Apple lays an Egg

General General Discussion
1

I don’t know if others have had the same problem, but if you all are thinking about making the transition to Apple or get one of the new Iphones, I’d seriously consider something else.

Let me say that I’ve been an Apple customer for about 15 years. I’ve owned several macs and laptops, not to mention Ipods and the like. I was also a “charter” subscriber to their .mac service. One of the appeals of Apple has been their customer service and relentlessly reliable and functional products. Over the last three years however they’ve done everything they can to undo that business model.

Last week, they forced a transition of their .mac service to the new “mobileme” service. I must say that initially I was excited about the ability to have all my data in one place that is instantly synched between multiple devices. Too bad it doesn’t work.

Not only is the service itself unusable, but the old .mac service has been totally eliminated. Even worse if you access such email at work through webmail, you better hope your Sys Admins have installed IE 7.0. If you have 6.0 you’re completely boned and there is no work around.

Quite simply an HTML based webmail is idiotically simple to execute, that they don’t have this option is a big middle finger to its loyal customers, especially when the replacement system doesn’t work at all. Not only that, but I was informed by Apple that they WILL NOT make their services compatible with 6.0 or introduce an HTML based webmail.

I’m one of millions that have cancelled their .mac account in protest which was not easy to do as I couldn’t wait to get a new Iphone when my current contract expired.

In short Apple has gone over to TOS and become the new apprentice to the Sith Lord Microsoft.

2

Being a non-Apple guy (I own an iPod but don’t even know where it is or what’s on it) I have no idea what you just said!
:smiley:

3

Ignorance is bliss my friend. :wink:

4

He said Apple sucks.

5

Every time I look at that damn iPod, when I find it, all I can think is “there sits a perfectly good case of ammo I should have bought”.

Oh well, the GF’s just went TU yesterday, so I suspect I better dig mine out as it’s likely to not be mine much longer.

6

Yikes. Are they going to try and sell them brightly-colored translucent AR parts?

7

Honestly…THAT would be an improvement.

8

John,

how is the Mac OS doing since last release? Still stable and such? One of the biggest blunders I think apple made was to have the OS tied to only their products.

I hate M$, and especially Vista, but if I could I would have a Mac OS running instead of XP.

9

The new Mac OS works well (except with mobileme), but not quite as well as their previous ones. I’ve not had any problems, but there are grumblings on the web and I think they’re releasing these things just a wee bit too early. Looks pretty though.

OS has really been the highlight of their work. Too bad they don’t have those programmers working on mobileme.

I understand the hatred of MS, I’ve been there. I don’t even waste time with Vista and generally I tend to stay a step behind each release of MS operating systems.

10

For some strange reason i own two apple products and i guess you could call me a closet apple user or something.

Quite frankly, i hate the typical apple lover, the guy that thinks hes somehow different or unique because he owns an apple. Its almost like there’s some sort of elitist badge of courage to be gained by owning apple products.

I bought an apple computer because A, i got a great deal on it and B, i planned on using it for editing and sharing screens with my business partner. Its a good little laptop but cripes man, its a freakin COMPUTER.

I cant stand brand loyalist diehards, it drives me nuts. There is no substantial evidence that an apple is better than a PC, its merely an opinion based argument that will probably go on until the end of time.

I like this board because of the fact that the brand name fanboys can BACK THEIR SHIZ UP with HARD factual evidence as to why brand X gun is better than brand Y.

I also owned a first generation iphone which i traded for a 3g model on opening day. Yes, i stood in line at the urgings of my best friend in order to pick up a new phone i really didnt need but i wanted simply because in my business, having my email come to me 30 seconds faster is a godsend. While standing in line im fairly certain i was having suicidal thoughts. I have never had such feelings of self loathing at any other time in my life. I felt like a sellout, a fanboy an instant gratification little bitch and a contributor to the downfall of society.

Long story short, the lesson that i learned is who cares about the brand name, buy whats BEST based on FACTS and what will WORK for you based upon your needs. In my particular situation the iphone is best for me and so was the mac laptop i bought. That doesnt mean its the BEST out of all of the laptops on the market. Again, no factual evidence to support it being the best.

If a PC does what you need it to then get that. If the apple has what you want then buy that.

Ive got to say though, i do agree with the OP. It seems as though once a product begins to gain popularity the reasons why the niche users loved the product in the first place seem to disappear.

11

I honestly think Apple could sink M$ if they released a non-proprietary OS.

And thanks for the info, now to go back and hope for general release.

12

Have you considered Linux or something similar?

I don’t use it, but you might find some value if your tech saavy.

13

I’m not an Apple fan per se, nor am I a typical Apple user but I did cave in and get an iPod Touch. It is a fantastic piece of kit. I’m in information technology and to be able to have a fully functional web browser small and thin enough to drop in a shirt or cargo pocket while still being large enough to be usable is a godsend. The fact that it plays music is secondary (or even tertiary, really) for me. With the new enterprise friendly firmware that came out last week I can even get my mail from our Exchange server now. It’s nearly perfect.

A good friend of mine is a professional photographer and almost exclusively an Apple user. He’s been furious over this MobileMe BS too. In fact he just called me yesterday to ask about Linux possibilities. I understand they gave everyone a free month to help make up for the mucked up rollout, but what’s that, 9 bucks?

14

Not even…bout $8.

Seriously as an IT guy…how hard is it to make an HTML based webmail as a workaround until things get up to snuff?

15

I have set up Linux before, but I do love playing some games and WINE really doesnt cut it for game playing.

16

I hear you which is why I don’t use it.

About the only thing I use my PC for is games.

Everything else is apple.

17

Not hard at all. If their mail servers support the SMTP standard, which I don’t see any reason they wouldn’t, it should be no problem. There is even software called SquirrelMail that you can just configure for your mail server and give everyone the web interface site. Most ISP’s offer it for their customers who are away from a real mail client.

That’s really poor that they don’t support IE6. I know Apple has always been one to “lead the charge” like when they dropped floppy drives before everyone else. However, IE6 is still very much a corporate standard. IE7 just breaks too many in-house apps in many companies to be worth the hassle of rolling out.

18

i bought my girl a Macbook. she was strarting a new job at the beginning of the year and that office all runs Macs. It’s been back to tech service several times and they people there say it’s the Leopard/Jaguar system. it wasn’t worth the money to me.

19

I’ve been an apple user since they came out. And I completly agree with you about them lately. My iphone is a big giant POS! in fact I am going to apple tomorrow to get this resolved. At least my laptop has run flawlessly for about 4 years now.

20

I gave my wife my old Powerbook G4 when I updated to a MacBook Pro.

It’s 5 years old now and going strong.

Like I said, it’s only been the last 2-3 years where they’ve gone downhill, but this is somewhat reminiscent of the AR manufacturing dilemma.