Times: Dvorak predicts iPhone Disaster
June 16, 2007
Today’s Times quotes Dvorak saying that there will be 20% returns on all iPhone sales as the keyboard is a disater.
I subscribe to Cranky Geeks and Twit etc. I know JCD is not an iPhone cheerleader, but I don’t recall him being so negative.
I can’t believe this…
June 14, 2007
» Leopard looks like … Vista | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com
If you like Vista so be it. But if you are going to give Leopard a pasting for copying Vista please do some basic research.
What a stupid article.
There’s something afoot at Apple
June 13, 2007
I have been away for a week and since getting back I have noticed that the Apple website has had a considerable revamp. Not only that the Safari 3 beta has been released so that Windoze users can get a bit of Mac lovin in their lives.
Mail on the .Mac account has been revamped too. Subtly, but there are some nice new additions such as aliasing and the layout has been refined. Mac mail accessed from Safari 3 is very fast.
I think Apple are going to launch a suite of web based app’s that work with .Mac. I will probably be wrong. However, Jobs hinted at something during the D5 chat with Mossberg, Gates and Mrs Annoying. Will Apple risk allowing Google to grab Apple users now that many Google app’s are availible for Mac? .Mac is underwhelming and needs a revamp anyway. If Safari is taken up by Windows users perhaps some app’s can be offered to them too as they will have a browser fast enough to cope with the speed needed to run .Mac app’s smoothly.
I think I am right on this one.
In English Law I am not sure the suit would be seen as baffling:-
1. Apple represents that its MacBooks can display “x millions” of pixels.
2. Consumer buys Mac on, or partly on that basis.
3. Consumer claims millions of colours not displayed, and therefore cannot use a particular application.
4. The “pixels” claim is therefore a misrepresentation. It is not a mere “puff” or a “boast” ( think along the lines of “Mac’s are just the best machines around”).
The crux seems to me to be that Apple made a technical claim and if the machine is not up to specification then the consumer should be able to return it or make a claim in damages. Just as would be that case if MacBooks were advertised as being sold with 1gig of ram but actually came with 512mb. However……..
….there is a fundamental issue that seems to me to have been overlooked in the lawsuit: does dithering get Apple over the hurdle anyway?
I have my money on Apple.
Does it matter how Apple gets to its millions of colours?
What you see on a display is a mixture of hardware and software working together. Like I know! But that’s how I’d explain it to a judge, and how I guess a judge would see it.
In fact this very proposition is actually part of the Complainants’ case. It is claimed that XP looks much better than OSX when running on a MacBook. I don’t see any mention in the complaint of a failure within OSX/CoreImage or any other part of the OS relating to graphics.
That’s got to be a problem, perhaps a fatal one, for the complainants.
I can imagine an exchange with a judge along the lines of:
Judge: “So Mr. [x], your client’s case is, is it not, that the millions of colours are displayed not by the LCD, but by a process known as dithering? “
Counsel: “Yes M’Lud”
Judge: “And you have asked me to compare the look of XP with OSX. And when we do that, you say, do you not, that we can clearly see how much better XP looks than OSX? So therefore this dithering is not good enough?”
Counsel: “Yes m’Lud”
Judge: “Thank you Mr [x], now leaving aside, for a moment the specification of the LCD, can you take me to the part of your claim where it is stated that representations were made about the graphical capabilities of OSX ?….”
No doubt, people in the US know better than I that often a complaint is less about getting to trial, than it is about making a claim, whipping up some publicity, and hoping that Goliath gets his cheque book out.
Just one finally aside: the latest MacBook’s marketing blurb makes interesting reading:
Now, that’s the sort of wording that keeps lawsuits at arms’ length.
Hey Apple
May 21, 2007
My MacBook died last night. I got that lovely ticking hard drive sound. It was 6 months old. Tut tut.
MacBook/Pro Display Lawsuit
May 20, 2007
I always thought my MacBook display was ok, much better than my old iBook’s. However, the people bringing this claim beg to differ. What does seem to be clear to me that the early MacBooks were not particularly well made.
