8 ms·

Apple, wtf is wrong with you?

73 points by od2m 14y ago

auctiontheory 14y ago
Likewise the new iTunes. But at least that's not a key component of my daily wage-earning. I feel your pain.
- endgame 14y ago
  iTunes has always been a dog.
cremnob 14y ago
>I have been meaning to take her to Apple but honestly… dragging an iMac through South Coast Plaza to the Apple store is a fucking miserable proposition, so I’ve been putting it off. There's your problem.
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  I can't agree. Ihad the same reaction, but as I read through the story it became clear that this was a simple driver/software problem that could (and should) have been patched with a nightly update. You shouldn't need to go carting a large and expensive piece of hardware into the store in these days of high-speed internet service. On an unrelated note, tiny gray text on black makes it really hard to switch back to HN, so I can't blame you for not making it to the end. Ow.
  - silencio 14y ago
    I want to agree, I really do. But I have had the same graphics corruption problem mentioned in the beginning of the post, and it most likely is a hardware failure. It took a few phone calls and 4 visits to the Apple Store (5 minutes away) spending a few hours waiting to talk to half a dozen different people because they didn't want to fix it. This was after I had video/pictures documenting the problem (complete with hardware serial #) but no reliable way to reproduce and it wasn't reproducing for them with their stress tests. All that clusterfuck for one repair. Plus it was a MacBook Air, nowhere near as big as an iMac. If I wasn't so fuming mad and I was just being logical, I would have picked up a new laptop instead of waiting. Oh wait, this was a laptop I had bought because the last MacBook I owned keeled over after repeated repairs and the store manager offered me 20% off this one for my troubles. Yesterday I went in to the store with my iPhone that had shattered glass all over the front and the genius looked at it and wanted to know what I wanted help with. No, really, you think I'm coming in for a software issue? It was so hard for me to assume he was being helpful rather than thick. There are times when I deal with really awesome Geniuses, and I have countless stories of how awesome the Genius Bar used to be (red phone and actual geniuses and all, when all the Apple Stores in the world were countable on one hand). But there are times Apple really sucks for support and I can't say I blame the OP for not wanting to go. I always think twice before I think about going to the Apple Store nowadays :(
- geuis 14y ago
  Why is that a problem, beyond a desktop being heavy? I don't see any Dell/HP/Samsung/Lenovo/etc stores around for him to drag a pc desktop to. If there happens to be a Microsoft store around, he'll meet nice people but not get much help.
  - smith7018 14y ago
    He's saying the "problem" was that the author was too lazy to fix it in the first place, I believe.
  - fpgeek 14y ago
    Dell, HP and Lenovo (I'm not sure about Samsung) all have support options where they will send someone to your house to fix things. To me, that sounds a whole lot nicer than carrying an iMac to an Apple Store, no matter how good the support is when I get there.
- kalleboo 14y ago
  Yeah, Apple should provide support like Dell (used to? dunno about know) where they can send a tech to your home, or send you parts to swap yourself.
  - sbuk 14y ago
    Maybe that is the case with an expensive business class extended warranty...
    - WayneDB 14y ago
      Last time I got a Dell warranty it was less than Apple Care and it included in-home repair.
unimpressive 14y ago
I can't remember the last time that my Xubuntu install broke. Though somehow it makes perfect sense for one of the people who helped build Gentoo to be disgusted with Linux.
burnblue 14y ago
TL:DR: "My mac broke. I didn't actually bring it in to get it fixed, but fuck Apple for not fixing it anyway."
- Aloha 14y ago
  Sounds like he didn't even call apple for help over the phone. When my ThinkPad breaks I'm on the phone to Lenovo right away.
- Margh 14y ago
  Do you actually think that taking it into an Apple store would have ended in the tech reflashing the GPU? Besides the fact that transporting it could damage it further, he would probably would have just been told it was end of life or needed a new GPU altogether and the chances of them having said GPU in stock would be next to nothing. Maybe it's just my area but Apple stores here do not actually repair products, they just tell you to buy a new one.
  - dba7dba 14y ago
    I actually don't like getting warranty stuff done at apple store. You have to make an appt (and slots fill up fast), you have to CARRY the darn thing to the store (unplug, carry to car, drive, carry to Apple Store) and wait in the crowded store. I actually prefer putting it in a box, have FedEX pick it up, and than get a working PC back in my office in a few days.
  - r00fus 14y ago
    > Besides the fact that transporting it could damage it further This is just silly - a computer is not a trauma victim, it's a piece of hardware. My experience has been that they've spent two days isolating a problem on my 2005 iMac which I caused by using 3rd party RAM with the wrong timing - issue didn't appear well after I replaced the RAM (I replaced the RAM again, it worked fine).
charonn0 14y ago
When talking about his unreliable iMac: > When a tool has served me well and needs to be taken care of, I feel I owe it that kindness for all its done for me. and then, when he wants to bash Linux: > A computer is a tool, that’s all. When it ceases to work reliably we have to move on. Why the double standard?
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  There's a fair bit of research suggesting that we unconsciously value things in proportion to what we pay for them. Since Linux is free, it's a lot easier to be unsentimental about your Linux installation, even if that's not wholly rational (eg it represents a larger investment of time or expertise).
  - beatgammit 14y ago
    I don't know, I'm irrationally sentimental about my Linux installation and completely laissez-faire about my Windows box... With Windows, if it gets jacked up, I just re-install, but with Linux, I feel I'm indebted enough to figure out what's wrong and fix it.
- geuis 14y ago
  You take care of your tools. Over time, even well cared for tools wear out. When that happens, a new tool is needed.
  - charonn0 14y ago
    I tend to agree, however the author is not applying this principle to all cases. Hence, a double standard.
- belorn 14y ago
