&T subscriptions. Gee, a corporation wants money. Shocking!

The third-party app issue on the iPhone is a bit different. They didn't brick any phones for having 3rd-party apps. I had 3rd-party apps, I installed the 1.1.1 update, my phone still works fine and I hacked it again and installed 3rd-party apps again. I can understand WHY they release the phone without 3rd-party app support: If they had allowed apps from day one, and people started installing all kinds of crazy crap that was unstable and crashed, guess who would get the blame? "Jeez, I know somebody who has an iPhone and it crashes all the time blah blah blah Apple sucks." Now that the phone has been out and works well (and people know it), Apple will be releasing the iPhone SDK in February and 3rd-party apps will be perfectly OK with them.



Oh no... ONE TROJAN!!! Note that said trojan not only requires user intervention to work in the first place, it also (like any other program being installed under Mac OS X) requires the user to type in their Administrator password. Not exactly a big security hole there.



Huh... Sho'nuff, I was able to duplicate the bug, though not to the extent this guy did - The partially-copied data was still on the other drive, but the original was deleted. I'd never run into this myself, though, as I pretty much never do a "move" disk-to-disk. An average user won't even know the trick (holding the command key during a copy) to doing this to begin with. That said, it does need to be fixed.

Again... ONE bug does not make an OS "buggy" just as ONE trojan does not make it "vulnerable." Nobody's perfect. I just feel Mac OS is more perfect than Windows or Linux.



Everything except "just like the others." The "others" don't seem to design their products with the user experience in mind.



Ooo, a fanboy-bashing article. Never seen one of those before.

That's a well written response. Nicely done!

Like I said...I was bored.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

That's a well written response. Nicely done!

Like I said...I was bored.

What??? Is that all ya got??? Sheesh. Now *I'm* gonna be bored.

I'm sending this from my iPhone. Do I get bonus fanboy points?

 

[jason]

What??? Is that all ya got??? Sheesh. Now *I'm* gonna be bored.

To paraphrase Albert Einstein, the definition of stupidity is arguing with a fanboy and expecting it to make a difference.

I'm sending this from my iPhone. Do I get bonus fanboy points?

Only if you're doing it while listening to your iPod.

 

[SkyHog]

T-crap? That's a first. And not very ingenius either. "T-Slowbile" is at least witty. (never heard it, I just made it up)

 

[flyingcheesehead]

T-crap? That's a first. And not very ingenius either. "T-Slowbile" is at least witty. (never heard it, I just made it up)

FWIW, I have no direct experience with T-Mo, but I've always heard glowing reviews of their customer service, even before Nick worked there.

 

[ScottM]

T-crap? That's a first. And not very ingenius either. "T-Slowbile" is at least witty. (never heard it, I just made it up)

Kinda sad that Cingualr has gone a way. If you remember the Verizon adds when they first changed their name they would show people giving the peace aka victory sign for 'V' as in Verizon. then SBC changed their name to Cingular and we all called them Fingular and the sign was one finger (guess which one) held up to the public.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

Whoa, dude. CodeWarrior didn't come out until WAY WAY WAY after the Mac (like nearly a decade), and it was never required. Apple has always had free dev tools for the Mac... It's just that when CodeWarrior came out it was way better than Apple's dev tools, so people ran out and bought it.

Mac came out in 1984 (I saw the commercial!). I'm pretty sure we were using CodeWarrior around 1990-1992 when I was still a lab rat...back then if you wanted computerized lab equipment, you wrote your own code.

Our local Apple rep was pretty lousy when we asked about dev tools then...

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Mac came out in 1984 (I saw the commercial!). I'm pretty sure we were using CodeWarrior around 1990-1992 when I was still a lab rat...back then if you wanted computerized lab equipment, you wrote your own code.

CodeWarrior became the big thing with the development of Power Macs circa 1994. It may have been around before then, but that's the first I ever heard of it, and it was never the only option, just by far the best.

Our local Apple rep was pretty lousy when we asked about dev tools then...

That's because Apple's dev tools were lousy then!

That's why CodeWarrior became the standard... It was good, and Apple's dev tools at the time absolutely sucked. Now, Apple's got great dev tools (XCode), free on every Mac OS X DVD, and I haven't heard a peep out of CodeWarrior in a long time.