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kman42 · Apr 27, 2002, 09:58 AM

Software being released slowly or not at all, poor driver support?Now that PS and Office are out, who is the worst offender?

It has to be Real in my book, but they suck in general.

I'd like to see EndNote, but I can't bag on the company because they are small and have traditionally had wonderful Mac support. Besides, they did have to wait for Office before porting. Nevertheless, I'd love to see EndNote released.

kman

Mithras · Apr 27, 2002, 10:04 AM

Quark, of course.

On the other hand, it may be unfair that the winner of the overall "Worst Company" award should also get to pick up the "Worst OS X Support" award...

[ 04-27-2002: Message edited by: Mithras ]

Sharky K. · Apr 27, 2002, 10:08 AM

do not forget the scanner!!

and the most crappy driver award goes to... Wacom...

I have new USB wacom tablets but all do not work properly on all of my computers.

[ 04-27-2002: Message edited by: Sharky K. ]

kman42 · Apr 27, 2002, 10:10 AM

Originally posted by Sharky K.:
do not forget the scanner!!

Is that a vote for Epson?

Sharky K. · Apr 27, 2002, 10:12 AM

Originally posted by kman42:


Is that a vote for Epson?

I think all.

ls -al · Apr 27, 2002, 10:13 AM

Originally posted by kman42:


I'd like to see EndNote, but I can't bag on the company because they are small and have traditionally had wonderful Mac support. Besides, they did have to wait for Office before porting. Nevertheless, I'd love to see EndNote released.

kman

Endnote is in beta you can sign up for the beta if you want. Looks good so far.

The worst company is definitely Quark! Hell with 'em.

kman42 · Apr 27, 2002, 10:14 AM

Originally posted by ls -al:


Endnote is in beta you can sign up for the beta if you want. Looks good so far.

Ooohhh, thanks.

kman

George Lampman · Apr 27, 2002, 10:24 AM

I'd go with Wacom due to their slimey non support of serial and adb tablets in OS X. They say Apple doesn't support adb or serial so they have no way of making a driver.. Hmmm, my old keyboard and mouse work on my beige g3 in OS X and look, I can see my printer port and modem port in my Network system prefs... How can that be if this stuff isn't supported?

This boils down to these f'-ers havin a monopoly on this product and they want us all to go out and buy new usb tablets.

Does anyone know how to program some drivers? There seem to be thousands of older tablet users who I'm sure would be willing to kick in for a shareware set of drivers!

kman42 · Apr 27, 2002, 10:30 AM

Originally posted by ls -al:


Endnote is in beta you can sign up for the beta if you want. Looks good so far.

The worst company is definitely Quark! Hell with 'em.

I signed up, but was then just sent back to the 'About Endnote and Office v. X' page. Should I be able to download the beta or are they going to email me or something?

kman

Mr Scruff · Apr 27, 2002, 11:11 AM

Definitely Quark. I mean, what do they do with all the money they make from Xpress? They certainly don't seem to spend it on development.

Anyway, Adobe are showing them up in a major way nowadays with Indesign.

Fink-Nottle · Apr 27, 2002, 11:19 AM

I have to vote for Real as well. Quark is definitely terrible but they are on semi solid ground when they say a majority of their customer are still using OS 9.x. Not so for Real... they're just slower than a tax return. Speaking of which, Intuit deserves an dishonorable mention for their tax software which is OS 9.x only... and for absolutely terrible support if you ask them any questions about it... and for not responding at all when you complain.

In general, although this is a very negative thread, I'm happy with the general level of OS X support. My fear a year ago was that the major apps would come slowly or not at all. Now that Photoshop is here we have pretty much everything or if we don't, we have an alternative from a hungry competitor.[/LIST]

methuen · Apr 27, 2002, 11:40 AM

I vote for UMAX!!! It's been about a year since they said they would make my scanner work. I'm not sure it ever will.... (Astra 2100U)

Mithras · Apr 27, 2002, 12:01 PM

Originally posted by Fink-Nottle:
Quark is definitely terrible but they are on semi solid ground when they say a majority of their customer are still using OS 9.x.

Of course Quark's customers are still using 9: they're waiting for f***'n Quark!

Real, I agree has been *way* too slow, but they have a plausible defense that Macs in general are a pretty small slice of their pie. Quark, on the other hand, has a huge Mac customer base.

uochris · Apr 27, 2002, 12:10 PM

Epson and Real. Epson still doesn't support their scanners for some of thier most popular printers. I can't believe they are dragging their feet so much. It's been a year and still no real player for X.

kovacs · Apr 27, 2002, 12:43 PM

My top 3:

1. Real
2. Epson
3. Macromedia

I have no problems with the wacom drivers for my graphire 2...