  I especially like how he took the latest and greatest version of raid tools, compiled it by hand, and was surprised that something broke. He doesn't say it, but could it just possible be that it was a alpha build? a non-long term release? There are reason why debian takes painful months to create releases. They don't just say "ooo, this Friday, lets just pull what ever the git repository has and use that". Windows has also gone down this road. When windows 8 was released, the software was actually a half-year old since beta. if ones is using beta windows 8 and its raid had broken down, would one blame windows or one self?
lake99 14y ago
"and Linux… Well, as someone who helped found Gentoo Linux, fuck Linux. It’s the absolute best thing for servers, AND NOTHING ELSE. If you’re running Linux on the desktop, you’re a person who would rather fix his computer than use it." Yeah, right. Say that to my many linux-using friends who can't write a simple "hello world" program to save their lives. Despite "[helping] found Gentoo Linux", the author comes off as a moron when he makes such comments about "Linux", whatever the heck it means here.
- sagarm 14y ago
  Gentoo was the first distro I used, hell, I even did a stage 1 install multiple times, and I understand his perspective perfectly. "Ain't nobody got time for that" indeed. I'm a happy Ubuntu user now (right now, actually). I hope he gives Ubuntu a try sometime; it's leaps and bounds more reliable and tinker-free than Gentoo ever was. edit: she => he
  - wutbrodo 14y ago
    Sorry if this is a dumb question, but who are you talking about when you say 'she'? I thought it may be the author, but his name is "Daniel" (and there's an avatar picture of _him_ in one of the comment replies).
    - sagarm 14y ago
      I somehow got the impression that the author was female. I've corrected my post.
- vacri 14y ago
  If he helped found Gentoo, then perhaps he's in part responsible for the stupid things it does that other distros don't.
beloch 14y ago
I hate to break it to you, but Apple is very focused on increasing product turnover. Every other PC and laptop vendor is going through rough times because the obsolescence curve on Windows PC's has gotten so slow to fall off. A five year old PC can run Win8 (or Linux) pretty fine actually, so sales are in the scuppers. Would you want to install Mountain Lion on a five-year old Mac? Hell no! Apple saw that hardware was starting to last longer and took steps. Part of their solution was to try to innovate. Retina screens, multi-touch trackpads and an increased focus on gestures to justify their use over mice, etc.. Another part was to drive costs, and prices, down. Besides placing price pressure on the competition, occupying a lower price-bracket means people are more likely to upgrade more often rather than trying to nurse their old hardware along for as long as possible. This is the good. The other parts of their attack on long obsolescence cycles are not so good. All traces of easy upgradeability have left Apple's product line. You now need special tools to get into pretty much any Apple laptop, and they use propriety connectors for everything. Want to pop an off-the-shelf SSD into your Air? Not gonna happen. Yes, you can order Apple compatible parts and tools online, but this is not by Apple's design. They'd probably sue those guys into oblivion if they were really doing a lot of business. Apple laptops feel great in the hand, as if they're built to last generations, but they're actually horribly delicate in some respects. The Air can be bricked by a mere drop of liquid in the wrong spot (this actually happened to me. One drop. I'm not kidding.). The proprietary screws and integrated battery mean you can't remove the potential to stop the damage before it happens and then clean things up yourself. It's a horrible feeling watching your laptop fry itself knowing it could have been saved if it had been designed with a removeable battery. You'll get no sympathy from Apple either. Their warranty does not cover spill-damage. When this happened to me, the repair bill was literally larger than what I paid for my air in the first place! Subtle hint? Software glitches and poor support for older hardware are only the latest in a long sequence of Apple's moves to keep you buying new hardware. Have the geeks looked at your obsolete macbook, tsk'd, and subtly hinted that while you could continue suffering with that old beast, a new laptop would be very cheap and work much better! Apple is not stupid. They're actually really freakin' smart. I'd be willing to bet OSX users replace their laptops, on average, more than twice as often as Linux or Windows users.
- neotek 14y ago
megaframe 14y ago
I've been running the same install of Ubuntu since 2007 with 0 issues. I've replaced the main hard drive doing a dd to migrate, swapped the entire MB/CPU/RAM and Video card, booted right up no issues. I run a raid 5 mdadm setup, with 0 issues took 5min to setup the first time been working since. Upgrading to the latest mainstream releases and package updates automatically along the way. I get the anti Linux sentiment I use to use Gentoo before Ubuntu/Debian became so viable and it was/is painful to say the least. I'm not going to say I always agree with everything Canonical does with Ubuntu but I could make the same argument for OSX and Ubuntu has been amazingly stable. So to anyone out there on the fence with OSX and fearing Windows, Linux is so much better these days. Approaching the ease of OSX.
- robocat 14y ago
  Similar experience - desktop running Ubuntu 8.04 LTS with mdadm Raid has been brilliant. Could still get up-to-date packages for most things I need. Recently replaced with a laptop, wanted faster CPU+SSD, not because of any issues with Ubuntu.
pkaler 14y ago
"I’ve been struggling with my baby, a mid-2010 27″ iMac for months now. She’s been unstable for better than a year now, and it keeps getting worse. After a few minutes, or hours the screen gets corrupted. Little discolored squares appear and flicker and dance, eventually she hard locks. I have been meaning to take her to Apple but honestly… dragging an iMac through South Coast Plaza to the Apple store is a fucking miserable proposition, so I’ve been putting it off." Your fault. My daily machine is a mid-2011 MacBook Air and it works like a dream. My old machine was a late-2007 MacBook Pro. It's logic board started acting up about a year after I bought it. I didn't buy AppleCare. Apple fixed it out of warranty at no cost to me. Take it in. Apple will most likely fix it. Most likely at no cost to you. The machine has been acting up for a year. You chose to write a whiny blog post rather than take the machine in. That's your fault.
- Margh 14y ago
