[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by macintologist:
So Apple should say, The Powerbook is the best laptop in the world.....However there are some reports of whitespots, FYI!

Why should they? Apple isn't selling anybody a Powerbook with white spots. You got white spots, it's replaced or repaired, free of charge.

What's the ****ing problem?

[macintologist]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
Why should they? Apple isn't selling anybody a Powerbook with white spots. You got white spots, it's replaced or repaired, free of charge.

What's the ****ing problem?

Why don't you go here and see the first thing Apple says about the Powerbook:

Everyone's a Winner

This is a lie. What about people who had to send back their brand new powerbooks because of faulty RAM, whitespots and other things? I wouldn't consider them a "winner" per se.

[Toutgood]

Originally posted by macintologist:
Why don't you go here and see the first thing Apple says about the Powerbook:


This is a lie. What about people who had to send back their brand new powerbooks because of faulty RAM, whitespots and other things? I wouldn't consider them a "winner" per se.

I think it's clear that the "Everyone's a Winner" refers to the range of sizes and options, and not that everyone who buys a powerbook will get one without any flaws or defects. As long as Apple owns up to these, and replaces or repairs them quickly and for free I see no problem with that.

Sure the white spots were a bit of a black eye, but Apple acknowledged them and worked to fix the problem.

It's the un-acknowledged problems I have a beef with. The freezes. I'm not even demanding an immediate fix, just a public acknowledgement of this issue, and some kind of assertion that it's being worked on.

[macintologist]

Originally posted by Toutgood:
I think it's clear that the "Everyone's a Winner" refers to the range of sizes and options, and not that everyone who buys a powerbook will get one without any flaws or defects. As long as Apple owns up to these, and replaces or repairs them quickly and for free I see no problem with that.

Sure the white spots were a bit of a black eye, but Apple acknowledged them and worked to fix the problem.

It's the un-acknowledged problems I have a beef with. The freezes. I'm not even demanding an immediate fix, just a public acknowledgement of this issue, and some kind of assertion that it's being worked on.

You're right I agree with you. Apple shouldn't say the Mac never crashes when in fact it does!

[ringo]

If you really mean "Once a Mac user, always a mac user", then Apple has no obligation to be honest with you, because you've given up your right to buy a competitive product. They can lie to you, treat you badly as a customer, offer poor values, or give you bad customer support and it won't impact their botttom line at all because you've given up choice. Apple is first and foremost a business, just as much as Dell or Microsoft. Clever marketing may make you think there's something deeper there, but it doesn't change the core mission of the company: to maximize shareholder value.

[Jan Van Boghout]

Originally posted by ringo:
If you really mean "Once a Mac user, always a mac user", then Apple has no obligation to be honest with you, because you've given up your right to buy a competitive product. They can lie to you, treat you badly as a customer, offer poor values, or give you bad customer support and it won't impact their botttom line at all because you've given up choice. Apple is first and foremost a business, just as much as Dell or Microsoft. Clever marketing may make you think there's something deeper there, but it doesn't change the core mission of the company: to maximize shareholder value.

Hmmm... if a third-party kernel extension causes a kernel panic, is that Apple's fault?

I've only gotten a kernel panic when I installed a kernel extension to remap the eject key on my iBook. I wouldn't call it MacOS X crashing, I would call it the kernel extension crashing.

[Millennium]

Taking your examples from a tech-support problem where one of the most common replies is "I've never seen your problem before" (followed by sincere efforts to help) is not exactly valid rebuttal. Your pool of samples is so unbelievable skewed and twisted that it makes these very rare problems of which you speak appear common.

And of course they would appear common here; as I mentioned before, one of our main roles is as a tech-support forum, and even here most of the problems we see are quite rare.

Bottom line: you've not done a great job of rebutting their advertising. You'll need to find some more valid statistical sampling of Mac users in general before you can hope to do that.

[papfe]

Originally posted by hayesk:
Hmmm... if a third-party kernel extension causes a kernel panic, is that Apple's fault?

If a 3rd party driver (= kernel module) causes a BSOD (= kernel panic), is that Microsoft's fault?

[xi_hyperon]

Holy **** on a popsicle stick. This has got to be one of the dumbest threads I've ever had the misfortune of wasting time reading. Congrats, you've discovered the world of marketing in a highly competitive business environment. Welcome!

[macintologist]

Originally posted by xi_hyperon:
Holy **** on a popsicle stick. This has got to be one of the dumbest threads I've ever had the misfortune of wasting time reading. Congrats, you've discovered the world of marketing in a highly competitive business environment. Welcome!