The primary allegations are:
1. MacBooks do not display millions of colours as claimed by Apple.
2. MacBooks use “dithering” to trick the eye into believing that millions of colours are being displayed.
3. The net result of 1 and 2 is “grainy” or “sparkly” displays with colour banding problems.
The plaintiffs seek relief based on misleading advertising claims made by Apple.
The plaintiffs are pro users who want to applications like Aperture and Photoshop. The complaint acknowledges that for most non-pro work dithering will not be that apparent. I must admit though that I have always thought both my iMac and MacBook have a certain “milky” image quality. However, that being said they are much better displays than my girlfriend’s Dell and I have no complaints myself.
The most worrying allegation is that Windoze has a much better resolution than OSX when its run on an MacBook. If that’s true Apple has just handed the opposition a much needed propaganda boost. Surely someone at Apple would have spotted of Windoze looked better?
Perhaps Leopard might see better dithering?
MacBook fook ups
May 18, 2007
I love Macs.
No I do.
I do not mind paying a few quid more for a really class product.
But why oh why is my Macbook not that good:-
1. 2gig black: warped case returned within a week – exchanged for new model by vendor.
2. 2gig black: overheating and freezing and returned within a week – exhanged for a new model by vendor (I took a white version this time purely on the basis that this was from the second production batch and would be more reliable).
3 . 6 months go by…..White MacBook (“WMB”) ……..screen developes discolouration. Next, trackpad dies.
4. Vendor takes WMB and replaces screen and trackpad. Replacement screen faulty, does not turn off when MacBook lid shut.
5. Screen replaced. Oh so happy.
6. Tonight I have three pixels on the screen that have turned bright red – no matter what.
FFS
New Macbooks
May 15, 2007
Apple’s a bona fide, paid up member of the “Intel Racing Club” now:-
As an early macbook adopter I got a bit stewed when, within months of buying my Core Duo Macbook it got elbowed out of the way by the Core 2 Duo range. There’s something a bit troubling to me about being the latest thing one minute and not the next. Why? Well it’s not a case of whining (well it is a bit) but it’s more that:
1. Apple’s marketing bods were sat writing the original blurb for the Core Duo and about how this new machine was the newest latest and greatest thing. They new that:
1.1. We Apple loyalists were all thinking well “Apple’s put a lot of time and effort into this and we’ll be buying a product of a lot of hard work and r&d effort and that’s going to be really cutting edge”.
2. In fact what Apple really did was sell us a “beta” version of the MacBook. My first two “blackmacbooks” were warped and overheating within a fortnight and went back. I flipped down to the white 2ghz model, which has, within its first year had a replacement keyboard, trackpad and screen (two screens to be fair, one replacement was missing the magnet that runs down the screen edge, meaning that the screen stayed on even with the lid shut).
It seemed to me that the PPC range allowed Mac users a certain isolation from the constant upgrading and reavamping that went on with pentiums. Why? The speed thing was not as much of an issue. When I bought my first iBook I knew the Ghz reading was not as high as a comparable windoze machine. However, I also knew straight comparisons were misleading and it was roughly up to the same spec. Now the differences in spec are there for everyone to see.
Now we are following the Intel roadmap it seems we are on the neverending Intel racetrack: CoreDuo, Core2Duo, Santa-pod-Rosas bla bla bla.
At least this new macbook has 1gig of ram Apple has to know that the minimum for a stock machine of any credibility these days. But be that as it may I still think the reliance on the Intel GMA 950 graphics processor is a mistake. My coreduo has 1gig of ram and it starts getting very hot and noisy playing youtube clips. I had a try at playing World of Warcraft on it: impossible. Why Apple does not go with a radeon mobility or something similar I don’t get.
Plus, if Apple’s going to get away with being overpriced in comparision with other brands, style and a great OS are going to have to be supplemented by a better production standards when it comes to hardware. At the moment I really wish I could port OSX onto a Dell, yes they are pretty useless looking bits of kit, but they are cheap, solidly made and are priced cheaply enough that I would not mind the thought of upgrading more regularly or being outmoded so quickly.
