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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Monday, April 21, 2003

Why does he have to make it so easy?
Gene Steinberg is one of those guys that writes about nothing. But he produces such pro-Mac drivel that you'd think he was a David Pogue clone. Thankfully he writes largely for backwater publications (where he can do little damage), his own (lame) Web site (his version of an unfunny Seinfeld--it's about ... nothing!), and he's the author of the most useless Mac book I've ever purchased (OS X Little Black Book). Here's how Steinberg comes up with a story. He browses all of the Mac news and rumors sites and then he writes an article discussing what other people are taking the time to report. He doesn't actually write about "anything" per se, and he's certainly not helping anyone. He's just ... summarizing what he reads. Useless? Yep. Funny? Yeah, but not on purpose.

Today's Steinbergian utterance is a good example of the unpurposefully funny. Gene, apparently, has noticed that many people are complaining about bugs in Mac OS X "Jaguar," which is of course impossible because a) Gene has never had any problems with the Mac, and 2) Apple is perfect. Let's dissect his discussion of this phenomenon, and, as we do, imagine how this conversation might go if he was writing about Windows, and not Mac OS X. Actually, there's no reason to imagine anything, as he starts off with this claptrap: "I want to make it clear that I think Apple Computer has done a simply tremendous job with Mac OS X. Consider how long it takes Microsoft to come up with a usable release (all right, some say they are never usable) with a staff much larger than Apple's. Apple's operating system guru, Avie Tevanian, and his crew have managed to do the impossible, and that is to make Unix warm and fuzzy for the average PC user. That's no easy accomplishment." In other words, Mac OS 10.2.5, which is the fifth minor update to Jaguar, is somehow a "tremendous release," while Windows XP (or presumably XP SP1) is ... what? Not an accomplishment? Didn't Microsoft make NT "warm and fuzzy" for the average PC users? Isn't XP used by over 100 million people every day??

OK, whatever. Here are the ways in which Gene excuses problems with Jaguar (I've added occassional emphasis for purposes of humor):

"Nobody is perfect, and so it's understandable that problems will occur during the development path."

"There are so many possible Mac hardware configurations that nobody's quality control lab or even a wide base of beta testers can possibly cover every possibility, or even a reasonably large number."

"There are quite a number of USB hubs out there, and the USB hardware on Macs has undergone various changes from its first appearance on the original bondi blue iMac. I don't believe we can expect Apple to purchase every make and model of USB hub available and try each, in turn, with every Mac that's compatible with Mac OS X. The possible number of combinations would be mind-boggling."

"It's quite possible that, once Apple nails it down (and it will), it'll be traced to a conflict with a specific product line or chipset ... I don't expect it'll take terribly long to solve, and thus we might see a 10.2.6 update before long, or just a specific patch to fix this specific bug.

"Some Mac users that can't wait will just be using Jaguar's Archive & Install feature to set up their operating system all over again, and return to 10.2.4. With that release, you'll have to worry about other bugs, such as the date reverting to 1969 or 1970, but at least you may not encounter a kernel panic."

"It's possible, of course, that the [battery life] problem [currently plaguing iBook and PowerBook users] is coincidental. Maybe the batteries on these laptops were due to fail anyway [!!!!].

To summarize, though I do believe Gene's assesment stands as a critical work of research, I present the following:

Nobody is perfect.

There are so many Mac configurations and different USB hubs out there that Apple couldn't possibly take the time to test its operating system against all this hardware.

Apple will fix the problem, don't doubt it.

OS X users can use the intuitive and simple "Archive & Install" feature to reinstall an older version of the operating system. LOL.

Those battery problems don't affect Gene's $3500 laptop, so they don't exist. And really, weren't you ready to buy a replacement battery anyway, you skinflint? Come to think of it, why haven't you just purchased a $3500 Powerbook-17?? This is the year of the notebook, after all.

Can you imagine anyone--even a Microsoft PR flack--cutting the software giant this much slack for problems with Windows XP? I didn't think so.

[ Posted at 9:13 AM | Permalink ]