Slashdot Mirror
Vista - iPod Killer?
JMB wrote us with a dire warning, as reported by the San Jose Mercury News. Apple is cautioning its Windows-using iTunes customers to steer clear of Vista until the next iTunes update. The reason for this is a bit puzzling. Apparently, if you try to 'safely remove' your iPod from a Vista-installed PC, there's a chance you may corrupt the little music player. They also claim that songs may not play, and contacts may not sync with the device. Apple went so far as to release a detailed support document on the subject, which assures users that a new Vista-compatible version of the software will be available in a few weeks. Is this just some very creative FUD? If it is not who do you think is 'at fault' here, Microsoft or Apple?
Hell, I don't know. How are we supposed to know that? And more to the point, does anyone out there ever press that "safely remove hardware" thing anyway? Bunch of dorks.
HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.
Windows gets an update, and some stuff breaks. It happens. Kudos to Apple for publishing a workaround.
I can't decide if this post is interesting, funny, insightful, or flamebait.
The timing of the announcement seems a little convenient.
How can you even ask who's fault it is? Man, if the story-authors on slashdot spent like 10% less time blindly bashing Microsoft, the 80% of the time they spend accurately bashing Microsoft would actually be taken seriously. To say, "Who's fault do you think it is" doesn't imply Apple or Microsoft is at fault - but it opens up a debate that can't possibly be intelligently executed.
There's no evidence of anything ; we don't even know what happened.
You might as well sprinkle M&M's all over a busy freeway beside a Richard Simmons retreat. People are going to rush into this one and end up looking pretty stupid.
---
Don't even get me started on looking stupid.
Ace
Vista and iTunes were working together fine during the open beta but that doesn't mean Microsoft didn't make last minute changes that broke iTunes. Further, the fact that some people are using iTunes now without issue doesn't mean Apple is spreading FUD. An operating system is a complex animal, obviously there are differences between the various flavors of Vista so that iTunes might be fine on a Professional version but not work with a Home version. And while many people are using iTunes on Vista today doesn't mean some nasty bug (oops, I mean feature) won't rear up and bite their butt tomorrow.
RTM of Vista has been available to developers since November. Apple would only hurt themselves by saying this now, since they'd be saying they sat on their arses and refused to fix it for 2 months.
Its worse than that. There has been a fairly stable api in vista for the last 6 months and even before that there were little changes for the last year. Apple just decided not to fix thier software for whatever reason and now they are trying to make Vista look bad instead of taking the blame for being slow to support windows users.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Of course, if they just implemented the iPod as a USB mass storage device, there would probably not be any issues at all. They could still have a fancy front-end that loads files onto it.
It drives me nuts when you need to use fancy software to download/upload from your camera/mp3-player/etc. It isn't like there aren't standards out there that would work perfectly well...
After having actually used ( please don't waste your time commenting here if you haven't :-p ) Vista, I think the app compatibility has been as good as I can expect from a major OS upgrade. In other words, similar to where Windows 2000 was when it was fresh out the door. Lots work, some things don't. Especially if the applications are designed in a user-oriented way that understands Windows actually has a user home directory, they seem to work well. The most common problems seem to be software that work in a very machine local way. Compare to if a Linux application would try install things under \root\FancyApp instead of the home directory. Even here, Vista tries to resolve things in a clean way for backwards compatibility, but sometimes fail, especially when UAC prompts are active.
With that in mind...
If it is not who do you think is 'at fault' here, Microsoft or Apple?
Since Apple isn't whining about Microsoft's Vista compatibility (they would definitely be in a position to do so, especially with Microsoft's recent lashes at Apple), but taking full responsibility at fixing their app ASAP, and that application incompatibilities hasn't been overly common in Vista (it's far worse with drivers), I'd say that Apple has made a boo-boo at their software design. They aren't great developers of Windows applications anyway, as any user of Windows QuickTime vs Apple QuickTime should be able to confirm.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
How are they making Windows look bad? It's a very cut and dry support document. "You have an iPod or iTunes. You might have Windows Vista. Here's what doesn't work right now and here's what you should do. We will fix these things fully in the near term."
