I keep up on Mac news from a few different Blogs, including MacMinute and The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), and through other random sites like Neowin and C-Net. Keeping tabs on Apple news started before I got my first iPod and has stretched long past the dumping of my PowerBook… I might not have much skin in the game right now, since I’ve only got a couple of iPod, but I like to keep up with their new releases. Having said that, I think it’s time to kill off my subscription to TUAW, because they’ve gone completely off the deep end lately. I feel like I’m being intellectually tithed and it’s giving me gout.
Update: Lisa DiCarlo seems to have a similar opinion on Apple’s latest behavior on Forbes.com.
It’s not often that I take time to bash a fellow citizen of the Blogsphere, but man… I hate seeing what was once a good Blog go right down the crapper. And I’ve made a few allowances for a while now, but they’ve finally crossed over into suckage land.
A few weeks or months ago, there was a shake up at TUAW and a few new writers came on board. I said “neat,” since TUAW wasn’t being updated all that often – MacMinute and Neowin usually scooped them – and I figured more writers would mean more updates.
Yeah… more updates, but somehow there’s less objective content. Christ Almighty, enough with the fuckin’ preaching about Apple! It was subtle at first. A few “this is better than that” and “these things are cool because they have an Apple logo” but it’s gone way beyond that now into “if sucks if it’s non-Apple”. A recent post proudly proclaims “How to fix Mom?s computer: buy her a Mac”.
Complete and total bunk.
If you’ve click through to the comments on that article you’ve seen my comments, but I’ll repost them here:
Randy said: Are you freakin’ KIDDING ME?
So Apple NEVER has a monitor stop working? A HD crash? An obscure feature that doesn’t work like you think it should? A command prompt that allows you to log in as root and delete whatever you want? Puh-leaze.
Here’s an example: my first PowerBook came to me with an unformated hard drive and a test bench CD in the drive. The first power up was thwarted by the test bench CD: it prevented the PB from booting. When I popped out the CD (using the pin hole) it told me the drive needed to be initialized – I read that as “better install OSX”. Three months, and two service repairs later, and I unloaded the PowerBook due to over heating issues (and the fact that it almost burned me a few times).
Are you telling me your Mom can troubleshoot all of that on her own? That a complete digital Newbie can?
No. They can’t.
Also, take a look around at all of the questions and problems people have with iPods and getting them to work with iTunes… the iPod has a clean and friendly UI but that doesn’t get you past problems like USB and FireWire and sync’ing issues: put a full iPod on a newly formatted Apple and watch your music get wiped off the iPod as part of sync. How is THAT working correctly?
NO technology is 100% foolproof when a USER is involved. Users cause 75% of all computer problems, be it Apple or not.
Ridiculous post. Honestly.
Then there’s the other stuff they’ve been doing. They take a shot at Engadget and say that they’re obsessed with their coverage at CES… Um. Engadget deals with Consumer Electronics – they should be covering CES with as many people as they can! It’s their bailiwick and more power to them.
Add to that the constant preaching. If I wanted to be “converted” I’d head over to a religious site, not a technology blog… I’m just sick to death of Mac-heads trying to shove an apple in my mouth. I had one. It didn’t taste all milk and honey. In fact, it didn’t work well enough to justify the higher cost of ownership, so I changed back to PC’s.
The fact that Apple is enforcing a monopoly on the world by forcing people to only buy their hardware might be all well in good. I’m just irked that the world thanking them for it. “Oh, thank you Mr. Jobs, for patenting the gummi close button and making me spend $1K more for the same hardware I could get from Dell!” “Oh, thank you Apple for ripping off a bunch of ISV’s and stealing their ideas – how else would you justify the $129 charge for what are bug-fixes to OS X – and putting another company of work!” “Oh, and thanks for not ever sharing the AAC format for iTunes music and stonewalling every other technology company because that gives me so many more options for music sales!”
Let’s not forget to thank them for making Xcode a complete hack of an IDE… Feh to Cocoa.
I’m sick it all… it’s a computer, not a Shinto shrine or an infallible piece of technology. In fact, remember the arrogance of Apple in the early 90’s? What caused them to fail from competing in PC’s? Closed architecture for software. Radical tools for coding. Closed architecture for hardware. Limited support to ISV’s. Limited support for sales. Hm… sounds familiar, no?
But… I still love my iPod!
Update: Lisa DiCarlo seems to have a similar opinion on Apple’s latest behavior on Forbes.com.
