Apple Leopard is the new Microsoft Vista

If imitation is a form of flattery, and Apple has decided to imitate Microsoft Pre Xp era, does that say at what level Apple has taken the Mac software with its latest release?

One of my coworkers said that journalist, when they report, should not show their bias.  Well.  Guess what.  I’m not a journalist.  I show my bias, right at the start.

For the past week or so, I have been following the release of Leopard into the wild(so to speak) and have taken it with great interest.  For a company that trumpets many cards claiming how stable and secure their operating system is, Apple has had a lot of bad press these past few weeks.  It makes those PC versus Mac ads seem pointless as the Mac is now the new PC, and in some cases, even worse off.

When Microsoft released Vista for the masses to consume, there were a bunch of people claiming that it was still incomplete, that it needed work done on it.  There were others that, after using it for a while, downgraded to Windows XP.  And now, the same thing is happening to Apple.  Problems have been consistently rising for their new crown jem.  The first problem reported was a Blue Screen of Death for Leopard that is eerily familiar with those that windows users sometimes face when there is a hardware problem on their system.  But with Leopard(the most sacred and secure and stable operating system ever(sick)) it is piece of software that is taking the system down.  When they(bloggers) dug into the problem more, it appeared that the windows manager crashes and is unable to launch.  Upon calling Apple support(which the writer of itsallmac.com blog noted was very incompetent—I would rather speak to someone in India than someone who is incompetent) they were unable to get the problem resolved, even from a senior level techsupport person.  The solution?  Format your hard drive and start over.  While initial reports placed the blame on Unsanity’s APE software, Cnet’s New.com reports that the problem exists even for those users who have not installed the software.  And it has come to light recently that Apple has acknowledge the problem with the method of install and have been marketing work arounds.  I have not found a source yet for this last claim, but am looking for it. 

Nice Apple, nice.How sad for those Mac users.(O.T.: one writer suggests renaming the Blue Screen of Death to Blue Screen of Knowledge.  I agree with the argument as most blue screens now a days come as a result of hardware problems.  For the article, read here: Apple’s BSOD Joke is Slightly Amusing)

The second item to plague Apple and Steve Job’s precious child is something that Microsoft has gotten right(since XP sp2) and Apple, for whatever reason, decided to do just plain wrong.  So what is happening to Leopard?  Well according to researchers, there is a lot wrong with its firewall. eWeek has an article on the firewall incident(as do many other places)  which tells a pretty chilling tale for Mac users.  Of note are the following items related to the firewall

1. The firewall shuts itself off by default, even if the user had the firewall on before upgrading to the new version of the OS
2. Allows incoming connections under "deny all" setting—which means that even under the deny all setting, connections are still able to be made to the computer.
3. Only three choices: Allow All, Deny All, Pick By Program(no ports here or network services–by by ssh, web server, file sharing(at least easily)—come on Apple—windows does it!)
4. There is an open source firewall included, but it needs to be done via the command line.  I though Macs were for those who like to do things with a nice pretty interface and have it done simply and easily for them?
5. Unlike Vista which changes the rules of the firewall based on location(public, home, work, etc…) all networks in Leopard are treated the same.  There is no difference in the rules that the firewall attempts to follow(as seen by the Deny All still letting in traffic)
6. The versions of NTPD and Samba that are included in Leopard do not run in sandboxed mode, run as root, and the firewall doesn’t block access to these services even with "Deny All" as the option

This opens the door wide open(number 2 and 6) for a virus/worm to easily and maliciously spread across the Mac world.  Someone just needs to write some code to take advantage of the flaws and we will start to see the number of crying Mac users roll in, most of whom would have no idea what to do with a virus since they have been cradled and pampered for so long(can’t wait till the average Mac user has to come to the real world and deal with real life issues like spyware and viruses—its just a matter of time Mac!)

