How much abuse is an Apple user willing to take?

Listen to this article posted by Benjamin J. Higginbotham on May 13, 2006 11:38 PM | Permalink
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Every time I read an opinion piece that just casually mentions how unstable the Mac OS has been through various transitions, I wonder what that user must be doing. As a systems admin responsible for hundreds of Macs in a high-demand media company, our experience has been that, while the OS and hardware are far from perfect, daily crashes and frequent kernel panics are not the norm. If they were, my life would be hell. As it is, our team of techs is very happy supporting OS X.

Classic: We have had to run lots of apps, including Adobe, MS and apps with Sybase hooks. We have found Classic to be quite stable and fast. In some cases, more stable and manageable than standalone OS 9 was. And OS 9.2.x was a good system.

G5: You mentioned stability problems with some older apps and even OS X resources crashing a lot. Again, our experience in moving users from very old G4s running OS 9 to G5s running OS X has been mostly very positive. OS X resource crashes have not been a problem in our G5 migration. We had some hardware quality issues with certain G5s, but even those were few compared to what I hear from my Dell colleagues. We get spoiled to the usual hardware quality Apple produces. To compare OS X to Windows ME in this context is absurd.

Our company is testing MacIntel hardware now, so it's too soon to gauge how that will go.

I agree that OS X 10.1 and 10.2 were not really ready for prime time in some ways, mostly because of immature GUIs and features. Apple has had problems getting AFP performance up, especially with network home directories. Tiger server goes a long way toward solving that, however. And there is always room for debate about how certain features "ought" to work in the Finder, iSync or other utilities.

For the first time in our Apple shop, we have had to focus heavily on technician and admin training. OS X is an enterprise OS that, like Windows, requires such investment if you want to manage it right. We maintain an extensive list of tips 'n' tricks for our techs on everything from using single-user mode to clearing all kinds of caches to digging deep to fix problems. Thankfully, though, because of its UNIX underpinnings, you CAN dig deep in OS X to fix problems.

Overall? Apple has done far more right than wrong. From a corporate perspective, the biggest single problem I have is the lack of an enterprise roadmap. Apple springs surprises on its biggest corporate customers just like it does on the general public, making it impossible to plan. When Apple abruptly switched iMacs to Intel, that really, really caused us planning problems. Because of ongoing Classic dependencies and Adobe's delay in shipping universal software, staying on the Mac platform at all has become a balancing act.

But as a consumer, running my iMac 800 on Tiger with all the iApps, I'm a happy guy. The transition was smooth and the benefits are worth it.

Any good leader is skilled at keeping the "troops" challenged, excited and motivated. Over the years Apple has been the best of any computer vendor in this regard, and the result makes the Macintosh "system" the most modern, stable and virus free "system" found today.

One look into the Windows camp and you have a sea of badly configured hardware, mismatched OSs and Applications, Virus ridden, etc. It shows Bill Gates is just not a strong leader and his "troops" suffer as a result. The Windows world really is still modeled after the "Apple //" design from 1977 if you think about it. Whereas Apple has pushed the envelope 5 major times since then, making Macs sleek and nimble.

OS11

ps: 1) sounds like you never used Classic, since it works well with 99% of "classic" apps. 2) vista is MS's os/2, it's dead already. 3) and no, Linux has no "focus", they are trying too many things, going in too many directions to ever be successful. Most of the hardcore Linux advocates see OSX as the future and they have pretty much given up the "dream".

Vista will be your saving grace. Go there, and begin writing about Vista as soon as possible.

You know, I'd agree with you & your analogy if Apple was making changes for the sake of change. They are not however they have given good reasons for such changes. In the end, the changes have been to serve the customer's & the future viability of the company.

They moved away from System 9 sveeral years ago, not recently.
From a user standpoint, other than System 9 being gone, the Intel chips are a small inconvenience. .
The actual dropping of System 9 (classic) should be applauded as 5-6 years is more than enough time to get of one's lazy butt andc move into the new millenia. I encourage my clientele to move on as the majority of problems I see have to do with running classic, in partiular trying to print from classc as printer drivers for newer printers don't exist.
The Rosetta issue will sort itself out within a few months and if that is an issue for someone, then they should put off purcahsing a new Mac until that time.
If crashes and kernel panics are part of your everyday computing experience, then it is you that are the problem as that is certainly not the case for most users.
I have found a few causes for kernel panics.
The primary one is bad RAM, the second are incomplete. Here is a rule, take them all, whether you think they are needed by you or not. Always run the combo updatewr over the regular update.
If you continue to have kernel panics then do an archive and install. I currently maintain a few dozen Macs of all sorts, running 10.3.9 and 10.4.6 as well as a few hundred client Macs, and I hear none of this from any of those computers and their users.
I have a rule of computing: If it nworks for almost everyone but you, then you are he problem and I expect that you are the problem. Totally illegitimate beef.