  Is it really unreasonable to expect a patch for a reported software issue? Taking a 27" for repairs is a little bit different to taking a laptop. Also: cool that they fixed your laptop for free, but keep in mind that was 5 years ago. 5 years ago Apple gave me a new iPod (for free) because the battery died. Now I have to pay $80 or something to have my current one sent away for a few weeks for a battery. edit: spellung
  - coldtea 14y ago
    >Is it really unreasonable to expect a patch for a reported software issue? No. But it's unreasonable to expect a patch pronto, while they must be investigating the issue (that the steps in the forum solved the issue, doesn't mean they cover every aspect of it, or that they work with everybody that has the issue). And if the issue can't be fixed with a simple patch but needs several steps, it's reasonable to take your computer to them and have them perform them.
- kalleboo 14y ago
  Taking it in means I'm without my work machine for a week. Ridiculous in this case where it's really a software fix.
- 14y ago
humbledrone 14y ago
> The exact moment I quit Linux was when an emerge pulled the latest raid-tools and broke my raid array. Yeah, that's Gentoo. Such is life when you're running locally-compiled binaries that, depending on your USE flags, have been compiled with a combination of settings that nobody in the whole world has ever tested before. I'm running Ubuntu Precise right now, and can quite honestly say that I have not done a single system maintenance task in the six months since I installed it and set it up. It just works. Granted, I'm not doing anything too fancy with it, just basic software engineering.
- YokoZar 14y ago
  Yeah. I hate to sound snarky, but a Gentoo user swearing off desktop linux for good is exactly why we shouldn't be using Linux as a brand name. Ubuntu and Gentoo are miles apart in terms of how well tested they are on the desktop, and lumping them both under the Linux brand leads to this sort of confusion.
  - wutbrodo 14y ago
    Exactly. I expect this from people who don't know anything about Linux or the concept of OSes in general (e.g. when people hear I use Linux they assume it's for "servers and programming" only), and frankly it's quite understandable in that case. It's a damn sight more odd seeing someone who "helped found Gentoo" be seemingly incapable of distinguishing between Gentoo and other Linux distributions in terms of system maintenance.
- Tmmrn 14y ago
  I found that funny too. Using one of the distributions known for the heavy customizability and for being a "do it yourself" distribution and then complaining that he has to spend time on it? On the other hand, he uses apple hardware and loses "100′s of hours of productivity" (why didn't he just have it repaired) and what about it? "Long live Apple" Such is the mentality of another apple user. (I realize that probably the vast majority of apple users are the ones I don't read about). But those that do and often end up having an article here... really?
- 14y ago
vintagius 14y ago
Window 7 it gets the Job done for me.
eridius 14y ago
Phenomenally stupid article. Dude obviously has graphics card issues. Refuses to take it in to be serviced. Acts all surprised when an OS update includes revisions to the graphics drivers, which caused the bad behavior to worsen. Decides the right course of action is to pen an internet screed against Apple because, well, I have no idea. The funniest part is, NVidia and ATI produce the graphics drivers, so if he wants to be mad at someone, he should be mad at them.
- Margh 14y ago
  > revisions to the graphics drivers ... caused the bad behavior to worsen not exactly the intended behaviour of driver updates
  - Zr40 14y ago
    No, it's the behavior of malfunctioning hardware. The new drivers happen to trigger the malfunction in a different way.
    - Margh 14y ago
      except the hardware wasn't malfunctioning, the article says he flashed the gpu firmware and all issues were resolved.
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
      - Zr40 14y ago
        That might have disabled the malfunctioning part or otherwise worked around it. If it's merely a firmware issue, everyone would have that problem. Besides, some people in the referenced Apple discussions thread report that even after flashing the firmware, the problems continue.
- smith7018 14y ago
  Thank you for being the sane one here. This "engineer" didn't even understand that Apple doesn't write the drivers and "BIOS" for the card; how can I take his rant seriously? Not to mention he started it with "my computer has been acting up for the last year but, y'know, who has the time to take it in? You'll never guess what happened... it got WORSE!!" Feign surprise.
mrilhan 14y ago
Didn't read your rant since it was impossible for my human eyes. I may bill (!) you for the temporary loss of productivity. Your BG and color scheme are horrible, I would rather blend and drink my left foot than read your blog again.
- mixmastamyk 14y ago
  Assuming you were born, how did you survive in the days of DOS?
  - MikeAmelung 14y ago
    DOS didn't have a gradient gray background; it was black.
    - mixmastamyk 14y ago
      Irrelevant for all intents and purposes.
- visarga 14y ago
  I use Readability in Chrome. It makes the text nice with one click, everywhere I want to read an article.
  - mrilhan 14y ago
    You're right, I actually have it installed too, I should've just done that and moved on. This particular blog with the patterned/hypnotic background really hurt my eyes in the morning, and I guess I was cranky enough to take it as an insult :)
jsz0 14y ago
From what I've seen Apple still does a far better job than other PC makers in this area.
drivebyacct2 14y ago
For all the things I dislike about Apple and iOS, I really can't say enough good things about their hardware. Even so much that I will wait until Q3 just to see if they release Macbook Airs with a high(er) res screen instead of grabbing the XPS13 today with a 1080p 13" screen. (And I doubt the XPS13 is any more serviceable). > which is scary because Windows 8 is unadulterated bullshit, and Linux… Well, as someone who helped found Gentoo Linux, fuck Linux. It’s the absolute best thing for servers, AND NOTHING ELSE. If you’re running Linux on the desktop, you’re a person who would rather fix his computer than use it. What a steaming load of shit.
batiudrami 14y ago
This guy writes about operating systems the way I used to when I was 12. There is perhaps a valid point (I don't know, I don't use a Mac) hidden in terrible writing and fanboy opinions.
rozap 14y ago
