Apple Nag

Here are my observations after using Snow Leopard for a while:

Better: It does seem faster in areas such as networking. But that may be because I was having so much trouble with Leopard networking, that anything is better.

Bug: There’s a bug in Mail where Smart Mailboxes always sort by Subject. I can change it, but the next time I relaunch Mail, it’s back sorting by Subject again. Extremely annoying. [Update: With some judicious editing of a .plist file, I managed to make it so that it always sorts by date. Better, but needs to be fixed.]

Feature: I do like the new white text on black background menus in the dock. I shouldn’t though, because they’re different than the menu bar. I prefer consistency to cuteness, so maybe Apple should try this look in other menus.

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The following is my chronicle of the Snow Leopard installation on my primary computer, an early 2008 MacBook.

Anyone reading this blog knows that I have a lot of problems with Leopard, so I will do lots of backups first. I emit an aura that is deadly for computers and software so I just know I’m going to have problems.
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Hey Apple, check out this posting by the publishers of 1Password for Mac, and 1Password and 1Password Pro for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Note the candor? Have you considered being as upfront about your own products? You rarely admit mistakes, and then only grudgingly when you’re caught with your pants down.

1Password was one of those applications that when I first heard of it, I didn’t really see the need for it. Eventually, I heard enough about it to check it out. Then I tried the demo. Then I bought it. Now I praise it and can’t live without it.

Hey, I’m the Apple Nag for a good reason. Almost everything you folks at Apple make that I’ve bought seems to be flea infested with UI inconsistencies that drive me crazy. Partially, it’s the “aura” I have resulting in even finely crafted software breaking, but your stuff is too flaky to qualify for supernatural phenomena excuses.

Lately, I’ve had all kinds of weird Leopard security issues. I’m thinking it’s time for an archive and install in the faint hope it will cure this insanity. I feel like I’m using Windows.

In the months that I’ve used Agile’s 1Password for the Mac and the corresponding app for my iPod Touch, I’m trying to think if I’ve ever experienced problems with it. Next to the OS, security software has to be the most rock solid software on your computer. Even backup software comes third. Leopard is a sickly cat that should crawl into the bush and die leaving Snow Leopard to rule. Fortunately, 1Password has never failed me.

So here’s the lessons you can learn from a small company. Be open and honest with your customers. Don’t be afraid to talk about the future. Don’t design software, craft it. Be self-deprecating, just a bit. Admit mistakes and make them right. Release bug fixes in a timely manner. Respond in a public forum to the concerns of your users.

Have you noticed that Agile has done a vastly superior job explaining why they’re now charging for their iPhone/Touch products than you’ve ever explained about your iPod Touch OS upgrade fees?

Did I upgrade to 1Password Pro even though I own the older free 1Password for my Touch? Did I trust them to come through with the extra features I’m paying a little bit for now that they’ll deliver sometime in the future. Of course! The app costs half of what I paid for an unsatisfactory lunch today, and it’s something that will stay with me even longer than the gas my lunch gave me.

As for trust? Well, I hate to say it guys, but I trust Agile more than Apple.

I started this discussion on Apple’s Support site, Little Snitch catches backup.backupdb trying to contact external IP.

My MacBook backs up to a Time Machine volume on a server on the same LAN. This has been working fine. Today, when I woke the MacBook, Little Snitch caught backup.backupdb (which is Time Machine I believe) attempting to connect to 65.200.200.47, which whois says belongs to Almar Networks.

Of course, I denied both attempts. A subsequent request for Time Machine to backup again was fine.

There is no web server at that IP address and a Google search is not too enlightening.

It happened again this morning. This time I got a screen capture, and it wasn’t backup.backupdb that was the cuprit, it was automountd trying to connect to backup.backupdb.

Click for image page then click image for full size.

So, does my OS X have some sort of infection or trojan?

I told Little Snitch to always deny the connection.

Dear Apple Support,

I see that I’m not alone in experiencing audio popping on my MacBook4,1 from August, 2008.

See this huge thread, and others on your support forum.

I just noticed it now because I’ve switched from a G5 to a MacBook as the forthcoming 10.6 will not run on my G5. Thus, I’ve got the MacBook front and center on my desk plugged into my large monitor and external speakers. Pop, pop, pop, all day long.

You’ve really got to do something about this as this is a long-standing problem. Please.

Thank you,

…Tom

P.S. Here’s an article from MacUser from two friggin’ years ago! Come on Apple, get your <bleep> together and get this fixed. I know you know how to do it. I’m at a loss to understand why you won’t.

Aside from my conspiracy theory that you release “security” patches to destabilize the OS in preparation for a paid upgrade — “Anything has got to be better than this OS!” — perhaps there’s another reason for the abysmal stability of OS X Leopard and the mess your applications are in.

