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What Bugs Apple Fans About Apple
An anonymous reader writes "Forbes.com went to MacWorld to ask Apple fans what bugs them about the computer and gadget maker. Turns out the lack of replaceable batteries, need to buy Vista separately, and most of all the stock price bugs people."
Nothing! Such talk is heresy, and for it you shall be burned at the stake!
"You know, the only thing wrong with Apple is that sometimes I just think they're too perfect. I just feel unworthy around the greatness of my iPhone and 24-inch iMac."
*ducks*
*runs*
What's the deal there?
I was much happier with Leopard (or Leo, as I affectionately call her) when the price of Apple stock was a couple bucks higher!
Spend more for this, people! I want to congratulate myself for using my computer again!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
to assert that "Vista Not Included" actually bothers anyone beside Steve Ballmer.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
I love Apple stuff. I love OS X and it has in the last few months been what Linux (after almost 10 years of trying) never could be for me: a complete and total replacement for Windows.
With that said, I don't like Apple's computer lineup. We have a good selection on notebooks now: cheap, ultra portable, and powerful.
Ok, now for desktop: cheap, all-in-one, and powerhouse workstation. Problem is: where is the regular computer? For anybody who wants a reasonably specced system (better than Mini, not as tricked out as the Pro) with no monitor added, there's just no good choice. I already have a monitor. Not only do I not want another, but I can't use it: I share my monitor between multiple systems and you can't do that with an iMac. iMac also has no upgrade slots for new video cards etc.
I have an old G4 that does well. I have a hacked x86 "Mac" box that fits my computing needs. I have an Apple TV, and I have an iPod. I love Apple's stuff. I just wish that they'd make a "real" Mac that fit my needs so I wouldn't have to resort to building one.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
If you need to buy a new laptop every three years, you can almost justify it when they cost $600. Still annoying but you can live with it. When the laptop starts at $2000 and has the same upgrade cycle, that's when baby jebus starts crying.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Don't get me wrong, I love my new macbook, but the one-button mouse really bugs me. I can live with the two-finger click thing, but I'd really prefer a two, or three button trackpad.
Shiny. Let's be bad guys.
I'd suffer from a severe case of self-loathing...
Similes are like metaphors
We Apple fans like to see Apple do well, but probably more in terms of selling more products (higher marketshare, becoming more popular in society, etc.) than just higher profits (most of us aren't in it for the money, after all). So for me, one annoying thing Apple does is charge for products or services that could/should be free.
.Mac and Apple began charging $100/year for it. I realize that this increases profits (at least short-term), but I often find myself wishing that companies would accept short-term losses if it would mean an overall increase in marketshare and customer satisfaction. If .Mac were free, it could be marketed as yet another advantage of the Mac (in addition to iLife, etc.). Instead, it's an expensive subscription service that many people know nothing about, nor have they any reason to.
For example, the new software for the iPod touch is a $20 download. This is the same software that's a free update for the iPhone. Even the new software for the Apple TV is a free upgrade. If I were an iPod touch owner, I'd be pretty offended that I have to pay $20 (well, disregarding free jailbreaking options and whatnot) for an update that iPhone users get for free.
Remember iTools? The free service that gave you mail, web storage, etc. if you were a Mac user? In July 2002 it was rebranded as
I LOVE the stock price. I bought my stock 7 years ago and its one of the best in my portfolio.
But nothing but the battery really bugs me.
I would like to see Apple come out with a lower cost notebook.
I would like to see Apple come out with a desktop that doesn't cost a fortune and lets you upgrade the graphics card.
Oh and iTunes needs to be all DRM free.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The lack of good head less desktop and a $1500 laptop that has intel on board video.
The mini is over priced and under powered.
The imacs are AIO with weak video cards for gameing and the screens are not meant for pro work.
The mac pro is nice but starting at $2300 is high to get a desktop with a real video card.
The older ppc macs started at the $1500 price level.
Why can't there be a desktop with DESKTOP hardware not laptop hardware as with the imac and mac mini for $600 - $1900?
you can replace the mini with this give on board video and a pci-e slots to keep costs down or just put a low end video in the low end system.
With good video cards maybe even SLI / CrossFire with 2 - 4+ gb of ram with a good choice of cpus you can have a nice mid-range pro system and good gameing system.
The mac pro is meant for high level pro work that replaced the older PPC macs that coasted $500 less.
you can keep the mini but push the price down to $500 and give a dvd/rw drive.
And the dock. And drag-and-drop. And all the rest of the stupid crappy broken-interface stuff that OS X has been packed with from day one. The interface has got slightly worse with every iteration. Why can't we have OS X's speed and robustness with OS 9's slick, intuitive, efficient, and consistent interface?
enough.
I use macs at home and at work, and they are great machines....most of the time. Maybe I'm a perfectionist, maybe I'm just expecting too much, but so many of Apple's tools are great most of the time. However they have flaws that make them annoying to unusable in certain situations, and at least the Apple of late seems unwilling to fix them.
Example: Airport extreme with airdisk. When the thing is working it is perfect, however, in my experience the disconnects are really annoying, and it disconnects much more than my airport express ever did. Also, when, out of the box, I tried to bridge it with said express it went into infinite reboot mode till I did a factory reset. Again, in theory a great product but when I pay a premium for Apple products I expect it work right 99% of the time, not 90%.
Their server products are another great example of how Apple's products, on the surface anyway, are great, but in practice it tends to fall apart. We are rolling out an LDAP system and it has been nothing but problems. Apple has done a seemingly good job of making a really slick open directory server tool, but there are just too many bugs to make it worth while. A particularly nasty one, that has been reported to Apple but Apple refuses to fix, is that for some international users certain actions will change the time zone to Cupertino, which can wreak havoc with systems. Come on Apple, we paid a lot of money for this system, the least you can do is get the time zones correct. The server also has almost no meaningful error messages(took me forever to figure out the effects I was observing was related to the time zone bug, the Workgroup manager went on its happy way, authenticated me, then didn't do anything afterwards, not a single error message). Similar problems with getting Remote Desktop to work with Directory authentication. All I get is a "Authentication failed" message with no additional information either on the target machine or the server! Come on Apple, you went through a lot of effort to develop this system, but all that is wasted if you don't give me proper error messages!
Ditto with iPhone content management, the system works great 90% of the time, but the inability to give the user more flexibility with content management can lead to frustration and hacks that require playlists of playlists......
I don't know why Apple refuses to address these issues. None of them seem like they would be incredibly hard/expensive to fix, but Apple just seems to have the attitude that if it works in the general cases, there is no need to investigate the extremes and fix whatever problems may arise.
Monstar L
I know of several people who have decided against apple because they just didn't feel comfortable without accidental damage covered under warranty. It seems like apple could have something beyond applecare that could be purchased to cover this so those who don't want to pay extra don't have to.
http://greenobyl.com/ please.... think of the children!!
