It seems iCal for Leopard does not play nicely with legacy iCal calendars set up in Tiger. It’s a known issue, and I’m feeling it: I’m not reliably receiving my alarms.
Hunting around for a solution, the only fixes I see entail deleting my calendars and reinstalling iCal from the Leopard disc.
For this, I gave up Entourage? At least my alarms worked …
I moved from Entourage to Mac Mail so I’d have better integration with iCal and Address Book.
So far, so good. I’m not really missing Entourage a whole lot, but there’s one thing that leaves me pining:
Mac Mail provides no easy way to save sent messages to folders, aside from going to the Sent Mail folder after sending, then dragging messages to their respective folders for safe keeping. As you compose an email in Entourage, you have access to a pull-down that says, “After sending, move message to [insert folder name here].”
Once Entourage sends the email, you can be confident that it is saved in the proper folder. Maybe it’s the anal-retentiveness in me, but I like to take care of my organization on the front end, not after the fact. Going back to a Sent Items folder just seems old school to me.
By the way, the reason I’m migrating apps is that I have a new MacBook Pro (replacing a PowerMac G4) and I figured I’d do a fresh start with the native Mac apps and stop leaning on the folks in Redmond. Well, lemme tell ya: the Apple Migration Assistant totally failed me, but that’s another story for another time.
Less is not always more: Apple removing the trackpad button is one more MacBook Pro “improvement” that sucks. I don’t care that the new trackpad is a smooth glass surface. I don’t care that they’ve considered sensitivity and audio feedback. (Yes, how the click sounds is actually listed as a selling point!)
I don’t care! I think this change SUCKS! It limits my ability and control the cursor and click and drag! Try using this trackpad with greasy potato chip fingers! IT’S IMPOSSIBLE!
Apple has offered sucky trackpad gestures that allow for clicking and dragging. Maybe the only decent thing is at least it has also allowed me to opt out of these options and stick with old faithful: the always dependable, trackpad button.
I feel as if i’ve lost a longtime friend. JOBS, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?!? Now I have to carry my mouse everywhere.
It’s NOT a sucky Mighty Mouse, either. I hate that thing … but that’s for another post.
Rainbow Apple Logo
Apple is publicly opposing a California ballot initiative that would deny marriage rights to same-sex couples. Apple announced Friday that it would donate $100,000 to the “No on Prop 8″ campaign, which opposes a measure to ban gay marriage that California voters will consider on Election Day.
It’s a good start, Steve, but 100 grand is nothing for Apple. I would have expected something a bigger statement — something that would have at least made headlines beyond just the Apple web site. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything. It just sucks they didn’t do more.
“Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners,” the company said. “We strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.”
Phish Logo
Safari cost me Phish tickets! Thats right, folks, you heard me: Lost. Phish. Tickets.
I was in the Ticketmonster — oops, Ticketmaster — queue, waiting and waiting. And waiting. And waiting some more. Finally, I thought to myself, “It’s been a while since anything happened.”
So, I brought up the Force Quit panel to make sure Safari hadn’t frozen … and it had! I quickly launched Firefox, but by the time I got back to the “Buy Tickets” screen, the show was sold out!
Safari just sucks. Not only because it crashed while I was buying Phish tickets, but because it crashes all the time!
I knew I should have used Firefox.
Well, Apple took FireWire out of its most recent MacBooks. Even though I have a stack of hard drives — full of legacy project data — that are all FireWire 400-compatible, Mr. Jobs says, “Ahh, fugetaboutit.”
Well, as a good little Apple disciple, if they tell me that FireWire sucks and I don’t need it anymore, then I guess they are right. I guess that I don’t need all that legacy project data. I guess I don’t need all that extra space that I have on all my external FireWire hard drives. Who needs the extra empty hard drive space anyway - right? I mean who cares that my time machine backup is on a small FireWire hard drive. I’ll just spend all that extra cash I have(NOT!) on getting a drive that is usb 2.0 compatible. While I’m at it - I’ll just replace all 20 of those FireWire drives I have sitting around too.
