Take a bite of this

(Yeh, a linkfest, More on that at the foot of the post.)

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Well, the last coupla weeks have been a mixed bag for Apple. The QuickTime stupidity–a serious security vulnerability revealed as one of the “Month of Apple Bugs” was patched all right, but Windows users could not directly download a patch, installing the newest version didn’t work (it reported there were no available upgrades) and running the Apple Updater left some users unpatched as well. That’s one big black eye for the oh-so-arch Mac ad guy (never mind the other 30 Apple bugs noted in the “Month of Apple Bugs” *heh*).

Then, Apple proudly announced it was stealing Cisco’s trademark, “iPhone”—a trademark for a product already on the market—and publicly sneered at Cisco’s justified assertion of its ownership of the trademark. (Apple is finally talking to Cisco again. Seems Cisco’s threatened lawsuit looked too winnable–for Cisco.)

But just so Apple doesn’t feel all lonely, now, Apple has finally appeared to try something sensible in 2007 and invited Microsoft to the “Big Guys Screwing the User” party:

Apple has recommended that users of its iTunes software avoid upgrading to Windows Vista until a new version becomes available.

Well, sure. If folks lock themselves into a proprietary service/format, and that proprietary service/format is important in their daily lives, it’d be nice if any new operating system would work with it. Oops! Wait. My bad. That’s not how it goes–just how Apple would like it to appear, it seems. Apple had five years’ worth of beta candidates, release candidates and the actual released product to work with before it decided to make changes to iTunes that made it “possible” (read, “likely”) that their product would be broken by Vista.

So, Apple, in addressing the security flaw in the nearly ubiquitous QuickTime, apparently gave no thought to, urm Windows users, despite the fact that Windows users make up about 90% of QuickTime users. And then, knowing full well that millions of folks had made themselves hostage to iTunes and interfacing iPods with their Windows machines, Apple decvided to release a new iTunes software that broke with Vista. Sounds more like, “Can we sabotage Windows?” than an oopsie.

But no, as Napolean is said to have remarked, “Never ascribe to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity.” Hmmm, that could apply almost as well to Microsoft, Congress and Mass Media Podpeople, etc., now couldn’t it? 🙂

(Of course, Microsoft also “forgot”–read “didn’t care”–when devising this Mother of All Upgrades to think of the millions upon millions of folks who have hardware that won’t work with Vista, making the $400 price tag for a real Vista install–the cheaper Vista won’t do most of the stuff Microsoft is touting to sell Vista–just a patch on the entire “darned near build or buy a new computer” upgrade cost. Oh, but in true DRM cosmic karma, there’s a way to install, legally it seems, install VistaUltra–if you really must on up to 4 computers for under $400–cost of OS only. Ask me in email.)

On another front, on an Ubuntu Linux machine the other day, I downloaded an ISO–CD/DVD disk image format–of a new distro and simply clicked on the thing to burn the disk. Now, that’s something you’ll probably not be able to do on a Windows box unless you’ve taken the time to jump through all the hoops of: find a software that’ll burn ISOs, locate the means of burning ISOs buried somewhere within the software, play “Hunt and Click, Click, Click” through the darned thing, etc. Nuh-uh. Ubuntu, all I did was CLICK on the ISO. Nice. One step closer to “Aunt Tilly” friendliness. And it plays nicely with older hardware, too. One might hope that Linux distros will eventually quiety take over the world from such arrogant dumbasses as Microsoft and Apple.

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