The Mac Pro is less than 2 years old. The NVidia 8800 GT PC version works great in it under Windows, from what I've heard. Yet, Apple was either too lazy/incompetent or outright malicious to make the Mac version of that card compatible with older Mac Pros. I'm stuck with a choice between keeping my godawful NV 7300, or upgrading to a mid-range ATI cart, or an overpriced, extremely hardware-failure prone ATI X1900. "Weak" does not even begin to describe this situation.
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
A MacBook starts at $1,100.
What laptop are you looking at that starts at $2000?
GPL Deconstructed
I like Apple products, but not in the cult-following sort of way. What bugs me, specifically, is their attitude towards Leopard. I understand a released OS having some bugs, I think everyone does, but when the bugs are not acknowledged by such an allegedly-wonderful company...it's a bit too much. Why does Leopard have such a hard time remembering my network settings? Why can I not place the desired attachment/network/password into a "location"? Why does it disconnect and then disappear from the list to where I have to manually add it? I don't like to broadcast my SSID, but Leopard should be able to remember what network I was using without me having to add it every time I disconnect.
I hated SWB/SBC (for many good reasons too lengthy for a comment box) and AT&T hasn't done anything to lessen that hatred over time. No matter how many features the iWhatever may have, even a footnote of involvement with AT&T is an instant buzz-kill. I really don't care what mitigating circumstances or defenses might be brought up here, AT&T is an instant "NO!" in my book.
Compared to that, my disgruntlement with their video hardware across the line is a minor thing. The exact nature of that disgruntlement depends on the model in question. Suffice to say that apple has my heart in the portable sphere for offering well spec'd, decently priced, and well-integrated portable Unix with their powerbooks/mac pros but I really wish they had something in the mid-range desktop line that wasn't an iMac (the mini is a bit too constraining, already have a nice monitor rendering the imacs moot, and the pro is far too over-spec'd/expensive for my needs). I'm half-way considering building a hackintosh for my next desktop. (It's either that or ubuntu most likely. Vista is right out.)
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Batteries? This is a huge complaint by a large portion of the user base. The problem is that you didn't have to go to Macworld Expo to find this out... cheezy reporting.
Windows Vista? Ummmm this is entirely misrepresented here. Yes, some people might be upset that they have to plunk down $200 for vista, but think about it. That's not a problem with apple and no one focuses that gripe at apple. That's all the fault of Windows being way too expensive. It's that or they start bundling windows and making the mac $200 more, which I don't want. Apple has lots of great programs that are comparable to most windows programs.
Stock price? Everyone's stock price is hurting right now! We are a month from a recession, the stock market is tanking, and a stock going down after an expo is not unusual, in fact it happens a lot. It's called profit taking. Investors ride the short term wave of hype, and when the hype is done, they get off the wave as fast as they can. After the expo there's no more momentum keeping the stock moving upward quickly.
Ask a real apple fan what cheeses him. Like for example that A2DP isn't supported on the iphone, or any iPod. That's my #1 beef right now right after the battery issue.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I always thought Apple killing the Cube was a bad idea. I'd love to see a new Cube sized Mac that has the basic innards of a Mac Mini but that allows me to swap the hard drive and video card if I want. Oh, and give ma a wireless keyboard with the numeric keypad. What the hell were they thinking when they axed the keypad on their new wireless keyboards?
Lock-in. It feels even more confining in the Apple world than in the Microsoft world. (Pre-XP Microsoft world, that is. I suspect it's comparable to Vista.)
So I purchased an I-tunes gift card for $20 the other day expecting that with that alone I could actually buy some stuff from I-Store. On the packaging for the card it states that you can not refund or return the card. Ok, well it shouldn't be a problem, why would I need to do that? so I go to the I-store to get some stuff and low and behold now It needs a credit card!
Why the Frak would I have bought an Frickin I-card if I had a fricken credit card! nowhere on the card does it say this! In the I-help it says that it is possible to sign up with out one but where? how? there's no way to do it!
This is a pile of I-BS and is a I-scam.
I am not really a Mac fan, though I am a user. and this I-pisses me off about ever being a fricken I-fan. oh but there so easy to use and so friendly! pretentious BS.
When the laptop starts at $2000 and has the same upgrade cycle, that's when baby jebus starts crying.
Macs last longer and have far better resale value. It costs me about $500/yr to stay in a high end Apple laptop. That's two trips to Pizza Hut a month. Easily worth it.
I don't like Vista (still run XP on most of my systems) but at least Microsoft documents their bugs and work arounds instead of pretending nothing is wrong.
On the other hand, Apple is cheap. A 130 dollar OS and 80 bucks for a suite of tools for total noob's isn't a bad price.
But I'd pay $400 for an Ultimate edition that worked.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
I'm totally on board with you here. I look after a contingent of 15 Mac's and Several Xserves and Xraids, and my primary issue is with their software/hardware error reporting. I just today had to replace a power supply on one of my xserves.. after more than a week of research to figure out where the problem of spontaneous reboots was coming from. According to the hardware monitoring, the power supply was A-ok, and according to the system logs I had a random numbered error with no reference on apple's site anywhere. Their official response was "bring it into an apple certified dealer for service" (because apparently I'm incapable of using a screw driver) ..long story short.. I traced it down, and replaced the power supply, now all is well. But their support.. needs work.
What strange and pointless article. Macs have all sorts of well documented deficiencies in either hardware or design, and even the most loyal fanbois will usually acknowledge them.
I'll still argue that the biggest weaknesses with Macs is the "we have decided what you need, and that's exactly what you get" attitude. Regardless of how much one may love Apple design, it still remains that one size does not fit all, and a lot of Apple's decisions work against people who have every good reason to do things in another way.
To wit - my preference for a Delete key instead of dragging files to a trash icon is not a weakness on my part, it's a more than reasonable preference. Regardless of all the keyboard options and such, there are many times when I simply prefer to press Delete.
Of course Vista is no better, and wrestling it into submission can also be frustrating, but I have heard few Vista users trying to argue that its deficiencies are in fact strengths.
Three Squirrels
Most "power" users I know can get about a day a gigabyte (RAM) out of Leopard. I get two to three days out of my old PowerMac with 1.75GB of RAM. A friend of mine has 3GB in a Mac Pro and he can get 3-4 days before a required reboot. My boss has 2GB in his iMac, and left it on during the holidays. He couldn't login to it to reboot when he got back after a week.
Uhhh...I have 1.5 gigs in an old MDD G4, I'm definitely a Power User, and my last reboot was only for the new QuickTime, after 21 days up I had ~750 megs completely unallocated (green in Activity Monitor) if I closed everything.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
I think that the biggest problem with Apple is that they are so impatient to change America.
