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About this siteFor 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 Thursday, October 23, 2003Surprise story of the decade: Pogue just LOVES Panther!Predictably, Apple salesman, er ah, "journalist" David Pogue, a long time Apple fanatic, gives Panther high marks in a horribly one-sided and error-filled review. Pogue not only sees no exaggeration in Apple's bogus claim of 150 new features, but instead wonders why such a dramatic upgrade doesn't come with more than a ".1" rise in version number. What's really sad about this review, other than the obvious, is that he spends a few paragraphs in the beginning bemoaning all the security problems in Windows, and then uses that as a springboard to tout new features in Panther--like File Vault encryption--that have been in Windows for years and are, in fact, more powerful on the Windows side. "FileVault uses an encoding scheme so thorough, Apple says, that a password-guessing computer would need 149 trillion years to break it!!!" the review gushes, without any critical or technical analysis of that claim. (OK, I added the "!!!" part, but you know that's how he emphasizes it when he says it to the faithful). And I love this claim: "Exposé (a new anti-window-clutter feature) is the biggest graphical breakthrough that operating systems have achieved in years!!!" (Again, I added the "!!!" But Exposé exists solely because Apple has done exactly ZERO to improve desktop GUIs in twenty years: OS X, just like the first version of the Mac OS, uses a very simple desktop model. Contrast this to XP, which numerous improvements over this paradigm, including task-based and iterative UIs, and yes, anti-window clutter tech. It's no wonder OS X needs some kind of anti-clutter tool: why would a GUI based on 700K floppies and no multitasking work well today?) Also humorous: Pogue finally admits that Apple rips off Windows several times in Panther, but does so paragraphs after touting several Panther features that, yes, originated first in Windows; one gets the feeling he doesn't even realize the depths of this copying. Describing the ripped-off Fast User Switching feature (Apple even had the gall to steal the name from Windows), Pogue writes: "A stunning animation livens up the switching moment: your world appears to rotate out of view as the new account swings onto the screen." Yeah, that's true if you're running a high-end modern Mac system like Pogue does. On my 500 MHz iBook, however, there is no such animation: Most OS X will be left in the dust by this visual finery, unfortunately. Finally, I do agree with Pogue on exactly one comment: "Now the big [bad news]," he writes. "Apple wants $130 for Panther. That's a fine how-de-do for everyone who dutifully paid $130 last year for version 10.2 and $130 a year before that for version 10.1. Microsoft, at least, has the decency to wait a few years between upgrades." Stupidly, he then says that Exposé justifies the price all by itself, because you know, Mac users LOVE features that require using function keys, right? Riiiighht. Anyway, I'm not linking to the review. Pogue is in bed with Apple, and people like that shouldn't be writing for major publications, they should be writing for amateur Mac enthusiast Web sites like The Mac Observer. It's sickening to me that normal people will read that review and actually believe it. [ Posted at 8:47 AM | Permalink ]
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