http://www.osnews.com/story/9286/Suffering_the_Swings_and_Arrows_of_Outrageous_Customer_Service_ Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:17:24 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I bought an external dual firewire/usb SONY DRX-510UX DVD+-RW and it wouldn't work as a burner with OSX. I had to use Patchburn! And even after I set it up as a burner through the hack, it wouldn't write all kinds of disks (dvd plus and minus that is). I wrote to Apple's customer service and they couldn't give me a straight answer about these disks, because *supposedly* 10.3.5 was "fixing" these problems (it wasn't). iDVD doesn't work with it either, we just use it as a simple CD burner for now.

Anyways, I find it laughable that Firewire was born through the joint venture of SONY and Apple, and then you get a freaking Sony drive and you plug it in on a freaking Apple computer, and it doesn't work out of the box as it should.

Bleh. Even Linux works with that drive just fine, without extra drivers. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 08:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I had the same darn problem with a notebook. They are hell bent on not putting different hardware into systems. Logically, I can only think its to get the consumer to purchase a new system or to keep things as simple as possible for themselves. Once you put something different into a system the warranty is very difficult to follow. They only want to warranty what was on the original receipt. The REALLY bad part is that if you manage to put something into your system outside of the original purchase they often tell you your system is no longer supported. I highly suggest you pull it out before bringing to service. This is all a bunch of crap and I am glad you brought it to everyone's attention. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 09:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I wonder why they want to integrate their hardware and software so much. They have good OS and some cool features but they can be sold really well without depending entirely on apple. I think they should concentrate what they do the best! innovate. They suck at marketing and also at making profits. With M$$$$ supporting iPOD clones, I wonder how long apple will keep up profits !!! Thu, 30 Dec 2004 09:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? ... are the LaCie ones, IMHO: high compatibility, good quality, and now even the internal ones work with Power Macs. The external drives are also quite stylish (d2, Porsche). Anyway, I agree that disk burning should evolve considerably on OS X: for example, native packet writing support - see "Mount Rainier" - would be a very good thing (to be able use CDs/DVDs as big floppy drives, in "real time", essentially); also, some more built-in Toast-like functionality wouldn't be bad... Thu, 30 Dec 2004 09:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I agree that it's weird that drives don't work with OSX. That's just plain wrong.

However, I do wish to note that those 450,- USD ain't all that weird. Try buying an original Compaq spare part from the Compaq site; the prices are also ridicoulously high. Probably something to trick you into buying a new machine, I dunno. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 09:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Come on now. It doesn't take a friggin rocket scientist to find out what Apple's OEM "superdrive" is and just go out and buy the same drive. BIG FAT DUH. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 09:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? In case you haven't figured it out yet:
Pioneer A07/8 Thu, 30 Dec 2004 09:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I am not too surprised to hear that they wouldn't sell you the superdrive. When I did tech support on laserjet printers I was speaking to this Apple Cert Technician who was doing troubleshooting with me over the phone. I had to send out a new firmware dimm for the printer, and had to schedule it to be delivered on a day he can be there.

He basically said that it's Apple's philosophy that all hardware should be installed by a professional instead of the end user and that is why he didn't want the end users to install the firmware dimm (even though it's a piece of cake ).

Doesn't seem logical to me though that they would not sell the superdrive, they would probally make a little more money than if it was sold as a bundle with the computer, it's just silly Thu, 30 Dec 2004 09:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Apple has threatend lawsuites againced companies that create compatibility with iDVD. Check this out

http://www.thinksecret.com/news/idvdenabler.html Thu, 30 Dec 2004 10:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? MacMall has a 16X DVD+/-RW SuperDrive upgrade for PowerMac computers for $119.95. If Apple were to sell SuperDrives rest assured they'd be priced at least a hundred dollars over that:

http://www.macmall.com/macmall/shop/detail.asp?dpno=518979&stor...

And honestly, if you wanted to add a DVD-RW drive to your Dell, would your first stop really be dell.com, or would you find a 3rd party vendor selling DVD-RW drives cheaper?

Just hop on Froogle and you'll find nearly a thousand hits for "SuperDrive"

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=superdrive

I'd chalk this one up to "failure to use the Internet" Thu, 30 Dec 2004 10:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Does anyone give a shit about this fucking idiot's rant? I didn't even read his shit. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 10:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Assumptions are the mother of all f*ckups.

NO, your assumptions weren't "reasonable"...assumptions are _never_ reasonable. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 10:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Firstly, I'm a Mac person. Just to clear the air.

When I buy a Mac I buy a package. I choose what I want and then order it. That is my Mac, it comes complete, and if the hardware has issues it's not my fault. This is also what makes the Mac more stable than Windows - Apple know all the possible hardware out there, they can code to that.

I completely support Apple on this. Why should they supply you with parts that you could have got when you purchased the machine? The model number is all over the web, just get it from somewhere cheap. I'd never call Dell/HP/whoever asking for their parts except as a warrantee replacement, too damn expensive.

For the record, my G3 iMac has an upgraded HD and RAM. RAM is easy, HD not so. I did it though, and it's been fine ever since.

And that ends a pointless rant. I just thought it was fitting as a reply to this. I normally respect OSNews as, well, a NEWS source. This isn't news, just somebody's bad experience. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 10:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Is "swings" part of the paraphrase? Or does he mean to say "slings" like Shakespeare did? Thu, 30 Dec 2004 10:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? apple shows their colors as control freaks now
i know that dell and others voids your warranty repairs if you pop the computer open but i dont think they would refuse to sell you parts if you called them up to do so.

seems to me that apple wants to their users to be ignorant eye-candy addicts rather then allow them to fool around with their computers innards.

damned if im going to pick up a apple machine any time soon if this is how they look upon upgradeing, give me a x86 with linux any day (unix and upgradeable) Thu, 30 Dec 2004 11:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? this isn't news. you're whining.
buy a Pioneer drive and shut up. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 11:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune"

Not swings. Think David vs Goliath.

Yeah, that kind. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 11:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I love rants like this. Clue-impaired. Obviously he feels gypped, but hey. If he doesn't like his computer, he's free to send it to me (I'll even pay the postage), get himself a no-name clone and go back to windows.

Hints for the original poster:

1: Don't buy service parts from the original hardware supplier, all you'll do is pay more; just do a google search and pick them up at half price from any halfway decent supplier.
2: Apple software works so smoothly _because_ it has limited hardware compatibility. Much as I'd love to go into a rant about how MS is crap, they do have to support every no-name, substandard piece of hardware out there, which causes big driver and stability issues. Admittedly, all the free *n*xes out there manage to do a reasonable job, but hey... FWIW, most of my apples have various bits of 'unsupported' gear installed and work quite happily
3: Modify your assumptions
4: Much as InTeRcApS and 733tsp34k don't make you an 3733t hAx0r, ALL CAPS and superfluous punctuation don't make your rant any more READABLE!!!! or INTELLIGIBLE!?!?!?! - they make YOU look like an AOL NEWBIE in desperate need of an application of the trusty clue-by-four!!!!!!
5: _Slings_ and arrows. If you're gonna misquote the bard, at least make sure you're doing it right. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 11:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? In Finland we have a saying:

"Et vaan osaa!"

Translation:

"You just can't hack it!"

This article is just pointless whining from a person who just can't hack it.

PS: the word 'hack' is used in its original meaning to represent ability to do something, nothing to do with haxoring. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 11:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Buy into the Mac 'mystique' and you get what you deserve. Apple want $450 for a $50 Pioneer DVD burner. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 11:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? well, that's the *apple* way of hardware-support. It's a dumbed down model.
First off, It starts by calling those drives "superdrives", so some newbies must think this is some unique kind of device.

Apple's much too egocentric to offer up a WIDE support of recent devices.

This was the Apple way, and I fear it will continue this way.
Flexibility isn't one of Apples strenghts. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 11:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? As a technician, you should be at least vaguely familiar with the tech support and warranty policies of most major computer manufacturers, none of whom will officially support a third party drive or device in their system. To do so absolves them of responsibility for failure / unforseen incompatibility of hardware that they did not supply you with in the first place. If another company wants to sell you a drive and tell you that it's compatible with, say, a G4 somethingorother running OS X.x, the onus should be on them to support you on it and its compatibility with the machine and the software you want to use it with. Why should anyone be required to spend the time and money on helping you operate a product that you didn't even purchase from them?

Also, using Microsoft as an example regarding software / hardware interaction support is an absolute farce and I hope you were joking when you put it in there. Microsoft isn't in the business of selling personal computers; they're selling an OS that needs to run on all kinds of different PCs with different hardware configurations. It's in their best interest to offer support on various manufacturers' hardware - it's an inherent part of their business. Apple, however, determines exactly what hardware their OS and other software is supposed to run on, and can easily limit their support to those predetermined configurations. As previously stated: why would they want to support an LG drive when they sold you a Pioneer to begin with?

That being said, it's too bad that they couldn't sell you the part on their own, surely a kink in their supply chain and ordering process - and hopefully they can correct that. Your situation was probably not anticipated when they set it all up. Believe it or not they're not required to help you upgrade your computer. You might just be SOL, but as others have pointed out, I'm sure you can find a solution elsewhere.

Simmer down and think of the logistics of the situation, and maybe you'll see how unreasonable so many aspects of your reaction are, save for what I've stated in the last paragraph. This angry consumer crap is a little to knee-jerk in this situation, or at least seeming far to all-consuming. Sometimes you need to do a bit of research and problem-solving on your own. Jesus, you're a technician, aren't you? Thu, 30 Dec 2004 11:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? He claims to have been a "technician" and seems to have only have had a problem with Apple ... till he calls HP or DELL and then he will tell their support the same thing ... I've never had any problem with any other company.

He claims to have been a "technician" and have dealt with support for years still he acts as if he doesn't understand the concept of "Phone Hell".

Why is this news ? Can anyone just rant on osnews now ? Thu, 30 Dec 2004 12:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I was thinking of buying a Mac, but after reading this and its comments, I must reconsider. Perhaps I should wait until there's an OSX x86. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 12:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Is there any way to mod crap stories down? Thu, 30 Dec 2004 12:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? What about Dell, let me tell you about Dell,

My DC board went out on my Dell Inspiron 7500 laptop. I called Dell to order another one and was told that I had to buy the entire motherboard for over $400.00. The laptop was not worth that! I ended up getting the part on Ebay for $12.000. Did you try Ebay.
Here is one that is at $6.50
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=51039&am...

Your problem is not just with Apple. Try getting an HP power supply on a machine that is three years old! Thu, 30 Dec 2004 12:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I completely support Apple on this. Why should they supply you with parts that you could have got when you purchased the machine?

That's the silliest thing I've ever heard! So computers shouldn't be upgradeable now? Perhaps your general contractor should tell you you can't add that wing on your home, you should've added it when you bought it! New car stereo? No! Why didn't you buy it when you bought the car?

I normally respect OSNews as, well, a NEWS source.

That's your mistake, sitharus. OSNews is run by volunteers, not journalists, and we publish submissions by our readers, many including experiences with OSes (countless), OS companies (plenty of those too), and even hardware vendors (like NAS devices). If you're a reagular reader, you'd know that opinion pieces show up on the site regularly. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 12:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I've just bought a Pioneer DVR106 for my MDD (Apple genuine) from this (very well known) american international reseller:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/optical-drives/superdrives/ Thu, 30 Dec 2004 12:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "I was thinking of buying a Mac, but after reading this and its comments, I must reconsider. Perhaps I should wait until there's an OSX x86."

Ahahahahahahah! NEVER You'll be a MacUser if you hope about this! :-D

To my "dear" Eugenia: ALL GOOD MACUSERS know that iDVD DOESN'T work with external drives. Simply, you aren't just a good MacUser: you aren't a MacUser at all. :-)

Remeber, guys: don't BE different; THINK DIFFERENT if you want to be the NEXT big thing! Thu, 30 Dec 2004 12:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? what is your point?

You want a DVD burner in your computer? Ok, go and buy one and put in your Mac. What do you want more? Should Steve Jobs come over and install it personally?