I love the presentation and attention to detail in their products - software and hardware. I hate how that if it doesn't do what Apple thinks it should be doing, it's a bitch to modify it, and it'll probably self-destruct with the next update.
this is my sig
The Mac Mini is priced right but its integrated graphics leaves a lot to be desired if you're a gamer AND an owner of a 30" monitor.
The Mac Pro's ridiculous specs are only matched by its ridiculous price.
The iMac has all the features I want but comes with a display I neither need nor want to pay for.
Where is the $1500 Mac that comes without a display but has a decent GPU? Either they need a beefed up Mac Mini or a toned down Mac Pro?
If Apple solved this problem I'm in bigtime.
For a company that can to so many thing so well, they can't design a mouse for (#&$(*#. I mean really, the original iMac mouse hockey puck should have had someone's head on a platter for its utter uselessness. The newer mighty mouses aren't much better, though the scroll ball is cool. Their keyboard as well suck peanuts out of yesterday's *&#&. Easy to fix; though on a $2000 computer I expect better.
I've been at Macs a long, long time. Started with the Mac 512k, two external 400k floppies.
A few things have really irked me lately that were not true in the past.
- OS upgrade pricing. There is none, just buy it new. Used to be the system software was distributed free.
- Leopard "improvements". This has been hashed out elsewhere, but reduced functionality in the dock and non-movable sections in the finder sidebar are irksome, regardless of purported internal improvements.
- Many more app crashes. In APPLE products.
- Inconsistent user design, focus on chrome and glitz rather than usability.
- Ongoing arrogance and hubris, as witnessed in the $20 iPod Touch software upgrade. Again, quite the kick-in-the-nuts for early adopters.
Lots of things are right with Apple, but I am not that happy with the trend that I am afraid I am seeing.
Buy used.
My iBook 600 lasted me 5 years, including all thru college, so when I had the means, I bought a Mac Pro with a 24" Dell. I love it. But you're absolutely right, the power is way more than most of us need. I justified it because I know if I could last 5 years on a non-upgradeable system, it will be no problem to go that long on this one.
I really don't understand Apple's justification for not selling a computer for the rest of us.
I had the same problem at work; how to justify a Mac Pro, or buy a Mini with a huge widescreen. Fortunately my boss traded up to a Mac Pro so I inherited his dual 2.0 G5 PowerMac.
Apple computers tend to have high resale values so they're not exactly a bargain on the used market, but I bet you could easily buy a high-end G5 for barely over $1000. It'll be quite awhile before nobody makes PPC software.
Personally, I don't even notice the difference switching between PPC and Intel at work and home.
Pay to buy Vista separately? IMO I should be paid to buy Vista separately and install it. That said, I believe the fastest Vista laptop computer CNet (or maybe PC World?) has ever tested is, rather ironically, a MacBook Pro - that's when you know Apple is getting something right and Microsoft is getting something wrong.
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
I've been a Mac faithful for about 15 years. I have owned every high-end apple laptop since the G3 Wall Street. The reason I have owned every high end laptop is that one of them always seems to have a major problem a year into using it. It could be a bad hard drive, motherboard, screen problems, or an OS upgrade that doesn't upgrade well and kills my system so many times, that I say f'it and get a new machine.
If it's not a machine going down, it's the lovely hanging mac. Some app has a problem, and you get the endless rainbow of death, or better yet, a frozen screen. Now all OS' have issues, and I have always loved my Mac(s), but the time has come for me to part ways with Apple (well, except for my iPhone).
I guess the reason is their PC vs Mac ads. Yup, that is the MAIN reason. When these first came out, they made me incredibly angry due to the fact that Apple gave insinuations that the Mac never crashes, or freezes (this constantly happened to me with 10.4 and my machine died when upgrading to Leopard). Or comments about how the Mac is impervious to viruses (which we all know by know is not the case). Apple just took a bunch of stereotypes about Mac and PCs (many of which are completely wrong), and threw them in a commercial, even though most of the stuff they were saying was complete BS.
So I am done now. I am moving on and sold my dead MacBook Pro and am in the process of selling my G5 tower, and will now be using Windows newest piece of crap... Vista. So long Mac news, how I loved thee, but I can't take the smug anymore.
Have you tried Command-Delete? Also known as the Apple key, Apple tends to use this key as a modifier for many Finder shortcuts.
I'm not a Mac fanboy, hell I don't even own a Mac, but the biggest annoyance for me is Apple's gap in their product portfolio.
Take the laptops. The cheapest is £699. A similarly specified Dell would be about the same (or more) but for a lot of people they simply don't need everything that the MacBook offers. So if you want a laptop for email, the web and a little bit of word processing then you have a choice between a £699 MacBook or a £299 Dell. Yes the former has a bit more polish, but is it really worth the extra £400? Not for the casual/basic user.
Take Mac Mini's. There is nothing headless that sits between the most expensive Mac Mini (£499) and the cheapest Mac Pro (£1,429). I have a perfectly good monitor and I don't want to have to be forced to buy a new one every time I upgrade my PC - so I'd like to avoid the iMac.
That's about it really.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
What bothers me is the fact that Forbes can't write a positive article about Apple. They always have to be the spoiler, trying to find the pit instead of the tasty cherry. It's the same thing that bothers me about open source in general.
Okay, that actually is what bothers me about Forbes. You'd think after looking like complete and utter fools for letting Dan Lyons keep writing false, misleading, or just stupid articles about Linux with respect to the SCO farce, they would rein him in a bit. Instead, he starts acting like a complete ass yet again with the fake Steve Jobs thing. The negativity that they have toward any non-Microsoft (and non-SCO, as it were) software is bizarre.
Forbes should be a credible source of news, but given their level of maturity in reporting in areas for which I have a high degree of knowledge, I wouldn't trust them in any other category. Ever.
It's pathetic.
Do you have ESP?
BY FAR, it's the fact that I can't use a normal PC video card. Why is that? It's just silly. If I could do that, then I'd really have no need for a PC. Mac video cards lag behind too much and cost WAY too much.
"Let your heart soar as high as it will. Refuse to be average." - A. W. Tozer
Not vista, but it would be helpful to buy a Mac pre-configured with bootcamp + Windows XP. I don't want it at home, but at work it would be quite nice. I could see small business customers loving it.
Sure, but why should that be Apple's responsibility? Apple is there to advertise and sell MacOS X. People buying Macs are for the moost part buying it for MacOS X. If some people want Windows presinstalled on the system, then they could always pay extra and have a shop do the work for them. Apple offering Windows as a 'Build To Order' option would likely cause confusion about their confidence in their own OS.
Apple shouldn't make it any more easier to use the competing OS than they already have. They aren't a generic computer seller and the more the can convince you to drink the cool-aid the better for them. Anyone who believes in their OS, whether it be Linux, Windows, BSD or Amiga, amongst others, are going to have the same attitude.
