Apple and Snow Leopard take-downs - just say no

FAO Andrew Orlowski's

Having a 4 week old son myself, I'd like to congratulate Andrew on a good looking baby (obviously going on the assumption that the pic is fairly recent and not nigh on ten years old).

Apple are more than welcome to claim ownership of my son (at least until his colic clears up, nappies especially included).

Mines the one with baby sic down the back

Regarding Apple NDA...

Apple made me agree to a NDA (non-disclosure agreement) before they'd honor one of their own *warranties*. I guess they didn't want me squawking to the rest of the world about the precise nature of the problem I'd had with one of their particularly troublesome pieces of hardware. That was all *after* many months of going 'round and 'round with them to try to get things resolved in a more peaceful manner.

I have kept my end of the NDA in that I have not publicly divulged any *specifics* as to the exact problem and the exact piece of hardware.

But there was nothing in the NDA that prohibited me from making vague non-specific statements of general dissatisfaction ;)

Unsurprisingly, I have not bought any new Mac hardware since that time. What good is a warrantee if you have to threaten legal action to get them to honor it?

However, I still do very much *like* my *old* pre-return-of-Jobs Macs, which I'd purchased prior to that ugly little incident with the modern Apple company. I'm still using my old Macs and probably will continue to use them until the last little essential parts for them are no longer available on the used market. (I do have a stash of spare parts, but it will be depleted eventually.)

But anyway, as to Apple shooting itself in the foot like people are discussing in these Reg comments here, it was Apple's insistence on my doing the NDA thing that is *the* first-and-foremost reason why I bought my first PC a few years ago - for internet stuff etc., mostly with Linux nowadays - (webmasters, nevermind what my browser user-agent says, it's fake :) for security purposes). Anyway when faced with the choice of buying a new(er) Mac or a new(er) PC, that bad taste from the NDA was a prominent reason I chose the PC instead. Lo and behold I discovered that Windows wasn't the nightmare I'd been led to believe it was, having never tried Windows before. (However, my first Windows virus - which didn't take long! - prompted my move to Linux for everything except DTP and printing.)

Prior to that, I'd been an avid Mac supporter and a bit of a non-zealot Mac evangelist too. But I have my limits as to what I'll tolerate as far as corporate abuse of customers, and Apple crossed the line.

Back to the topic here:

Apple will eventually need to get a clue and quit sh1tting all over their own [formerly] loyal customers. So far, Apple doesn't seem to be too concerned about such things, probably due to Apple's clever marketing strategies etc. there's been a steady stream of newbies ready to sign up and buy new Apple hardware. So why should Apple worry about retaining existing customers when they can just get new ones to replace the dissatisfied ones? "Customers are a dime a dozen..." :(

@ Big Bear (time differences)

"Notsure how clued up our cousins across the pond are about such things as time differences and whatnot..."

You mean there are other countries and time zones besides the U.S.? Who knew?! We should *do* something about that... it's unAmerican to have all those extra time zones running around out there. See, now if we still had patriots like GWB as Prez, we could surely find a way to make the rest of the world conform to our timezones so these kinds of misunderstandings wouldn't happen. So it would then be pitch black at noon, halfway around the world - deal with it, whiners! See, it's those damn liberal Democrats messin' everything up again, just like we'uns figured they would ;)

P.S.: Canada doesn't count because it's not a separate country - it's regarded as the 51st state (if anyone remembers it at all, that is) and besides it has similar time zones except for those one or two wonky non-US-standard time zones way back east, some island or somethin' ... ;)

</satire or piss-poor-attempt-at-humo[u]r or whatever it's called>

@Captain Blue

I'm another one who placed an order after reading the article. What a wunch of bankers

Yes, yes you are.....Oh wait you mean Apple!