"The apple way" Rant

[greentree_uk]

I'm a huge apple fan but a couple things over the years have annoyed me.. not all Apple's fault..

Office 2008.... no Visual basic support. typical MS. finally give us a native product but cripple it and you get a feeling it's all deliberate. they did the same when office first came out for OSX but then it was no exchange support.

IPods... why oh why does every new ipod make greater demands on the OS... working in the mac industry it doesn't cost me but it does for the end consumer. ok, ok, you could say 10.3 is old but xp owners haven't had the expense of buying an OS for their machine. they can also run xp and lower spec'd hardware. why can't you buy an ipod and run it on an older version of itunes but perhaps without the 'extra' features.

Apple had a reliable system with 10.4 all the apps were working sweet for about 2 months then they release 10.5 and bam we are back to the beginning again.. I like 10.5 and I run it but it just annoys me that software doesn't just work in every version of system 10. after all this is supposed to be an evolution of one OS, OS10.

why can't you buy a mac today and install 10.4 on it? which also brings me onto what if I misplaced my 10.4 cd's for my intel machine. I would have to buy 10.5.... I have no other option..

Can apple really justify charging for each . release. I think it's a bit rich. and with leopard just bedding down they announce snow leopard.. so if you're running 10.4 you can guarantee future ipods will drop support for it as soon as snow leopard is released and all the while XP owners can sit pretty without the need to upgrade.

OK, OK I know all the other benefits of being a mac user but not every user is as savvy as me and they want to buy a machine now and in 3 or 4 years be able to buy an ipod without the need to buy a whole new OS. and in turn the OS will probably kill the HDD and therefore more expense.

Parallels... a product I bought at version 2. a product very much in development. well they release version 3 and charge you for it! and what's more. if you're running an older version of 2. they don't let you download the latest version of it. so bugs like the copy and paste you have to live with.. I'm sure I could email off for a link but why should I have to. ???

iMovie 08. ok I know its a consumer app but when you have a timeline in all previous versions why remove it in 08?


these are just some of my annoyances. I'm sure there are many more. don't let any of this turn you off buying a mac. I love them and would never change. but I can see why some people just won't even give them a second look. the attitude of my way or the highway and apple knows best, is definitely why adobe and quark get pissed off.

 

[mkrishnan]

Erm, Apple doesn't make Parallels or Office, and doesn't really control what they do or don't include. And I don't think you can call constantly upgrading Office a TCO issue on OS X when the corporate (managed seats) deployment of Office 2007 is what...0%? They're pretty much all still using Office 2000 and 2003. Pretty much likewise, no one asked you to go to 08 over 04, when 04 worked perfectly well.

Likewise I fail to see how iMovie 08 lacking a timeline is a TCO issue, particularly when, above and beyond the fact that no one asked you to upgrade iLife, iMovie 6 / HD is available free of charge for iLife 08 users if they prefer to use it.

I mean, seriously, do you understand what TCO means? Your argument is like saying that your BMW has bad TCO because you insist on putting new 22" rims on it every six months and throwing away the old set and because you insist on replacing the suit you wear while you're driving it with a new one every month.

With respect to the install / restore DVDs, just for reference, no, you can call Apple and request a new set for a nominal fee. I'm pretty sure, at least -- I've never personally lost a set and therefore never had to replace one, but others have reported that they get supported in this respect just fine.

The iPods, yeah, I guess, although really you're primarily complaining about something that hasn't happened yet. And I'll definitely give you that Apple really should be providing support for at least the one directly previous OS release on new hardware, just to comply with basic realities of the way managed installations work (which do not jump all over installing the new OS on every computer they use on launch day).

 

[greentree_uk]

Ok I've changed it from TCO.