***AGREED***.
I am *so* fucking tired of the Steve Jobs cock-sucking that goes on. When I bought OS X 10.3 for $129, I, too, was not pleased to learn that it was little more than a bloated patch.
In fact, far from being a beneficial upgrade, it killed my wireless stack. Then I had to deal with Apple tech support. Then Apple tech support refused to help me because I own a non-Apple WiFi hub.
WTF!
WTF, WTF, WTF…
I could go on for hours.
But I won’t.
And, I still love my PowerBook.
I’m such an idiot.
Well, there wont be many more leaks about new Mac stuff after this:
http://news.com.com/Apple+suit+foreshadows+coming+products/2100-1047_3-5513582.html?tag=nefd.top
Yeah, and where’s the “It’s the end of the world because Apple isn’t being an open company” fury of the press? Where’s the EU law suits for keeping IP secret? Talk about crushing a grass roots campaign… wonder if I can even type the letter “i” without breaking a patent.
Mark my words: the next news story will be that Apple poured hot oil to repel a protesting horde from their Cupertino HQ or something medieval – and they’ll get praised for it! “You know that these protesters… they can’t just approach a building like that – praise to Apple for killing off a militia group!” They’ve truly ascended back to their arrogance of the 90’s – it’s just too bad that it’s not the 90’s anymore…
Hear! Hear!
I love my G5 (and I love my iBook and my kids love their iMac and my husband loves his PowerBook and iPod). But I also love my Dell PocketPC and I even have a few warm & fuzzies for my Dimension 2400. What can I say? I like my techie stuff. ;-) I used to drink the Kool Aid but that changed in the last year when Apple became the iPod company and I’m not that into music. Now I see Apple for what it is…a large company making business decisions so they can make the most amount of money for themselves and their shareholders while keeping as many of their customers as they can happy and spending money. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s not a cult. It’s not a religious experience. I don’t owe Steve Jobs my pint of blood, and he doesn’t owe me anything except what I paid for.
Hey, constructive criticism is well and good and necessary. Just a couple of clarifications, though: When I mentioned Engadget’s “obsessive coverage” of CES, I meant this as a positive thing, not a negative one. Nor am I the first to use the descriptor “obsessive” http://www.google.com/search?q=engadget+obsessive&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 – in fact, Engadget wears the ‘obsessive’ label themselves with quite a bit of pride http://corporate.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000703026086
If my words come across as preaching, that is not my intent. I am not paid by Apple to promote their products, nor am I paid by Weblogs, Inc. to promote Apple’s products. I promote Apple’s products because I love them. Obsessively. :) If sharing the love sounds like preaching, well… so be it.
Is Apple really ‘forcing a monopoly’ because they also manufacture the hardware that runs their software? Really? Are Creative or Rio ‘forcing a monopoly’ because they won’t let you run iPod interface software on their players? Is Microsoft not trying to ‘force a monopoly’ in almost every sector from personal computing to web browsing to digital entertainment? Bill Gates just called people who use open source software Communists, for crissakes.
Well, that was my bit of soapbox back atcha. By the way, you will absolutely *hate* my latest post. :)
http://tuaw.com/entry/1234000133027378/
Heya,
Maybe “thorough” or “comprehensive” is a better word for their coverage… obsessive has a negative connotation which isn’t such a good thing considering that you’re part of the same publishing family. I mean I can call myself an asshole and comes off as funny (or true) but if someone else calls me an asshole, it takes on a different meaning even if they are in my same family… know what I mean?
Eucharistic ministers in the catholic church aren’t paid by the Church but they can still preach. Who holds the leash means little to people that are listening to a dog barking…
And yes, Apple is forcing a monopoly but the press has opted to call that “innovation” rather than “closed market”… And given the growing numbers, that may change, but I doubt it… Simply put Apple will not let their software run on anything other than their own hardware (check OS-X EULA if you doubt that). The won’t let anyone but Apple products play in their iTMS (Google for Harmony). They refuse to license the OS from the iPod to anyone else – that means that Creative and Rio are being denied access to it. Sorry to say it, but that’s a monopoly… At least it was for Microsoft – I’m sure Apple will have to become larger before they can get attacked with that.
Oh, and by the way, I didn’t ask what Microsoft was doing, so that can’t support your argument – this is about Apple: one has nothing to do with the other. The fact the Microsoft licenses it’s PlaysForSure DRM and has opened that up to anyone interested – Apple refused that too – means that it’s not a monopoly by definition.
