> 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).
I just can't agree on the MS products, I think that while Excel and Word are very functional they are full of bloat, they use much too many resources for what they offer, and they simply aren't worth the money asked for them. IE, I can't stand it as a browser millage seems to vary more on browsers than anything else but for me IE is the bottom of the heap. I also disagree on the notion that shareholders cause a company to be unethical, your examples here and later in your post note several companies where the shareholders were among the harmed, not the beneficiaries. Enron for example, shareholders were financially ruined. And it was not the company that did the harm, it was a select group of executives, all of whom have been let off the hook while America begins to blame companies - SEQ imposing fines on companies for business practices after the Sr. management has been replaced only harms the worker bees, and it was not them who committed the wrong. But that is another email topic all together. > The most odious behaviour on Apple's part wasn't the 3rd party RAM > problems > but the B&W FirmWare upgrade. I already addressed this rant, I am familiar with the models in question and I do not see this the same way. > 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 ;). As I offered I could post the links to the Knowledge Base or you could go look it up. >> 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 :) Its about two to three months old [the release of the AppleCare doc on it, the feature has been available for much longer than that]. > 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. That is kinda my point, the people running Apple are not complete idiots, and unlike the Apple of the mid-90s they do seem to own calculators, I would say that the firmware updates were not meant to be as malicious as you made them out in your original posts. > 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. Any proof that it was the *only* reason for the firmware update? Can you show that the update did not do anything else and as you said had *no purpose* other than harming customers? You have said this several times, I questioned how you could know that was the case earlier. I would like to know if there is any way for you to determine that the firmware was only meant for that purpose or if you simply conclude that based on your perspective. > 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. Well, one could make a strong argument that much like 604s no working under Jaguar Apple has maintained that 3rd party processor upgrades are not in anyway supported by Apple, based on that, why should they have acted differently? > 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. They over-came as you said, they did not reverse the patch, as we do not know what else the firmware update was meant to do, and the upgrade OEMs were not interested in altering any other affects it had, it seems that their "over-coming" should not have had any quality or stability impact. Your claim of "sabotage" is not well founded. You are only basing it on cause and effect and denying that it could have been a peripheral affect and not the intended one. David -- G-Books is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-Books list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