This article is just plain stupid. Apple's service isn't what it once was, their hardware is lower quality now, blah blah blah...we all know that. Have you been living under a rock for the past 3 years? "and Linux… Well, as someone who helped found Gentoo Linux, fuck Linux. It’s the absolute best thing for servers, AND NOTHING ELSE. If you’re running Linux on the desktop, you’re a person who would rather fix his computer than use it." You kidding me? For the vast majority of OSS development and use, linux is by far the easiest solution. People (including me) use linux because they DON'T want to fuck around with shoe-horning software into running on a Mac or Windows. It's just the simplest solution for using and developing open source software. The above quotation may have been true about 6 years ago, but it sure as hell isn't true now. Welcome to 2013.
- jjkmk 14y ago
  Agreed, as some one who has extensive admin and dev knowledge in OS X/ Win / Linux I find Linux to be the easiest to manage and install in a desktop environment.
DannoHung 14y ago
My experiences with Apple hardware in the past 7 years do not mirror this. In total, I have seen three serious problems with mine and my families computers: 1) Failed hard drives 2) RAM that went bad 3) A clusterfuck of problems on a 17" MBP pre-unibody (Apple eventualy got it working, but it's on its last legs in general now because the owner refuses to install patches). This is across, I wanna say... approximately 20 Apple devices ranging from phones to iMacs. They're not perfect, but compared to the amount of problems from when everyone I knew had Windows PCs, I take a lot fewer support calls.
visarga 14y ago
I can't tell how many times I have went to Apple forums to find threads hundreds of posts long and spanning multiple years without a fix. Why don't they send some of those geniuses to fix these problems? Can't they afford to support their products?
tluyben2 14y ago
My 2008 Macbook really works like a charm, always has, always does. That was my second Mac after I tried them in the 90s (and hated it). I was very happy so in 2010 I bought, for a very large wad of cash, a MBP with an i7. Nothing but problems; problems which don't appear when you go into the store except the lousy battery life which they said is because I run too heavy software (which I don't mostly and the 2008 had/has no issues with it). The magsafe internal part of that MBP is also of much lower quality; one of the pins 'disappeared' and Apple replaced the magsafe and the external charger. Now the same pin disappeared but I'm out of warranty and they want E600 to repair it. Thinkpad, here I come.
kayoone 14y ago
Why is it that Apple users are so damn opinionated ? Jeez, just use what works for you. Guess what ? I use a Windows Desktop and really like it. Its fast, i can built it myself and works with everything. My web development is done on an ubuntu vm in the cloud so i dont care where my tools run. Id probably run Linux but as i do some game programming and my tools arent availabe there, i cant. I also own a Macbook Air, i really like the hardware and battery life. Its a really solid mobile device. I dont like OSX too much but it runs my tools so i dont care. As PC laptop makers have catched up alot in the past 2-3 years id probably buy an ultrabook next as there are more choices and they are a bit cheaper. So what ? No hardware/software is perfect, just use what works for you.
- r00fus 14y ago
  Most Apple users actually aren't that opinionated - it's just that the opinionated Apple users are more vocal than the Windows crowd. I'd say the Linux crowd are more opinionated than Apple users.
dba7dba 14y ago
I have a similar issue with another Apple product, iMovie 11 (Version 9.0). Here's the issue: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4043813?start=0&tstart=0 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4043813?start=0&tst... If you updated iMovie 9.0.4 to 9.0.6 (afaik no 9.0.5 was released), you caught a bug that messed up timestamping in the video. At ver 9.0.8 (THREE updates later), the bug is STILL there. This timestamp feature USED to work FINE before the 9.0.6 update. The 9.0.6 update came out in June 2012. It's Mar 2013 and the bug is STILL there. And yes they've released at least 2 more updates, 9.0.7 & 9.0.8 since Mar 2012. App Store keeps reminding me to update my 9.0.4 to 9.0.8 which I keep refusing. Thank goodness it doesn't upgrade itself automatically to the latest version. Oh, wait, it actually it did. When I tried to downgrade from 9.0.7 to 9.0.4 using the App Store by reinstalling iLife, it automatically installed 9.0.7 version. So I had to go find my CD copy of iLife to install iMovie 9.0.4. What a mess. One more advice to Apple. You shouldn't feel Apple is getting bashed unjustifiably. You told us that you are different and the best. That you don't ship junk. It's true you didn't exactly ship iMovie 11 as a junk. But you turned a reasonably well working piece of software into a junk (one critical feature I need is broken) with an update and you refuse to fix it.
szc 14y ago
There is a prevailing assumption that this problem is "caused" by bad software. This might be the case, but bad hardware could also be part of this! A lot of modern hardware has programmable parameters, "core voltages", PLL parameters that control running frequencies and the timings for DMA / memory access state machines. Who's fault is it if the hardware vendor says use X, Y and Z for these parameters. And they include the same parameters in the software they supply and.... What if some %'age of the hardware doesn't actually produce the timings the configuration parameters specify, or does "really bad things"? In reading the "source" article, there is a pointer to a discussions.apple.com thread. The "fix", if you go and read the thread, is on page 21 from Andrew Humphreys. What his solution does is change the timings and clock speeds for low power and idle modes of the GPU. Reading between the lines, the low power / clock speed settings don't work and will cause corruption. His changes are derrived from people having problems running Windows 7. The same changes seem to help people running OS X. Perhaps someone from the Linux community will be willing to force the ATI GPU cards in question into low power / performance modes and see if corruption occurs. I've no knowledge of what the parameters Andrew is overriding actually do, but for a portable platform "faster" almost always results in higher power usage, heat and therefore shorter battery life. This might not be such an issue for desktops, if you can tolerate the noise of increased cooling. Getting pragmatic about this, how could you design a Q/A test for this? Do you really afford to wait X number of minutes before / after each test to make sure the GPU is cold enough to go into low power mode? What if you decide to use hardware that can cool the GPU faster so you could get through all the tests -- doesn't that make the tests invalid as you are no longer using HW customers will get? As a final note, there might be evidence that some graphics drivers were updated ~1 week before 10.8.3 was shipped. The evidence is in /System/Library/Extensions/