Kenny · Apr 27, 2002, 12:53 PM

Originally posted by kovacs:
My top 3:

1. Real
2. Epson
3. Macromedia

What about QPS, from their web page :

"QPS Que! USB CD-RW with Mac OS X
Updated drivers will be reposted shortly. Please check this page again later."

They've been saying that for two month !!!

The hell with Quark, go with InDesign it's better anyway (i know both program having work in Quark for 8 years and InDesign 2 years)

Macromedia as never care that much about the Mac so no surprise there although Flash is actually usable, that's a first !

[ 04-27-2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]

BTP · Apr 27, 2002, 01:46 PM

Since others have voted for companies I would have chosen, I am left with HP, for the crappy drivers for my G85. Maybe I should be happy I have them at all. They are buggy and print s-l-o-w.

Ozmodiar · Apr 27, 2002, 01:48 PM

Corel

Photopaint 10 is the worst OS X app I have ever used. It looks like poo, takes up ALL system resources, and is the slowest piece of crap I have used on OS X.

I can't believe I wasted $250 on this piece of sh<bleep>.

kman42 · Apr 27, 2002, 01:58 PM

Originally posted by kman42:


I signed up, but was then just sent back to the 'About Endnote and Office v. X' page. Should I be able to download the beta or are they going to email me or something?

kman

Nevermind, I answered my own question. I just missed the part where they said I would be contacted if chosed to participate.
kman

SirCastor · Apr 27, 2002, 02:34 PM

I think a couple dozen people on the Board will give a curt nod to QPS on their way to the store to buy a new CD Burner. I didn't own one, but my sister does, and it was frustrating to not be able to use it in X..

b*tchy · Apr 27, 2002, 02:42 PM

For me it's FORMAC without a doubt.

I bought an expensive SGI display based on formacs promise that they would be releasing an OS X driver for their proformance 3 card (which you need for this display). Needless to say the driver never came (and according to what they say now, will never come), and running OS X with this card-monitor is an exercise in misery. This is especially ironic as the OS 9 driver is excellent.

Norm1985 · Apr 27, 2002, 02:51 PM

Real, most defintly.

OwlBoy · Apr 27, 2002, 03:09 PM

umax and Real are my 2 picks off hand.

I mean I wish Myth could be carbonized but I know it wont happer

.

-Owl

[ 04-27-2002: Message edited by: OwlBoy ]

juanvaldes · Apr 27, 2002, 05:07 PM

Originally posted by Ozmodiar:
Corel

Photopaint 10 is the worst OS X app I have ever used. It looks like poo, takes up ALL system resources, and is the slowest piece of crap I have used on OS X.

I can't believe I wasted $250 on this piece of sh<bleep>.

Adobe for Illustrator X

Overall Real.

Worst carbon porter apple

mattcunnane · Apr 27, 2002, 07:27 PM

Real.

They should probably win the award for classic MacOS too

aladdinsane · Apr 27, 2002, 09:17 PM

Originally posted by kovacs:
My top 3:

1. Real
2. Epson
3. Macromedia

I have no problems with the wacom drivers for my graphire 2...

This would be my list as well and in the same order.

Real:
Luckily I don't give a damn about Real anymore (my European radio station switched over to Windows Media Player). I would not spill a tear if Real would go under soon. Their marketing strategy has always sucked and their products as well since the very early versions (audio only) of Real Player.
I think I hate everything about this company and maybe OS X is better of without their products

Epson:
I have Epson printer and Epson scanner. It is old story and new that Epson makes its money of the ink but not the printers. Well I have not used much ink the past year - thanks to their poor support. No words needed to describe their scanner support. I put Epson on my list mainly for their attitude. As many threads some months back stated, Epson's support for "old" printers (one year+ old) was simply - buy a new one. My crime was I went for the more expensive 750 Photo printer instead of the popular 740.

I just don't get Epson here. Instead of deciding to support only some/a few printers, they could have set up a team of 5 that would produce one or two drivers a week and the OS X community would have loved them. How hard is it to port a printer driver, they have the specs, they have the code for Windows and OS 9 drivers, and except for the first drivers they have the knowledge about how to write OS X drivers.

Again, their scanner support is so unbelievable sad that I am not going to say anything more about it.

Macromedia:
Well, here is a company that I am not 100% sure if it deserves to be on my list. They have shown some initiative and have products out for OS X and others in beta. But the reason they still make my list is that I still use two applications in OS 9 and they are both made by Macromedia: Dreamweaver and Fontographer. I know Dreamweaver for OS X is on its way but it has been a while. I don't know what Macromedia's plans on Fontographer are but they should do something. Fontographer is so ancient that it does not really run in Classic mode. Macromedia has realized that the Floating point version of Fontographer does not run in Classic mode and the solution is to use Non-floating point version. Well, that version at least does not crash when started but it still has too many problems and in my opinion is unusable in Classic.