As to your gripes about Leopard, I am not sure how you are getting such a bad experience. I haven't rebooted for over a month and I use it daily, putting the system to sleep at night. The usual causes for exessive memory usage, on my computer, have been leaks in Firefox and when that happens I kill Firefox and relaunch it. Admitly one computer has gone done once in a while, and the kernel panic clearly points to an ATI driver issue.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Is that generally a good monitor will outlast a computer. At work some time ago we got budget to upgrade one of our instructional labs. It badly needed it, the engineering software we run in it (particularly HFSS) was just way too much for the old machines. Well we were given $50,000 for 50 machines. We could spend that however we wanted, but basically it means $1000 to distribute to a computer. However, while the machines needed replacing, the monitors didn't. They are nice LCDs, and are all still working great. So that meant we could put more money towards the computers, which allows them to do better at what they need to do and last longer.
Now again in the next year or two we are going to probably look at replacing the systems (this was about three years ago) but we'll still probably keep the monitors. They are still working great. While new monitors aren't that much it'd still be probably $150 per system or so. That's enough to get 2GB more memory and a faster processor, a worthwhile investment when the system is likely to be in place for 5 years and has to run intense software.
If you get an all-in-one, you have to pay for that monitor every time. That's fine if you want a new monitor, but if you are happy with what you have there's no reason to spend the money on a new one. Even CRTs outlasted the computers generally but with LCDs it is particularly true. They have nice long lifes and their image stays sharp. First thing to go is the backlights, and those are replaceable if you like.
Much more economical, not to mention environmentally friendly, to keep using a monitor if it still works well than to get a new one just because you need a new computer and the monitor happens to be attached to it.
This article is about what I've come to expect from Forbes, fluff with no substance, no actual reporting, just a slam job to please the advertisers on the site.
What really bothers me about Apple products is how they've started shipping everything at about 60% finished, full of bugs, lacking features, or with features that just don't work. Afterwards, there may be one update to address the most obvious problems and bugs, but they almost never finish the missing features, getting the product to about 75% of advertised functionality before abandoning it. This is quite common with everything coming out of silicon valley these days, the "everything is beta, ship it" mentality.
The only exception to this is their flagship product, OSX. For any given cycle, there are 10 or 11 updates for the life cycle, they really pour their energy into bug fixes and security patches. Unfortunately, across the rest of their product lines, such follow-on support is non-existent.
The one big example I recently had to deal with was with a bunch of Airport Express Base Stations I had to install for my employer. Fantastic little access points, if only they worked. About 60% of the features work, the remaining features are dead or too buggy to count. The one and only update fixed only a few bugs, and removed all the broken features.
There is a USB port which Apple once claimed could be used for plugging in a remote disk or printer. The firmware for supporting disks never worked, only one update caused the option to disappear. Now that there is a new base station with a built in disk, they've quietly dropped support for the existing line, telling people who want the NAS functionality they once paid for to go buy a new product.
Same thing with printer support, there is a small white-list of printers that sort-of, mostly, work with the AEBS, but most USB printers do not. Just a bug that will never be fixed because a new product exists and all prior products immediately become unsupported.
The management application is buggy as hell, it actually only works for a short time immediately after booting the machine. This has been confirmed by Apple support, who have now announced there will be no bug fixes for the Airport Utility. The newest access point "Time Capsule" will have a completely new Airport Utility, which can not be used to manage other, older access points on the network. The newer Airport Utility can not be run simultaneously as the old one, so to manage your Apple APs you have to reboot your machine when switching from one utility to the other. Apple's support response was "our products are not designed for anything other than home use, corporate environments are not supported and may violate your guarantee". Our Apple corporate sales rep was apologetic, but has never managed to get us any real support.
I have a "Pentax K100D Super" camera, it is still not supported by Aperture. It has been 6 months since released. It's very similar to K100. Nokia 6210 is still not supported by iSync. But Apple was nice enough to include a iSync Plugin Maker utility. Just hope Apple would include more plugin maker, so that we can make out own.
This article is just incendiary. It's pure flamebait, and you fell for it. I highly doubt that Apple "fans" are complaining about having to buy a copy of Vista because I highly doubt many of them are running Windows. I highly doubt they are complaining about batteries. The iPod is hugely popular and has never had a replaceable battery. Same goes for the iPhone. The MacBook Air is 50% battery by volume and 80% by weight. Even if there were available, there would be few if any buyers. Apple fans also couldn't care less about the stock price. They care about cool stuff. People who don't like Apple (which can hardly be described as "fans") like to complain about Apple are disappointed that they have to buy Windows from a third party (what? iPhoto doesn't come with a Nokia D80? HOW COULD APPLE DO THIS TO ME?!?!). People who don't carry spare batteries for their PC laptops complain that you can't get a spare battery for Apple devices (an extra battery costs how much??). Day traders who were hoping to cash in on Macworld care about Apple's stock price. Journalists who want to write about how much money you can make as a day trader during the week of Macworld care about Apple's stock price (Apple stock didn't jump 30 points?? I'm ruined! SELL!!! SELL!!! SELL!!!).
I am not entirely confident that the guys Apple use for service are doing their job in my best interest.
I had a 12" PowerBook where the Harddrive started failing on me. Periodically i would have the entire system freeze on me. It might be 2 minutes after I had booted - it might be 2 hours. It was consistent that i would experience it around 4 times a day.
After talking to Apple I had a UPS guy pick it up for service. I had written a detailed description on what was wrong, how the problem revealed itself and how long they should expect to monitor it before it revealed itself.
I had it returned less than 36 hours after the UPS guy picked it up. Mind you that I live in Denmark and repairs and service is done in the Netherlands. This amounts to a significant time in transit. The returned computer hadn't even been opened. It only had a note saying that the problem could not be reproduced or identified.
As much as I like Apple for their products I get this tiny knot in my stomach when I think about what might happen if something breaks.
naah sig schmig
For the last 5-6 years, Apple's been making their pro lineup of laptops out of soft metal that bends, dents, and warps on the slightest impact (at least in my experience). If there's the slightest dent or warp in that metal, there's a good chance that the Apple store will refuse to fix your laptop even if it's something completely unrelated to the casing (e.g. bad ram, fault DVD drive, etc).
For what those laptops cost, Apple should have made those suckers out of lexan and added a few curves here and there to dissipate some of the impact (kind of like the old iBooks). It's pretty sad when a $100 laptop made for developing nations can handle wear and tear better than a top-of-the-line $4000 macbook pro.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
I love my mac, and I use it mostly for business. Over the past several years I have had two problems that have made me have to send in my machine for repair. For all the servers, computers and even switches we buy from Dell, I almost always have the option for 4 hour on site response (and for servers we almost always spend the extra money on it), but with Apple it is always within 7 days (though they'll usually tell you it gets done faster, but can't guarantee it) and it is mailed off. I've often looked at some of their server equipment and thought it would be nice for certain applications. For example, their SAN is fairly inexpensive, but I couldn't imagine buying a piece equipment that would become indispensable to a business without a service plan that was comparable to 4 hour, or even NBD.