73 points by od2m 14y ago

auctiontheory 14y ago

Likewise the new iTunes. But at least that's not a key component of my daily wage-earning. I feel your pain.

endgame 14y ago
iTunes has always been a dog.

cremnob 14y ago

>I have been meaning to take her to Apple but honestly… dragging an iMac through South Coast Plaza to the Apple store is a fucking miserable proposition, so I’ve been putting it off. There's your problem.

anigbrowl 14y ago
I can't agree. Ihad the same reaction, but as I read through the story it became clear that this was a simple driver/software problem that could (and should) have been patched with a nightly update. You shouldn't need to go carting a large and expensive piece of hardware into the store in these days of high-speed internet service. On an unrelated note, tiny gray text on black makes it really hard to switch back to HN, so I can't blame you for not making it to the end. Ow.
- silencio 14y ago
  I want to agree, I really do. But I have had the same graphics corruption problem mentioned in the beginning of the post, and it most likely is a hardware failure. It took a few phone calls and 4 visits to the Apple Store (5 minutes away) spending a few hours waiting to talk to half a dozen different people because they didn't want to fix it. This was after I had video/pictures documenting the problem (complete with hardware serial #) but no reliable way to reproduce and it wasn't reproducing for them with their stress tests. All that clusterfuck for one repair. Plus it was a MacBook Air, nowhere near as big as an iMac. If I wasn't so fuming mad and I was just being logical, I would have picked up a new laptop instead of waiting. Oh wait, this was a laptop I had bought because the last MacBook I owned keeled over after repeated repairs and the store manager offered me 20% off this one for my troubles. Yesterday I went in to the store with my iPhone that had shattered glass all over the front and the genius looked at it and wanted to know what I wanted help with. No, really, you think I'm coming in for a software issue? It was so hard for me to assume he was being helpful rather than thick. There are times when I deal with really awesome Geniuses, and I have countless stories of how awesome the Genius Bar used to be (red phone and actual geniuses and all, when all the Apple Stores in the world were countable on one hand). But there are times Apple really sucks for support and I can't say I blame the OP for not wanting to go. I always think twice before I think about going to the Apple Store nowadays :(
geuis 14y ago
Why is that a problem, beyond a desktop being heavy? I don't see any Dell/HP/Samsung/Lenovo/etc stores around for him to drag a pc desktop to. If there happens to be a Microsoft store around, he'll meet nice people but not get much help.
- smith7018 14y ago
  He's saying the "problem" was that the author was too lazy to fix it in the first place, I believe.
- fpgeek 14y ago
  Dell, HP and Lenovo (I'm not sure about Samsung) all have support options where they will send someone to your house to fix things. To me, that sounds a whole lot nicer than carrying an iMac to an Apple Store, no matter how good the support is when I get there.
kalleboo 14y ago
Yeah, Apple should provide support like Dell (used to? dunno about know) where they can send a tech to your home, or send you parts to swap yourself.
- sbuk 14y ago
  Maybe that is the case with an expensive business class extended warranty...
  - WayneDB 14y ago
    Last time I got a Dell warranty it was less than Apple Care and it included in-home repair.

unimpressive 14y ago

I can't remember the last time that my Xubuntu install broke. Though somehow it makes perfect sense for one of the people who helped build Gentoo to be disgusted with Linux.

burnblue 14y ago

TL:DR: "My mac broke. I didn't actually bring it in to get it fixed, but fuck Apple for not fixing it anyway."

Aloha 14y ago
Sounds like he didn't even call apple for help over the phone. When my ThinkPad breaks I'm on the phone to Lenovo right away.
Margh 14y ago
Do you actually think that taking it into an Apple store would have ended in the tech reflashing the GPU? Besides the fact that transporting it could damage it further, he would probably would have just been told it was end of life or needed a new GPU altogether and the chances of them having said GPU in stock would be next to nothing. Maybe it's just my area but Apple stores here do not actually repair products, they just tell you to buy a new one.
- dba7dba 14y ago
  I actually don't like getting warranty stuff done at apple store. You have to make an appt (and slots fill up fast), you have to CARRY the darn thing to the store (unplug, carry to car, drive, carry to Apple Store) and wait in the crowded store. I actually prefer putting it in a box, have FedEX pick it up, and than get a working PC back in my office in a few days.
- r00fus 14y ago
  > Besides the fact that transporting it could damage it further This is just silly - a computer is not a trauma victim, it's a piece of hardware. My experience has been that they've spent two days isolating a problem on my 2005 iMac which I caused by using 3rd party RAM with the wrong timing - issue didn't appear well after I replaced the RAM (I replaced the RAM again, it worked fine).

charonn0 14y ago

When talking about his unreliable iMac: > When a tool has served me well and needs to be taken care of, I feel I owe it that kindness for all its done for me. and then, when he wants to bash Linux: > A computer is a tool, that’s all. When it ceases to work reliably we have to move on. Why the double standard?

anigbrowl 14y ago
There's a fair bit of research suggesting that we unconsciously value things in proportion to what we pay for them. Since Linux is free, it's a lot easier to be unsentimental about your Linux installation, even if that's not wholly rational (eg it represents a larger investment of time or expertise).
- beatgammit 14y ago
  I don't know, I'm irrationally sentimental about my Linux installation and completely laissez-faire about my Windows box... With Windows, if it gets jacked up, I just re-install, but with Linux, I feel I'm indebted enough to figure out what's wrong and fix it.
geuis 14y ago
You take care of your tools. Over time, even well cared for tools wear out. When that happens, a new tool is needed.
- charonn0 14y ago
  I tend to agree, however the author is not applying this principle to all cases. Hence, a double standard.
belorn 14y ago
I especially like how he took the latest and greatest version of raid tools, compiled it by hand, and was surprised that something broke. He doesn't say it, but could it just possible be that it was a alpha build? a non-long term release? There are reason why debian takes painful months to create releases. They don't just say "ooo, this Friday, lets just pull what ever the git repository has and use that". Windows has also gone down this road. When windows 8 was released, the software was actually a half-year old since beta. if ones is using beta windows 8 and its raid had broken down, would one blame windows or one self?

