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January 16th, 2006 - an albuquerque not animate be armada. — LiveJournal [entries|archive|friends|userinfo]
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January 16th, 2006

This just in: Apple full of shit [Jan. 16th, 2006|12:38 am]
Okrzyki, przyjaciel!
Apple's profile is much higher now than it was, pre-IPod, and they got a lot of press for announcing Intel Macs at MacWorld last week. La Di Frickin Da...
But that's not what I want to say right now. What I want to say is this: Quicktime for Windows is utter shit.

Sure it can play movies. But

1. It continually begs me to upgrade to Quicktime Pro. Well I did that once, and Quicktime Pro on Windows doesn't do anything that I could figure out beyond not nagging me to buy Quicktime Pro. And the license isn't apparently transferable between computers, so that's $20 or whatever I'll never see again.

2. If you start the player, it opens a window, but if you want to play anything it opens another window, just like the first window, to play the video. I guess because they want to leave whatever shit they bring up off the internet in the original window.

3. It won't play movies full screen. It won't even properly maximize the window.

4. It doesn't register Quicktime codecs so that other players on the computer can play Quicktime videos. Presumably, because they don't want you to avoid their fucking come-on for Quicktime Pro, and they want you to look at whatever stupid-ass crap they bring up in that first Quicktime Player window that isn't good for anything else.

5. It doesn't follow Windows User Interface Guidelines. If Apple is going to be a Windows software providers, they should conform -- that's what makes programs easy to use -- a user can leverage skills learned in one program when they encounter a new program.

It is probably pathetic and geeky to hate a computer company, but Apple is starting to really annoy me. People who buy Macs and IPods -- including members of my own family -- just love their Apple stuff, I know, but Apple stuff fails a fundamental test for me: I can go back and forth between Windows and Linux and SGI's and Suns without a problem, but every time I try and use an Apple product, I'm stymied by the fact that they have to always do everything their own way, and unless you've been drinking their Koolaid for a while, you're going to be baffled, and it's never clear to me how to get help.

Windows machines, you can pretty much always right click on anything and find something out about what that thing does. Linux does that too. Oh, I forgot, Apple mice don't have a right mouse button! They left the right mouse button off, because they thought that it would confuse people. Of course they had to add the 'Open Apple' button for you to hold down when you click that one big mouse button, because that's so much more intuitive than a right mouse button! It's the Apple Way!

A computer is a fucking box that (you hope) does a job for you. It's a tool. It's not a fucking religion. As far as I can tell Apple is the Church of Steve. Join his church, and give Steve your money, and maybe you'll be able to "think different" just like all the other Apple people!
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