You say you are a technican for 10 years? For what company? If I were your boss I would fire you because of incompetence. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 13:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I cannot believe how Mac fans are defending Apple over this. As for claiming the original poster had unreasonable expectations - no, he absolutely did not. His expectations are exactly what the overwhelming majority of consumers would have expected in a similar situation. The expectations of Apple zealots on the other hand...well, the posts here speak for themselves don't they? Thu, 30 Dec 2004 13:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Here's my 2p.

Apple subsidizes software such as iMovie and iDVD by requiring you to buy a machine with a SuperDrive to get the full use our of them. I ran into this problem on my original TiBook. I used a patch which allowed me to save the iDVD output to a file. I then moved the file over to a older G4 Tower with a SD, but unfortunately it was too slow to to be practical.

Considering the troubles we all had over the years with Windows and even Linux in the early years, I decided that if I am going to play in Apple's sandbox, I will follow the house rules.

So, a few years later I purchased a 17" PowerBook with a SD and an external LaCie 8X DVD-R. The internal SD still sux, but I am very happy with LaCie. I also upgraded from the iMovie & iDVD beginner apps to Final Cut & DVD Pro. Life is better if you don't cut corners



Apple motto: Our sandbox, our rules.
Microsoft motto: Buy any-old-crap and put our software on it.
Linux motto: If it don't work, write it. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 13:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "That's your mistake, sitharus. OSNews is run by volunteers, not journalists, and we publish submissions by our readers, many including experiences with OSes (countless), OS companies (plenty of those too), and even hardware vendors (like NAS devices). If you're a reagular reader, you'd know that opinion pieces show up on the site regularly."

First, your wrong. OSNews may be run by volunteers, but that doesn't mean I don't have the right to complain about poor submissions. When I purchased my membership to OSNews, I was buying a membership for a news site (Maybe "News" in the title isn't enough of a clue...).

I didn't renew my membership because of crap like this. It's one thing to sit their and explain why something is wrong, or review a company, but it's another thing entirely to just say "yes" to every submission of significant length that is sent in.

So, as a "customer" of OSNews, I also have every right to complain (as it says even on this site!) that this content is crap.

OSNews has the potential to be a wonderful news source. But really, even SlashDot doens't stoop to articles like this. The execuse of being "volunteer-driven"; I will remember that the next time someone complains about OSS, and lack of support, documents, or ease-of-use. After all, it's volunteer driven. That's what OSNews uses as it's excuse. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 13:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? ..and this mean what to me?

You purchased a tower unit...and? what I am supposed to be interested in this on a NEWS site.

Your unhappy..... why do you do and play with lego.

END Thu, 30 Dec 2004 13:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? So computers shouldn't be upgradeable now?

*cough*like laptops you mean*cough*.

Perhaps your general contractor should tell you you can't add that wing on your home

But if you build the wing itself and the house falls down around your ears, they won't take the blame

New car stereo?

And if you burn out all your car's electrical system while installing it.....

Apple are absolutely within their rights. They support the machine they sold you, and there are upgrade instructions for those areas that are meant to be upgradeable, for which you can also get support if you find the instructions difficult to follow, or whatever.

As someone who used to work the helpdesk for a major OEM, I can categorically state that we would not support the installation of new drives, video cards, sound cards, external modems, soundcards etc; basically only RAM, hdd and processor upgrades, and then only installation. If they suffered problems we would tell them to put the machine back to its original configuration before continuing with support. Although these parts were available, the stock was for replacements, not for general retail sale to satisfy the whims of the customer, who would be told that upgrades were not within the support conditions apart from that stated, and that were they to attempt unauthorised upgrades their warranty would be voided. One could hardly expect the support desk to help customers void their own warranty. To do other would have meant a whole new retail parts sales operation, to say nothing of the consequent additional support costs that would be incurred after a hamfisted installation, and believe me it's tragic to the point of tears what some people do to their machines while 'upgrading'. Furthermore, because we were selling OEM machines, users weren't even entitled to support from Microsoft, only from us. Therefore if they experienced say, driver related problems with their new video card, it was not up to us to support them.

This article also struck me as a whine of epic proportions. Apple's support terms and conditions are clearly explained, and available for perusal before you buy - Caveat emptor (buyer beware) Apple's practices are basically no worse than most other manufacturers, and in many respects a wole lot better. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 13:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I am so glad I learned on DOS and then moved to Linux. Twenty years ago we had the same thing Mac never changed that is why they are a music hardware company now. The company I work for uses Mac for graphics and I guess that Mac has a niche other that music players. If you want a puffy over bloated system resource hogging system the go XP or OSX, keep it simple guys to the programs you run. I would like a system with the nice hardware that Mac has but I am not spending several thousand dollars more for a few nano seconds. Please Thu, 30 Dec 2004 13:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Can anyone take these people seriously?

Computers are componetised so you can upgrade them. Preventing users doing it buy over pricing your own items (to such a huge extent!) and by forbidding fully comptable devices from working is just pathetic.

If microsoft did half the stuff apple did youd all be freaking and suing the hell out of them.

The thing that annoys me about apple users is they are such idiots and proud of it.. They actually liked being screwed over because they think it gives them the right to be snobs.

Idiots.. so fkn stupid.. the artical opened my eyes to problems ive read about before. The apple evangalists responces are pathetically worse than i would have thought.

Grow up and grow some balls.. stand up foryourself ppl and dont take this crap from steve. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 13:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? http://homepage.mac.com/geerlingguy/mac_support/mac_help/pages/15-b...

download needed stuff from here: http://homepage.mac.com/geerlingguy/mac_support/mac_help/pages/15-b...


"BURN DVDS TO AN EXTERNAL BURNER OR A DISK IMAGE WITH iDVD:

One feature oddly absent (or so people think) from iDVD is the ability to burn to external (third party) DVD-R drives or to Disk Images... this REALLY cripples iDVD, in my humble opinion! What most people don't know, is that there is a nice easter egg (not exactly a 'hack') that allows users to do both of these wonderful things so that they aren't restricted to cheesy iDVD imitations for making DVDs for burning on an external drive.

I originally found this information in this forum thread, but thought it would be nice to put a step-by-step guide on my site for those who don't understand (or don't want to read) all they said in the forum. Note that I am not the original author of this easter egg enabler, and I don't even know exactly who is - I thank whoever it may be, though...

I have tested this with iDVD 4.0.1, and others have reported it working with versions 2.0, 3.0, 3.0.1, and 4.0 as well (on G4s and G5s of all flavors). If you have problems, please read my FAQ before emailing me a question. In addition, if you find that your external DVD burning drive is not being seen by Mac OS X, iTunes, or iDVD, you might want to try using 'PatchBurn' to see if your Mac has better luck seeing your drive.

(Note: It has come to my attention that this page is now being seen internationally... if anyone would like to offer a translation of this page into his or her own language, I would be willing to post that online :-)

Step-By-Step Instructions:

Download the file 'iDVD_Egg.dmg.sit', open it to decompress it, then open the Disk Image file that is decompressed.

After the 'iDVD Egg' white disk image appears on your desktop, place the two files (named 'Pfurz' and 'Hurz') inside it DIRECTLY into your home folder (in the same area as your 'Documents', 'Pictures', 'Library', 'Sites' and related folders are—but NOT inside those folders).


Open a project in iDVD.


Click the burn button once to open up the 'shutter' to reveal the radiation button. (Note: if this doesn't work, restart your computer and try again).




Hold down "control" key, then select "Burn DVD..." from the File menu (while "control" key is held down). Keep holding the control key down until the dialog box pops up (Thanks, Karl and Keith .




A dialog box will come up asking whether to burn to an external drive or to a Disk Image. Choose one of the two options and click Burn.



Note 1: if you need to burn a DVD+R disc, first create a Disk Image, then burn it to your DVD+R using another disc-burning utility - thanks, Amy!
Note 2: If you choose to burn to a disc, you'll need to select the drive you are burning to (even if you only have one external drive) - thanks, Jacqueline!
Note 3: The 'DVD-R Simulation Mode' is for doing a 'test burn'. the 'DLT Format' selection only applies if you are burning your DVD to a Digital Tape (some pros do this to send it to a DVD production company)


After the burn/image creation is finished, the dialog box will pop up again, asking you want to burn again (or save another image); click 'Cancel' if you're finished.


If you created a Disk Image on your hard drive, you will need to burn it to a DVD using a burning utility such as Disk Utility or Toast. Read #3 of my FAQ for more information.


If you have any problems, please read my FAQ before emailing me a question." Thu, 30 Dec 2004 13:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Apple doesn't WANT you to upgrade the optical drive, probably because they would like you to buy a new Macintosh. The drivers are fine. Apple could easily support practically all DVD drives currently available - but they DON'T WANT TO. That's kind of impudent. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 13:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Funny you have such problems. I put a Lite-On CDRW ($50-$60 best buy) when I wasn't happy with the CDRW offerings. Then I wanted a DVD-R (Superdrive) so I went to best buy again and got an 8x for $55. Both of them work fine. I never had to research compatability, etc. (G4/933 Quicksilver)

Same thing with all the ram in my tower. Bought it all at "PC Only" computer store.

Same thing with my Firewire, USB 2.0 and UW SCSI expansion cards (PCI)....bought them at a "PC ONLY" computer store.

I just don't see what the problem is. People can't figure out the easy way to do something so they flame apple over it.

Sounds to me like an operator error. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 13:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If someone with hosting or email services calls where I work & the problem is down to their internet connection AND that connection isn't through us .. we refer them to the person they bought it from. If we know their provider and that we could provide a better service/support we also make them aware of this. This is very much in line with what apple have done in their case.

Apple could, perhaps, make a bit of money selling superdrive upgrades but they don't. Unsuprisingly, they also don't do so for graphics cards either. That is, unsupprisingly, handled by the few manufacturers who make cards for the mac.

why don't the makers of the drives support the mac? maybe it is for the same reasons apple don't, there isn't enough money in it. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 13:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? why don't the makers of the drives support the mac? maybe it is for the same reasons apple don't, there isn't enough money in it.

selling lame dvd-burners for $400 without making any profit?
what the hell... Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "selling lame dvd-burners for $400 without making any profit?
what the hell..."

its quite possible to stock or sell a moderately cheap part for $400 and lose money. the selling price has no reflection on the channel set up to sell the part. if its inefficient, it can lose money even at inflated prices.

i have plenty of qualms with apple, but not supporting third party end user upgrades to relatively expensive and complicated electronic devices is not one of them. if you have been around the block a few times, you will know that many vendors have at best fair to middling support for this sort of thing. ive had it go both ways with other pc vendors.

why stop with the complaint about optical drives? why not stir the pot over apple motherboards or cpus? where do you get those? does apple sell them? does apple allow end users to install them and stay in warranty? can you get them from third parties (cpus yes, motherboards very rarely)? does apple warrant the machine after you have installed a new motherboard or cpu?

you story should have not written as is. it should have been written on a good tech forum before you made the purchase and any of thousands of mac users could have informed you of exactly how to get the best drives at the best prices and how to get them working with the greatest compatibility with your specific mac. you then could have written a glowing piece on how tech forums make the net what it is, a great place to gain knowledge and help from others without cost.

good luck with your future efforts. and see the idvd enabler i posted above if you are having any issues with it. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? So you purchased an item from a company and didn't do your homework and now you want us all to feel sorry for you. I don't. I think this is the poorest excuse for a story that OSNews.com has ever put up. If you have been a tech for 10 years could you not have figured out how to upgrade the PowerMac yourself? You sound worthless as a tech and more like a baby who would rather complain about Apple and the way they do business then just play by the rules they had in place before you purchased the machine anyway. What is really funny is that 90% of the real computer companies (IBM, SUN, HP, COMPAQ, & others) all have the same rules in place. You have to do it their way or we don't support it. As you may very well know if Apple had to support every sinking piece of hardware on the market then they couldn't deliver the high quality of service that they do. You should try calling Dell once you have made a small change to you DELL configured machine. If you make even one hardware change it throws the tech for a loop and they will usually blame all you problems on that part you changed like a 3rd party mouse. Oh don't laugh; they did it on three separate calls. Come to find out it was the motherboard, but three techs over three days blamed it on a 3rd party USB mouse we had purchased to help the user that had arthritis.

