Opinion: Microsoft-Lite

What was once a rock solid platform slowly drawing Windows users away from their endless crashing and patching routine has now become just a smaller version of its arch nemesis. Is this what has to happen when a computer company grows bigger?

Now we’re getting 500MB+ downloads from Apple when there’s a new revision of OS X, Mobile Me is just well….borked…. the company’s email has turned into silly putty, trying to sync turns your Mac into a go-slow zone, USB audio is right down the dunny, USB drives stop working until you update their firmware, MacBook Pros freeze when between open applications. Sure, you can also get this behaviour with Windows but at least the PC was cheaper to start with. Why pay more to get rogered?

And what does Apple say? No comment. Nada. Nix. Apple has taken a leaf out of the religious annals and thinks it is infallible. Problem with your Mac? Your iPhone? Your iPod? Oh no, never happens, it must be your fault. But hey, wait six months or so until umpteen thousand users have the same problem, and some hacker has posted a patch to fix the problem, and then, and only then, will Apple decide there might possibly be something wrong. And if they do decide to fix the bug, you still won’t get an apology.

And don’t get me started on the security side of things. Vista is looking a whole lot better than it used to, that’s for sure. Why have Microsoft-lite when you can get Microsoft full-cream for less money?