The third item that seems to be coming around and biting Mac users is a problem with their cd-rom drive.  There have been reports of cds being ejected 10-20 seconds after they are inserted into the system.  Odd.  They report that the internal drive, for whatever reason, just ejects the disk.  But(and here is the kicker) if you reboot your computer and hold down the "t" key you can then connect to another mac via FireWire to mount the cd-rom drive on the other mac on your mac and then use the cd that way.  Or you can use an external drive.  I thought mac was the easiest operating system in the world.  Its sounding pretty archaic to me…and there is still more that troubles the new OS.

Wireless.  Wireless is something that has been around for a long time now and is pretty standard.  You would think that being a company that has very limited hardware choices and options for wireless that there would be very little wrong with it.  Well reports that surfaced from Gregg Keizer on Computer World reveals a completely different story.  It would be best to just quote the site, as there is no way to paraphrase this better than this.  So to quote Gregg Keizer: "When you connect to your wireless network, your transmit rate will be 54 (if you’re using the 54g standard)," said someone identified as nunofgs. "If you start up a download or something that occupies your bandwidth (even LAN traffic), you will notice that the transmit rate drops to 11, then to 3, then to 1 until finally your downloads will drop, your iChat connections will fail and your browser will not load pages."  It has not just been this one person that has reported this, other people have reported the problem as well. 

Graphics have taken a hit as well.  Macnn.com reports some graphics issues.  There have been problems with AMD’s ATI Radeon HD video cards which were included in the new iMacs, and these problems were not resolved with the new operating system, but Apple is promising a fix soon.  That’s cool and I can understand tweaking drivers for a new piece of hardware.  But why they didn’t test it before they shipped the new Macs, that is another question.  Maybe they just decided to rush their product out and they knew that Apple fanboys would stick with their product no matter what?  But beyond this piece of hardware snafu, there is just some general graphic problems with Leopard.  Reports include brief instances of pixel artifacts around Dock icons and an instance of what can best be described as "streaks" flying across the screen which, according to the site, previously only appeared in the boot camp installs of windows. 

Another video problem that has been seen in Leopard is a shutdown of the video system altogether.  Mann.com reports that under certain conditions the video system completely shuts down, especially when switching to a full screen program.  The video goes completely black and there is nothing on the screen, although there is still audio which shows that the system has not shut down and there is something processing in the background.

Apple keeps taking a bashing, but that’s ok because apple fanboys will continue to love their precious apple.  There are unconfirmed reports(so they can be bunk) of people having problems when upgrading.  Their accounts which were administrator on the Mac before are then downgraded to normal user level.  There are other reports of errors with such things as active directory integration, Finder, Time Machine, and file locker(which in one persons case, with file locker enabled from 10.4, he was no longer able to boot his 10.5 machine once it was upgraded.  He manually deleted it(he didn’t say how) and then his machine worked again…..)

So yes, it seems that Apple has been experiencing some problems with their newest child, and it is causing a PR problem for them.  Looking through their forums, there are many people who are experiencing problems, so its not just one or two loud voices in the desert causing the ruckus.  One neat thing has come out of this Leopard fun, a new phrase that I don’t think Windows will ever be able to duplicate.  What is this fun phrase?  Why.  Its the beach ball of death.  Yes…I have been a little harsh to the Apple company, but I know that it has been long time coming for them.  Poor apple fan boys, welcome to reality.  You need a good slap once in a while. 

On a side note, here is the average level of technical skill needed of a computer user.

1. Mac OSX
2. Commodore 64
3. Windows XP
4. Windows Vista
5. Windows 9x

I remember when Vista came out and how Mac fanboys pointed and laughed at the early adopters of Vista and the issues associated with it.  Well now its our turn to turn, point, laugh, and mock the apple fanboys.  Their god named Steve Jobs has fallen and produced an inferior product on the lines of Microsoft’s Windows 9x series.   Ah Apple.  The software/hardware company you love to hate and hate to love.  Don’t cry yourself to sleep fanboys, just take it and role with the punches.