They have not improved Fontographer for 5 years or more now (Unicode support is poor). So I am not holding my breath for Fontographer for OS X. I still hope some companies (FontLab maybe) out there will release a product for OS X that will replace my Fontographer.

itai195 · Apr 27, 2002, 09:24 PM

If you'd asked three months ago I'd have said Palm in a heartbeat. And frankly, there's still plenty of Palm 3rd party software developers that are in the dog house (avantgo??? hello? anybody home? I haven't even seen a mention of OS X on their site)... I mean, all these people need to do is rewrite a little conduit app, it's not that difficult.

The obvious vote is for Real. Of course, there's some debate as to whether Real deserves consideration as a real software company... A major office suite, several professional graphics programs, and a highly featured PC emulator were all ported to OS X before RealPlayer? It almost sounds too ludicrous to be true. Unfortunately their crappy format has taken over enough of the internet to force me to have to use their products.

How about Macromedia? They seem to be one of the worst companies in general lately - not sure they've really released anything major in the last year - and no news regarding Dreamweaver for OS X for a while (in beta yet?).

As far as drivers go. Can't say I've had any trouble with my QPS CDRW, is it only the USB drives that don't work? I did buy a Lexar USB Memory Stick reader last JUNE and their web site has said drivers for OS X are coming soon ever since. It's a freaking memory stick reader people, come on now.

[ 04-27-2002: Message edited by: itai195 ]

gunnar · Apr 27, 2002, 10:24 PM

Epson and Umax. I started petitions which are doing well:
http://www.petitiononline.com/umaxosx/ http://www.petitiononline.com/epsonosx/

I can get by using Classic applications but if my hardware doesn't work I simply have to boot back into 9, there's no compromise.

Detrius · Apr 27, 2002, 10:52 PM

My vote is on Creative Labs. They released their very first Macintosh product the month before OS X came out. At the time, this appeared to be a very good sign, because with this product, we could get digital surround sound out of our Macs!!! But, there is next to no work at all going on in Creative Labs to get OS X drivers out.

I think it was an intentional attempt to make the Macintosh look bad: another company fails to get a killer PC product to sell on the Macintosh. The PC must be better. etc... etc... etc...

I can't believe I spent money on that thing. I got about a month's worth of use out of it before I switched to OS X permanently. I figured the drivers would be out soon... I'm still waiting. I still have no audio input on my G4 (digital audio).

Do you think they will give me a refund after a year of no service?

Sharky K. · Apr 28, 2002, 01:08 AM

Originally posted by kovacs:
My top 3:

1. Real
2. Epson
3. Macromedia

I have no problems with the wacom drivers for my graphire 2...

dit you tried this?:
http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/ulti...&f=46&t=005334

- Do you use Adobe Golive?
- Do you notice any "deselections"?

All the bugs I had with MacOS X were because of Wacom, now I use a mouse everything is cool. (not only my computer but on all computers I know with different wacom tablets + OS X)

[ 04-28-2002: Message edited by: Sharky K. ]

kovacs · Apr 28, 2002, 05:08 AM

dit you tried this?: http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/ulti...&f=46&t=005334

- Do you use Adobe Golive?
- Do you notice any "deselections"?

All the bugs I had with MacOS X were because of Wacom, now I use a mouse everything is cool. (not only my computer but on all computers I know with different wacom tablets + OS X)

[ 04-28-2002: Message edited by: Sharky K. ]

I never had those problems, I don't use Golive and I never use the pen. However if I was going to make a Top 5 list, Wacom would win fifth place for not supporting ADB and serial tablets.

[ 04-28-2002: Message edited by: kovacs ]

eno · Apr 28, 2002, 08:27 AM

Let's go with:

Adobe: FrameMaker 7 just released and it's classic only... and they made us wait nice and long for Photoshop

Macromedia: Where are DW and FW?

Microsoft: Nothing new here. Sure we have Office and IE, but how often are they updated? And how bloated, slow and buggy are they? Same old same old, it would seem. And their media player is crap -- can only play 5% of the different filetypes that the Windows Media Player can handle.

ISI: EndNote, as noted above. Furthermore, they add very few features in each update, yet they still gouge a full update price.

