I cannot say for sure that I totally agree with all the points raised in the article, but some of the responses seem to reinforce what the OP is getting at. “Wah, I am too old to figure it out”, “a simple search would give you an answer”, etc. I think, while relatively minor inconveniences, it still seem to point toward the fact that Apple products are not quite as intuitive as perhaps they once were.
That being said, an argument could be made that this is the fault of quickly advancing technologies more than being just Apple’s fault.
Seems to me that Apple’s identified most of their user base as people who appreciate thin, lightweight, durable laptops that turn on instantly – thus the move to the Air design instead of the much heavier MacBook with its many ports and easily user-swappable memory. So it might be shitty for your specific use, but definitely not for the folks they’re designing it for.
From the article this is someone who was brought up under communism and thought capitalism would always be better. I knew one of these - an East German engineer who came to the West. He eventually went back to the East because he felt that back there there was a stronger sense of community.
It’s a great mistake to tie your sense of worth or self to brand names (unless you founded the company, and even then one day you won’t be relevant to it any more.)
If a product sells on the idea that it is simpler to use than the competition and just works, it may be a legitimate complaint.
This is like programmers blaming users. It’s the opinion of someone who is obviously educated. You can object as much as you like but that’s her perception and needs to be at least considered. If a lot of people think like that there’s a market, e.g. Chromebooks.
Given the amount of glue in the new designs they ought to be waterproof.
I thnk the problem with Apple is that they have created so much hype around themselves with PR and marketing that they are setting themselves up to disappoint people whose experience hasn’t been conditioned by reality. If we buy somebody else’s electronic product we are pleasantly surprised if it doesn’t suck.
Fortunately for Apple many if not most buyers never actually stretch their equipment, so they never get into the “hey, this is quite hard to do!” region. Or if they do, they think they must be doing something wrong and it would be embarrassing to ask for fear of looking stupid. It’s like buying a Rolls-Royce back in the day when it was still British; I knew someone who bought this expensive POS and it took him over a year to admit that is what it was, and that as a means of travel around London it wasn’t as good as his wife’s Honda Civic. (I am not suggesting that Apple products aren’t very good, just that they cannot be as good as some people imagine they must be.)
You ABSOLUTELY CAN revert an OS update. Just restore your last backup - because your partner kept backups right? This is for reversing a whole os update, but works exactly the same for any minor update or file deletion accident: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH18846?locale=en_US
With time machine there is absolutely no reason anyone shouldn’t be running regular backups of their mac. Plug in an external usb drive and let it do it’s thing. It’s dead simple and the $100-ish bucks for the drive is not much to ask.
My beef with Apple is that virtually everything I do in day to day computing (except web browsing) is different, in that almost everything I do requires extra clicks. Open a pdf, not possible to set default to having thumbnails open and no choice of which side. Calendar events require an extra click to enter time, printing a range of pages requires an extra two clicks. And while I’ll admit I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, I don’t think I’m a total noob either, and I’ve found setting finder views to be occasionally baffling in their inconsistency and lack of obvious settings in preferences.
One could view these things as an old man’s “wah, change!” but when the change consistently makes things more difficult instead of less, I think that’s legit.
I think it peaked at 10.6.9, and upgrades to Mavericks and now El Capitan have done nothing but remove useful things and add extra steps to too many actions. Not sure how much longer I want to put up with this, but at the same time the time cost of learning a whole new system’s way of doing things is also a big time waste. Ugh.
OS9 really was very good though. I ran it parallel to OSX as long as possible.
Don´t really get though what is supposedly so bad about the newest OS update. All the software I use works just as well as before and not that much has changed. Okay, Final Cut was a disaster, but I don´t use it.
The original author specifically took exception to the minimal way that Apple does it, so I assume she can’t possibly accept Google’s terms of service.
Yes!
It’s totally reasonable to throw out your perfectly good hardware every year or 2!
Yes!
It’s totally reasonable to pay $500 every year or two to corporate overlords!
Yes!
It’s totally reasonable that Apple’s pay-to-play model breaks the web!
Yes!
It’s totally reasonable that the pinnacle of computing research and development has resulted in a computer with a shorter lifespan than its predecessors!
The history of Apple doesn’t really bear out the hypothesis - that Apple has a tendency of favoring new hardware over backwards compatibility of the OSes. In my experience, a newly-introduced Mac has about 8-10 years of upgrade path, since the release of OSX. Apple bent over backwards to maintain OS 8/9 application support in OSX until way after it could have been dropped. You could easily run OS 8 software from 1997 on OS 10.4 released in 2005.
Hell, your 2007 MBP runs El Capitan! You are able to run the current OS and all its software on 9 year old hardware that has been out of Applecare for 6 years. What more are you asking for?
