Apple’s PR is "blame it on Microsoft"

Yes, that was a questionable decision on Apple’s part.

You, however, have done just as much as they have. You’ve taken one topic (Apple blaming Microsoft) and tied in an unrelated problem with MacBooks.

Come on, Windows sucks. Just accept it. Everyone else has.

You’re right about Apple’s response being ill phrased, but the Apple problem child is the MacBook, not the MacBook Pro. So far I haven’t heard anyone having big problems with their MBPs (i.e. 10% of them don’t randomly shutdown).

I have to say this whole chatter bores me. It was an off-color remark that people should have taken more tongue-in-cheek. This is making a mountain out of mole hill…

But on another note, I’m intrigued by something that I was expecting you to discuss in some way since it’s made a big impact on the blog sites: Windows Vista licensing.

Any post forthcoming on that issue? I’m not going to be accusatory but your silence was disappointing to me personally since I feel like you held Microsoft’s feet to the fire more often than you do since you moved on…

Quote from one of your links:

“Oh, so they use a Windows OS PC to manufacture iPods, why not a Mac?”

I don’t think it has sunk in with most Apple fans that the company is gradually working its way out of the hardware business. The manufacturing process is now in the hands of third parties over which Apple has little day to day control. At best they can threaten to change vendors after a major blunder such as this, or the various problems with iBooks a couple years back.

For $700 or so I can get a perfectly unusable dual processor AMD 64-bit machine with a gig of memory and be much less concerned about problems such as this because HP and Dell aren’t over there attempting to micro manage the case design and so on as Apple most surely is.

It took a pending class action lawsuit to get the iBooks recalled. I have one that works fine now, but didn’t work reliably for the first two years I had it. I got turned away at the “Genius Bar” and my posts got deleted along with those of others on the Apple forum. Openness in dealing with customer problems is not one of Apple’s strong points in my few years of dealing with them.

Eventual satisfaction with the recall did prompt me to give them another (probably undeserved) chance however and I got the next model Powerbook that came out with which I’ve had no problems (knock on aluminum).

Back to using Linux now I have a lot wider selection of hardware to choose from, like the laptop mentioned above, stacks of surplussed, but still current, government computers, or maybe even a PS3 running Yellowdog Linux. I’ll give up a few style points for the assurance that I’m not about to make another $2000 mistake. Let others drive the DeLorian of consumer electronics. I just want something that works.

“I don’t think it has sunk in with most Apple fans that the company is gradually working its way out of the hardware business.”

Oh please. What dream world are you living in? Assuming for a second that a sale of OS X was all profit, the profit on the average Mac is several hundred dollars. The margins in software are slim unless you’re Microsoft and know you can sell millions of Windows and Office licenses. Apple is expected to announce that the revenue is way up this quarter over last year, on sales of computers.

I’ll agree with Scoble on this one. I don’t use a lot of Apple products but I was one to buy into the iPod craze and have been fuming over iTunes 7 since its release a short while back. Judging by the posts on the Apple forums for iTunes support, there were tons of issues that had little to do with Windows/Microsoft and more with a buggy release.

The “blame the next guy” mentality is, in my humble opinion, a cheap political-type trick and I hate seeing it in the software/tech world. It’s expected when political chiefs take over positions from their predecessors…but is that really a model to live up to?

Nerd Lifestyle, Getting out of the hardware business doesn’t mean that they’re going to stop selling computers and iPods. It means that they’re no longer maintaining their own manufacturing facilities, but subcontracting (“sourcing”) manufacturing in China. Googling didn’t give me any quick answers, but it did turn up a few late-nineties articles about layoffs in manufacturing plants. My guess is that they quietly closed their plants in the US and Europe in the late 90s and that they’ve been outsourcing ever since.

“As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it.” [emphasis mine]

Is this what you’re referring to? Is there a reason why you didn’t quote this directly?

Sure, this was a manufacturer slip-up, which ultimately becomes Apple’s responsibility in the end, but I hardly see this as being classless.

This is obviously a sore spot in the Windows camp.

I’m a kool aid drinking RDF influenced Mac addict and I too gave them crap for the cheap shot at Windows.

http://www.idespisemicrosoft.com/2006/10/video-ipods-shipped-with-virus.html

And I sent Apple an email on their online feedback page. I’m sure they read those things. :-p
But hey, they always say, don’t just whine about it. Do something. So I did. I would call and complain too – if I knew who to call. Any phone number suggestions?

The screen on my iBook cracked last year when I set my Dell Laptop on it.

To bad Microsoft works with companies that make uneccesarily heavy laptops.

I’m also guessing that iTunes taking up 30% of my CPU clicks and 150MB+ of memory is likely a Microsoft bug too.

Um, Apple, like everyone, has outsourced manufacturing for a loooong time now, and IIRC, never did the manufacturing for the Powerbooks, much less the MacBooks.

Searls’ article is doing some odd extrapolation, in that he’s taking one order of 80 laptops, and making that order a representation of ALL MBP orders. That’s not really good math, as it doesn’t account for the lot concept. Computers tend to be be a collection of parts and assembly methods that are collected and built in lots. Within a single model, you can have a lot that’s just defective, but others that aren’t. For example, a lot of early MacBook Pros had bad heat sinks, such as Winer’s. Mine didn’t. Doesn’t mean he didn’t have a problem, just a different lot.