Apple: Mac OS X is too slow and buggy. It needs to be updated more frequently, have more features, more speed and less bugs.

omac · Apr 28, 2002, 11:10 AM

.. the biggest bunch of halwits are the team responsible for the x finder..

sack them all..

waste of $ and space..

booboo · Apr 28, 2002, 11:16 AM

1: Alcatel
2: Creative Labs (although I don't own a SBLive, I feel for those who do...)
3: Quark

edit: I changed my mind - I had put Real in 3 rd place, but then realised (sorry) that RealPlayer will be with us soon, and, as we all know, XPress won't....

[ 04-28-2002: Message edited by: booboo ]

[ 04-28-2002: Message edited by: booboo ]

m2bored · Apr 28, 2002, 11:19 AM

My vote goes for MOTU...

I would love some drivers for my MOTU 828 , or an OS X version of Digital performer...

Maybe when 10.2 comes out

M2

P.S. Post 150!!!! woohooo

booboo · Apr 28, 2002, 11:22 AM

Originally posted by m2bored:
My vote goes for MOTU...

I would love some drivers for my MOTU 828 , or an OS X version of Digital performer...

Maybe when 10.2 comes out

In defence of MOTU...

The lack of pro audio/midi app's is frustrating - none of the big boys have ported yet: Steinberg, MOTO, Emagic, Digidesign - but I really think there are issues with OS X that are holding them back...

Superchicken · Apr 28, 2002, 04:57 PM

Hey don't get all down on Macromedia.
They released like THE FIRST graphics app for OS X.
And they're porting with every new release.

Flash MX looks good from what I've seen. And I havn't heard anyone complain about FreeHand unlike ilistrator.

And like I said, they're porting at every upgrade. I'm running Fireworks three and can't WAIT for five, cause then I can pretty much just buy dreamweaver fireworks stupid, and upgrade my iMac and work in OS X... or so my pipe dream goes.
haha.

But yeah they also havn't upgraded for the PC either.
Microsoft on the other hand already has IE 6, and we're still with 5.1.

MacGorilla · Apr 28, 2002, 05:34 PM

Real

AOL..if you aren into AOL you know we've been stuck on 5.0 for that seems like 10 years while PC users get 7.0

Quark

UMAX

yukon · Apr 28, 2002, 05:47 PM

creative. lots of companies...

namannik · Apr 28, 2002, 10:11 PM

Canon! It has to be Canon! Still no OS X drivers for my USB scanner, just because it "works with Classic".

toro694 · Apr 28, 2002, 10:19 PM

I say Lexmark. I have nothing but problems when I print.

OddManOut · Apr 28, 2002, 10:27 PM

Real Networks

Phanguye · Apr 28, 2002, 10:30 PM

AOL... more like AO-HELL

yea

parkds · Apr 28, 2002, 11:03 PM

My vote would have to be with SONY.
About 1.5 years ago I bought the new, excelent, and relatively inexpensive UP-DP 10 Dye-Sub photo printer. It had an excelent OS9 printer driver too. But since Sony does not believe in supporting old products and they change their product line about every 48 days, they dropped driver support for my pretty new UP-DP 10. No OS X drivers will ever come from Sony. (at least I feel better that they aren't making any XP drivers for it either).
Doug

digimage · Apr 29, 2002, 12:54 AM

Originally posted by Phanguye:
AOL... more like AO-HELL

yea

Not for long, sir. Code name: T-Bird Rocks my nuts. And it rocked Steve when he saw it, too.

July.

That is all.

digimage · Apr 29, 2002, 12:59 AM

Originally posted by MacGorilla:
Real

AOL..if you aren into AOL you know we've been stuck on 5.0 for that seems like 10 years while PC users get 7.0

Quark

UMAX

Wait until July. :-) I've seen it, and so has steve and it Effin rocks.
Hooks up with iTunes, no more real on the music channel for macs, we are going QT streaming. Absolutely bad *** .

Scrod · Apr 29, 2002, 01:03 AM

I'd have to say Compaq. They don't make stuff that runs on any Mac!

pathogen · Apr 29, 2002, 01:29 AM

Intel.

Honestly.

They bought Entrega a couple years ago, and now have barely any driver support for all of Entrega's old stuff.

I bought a USB-SCSI adapter in Dec. 1999, and it only works while booted <9.2.2, not in classic. Is Intel gonna make an OS X driver for this? Can you spell "no"?

n.o.

grrrr!!!!

Ozmodiar · Apr 29, 2002, 01:49 AM

I don't get it. Real is going to surprise us in July, or AOL is going to surprise us in July?

itai195 · Apr 29, 2002, 02:25 AM

Originally posted by Ozmodiar:
I don't get it. Real is going to surprise us in July, or AOL is going to surprise us in July?

If it's Real, I'm not sure it qualifies as a surprise since we've been waiting over a year now...

Damn that Macromedia for announcing Dreamweaver MX, now I can't complain about them anymore.