on 2/14/03 5:28 PM, David M. Ensteness at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Wow, you are way too upset about things, seriously, I get pissed when > things don't work, but I am always confused, if you feel Apple is to > blame then why buy Apple stuff?
Huh? > I am not saying put up or shut up, I am just confused, some people seem > to say they feel towards Apple the way I do towards MS, and yet, > because of how I feel I don't use MS products, yet many use Apple > products and claim to feel constantly slighted, noting a timeline of > abuse they feel they have suffered through. I hate MS's business practices but I love some of their Mac (and Windows unfortunately... IE 5.5 is perhaps the best browser available on any platform) software. Microsoft Excel is unparalleled in functionality and customisability. Apple is a large, public corporation, and, as such has no accountability to the public. As in any public corporation, including the Enrons and Microsofts of the world, shareholders reign supreme so unethical behaviour is to be expected once in a while (although, not tolerated). Apple isn't anything special in that regard. FYI I've been a 'faithful' Mac user since day 1 (well, ok, 6 months -- September 1984). > To me things like Firmware updates make a lot of sense, I understand > their purpose and it justifies their use. Blaming 3rd party RAM for not > meeting specs ... well, that made sense to me as I believe that if > hardware does not meet certain specs then how can anyone know how to > support it? The most odious behaviour on Apple's part wasn't the 3rd party RAM problems but the B&W FirmWare upgrade. The B&W G3 was released with a swappable CPU module. Apple then proceeded to, quite lazily I might add, release the first G4 (PCI) towers, and promptly released a FirmWare upgrade for the B&W which prevented the G3 from accepting G4 upgrades. The *only* reason they did this was to prevent the B&W from competing with the nearly identical G4s (they didn't add any notable features in the G4s that would justify shelling out for a new computer, so they had to force people to buy them some other way). That block didn't last long since the accelerator card manufacturers released their own firmware patch. That Apple would do this *before* it sells a machine is perfectly acceptable. That is *their* decision to make. However, for them to do this once ownership of the item has been transferred to another entity (whether a person, or a company) is unethical and inexcusable when making the change does not IMPROVE the operation of the machine. The 3rd party RAM for not meeting specs -- well, this is not quite as black-and-white an issue (since nothing was gained by the USER with the G4 block -- only Apple's sales could be helped (I doubt it encouraged people to buy G4s, and it probably bought Apple more in terms of of negative publicity)), but it still involves an *irreversible* modification to hardware Apple no-longer *owns*. Salient questions and comments to determine Apple's innocence or guilt: (1) Did Apple explicitly warn people that incapacitated RAM could have been a consequence? (2) Faulty RAM is a problem in some cases, especially in OS X, so a FirmWare update could be needed (I found that out by trouble-shooting a buggy DIMM that Apple's FirmWare DIDN'T catch). (3) Was the update justifiable from a stability standpoint? > On Friday, February 14, 2003, at 12:55 PM, Eric D. wrote: > >> OS X 10.2 killed support for my drive (& I have had that verified from >> another owner of the same drive): Sony 24/10/40 internal. > > Question: Whose responsibility is it to support 3rd party hardware? Is I don't expect any support for it since it wasn't sold to me with such promises -- I wasn't *complaining*, merely commenting. Toast does a wonderful job. >> I also lost >> support for my USB burner along the way (don't remember which version >> of OS >> X 10.x.x killed that! Fortunately I never used the internal burning >> software >> except to gauge OS X's support for third party burners :) > > So you update to the new version, and then use Apple's software in > order to be able to complain at how poorly it does? And if the only Huh? > thing you care about is support by Roxio via Toast then what do you > care if Apple disables your burner or not, you just said you don't use > their software anyways. Put these two together for me. Because, IIRC, the comment was that there was expanded support for CD-RWs. Certainly not in my experience (of course, I reject anecdotal evidence most of the time so my n=2 isn't useful either ;). My Lacie 2/2/4 USB and the Sony 24/10/40 both worked early on in OS X 10.0 and 10.1 but no longer do. > Actually Mac OS X v.10.2.x does do multi-session discs, there is an > AppleCare doc on it. If you are referring to the OS, if you are > referring to a specific utility such as Backup then the answer may be > different. Cool! That's a new development :) > Blue and Whites had their 3rd party upgrade path disabled until the 3rd > parties changed that, I am not arguing with that. But you make it sound > like everything Apple does is a conspiracy to trick, deceive, and harm > their customers. If that is the case, I do not understand why Apple is > considered by the industry to provide the highest quality and service > in their products [Consumer's Reports - the last four quarters > straight]. I don't see that they *usually* engage in unethical business practices. But, as most businesses will, at some time in their life, they will and have made unethical business decisions (e.g. advertising graphics support for Beige G3s and facing legal action before providing OS X video acceleration support). What sets aside a good company from a great company, is how they respond to those cases. Do they rectify them promptly, or engage in the kind of "deny, deny, deny" tactics that characterise such bastions of ethical business practice as Monsanto, Ethyl Corporation, or 'Big Tobacco', or, in Canada, the asbestos industry (they still insist on selling asbestos to 3rd world countries and threaten legal action if other nations try to limit the use of these carcinogenic substances... ain't "Free" Trade great ;)? The same is seen in our politicians -- do they take immediate responsibility for This was an *after-market*, *irreversible* change, made to the computer without notification of the users affected. It probably resulted in only a few 100 additional sales, but resulted in lots of negative commentaries about their business practices. They could've rectified it at little cost to themselves, and would've purchased them a lot of goodwill in the community at large. > I know, I know, you need the firmware to install this other thing, and > you want to use the other thing ... but that sorta proves my point, the > "other thing" doesn't work without the firmware. And since you make it > so clear that you now own your Mac, take responsibility for the choices > you make with it. HOWEVER, this was a notable irreversible change, made for *no purpose* other than to prevent the B&W from competing with their (at the time) brand-spanking-new G4 PCI, which, as you explained did not add anything notable from a performance POV. And, it was done _WITHOUT_ notifying the user of the consequence -- if it was so important that G4 support not be provided because it destabilised the B&W then Apple would and *should* have mentioned it in the release notes. The fact that third party manufacturers managed to safely and *very* successfully over-come the FirmWare patch only provides support to the contention that it was not in fact a patch to improve the quality/stability of the B&W after-market, but merely a way to *sabotage* a perfectly functional computer. >> IIRC there was also a pretty obvious case of such malicious >> FirmWare sabotage in one of the laptops (if they didn't want to >> include the >> feature in those particular computers, they shouldn't have sold the >> computers with such a feature, *even* if it wasn't advertised as such). > > You recall anything about this? The PowerBook model? The feature? The > time frame? I wish I did b/c it was interesting. I noticed it quite recently in fact. Ah well, all's fair in love and business as Enron and Casanova prove!!! L8r, & happy Valentines day if you're into Hallmark holidays, Eric. -- G-Books is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... 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