lake99 14y ago

"and Linux… Well, as someone who helped found Gentoo Linux, fuck Linux. It’s the absolute best thing for servers, AND NOTHING ELSE. If you’re running Linux on the desktop, you’re a person who would rather fix his computer than use it." Yeah, right. Say that to my many linux-using friends who can't write a simple "hello world" program to save their lives. Despite "[helping] found Gentoo Linux", the author comes off as a moron when he makes such comments about "Linux", whatever the heck it means here.

sagarm 14y ago
Gentoo was the first distro I used, hell, I even did a stage 1 install multiple times, and I understand his perspective perfectly. "Ain't nobody got time for that" indeed. I'm a happy Ubuntu user now (right now, actually). I hope he gives Ubuntu a try sometime; it's leaps and bounds more reliable and tinker-free than Gentoo ever was. edit: she => he
- wutbrodo 14y ago
  Sorry if this is a dumb question, but who are you talking about when you say 'she'? I thought it may be the author, but his name is "Daniel" (and there's an avatar picture of _him_ in one of the comment replies).
  - sagarm 14y ago
    I somehow got the impression that the author was female. I've corrected my post.
vacri 14y ago
If he helped found Gentoo, then perhaps he's in part responsible for the stupid things it does that other distros don't.

beloch 14y ago

I hate to break it to you, but Apple is very focused on increasing product turnover. Every other PC and laptop vendor is going through rough times because the obsolescence curve on Windows PC's has gotten so slow to fall off. A five year old PC can run Win8 (or Linux) pretty fine actually, so sales are in the scuppers. Would you want to install Mountain Lion on a five-year old Mac? Hell no! Apple saw that hardware was starting to last longer and took steps. Part of their solution was to try to innovate. Retina screens, multi-touch trackpads and an increased focus on gestures to justify their use over mice, etc.. Another part was to drive costs, and prices, down. Besides placing price pressure on the competition, occupying a lower price-bracket means people are more likely to upgrade more often rather than trying to nurse their old hardware along for as long as possible. This is the good. The other parts of their attack on long obsolescence cycles are not so good. All traces of easy upgradeability have left Apple's product line. You now need special tools to get into pretty much any Apple laptop, and they use propriety connectors for everything. Want to pop an off-the-shelf SSD into your Air? Not gonna happen. Yes, you can order Apple compatible parts and tools online, but this is not by Apple's design. They'd probably sue those guys into oblivion if they were really doing a lot of business. Apple laptops feel great in the hand, as if they're built to last generations, but they're actually horribly delicate in some respects. The Air can be bricked by a mere drop of liquid in the wrong spot (this actually happened to me. One drop. I'm not kidding.). The proprietary screws and integrated battery mean you can't remove the potential to stop the damage before it happens and then clean things up yourself. It's a horrible feeling watching your laptop fry itself knowing it could have been saved if it had been designed with a removeable battery. You'll get no sympathy from Apple either. Their warranty does not cover spill-damage. When this happened to me, the repair bill was literally larger than what I paid for my air in the first place! Subtle hint? Software glitches and poor support for older hardware are only the latest in a long sequence of Apple's moves to keep you buying new hardware. Have the geeks looked at your obsolete macbook, tsk'd, and subtly hinted that while you could continue suffering with that old beast, a new laptop would be very cheap and work much better! Apple is not stupid. They're actually really freakin' smart. I'd be willing to bet OSX users replace their laptops, on average, more than twice as often as Linux or Windows users.

neotek 14y ago

megaframe 14y ago

I've been running the same install of Ubuntu since 2007 with 0 issues. I've replaced the main hard drive doing a dd to migrate, swapped the entire MB/CPU/RAM and Video card, booted right up no issues. I run a raid 5 mdadm setup, with 0 issues took 5min to setup the first time been working since. Upgrading to the latest mainstream releases and package updates automatically along the way. I get the anti Linux sentiment I use to use Gentoo before Ubuntu/Debian became so viable and it was/is painful to say the least. I'm not going to say I always agree with everything Canonical does with Ubuntu but I could make the same argument for OSX and Ubuntu has been amazingly stable. So to anyone out there on the fence with OSX and fearing Windows, Linux is so much better these days. Approaching the ease of OSX.

robocat 14y ago
Similar experience - desktop running Ubuntu 8.04 LTS with mdadm Raid has been brilliant. Could still get up-to-date packages for most things I need. Recently replaced with a laptop, wanted faster CPU+SSD, not because of any issues with Ubuntu.

pkaler 14y ago

"I’ve been struggling with my baby, a mid-2010 27″ iMac for months now. She’s been unstable for better than a year now, and it keeps getting worse. After a few minutes, or hours the screen gets corrupted. Little discolored squares appear and flicker and dance, eventually she hard locks. I have been meaning to take her to Apple but honestly… dragging an iMac through South Coast Plaza to the Apple store is a fucking miserable proposition, so I’ve been putting it off." Your fault. My daily machine is a mid-2011 MacBook Air and it works like a dream. My old machine was a late-2007 MacBook Pro. It's logic board started acting up about a year after I bought it. I didn't buy AppleCare. Apple fixed it out of warranty at no cost to me. Take it in. Apple will most likely fix it. Most likely at no cost to you. The machine has been acting up for a year. You chose to write a whiny blog post rather than take the machine in. That's your fault.