I might be missing something, and apple might have this. But every time I have inquired about it, the usual response is that I can buy Pro Care, which doesn't really help for this.
Who the hell bothers with Bootcamp? As a corporate Mac OSX user with a standard corporate XP image I have to say that its miles better to run a VM on Mac OSX with Parallels rather than Bootcamp... that way when the security patch causes the XP machine to freeze I can still work on the Mac.
Best working experience ever.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Do none of the Apple employees use hidden wireless networks? It baffles me that this problem is still around SO LONG AFTER LEOPARD HAS BEEN OUT!
Know whats even worse? My girlfriends iPod Touch HAS THE SAME PROBLEM! It wont remember networks that have a hidden broadcast id! What crap is this!?
How about a normal looking port replicator like PCs.. i have a MACBOOK pro and i have to frigen open the top to turn it on..lame... Anyway, i know they have one but it is horrible...
Yes, they put a dock *inside* the computer, at the bottom of the desktop, but they forgot to put one on the *outside* where you need it most.
The third party port replicators for Mac laptops cost a bundle, compared to the original manufacturer ones for the Thinkpad (for example), and since they're hacks they can't even begin to do as good a job.
Initially they had different internals. When they finally fixed that they still didn't go all the way. Apple monitors have a bunch of non-standard sizes and resolutions and the cheeze-grater tower is too large to fit into the spot many computer desks reserver for such things. Not to mention the colors. Aluminum just doesn't look right to me. How about a white for entry level and black for Pro, that would be nice.
Small comfort for road warriors accustomed to carrying a spare, but according to AppleInsider it requires a small Phillips screwdriver and about three minutes to replace the battery. The bottom cover of the MacBook Air is easily unscrewed and gives direct access to the battery, which is NOT soldered to the circuit board. The same screwdriver can be used to unscrew the battery, and a tug disconnects it from the circuit board. However, this begs the question of whether one can purchase replacement batteries (I'm sure that third parties will be quick to fill the gap), or if this operation will void the warranty (Magic 8-Ball says "Yes").
Apple has also announced that it intends to introduce an out-of-warranty battery replacement program. The announced cost is $129, mail-in of the MacBook Air is required, and turnaround time is 5 business days. I strongly suspect that this option will only be attractive to persons with fewer than ten thumbs, as well as time to burn. If they bought a MacBook Air they already have the money.
I'm in total agreement here. I think this article is really "What some Windows-phile would want to have in a Apple". By the time I was about to finish reading the article, I was wondering why I hadn't seen a suggestion for OS X needing a Start Menu.
I am especially shocked some people in the article's discussion have the audacity to say that Apple should in fact sell the OEM version of Vista for just a slim profit. Come on guys... Apple is NOT a Windows hardware vendor. WTF is wrong with some of these discussion posters?
I am in the same position. I would like a 8800 'like' card for my mac pro.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
How could Apple have an upgrade and "full" price? Every copy of OS X sold is an upgrade; you got your previous copy when you bought your Mac!
And just look at the pricing, OS X costs about the same as Windows upgrades, or (much) less depending on the version of Windows you compare to.
I find that pricing quite reasonable; $129 is quite reasonable every 2-3 years and the $199 family pack for up to 5 Macs (I have 3 in the house) is an absolute steal.
There are things wrong with Apple for sure, but their OS upgrade pricing isn't one of them.
One, I would add the ability to run Windows apps in OS X. Two, I would have the prices of upgrades such as more RAM, and biggest and faster hdds, lowered. I found it rather ridiculous Apple wanted another $600 to upgrade my MacBook Pro from 2GB to 4GB, especially when I could get 2GB for half that off the street. Third, I'd do a stock split. At least three or four stocks for each stock now.
FalconShould there be a Law?
"The mini is over priced and under powered."
I disagree for what the Mini is. Try finding its equivalent for that price. Try building your own for that price. And that means a small footprint, quiet, and features. You'll find building one out a Micro ATX will cost you more for the same power by time you add features and find a case (which will be larger) that acts a heat sink to keep the keep a fan off the CPU.
I think Apple has lost some focus on their computers. Leopard has not been as big as they had hoped. We're putting off the upgrade at work as long as possible.
I got my MacBook Pro with Panther in August and even though I have the DVD to install Leopard with I won't. I see no reason to install it now, maybe in another year but not now.
FalconShould there be a Law?
What use is a $180 OS if you can't run it anywhere?
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
The batteries on my MacBook Pro and PowerBook are easily replaceable.
Yeah that's what I thought too. It takes me less than a minute to switch the battery in my MacBook Pro.
The stock price? Totally bugs me. Every time I use my Mac, I think 'this would be so much more useful to me if only Apple's stock price were different.' No, wait, I don't.
I'd like to see Apple stock split 3 or 4 for one, if not more.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Most people probably want a new monitor when they get a new computer
I believe most people use the same monitor when they get a new computer. The only reason to a new monitor is to replace a bad one or because they want a bigger one or one with more resolution. To use with 4 PCs, I've bought 2 monitors. And I only got the second, 17", one because the first, 21", is bad. Now, I'm looking for a new one for my MacBook Pro. Though it's 17" I want a monitor at least 24" for graphic design and photo editing.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I routinely run a comparison between Apple products and other vendors in an attempt to maintain an objective measure of this particular point. In my observation, Apple products are generally cheaper than the competition ..... for the same product.
....
Case in point, my last comparison: Baseline Apple Xserve $3,000. Same configuration from Dell (as best as I could get it): $7,500. The key difference: OS licenses.
So what people really need to consider is not just the price but what one is actually getting for that price. Otherwise, apples and oranges, fruit salad, blah blah blah
From what I understand hiding your SSID can also confuse an iPhone, PSP, NDS and entirely prevents the OLPC XO from connecting to a network.
So, bottom line: Stop 'hiding' your SSID. It doesn't improve security. Or are you about to extol the virtues of "security" through obscurity?
They intentionally produce computers that are not easily upgradeable to force users to buy a new Mac instead of being able to upgrade their existing Mac. How many times have people asked apple for an inexpensive Mac tower or mini tower with PCIe slots? The Mac Pro is a great machine, but majorly expensive overkill for home users. You produce a consumer OS. Where is the consumer xMac?
They delete posts from Apple's support boards when users post reports of common problems with Apple products. Stop trying to silence customers who try to share information about problems.