AND that wasn’t Gates that said that – I believe it was Ballmer… and frankly, for business software? Would you want your accounting system’s source code out in the open? How is that making it a better product? You think OS-X would be better if the presentation layer was in Open Source? You’d be up to 10.3.95 for service packs… OSS is fine for some things and completely irresponsible in others… that’s just common sense. Frankly, I’ll be happier when the public press loses their hard on for the subject – open source means nothing to end user and it doesn’t always make for a good product in the first place. Man hands make light work doesn’t apply to coding.
Lastly, I don’t hate your latest post. I agree with the fact that Apple has prided itself in box appearance and succeeded. I agree that PC users are itching for new boxes – look at the success of LED’s and the Mini-ITX market. That’s a no brainer. And I agree that the mini will cause ripples in the industry for the next 12-18 months, particular if Mr. and Mrs. Joe America decide that they DO want a Jukebox/MovieEditor/Burning PC (that hasn’t been proven yet). I even priced out a few models myself, but I’m too strapped for cash at the moment to pick one up. The only ugly spot on the whole article is why people think that there’s a spirit in their machine or that there’s a religious fever over silicon – that’s just ignorance and I can’t hate people for that :)
Randy – “obsessive” is in Engadget’s masthead! “Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily
coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics.” If that’s not fair game, I don’t know what the hell is! :)
Re: preaching
I’m an excitable person. I geek out on this stuff and it’s fun. Do I think Apple is the one true religion, and nobody else has anything to offer? No – I have 2 Macs, 2 PCs, a Linux box, Palm handheld, and a smart phone running Symbian OS. All of them have good things to offer. But it’s the unofficial *apple* weblog, so that’s what I’m talking about. And by and large, it’s pretty rare that I meet an Apple product I don’t like. Well, except the cube. I never really got into that. :) But there’s a ‘focus effect’ going on there that will make me look like a nut because I’m not covering anything but Apple and I tend to rave about it because that’s the way I honestly feel. As the great Steve Winwood once said, “Thas’ just the way it is.” I try to always take myself with a grain of salt, and I would hope everybody else does, too.
Re: monopoly
I bring up Microsoft because I think it’s a hoot that MS gets all huffy about Apple’s “monopoly”. But the word “monopoly” is not a one-size-fits-all moniker. There are all kinds of “monopolies” that are allowed, even encouraged to exist because of the benefits to the consumer – e.g. we wouldn’t have a telephone network if the government hadn’t granted a monopoly to AT&T. The question of whether monopoly exists isn’t nearly as useful as the question of what a company ‘does’ with its ‘monopoly.’ MS incessantly seeks to establish a horizontal monopoly – domination of windows in the market at all cost and unfortunately, the product itself is secondary to the business. Apple takes the opposite approach – their vertical “monopoly” allows them to make systems so integrated that more often than not, they ‘just work.’ Sure, I can shop around to my heart’s content for a DVD burner to go with my windows box and I may find a great price on it but… there’s no guarantee it will work with my machine. And when it doesn’t, who is responsible? Neither MS nor the third-party manufacturer will think it is their problem. We could certainly argue this forever but – my take on it is that Apple’s approach makes a better experience for the end user, whereas MS’s approach makes a better experience for MS.
One realm where both companies stink is DRM. Ain’t no doubt that should be an open standard all the way.
Re: Bill Gates
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/01/05/bill_gates_free_cult.html
He tries to take down open source and copyleft in one fell swoop. This argument is not narrowly aimed at “business software” alone. Neither am I suggesting that open source is great for every iota of business software. But I do think open source software is pretty great for many types of software. Apple thinks so, too, hence the core of the OS is completely open source. Hence, I can run *nix programs to my heart’s content – awesome!
Open source doesn’t make a good product? How many web servers run Apache? Means nothing to the end user? Firefox is on the road to rescuing the end user from the tyranny of crapola that is internet explorer.
As for spiritual machines – this is neither an ignorant idea, nor a new one. Thinkers and philosophers have been contemplating the idea of artificial intelligence since long before the idea of the Turing test in the ’50s. Some technologists predict we may see intelligent machines within our lifetimes:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Spiritual_Machines
Regards,
Barb
Again, I can call myself something, but if someone else calls me that, it might not be taken the same way… case in point: communist is simply someone that believes in the idiology of a “state owned” world, where no single individual owns anything. A communist will say they’re a communist with pride, yet people freak if someone calls them a communist… See how it works?