Your steering wheel analogy is a bit extreme, because it implies that the transitions are arbitrary and don't confer any benefits to the user. The Intel transition gave Apple a huge leap forward in performance in their iMacs and PowerBooks. Imagine how Apple's product line would look now if it had not switched to Intel? The Wintel Core Duo machines would be completely smoking the PowerPC-based Apple equivalents. The fact is, Apple had to make the Intel transition to survive.

Also, no one forced you to upgrade to the Intel Macs right away. If you don't want to suffer the growing pains of the Intel transition, just hold off buying an Intel Mac until Apple and the 3rd party developers work out the kinks. This is not unheard of. It's actually what a lot of schools and businesses do.

A lot of Mac-users are not experiencing the transitional problems that you are facing. In fact, probably the vast majority of Mac users do not have daily crashes and kernel panics. I know that the Macs that I use are stable and virtually trouble-free. Yes, I understand that a lot of Mac-users voice their problems on many internet forums, but there really is no way of determining whether the problems affect a significant percentage of Mac-users in general. Contrast that to the hundreds of thousands of verified virus files that every Windows system is subject to. 100% of Windows users must purchase, install, and run anti-virus or firewall software (even if it's installed by Dell, they paid for it and must maintain it). Besides, using the word abuse implies that you think that these problems are intentionally caused by Apple, either through deception or gross neglect. However, using its actions as a metric (even you say that transitional issues are ironed-out eventually), Apple has a track record of resolving problems in a fair and timely manner. The people Consumer Reports surveyed think so too, and that is why Apple was rated above every other computer manufacturer.

Let's be realistic about this. I think you're overexagerating things here. The problems you've had, whether real or made up for the purposes of this article, are not indicative of the average Mac user during this time. Have the transitions been perfect? Certainly not. Yet, the issues most users have had are rare and far between. Some people with very specific software needs have had more problems than others. Users who needed word processing, spreadsheets, email and a browser (which is a great majority of the users) would have little or no problems during the transitions you have described.

I wanted to make a couple specific points about your article. First, the whole 64-bit vs 32-bit argument. You're right that, in general, more memory availability equals faster response times for software. However, what you fail to point out is that most (and I'm talking a high percentage) user have nowhere near the amout of memory installed where it would make a different between 64-bit and 32-bit. Highend users with complex graphics or video would certainly be aided by 64-bit. In addition, complex mathematics needs would be helped. As much as Macs are used in these areas, they are still a small percentage, even if key, of the Mac population. What software exactly did you have to wait for?

Second, the transition from PowerPC to Intel was a surprise to nearly everyone outside of Apple. I think it's been an amazingly smooth transition so far. Message boards and forums are not a good showcase for the success or lack thereof. A small minority having problems can seem like a huge problem because a reader can't see all the successes that have occurred. People don't write in and say how great they have it. Only when there are problems do they venture into these areas. I have contact with quite a few Mac users and have heard of no problems with stability as you suggest on MacBook Pros or Minis. Now, obviously some people have problems, but programs crashing on a daily basis seems a bit extreme and I have a problem believing that's purely an issue with OS X.

Finally, your analogy about the steering wheel on a car is so far off it's almost idiotic. Sorry, for the extreme language (although maybe it's only extreme to me), but I really believe that. The analogy would actually be if the car company decided to change motors every four years and these motors worked with the older types of gas, but not at 100% efficiency. It would take a couple years to get gas that would make your car perform better than all others. In th meantime, it would still run better than others, but not as well as it could. In addition, some people who needed the speed and power of a car at 100% would have to stay with the older cars until the new gas was available. Now, you can see, sure this might be seen as a problem with the new cars, but you still have it better than using other cars, so what's to complain about. Especially when it's easy to see a time when you'll be so far ahead of other car users, it was worth the trip.

I would never claim Apple is perfect. I think they've made some mistakes. I also think I would do things a little differently if were in charge, but it's hard to fault the current path much. Success breeds success. Overall success also covers up the little mistakes you make along the way. So, I only hope that Apple is able to continue to be innovative and successful enough to keep those small mistakes insignificant.

Hi Benjamin,
Nice article;

My exposure to Intel Macs is in just two customer for a few months (limited). You do seem to be having too many problems on your new macs. I have seen this on non Intel macs I support, and I do the things John O is suggesting for a cure.