Or, Vista ain't done till iTunes won't run =)
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
The post was clearly craftd very carefully to spur head-on-head mud slinging... Why must we place blame for something so menial? There are so many more problems with Visa and third-party software that this is just pathetic to speak of. It just means you should charge your iPod via the included wall adapter for a little while. Or an even better strategy is to either dual boot vista+xp or JUST WAIT ON VISTA.
Why don't we talk more about how Nvidia promised us Vista support and largely failed. Note that Apple never promised us that... If you can't even install Vista on your computer, why worry about syncing your iPod with it. I personally just got vista on my high-end Nforce4 machine yesterday. I had to use these workaround drivers from a community website to get Vista to even install on my integrated nvidia RAID setup. Now with all the WHCL signed drivers and the machine all set up, it will periodically just crash. Works great other than that, except for using 515 MB of RAM just to boot.
Pick your battles fools. BTW, iTunes works perfectly for playing music on Vista.
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who do not.
Oh go$h, could you please $top u$ing the $ sign in any word regarding Micro$oft? It's contagiou$...
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Or maybe Apple took the very sensible position that they don't do any beta testing for Microsoft unless they get paid for it - which they aren't.
I'd argue that the sensible course of action would be to make sure that your #1 money making product actually worked on a new operating system that was likely to gain significant market share in a very short time.
"The problem with internet quotations is that many are not genuine" -Abraham Lincoln
Maybe they aren't trying to make windows look bad, but it seems odd that a company like Apple, that had access to all of the betas and should have had the RTM for the last three months, didn't have this fixed prior to product launch. New PCs are shipping with Vista now, so a not unsizable chunk of people are going to run in to this problem.
Be warned, however, that iTunes renames files to random 4 letter names for database efficiency
Wow. That's even more efficient than the old 8.3 filenames in DOS.
Did they really need to be that efficient, or is it just part of their DRM scheme, the same as the design to make it impossible to 'drag-n-drop-n-play' files?
And Microsoft has never purposefully designed their OS to interfere with another competitors product.
Who cares? Does that mean Apple needs to sink to their level? The vast majority of iPod owners use it on Windows, so it really doesn't seem to be best for the customer (as Apple is always claiming to be their motivation) not to support Vista properly. I'm a bit disappointed by Apple's obvious attempt to make Vista look bad on release at the expense of their customers.
Actually - I wonder if the iPod will be the 'Vista killer'.
Let's be real. A zillion people have iPods and run XP. Tell any of them that not only will Vista cost them an arm and a leg (need new hardware + new OS), it may have problems with their iPod and more imporantly may fuxor their iPod when they connect / disconnect it - and how many are going to be rushing out to upgrade?
Aero / glass is nice, but not nice enough to risk fuxor'ing my iPod over.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Which, correct me if I'm wrong, was not 6 months ago. And (presumed) changes to API's (otherwise it would have worked) only 4 weeks ago isn't a sign of a "stable API".
So, when a third-party company finally gets the latest API info, specs out the required changes and their implications, codes it up, runs it through QA, gets sign-off from all the parties (HI, VI, Engineering, Management, X-functional team managers), and gets it out in a couple of months, it's not so bad, really. Oh wait, we're bashing Apple today. BAD APPLE.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
'' Did they really need to be that efficient, or is it just part of their DRM scheme, the same as the design to make it impossible to 'drag-n-drop-n-play' files? ''
Since my iPod has never, ever in its life seen any files with DRM, it can't be part of any "DRM scheme".
No, no, no. You've got it all backwards. Vista isn't an iPod killer. The iPod is a Vista killer. Now 50,000,000 Windows users won't upgrade to Vista for fear of losing their tunes. Apple slipped in the knife quietly. Now they're twisting it.
does anyone else just stop reading whenever there is a comment about how iTunes/etc sucks, and they hit the word "ogg"?
Do you even need to ask this question?
Microsoft has a directly competing product, and while it may not be intentional, ( if it was, they would be sued yet again by the FTC ) they arent going to rush out and fix the problem.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The fact I can no longer do this either indicates...
Usually, this kind of thing indicates that Microsoft is breaking their competitors' products on purpose, using their monopoly on the OS as leverage. Lots of examples came out in the antitrust case. This is probably one more.
Forgive a former M$ (Redmond campus) contractor's learned pessimism, but what version of Windows OS DID NOT contain code to disrupt some, or any (especially the Apple guys), competitors' apps???? Hullo???