Web design and building doesn't require 2 monitors but it makes it much easier to have the tools displayed on one monitor while the other one is used to view the output. For instance an editor can be on one monitor while a browser in on the other. Since you can see both there's no need to switch visible windows. I even did this using a Windows PC, I first did this with Windows 95 SE. It's even more useful for graphics. There you can have all the pallets and tools open on one monitor while the graphic you're working on is open on a biggest monitor.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You might argue one can alt-tab (or whatever the Mac equivalent is)
It's Command-tab on Macs.
A lightweight portable would be great for the school backpack or briefcase. However wired networks will be with us for sometime yet.
WiFi would be better for education. Besides the cost of wiring buildings, being able to conn3ect anywhere on campus is a plus. It's the same with phones, with a land line you're anchored in one place but with a cellphone you can take it with you.
FalconShould there be a Law?
How do you make fonts and icons universally larger for users with poor vision WITHOUT increasing screen resolution ala Windows' "Accesibility Wizard". I've asked Mac support, the local genius bar, Google, and the Mac experts I know, and none have had any options better than the per window font size adjustment or decreaseing resolution. It's a shame to have to run non native resolution on the beautiful 24" iMac....
Yup. I'm holding on to my G5 tower for now until Apple either ships a reasonable desktop computer (ie. one with a slotted video card and a good mainstream processor) or a laptop with a docking station that will let me have 2 monitors but still snap it out and go.
While Apple doesn't have a docking station of their own, if they did I would have gotten it, there are docking stations from third parties. Among others there's BookEndz docks.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Steve Jobs.
Now if 'Woz' was running Apple, we'd have Macs with hookers and Blackjack.
No, for sure we'd have hookers with built in Macs that had Blackjack!
No! Wait! Screw that! We'd have hookers!
'Woz' Rulez!
Remember Apple's Rip, Mix, Burn ad? The tag line at the end, "It's your music. Burn it on a Mac"? At the time, the music industry was up in arms over this idea that people could rip music from CDs to their computers. Apple became a fair-use sweetheart overnight by actively promoting the concept in advertising that it was okay for you to do this. Apple was the consumer's friend, fighting for our rights against the evil music cartels--or so the fanbois said.
Then Apple came out with the Airport Express. A great idea--stream audio from your iTunes library to your home stereo. However, Apple encrypted the data so that it could not be sniffed and somehow copied out of the air. Why? According to Apple, they had to do that so as not to offend the music industry. And to make matters worse, they didn't even add a way to send encrypted audio to it. So it only worked with iTunes.
After that, Apple started selling music videos in the iTunes Store. But there is no way to transfer the audio portion of the music video to a CD or an iPod. So if you like the song and you like the video, you need to buy them separately, even though the song is part of the video. What gives?
And, of course, most recently, Apple added ringtones to the iTunes Store which you can install on your iPhone. But you can only make ringtones from music that you purchased on the iTunes store. So you first have to pay 99 cents to buy the full song--possibly twice if you already bought it on CD--and that gives you the privilege of spending 99 cents again for a ringtone! Why? Well, because the music industry wanted it that way.
What happened to Apple, the consumer's friend, the fair-use sweetheart?
I was especially galled by the ringtone thing. Here was a perfect opportunity for Apple to stand up and say, "It's ridiculous for you to have rebuy a song to use it as a ringtone!" To, once again, show itself as the consumer's friend. Instead, they bowed under pressure from the music industry. What's even more annoying, though, is the mewling Mac mavens who immediately chime in, "Well, at least you're not paying $3.99 a year like all those other guys charge!"
While Macs don't need AVs for themselves for now, if documents are shared with Windows PCs AV is a good idea.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I assume that you're referring to resolution independence which was promised to be in Tiger back in 2004 but still isn't really working properly in Leopard.
If you would like to give it a go, install the Developer Tools and run Quartz Debug (/Developer/Applications/Graphics Tools). Under the Tools menu, you must "Enable QuartzGL" and "Show User Interface Resolution". You can adjust the slider or key in a number to multiply the interface size by. Enjoy. You have to restart apps to get it to take effect.
As for my beef with Apple? Let's see...
1. Lack of PPC support. I understand exactly why, I just don't like it.
2. Many issues with Tiger were never fixed, basically forcing a Leopard upgrade. (networking being a major one)
3. Leopard still has major flaws, some of which I have no hope of ever being resolved. (worthless nVidia drivers... they worked in 10.4!)
4. QuickLook is buggy and crash prone, as well as infuriating when used to view a remote system. Why must it steal my damn focus?
Those are just a few of the ones that are bothering me at the moment.
what bothers christians most about the bible.
Ask me. I love mi iPod and mac, but firefox is much less reliable than it was on my pc, at 512m low memory conditions are much more painful and common than they were under xp or Linux, iTunes often hangs and takes otjer apps with it.
The iPhone has crashed every two to three days, while some apps (browser and music player) crash or need to be reset daily.
So I love my apple toys, but wouldn't complain if they hired a few more engineers.
>What use is a $180 OS if you can't run it anywhere?
how about ALL THE USE I COULD POSSIBLY NEED
what use is an OS I can run anywhere if I only own a single computer - a Mac?
if Apple's products don't suit your needs then shop elsewhere. those of us who are happy are bored of your childish bitching.
Before buying my MacBook Pro I compared it to both Dell's and HP's. I took the spec from the 17" MBP and configured Dell and HP laptops to be as close as I could. While the price of the HP was about the same the cheapest Dell was $200 more.
It's been 6 months so I'm sure it different now.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Don't get me wrong, I love my new macbook, but the one-button mouse really bugs me. I can live with the two-finger click thing, but I'd really prefer a two, or three button trackpad.
Having switched from 2 button mice for Windows and Linux, I thought it would take a while for me to get used to only having one button on my Mac. Therefore I got a 2 button trackball, which I got used to on my Linux PC. While it's compatible after 5 months I haven't yet felt the need for it. Now when I start graphics work I'll want it but not right now. Actually I have 3 buttons now. I have the regular click. If I hold down the ctrl key while clicking I get 1 context menu that lets me choose an action and if I hold down the Command key I get other options.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Likewise, but I do miss having the two buttons below too - eg it is now impossible to do anything that requires both mouse buttons pressed together without an external mouse
Have you tied holding down either the ctrl or the Command key when clicking?
FalconShould there be a Law?
Oh come on! It is way more convenient to use a two button mouse.
For me maybe but not for me. And no I don't have any fetish for Steve. Actually I switched from Windows, and Linux, a few months ago.
It is just out of spite that Mac is still without a two button mouse!
It is out of simple ergonomics Macs only come with one button, however there's nothing to stop you from using a 2 button mouse, I have a two button trackball I have not yet needed.
Is this more FUD?
FalconShould there be a Law?