Example: On my main Mac I keep a second HD with a fresh install for a backup. Last winter the Tiger install on that drive was doing close to what you have described. I spent a lot of time trying to solve the problem. With no luck on a fix, I now have wiped and tried again twice before I got a good Tiger install. The problem was in mixing drive brands on my mac. For other customers I sometime have never found a problem, but the wipe and fresh install worked on those few Macs.

roger

I would stay away from Vista. The foundations are a mess and it has essentially become an XP service pack.

I dual boot Windows XP and OS X on a MacBook Pro. I love the MacBook and have had no problems (I develop Java and R applications). The side-by-side comparison is telling: Windows looks and feels so crappy compared to OS X. I can see why Apple released BootCamp. People can see just how good OS X is and it will become even more evident once 10.5 is released.

Apple and Sun release the best technology. Apple will soon have the best file system (zfs from Sun). Another change, but worth it.

It seems to me Windows users suffer much more. A bad OS with viruses and it never gets significantly updated. I no longer run Windows as my main OS, but I do ensure my software runs rund well on all platforms, including Windows, unlike many Windows developers.

while there have been a lot of changes - there are two main points to keep in mind:

a) the machine you have working now is functioning correctly and completely and you only to update if you so choose. There are people happily running Classic, there are people happily running Jaguar and others like me running Tiger. Yes, we might feel the tug to upgrade but the truth is - you don't really to. And Apple may be the only company where a system upgrade actually improves the speed of the machines versus slowing it down! I upgraded my imac from juguar to panther and it actually ran faster - pretty amazing - not many companies offer that. So, there's no "forced" upgrade unless you do the "forcing."

b) Yes, some of the changes were more disruptive (OS8 to OSX) but others less so, 10.2 to 10.3 but I don't believe the analogy of right hand-left hand drive is correct - it's more like in 1968 when after selling a nice "pony car," Ford decided to drop in a muscle car engine into the Mustang - it still looks the same but it was no longer the same car - same with Macs. The OSX finder still looked mostly like the Classic desktop but there were differences but with "Classic," you could run 90-99% of your old apps just fine - when MS changed from WinNT to WinXP, how many apps stoped working.

Now, 5 years later, classic is being dropped but the announcement was a year in the making and you can still buy a computer that runs classic - a machine that should run for another 5 to possibly 10 years if you really need classic ... and of course, the change to INtel has gone pretty smoothly. I'm sure there are some apps that do not run in Rosetta (probably games?) and while apps might be a little slower, again, you don't have to upgrade unless you feel the need to have the latest gear.

In the last ten years, the only pain associated with me being a Mac user was the wait for 10.1 to be released. I was an early adopter of OSX 10.0, and that release was horrible.

Yes, many applications were not available, but I made sure the ones were available that I needed before I made the switch. The same logic applies now. If I needed a new machine, I would make sure the applications were available to work on it. If they were not, I would hold off on the upgrade.

For what it is worth, my stepfather just purhased an Intell Mac Book Pro. I had the pleasure of having it for nearly two weeks. Even non-native applications like Photoshop were quite fast for me, as my home machine is a Dual 450 G4 tower. People always seem to compare the last generation machines to the new ones. Not real useful if you ask me, as most people do not buy new machines every upgrade cycle.

Apple has also done a good job migrating its technology to standard components, which will eventually allow it to concentrate more on being creative, which is why I am a Mac user to begin with. I like true innovation.

If you think the consumer has it bad from Apple, you should be a reseller of Apple products. Apple is doing everything it can to force the resellers out business via their stores and other things they do. Withhold new products and only sell via Apple factory stores and web sites. Sell below wholesale if a customer brings a quote from a reseller to make sure they get the sale directly.

Classic: I never had such problems like you are describing here. Classic applications always seemed to run very smoothly.
64-bit: Totally untrue. AFAIK Virtual PC was the only major application that did break.
Intel: I have to agree that there actually are differences between the PPC and the Intel build of Mac OS X. For me, however, the Intel build seems to be even better!

To conclude my store I can only say that the only thing where Apple went wrong was that they pushed out the MacBook Pro one month too early. There were/are indeed some whine and heat issues (experienced those myself). It's very obvious that they just wanted to give their laptop line a new breath (which - and I think most other commenters are agreeing with me here - was only a move to serve their customers).

Just a clarification on VirtualPC and the G5. The reason VirtualPC didn't work on the G5 had nothing to do with it being 64-bit. The G4 (and G3, I think) had some specific addtions to handle endian-flipping. Basically, there was hardware on that chip that was for VirtualPC specifically. That hardware was left off of the G5, and since VirtualPC depended on it, it wouldn't work at all until rewritten.

