Dear Steve, it doesn’t ‘just work’ anymore!

Vista said:

Oh, that is worrying to know. I’m actually considering changing from Windows to Mac.  That’s a bummer to hear. Hmm. Now I’m not so happy about changing anymore, damn and I was looking forward to my new Mac.

Sully said:

I’ve come over to Mac from MS (although only for personal use; business use is still XP Pro) and I’ve found OS X Leopard to be very refreshing.  One simple example is how quickly it boots up and shuts down.  Fantastic!  My XP machine takes several minutes and it’s only one year old.  And once its up I’m hostage to the antivirus software taking up the majority of resources so I really can’t do anything until that finishes.  My machine is a aluminum iMac 2.4 20” model.  It came with Tiger and an Leopard upgrade drop in disc.  It works flawlessly and have used it extensively for video and photos.  So, perhaps as Kate mentions, I’m a happy user as the bar wasn’t set very high by MS.

Ronan said:

Couldnt agree more. This is very well written & should act as a warning to all MacUsers. Just hope Cupertino take note!
Have been a MacUser for ~10 years and ever simce the Intel switchover time, things have started getting bad. Even the quality of the MacBook is far poorer than the G4 iBooks they replaced. I’ve converted 5 family & friends to the Mac side & now my brother (who installs every software update when they come out) finds his Tiger G5 running slow. I’m very cautious about applying any Apple updates anymore & for the first time might actually consider switching to a cheaper PC next time I have to upgrade - something I never thought I’d hear myself say.

byx said:

I’ve got an iMac, and my wife has a MacBook, and except for our disdain for all things Intut-related, I really can’t complain. AppleTV works fine, The AirPort Extreme works fine. I never can tell if the AirPort Express is working as a relay for my wife or not, but neither one of us have had a crash at all, and I’m operating 3 businesses out of my home office. I did have ONE serious problem when I installed Steermouse, but it’s been somewhat resolved (still can’t get 3rd and 4th buttons to do what I want them to do, but the accelerator works great). But seriously - my brand new HP tablet had to go in for a complete Vista64 reinstallation, at a cost of $300, and the Mac is on for days at a time, just chugging along, doing its’ thing.

I guess my wife does have the odd problem with her iphone, and I’ll wait for the 3g to settle down before converting over, but seriously - once that happens, I can’t think of much more to pick at. We’re happy mac owners who are quite satisfied.

Appel Fan for years said:

Apple slow down! Please! Stop running so fast, slow down and regain your balance.

littledorrit said:

Gotta agree to a point about successive OS versions getting buggier. Basic Tiger was ok, but then each update was less stable; same with Leopard. Safari just doesn’t behave consistantly. Mobileme… well no, it isn’t.
Daft behaviour continues apart from the up/down state of the services. Producing galleries is fine and much faster than .mac, especially the uploading but sharing is another matter. if I copy the url of a gallery and paste it into an email then try connecting via that link - it doesn’t work; but if I share a gallery via the mobileme tab… it does work. wtf. the urls are exactly the same!!
It seems that lots of the links only work within mobileme at the expense of other users who don’t have the service and just want to view a gallery.
My account extension has still not been updated. If this continues I’m going elsewhere; it will probably be cheaper too

Art said:

Even on a new Mac, it’s worth your time to reinstall the OS from scratch. It’s the first thing I do when I get a new system.

At a minimum, I take out all extra language translations and forgo printer drivers I’ll never use.

Airport issues are fairly common and unpredictable. That I agree with. I don’t think the standards have been hammered out and what exists is a fragile interplay between hardware and software. When things go wrong, god only knows what will finally be the thing that fixes it. It seems to vary with each issue.

pissed pete said:

The iPhone’s problems are well documented. Apple released buggy betaware instead of a product ready for prime time. There’s no excuse for it. Apple is more like Microsoft every day.

As to OS X, my Leopard troubles on our 3 Macs began almost immediately after buying each machine. There was no upgrade from Tiger or whatever to Leopard. These are brand new, clean machines. Time Machine works about half the time. Airport continually fails to connect to Time Capsule.

For you Mac users without problems, count your blessings. If you’re having problems you’re in a growing community. Look at the Apple support message boards. Apple’s customers are in a rage because the products they put out, as Ms. Kate so simply stated, do not ‘just work’ anymore.

I cannot recommend that anyone buy a Mac instead of a PC with Windows Vista.

What’s the difference? Crap is crap.