It’s all those Windows and Linux switchers who are coming over to the Mac platform. It’s all their fault. Well, mainly.

You look at your market share rising as a result of the poor, down-trodden Windows users seeking salvation with the Mac and say, “Hey, these flea-infested customers are used to having crappy software so why should we expend much effort in maintaining high quality or a consistent user interface?”

When your market share was closing in on the low single digits and was less than half the percentage of people who donate blood each year (yes, that bad), you needed to offer some differentiator to Windows. You tried quality and consistency and succeeded quite well, with the occasional brain fart.

Now that it’s cool to own Macs — geez, even Microsoft thinks that’s true — you’ve been spending time adding features and stealing resources for the iPhone. But, you seem to have forgotten the user interface designers and quality inspectors in that building you sold a few years ago. They might still be there, you should go have a look.

OS X was improving in stability until 10.5 Leopard came along. Now, every time I try to do something I hesitate not knowing what wonderful behaviour I’ll experience.

While you integrate your apps, there’s so much inconsistency between how they function now, that it looks like they were designed by totally different companies. I’ve covered this in several previous postings.

Without the Switchers, there may not be an Apple, but they’re lulling you into a false sense of godhood.

Having Switchers in the Mac camp is like being adrift on a life raft surrounded by salt water. You need water to survive but this water will poison you.

If the following is a typical Windows switcher, you know what I mean …
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[Psst! I'm going to talk about Twitter later. Makes it all worth reading, huh?

Will you ever resurrect the concept of Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) for your desktop computers? I can understand if you don’t want to go down that path again given what happened with the aborted GeoPort Telecom Adaptor. That didn’t work out too good for you, did it?

Many people these days don’t even have a land line connected telephone, instead relying on their mobile phones. I’m not going to get into the pros and cons of each, but I’m just musing about what could have been.

Currently, you’re so hostile towards CTI that you don’t even allow the Address Book application to dial using your USB modem.

And nobody is ever going to accuse you of embracing faxing. While there is support in OS X for both sending and receiving faxes, it’s so poor as to be less of a hobby than the stepchild Apple TV. Although, the sooner faxes become a forgotten technology, the better. I despise faxing.

But there’s a lot more to CTI than dialing out and faxing.

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That’s the new name I’m going to use when a background application “brings up” its windows and “spews” them all over the windows for the foreground application. It conjures up visions of projectile vomiting, which is how disruptive this action is.

Now if only there was some preference Pepto-Bismol to prevent this behaviour and settle the background app down.

For the history, see this post.

Your networking design allows remote users to hold us hostage. “If youse want us to release dat disk, den maybe youse wanna tink about payin’ up, capiche?”

I connected my MacBook to my G5 that had a disk image mounted. The MacBook connected to the disk image but I decided that it was not what I needed.

I tried to unmount the disk image from the G5, but it could not because it was in use. There was no option to force disconnect. In fact, the message is misleading and is asking me to waste my time closing applications in a vain attempt to release the disk. As long as a remote user is holding on to the disk, it can’t be released.

I can quit iTunes and it warns me that someone is sharing my library and I can disconnect, but no option for File Sharing.

This is how one person on the network can hold hostage the disk on another user’s computer. We must be in control of our computer at all times, not someone on the network.

An exercise to the reader. How do you know who is connected to your disk so you can go beat them up? Leopard doesn’t think you need to know that vital bit of information.

As Complexity increases, Quality decreases.

As time moves forward quality still decreases even if complexity remains the same.

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For computers, year after year, the hardware and software gets more complex and this multiplication results in the abysmal, and rapidly declining, quality we’re experiencing in the computing industry.

Perhaps it’s due to the fast computers and lots of memory and disk space that breeds carelessness, but for whatever reason, the quality of some programs written by some of the world’s largest (not finest) companies is just awful. These same companies also charge for upgrades that contain more useless and buggy features. We upgrade on the hope that the old version’s bugs are fixed in the new version. They often aren’t, or they’re broken in different ways.

Of course, it’s not just large, monolithic corporations that tolerate lousy programming. It’s endemic in the industry. Too much pressure to ship, ship lots of features, and let the customers do your testing.

When you see great programs these days, you know that the programmers are truly superstars in their field because they’re so uncommon.

When I was programming, I took it as a personal failure if someone reported a bug in my code. Now, too many programmers just shrug their shoulders and give you the "whatever" look. Bugs are expected; what’s the big deal, right? Wrong. I don’t expect perfection, I expect ownership.

When you say that Snow Leopard will be mainly a bug fix, that tells you what you yourselves think of the quality of Leopard. Frankly, I think you’re giving yourselves too much credit. Leopard is far worse than you think. And your other applications? Needs work is being kind.