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OS X Lion Ships With Faulty NVidia Drivers
TeaCurran writes with this mildly ranty objection to the most recent Mac OS X update; several friends who have made the leap on their MacBook Pros have various other complaints, too, including system slowdowns that resemble crashes (except that their pointers still work) and recurring black screens for some configurations (with or without the kernel panics TeaCurran mentions) — what's been your experience? "Apple OS X Lion shipped with new NVidia video drivers that are causing anyone with a mid 2010 Macbook Pro to get a kernel panic every 5-10 minutes. Apple knew about the issue before shipping lion, hasn't responded to the issue, and is censoring posts in their support forum that mention words like 'boycott' and 'petition.' NVidia has responded that the drivers are the responsibility of Apple so they won't deal with the issue. How a major hardware manufacturer can ship such a faulty product without getting much press about it is completely beyond me."
This isn't the first time this has happened.
http://saveie6.com/
Oh, yeah? I'm posting this on a mid-2010 17-inch MacBook Pro with an Nvidia card. I've been running Lion developer previews for months, and the only time I've ever have graphics problems is when I'm playing a game and the system gets too hot because my room isn't well-ventilated. In fact, Lion could be the most stable first release of any OS X operating system. I regularly play World of Warcraft, Starcraft II, Borderlands, Left 4 Dead 2, and Team Fortress 2 without issue.
Nvidia isn't saying that nothing will get fixed. Apple works with Nvidia on their drivers. What Nvidia is saying is simply that they can't provide technical support. Removing posts about goofy boycotts and petitions is just clearing out nonsense posts in what is supposed to be a support forum. Apple's support forums are some of the silliest, whiniest forums on the web, and you'll rarely find useful information from the users there.
I also question the claim that "Apple knew about the issue before shipping Lion," as if there's some big conspiracy that Apple knew it was going to cause your machine to black-screen but didn't care. Give me a break.
Because the issue only affects a tiny segment of customers. If, as you claim, every single person with a mid-2010 MBP was getting kernel panics every 5-10 minutes, that would be major news. Like most customers with technical problems, you're acting like it's a bigger deal than it is and that it's affecting more people than it is. Installing a new operating system is a major procedure that can uncover previously invisible problems lurking on a person's computer. That's why, every time there's a console firmware update, you'll see a bunch of posts from people claiming the updates ruined their machines.