Second thoughts about the iMac
Several things have happened that have started me to question whether I should purchase the iMac. Some Apple related and some just down to the way I work and how my network is setup.
Apple reasons:
It seems of late Apple have been doing some very greedy monopolistic things to their consumers. Now one of the reason for leaving Vista could have been to get away from the Microsoft monopoly, but now it looks like Apple are going the same way. In fact Apple’s position could be slightly more dangerous and here is my thinking why. Microsoft have done some questionable things in the past but now because of the antitrust stuff they have been mostly kept in check. Apple doesn’t currently seem to be as restricted. Here are the things that Apple has done lately that really annoy me.
1. Overcharge for the iPhone, actually all their hardware is quite pricey.
2. Reduce the iPhone bye $200 after only 2 months, shafting all early adopters. Fair enough they did recompense these people but only after Apple witnessed the anger of it’s fans.
3. Charges an extra 99 cents for a ringtone of a tune you already own.
4. Putting a chip in the new iPods that renders nearly all 3rd party video accessories useless. Then asking $49 for the Apple video cable. Not been backward compatible for technical reasons is fine. But to deliberately put a chip in to make accessories obsolete is just plain wrong.
5. Releasing an update for the iPhone to deliberately break 3rd party apps. It is obvious to me why they have done this. If others can add 3rd party apps and improve the iPhone this will make it more difficult for Apple to find features of it’s own to add to the next iPhone.
In addition to these corporate decisions another thing that has annoyed me is the attitude of the sales staff in the Apple Resellers, now I don’t know if this just applies to the Netherlands and Belgium, the staff just do not seem interested in whether you buy something or not. They seem to have the attitude that they are doing you a favour selling you a computer.
And finally I tried out a hacked version of Tiger on my laptop just to get a feel of what it was like. Now please no one get upset here my experience could have been marred by the fact that my graphic card was unsupported so could only run a 1024×768. But having never used a Mac OS before and going on how Apple fans rave about it I was somewhat underwhelmed. It just looked so basic and I really did not like the idea of having the application menu bar continually at the top of the screen this just did not seem right to me. Another thing I found strange was that you could only resize the windows from one corner; would it be so hard for Apple to make so you could resize from any edge of a window.
Some stuff looked cool like the genie minimise and the dock is very smooth and I really like the idea that most of the components of an app are kept together making it easier to remove them if required. Anyway this is only a few observation from using the OS for 10 minutes I will comment more when I have more experience.
First, most handy providers sell ring tones at much more that $1.98, especially here in Europe regardless of whether or not you already own the song. Second, there are no Apple stores in Netherlands or Belgium. The only Apple store in Europe that I am aware of is in London, so to categorize Apple resellers as Apple Stores would be like me referring to the Military Car Sales dealer down the street as representing BMW and Mercedes personally.
Your point about dropping the price of the iPhone so early after introduction is aptly made, but perhaps a little unfair. If I bought a 42″ JVC flat screen LCD in July for $2,100 and in September they lowered the price to $1,900 would I have a right to complain? Buying electronics (and especially computers) has always carried the risk that the next day they will come out with something better and cheaper. But I will give you that two months later is a bit ridiculous.
Do you have facts to back up points four and five, or are these just rants based off of other rumour sites? I’m not aware of Apple releasing an update to break 3rd party applications for the iPhone (there is a developers kit by the way) but I do know that updates may break hacks to allow the iPhone to work unlocked. While I am not aware of anyone using a hacked iPhone losing functionality from the update, the possibility exist.
Am I understanding correctly that you are using an illegal version of Tiger on non-Apple hardware in direct violation of the licensing agreement? And your complaining about performance?! While I will agree that I find the menu bar being tied to the top fo the screen somewhat annoying (especially when I had four monitors connected to my Mac), I have found that there are a dozen other annoyances in Windows which are worse. For instance, what dumb-ass at Microsoft thought it would be a good idea to have a pop-up alert show up under the active window? The problem is you can’t do anything until you acknowledge the alert, but you can’t because it is behind the current applications,, which you can’t click on because you need to click okay or cancel in the alert window which you can’t see. They way around this is to click on the alert in the task bar to try and bring it forward so you can clear it and get on with your life. This is just ass backward UI design IMHO. So I see the menubar at the top as a small thing that I can live with not to deal with all the other BS that comes with just about any version of Windows going back to 2.0. BTW, back in 1997 I ordered a PC with MS NT 4.0. Guess what, they sent me a machine with NT 4.0 and a USB keyboard and mouse. See a problem with this scenario yet? No? Win NT didn’t support USB at that time so I got a box I couldn’t use. I had to load Win 98 in order to do anything. In order to load Win 98 over XP I had to go online with my Mac and download a 3rd party utility which would wipe out the NTFS partition so the Win 98 installer could reformat the disk and install. WTF! You’d think you could boot from a new OS CD, format the drive the way it needed to be, and install, but nooo.
Trust me, with the Mac on Intel hardware you can run just about any OS you want and you’ll have a quality machine. I’ve used the Mac, Solaris, Linux (Redhat and Ubuntu) and Windows (everyday) and I will take the Mac over any of them anytime.
David I will answer your comments in turn.