Ben,

It's not exactly correct that the G4 had hardware specifically for VPC, it just turned out that VPC was the only app that ever used the little-endian mode.

-jcr

Sounds like a bad case of early adopterism to me. Availability of a new OS, CPU, etc is is not a compelling reason for most to jump. Rev A's of most Apple hardware and software suck and that has been more true since Steve Jobs' return than ever. Most longtime Mac users over the age of 16 wait out the bugs and then upgrade, particularly in business and government settings.

I have had a stable of Apple hardware around the house for a very long time and run a wide variety of software. Everything from G3 400's through G4-5's to my current 2 Gig Core Duo iMac reside here and I haven't seen the stability issues you speak of excepting OS 10.0x and maybe 10.1x.

If you are having problems in Rosetta you probably are starved for memory. Rosetta is a memory hog and OS X is kind of hungry on it's own. The rule of thumb for Rosetta is at least 2x the memory requirement from a G4-5 system.

My biggest complaint about Apple these days stems from hardware reliability. My niece's G4 iBook, just back from a 3 1/2 week repair under AppleCare for Logic Board Failure lasted exactly 2 weeks before another spate of hardware related problems put it back in. The G3 iBook she used at college while her G4 was in repair suffered it's second Logic Board Failure in 3 years less than a week after she got hers back. I do not know of many (white) iBook owners that have not had at least 1 major hardware failure.

The iBook is not alone with premature hardware failure. Almost every hardware launch has had serious hardware reliability issues, from self-basting G5 iMacs to DOA MacBook Pros. Compare that to a G3 400 iMac that has never had any service issues since new and is used every day. My guess is that QC & QA in the Mainland China Plants is not up to what was coming out of Taiwan and California previously.

Apple needs to tighten up it's quality control before warranty issues eat up their profits. I'm guessing they have lost a bundle on logic board repairs on just the iBooks. Add in G5 iMacs that cook themselves and all the rest and you get the idea.

In my opinion it's the other way around. Die hard Windows users are willing to put up with as much abuse as humanly possible. Windows users' privacy and security are consistantly compromised daily and one application that they use will be their excuse for not switching over to a more secure platform as the Mac OS. As much as Microsoft promises better security as Service Pack 2 was "suppose" to be things keep getting worse.
My Macbook Pro runs OSX perfectly. I have had zero issues. Runs smoother than my PowerMac G5. I installed bootcamp and Windows XP runs fine but I refuse to connect to the internet while on the Windows side because I am afraid to jeopardize my security. Windows users tolerate this daily and still never want to leave Windows.

I don't get too hung-up on not being able to have older apps run on new Macintosh hardware/os pairs. The last time I was inconvenienced was during the Word 6 fiasco. That's when I discovered the other word processors that exist for the Mac platform.

I'm well into middle age; I'm on my fourth career: developing online learning applications using Flash. Flash 8 is awesome on my MacBook Pro. My kids love using our Intel-based iMac as an iTunes music/video server. It just works.

One of my college instructors, I'm days away from completing a degree, says today's definition of literacy has to include being able to disremember, or forget, that knowledge which is no longer useful. Let go and get on with it.

You are not a hardcore Mac User.

I have owned 19 Macs since the original 128K Mac in 1984. I currently have 8 Macs running in a home business. One is running Mac OS 9. The Mac hardly crash. They don't need a reboot every day or week. The Powerbook Ti running Mac OS 9 has been running continuously for the past 4 years - running Now-Up-to-Date and Contact, database, and word processing software. My newly obtained Macbook Pro 17-inch is running like a champ in the week I have obtained it.

In comparison, my PCs (I have six including a new Sony Vaio laptop) are fragile. They all run Windows XP. They all frequently crash, get slower all the time. They unbelievably get viruses, malware, adware, etc. So much time is wasted keeping them up and running.

If you are a hardcore Apple user, then you should not be complaining about Apple's continuous transitions.

Hardcore Apple users, like me, are the ones demanding Apple's progressive changes. We want Apple to continue to build the best computers in the world. We do not want Apple to rest on their laurels.

If anything, the stall in processor speeds with the G4 and G5 was maddening. I am so happy Apple moved to Intel. At least the Intel road promises the hardcore users faster and faster processors.

Every transition does entail some rough spots. But I have found an improvement in the Mac experience with each one. I have gone happily through each OS transition: Mac OS 1 to 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.0 to 10.4. I've found the software more stable with each transition. Each transition offers more opportunities for software development and creativity.