Apple has to maintain a high level of support and to so that they would rather you get a new computer form them that they configured than have to support a series of 3rd party hardware problems. Don't you see this is what makes Apple and the Mac so powerful? Apple makes the Software that runs on the hardware and that is why they are rock solid.

Again every stable platform in the datacenter has the same model, and the most unstable of them being windows does not have that model and that is why it will fail in the end. If Microsoft made the hardware that Windows ran on they would own the world, but that will never come to light so for now you have the perfection of Apple.

Bit me complainer boy....and who really gets Christmas Money, what are you 12 or something? Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Buy Mac.....
Install Linux

Or more generally:
Buy computer.....
Install Linux

Why? Because Linux just works. You get free, 24/7 Support staffed by millions. most of whom know whats going on. The best part is they do it not for a pay check but for the love of the it.
Thats power no commercial OS will ever match.
Nx Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Excessive use of apostrophes indicates this is hysterical nattering. I'm not shocked this would appear on OSNews, but at least most people see this for what it is.

Wake up and smell the coffee. If you didn't research what drives work on a G3/G4, then you deserved what you got. Anyone who wasn't born yesterday knows Pioneer DVR's are OEM equipment and work flawlessly out of the box. NewEgg sells them for a song.

Next time, write an article about something truly awful and maybe you will get some respect. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? First off, why would you buy a G5 without a superdrive to begin with?

This is the typical "PC user" mentality, why is it that every pc user is the social equivelant of "the guy who fixes his car on weekends". You are the guy that spends $50,000 on a BMW/Mercedes, and can't believe that the car stereo he bought for $19.99 at Radio Shack doesn't work, and that the dealership won't sell him one. I'm horrified.

Apple has the ability to offer a superior operating system, because they can for the most part assume what hardware to support. If every $12 Korean cdrom drive (and other gadget) was supported, the fast efficient OS that we know would be relegated to the steaming pile that has become Windows. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "I was thinking of buying a Mac, but after reading this and its comments, I must reconsider. Perhaps I should wait until there's an OSX x86."

Well, in my experience Apple has good products if you avoid the stinker in their line which is th eMacs. eMacs are a big exception to Apple quality line up, so much that they were featured in the TOP TEN WORST Product of 2004:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1735287,00.asp

AS for OsX coming out for x86. it would be nice, although Apple could flood the market making PPC mainstream and thus not needing to go the x86 route.

But don't wait until OsX comes out for x86, rather wait for it to be truly 64bit, as for now the G5, which are excellent machines, are overpriced-under-utilized because is a 64bit CPU with a 32bit OsX.

Anyway, I think for the most part Apple products, although some what over priced, are nonetheless high quality products. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Buy Mac.....
Install Linux

Or more generally:
Buy computer.....
Install Linux

Why? Because Linux just works. You get free, 24/7 Support staffed by millions. most of whom know whats going on. The best part is they do it not for a pay check but for the love of the it.
Thats power no commercial OS will ever match.
Nx"

same holds true for macs and windows based pcs too. last time i checked there are millions of both types of users more than willing to help fellow users. linux has no monopoly on helpful fellow users. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The only thing I have to say (I am not starting a flame war) is that's what you get when you by a MAC. I am not a M$ supporter, but I do support Linux and Open Source. Also, it is just not comsumer savy to buy a MAC, it is just a waste of good hard earned $. I can do anything I want with my PC, I can install any worthwile OS and thousands of apps. Oh ya, I can also put any piece of hardware I would like to have as well... I suggest building a PC, then you will never have this problem again. Toss the MAC Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I thought it was fairly well known that major distributors like apple, dell, etc were not in the business of selling after-market parts. In fact, IME, they tend to discourage this sort of thing exactly how the article outlined. I am, however, quite surprised that anyone tech savvy would even consider purchasing after-market items from places like apple/dell/etc when places like newegg or owc exist.

The author of the article is obviously pissed off, and that is his right as a consumer. I do agree, however, with the several others who have chimed in that this is not anything even resembling news. This is an op-ed piece that would be locked on most tech boards as a rant containing much vitriol and little content. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "The only thing I have to say (I am not starting a flame war) is that's what you get when you by a MAC. I am not a M$ supporter, but I do support Linux and Open Source. Also, it is just not comsumer savy to buy a MAC, it is just a waste of good hard earned $. I can do anything I want with my PC, I can install any worthwile OS and thousands of apps. Oh ya, I can also put any piece of hardware I would like to have as well... I suggest building a PC, then you will never have this problem again. Toss the MAC "

What do you have against Media Access Control? Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? pioneer dvr-108 (generally regarded as one of the best dvd burners made and the pioneers also work well with macs...many superdrives are in fact pioneer dvr models)

$72 beige
$74 black

http://www.zeehoo.com/miva/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=Z...

if you paid $170+, you should ask for assistance next time when looking to make a tech purchase. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Try ordering an upgrade from anyone, Dell, HP or whoever.

They are EVERY BIT as overpriced as Apple.

A "tech" would know this (if he is a tech).

That leaves us to third party devices. A PC is an OPEN platform, a Mac is a CLOSED platform. Raise your hand if you didn't know this.

Now, which platform do you THINK a third party device will work in more easily???? Hmnn. Lets think about it real hard.

Whoever wrote this, and whoever decided it was worthwhile to post it needs to get a clue.

Macs have lots of advantages (I use one) and lots of disadvantages - you just have to figure out if the pros outweigh the cons; for some they do and for others they do not.

My Mac has a third party CPU and HDD, a generic PC DVD-RW, a flashed PC video card, standard PC RAM and lots of "unsupported" drivers and many hacks. Its barely a Mac! I am also a "tech" (or was) and NEVER - NOT ONCE did I even THINK ABOUT calling Apple. That would be dumb. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 15:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? When the CD-ROM on a Power Mac G4 733 Mhz died, we went to a PC only store picked up the cheapest "Superdrive" we found, a Medion one :-? which happened to be built by Pioneer, slid it into the tower powered on and everything worked like a charm. There's only the minor that iTunes does not indeed allow recording, which I just realized after reading this, since we use Toast for recording everything. That does not make Apple less pathetic in that iTunes and Finder loose that feature; I agree that Apple should fix it (considering that Patchburn only changes some text files (or so I have read).

Maybe we were lucky, maybe pretty much any ATA optical drive works with a Mac (iTunes and Finder aside). In any case, we never thought of calling Apple to ask them what to do about our died CD-ROM. We just found it natural to go out, buy a new non-Apple one and expect it to work. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 15:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Ok, so I bought a 12" ibook from Apple in January '04 which came with a Combo drive. When I wanted to upgrade to a DVD burner I did a little research, got a drive, and installed Patchburn and Robert's your mum's illigitimate half brother, no problems at all.

And this is in an iBook; this guy couldn't get a tower sorted out even quicker than I managed to sort my laptop out??? Purlease! Thu, 30 Dec 2004 15:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Took me a minute to find.

http://www.apple.com/ca/support/powermac/doityourself/storage.html Thu, 30 Dec 2004 15:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? What did you expect!? Its Apple for crying out loud! Thu, 30 Dec 2004 15:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? From the article:
I even had someone say that "From what I understand, with my experience with DVD-+RW disks on OSX, the component of OSX that deals with optical drives, simply, sucks.

Hearsay from an unnamed source. This is good stuff. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 15:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I haven't read such an article this bad that has no OS news information and all whines. For a 10 year techie, as noted, this writer doesn't have much sense to figure out what drive Apple uses and not a hint to just buy a 3rd party drive. My wife uses a DELL, if I want to put a burner in it, I'm not going to DELL first. Check their prices out for upgrade components; they make you pay way more than picking up the part at your local computer shop. This is similar to all name brand manufacturers and no surprise here. Horrible article. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 15:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I have a Sony DRU-710A that supports CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, and DVD+R9. I tossed it in a generic Firewire case and connected it to my TiBook. Works likes a charm in DragonBurn & Toast. Ran the PatchBurn program and it works perfectly with iTunes and iDVD.

I must say this article is completely useless. I don't expect Apple to support drives they don't sell and that aren't included in the DiscBurn functions. I researched it on my end regarding the drive and PatchBurn even before I purchased the 710A. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 15:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm afriad im gonna have to go with the author on this one. True Apple wants to support componets that there OS will support so its coded with a few configurations. They also have some detecting firmware on the mobo and some of there software doesnt like third party parts. We'll, if iDVD wont work, lets take something from an open source program and use that? Patch burn is a good idea and as far as I know Apple said there latest patch and Tiger would fix this. (Ya, ok) If Apple clearly wants to compete with PC's there going to have to be more flexiable with there hardware configurations. Think I want there 4 yr old video card playing Doom 3 on my Mac? Think I should just stick with 256 MBs of RAM? $300 for 512MB of RAM for my laptop? lol I dont think so. When faster burners come out, think I should stick with there slow poke? THe newer Macs are more flexiable than the old. Apple is trying to change this and they should, cuz like me I really dont care for some of Apple's choice of hardware. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 16:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Why does OSNews publish these? It brings the whole site down. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 16:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Just buy this model number...."

"Apple just works because of it's limited hardware..."

More apologist talk, and people wonder why Mac's market share is going in the tank.

Hear no evil, speak no evil, .... Thu, 30 Dec 2004 16:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? OSNEWS was taken for a ride with this story. Mac Towers are very upgradable...

this guy did something that no one does!!!! who calls the OEM for a part for upgrades? NO ONE!!!

and if this guy did 1 minute of investigation he would have found that you can use any internal dvd burner in a Mac... Patchburn works to get external burners working... and I do not think that the first post was really Euginia.... she KNOWS that external burners need the easteregg files to wok with iDVD...

who allowed this troll story? really it is full of inaccuracies and setups.... should I write a story about apple support if I asked them to give me a sandwich and they did not? Thu, 30 Dec 2004 16:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? dell as far as i know does NOT void your warranty if you open the case.

they even had a little sticker on it saying that fact. "Removing this label will NOT void your warranty"

(i did a double take the first time). Thu, 30 Dec 2004 16:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I have a 107/A07 and it works great. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 16:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Apple does not void the warranty either!!!!

I cannot believe the posts on here... I feel like I am in the twilight zone... you have people who have no clue about the mac world calling Mac users trolls and zealots because they simply tell the truth "Macs will support 3rd party drives" sure... you need patchburn but so friggen what... I have an NEC dual layer DVD drive... all its features work when using Toast 6... sure. iDVD only works with DVD-R/RW, but so what!!!!

all this article has done is add more uninformed fodder for PC fanboys to use against the Mac (BTW.. I use PC and Mac so I am not some crazed fanatic... but as some one who builds systems, it just makes no sense to ask an OEM for a component upgrade after the computer was bought.)_ Thu, 30 Dec 2004 16:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I use both x86 and Apple hardware. I know all about upgrades. And I do agree with the majority of people about this story. Apple SHOULD sell you the Superdrive no questions. If you screw up your system installing the thing they should let you know that it is out of their hands.

But.....

About the people talking about how easy and painless x86 upgrades are, have never run into driver conflicts. I recently built a system for my sister bought her a MSI mobo and a ATI video card. And anytime my niece or nephew would try and play games the system would go into a hard lockup and would have to turn off the power to bring it down.

After some troubleshooting it turned out that the mobo drivers and the video drivers had a conflict. And after installing slightly older ATI drivers..... problem solved. The funny thing is I contacted both ATI and MSI about this problem.

MSI tech support: Sounds like you need to exchange your ATI card because it sounds defective. (So I did, no help)

ATI tech support: Sounds like something is wrong with your motherboard, exchange it for the same model. (So I did, to no avail.) Thu, 30 Dec 2004 16:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The cover of my G5 has been off many times. Not because it was broken, but because of the utterly awesome build quality of the computer. I wanted to show it to friends! This machine is miles ahead of _any_ PC I've ever seen the insides of, and I've seen thousands from white box clones and home built boxes to top brand names. None of them even comes close to the build quality of te G5.
I've also had to return this G5 once for a warranty repair because one of the CPU's went defective. This was handled excellently! They took my machine in for repair and they gave me a free loaner with the same specs which was a surprise because this was at the time when the G5 had just been released and it was extremely hard to find, especially the dual 2GHz. models.
Two weeks later I got my own computer back, with a whole new case around it because the service techs had spotted a scratch on one of the side panels. I had caused this scratch myself, but they still replaced the whole exterior.. for free.. and those anodized aluminium cases are expensive!
I've never considered swapping the DVD-burner yet, but I just might try to see what happens when I do. I have this black LG burner lying somewhere around here. My bet is that this will just work with any application worth its salt. In which case it's not OS X that's at fault, but the iApp in question. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 16:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? heheheheee, welcome to Apples relality distortion field, aka steve jobs Thu, 30 Dec 2004 16:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I built a mac a few months ago out of an iMac G4 board, and for xmas I just got a Lite-On 16x dvd burner. I've not tried it with iDVD, but it works fine with Toast.

