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Microsoft Intellimice and Bluetooth Issues?
An anonymous reader asks: "I just bought a Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer for Bluetooth for my Mac OS X 2.2 box. Like typical Mac fashion, it was entirely plug and play, no software required. However, I go to pair the mouse with the adapter in Bluetooth prefs and it asks me for a pairing password! Others on XP SP1 using integrated/third party adapters other than the one provided by Microsoft also report the same pairing password (on a side note, the MS adapter doesn't even pair with most Palms or Cellphones, what kind of standards following is that?). I called MS tech support and they gave me a weak 'It doesn't work on the Mac.' reply. So, has anyone managed to get this mouse to work on OS X, Linux, or XP (SP1 with a third party adapter)? Perhaps a cracked security password?"
I think he is complaining about how a company would try and disable functionality of one product (In this case, using cheesy methods to make the mouse only work in windows, NOT leaving something OUT with the intention of keeping costs down, but rather, ADDING to the product to REMOVE functionality) in order to leverage sales of another, totally different product.
Thats monopolizing the computer industry.
We have laws that used to protect consumers from that sort of abuse. They dont seem to work anymore though.
Why stick up for big business?
Even if MS has done it on purpose, wich I doubt, is that really illegal or that bad? If I produce an addon for a PS2 then you can't really complain if it doesn't work with an X-box even if the connectors look the same.
Maybe your right about the mouse, I really dont know. And your right about the PS2 add-on, too. Its if something was actually designed into something, ADDED to something, to make it incompatible with anything but a different product, that makes me furious. I dont know if thats the case, but when a manufacturer spends extra money to effectively strip functionality out of a device to use as leverage to sell another, mostly unrelated product, it is very very unfair to both the consumer and smaller businesses which have a much tighter budget. An example that gets me fuming is Apple's DVD burning software. From my understanding, otherwise compatible DVD burners are unusable from this software because Apple wanted to use their software to increase sales of their hardware. If it was a case of having to write drivers for the other DVD burners, fine, of course, why the heck would Apple do that? (Unless they were concerned more with making a great product and less about money, but not many think that way, not even me, unfortunately) But, and this may be a weak weak understanding of this, I was lead to think that Apple had DISABLED support for devices that would have worked had that disabling-code not been _added_ to the software. Thats the stuff that makes me cringe. Its an example of how it gets easier and easier to make money, the more money you have.
Side note: This is the most stratefied our economy has ever been. There has never been a more uneven distribution of the country's wealth. Thats what lights my fires these days.
Why stick up for big business?
Unfortunatly we ran into the same problem, what is the pairing password. After a quick search of the CD's on a windows computer and trying all the default pairing passwords we had seen, we gave up and took the mouses back, MS apparently doesn't want our money. Which is unfortunate cause while I was trying to pair the stupid thing I grew like the no wire feel of the mouse.
On another note, it is sad that there isn't more blue tooth adoption. I remember blue tooth first getting a lot of press over two years ago, and people are still early adopters today. I personally plan on getting a Sony-Ericcson T68i and a Tungsten T based purelly on the geek appeal of it all.
Is it bad? You really can't be serious? I agree it's probably not on purpose, it's currently a glitch or a bug, which is bad enough. If it WERE on purpose, which you propose, it's a hideous subversion of standards, worse than they've ever done.
It's not just the connector, it's a protocol. They are specifically marketing this as a BlueTooth device. That's a protocol, a refined set of specifications for how the product works, and how it interfaces. You're right in that if I made a joystick for PS2 that had the same pinout on the connector as the XBox (Which it doesnt, but we'll use your straw man example just for shits and giggles.) I'd be wrong to expect it to work on the XBox. Unless, of course, the controller/port in question was USB, or firewire, or, say, BlueTooth.
If, for example, you sold a hard drive which had a standard 50 pin connector, and you labeled it as "Narrow SCSI-2", and sold it as such, yet it only worked with the "SCSI" card that you also sold, then yes, I would be completely right in being upset.
I'm no Microsoft Basher, I personally use nothing but MS Intellimouse and Natural Keyboard products. But I would be highly pissed about buying a BlueTooth mouse and not having it work with the bluetooth adapter already in my machine.