The thing that I'm still fuming about is the lack of a cut (Cmd+x) feature for files in Finder. Would it really be so horrible to allow advanced users who are ok with the "inconsistent" behavior to enable the cutting of files? It would make switchers like me much more productive.
Same here, in Windows Explorer I was used, and liked being able, to cut files and paste them somewhere else. Or right click and drag to create a shortcut, alias.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The thing that bugs me most about Apple are the fanboys. You know the type - they will argue about how much better PPC is than Intel, then when Apple switch to Intel, they suddenly flip to why Intel is so much better than PPC.
Then we have why you don't need apps or copy / paste on the iPhone, until Apple announce an SDK then it's all SDK this and SDK that.
"And in my opinion, what they want then isn't a laptop. I have a 12" iBook, and I love it."
With logic like that, you just made the baby jesus cry.
It's great you like your 12" ibook. My daughter has one, it's nice.
But a 15" laptop is considered mainstream in term of sales volume. It's a laptop. Now, you may want to pretend you're a marketer and call it a "desktop replacement", but I can assume you it's a laptop. Apple calls them a laptop, HP calls them a laptop, IBM calls them a laptop, dell calls them a laptop.
Only you seem to be different. Which is great. Wonderful. But it's still a laptop. Calling the sky green doesn't make it green.
We Apple fans like to see Apple do well, but probably more in terms of selling more products (higher marketshare, becoming more popular in society, etc.) than just higher profits (most of us aren't in it for the money, after all).
As an investor if I held Apple shares I'd want Apple to have a bigger market share but more importantly sell more. As a user I also want Apple to have a bigger share, as well as BSD, Linux, and Solaris. The more diverse the OS market the better.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Their official response was "bring it into an apple certified dealer for service" (because apparently I'm incapable of using a screw driver)
Was it still under warranty? I don't know of any OEMs that will let you crack open the case to service parts without voiding the warranty, though I did it myself I've heard of others who wanted to add hardware but risked loosing warranty service by opening the case.
FalconShould there be a Law?
That's great and all, but the Mini is Apple's only desktop computer for under $1000, so it is forced to compete in other market segments where it fairs very poorly in terms of price and the features it offers.
And leave it to Forbes to get all that and to miss THE ONE MOUSE BUTTON - seriously. The DESKTOPS now have plenty of buttons, but the laptops still only, really have one.
The one thing everyone has been legitimately complaining about for years...
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
Everyone's stock price is hurting right now!
The problem with Apple's stock is it's too high. At $160 a share not many can buy much. A four way split, making one share $40, would be better.
Investors ride the short term wave of hype, and when the hype is done, they get off the wave as fast as they can.
No, investors hold the stock. They'll use Dollar Cost Averaging to buy shares over a period of tyme and unless there's a need for the money they'll sell shares the same way. It's traders who will sale shares after an Expo, or buy them on good news.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Precisely. I call it a Mac MiniPro: basically the current single chip Mac Pro ($2,299 as a BTO option), but with just one optical drive (not two), one hard drive bay (not four), two RAM slots (not eight), two PCI slots (not four) and two USB ports (not five). The case, power supply, and packaging all become smaller and less expensive. Surely Apple could sell something like that for $1,499 or $1,299 at a reasonable profit?
Or better yet, they could charge $999 and watch their market share rise as gamers, hobbyists, switchers, and enterprises rush to buy them.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
OEM versions of Windows are WAY WAY cheaper than $200, you know? (which is what Apple would be paying for the OS if it came pre-installed) - they could charge $50 extra and probably break even or even make a tenny-weeny profit. Even if they did that, they would probably still charge an extra $200 and laugh to the bank.
Last I checked Apple did sale MS Windows, I don't recall the price though.
Should there be a Law?
Apple did sell Windows. It was bundled with Virtual PC. If Apple were to sell Windows stand alone or preinstalled on a Mac then Apple would have to support it.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Yup, that is the MAIN reason. When these first came out, they made me incredibly angry due to the fact that Apple gave insinuations that the Mac never crashes, or freezes (this constantly happened to me with 10.4 and my machine died when upgrading to Leopard). Or comments about how the Mac is impervious to viruses (which we all know by know is not the case). Apple just took a bunch of stereotypes about Mac and PCs (many of which are completely wrong), and threw them in a commercial, even though most of the stuff they were saying was complete BS.
While the Mac vs Windows ads are overblown to me I still think they are relatively accurate. I bought 3 new Windows PCs, for myself. Of those, two had the hdd die about 6 months later and had to be replaced. On the same two, one a Gateway and the other an HP, the motherboards had to be replace about a year after I got them. I also had to reinstall Windows a number of tymes. On the other hand I bought 2 used Macs. The first was a Mac SE30, made from 1988 to 1989, I bought in 1992. The only problem I had with it, other than it wasn't expandable or upgradeable, was when the floppy drive died in 2000 8 years later. The second was a PowerMac 7300/200 I bought shortly after the first died. My first problem with it was when it wouldn't bootup in 2006 6 years later.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Seriously?
.net, I guess? If so, you don't need a cheaper, more general-purpose Mac, you need a MSWindows PC with a nice external design.
What is it that has you still chained to Mickey$oft?
Or, you think you do.
What you really need, however, is RH Enterprise, and it runs just fine on a $600 box.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Apple and more Mickey$oft.
I think it has always been that at least one of Apple's problems has been Mickey$oft.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Never had a Mac that lasted more than 2 years. Or rather, all my Macs still run, except for the ones with broken hinges, but State of the Art has made everything obsolete in two years. The worst Mac I ever owned, a Performa, still boots up fine (and would lock up once or twice a week, just like always, if I'd let it.) Other than that, Mach sucks. These machines blaze on native code.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
No surprise.
Forbes is as much out of touch with Apple's customer base as it is with the rest of the real world.
The people who Forbes caters to own (or want to own) at least two cars that cost more than my house, at least two houses where they can park both of those cars and a utility BMW or three, and either a yacht or a jet or both.
And they think that the solution to the problems in Africa have something to do with letting them eat cake. And they think that all we need for the ozone layer is a few portable ionizers installed at the poles, along with the refrigeration units to turn down the thermostat and balance the greenhouse gases.
The only reason that they own an Apple is that they've heard it's cool. Otherwise, whatever Bill sells them they buy, because Bill is one of them.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
The mouse acceleration curve!
Honestly, how can this not be the #1 item on everyone's list? I was in love with my MacBook until the day I plugged a USB mouse into it. Then I just wanted to take a hammer to it.
By default the mouse is ridiculously slow. You can turn up the tracking speed, but then the acceleration curve becomes ridiculously sharp. So you have a choice: a mouse pointer that's too slow, or a mouse pointer whose speed randomly jumps between slow and fast.