I am surprised however that this technician did not search elsewhere for the drive before contacting Apple. I would never consider for a second buying a part from Apple unless absolutely necessary (perhaps an iMac power supply, which they won't sell you anyhow...I tried).

If you do need an Apple part, you have to go through a vendor. That's what I did to get the power supply for my Franken-iMac. But yea, it only took me minutes of searching on google to find out where to buy the "superdrive" (www.macsales.com). Thu, 30 Dec 2004 16:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? What an amazing article for a 'reputable' web site.

Maybe I should write an article on my upgrade experience on a 4 year old g4 tower.

faster processor from ebay, check.

DVD writer from macsales, check.

video card, check, of course, more ram.

Easy, done, still works today. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 16:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "That's the silliest thing I've ever heard! So computers shouldn't be upgradeable now? Perhaps your general contractor should tell you you can't add that wing on your home, you should've added it when you bought it! New car stereo? No! Why didn't you buy it when you bought the car? "

Just to point out a fact... Yes, many times you can't add that wing do to zoning or permit requirements changes since the home was built. and yes, many times you can not just pop in a new cd player on new cars beause of the extremely non standard location, sizes, and wiring of the car. some newer cars in the mid to high price range require more work to modify the dash to install the stereo than the speakers and cdplayer are worth.

but anyways. I'm starting to have a hard time telling if I'm readin /. or OSN sometimes... Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Watching Mac fans defend their companies pathetic customer service, sorry guys it is and always has been bad, Yes, I know the service is good for broken parts, but Dell does the same thing with better coverage.
And all the Mac haters going "yea, it may be better; but they're mean!" And Microsoft is nice?

Face it, Apple has some disgusting business practices. Like suing everyone who leaks anything about upcoming products. But, they do make a damn nice home computer. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? 1) He is supposedly a tech. Have you EVER heard of Google?

2) Most people are smart enough to buy a superdrive as part of the system when they buy it. Therefore Apple has VERY VERY VERY VERY few people ever calling them to want to buy one afterwards. Therefore it is not economically feasible to stock the five or so they would sell a month.

3) I use Macs and multiple PCs with Windows, OS/2 (eComStation) and Linux. I have no more or less issues with upgrading my Macs than I do with my "PCs." All you need is an IQ of more than 5 so you can find Google.

This is an extremely lame article. If I was this person I would be extremely embarrassed to have written this and had it posted. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I have an iBook and I plugged in a USB CDROM burner, which worked fine. But then I added a USB port expander and plugged the CDROM into the port expander and IT DOESN'T WORK!!!! What's up with that? It also doesn't work if I remove the port expander and plug the CDROM into the USB port on the iBook that I didn't install the CDROM.

In other words, it won't work unless I plug it into the exact port in the exact manner I did when I first used/installed the CDROM. This is most annoying since there no way to "un-install" it & try again. I suppose the only way to "fix" it is to scratch the disk and re-install the OS. Anyone have any better ideas? And YES, I *NEED* the extra USB ports. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I've worked for various Apple Authorized Resellers as an Apple Certified Technician since 1998.

In NO way is Apple Service bad.

Compared to NEC, Packard Bell, and some other companies, it's incredibly good...

Yes, Apple has the "Not Sold Here" syndrome...

They could easily have used generic parts and supported them all along. Such as PS/2 Keyboards and Mice in the old ADB days.

Or, standard CD-ROM Drives instead of the "Apple ROMmed" drives...

Or standard PCI/AGP Video Cards like the AmigaONE, Pegasos, and other PPC Vendors do...

They don't. It's their choice.

It doesn't make them "Bad".

You might not wish to choose to buy their stuff because of this.

But, to most of Apple's Customers (and customers of Name Brand PC's that have similar restrictions), it doesn't matter.

Most people don't EVER upgrade their computers.

Most people don't upgrade their cars either...

They just replace what's broken, when it breaks.

MAYBE they'll upgrade their RAM, or add a printer and scanner...

That's it.

And I agree this article was POORLY written, the guy did NO research...

You can EASILY get Superdrives from MacSales (OWC), or www.wegenermedia.com and lots of vendors CHEAP!!!!

Much cheaper than $170.00.

I upgraded my G4 350 to a G4 550, 512mb of RAM, and a better video card, and even though I'm an Apple Authorized Technician... I didn't order ANY of the parts from Apple.

I bought them all from eBay or from local vendors.

And if my machine is out of warranty, I'm used to that...

Most of my PC's are hand built, and hence... Have NO warranties at all... (Except for the warranty on the parts from the individual vendors.) Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? As a long time MAC user/Zealot if you wish, I can understand your confusion about buying a faster DVD drive. What you need to realize is that the first MACs had a small CRT built in. The computer market in the late '80's did not have any or many knowledgeable customers that could service them safely. CRT's can hold a charge for a very long time and at such a high power as to be deadly. So Apple had and still does have a policy that most customers should not open their computers.

Times have changed and MANY (not all)computer users now are more familiar with how to replace a hard drive and ram ect. Typically inside a computer system the power supply functions at about 10 volts or less and so shorting your self out accidentally would typically not kill you or any one else. A box computer typically does not have a CRT (except the eMAC). CRT's are still deadly to the ignorant.

Replacement parts are all over the place for MAC computers, with time you learn what you can replace and how and where. It is not the same for the MAC as it is for the PC. I do not go to big box stores for MAC software, they only shelve PC software. Buying MAC compatible hardware is pretty much the same. It is out there and plenty of it. But you have to know where to go to get it.

If Apple let just anyone put just any hardware in their computers and had to supply drivers for it all, then the famous Plug and Play which they tout would fly out the window. The dependability that they offer would be no better then MS's plug and pray.

I am sorry that you have been so frustrated with your purchase attempts for upgraded hardware but this is just another difference that you will find with your MAC and Apple policy. I am always upgrading my computer, a G4 mp 450 which I bought new about 4 years ago.

The big difference is that I have to do a bit of home work and online research before I buy. I can't usually just run to any store anywhere and knee jerk implulse buy something that just catches my eye and expect it to work with my computer just because I happen to be in the store at that time(though If I know what I am looking for I do impluse buy if the big box store has what I want)ie two 120gig ATA133hardrives at about 65 dollars each. Otherwise I go to an independent MAC store like the PowerMacPac in Portland Oregon and ask around between staff what they have or would suggest that full fills my current need. I know had you been able to ask them what DVD drive to buy for using in your Mac you would have gotten an answer of "any of the Pioneer DVR-AO3to8 drives and they could have drop shipped it to you just like that after a wave of your plastic money".

Your MAC is still good tool/computer. If your a long term user this is about the last lesson that Apple has to teach-"Apple is NOT in the business of selling consumer quality upgrade hardware even for their own computers". I know that it can be frustrating but it did save you a bundle of money- since you did not get the high priced drive from the Apple/manufacturer. Next time let us on line help you instead of trying to make the world work for your MAC like it does work for a PC. After all that is why you are trying to upgrade your computer and replace it.

Best wishes with your computer and many happy years of use. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I can buy a 330hp turbocharger for my VW Jetta, but VW doesn't sell it or support it...does that make VW unsympathetic to customer needs? No.

Using the Web, Apple's System Profiler, and the Manual which came with my various Macs, I have been able to buy 3rd party and install successfully. This includes upgrades to PCI Video, HDs, RAM, and Optical Drives -- internal and external.

The hardest to upgrade was the G3 iMac 333, just way too many screws. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Just wanted to say, nice work on the subject title (headline) Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Apple wouldn't sell him the Superdrive because they don't want someone taking their old G4 tower and upgrading it to squeeze a few more years of life out of it. They want you to buy a brand new G5. As far as problems go with stock parts, Apple's customer service is excellent and they will usually go the extra mile to make sure that your problem is taken care of, but your cries will fall on deaf ears if you want any kind of support in regards to upgrades. That being said, anyone who wants to upgrade the drive in their Mac should check out this link:

http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/drivedb/search.drivedb.lasso

It's a nice little database that allows you to see what drives (hard or optical)work in what systems. You can adjust the search by Mac Model, OS Version, brand of drive, drive model, etc. For optical drives, the people who contribute to the database will usually leave notes about whether the drive is iTunes and iDVD compatible. Cool resource. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I tried adding an additional hard drive. The formatter/initializer program could see the drive (actually I tried several different brands and models) and I could set it up fine, but the OS never recognized any of the drives. I had to get the exact same brand/model as the one that came with it originally. That is pathetic. I see from this article that Apple is doing the exact same thing still today. That was my last Mac. At the time I thought they were incompetent, but that was obviously naive, they did it on purpose, to sell more hardware at superbloated prices. This practice should be illegal. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Just wanted to chime in with my two Apple support stories.

The first encounter with Apple support occured maybe 6 months ago when my iPod kept rebooting and I could not restore the unit. All I had to do was fill out a support request on Apple's site, maybe 3 days later a box came in the mail with packing instructions and pre-paid postage to apple. 5 days later I recieved a new iPod in the mail with a piece of paper attached to it. No, it wasn't an invoice but a Customer Statisfaction survey. Needless to say, I was a very happy customer.

My second encounter involved my 1.33 ghz powerbook g4. The backlit keyboard crapped out and I was pretty upset considering the lappy was bought this past June. A quick call to Apple and a 10 minute drive to CompUSA had my laptop shipped out the next day. No games, no BS, just my laptop being repaired in a timely and efficient fashion.

So far my experiences with Apple have been very pleasant, but come on folks who calls the OEM for parts? I work as a technician and I always advise customers to never purchase the parts from the OEM due to the excessive cost (an example being a $300 mobo for a 350mhz HP machine). A little common sense goes a long way... Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm a Windows and Linux user that was about to purchase my first Mac in 2005.

After reading this, the chances I'll buy a Mac--even if they introduce one dirt cheap--went down by 50%. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Upgrading Mac is easy.
Be it FW external hdd, just worked.
USB2 CDRW drive, just worked.
Non-branded BT adpater, works better than under Windowz even without a need to install driver.

When I buy my Mac, I have expected no upgrade from Apple.
If I had to, I would have to do it on my own and do a few googling or ask on a few forum.

I'm just a student, not a techie.
I'd pray for your customers that their box never went wrong, since they don't have good techie to help them fix even the techie's own computer.

Are you someone from Dell or something?
This article is crap, please someone come and clean it up. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Apple does this and and someone complains and everybody calls him a whiner.

I'm stunned. Why do people accept such shabby treatment by a company and then exalt in joy over their abuse? I just don't understand it. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It is stupid for Apple to not support external hardware, and not offer upgradable hardware.

Change it. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 18:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I wish you better luck, although I have never had a problem installing hardware updates into my PowerMac. Here are some of my most recent upgrades:

1. Pioneer DVR-108 DVD Burner
I read the compatibility database, and this one popped out of the screen. I had it shipped to my house for $80! They wanted $130 for it at Micro Center and CompUSA. Applied Patchburn and it works flawlessly with DVD Studio Pro, iDVD, and iTunes.

What people need to realize is that not all apps work with all CD/DVD burners. Apple is in the business of making the hardware and software work effortlessly together. They do this by engineering the software to only work with specific (tested) hardware. Besides, these third party drives do come with Roxio Toast for burning as well.

2. ATI Radeon 8500
I pulled out the old, and installed the new. Drivers were built into the system, and I didn't even feel a hiccup. I did notice the Quartz Extreme, and now wonder how I lived without it.