Give credit where credit is due.

Originally posted by papfe:
If a 3rd party driver (= kernel module) causes a BSOD (= kernel panic), is that Microsoft's fault?

Nobody said it wasn't. But if that kernel module got installed without the users knowledge because Windows doesn't authenticate installations, turning off the firewall, etc., then yes, it is Microsoft's fault.

[olePigeon]

My brother's laptop crashed for the very first time in the year he's owned it... but so did the fan. It overheated.

They're fixing it for free, though.

[gatekeeper]

Originally posted by hayesk:
Nobody said it wasn't. But if that kernel module got installed without the users knowledge because Windows doesn't authenticate installations, turning off the firewall, etc., then yes, it is Microsoft's fault.

Windows 2K/XP doesn't allow you to install drivers without admin access any more than MacOS X does.

[Arty50]

Originally posted by TheBadgerHunter:
Why should Apple be honest when not a single company in the world is?

Just had to fix that up a bit...

Originally posted by gatekeeper:
Windows 2K/XP doesn't allow you to install drivers without admin access any more than MacOS X does.

Mac installers are required to authenticate, even under the admin user to install stuff at the system level. The only thing an admin user can do without authenticating is putting applications in the Applications folder that can't affect the entire system.

In XP, if you are logged in as admin, an installer can install stuff, turn off the firewall, and do anything else without requiring a password. And, most users are logged in as Admin on XP, because it's a pain in the butt not to be. MS effectively demands any experienced user to be logged in as Admin all the time.

In XP, the admin user has all privileges, the equivalent of root.
In MacOS X, the admin user can get all privileges only by authenticating. The admin user is not root however.

[gatekeeper]

Originally posted by hayesk:
MS effectively demands any experienced user to be logged in as Admin all the time.

Experienced Windows users use the Run As feature, just as experienced *nix users use su/sudo.

[macaddict0001]

That's part of the reason win xp is so insecure, anything can be installed without asking the user's permission.

Originally posted by gatekeeper:
Experienced Windows users use the Run As feature, just as experienced *nix users use su/sudo.

Really? Pretty much any experienced XP user I've talked do don't run that feature.

Pretty much every experienced XP user I've talked to runs the latest A-V software, spyware detectors, etc. You would think that they wouldn't need to if software couldn't install itself without their permission.

[gatekeeper]

Originally posted by hayesk:
Pretty much any experienced XP user I've talked do don't run that feature.

Why not? (Run?)

Pretty much every experienced XP user I've talked to runs the latest A-V software, spyware detectors, etc. You would think that they wouldn't need to if software couldn't install itself without their permission.

Huh? That doesn't make any sense.

On my Windows computer I need to change to Admin or use Run As to install stuff. How is that supposed to stop viruses or spyware that could be included with the stuff I want to install?

Originally posted by gatekeeper:
Why not? (Run?)

Run as Admin - most users are logged in as Admin.

Huh? That doesn't make any sense.

On my Windows computer I need to change to Admin or use Run As to install stuff. How is that supposed to stop viruses or spyware that could be included with the stuff I want to install?

We're going in circles - bear with me here and I'll explain it again:

Let's say I download an app from the Internet. And I don't know what it is:
In MacOS X: I run the app. It can't do anything to the system outside of my own directory (which I have backed up) - even if I am logged in as an Admin user. If it asks for authentication, I step back and think "hey - why is it asking for authentication?" Then I check it out to see if others have had problems installing, is the source reputable, etc. Apps cannot make system changes without explicit permission, even when logged in from Admin.

On Windows: most users are logged in as Admin, it has free reign to do whatever it damn well pleases. Everyone I have talked to run as Admin, either they don't know about "Run As..." or they found it to be a pain in the butt. That's a problem. If the bulk of your users are finding basic security to be a pain in the butt, then you should rethink your security methods. Microsoft has not done this. Apple has.

Even for those that are as "enlightened" as you and run as non-admin users, generally find apps need to have admin access to even install them, even though they actually don't (why would you for simple executable apps). This creates a habit of blindly running apps as admin whenever you install apps - hence the need to check for viruses, spyware, etc.

MS should do a few of things to improve the situation:
- allow Admin users file access common areas like Program Files, but not to system areas, to install simple apps
- require authentication to change system settings or install drivers and other system level extensions
- encourage app developers to not require authentication if they don't need it

There are more, but that's a good start.