According to macrumors.com, one of their users got an email from El Steveo regarding the lack of FireWire on the new MacBooks, he said, “Actually, all of the new HD camcorders of the past few years use USB 2.” Ok Steve, not only will I follow you blindly - but I’ll even go out and spend extra money on replacing my FireWire camcorder. I mean even though it shoots great video and is really easy to use and I love it, its more than two years old - so that must mean its bad.
I think the new macbook will be a great deal. Lets figure it out.
1- MacBook, 1599.00
2- new backup hd, 150.00
3- 9 external hds in various sizes, 1080.00 (120 X 9)
4- new camcorder, 599.00
So the grand total for my new MacBook will be about $3,428.00 . Not bad - maybe I’ll get 2 with all the money that I don’t have!
Who’s fault is it? Is it Steve Jobs aggressive deal making? This is one case where Apple really sunk itself.
If Apple was smart… first off they should have NEVER agreed not to enter the music industry when they were sued by Apple Corps(The beatles). I mean it sucks that they were sued in the first place - Paul McCartney can go suck a green apple for that one, but the fact still remains that they should have fought back harder. Because of this issue, they have fewer options, I’ll explain in a second.
Now the Apple has become such a powerhouse, the music industry has gotten more and more frightened of them and the 1 song model on the iTunes music store. In fact, the likes of Sony, Universal and Warner Music continue to withhold music from Apple, choosing instead to back iTunes’ rivals as a way of punish Steve Jobs for his lack of flexibility.
You might ask, why didn’t SONY get this much pressure with the walkman? Well first off, they didn’t change the album sales model (but they did do everything they could to make it proprietary - they just failed miserably because they suck too - ie Mini Disc), but secondly, they own a MAJOR chunk of the music industry.
Well, thats the solution, just buy a studio? Right? Well… WRONG, because of the terms of Apples settlement with Apple Corp dictate the Apple is not allowed to be anymore of a stakeholder in the industry than they already are.
Anyway, to cut to the chase, the studios are not only withholding music, they are also withholding important opportunities. If Apple does not ingratiate themselves as much as possible - another competitor is going to come along and de-throne King Jobs.
Not to beat a dead horse… but here goes. I WANT TO TETHER and if Apple didn’t suck, I’d be able to do it right now. As a matter of fact, Apple even had an app in its app store on itunes that did just this. Of course after they PUBLISHED IT, they quickly said “OOPS” and took it back.
The application is called NetShare by a company called NULLRIVER. You can see a demo of their app here below.
Anyway, like many other people I immediately went to the iTunes Music Store when I hear about NetShare. I was glowing with anticipation - even though I didn’t own and iPhone I was going to get this right away and make it my reason to get one!
Anyway, I quickly located the app in the store, went to click the purchase button, I could feel the hairs on my back stand up and do the wave as I brought by cursor over to the buy now button, as I let gravity take my finger and the mouse button began to depress a grin came to my face because I was thinking of all the mischief I could do, the mouse clicked…. Doh! Guess What?
APPLE SUCKS THATS WHAT! A message appeared saying, “THIS APP WAS REMOVED FROM THE APP STORE”. So i started looking for more info about this and went to the Nullriver web site and imagine what i found?
The NetShare info page was down, with only a comment from Nullriver stating:
“NETSHARE, BANNED FROM THE APPSTORE”
Anyway, my hopes were dashed. And since then it looks like Apple has decided they will not be allowing any tethering applications in the AppStore even though they do not violate the developer TOS. We are seeing a lot of similar reports from various developers who’s applications were abruptly removed and banned from the AppStore without any violations of the terms of service. This is all unfortunate news for the iPhone platform end-users.
I really don’t get it Steve. Its my iPhone - I should be able to do anything I want with it. This means ANYTHING. Sure, I might do things with it that nobody else would do, or things that you would not like… but the fact is that I own it and I should be free to do what I please. Otherwise, its like if next time you went into Macdonalds for a Big MAC, then after you bought it - I told you that you can’t eat it. You can only use it to brush your teeth and as a mode of transportation.
Why would Apple do this? Lets see, hmm, there is a restrictive license for iPhone developers, ok, so because of the License terms developers cannot create applications that sends / receive MMS (no matter the iphone doesn’t have it). They cannot create a video recording application (it doesn’t matter if the phone is capable or not).
