Comments on: The Dream is Dead: Macs Don’t Always “Just Work”

By: IronMike

IronMike — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 01:15:04 +0000

I have seen that screen. It took me awhile to figure out that I was using cheap RAM that wasn’t Apple approved. I bought “Apple Approved” RAM and it stopped going to the gray screen of death.

By: blinkdt

blinkdt — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 07:05:55 +0000

Yeah, Mac users are incredibly close-minded, mean-spirited, and just plain rude as evidenced by the above commnets. They swoon over design but will never truly understand hardware. Give it back: baffle them with facts and then flip ‘em the bird and tell ‘em to fuck off, they crawl back into their holes quietly.

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 13:47:25 +0000

As a person who uses Macs at school (and has since I was in grade school), and as a PC user/builder at home, I can safely say that I’ve had enough experince with both to have aa proper opinion.

The bottom line: Macs seem to be designed with quality in mind, but with quality, there can be limitation. For instance, you might fork out $2,000 (US) for a new Mac and its ready to go, software installed. But there’s a catch: you’re stuck with a machine that is almost impossible to upgrade without sending it to Apple, and you have a machine that appears to be designed to fit smoothly up someone’s rectum. I don’t want to buy based on design or the catch of “not having to worry about upgrades”.

Being that Apple finally switched from the IBM chipset to the Pentium, I’ll assume that you can still buy the Mac OS and put it onto your own PC. Why not? If you like the Mac OS so much, why not avoid spending thousands on a machine that looks like it was designed by metrosexual apes, and go with a hardware platform that you can customize and upgrade to your hearts desire? It seems as though the Mac users posting here are perfectly happy with forking out tons of money on a brand new computer system instead of a simple upgrade, and it also seems that they’re content with letting the company they bought it from handle their problems. But for people like me and you, we sacrifice pride and independence when we let someone else fix our problems. That is something that we just can’t do!

By the way, I typed this on a Mac G4 after finding this article by typing “garageband sucks” into google. Garageband, when compared to FREE software like Audacity, truly sucks.

By: me

me — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 03:06:52 +0000

it was so shit. never give up ya day job.

love ya byby

By: Pacifistofury

Pacifistofury — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 03:57:41 +0000

I hate PCs and Macs. I wish someone would market a computer that could diagnose its own problem and offer solutions. I guess it’s too much to ask right now for a computer to fix itself.

Yeah, I’m a technophobe who’s into technology. It’s a nightmare.

And I’m probably posting to a thread that’s already dead.

By: Nuno

Nuno — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 19:18:27 +0000

I hate to have to add to such a long and insane forum but if I ran into the same situation as Sean did with a new Mac, I would have done the same thing and returned it. I’m not one to fiddle with computers and I was never much of a computer guy until it became an absolute necessity in my line of work. I chose a Mac and it’s worked out for me. This whole allegiance thing to Macs or PCs is absolute bullshit. Yes, I’ve been ragged on plenty by family and friends over the years about being a “Mac guy” but none of it has ever been as brutal as the shit that some people have been spewing at Sean about this post.

By: rnd

rnd — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 12:01:55 +0000

This statement “I’ve owned tons of computers, including an old Apple II back in the day, and *none* of them ever suffered a hardware failure.”

should read :

“I’ve owned tons of computers, including an old Apple II back in the day, and *none* of them ever suffered a hardware *keyboard* failure.”

By: rnd

rnd — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 11:59:38 +0000

Macs AREN’T foolproof. The hype that “they always just work” is just that - hype.

My iBook had a hardware problem - the ‘p’ key suddenly stopped working within eight months’ usage. Kept clean and moisture-free, no abuse, never been dropped, etc. and I’d never dislodged the keyboard.

Well, took it to the shop and they kept it for 2 weeks and returned it with a replaced keyboard. Service was fairly painless on the whole, but the point is, this was a brand new laptop, and the keyboard has no business just failing within a few months of ownership. I’ve owned tons of computers, including an old Apple II back in the day, and *none* of them ever suffered a hardware failure.

There’s nothing inherently foolproof about Apple hardware - Cupertino outsources its hardware manufacture to various contractors, most notably the Chinese. It’s not like Jobs himself hand-crafts each of these machines, they’re just nice looking systems cobbled together with parts from the lowest tendering manufacturer. So they’re just as prone to fail as any PC, maybe even more prone to fail because the big name PC makers have enough clout to demand certain standards of their contractors.

Sean had a far more serious problem, and he posted about it in a very restrained and nonconfrontational manner. And while most of the responses have been measured and civil, there are some absolutely rabid responses from what I can only assume are psychotic Mac zealots. These are the Mac users I can’t stand. The ones that drive people away from the brand. I have no idea why they treat every little criticism of their favorite brand as a slight against their honor, but they really need to grow up and get back in touch with reality.

It’s just a computer, people. A tool. An appliance. Not your own personal jihad.

By: Neil

Neil — Wed, 30 May 2007 02:40:26 +0000

Ugh - this article is so lame. “I suppose it could have just been bad RAM, but then why did it take two weeks to act up?”

Maybe because - like any piece of mass-produced technology, it probably failed while in your possession. It does happen.. I had it happen.. we’ve all had it happen.. mac.. pc.. fridge.. tv.. the list in endless.

Sometimes things go wrong, and I feel that you chose the easy way out just to write such an article. Face it, you got a lemon. An exhange with a new machine at the Apple store would have been the right thing to do. The data could have been migrated from that pooched machine without booting it - just launching the computer as a firewire drive.

There were lots of options - all fairly painless to execute.. but the money-in-hand overpowered reason

By: steve

steve — Wed, 30 May 2007 00:36:29 +0000

Yeah, good times.
As it is you have to remember, you brought it.
With all the negatives constantly thrown about re Macs, people who like them can be expected to show up.
To do anything less is not so satisfying. Get used to it, or get over it. But don’t nobody expect it to end.
Prejudice is bad, m’kay
And relax, everyone knows you have to “want” a Mac to have one.
You don’t want it bad enough.
nuff said