3. Acard AEC-6280M ATA-133 IDE Adapter
I just put this into one of my PCI slots, attached the new hard drives (my Mac can hold 4 hard drives, and two 5-1/4 drives) and booted up. On boot, the system asked how I would like to handle the new drives and offered to initialize them for me. Not even BeOS gives me that! (Confession: I am someone who still checks up on the Haiku status and eagerly awaits to try a more completed version.)

4. 512MB Memory (from Crucial)
Easy to install (as the case was engineered for very easy access. Not even my G5 at work is this accessible!

In closing
Whenever upgrading systems, there will always be limitations to some extent. BeOS and other alternative OS' have taught me this. I could always give in and start using Windows again (I use XP at work and although stable, the interface lacks), but then I would lose the beautiful and thoughtfully engineered environments. I always researched my hardware purchases for Windows, and this is no different now for my Mac and BeOS machines.

Good luck with your future upgrade endeavors, and remember that there is a large community of us geeks to help you along the way. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 18:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? You're correct in saying apple is handling this incorrectly and should sell you a new drive for your machine. Which they stated they would for $450. Your complaint isn't about what they will and will not sell you, but about price.

Being a competent ( Thu, 30 Dec 2004 18:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I learned a lot.
Got some great links, got info on another function sneaked in by Apple's coders, observed another clash of nerds.
Life is good.

Here's a tip!
Pay attention:

"MAC" vs "Mac":
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/MAC.html

hylas Thu, 30 Dec 2004 18:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? You knew that Mac is a closed hardware platform, didn't you?

Apple never offer hardware upgrade to box they sold, didn't you knew that before?

Goodness you are here to blame Apple.

If you were looking for upgradability, put some crap together and code your own OS. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 18:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? At one point I wanted to try and upgrade my PM 5200 with an TV/FM tuner. I had actually upgraded the motherboard to a 5500 (The difference is a 2nd generation PowerPC, three times faster and not crippled from design). I stopped by a local authorized service provider, and he looked in his big book of parts, quoted me a price, I dirtied my pants, and decided that I was just fine getting one off of eBay.

Yessiree, the one place to get my OEM parts at prices that don't kill cattle.

Apple won't sell you the part because they don't want to set the precedent of allowing every idiot to upgrade their computer. As cited above, there is possible liability and death from upgrade mishaps. Perhaps if you faxed them your resume showing your experience as a tech and signed a waiver...they would let you apply to become a service provider and then you could order it yourself. You'd still have to pay the large dollar amount though.

Mr. Welch, Apple cannot help it that you are thrifty and cannot see spending $450 on a single part. You found a solution, you just refused to take advantage of it because of the economics of the situation.

Anywhats, as most Apple people will tell you, by the time you're considering upgrading all of this... why don't you start looking at a new mac? The G5 tower is bound to be what, 2-3 times faster than whatever you're using now. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 18:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I wonder why such an article, it is quite easy to upgrade your
internal cd or dvd burner. MCE provides many solution for the macintosh and they all work well as far as i tested.

Take a look at their web-site before contacting apple tech support or marketing departement.

I swear, I do not work for this company, but I am a satified customer. That ' all. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 18:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? My girlfriend has a g3 233 desktop. We haven't upgraded the processor, just the ram and the video card, and hard drive. Most of that was years ago. She's recently bought an IOMega cd burner/dvd player for it which works like a charm with the usb2/firewire card we stuck in it. Seriously, for a machine bought in aprox 1998 that is something like 5 generations behind the current macs (bw g4's, Cubes, new imacs,g5's,g5 imacs) and at the bottom of the group in processor speed, she has been able to run osx on it for some time now, and do her every day stuff and even play unreal tournament on it when she feels like it networked to my pc. I wouldn't call that a bad machine... we have been given a upgrade to a blue and white tower which has a 300 g3 in it, native firewire and supports 1gig of ram... and I think it will end up being an excellent machine when I upgrade it...which I will with the aid of the internet.
This guy just wanted to rant and rave. As you all said, the resources were there. Probably Apple has all of its resources on superdrives in stock already allocated to going out in new machines, they are becoming that popular. I even want one, and I've built PC's for years.
The xlerate your mac forums are very inclusive, and the info was there if he wanted it. I wish OSnews would have held this rant from going into the headlines and wasting my time on something that could have been constructive.
The new macs are excellent machines... I don't think they hold a candle to a new dual pci-express machine (SLI), and that is the nature of the computer world. Competition elimates the weak and even some of the strong, and makes the really smart and strong, stronger. Before you know it, they'll have a dual g5 or Cell machine running a dual Geforce 6800 SLI. Just wait. (of course by then we'll have dual core dual processor sli pc's running A64's. Ha ha. Just wish apple would go ahead and port osX over so I could run it on my new supermachine. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 19:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I've owned 2 macs; a 604e Power Computing Power Center Pro and then an Apple G4. The G4 I purchased second hand and all the warranty stuff transferred over for me. Even the service contract the original owner was passed to me which I though was cool.

Now optical disc drives. Most will work it's just if it will work to BOOT the OS of a CD. I sold my DVD-RAM drive thinking I could just replace it with a regular sony dvd drive... no. .. then I tried an expensive plextor before finally getting a Pioneer A5.

My big problem with Apple was when they went from OS9 to OS X. I purchased roughly around $1000+ worth of software only to find that most of it didn't work under OS X. To be more specific under OS9 emulation.... Since then I made the switch to Windows was has it's own set of problems. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 19:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? A Hardware Compatibility List (HCL), is not too much to ask for. They refused to tell me the make and model of a drive that would work, and that is why I was angry. They do not sell ANY internal drives, and no manufacturor will fully support the drive for OSX. My point of the article is that there is NO support at all, not even from 3rd Party for drivers et cetra. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 19:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I have upgraded my machines several times. My Dell came with a 233MHz PII and I wanted to upgrade it to a 333MHz one. Dell will surely not sell me a PII 333Mhz module because my PC came with a 233MHz.


Dell, Apple and IBM only have the obligation to fix what they sold you originally. No manufacturer at the level of these companies will sell you upgrades. Do a search on Dell's site with "processor upgrades" and all the hits are for memory modules.

It's like saying I wasn't happy with the 2.5L inline six BMW sold me with a 325i and I want a 3.0L engine and BMW should sell me one becuase I can put it in myself. They won't. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 19:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Dan,

You were too angry to even just type "superdrive upgrade powermac" on google!!!! I just did and got these two hits. No effort and all the support you need.

http://www.mac-pro.com/s.nl/sc.2/category.177/.f
http://www.mcetech.com/dvdr4xdt.html
There are many drives that work with the powermac you should have done better research. It would have been less stressful and time consuming than writting an ill-informed article and going through posts on OSNews defending your view. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 19:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Proofread your article first buddy. Next time buy a pc. Do you see me taking out the radio to install an aftermarket one in my Mercedes SLK500? Get a life and some tissues for all those tears. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 19:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Why is this even on OSNews.com? This isn't news it's just a rant, maybe I should post a big ass rant about IBMs so called Tech support when it comes to their lame ass RSA II Raptor cards that they ship broken, and I'm required to flash all of them back to a working status? Or maybe I should complain about HP and their call centre in Bangalore India, and how the staff there haven't been trained in dealing with HP server techies, and they treat us like common people who've just bought a PC off the shelf? Or maybe I could complain about... nah screw it.

Once again did I miss something why is this on OSNews.com? BTW we have a term to describe people like this PEBKAC. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 19:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "and no manufacturor will fully support the drive for OSX. My point of the article is that there is NO support at all, not even from 3rd Party for drivers et cetra."

no manufacturer will support the drive?
Apple Superdrives and LaCie optical drives are just rebranded Pioneer drives...the exact same Pioneer drives that you can buy at Best Buy, Comp USA, etc for a PC.

you have 3rd party support, and you don't have to load any additional drivers. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 20:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? (a) Should there be restrictions on the upgrades you perform? IMHO, no.

(b) Should Apple be responsible for supporting those upgrades? IMHO, no.

(c) Should Apple sell components to the end user? I don't know.

What ever your opinion is on each of these issues (and perhaps others) is, please don't mix the issues. It makes it sound like you have a minimal intellectual capacity since you are distorting reality to fit your preconceptions. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 20:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? How does crap like this get on the front page of Osnews.com??
I dont want to go to my favorite news site and see someone bitching! Thu, 30 Dec 2004 20:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I was under the impression that just Automobile Manufacturers try to rob you. This is horrible its one thing if you dont have a choice but if you have an obvious choice why would a company have suck short sighted policies. Oh well I like my amd64 with linux, atleast all my hardware are supported. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 20:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Raptor, a car isn't a computer. Doing upgrades for a car is not common and its quite a bit more complex then upgrading components on a computer.

The author wasn't really complaining that they don't sell upgrades, he seems to be more annoyed with he fact that Apple did everything possible to make it harder for him to upgrade.

I think someone should sue Apple for uncompetitive practices like tying software to hardware. This is just crazy. I never could understand why people spend money on Macs, their overpriced, they lack the fun (for geeks) factor of Linux and the functionality of windows (most Mac apps have much better OSS variants). Thu, 30 Dec 2004 21:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I am having a hard time with this one. Apple is under no obligation to support upgrades, nor sell you upgrade parts, and should they, they are allowed to selll them for insane prices, like Dell, HP etc. These companies are in the business of selling you a computer, not parts.

That said, G4 towers are just about as expandable as any PC. I bought an old G4 400 MHz Sawtooth two years ago. The machine has a now has a 1.2 Ghz processor, a 64 MB PC video card that I flashed with a Mac ROM to save cash, generic USB 2.0 with additional ports in the slot where the Zip drive was, a Pioneer 4X DVD burner (Cendyne branded), an Alchemy DVR card and 340 GB of storage on 4 internal drives. None of this stuff is from Apple because it isn't offered, and if it was, it would be outrageously expensive in order to convince me to buy a new machine.

Finally, if you do want to upgrade a Mac tower, you should always start over on xlr8yourmac.com , as it seems that someone has always tried the upgrade in the past, and you can see how it went before you put your money down. They are the best resource for this sort of thing, and if they aren't, they will have the links to the people with the definitive site. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 21:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? That's Slings and Arrows. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 21:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If this guy is an average "technician" around your grounds, please tell me where it exactly is, so I can move there and let the neighboring masses know what the word "technician" really means.

This guy is just complaining. Why ? Because he had a freaking bad day (or night whatever). Want a spare part for Apple HW ? Buy one from a reseller, distributor, or ebay. Many places to get stuff from, new or used. 5-7 days tops if you're in the US.

Want spare HW parts for any other computer with big names ? Do the same. Otherwise they will cost like hell (try HP, I'm just through with official HW upgrades for a HP laptop - wasn't mine, wouldn't have gone this way then -, so I know the drill: way too expensive and way too slow).

If you are a "technician" then you know what you are working with. If you know Apple HW, then you know what and where you can buy replacements or new stuff. That's it. Anything else is just a waste of the readers' time. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 21:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Apple is in the hardware business, and that would serve as an explanation. However, Apple can smear themselves with feces, and that would be their right. They do earn a bad score from me on customer service. Here's how this should go down: "Sorry Mr. Welch. Apple sells preconfigured systems only, and doesn't sell upgrade parts. I can tell you that the model of the Superdrive is a Pioneer A07/8, but that's about it. You might want to check a reputable parts supplier if you want to purchase and install the drive, but your system would not be supported at that point. I can recommend the site www.XLR8yourmac.com for tips." That last part would be a mere courtesy, probably not something Apple would say, but you get the general nub of my gist.

"idvd with third party drives internal or external" By anon. Spot on. Good info. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 21:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This is what I mean, go to DELL!

8X/4X/12X DVD+RW and 32X/16X/40X CD-RW Internal Combo Drive for Dell OptiPlex GX270 Systems

$152.95 a bit overpriced but not $450.00 and It is supported by Dell™ Technical Support when used with a Dell system!

The product has been tested and validated on Dell™ systems to ensure it will work with your computer and is compatible with Dell™ OptiPlex™ GX270 D/T system.

I wanted a slightly overpriced drive that is supported, that is not too much to ask for. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Is it just my weird ideas, or isn't hardware supported through drivers? Wouldn't supplying a working driver be part of the hardware sale, not necessarily the OS sale?

