Posts tagged mac

Apple blunders of 2008

Apple fails in 2008In the spirit of my dislike of Apple and everything they stand for, I have decided to compile a list of Apple’s greatest blunders of 2008.

Even though apple enthusiasts want to believe Apple can do no harm, it is not always the case. I know, all the mac users out there are screaming, BLASPHEMY! Apple did mange to make it on Fortune’s 21 Dumbest Moments in Business this year. While a tiny bit embarrassing, it’s nothing that Apple hasn’t been able to brush off and continue to provide us with ipods and iphones in our pockets. Oh iPhone, how magically we love thee.

The first dumb moment is the “I Am Rich” app. This little glowing red gem of joy cost costumers $1000. It scammed about 8 people out of their cash. Unfortunately, we here at Mac|Life pooled our money together and got the app for our mascot Salty. He hasn’t been the same since. Apple quickly pulled the app without the masses getting a chance to experience buyers remorse.

Apple’s next epic FAIL had to do with the untimely passing of CEO and Apple World Leader, Steve Jobs… Oh that’s right, he didn’t.  There was the faux obituary posted on Bloomberg’s website, and then some snot-nosed kid decided to publish a story about Steve having a heart attack on CNN’s iReport. And like the media we have grown to love and respect, they didn’t check any sources before posting it. That’s right, CNN went hog wild with this and posted it without confirming the information.

Here are some other blunders Apple made is 2008.

iPhone 3G launch
Apple’s blunders revolve around the launch of Apple’s iPhone 3G. Though it has been wildly successful, surpassing even Apple’s own ambitious sales goals for 2008, the launch in July had serious issues, namely problems with iPhone activation. Since that iPhone 3G is subsidized by most carriers, a contract is required at the time of purchase. This eliminated the straightforward online activation process used with the original iPhone, leading to extremely long lines for weeks after the July 11 launch. To make matters worse, the servers responsible for activations went down early on July 11, and took a couple days to be resolved.

MobileMe launch

In addition to activation woes at launch, Apple’s MobileMe service, the revamped .Mac service which works intimately with the iPhone, suffered service outages, slow access, and syncing problems. Though not everyone was affected (I count myself as one of the lucky ones), Apple eventually offered users as much as 120 days of free access to make up for all the problems. Recent updates have made the service finally stable for most, if not all, users. Still, it was a big letdown for many hoping to rely on the over-the-air data-syncing for their iPhones.

F*CKING NDA
Another iPhone-related blunder was Apple’s initial refusal to lift the non-disclosure agreement attached to the iPhone SDK. This refusal led to difficulty in getting assistance with iPhone programming issues, problems with iPhone-related developer conferences, and the inability to publish books on iPhone programming. Developers made a loud noise (including a certain obscene battle cry), which eventually led to Apple relenting and lifting the NDA. Developers rejoiced, but it still made Apple look pretty bad.
Still…

I can’t wait to see how Apple makes it onto next year’s list, but they won’t, because Apple does no wrong. Right?

Tired of the Apple smear Campaign

Death to AppleI don’t know about you but this smear campaign that Apple is continuing with, attacking Vista over and over again is getting on my nerves. Steve Jobs needs to accept the fact that PC has beaten the MAC over and over again. Windows is more versatile and accepted than Mac ever will be. You have to defense other than to smear Microsoft’s new OS. Yes Vista was laden with bugs and problems when it was first released and it caused a lot of people grief. Microsoft has since release SP1 and a host of other fixes that have made this OS a great addition to the windows family.

At my multimedia company I am using Vista64bit vista on the main workstation and Vista Home Premium on 2 laptops, Vista ultimate is installed on the tablet. There are two other computers that are running Windows XP and to be honest I nor others in the company even work on them. Vista has become almost everything that is was promised to be. There are features that have made my life at the office easier and more efficient.

As far as the mac goes I find it interesting that Apple cannot produce anything that is worthy of advertising so they have fallen back to trying to convince the world they are better than Microsoft. Seriously people get over yourselves you are beaten.

When people ask me what I do and I tell them I own a multimedia company, the most common question is “you must use a mac?”. While trying to refrain from falling on the floor laughing I explain to them that maybe in the past Mac was the platform of choice for media developers but our company is exclusively PC based. There are applications that I use that won’t run on a Mac. I need heavy GPU power for 3D applications and gaming neither of which are an Apple strength. When it comes to the brute processing power required for some of my applications there is nothing better than my Quadcore Extreme 2.66ghz Cores, 8GB of RAM, 8800GTX w/768MB DDR RAM. A $3000 machine capable of handling whatever I can through at it including playing the latest games.

Hm let me check can I get an Apple with those capabilities for $3000. Hell no that would cost tens of thousands to get that power in an apple machine. Even with the processing power the Mac would still not be able to handle playing modern games and many of the applications I use would still not run on it. So to everyone who thinks that Mac is so great and nothing compares to a mac for graphics, you are welcome to your opinion no matter how skewed it may be. At the end of the day all you Mac people can grab your I-Pods and shoe horn yourselves into your smart cars eating a tofu sandwich while the rest of us are going to have a LAN party laughing at your pretty little paper weights sitting on the desk that can’t join in the fun.

OK so I was a little harsh with the last paragraph but I am seriously fed up with seeing these ads on TV. Apple should get out of the computer game and stick to I-Pods and I-Phones it seems that its the only thing they do well. Leave the computer industry to the people that really deliver what we want and not what you tell us we want. PC is the force that drives the computer industry, lead by Microsoft Windows face the fact that Apple can’t compete.

That’s my 2 cents…

P.S. Those who live is glass houses should not through stones. As far a great release blunders does anyone remember the Mac Mini ? I didn’t see a huge smear campaign from Microsoft or the PC manufacturers when you morons thought that the Mini was a good idea. And what about the I-Lamp I mean I-Mac well what ever that stupid LCD on a desk lamp concept was. The PC companies just laughed and continued to build kick A$$ boxes.