Comments on: Apple Trusts It’s Customers While MSFT Puts Buggy “Phone Home” Spyware on Its OS

By: R Marcy

R Marcy — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 12:41:18 +0000

What about upgrades? Eventually upgrading OS X causes a need to buy a new Mac. So Apple is covered.

You mean my 6 year old Mac has to be replaced cause its too old to run OS X?? Well YOU get to tell it it can’t do what its doing.

And how many PCs had to be replaced to run XP?

By: John Lockwood

John Lockwood — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 13:04:44 +0000

Product Activation was bad enough, Genuine Advantage checking it hardly makes much difference.

What however is really, REALLY, R_E_A_L_L_Y annoying is that fact that every single week another COMPULSORY update to Genuine Advantage is issued and it REQUIRES you to restart your machine each time!!! [It is compulsory in that you cannot get any other non critical updates until you do install it.]

Why on earth should such a supposedly small incidental piece of software require a restart. Remember one of the major supposed advantages of Windows 2000 and then XP was the reduction in the number of restarts needed.

By: Poopmaster

Poopmaster — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 20:03:59 +0000

I sincerely fail to see anything wrong with “all-in-one” solutions, such as Apple offering both hardware and software. The computer industry has been there before, guys, with every manufacturer under the sun having their own proprietary hardware and OS. Amiga, Commodore, Apple, Atari, Coleco, Sinclair, IBM, you name it. While that situation was untenable, I’m not inclined to think that a three-way split (Linux/Apple/Windows) will last forever, either. In any case, if Microsoft’s customers don’t know where to go to get virus/OS updates, well, whose fault is that, really?

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:29:54 +0000

Mark makes a good point. If you will, Apple’s “copy protection scheme” for Mac OS X is to use the Mac as a “dongle”. You have to have a Mac if you want Mac OS X.

That said, one of the interesting things about Apple versus Microsoft is the level of “trust.” Mac users trust Apple. Windows users don’t trust Microsoft.

I remember Windows XP had a automatic software update in the beta versions. People screamed about how Microsoft was going to be searching your hard drive and finding all your illegal software and how horrible this was. So Microsoft turned it off by default. What happened? Nobody updated their software. When viruses hit, nobody knew where to get the patches. Then everybody screamed, “Why didn’t Microsoft turn this on by default?!” Poor Microsoft–They’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

Apple has Software Update for Mac OS X. It will update your Apple software. Nobody makes a peep about it. Mac users think it’s a wonderful feature.

By: Sven

Sven — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 18:49:24 +0000

Apple’s OS requirements are not as great as Microsoft’s. I have OS X 10.4 running on a very old Mac with little fuss. Trying to perform the same with Windows XP on a similarily dated PC wouldn’t even happen. I’ve tried, I’ve seen, I’ve removed, I’ve installed Windows98 instead.

Look at Windows Vista requirements. They are amazing and would indicate Dell, HP, and Gateway are in nirvana that sales will increase for hardware because of the requirements of Vista. Yet today, Vista runs fine on a Mac mini. Apple hardware. Mmm, go figure.

By: mark

mark — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 17:58:16 +0000

This point shows again that Apple is a hardware company while Microsoft is not (except for Xbox).

Apple’s goal is to get you to buy a Mac – so it ensures via some scheme that you can only run OS X on a Mac which only Apple sells.

What about upgrades? Eventually upgrading OS X causes a need to buy a new Mac. So Apple is covered.