I see a lot of people saying that Windows and Linux just support new hardware, and that OS X doesn't. Is there a magic thing in Windows and Linux that supports brand new hardware that isn't like previous hardware, and no previous drivers would recognise? Say I plugged in a point-of-sale scanner. Would the PC just know about it, and how to deal with it?

I suspect not.

You can put in generic drivers that will cover most expected types of functionality, and Apple have. Maybe not as many as Windows, but I've done several upgrades to a PowerMac tower without issue.

So why didn't the drive retailer offer a Mac version of their driver?

By the by, I installed an LG CD-RW a few years back, and this worked in the OS without any driver (I verified this before purchase, as there was no mention of OS X on the box). Very nice, considering the part was only new to the market. It didn't work with iTunes, so I looked around and found a hacked driver on www.xlr8yourmac.com, and never looked back. A subsequent upgrade in OS X no longer required the hacked driver.

That's great when it happens, but can any company guarantee it will be the norm?

And why assume things for Apple's motivation in selling parts? As I don't know their internal policies and procedures, I have a hard time commenting on them. Apparently I'm in a minority, as a number of others helpfully point out that Apple don't want anyone to upgrade, they hate users or it's part of a conspiracy.

Isn't it just easier to believe that they don't want to get stuck in a support loop for something they don't make and can't control? They do sell some parts, but they're generally Apple parts. I don't know the full story, so I can only judge on my experiences.

Lastly, I don't understand the people saying that they wouldn't buy a Mac because of this incident. It's analogous to me saying I wouldn't buy a PC because I read about a driver conflict above, or because Dell won't sell the new WhizBang(tm) graphics card I want at the price I want, and even if I do get it, Windows won't automatically support it without the driver being installed.

A little bit of research goes a long way. It would have saved the article author a lot of pain. My experiences have been hassle-free. His weren't. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? As has been pointed out ad nauseum, this is a completely legitimate beef, but this isn't Apple. Jeez, I remember trying to buy a replacement drive for my Dell laptop. Same issue. Same runaround. I remember trying to buy a replacement optical drive for my Gateway desktop years ago. Same issue. Same runaround. Now I just don't bother. If it's not on NewEgg, I go to PriceWatch. Only if every source says "May only be purchased from vendor" do I go to the manufacturer.

Anyway, I have to concur with what appears to be the majority on this one: this is not a good article for the front page. This is a LiveJournal entry. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Something that should have taken an hour at the most took this guy (a self-described "computer service technician for over 10 years") way too long and he's got to spread the word to all those ignorant mac-loving suckers about his suffering at the hands of mean unfair Apple (please note sarcasm).

First, the G4 tower is upgradeable. In fact, just about any machine is upgradeable if you want to put the time and effort into it. It's just easier to put new PCI cards, RAM, hard drives, optical drives, etc. in a tower. Believe me, I've done all those things in my B&W G3. In fact, I've even upgraded the processor unlike a number of Wintel users I know who claim that this is such a big deal on their computers but have never actually done so.

Second, do Wintel users usually place orders for service/upgrade parts with OEMs? It seems that Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, etc. would not exist if that were how most users went about upgrading their computers. For some reason, this guy thought that his years of experience gave him special privileges. Besides, those companies he named, i.e. "Compaq, IBM, HP, Dell, and even a cheap no-name Korean brand that went out of business," weren't all operating on solid business principles. That is why only HP and Dell are left in the PC business. Should Apple do the same because this guy thinks so? Hah! Actually, I understand that Wintel users don't mind paying outrageous service fees (GeekSquad?) just so long as the initial purchase price was "low."

Third, this guy is just lying when he writes "I was forced to wait on hold for over 3 hours." He chose to wait for an "adequate" answer. Well, here's his answer: It makes poor business sense to do what he was asking - just look at those other companies whose computers he serviced.

Fourth, Apple does provide a hardware compatibility list. There are numerous CD writers that are supported under iTunes, e.g. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61639. There is a similar list for iDVD but it holds just one entry - Apple Superdrive (defined by Apple as the DVD burning drive that comes factory installed with a Mac).

Well, the article wasn't totally worthless. He did mention xlr8yourmac.com (a great site), the NEC ND3500A which is an excellent burner (was $50 A/R at pcconnection.com), and Patchburn (free + 10 minutes - I agree with Eugenia that this is a nuisance). Get an external FW/USB 2.0 case for a 5.25" drive (dealsonic.com) and you'll have a great external burner for less than $100. By the way, on the rare occasions that I've dealt with Apple customer service, I can only say that things were handled politely, professionally, and quickly.

Should Apple support 3rd party DVD burning drives? Yes, and it already does. Should Apple make this information common knowledge? Not if it isn't in its own best interest, even if paying customers think that they should. Is this information common knowledge? It already is. Should people make not mountains out of molehills? Too bad, they will continue to do so no matter how often rational voices intercede. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Sheesh, want a clone? Get one and quit griping. Ever try to put a Mercedes transmission in a Jaguar? Try telling Jaguar techsupport that your Yugo will work with a Hyundai transmission, theirs should too. Ridiculous. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This article is useless tripe.

I've had no trouble upgrading any of my Macs, least of all the CD-ROM drive. It takes me about 2 minutes to find the brands that work for a given model and OS and clicking the "Buy Now" button. I've done this to numerous G4 towers, even several G3 systems. No patches required. It was no harder than upgrading any x86. In fact, it was easier as I didn't have to fuss with drivers or update burning software, etc... Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? When as the 10th comment on this thread I linked the $120 16X SuperDrive upgrade on MacMall (http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=9286&offset=0&row...) I expected end of story. Yet people are still lambasting Apple like this is an enormous problem.

Why is it a problem, simply because you can't purchase the upgrade from Apple directly? While I admit Apple used to be the polar opposite of this policy, allowing you to order any component or logic board within their systems directly, that's not been the case since the '80s. If you want an upgrade, turn to MacMall or any of the other companies selling aftermarket parts.

There's no need for crazy patches, there's no need to research what specific model of Pioneer drive a SuperDrive actually is, unless you want to sacrifice the painless Apple experience and guaranteed compatability and save $30. There are plenty of vendors of aftermarket products for your Mac. The PowerMac is fully upgradable.

The attitude here seems to be that if Apple doesn't sell a SuperDrive, then nobody does, which is completely ridiculous. As I mentioned earlier, there were nearly 1000 hits for SuperDrive on Froogle.

It's a simple rule... want parts that work with your Mac? Then buy ones with Mac support. There are dozens of companies dedicated to selling Mac compatible components exclusively, namely MacMall. If you need an aftermarket upgrade, these should be your first stop.

So, in conclusion, this story was a troll and this "problem" is a complete non-issue. It has, unfortunately, brough the PC trolls out in force, who continue to reiterate this as if it were still a problem. It simply isn't. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? My experience entirely when I decided to junk my PC for a G4 PCI Powermac, I ripped the dvd writer (pioneer) a05 from the pc added it and 1 gig memory to the Mac and found it much easier than with a PC. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? First off, I'm a Mac dude. Second, (although they usaully don't go together) I am cheap.

I love the OS and tend to buy cheap to mid range Macs, because I am not loaded.

I wouldn't go to Apple for their Super drive at this point. Their "Superdrive" is slow and expensive.

I agree Apple should provide an upgrade path (outside of RAM & HD) for ALL Macs. My current machine is an iBook G3/900. Even LaCie would not "support" a G3 machine with their drives.

This is what I did:

1-Bought a Poineer DVR-108 (16x, 8xDL) from,www.newegg.com, cost $80
2-Bought a Firewire enclosure from www.newegg.com, cost $40
3-Bought Toast (tech stuff aside, I have always loved it) from www.newegg.com, cost $60 (support Mac dev!)
And so I could use the iLife stuff...
4-Download Patchburn II from http://www.patchburn.de/

Total: a whopping $180 (without Toast $120)

Moral of the story? If you can turn a #2 Phillips head and you can use a search engine. This is simply not a problem. I agree Apple SHOULD, but Apple WON'T so others DO. Problems with the drive??? Nil...

Here is another important moral, now my little, humble, and unsupported iBook burn DVDs faster than the Dual G5/2ghz macines at the school and the Viao laptop my buddy bought 8 months ago. Smokes'em all.

Next time go to www.xlr8yourmac.com first. Research it and make a wise choice, just as you did when you decided to "opt-out" and buy a Mac in the first place.

Cheers Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "That leaves us to third party devices. A PC is an OPEN platform, a Mac is a CLOSED platform. Raise your hand if you didn't know this."

www.power.org

At this time, MAC IS AND WILL BE THE ONLY REAL OPEN PLATFORM. :-)
Processors are open-based.
Motherboards (Hypertransport-based) are open-based.
Mac OS X is open-based.
Sorry, you wrong! Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I didn't believe this story when I read it--the "3 hours on hold" set off my BS meter. Not even Dell would keep you on hold that long. And certainly not Apple, who was recently ranked #1 in customer service.

I happened to walk by a store today which sells Mac products.

SuperDrive $269 bucks. Installed.

Way too expensive? Of course. But nothing is cheap with Apple.

But this story is BS. I suspect this is an example of someone with marginal people skills doing more damage to themselves then a problem with Apple.

But an article like this will sure bring out the Apple Haters, that's for sure. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? From a PC user point of view it's kinda funny not to say lil bit anachronic and of course sad. But anyway, why should people out there buy Apple stuff ? Design ? OS ? Hardware ? Price ? Performance ? Apple is outperformed in every field whatever Apple's fans have to say.
The OS can still be saved, anything else is trivial.
Apple is already history. It's just a matter of time they realize. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Apple support simply sucks. It's the worst support I've ever seen.
I work on an university, where we just bought arount 70 Powermac G5 dual, and a couple of XServers. Pretty expensive bought, each machine was almost 5 thousand dollars (with monitor, and everything).

Now you would imagine that, on a big purchase like this, Apple would at least take the time to help you with support for all those machines, right? WRONG!

They are just stupids. They sold us all those machines, and they couldn't even tell us that the machines come with just 3 months of warranty, and thta a care pack costs only 200 bucks. Now we're left with a bunch of machines without warranty, that can break at any minute. Just for the matter, from those 70 machines, 5 never worked, 3 broke during the 3 months warranty (and you have to take the fucking heavy machine back to their store to have it fixed), and 4 more are now broken.

If that was not enough, try buying care packs for 70 machines from apple. It seems that they really don't want you to buy that. If you tell them that some of the machines are broken, they simply refuse to sell you the packs, it's just plain ricidulous.

Apple should really hire a good business selling department... It's just ridiculous. We buy equipment from other companies, like Dell, IBM and HP, and they are always reponsive, and help you even if your equipment is not on warranty (at least for businesses). Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? My ibook works fine with my external firewire Sony DRX-500ULX. Burns DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW and regular CDR/RW discs without a hiccup in iTunes, Toast, Dragonburn and Popcorn. Finder and iTunes needed patchburn of course, but it works fine. Pretty strange that Eugenia's Sony 510 refuses to write DVD+RW discs though. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Sorry:
Get a life, get a wife, bitch away your strife. Your a loser, loser:-)
Its outrageous that an idiot like you with supposedly 10 years of experience
in the business could not figure a way around this problem. Go to linux, you will bitch even more because your logic train is stuck in limbo land. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "
Apple doesn't WANT you to upgrade the optical drive, probably because they would like you to buy a new Macintosh. The drivers are fine. Apple could easily support practically all DVD drives currently available - but they DON'T WANT TO. That's kind of impudent.
"

Thank you!!! Apple are moneygrubbers and people buy into them without thinking about the freedom they can get from MS or Linux. Think: Safari 1.2 requires OS 10.3, which requires you pay the 150$. I personally don't like paying for a new OS every year...I wish people would think about things like this before buying into the hype that Apple commcericals and fans with the :I must convert: attitude generate.

(and people think they spend too much money on antivirus software...) Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? " They sold us all those machines, and they couldn't even tell us that the machines come with just 3 months of warranty"

Dude, that's 90 days support, AND 1 year warranty.

Jeez, the malinfo here is getting so bad. Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? " Think: Safari 1.2 requires OS 10.3, which requires you pay the 150$. I personally don't like paying for a new OS every year."

Jeez, here's another one!