Its so bad that developers are filling a petition online with the following message:
“To: Apple Computer
Dear Steve
As iPhone users we would like to express our dismay at Apple’s ‘vaguerisms’, ineptitude and arrogance in it’s recent dealings with ‘App Store’ developers.
We are of the opinion that Apple’s lack of communication and clarity over rejected apps and inappropriate use of ‘NDA’ Non Disclosure Agreements has become completely indefensible. Furthermore Apple’s reluctance to comment publicly on these very public issues is fast becoming a stain upon its character.
As your customers we have great concerns over the future of the iPhone and you should be aware that if ‘App Store’ developers decide to desert the iPhone platform en masse we will have absolutely no qualms in following them.
A positive statement from Apple on this subject is long overdue.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned”
SJWWWYC - Steve Jobs What’s Wrong With Your Company!
Just yesterday, plaintiff Jai Sen filed a lawsuit in the Eastern District of New York. The lawsuit cites well-known consumer issues related to the iPhone 3G including AT&T network reliability issues and hairline cracks in the plastic case, both of which have been blog fodder since the iPhone 3G was launched. The lawsuit also notes the power draw of the iPhone 3G is more than AT&T’s 3G network can handle. Additionally, the plaintiff is hoping that the filing will reach class-action status.
This one will be interesting to watch. There have been so many complaints, starting from the initial release of the iPhone 3G, and those complaints are alive and well, despite multiple firmware updates.
That said, this one will be a hard one to prove. The burden is on Jai Sen to prove that Apple and/or AT&T deliberately misled customers. Hopefully the media coverage of the complaints in this lawsuit will at the very least force Apple to address the issues through new customer service policies.
Its also worth noting that the lawsuit also says that the plaintiff “has suffered injury in fact due to Apple’s defective housing used for the iphones resulting in the formation of hairline cracks in the Plantiff’s iPhone.”
What the plaintiff could have been doing with the iPhone to cause injury is a bit curious, and we prefer not to speculate; however, this hurts the validity of the whole complaint, so unless some legal magic happens, this lawsuit might not get very far.
In 1984, Apple released the following compelling advertisement - implying how open and free their platform was going to be:
Since then we have seen many versions of the mac platform and mac ideals, that for all intense purposes, have lived up to the moniker of freeing people from their platforms. OS X was the biggest step Apple Computer ever took toward that goal. OSX not only embraced the idea of open source - it was built using many open source standards, and offered direct support of almost any open source software that one could imagine. The concept of this was embraced by developers everywhere. The concept that the mac plaform could now accept many types of standard apps and open source apps opened up worlds of possibilities for developers and users alike…. that is until - the iphone. Apple is reverting back into greedy, big brother-like corporate monstrosity with its iphone platform. We think the type of limitations that Apple is placing on its platform is not only discouraging - but Microsoft would even think better of it. Apple has gone too far, and now we have the results to prove it:
Apple has recently started rejecting perfectly valid software from its Itunes app store simply because it is in conflict with other software that they support. Now we don’t mean a technical conflict - more along the lines of a fiscal conflict. Apple doesn’t want anyone competing with them and thats the story.
A prominent case of this practice was noted by a developer who created an application called Podcaster. Podcaster offers simplicity in subscribing, managing, streaming and downloading podcasts directly to your iPhone and iPod Touch. Podcaster was rejected for very strange reasons in our opinion, Apple told the developer, “Since Podcaster assists in the distribution of podcasts, it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes.”
Developers all over the web began to post their maddening rejection letters until most recently Apple began slapping a big fat NDA on the cover of all rejections.
This, in our humble opinions(IMHO), is completely unacceptable. Imagine if they did this on their own macintosh computers? Imagine if they told Microsoft, sorry we are rejecting “Word”, because we have “AppleWorks”?
Come on Steve! Take the lead pipe out of your ass - and loosen up. If Google can develop a completely open software platform - then so can APPLE! Forget this whole iphone Nazi thing and make something that everyone can embrace. Otherwise - we predict, that the iphone will have its day, but will have to make way for the next great thing that comes. The iphone can’t truly be great - without the assistance of its user community. In other words… “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you Steve”.