If you were a hardcore user, you would know what you are doing to crash your Mac. There may be a hardware glitch, for example.

So far, on my Macs, Apple has done a superb job.

We want more, more, more. I want an 8 processor Mac Pro desktop this summer. Keep it coming Apple!

"be nice if Apple would just take a deep breath and decide on a roadmap that does not involve yet another huge transition."

that will be after ZFS i suspect?

I see it this way: Apple needs to stay ahead of the rivals, and let me tell ya, it's a hard world out there.
People, new to the platform have more advantages, because they are not tightend to older operating systems from Apple, they start with a clean sheet, and they are happy campers (I'm giving courses to them, so I can tell :-)).
The last 5 years are pretty okay for Apple. The developers followed Apple in everything it commanded. I hope, with the transition to Intel, that developers are still doing their bests, to stay in shape and give us their best tools. We do have a great operating system (in my humble opinion, the best there is for both novices and experts), we do have great and slick hardware (not always free from failures, helaas), and if our best developers follow the guidelines from Apple, I think, together with what's on stake with Leopard, that we'll have the best computing experience on the planet.
And yes, I'll take it gladly from Apple :-)

Regarding your comment about MS's new filesystem. You are implying that HPS+journaling is 2+ years ahead of NTFS, but NTFS is more featureful that HPS+J. (Actually the features that NTFS has that HPS+J has have been there for well over 10 years.)

"Not too long ago Apple decided to transition away from the aging Mac OS 9 system to the hot new Mac OS X system."

Gosh, that transition is now 5-6 years old already. From a Windows Analogy standpoint, how many applications today *require* Win98 because they've never been updated for XP?

Rhetorical Question: How many classical Moore's Law iterations have passed?

For XCode, Apple did "advise" (warn) their Developers to transition to that tool well in advance of when the Intel decision came about, so its not like Apple wasn't trying to be helpful.

Rhetorical Question: when a developer chooses to not follow guidelines, whose fault is it?

For 64bit, since Apple never replaced the G4, developers always had to make 32/64bit code flavors, so nothing is really different yet. There really hasn't been much of a call for it yet, let alone actually shipped software products.

Rhetorical Question: when did Microsoft release 64bit versions of Office?

Finally, there's two different ways to use a computer: as a tool or as a toy. For those who use it as a tool, they monitor new changes and defer buying until it is clear that the investment will be positive. But for those who are buying toys, they're often early adopters who then delight in complaining about how they're ahead of the developers (features, stability, etc).

Rhetorical Question: if they actually had a real job in which they had to get something useful done, would they still have been dumb enough to have been a early adopter?

The current Intel's are still 1st GEN and mainstream software sources such as MS-Office and Adobe Photoshop haven't yet released their companion products. If you're trying to use the computer as a tool instead of a toy, you've not bought yet, so none of these so-called "problems" exist as far as you're concerned.

-hh

How much abuse indeed should we take. I suggest we take NONE from the article and just move on and relegate that the writer, although a Mac fan and user, questions certain decisions.
The alternative to the Mac is the horror of Windows, and i for one have no interest in going there!!!!
The various issues involved in migration have been well worth the effort in the end result.
Nothing is perfect, but the Mac in all it's iterations has been the superior platform, unless you want games.

This article does not describe abuse. The only Apple customers who could complain about these things are those that have choosen to always stay on the leading edge, & anyone like that should be smart enough to realize the downsides.

To the average customer, these changes are slow enough. We stick to the stable stuff & don't waste money upgrading just because an upgrade is available. By the time we are ready to upgrade, we're very happy that Apple's been moving forward & that those leading edge technologies are now stable & improving our lives.

Likewise, the technology mavens couldn't be more pleased to have new things to play with. They're happy to spend the money on the latest-but-not-yet-greatest thing because of the fun of playing with new technology.

Decide which camp you're in. Either quit complaining about the new stuff or stop trying to live on the edge.

You want to talk about abuse: Let's talk about when Apple was stupid enough to bulid crappy hardware. Let's talk about when Apple took the profits from that crappy hardware & squandered it while the most fundamental levels of the MacOS were left to rot. (& even Microsoft beat them to putting out a OS with decently modern fundamentals.) Let's talk about the many broken promises to developers from the Apple of that time. How about their fake licensing/clone fiasco?

I could go on & on & on. Apple has certainly abused both its customers & its developers in the past. Today, though, a reasonable customer has few substantial complaints.

quit your bitchin. this is an issue for the developer, not the user. if kernal panics are part of your daily routine, then you've got a crappy system and there's something wrong with it besides these transitions you're talking about. most users don't have to deal with the things you're talking about.

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