Ringtones: Just because other service ssell at $2 does not make it right. Don’t you think some people may find it a bit greedy that Apple want to charge you again for a song you already own just to use 30 seconds of it as a ring tone. Also people managed to find a way to make their own ring tones but once again Apple disabled that in the last iTunes update. Just do a Google search a lot of people are upset at this.
Apple Store: Sorry I should have refered to the store as an Apple Reseller. I didnt know that was the case. But if I or any other normal person walks into a store with and Apple logo on the window and Apple products inside. Isn’t fair for us to assume and refer to that as an Apple store.
iPhone Price drop: Your point about a TV dropping in price from $2100 to $1900 that is only a 10% drop and that is acceptable although I may still be a bit annoyed. But come on dropping the price of the iPhone from $599 to $399 that is about 35%. The fact is Apple were making a major killing at $599 an unacceptable margin. The iPhone costs only $220 in partd. See here http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/02/that-599-iphone-costs-220-to-make/ the price only includes components so you must factor in advertising etc.
Apple breaking Video: It is a fact. I know cause I have a video dock that I bought a few months back that I will not be able to use any more with the new iPod classic. Info here http://www.tuaw.com/2007/09/08/tv-out-locked-in-new-ipod-classic-and-nano/
Apple breaking 3rd party apps on iPhone: Yes Apple’s new update of itunes breaks 3rd party apps; that is a fact see here. http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/27/iphone-update-re-locking-handsets-disabling-3rd-party-apps/
NT & USB Keyboard: Your instance with NT4 was hardly MS’s fault they write the software they don’t supply the hardware. Apple have a much easier time supporting hardware and drivers because they know the exact configs that they need to support. MS has to try and support every piece of hardware out there.
I never complained about the performance of Tiger on my machine. It runs just fine, i was saying that I didn’t want to make final judgement because I was only running at 1024 resolution which makes a lot of OSs look bad.
I have tried to give my honest feelings in my blog. If something is good or bad I will comment on it be i Apple or MS.
I will give you no argument about the Apple hardware it is defintely some of the coolest out there that is my main reason for getting an iMac. But the idea of this blog is to determine what will happen in the future. Will I end up using OSX almost 100% of the time, will I use Boootcamp and end up using Vista most of the time or willl I end up using an hybrid depeding on the task at hand.
Now be honest a lot of Mac Users do tend to turn a blind eye to bad things about Apple and basically blindly slate anything MS does (no insult but if your honest you will probably agree that you fall into that catagory). I have proved that I am open to other ideas by the fact that I am going to buy an iMac and give it a fair try. Believe me although you may have heard bad things about Vista it is actually fairly nice. You could say some things are a lot like the Mac but that’s another story.
Also I am not saying Windows doesnt have it’s fault but my blog is detailing my transition to Mac so obviously it is going to details hurdles that a windows user will encounter. We could sit all day trading things that each OS does better than the other. I think each OS has it’s place.
GO buy a PC. Microsoft deserves you!!
Mac User
This is entirely my point and what disappoints me. Why is it someone cannot comment on things positive and negative without someone getting upset. It is only an Operating System for god sake. I just cannot understand why some people get so defensive about a company.
Thank you for such a warm welcome to the Mac Community.
[...] Philip Littlewood, potential switcher writes a blog post about his second thoughts about switching to the Mac. [...]
The following was posted to a Mac site from someone calling him/herself Zune Tang:
Vista backlash? I smell fear from the MAC lemmings as the MAC propaganda machine is running at full steam today. You can play games on Vista and install it on your choice of hardware. Can you say the same for your MACs? Of course not.
Vista is the best thing to happen to Windows enthusiasts since the coronation of the terrific Steve Ballmer as Microsoft CEO—BTW great job on Vista, Steve. Let me put this in words you MAC lemmings might comprehend: I’ve seen the future of MAC OS XII to be released in 2013 and it’s called Microsoft Windows Vista. Apple knows this and they’re scrambling. Expect Leopard to be delayed another couple of years just to match half of Vista’s awesome features and save face. Dorks.
Your potential. Our passion.™
Seems the fanatics are on both sides.
“Another thing I found strange was that you could only resize the windows from one corner; would it be so hard for Apple to make so you could resize from any edge of a window. ”
Because to resize them from any corner would make them all jumpy and silly looking like on a windows machine. Besides, isn’t that what Expose is for?
I posted a bit a rebuttal on my site (see the trackback above).
If you’ve got questions, Philip, feel free. I run the local AASP here in Northern Ireland as well as running the local Mac User Group (and we have a fabulous community around our discussion boards).
I’m obviously a Mac head - but I’ve been exposed to almost every OS on the market and I choose to be a Machead.
73man
That does not happen under Vista. But dont get me wrong Vista is inferior to OSX in other areas. I think these days it’s swings and round-abouts. Each OS as things about it better than the other but each year they get closer as it gets more difficult to think of new features. Also the Mac way of implementing a feature is usaully more complete. Take Time MAchine for instance, Windows Server has had shadow copys for years but Time machine looks way cooler and is far more user friendly. Another thing to remember is that Vista’s equivalent (Previous Versions) is only available on Vista Ultimate so most users do not get that feature. Apple give the feature to everyone.