Preaching is still preaching. I never told ya not to – I don’t like the style, is all. Especially if someone bought into the paradigm in the first place. Preaching isn’t going to make people want to switch – if any thing, it will piss off. It’s something I wish politicians would learn.
OK, so under this notion of “sometimes a monopoly is ok” does that mean Microsoft should start making their own PC’s and made a clause for their products that they can only legally run on MS Machines? NEC once had that set up in Japan and got booted for a monopoly. And, by the way, I’d challenge you to buy an EIDE DVD drive made in the last 2 years that wouldn’t work with Windows. Bad example that you selected maybe, but it’s not like it used to be, in the 90s. You remember how hardware was around that time, right? When you couldn’t hook up any ol’ SCSI drive to a Mac, unless it was “initialized” to run with a Mac? A lot has changed, in the hardware world. In fact, I have a DVD Burner in a FireWire enclosure – it runs on PC’s and Mac’s. Beyond that it could be plugged into an Apple case or an IBM case – Apple has been using off the shelf parts but their LICENSING prevents people from using it on anything but Apple hardware.
Truth: It’s still a monopoly, but everyone thinks it’s “OK” because it’s APPLE.
Oh, and before ya go putting a lot of weight on any “hearsay” article, check the source (C-net in this case). Gates says: “No, I’d say that of the world’s economies, there’s more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don’t think that those incentives should exist.” How does that apply to open source?
Lastly, I don’t like FireFox any more than I did Mozilla. It’s UI is clunky and since SP2 for XP IE has been very usable – besides I hate tabbed browsing. I’d rather use Safari over FireFox, but, guess what? Safari is only for Apple :) I also use RSS Bandit, which is open source – do I use it because it’s open source? No. I use it b/c it works. Now, is RSS Bandit a a better product BECAUSE of Open Source? That is the question and no one can ever quantify that it seems..
What kind of Communist freaks when someone calls them a Communist? None that I’ve met. People who are *not* Communists, of course, will have a tendency to freak. If you don’t have at least that iota of pride in your own chosen identity, then you need to get a spine.
I’m not trying to ‘convert’ anyone. I’m sharing my enthusiasm – if the enthusiasm rubs off on some, fine. If it pisses off some, fine, too. Lord knows you can’t please everyone.
Truth: monopoly is an inherent property of capitalism. Within that, there are companies who are pretty evil, and some who are not so bad. Most are a bit of good and bad, both. I know it’s tempting to collapse a value judgment into a single word, but it’s a bit more complex than that. Comparing the business practices of Apple and Microsoft, I tend to feel that overall, Apple does a better job at making well-designed products that work very well, without resorting to nearly as many questionable business practices. That said, every company has questionable business practices. That is the nature of capitalism. I think Apple’s recent lawsuits against online publishers are questionable, and I posted that view right in amongst the gushing about the other stuff. What I like, I like, but I don’t hold back on what I don’t like, either.
“modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises”
How does that apply to open source? See the *software makers* part of that sentence.
The question was not whether open source is “better” or “worse” – the question was “does open source provide any value to the end user?” You use an open source product because it works… is that not value to the end user?
I must say that the irony of Randy accusing barb of taking pot shots an engadget is sweet.
PS to randy – the reason TUAW hadn’t been updated for a while before barb (and subsequently Scott) came on board to save the sinking ship, was that my mother was diagnosed with cancer and my priorities obviously shifted from blogging to care taking.
PPS to barb… i saw that cube remark :)
PPPS to randy – yeah, what barb said. we blog about apple a lot because, um, well it says apple’s name in the title bar. we say nice things about apple because it would really suck to have to write about a company we hated all day long. hmmm., i suppose that would make for an interesting blog though. just not a very interesting job.
i am going to find something non-gushy to say about apple at least once a day now, just for you. i just might not say it all in public ;)
@Laurie – Hope your Mum is feeling better!
As to talking well of Apple, I still maintain that there’s a difference between reporting favorably of Apple and preaching about the “can do no wrong” virtues of Apple. Case in point is MacMinute. I been reading them for over two years and never felt “preached” to… they are VERY optimistic and pro-Apple obviously, but they never made me feel like I was buying into a religion or Amway.
And I can say that things have gotten LESS preachy at TUAW… I mean, it had to have: I’ve still got it on my RSS list ;)
I think this is the site you’re looking for:
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars
Enjoy :)