Margh 14y ago
Is it really unreasonable to expect a patch for a reported software issue? Taking a 27" for repairs is a little bit different to taking a laptop. Also: cool that they fixed your laptop for free, but keep in mind that was 5 years ago. 5 years ago Apple gave me a new iPod (for free) because the battery died. Now I have to pay $80 or something to have my current one sent away for a few weeks for a battery. edit: spellung
- coldtea 14y ago
  >Is it really unreasonable to expect a patch for a reported software issue? No. But it's unreasonable to expect a patch pronto, while they must be investigating the issue (that the steps in the forum solved the issue, doesn't mean they cover every aspect of it, or that they work with everybody that has the issue). And if the issue can't be fixed with a simple patch but needs several steps, it's reasonable to take your computer to them and have them perform them.
kalleboo 14y ago
Taking it in means I'm without my work machine for a week. Ridiculous in this case where it's really a software fix.
14y ago

humbledrone 14y ago

> The exact moment I quit Linux was when an emerge pulled the latest raid-tools and broke my raid array. Yeah, that's Gentoo. Such is life when you're running locally-compiled binaries that, depending on your USE flags, have been compiled with a combination of settings that nobody in the whole world has ever tested before. I'm running Ubuntu Precise right now, and can quite honestly say that I have not done a single system maintenance task in the six months since I installed it and set it up. It just works. Granted, I'm not doing anything too fancy with it, just basic software engineering.

YokoZar 14y ago
Yeah. I hate to sound snarky, but a Gentoo user swearing off desktop linux for good is exactly why we shouldn't be using Linux as a brand name. Ubuntu and Gentoo are miles apart in terms of how well tested they are on the desktop, and lumping them both under the Linux brand leads to this sort of confusion.
- wutbrodo 14y ago
  Exactly. I expect this from people who don't know anything about Linux or the concept of OSes in general (e.g. when people hear I use Linux they assume it's for "servers and programming" only), and frankly it's quite understandable in that case. It's a damn sight more odd seeing someone who "helped found Gentoo" be seemingly incapable of distinguishing between Gentoo and other Linux distributions in terms of system maintenance.
Tmmrn 14y ago
I found that funny too. Using one of the distributions known for the heavy customizability and for being a "do it yourself" distribution and then complaining that he has to spend time on it? On the other hand, he uses apple hardware and loses "100′s of hours of productivity" (why didn't he just have it repaired) and what about it? "Long live Apple" Such is the mentality of another apple user. (I realize that probably the vast majority of apple users are the ones I don't read about). But those that do and often end up having an article here... really?
14y ago

vintagius 14y ago

Window 7 it gets the Job done for me.

eridius 14y ago

Phenomenally stupid article. Dude obviously has graphics card issues. Refuses to take it in to be serviced. Acts all surprised when an OS update includes revisions to the graphics drivers, which caused the bad behavior to worsen. Decides the right course of action is to pen an internet screed against Apple because, well, I have no idea. The funniest part is, NVidia and ATI produce the graphics drivers, so if he wants to be mad at someone, he should be mad at them.

Margh 14y ago
> revisions to the graphics drivers ... caused the bad behavior to worsen not exactly the intended behaviour of driver updates
- Zr40 14y ago
  No, it's the behavior of malfunctioning hardware. The new drivers happen to trigger the malfunction in a different way.
  - Margh 14y ago
    except the hardware wasn't malfunctioning, the article says he flashed the gpu firmware and all issues were resolved.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - Zr40 14y ago
      That might have disabled the malfunctioning part or otherwise worked around it. If it's merely a firmware issue, everyone would have that problem. Besides, some people in the referenced Apple discussions thread report that even after flashing the firmware, the problems continue.
smith7018 14y ago
Thank you for being the sane one here. This "engineer" didn't even understand that Apple doesn't write the drivers and "BIOS" for the card; how can I take his rant seriously? Not to mention he started it with "my computer has been acting up for the last year but, y'know, who has the time to take it in? You'll never guess what happened... it got WORSE!!" Feign surprise.

mrilhan 14y ago

Didn't read your rant since it was impossible for my human eyes. I may bill (!) you for the temporary loss of productivity. Your BG and color scheme are horrible, I would rather blend and drink my left foot than read your blog again.

mixmastamyk 14y ago
Assuming you were born, how did you survive in the days of DOS?
- MikeAmelung 14y ago
  DOS didn't have a gradient gray background; it was black.
  - mixmastamyk 14y ago
    Irrelevant for all intents and purposes.
visarga 14y ago
I use Readability in Chrome. It makes the text nice with one click, everywhere I want to read an article.
- mrilhan 14y ago
  You're right, I actually have it installed too, I should've just done that and moved on. This particular blog with the patterned/hypnotic background really hurt my eyes in the morning, and I guess I was cranky enough to take it as an insult :)

jsz0 14y ago

From what I've seen Apple still does a far better job than other PC makers in this area.

drivebyacct2 14y ago

For all the things I dislike about Apple and iOS, I really can't say enough good things about their hardware. Even so much that I will wait until Q3 just to see if they release Macbook Airs with a high(er) res screen instead of grabbing the XPS13 today with a 1080p 13" screen. (And I doubt the XPS13 is any more serviceable). > which is scary because Windows 8 is unadulterated bullshit, and Linux… Well, as someone who helped found Gentoo Linux, fuck Linux. It’s the absolute best thing for servers, AND NOTHING ELSE. If you’re running Linux on the desktop, you’re a person who would rather fix his computer than use it. What a steaming load of shit.

batiudrami 14y ago

This guy writes about operating systems the way I used to when I was 12. There is perhaps a valid point (I don't know, I don't use a Mac) hidden in terrible writing and fanboy opinions.

rozap 14y ago

This article is just plain stupid. Apple's service isn't what it once was, their hardware is lower quality now, blah blah blah...we all know that. Have you been living under a rock for the past 3 years? "and Linux… Well, as someone who helped found Gentoo Linux, fuck Linux. It’s the absolute best thing for servers, AND NOTHING ELSE. If you’re running Linux on the desktop, you’re a person who would rather fix his computer than use it." You kidding me? For the vast majority of OSS development and use, linux is by far the easiest solution. People (including me) use linux because they DON'T want to fuck around with shoe-horning software into running on a Mac or Windows. It's just the simplest solution for using and developing open source software. The above quotation may have been true about 6 years ago, but it sure as hell isn't true now. Welcome to 2013.

jjkmk 14y ago
Agreed, as some one who has extensive admin and dev knowledge in OS X/ Win / Linux I find Linux to be the easiest to manage and install in a desktop environment.