Whats up with this forum today?

Spreading lies and half truths is rampant today! Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This is way offtopic, but I figured that while we are here in this very important topic of OS and hardware religion, we could all agree to donate at least a few dollars, euros etc. to the many organizations that are helping to bring aid and relief to survivors of the tragedy in Asia. Please do so.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/28/tsunami.aidsites/ Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Agreed.

Look at Apple.com for links to give also.

(one of the few corporate web sites to acknowledge the horror of the earthquake) Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "

Jeez, here's another one!

Whats up with this forum today?

Spreading lies and half truths is rampant today!
"

Ummm....Safari 1.2 DOES require OS 10.3. Safari 1.0 requires 10.2. TO get the latest version of many Apple softwares, you need to upgrade often.

Could you claify instead of attack please? Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Raptor, a car isn't a computer. Doing upgrades for a car is not common and its quite a bit more complex then upgrading components on a computer.

Performance mods for cars are just as popular as upgrades for computers. The ratio of enthusiasts that do mod cars to the general population is the same as the pc market.

Just like 90+% of the car market consumers don't mod cars the same 90+% of computer market consumers don't upgrade thier PCs. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 00:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm quite amazed at the rudeness on this site. Look at your referrer headings Eugenia, I refuse to beleive OSnews has this bad trolls, I bet this was posted on an Apple site somewhere... Fri, 31 Dec 2004 00:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Apple support simply sucks. It's the worst support I've ever seen.
I work on an university, where we just bought arount 70 Powermac G5 dual, and a couple of XServers. Pretty expensive bought, each machine was almost 5 thousand dollars (with monitor, and everything).

I also work for a university. We recently purchased 20 Xserve cluster nodes and supporting components (rack, switch, PDUs, etc) for a price I can't disclose due to a university NDA. Let's just say we got them for a fraction less than half of yours. You should've negotiated the purchase price on an order that big, and I'm surprised your university would let you make a sole source purchase without negotiating. Your purchasing department would be terrible.

Now you would imagine that, on a big purchase like this, Apple would at least take the time to help you with support for all those machines, right? WRONG!

They are just stupids. They sold us all those machines, and they couldn't even tell us that the machines come with just 3 months of warranty, and thta a care pack costs only 200 bucks. Now we're left with a bunch of machines without warranty, that can break at any minute. Just for the matter, from those 70 machines, 5 never worked, 3 broke during the 3 months warranty (and you have to take the fucking heavy machine back to their store to have it fixed), and 4 more are now broken.

Of our 20 Xserves, two have had trouble, one with RAM and one with its hard drive. All of this would've been covered by the 90 day warranty, but we had the forethought to negotiate 3 years of AppleCare support into our deal with Apple.

Either you are a lying troll, or you should not have PO authority. You have clearly failed to negotiate for your needs. If your purchasing agent oversaw a disaster like that at my university, he would be fired. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 00:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? To expect everything to work with everything and for a company to point you to competing products is not always reasonable. Some will have the courtesy to show you who can help you when they can't, but it's no obligation of theirs. No OTHER computer company will support third-party equipment, either.

I bought a Macintosh computer because I thought they always had certified drivers for a small subset of equipment. Yeah. That's about how it works, however, you appear to upset about something else. You say that you accept that, but then go whine about not every drive works with your Mac.

They completely refused to give an adequate answer, then gave no explanation, and no recourse at all. They stated that I had to purchase a third party external drive, but they are not compatible with Apple's iDVD software. They also stated that any third party internal drive was not guaranteed to work with iDVD.
followed shortly by:
[T]hey didn't tell [me] the truth when you called: that you can buy a Superdrive from other vendors, and that although they don't "support" other drives, a lot of them work just fine, and work with iDVD, and the fact that they don't "support" them means that if you can't get it working properly..."

OK, dude, what do you want? They told you that they were not guaranteed to work with iDVD. DUH! They NEVER EVER said that you were screwed unless you got a SuperDrive. It's clear to me from your account that it is a failure on your part to properly interpret what you were told, and/or to ask the right questions.

I even had someone say that "From what I understand, with my experience with DVD-+RW disks on OSX, the component of OSX that deals with optical drives, simply, sucks. That's the reason they prefer to not support at all third party drives or just in conjunction with iDVD: because their generic driver for them is not as reliable as it should, or as compatible.

So are you having problems with your setup as it currently stands, or are you just looking for a pound of flesh by attacking something that does not have any bearing upon YOU. If you wish to address the problem of poor optical drive support, please bring it up where it would be relevant. (Incidentally, poor optical drive support was a problem that has followed Apple from the inception of optical support in the classic MacOS, so I would not necessarily doubt the assertion that MacOS X has poor optical drive support.)

I have had good luck with my Mac hardware purchases, not to mention Apple support. Laptop problems, twice, have I had, and both times within 4 days I got my iBook back from Applecare. I have had the savvy to know beforehand that in order to get what I want out of my Mac, I must dig a tiny bit more to find the 3rd-party products I want. I don't have 100 million vendors selling to me at once like I do in Windows.

Yeah... As my record of posts at OSNews will indicate, http://www.google.com/search?q=site:osnews.com+%22Charles+(IP:+...)%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 I am a Mac guy, but it's not an irrational love. If there is a problem with Apple, state it. If YOU'RE the problem, oh well.

Usually I try to be conciliatory in internet discussions, but this article is worthless.

Mod this article -1: Troll. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 00:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If you're attempting a literary reference it's slings and arrows. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 00:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I think Apple makes the drives and such for their tiny marketshare only (except some things like the iPod).

They make money on selling upgrades and replacements to the customers of buying their Macs.

I really don't think Apple even wants you to buy any part from anyone else other than from Apple.. (except maybe the RAM & Hard Drive)

They want to squeeze the money of you like every other company and like how I would do if I could do it. MacOS X works only on Macs.. MacOS X only works with this hardware.. etc. .etc..

I would personally sell a version of Mac OS X to compete with windows as i really love it, it's a really great OS. Their marketshare keeps dropping and dropping.. I think they need some new exciting products and stop advertising so much on the iPod. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 00:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? go to Other World Computing. purchase a Pioneer DVD drive. install. download "PatchBurn". install. buy a copy of Toast Titanium 6. install.
this should solve your problem. the drives at OWC are Apple drives and should work just fine. all of the above need not be done all at once if cashflow is a problem. but buying parts/drives/memory from your computer company is a very expensive way to do upgrades.
hopefully this should put you on the path to upgrade satisfaction.

please, beware the trolls. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 01:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >>You should've negotiated the purchase price on an order
>>that big, and I'm surprised your university would let you
>>make a sole source purchase without negotiating. Your
>>purchasing department would be terrible.

As I said before, the university bought the computers. I work at the TI department but I'm not the one that makes the purchases. The price was negotiated, and we got a good deal after all; the final price of the machines, including software, and the display, would be around 7500 dollars.

Anyway, I'm not discussing the prices of the machines. The problem is that Apple doesn't have any care about its customers...

Try make a big purchase like that from Dell.. It's amazing how they try to do everything to give you the best support possible. Same thing with IBM. We have 4-year-old servers from IBM, that are not even on warranty anymore, but they give same-day service, just to keep the client...

Apple's support simply suck. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 01:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Apple don't make drives. They buy them and install them in their machines, just like a PC manufacturer does.

Apple don't make money selling upgrades. The make it on new machines.

Mac OS X runs only on Macs. Think about the name for a moment. *Mac* OS X. Not *x86* OS X. And I'm yet to see anything to show that there would be a profit in releasing OS X for x86. I've seen a lot of people who say they'd want it, but I've also seen a large cross-section of those using pirated WinXP. Apple will never sell a copy to them, and much of the Windows world just don't care enough to want OS X on their x86 box.

The latest version of Safari does require OS X 10.3, but if you don't want 10.3, you can run an older version of Safari. You can't have this both ways - if you want the latest software, you have to have the OS to support it. The OS upgrades don't exist just to make money. They actually add many new features and the point ones (10.1, 10.2, 10.4 and soon 10.4) include substantial increases to APIs that developers can use.

If the developers stuck to the older APIs, you could run with 10.1 or 10.2, but then you wouldn't have the features of later OS X releases.

What do people want? A single OS release that doesn't change for 5-10 years, or one that's improving every year and bringing new features for developers to take advantage of?

We *could* all just go back to Lynx.

I absolutely can't stand talk of an Apple tax, or pointless whining about how you *have* to pay every year, as though Apple heavies show up at your home is you don't upgrade in a timely fashion. It's a choice, and there are pros and cons with both upgrading and staying on a prior OS version.

This thread wasn't really worth the space. The author may not have made the best choices, but it's a little unfair for him to suffer the slings and arrows of (such) outrageous criticism. But the FUD in this thread is stunning in its breadth and depth.

Still... at least no-one mentioned the one-button mouse... (oh no! runs away...) Fri, 31 Dec 2004 01:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The five DOAs would have been replaced immediately. The three that broke during the three months *support period* would have been either repaired or replaced. The four more that have since broken will be covered by the *one year warranty*.

The support would be a lot better if your Uni purchased on-site AppleCare, instead of cutting costs in that regard.

And do you have any report on why they're breaking? I've seen Macs in many environments, and that many failing in such a short time is remarkable in my experience. Is there a common thread with them?

And no, Apple's support doesn't suck. I disagree with your opinion, as my experience is very different. Let's all make sweeping statements today! Fri, 31 Dec 2004 01:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? when will you people just stop whining and do a little research before you buy. jeeze. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 01:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "I would personally sell a version of Mac OS X to compete with windows as i really love it, it's a really great OS. Their marketshare keeps dropping and dropping.. I think they need some new exciting products and stop advertising so much on the iPod."

As you pointed out their market share for the Macs keeps shrinking, so on the contrary the iPods Apple should embrace more agrassively and dump the Mac Desktops!

Either Apple makes the desktop mainstream, following iPod example, or they should dump the Desktop line and concentrate on the iPods and other similar consumer appliances. In fact, Apple is currently experiencing internal pressure from investors to put more behind the iPods and shape up the Mac division or lose it. Money talks.

They are about to dumb the eMacs which are an embarassment, so things are shaping up. Good changes are coming for Apple, they will finally leave behind the cult mentality and sink their teeth into real mainstream profits. Go Apple go! Fri, 31 Dec 2004 01:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The drive I currently use [which is an aftermarket] is the UJ-825S dvd-r/+r drive [aka superdrive].

used it with patchburn and it works perfectly with everything I have put in it.

dvd-r
dvd+r
cd-r
cd-rw

etc. etc. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 01:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I don't know man, the Apple cult has followed the company for years... Fri, 31 Dec 2004 01:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Must be a really slow day for OS News to be publishing some random guy's complaint letter.

What's next? Break-up stories? Dear John letters?

This is pretty low rent, OS "News" Fri, 31 Dec 2004 01:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? 117 inane comments (118 now) a new low? Fri, 31 Dec 2004 02:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? escoz's comment might have been interesting, except that all Macs come with a one-year warranty. You'd think a lying troll would at least check apple.com first.

As for the rest of the rant, look at the first comment. Eugenia was upset about her Firewire CDR, and didn't seem to realize that Firewire is a transfer mechanism, not a CD burning protocol. She wanted to rant about it, so we get this "exclusive" article. Yay! Fri, 31 Dec 2004 02:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Well, there are 148 post total, 29 moded down. Roughly 20% of post were moded down.

The reason to come here is to have a discussion about topics. I say this shows that there is a lot of interest in Apple. And OsNEws is an excellent forum!

Apple is in a crucial transition time. And thinks are looking great for preliminary data on iPod sales this holiday season. I think with such numbers Apple will have to either put the desktop on the back burner or make it mainstream.

Whether you agree or not with Apple they do have the momentum now, lets hope they make the best decision. Go Apple go! Fri, 31 Dec 2004 02:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I said it once, and I'll say it again: Pioneer DVR-A07/107/A08/108.

END OF STORY, GOOD NIGHT. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 02:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? your exactly right. But did you not notice that when they started advertising the iPod instead of the Macs.. the marketshare of the macs dropped more rapidly than usual?