Two weeks later, when I still wasn't used to the acceleration curve (which is no surprise as it's better described as a programming error rather than simply different) a friend suggested I try Windows XP, and gave me a copy. I didn't have one myself as I previously used Linux exclusively.
So, what do you know, Apple has created a new Windows user. There may be a lot of bad things to say about Microsoft, and Linux, but at least they each know how to do a mouse acceleration curve.
Ok apples developers... either go back to school or listen to Mr God here.
1. Every fucking failure point MUST log an error message with a severity number, so it can be filtered out. Every damn if() else... LogError( "my stupid code failed coz im a looser" );
Sure your code could be 10% larger with 1meg of text errors, but its better than Windows Lookalike software that magically fails.
2. Give your software away for free to universities, more users equals more testers equals better quality feedback especially from smart users, if you loose $100million in sales there who cares, all those
students will then recommend apple in corporate environments, not MS puke ware.
3. Listen to your beta testers, users, tell your product manager "oh yeah im am doing those 8 bug fixes", but sneak in some lower pri ones that are high profile and embarrassing.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Your comment's funny. And the Forbes article too. Just checked the stock-ticker at google: Last twelve months the Nasdaq went down 6.50%, MSFT went up 5.76% and Apple? Uh, yeah such a bad performer: Up 70.53%.
I was this > close to purchasing an iMac for my wife until I found out that the internal HDD could not be removed. If I need to have my wife's iMac serviced, this means I need to send the entire system in. I am never giving up my (or any member of family) HDD to any service center (Apple or otherwise). I sincerely hope that Apple will wake up to this and allow owners to hold on to their data.
What about the glaring hole in the desktop lineup? Who wants two year old laptop parts cobbled together inside a large monitor? Why do you need to spend at least a quarter of $10,000 for a box with last years hardware without a monitor?
I want a home server that can integrate all the iApp. My wife and I still complain about photos that I have, and that She has, and that the Kids have, etc. Gimme a $299 home server that gives me a common DB for photos, Music, a Cal manager and perhaps some zigbee home automation tool as an option. Simple tools to allow you to create a simple automated home with all of your stuff available.
Eschew Obfuscation
The fictional "rabid fanboi" is a deliberate creation of below-the-line marketing companies in order to stigmatise the very behaviour of complimenting certain products, such as an operating system. The premise is simple; by creating a marketplace awareness and public ridicule of these hypothetical irrational individuals, *everybody* becomes less likely to make positive comments about something, simply for fear of being labelled one. It's just another public manipulation technique used by marketers, and I wish more people would be aware of it.
The same technique is used to stigmatise critical individuals too, e.g. creating in the minds of the public a mythological "rabid anti-(product-X)" figure, people become less likely to criticise a bad product, for fear of appearing rabid and irrational.
Their moves to make money at any price, the fact they often neglect their computer market to make more cash.
The DRM and obsession with becoming a media broker.
Their mice.
Lack of an affordable tower machine.
Too much secrecy.
Threatening and suing Apple users for leaking information or using beta software (they're worse than Microsoft for doing this).
Remember when people said Intel macs would be cheaper? Well they aren't. Similarly spec'd Dell laptops are around 35% cheaper than the Mac alternative. Even if I love macs, that's way too expensive to justify.
What bugs me most about apple is total crazyness with keyboard shortcuts. I used to have Linux and use the keyboard a lot (well, most of the time not using the mouse at all). This is impossible with an apple computer, keyboard shortcuts are stupid when they just exist. Pressing Left then Right does not get you back were you were before it puts some in some random place depending on the window ; as a matter of fact the keyboard shortcuts lack of predictability. Pressing a key might do something (though most of the time it does not do anything)but you never know exactly what will happem. Only solution, heavy mouse usage....
This may be construed as a troll, but it isn't. Asking about what bugs Apple users? I have a Mac at home (my other systems run Linux) and I sometimes use it to do personal email and other "at home" things. I tripped a huge bug today: needed to email someone a snippet of a long html file. Brought up the page in my browser, View Source, copy/paste into TextEdit. Saved the file (without an extension, but that doesn't matter since it was just text.) There were no <html></html> tags around the text, just a long snippet of html source that contained a bunch of <p></p>'s and some lists. Then I quit TextEdit, since Iwas done with the file.
Went to attach that file to an email, and when I clicked on the file from the "find the file" dialog, the Mac paused for a moment, then labelled the file as an RTF file.
Hmm... didn't seem right to me. Opened the file from Finder just to double-check, and yes, the file that had originally contained nothing but a long section of html now had been magically converted to an RTF document. None of my original html was there anymore. The Mac modified my file without asking me.
That behavior seems very broken to me.
Thank you!
Low id's aren't indicative of anything other than 1) having signed up early or 2) bought an id on ebay. Either way, neither confers automatic wisdom.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
...that's why there are so many more bugs. They rushed it out before it was ready because The Lord On High, His Mightiness The Steve, had to have it NOW.
I would think that a 21" wide laptop would have a pretty small audience.
I don't think there was much demand for that 21" laptop. Shortly after I saw it at Best Buy they didn't display it anymore. I only saw it a couple of tymes. If Linux (or BSD) instead of Windows had been installed on it, or I was given the choice of having Linux preinstalled on it, I might of gotten one. There was no way I was going to pay the Microsoft tax and I wasn't able to try to install a *nix on it myself.
FalconShould there be a Law?
What bugs me most about Apple is not holes in it's product line or buggy releases, it's the company's GREED. As a result, one of it's biggest turn-offs is how it's trying to bring it's proprietary mindset from the computer industry to the consumer markets. Locking-down iTunes and the iPhone are both soon-to-be-extinguished attempts to hold on to the exclusivity the Mac enjoys, and it just demonstrates that profit is now the SOLE REASON for Apple to exist. Whatever "mystique" they had is tarnishing fast and will soon be obliterated. In the meantime, the company is believing it's own press about being invincible and Steve Jobs has completely lost touch of the attitudes and priorities that led he and Woz to start Apple in the first place. I saw a comparison of monopolistic businesses recently that progressed from Standard Oil to IBM to Microsoft to WalMart to...APPLE. How strange is it that what was once a company based on innovation and user-friendliness gets to be in that really sucky club?
1. iTunes/iPod/DRM/RIAA/personal information tagging
2. iPhone/AT&T/kick-backs/bricking updates/the rape of early buyers (and you STILL can't pay cash for one even if you want to)
3. the Leopard debacle
Once I held them in great esteem, especially compared to the evil ones in Redmond. Now, unfortunately, it's turned much like politics has, into voting for who sucks the least. For now, Apple does, but at this rate, I don't know how long it will last.
what bugs me? the fact that they too quickly obsolete products like my sweet iPhone. what also pisses me off? the fact that there isn't a new 16gb or 3g iphone. LOL!