DannoHung 14y ago

My experiences with Apple hardware in the past 7 years do not mirror this. In total, I have seen three serious problems with mine and my families computers: 1) Failed hard drives 2) RAM that went bad 3) A clusterfuck of problems on a 17" MBP pre-unibody (Apple eventualy got it working, but it's on its last legs in general now because the owner refuses to install patches). This is across, I wanna say... approximately 20 Apple devices ranging from phones to iMacs. They're not perfect, but compared to the amount of problems from when everyone I knew had Windows PCs, I take a lot fewer support calls.

visarga 14y ago

I can't tell how many times I have went to Apple forums to find threads hundreds of posts long and spanning multiple years without a fix. Why don't they send some of those geniuses to fix these problems? Can't they afford to support their products?

tluyben2 14y ago

My 2008 Macbook really works like a charm, always has, always does. That was my second Mac after I tried them in the 90s (and hated it). I was very happy so in 2010 I bought, for a very large wad of cash, a MBP with an i7. Nothing but problems; problems which don't appear when you go into the store except the lousy battery life which they said is because I run too heavy software (which I don't mostly and the 2008 had/has no issues with it). The magsafe internal part of that MBP is also of much lower quality; one of the pins 'disappeared' and Apple replaced the magsafe and the external charger. Now the same pin disappeared but I'm out of warranty and they want E600 to repair it. Thinkpad, here I come.

kayoone 14y ago

Why is it that Apple users are so damn opinionated ? Jeez, just use what works for you. Guess what ? I use a Windows Desktop and really like it. Its fast, i can built it myself and works with everything. My web development is done on an ubuntu vm in the cloud so i dont care where my tools run. Id probably run Linux but as i do some game programming and my tools arent availabe there, i cant. I also own a Macbook Air, i really like the hardware and battery life. Its a really solid mobile device. I dont like OSX too much but it runs my tools so i dont care. As PC laptop makers have catched up alot in the past 2-3 years id probably buy an ultrabook next as there are more choices and they are a bit cheaper. So what ? No hardware/software is perfect, just use what works for you.

r00fus 14y ago
Most Apple users actually aren't that opinionated - it's just that the opinionated Apple users are more vocal than the Windows crowd. I'd say the Linux crowd are more opinionated than Apple users.

dba7dba 14y ago

I have a similar issue with another Apple product, iMovie 11 (Version 9.0). Here's the issue: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4043813?start=0&tstart=0 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4043813?start=0&tst... If you updated iMovie 9.0.4 to 9.0.6 (afaik no 9.0.5 was released), you caught a bug that messed up timestamping in the video. At ver 9.0.8 (THREE updates later), the bug is STILL there. This timestamp feature USED to work FINE before the 9.0.6 update. The 9.0.6 update came out in June 2012. It's Mar 2013 and the bug is STILL there. And yes they've released at least 2 more updates, 9.0.7 & 9.0.8 since Mar 2012. App Store keeps reminding me to update my 9.0.4 to 9.0.8 which I keep refusing. Thank goodness it doesn't upgrade itself automatically to the latest version. Oh, wait, it actually it did. When I tried to downgrade from 9.0.7 to 9.0.4 using the App Store by reinstalling iLife, it automatically installed 9.0.7 version. So I had to go find my CD copy of iLife to install iMovie 9.0.4. What a mess. One more advice to Apple. You shouldn't feel Apple is getting bashed unjustifiably. You told us that you are different and the best. That you don't ship junk. It's true you didn't exactly ship iMovie 11 as a junk. But you turned a reasonably well working piece of software into a junk (one critical feature I need is broken) with an update and you refuse to fix it.

szc 14y ago

There is a prevailing assumption that this problem is "caused" by bad software. This might be the case, but bad hardware could also be part of this! A lot of modern hardware has programmable parameters, "core voltages", PLL parameters that control running frequencies and the timings for DMA / memory access state machines. Who's fault is it if the hardware vendor says use X, Y and Z for these parameters. And they include the same parameters in the software they supply and.... What if some %'age of the hardware doesn't actually produce the timings the configuration parameters specify, or does "really bad things"? In reading the "source" article, there is a pointer to a discussions.apple.com thread. The "fix", if you go and read the thread, is on page 21 from Andrew Humphreys. What his solution does is change the timings and clock speeds for low power and idle modes of the GPU. Reading between the lines, the low power / clock speed settings don't work and will cause corruption. His changes are derrived from people having problems running Windows 7. The same changes seem to help people running OS X. Perhaps someone from the Linux community will be willing to force the ATI GPU cards in question into low power / performance modes and see if corruption occurs. I've no knowledge of what the parameters Andrew is overriding actually do, but for a portable platform "faster" almost always results in higher power usage, heat and therefore shorter battery life. This might not be such an issue for desktops, if you can tolerate the noise of increased cooling. Getting pragmatic about this, how could you design a Q/A test for this? Do you really afford to wait X number of minutes before / after each test to make sure the GPU is cold enough to go into low power mode? What if you decide to use hardware that can cool the GPU faster so you could get through all the tests -- doesn't that make the tests invalid as you are no longer using HW customers will get? As a final note, there might be evidence that some graphics drivers were updated ~1 week before 10.8.3 was shipped. The evidence is in /System/Library/Extensions/