Another example, if you owned a Powerbook ’99, aka Lombard that was built before Nov. of that year, there was a bug in the memory controller that would hard lock the machine up if you tried to run Mac OS X with more than 64 MB of RAM. It wasn’t a guarantee, but it was pretty endemic if your ‘book was from that lot.

The MacBooks do run hot, but no hotter than the Powerbooks. As to whether that’s a good or a bad thing depends on the person. I know I set the thing on my lap regularly, and have yet to suffer any burns or a reaction more than “hmm…getting warm”.

But again, for anything, computer, car, whatever, for everyone that complains, there’s ten that have no problems. Out of the complaints are always a significant amount of PEBKAC errors. That’s why, regardless of platform, I rarely take bug reports I don’t see with my own eyes seriously, (other than for perhaps humor value). There’s entirely too many of them that are not reproducible, and happened once, so you can’t even establish if it’s a bug or not.

As to the tacky-assed comment by Joswiak?

Scott: maybe you should read TechMeme. Not just Windows fans are pointing this out.

Apple has acknowledged the MacBook problem:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304308

Fall on your sword PR if you ask me. Send someone out to make a comment that twists the story away, even slightly, from the issue. Next thing you know there are multiple threads of the same story; some discussing Microsoft vs Apple others the difference between a virus and a trojan a few of them the fact that they use Windows PCs to make iPods a couple on how it was wrong for Apple to blame Microsoft and then a blog or two talking about a virus on an iPod etc. etc. What you don’t have is a simple up and down the iPod has a virus story.

Gah…text email habits trip me up in blog posts…

As to the tacky-assed comments by Joswiak?

http://www.bynkii.com/archives/2006/10/apple_dont_be_a_bunch_of_tools.html

(1) Robert, for once I agree with you. Even many Apple fans are shocked at this poorly-chosen expression by Apple.

(2) @4: Can you at least see how badly it plays out through the ether? This is the same thing as not including a smiley to indicate you are just joking. Anymore, you speak your words at your own risk – and Apple did poorly this time.

(3) @6: In regards to your reply to @5: Can you blame him/her for not making this distinction? Even Gartner today released a so-called non-biased report that Apple should stop selling computers and license OS X to Dell. It’s a bunch of BS – but there nonetheless.

To all: Apple just posted major increases across the board. Revenue, EPS, unit sales, iPod, and Macs. They ain’t going anywhere for now. They’ve clearly established that next year – with Leopard, second generation Intel machines, the likelihood of a true video iPod and the long-rumored iPhone – they’ll keep on truckin’ pretty damn good.

Who is it you work for Mr Mooney?

Ross: Mr Mooney works for himself.

This was totally an operations issue. It’s not anyone with half a brain would set up a process to have someone manually touch a each device coming through their line. They made an image (probably on a windows machine…), put it on a server (does anyoen tink it be an xserve?) did not check it, duped it on all the subsequent ipods on their line.

The more important question, How would a virus get to a supposedly super secure environment as reported in http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=401234&in_page_id=1770 (yeah, this is old news)?

Personally, I think Apple’s cavallier attitude towards viruses & security will backfire – they are basically saying to end users you don’t have to worry about security. Unfortunately, Security is something that really needs to be baked into a development process. I believe the freebsd folks do a good job here – will Apple hit an issue like the Firefox team hit recently (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=103)?

/i
p.s. hello mr scoble!

Okay, here’s one Mac kool aid drinker who thinks it’s a fair comment. Apple admitted they screwed up (or, rather, a 3rd party manufacturer did) and also said this wouldn’t have happened but for the poor design of Windows. There’s nothing incorrect or inappropriate about that statement. In making the iPod work with WIndows, Apple is now exposed to all the issues that come along with that. After all, where did the virus come from? A Windows computer? Why did the virus succeed in infecting that machine? Poor design of Windows. Plenty of blame to go around here, and some of it belongs to Microsoft for that so-called operating system.

I read Apple’s comments as being tongue-in-cheek also. Microsoft has no sense of humor? Poor big Microsoft is the victim? boo-hoo!

Virus in an iPod. Doesn’t worry me. Haven’t you heard?

http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac_ads1/viruses_480x376.mov

http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/trustmac_480x376.mov

Diego: it’s not about Microsoft being a victim. It’s about Apple trying to shift blame for a screwup on their side. Personally Apple should worry more about their bad quality control on MacBooks.

Robert: I actually agree with what you say about this incident. I also think part of it was tongue-in-cheek with the wording they used.

I wonder how this came about though? They or the manufacturer using infected PCs in the manufacturing process? Can Steve Jobs please buy them a copy of Norton AntiVirus? I presume that Jobs has already kicked some ass on this one.

As for the MacBooks. Agreed. I was lucky to not have had any problems with mine. Which, to me, is a worry when spending that amount of money… and also for hassles which may arise from it being faulty, etc. Just ask Dave Winer

Windows has little to do with it just being a tacky thing to say