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Apple 10.4.11 Update Can Brick Macs With Boot Camp
g-san writes "Some Mac users are having problems with the latest 10.4.11 update, yours truly included. The problem seems to be caused by the presence of a Boot Camp partition and renders the Mac unable to reboot after the update fails. Note the Geniuses at the Apple stores are recommending a full disk wipe; but data can be recovered via Firewire." MacNN has a note up that if you fall victim to this "known issue" and need to reformat the disk, you can't reinstall Boot Camp because it is no longer available to OS X 10.4 Tiger users.
> MacNN has a note up that if you fall victim to this "known issue" and need to reformat the disk,
> you can't reinstall Boot Camp because it is no longer available to OS X 10.4 Tiger users.
That's a nice way to treat your beta testers. After the beta period, simply render the machine unbootable making them reformat so there's no way for them to continue using the software they've been testing for you for the past year. That's really good, well done.
If it was anyone but Apple....
This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
"Defectivebydesign"
Lighten up, I'm joking.
Read the headline, dumbass! It's right there! Are you selectively illiterate or something?
I'd need to see someone other than a Mac Genius (who doesn't really know much from the higher-ups who would actually know if this was a known issue) saying that this was a known issue before I'd buy that. A bunch of things can screw up your OS, but why do they hit the news page, hmm? We have maybe half a dozen scattered reports. That doesn't add up to much at all. And your quote from Jobs is from a long, long time ago. Considering how Mac sales are up, I think that his view has probably changed significantly.
Right, and if the unwashed masses all switched to Linux, there would be no driver problems like those associated with Vista, nor ever any circumstance where an update resulted in problems booting as described here.
Apple earns the same hardware margins as other PC vendors, it just doesn't lose money on $500 loss leaders like Dell and HP. From that perspective, Apple's OS X is essentially free and typically comes with a year or two of free updates. Reference updates cost $100, which is what you'd pay for Linux support. So no, there isn't any dramatic software markup from Apple, there's just a limited hardware selection. Windows is a pretty significant markup, because PC makers all have to pay $30 to sell you the basic version of Vista, and you have to pay $200-300 more for the version that actually does things. Add another $300 for a word processor and spreadsheet, and yes, you can see the software price effect of owning a monopoly.
Even if KDE and GNOME could work things out and deliver a standard Linux desktop, it would still have Windows-like problems, except there wouldn't be a Microsoft to blame them on. The user problems in the market aren't the fault of Windows or OS X; they are the reason we pay for software. Vista doesn't solve more problems that it solves, so nobody is buying it. Leopard offers more than $100 of advantages, so its selling to Mac users. Linux doesn't immediately solve the same problems as XP with enough advantages to motivate users to switch on the desktop in numbers that are significant. OS X does enough so to get people to buy new hardware.
When Linux can do the same, people will start switching en mass. Right now however, the development focus in Linux is in specific projects (XO) or server/business markets, not in selling low cost PCs. Who is going to lead Linux into the mainstream? It would appear to require a hardware manufacturer. Why isn't Dell or HP or any other major PC maker even investigating serious PC sales? Are Microsoft's OEM contracts really that limiting that they can hold back all development potential across the entire PC industry apart outside of Apple?
SCO, Linux, and Microsoft in the History of OS: 2000s