Apple’s strength has always been the OS. I’ve used Apple computers since the 1990s because of the OS. It is eminently stable, well organized, and contrary to Jasmin’s non-sensical complaint, very customizable (including system font sizes!).
There’s an iPhone 4 in my kid’s room that’s been relegated to playing lullabies because it isn’t good for much else than being used as a phone. Forget the screen resolution and other odds and ends, if anything you are comparing a 1.84 Ghz dual-core processor to a 1Ghz single core that is a few generations behind, and couple that with 2 gigs of memory vs. half a gig. Even if you could put iOS 8+ on it I’m not sure you’d even want to. I’ve been on both sides of that hardware gap with Android, more is better.
I didn’t say it was. As a matter of fact, I gave examples of Apple hardware lasting 8-9 years. I specifically said that a six-year-old iPhone 4 is probably getting long in the tooth, and would cost about $99 to replace at most with a newer 5.
I didn’t say that, and it’s not. What are you talking about?
It doesn’t. Again, what are you talking about?[quote=“ambiguator, post:49, topic:73409”]
It’s totally reasonable that the pinnacle of computing research and development has resulted in a computer with a shorter lifespan than its predecessors!
[/quote]
I’m using a 9-year-old Mac Pro in my daily professional life. Again, what are you talking about?
Not that I have found, and that is the basis of the agreement I have with the post. I really get what she meant (while also finding the hyperbole distracting). Changing the resolution will increase the system font display size, and that is all I’ve found to achieve that goal in a way that I find visually satisfying.
Her nuance and yours may well be lost on those who can’t wait to label a person as ‘naive’ or ‘stupid’ rather than EVER wonder if they missed the point themselves before calling names. Nothing quite like free ice cream NOT being spoon fed to someone to set them off on an insulting rant, eh?
My refurb ThinkPad T61 is starting to show its age (the backlight is starting to go bad, and Core 2 Duo/4 GB is starting to show its obsolescence), but Lenovo’s recent shenanigans have really turned me off from any future ThinkPads.
While I’ve never tested it, the T61 has one really nice design feature: drains in the keyboard to deal with spilled liquids.
If I replace the T61, there are things that are vital:
Must run any and all Linux distros well, without UEFI-related installation nightmares. Windows 10 is not for me.
Must have a keyboard that’s designed for typing, not to be a fashion statement. No chiclet keys, please.
Must be reasonably easy to open for servicing, upgraded RAM/HD/SSD, etc.
Sturdy construction. If I’m spending $bigbucks it better last.
Quad-core CPU and equipped with or upgradeable to at least 16 GB RAM.
Keyboard-mounted pointing stick (I hate touchpads, but I could use my USB trackball if I had to).
Matte-finish screen (once again, I’m not interested in fashion statements).
No sealed-box BS. Batteries should be replaceable, not sealed in.
Sadly, the likelihood of finding all this in a package I can afford is slim to none. I think I’d be better served by getting an LED backlight kit for the T61, and getting something like an Intel NUC for higher-performance semi-portable use.
Jobs let some shit get released in his day, however if a product came across his desk he became infatuated with the details. As noted above, Ive doesn’t seem to have the wherewithal to deal with software and shouldn’t have been put into this role. He knows industrial hardware design and he is at the top of the game with it. Software? Geez…some of the stuff that has come out makes old Google and Microsoft look good.
My 8 apples have each lasted 5 years. No problem. Some longer.
Yes!It’s totally reasonable to pay $500 every year or two to corporate overlords!
I have never paid Apple a dime other than for hardware.
Yes!It’s totally reasonable that Apple’s pay-to-play model breaks the web!
I have no idea what you mean, but I don’t pay apple to play anything.
Yes!It’s totally reasonable that the pinnacle of computing research and development has resulted in a computer with a shorter lifespan than its predecessors!
Again, my Quadra 605 ran for nearly 15 years and needed one battery, This mac mini is from '09. And my IIgs, last time I checked, still played Bards Tale III just fine.
I think it is time to put your strawmen where they belong. TO PASTURE.
And I hope you notice my original comment is that I am migrating away from apple.
But not for ANY of the reasons you cite, so… honestly.
See my reply to another comment, but your 1st, 2nd, and 4th Yes!es just aren’t the case. I’m not a sycophant, there are major problems with Apple, especially the “ecosystem” model. Besides Apple made applications, I’ve never used the App Store on my Mac. Apple has made serious missteps in that area.
Apple has a long history of some quite old hardware being update-able to current OSes.
And do you understand the difference in how a desktop OS uses resources versus a mobile one? I’ve used phones with 512mb of ram…they are slow on any modern OS update. An iPhone 4 running iOS 5 is alright, but then you are limited to iOS 5 apps and the like. Remember when Safari only could open like 6 tabs or pages? It’s just as much a hardware things as an Apple thing.