I hope that internal pressure does not push apple into digital devices instead of less concentration of the Macs. They need to do some work on their mac line up obviously. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 02:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Joe,

The first thing we did was check with Apple. After the three months period, to have support you have to take the machine to an apple store, what is unaceptable for a business.
What's more ridiculous is that 2 machines had problems with the Fans. After 3-4 minutes turned on, the fans were at full speed. We spent the time (and money) to take the machines to the apple store, to realize that the problem was Apple's fault. Those two machines didn't have the correct updates (or "something" like balancing - I'm not sure what exactly it was) that it was supposed to have, and like all other ones had. We have to spend money to send somebody to fix an Apple error..

Also, buying support for each single problem is not acceptable, even more when you have 70 machines. And, after all, the lack of willing from Apple to help us get those Apple cares is what pisses me the most.

Well, whatever... I'm leaving now. Good night. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 02:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "your exactly right. But did you not notice that when they started advertising the iPod instead of the Macs.. the marketshare of the macs dropped more rapidly than usual?"

That is exactly why there is pressure, because the iPod have broken into mainstream, whereas the Macs have not. Apple's success with the iPods is unparallel in the company's history.

I think that they can also make the Mac's mainstream, but changes are needed badly. For one, the snob attitude about "we are just better" does not cut it anymore, they need to deliver rather than self pontificate. They can do it. They already suceded with the iPods. The current mac user base is not a good goal, stagnate, growing beyond it is needed, and that also means culture change in Cupertino. Mark my words the "do or die Mac desktop" attitude is going away and soon. IBM is also interested in putting the WIntel Empire in check. Now wiht AMD eating the candy from Intel, is a great opportunity for IBM to make the PPC chip mainstream. Apple is also seeing the light with the iPods. Regardless of what Steve thinks Apple is going mainstream. Even Steve is seeing the light, the green lighte $$$. Go Apple go!

Either way we all win. :-)

Cheers. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 02:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? " After the three months period, to have support you have to take the machine to an apple store, what is unaceptable for a business. ....We spent the time (and money) to take the machines to the apple store, to realize that the problem was Apple's fault."


Hmmm, as a lone customer, Apple ships me a box, I put the mac in, ship it to Apple, at their expense, and they fix it. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 02:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? You may in fact... and people correct me if I am outa line here, work in the worst IT department I have ever heard of.
The vendor didn't tell us... wow. Ever heard of due diligence?
For an IT department, especially a college IT dept to not do some research is pretty sad. What is worse is to cry about the vendor not supplying you with information you should be finding before making the purchase. Finally, it sounds like you paid full cost for all those machines which is also odd since Apple offers price breaks for institutions, especially on large purchases and that includes the cost of Applecare.

EDMC recently purchased 100 G5 computers for each of the Art Institutes. All included Applecare and were installed without a hitch (at least at our location). Fri, 31 Dec 2004 03:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? By Anonymous (IP: ---.dsl.emhril.ameritech.net) - Posted on 2004-12-30 17:42:28
I'm a Windows and Linux user that was about to purchase my first Mac in 2005.

After reading this, the chances I'll buy a Mac--even if they introduce one dirt cheap--went down by 50%.

Thanks for the several troll posts like this.

If THIS article changed your mind, you NEVER really wanted to buy a Mac in the first place... Fri, 31 Dec 2004 03:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm very sorry you had this experience. However you yourself said you were warned, so maybe you got what you asked for..
This in not meant to be a mean or ugly statement, just to point out the value in reading reviews,asking and listing to people who have tried it before. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 03:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I also work for a major college IT department. This guy makes his department sound like joke. At our school we have over 300 macs and 50 PC. We have 3 guys who go nuts patching and updating windows everyday. We have about 7 guys working with the macs and the only thing they do is around and hang out. We never have problem with our macs expect old crt dying and paper jams in printers which having nothing to do with apple. In my two years of working there we've never had a problem with apple shipments. And the 1 or 2 DOE were replace same week. I don't understand what else do you expect from your computer supplier. You shouldn't have an IT job if you need apple to hold your hand to get you through the day. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 04:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I know how you fee. I just bought a $75 Pioneer A08 drive for my $400 Windoze box but my $2100 PowerMac still has the factory drive. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 04:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Amazing!! Your IT department goes nuts patching all the windows machines...have they ever heard of SMS, or the free SUS, and GPOs? I update 800 windows machines by simply clicking the "approve update" button, with SUS. Are you IT people contractors (or where they in a previous life)? If not, they should think about it, because the sound like they like time consuming, repitious work. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 04:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? http://www.thinksecret.com/news/idvdenabler.html

Quote: "According to Larry O'Connor, President of OWC, Apple said that the software enabler was a violation of the company's intellectual property rights and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. He also says that Apple saw it as promoting the piracy of iDVD."

And this my friends, is why software patents are bad. That said, Apple obviously didn't tell them that reverse engineering for reasonable compability reasons is legal under the DMCA did they? Of course a court would have to decide if it was reasonable or not, but how could a court not decide it being reasonable, when Apple does not make available upgrades to their consumers? And has the gall to discourage 3rd party manufacturers from making hardware/software to integrate it with the Apple Mac that the customer paid his/her hard earned money for?

I've said it before, Apple are a bunch of litiguous bastards - i've never seen a more litiguous company, they're worse than Microsoft or SCO! As a company, Apple leaves a LOT to be desired, i'm an ex contractor that worked for Apple and let's just say it's the worst company that i've worked for in nearly 20 years of being in the workforce.

Dave Fri, 31 Dec 2004 05:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Quote: "We have about 7 guys working with the macs and the only thing they do is around and hang out. "

Then maybe they should cut down on their staff since you're not doing anything?

Quote: "We have 3 guys who go nuts patching and updating windows everyday."

Then get rid of Microsoft Windows and run Linux or BSD. Wine will run most of the stuff that you might need that's Windows orientated. If you persist on using Microsoft Windows and all its flaws and security issues then as a corporation you deserve what you get - trouble.

The main point of this article on osnews.com was the severe lack of customer service and customer service that Apple provides to its customers. Refusing to sell a spare part to a customer and then threatening them that installing a 3rd party product will void their warranty or not be supported is downright rude, and an attempt to extort more money by forced upgrades. Some customers are dumb and would sell their old Mac without a superdrive and purchase a new unit with one, but most people are not dumb.

All of this is a form of monopolisation, and in this respect Apple isn't much better than the big bad Microsoft. Don't believe me? Quicktime on Linux or BSD anyone? iPods on Linux or BSD anyone? I like iPods but i'm certainly not going to buy or recommend one until Apple starts behaving itself and providing proper and reasonable support. Consumer bodies are too scared of attacking large companies like Microsoft or Apple for a variety of reasons.

I'm currently fighting LG Electronics Australia for a similar reason - not being able to update the firmware on my new LG 4160b dvd burner drive unless i'm running Microsoft Windows. I still think governmental intervention on what systems a software developer/hardware developer must support is a fair thing. If you don't want to support Windows/Linux/BSD/Mac with your software/hardware then you shouldn't be selling it, period. It sounds extremist but it's a nice way of ensuring proper support for customers who part with their hard earned money.

Dave Fri, 31 Dec 2004 05:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I have one. Love it. Wouldn't go back.

If you were honestly thinking about buying one and where *shocked* about hearing the difficulties of upgrading it, then you don't know anything about Apple.

You buy the package. That's WHY it works so well. If you want to upgrade, you *must* do your research. Things like specific Apple firmware are common. There is a smaller pool of products to work from.

That's just the way it is. Like I said, it's why it works so well. Welcome to Apple.

Side-note: My experience with trying to find hardware that *works* under Linux was a NIGHTMARE... online databases were a help, but you're on your own. I never could get my dvd+rw to work. Let alone *find* an app that would allow me to fill a disc to past 1 gig. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 05:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I have used a number of 3rd party drives and devices in my Macs. I do not see how you would have had trouble. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 05:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "You buy the package. That's WHY it works so well. If you want to upgrade, you *must* do your research. Things like specific Apple firmware are common. There is a smaller pool of products to work from."
Yes that's all fair enough, and exactly how Apple work, but that isn't a good reason not to sell the guy an Apple drive. Frankly there isn't anything special at all in their so-called Superdrives, and no reason why they shouldn't be able to be upgraded - if they sold one, I bet it'd be as simple as pulling the old one out and plugging the new one in.

"Side-note: My experience with trying to find hardware that *works* under Linux was a NIGHTMARE... online databases were a help, but you're on your own. I never could get my dvd+rw to work. Let alone *find* an app that would allow me to fill a disc to past 1 gig."
Side note 2: I haven't tried a DVD-RW but so far Linux has handled everything I've thrown at it - nVidia card (don't and won't own an ATi), sound card/chipset, weird 1394 docking station, hell it supports my touchpad better than the official drivers under Windows. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 05:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "
"Side-note: My experience with trying to find hardware that *works* under Linux was a NIGHTMARE... online databases were a help, but you're on your own. I never could get my dvd+rw to work. Let alone *find* an app that would allow me to fill a disc to past 1 gig."
"

I have to agree with Archangel, my exp. with Linux and hardware has been spotless. I do use ATI however

I had trouble wiht my iuntellimouse not using all 5 buttons (back and forward) but imwheel solves that... Fri, 31 Dec 2004 05:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Quote: "We have 3 guys who go nuts patching and updating windows everyday."

Then get rid of Microsoft Windows and run Linux or BSD. Wine will run most of the stuff that you might need that's Windows orientated. If you persist on using Microsoft Windows and all its flaws and security issues then as a corporation you deserve what you get - trouble."
I agree. Don't go bitching if Windows has to be updated often - they should bloody know that by now. Swap them out for BSD and they're running much the same OS as the core of the Mac's.
Does anyone else find 10 techs for 350 PC's a bit silly? From what I've heard from a couple of friends in similar positions, they're lucky to get two or three.

"I'm currently fighting LG Electronics Australia for a similar reason - not being able to update the firmware on my new LG 4160b dvd burner drive unless i'm running Microsoft Windows. I still think governmental intervention on what systems a software developer/hardware developer must support is a fair thing. If you don't want to support Windows/Linux/BSD/Mac with your software/hardware then you shouldn't be selling it, period. It sounds extremist but it's a nice way of ensuring proper support for customers who part with their hard earned money."
Agreed again - I'm not really in favour of governmental intervention, but forcing consumers to use Windows isn't right.
They're basically saying (to use you as an example) that if you want to flash your burner you're going to have to pay Microsoft hundreds of dollars for the privilege, AND agree to their license agreement - which will prevent you from getting a refund once you've flashed the burner, or even using the OS on another computer.

Imagine Ford saying that they won't accept any liability for their cars problems if they're not on a motorway, because otherwise they can't guarantee the flatness of the road. Sony refusing to guarantee their videotapes in any other brand of VCR.

It strikes me that the computer industry (MS being one of the worst candidates) are getting away with murder in this regard, and it's about time someone pulled them up a bit. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 06:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "I have to agree with Archangel, my exp. with Linux and hardware has been spotless. I do use ATI however "
Impressive :-)

"I had trouble wiht my iuntellimouse not using all 5 buttons (back and forward) but imwheel solves that..."
I'm using a MX700, which is again flawless. It's got 8 buttons, and all are supported and fully mappable using xbindkeys (the thumb buttons work in Firefox but little else without, and the top ones scroll but can't be mapped). Windows only manages 7 buttons, the 3rd party drivers work for the last one but won't install on "unsupported" versions of Windows.

I wouldn't say support under Linux is flawless, but it's hardly nightmarish for the most part. The beauty of it is when something goes wrong it's generally fixable, unlike some other OS's I could mention :-)

Best stop here, this is pretty far OT ;-) Fri, 31 Dec 2004 06:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? i'm not sure what this big stink is about.
i wanted a dual layer burner for my powermac, so what did i do? went to newegg.com, bought a dvr-108, put it in, and ran patchburn. wasn't hard at all.

i'm also using a sata raid5 card for an extra 3 hard drives in my powermac. i plan on upgrading the video card (which apple sells on their website) and installing an alchemytv tuner.

macs upgrade just fine, but much like linux you have to know the right hardware and process. though it is a bit easier Fri, 31 Dec 2004 07:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm going to be kind and suggest that the author of this article not write about anything Mac related. They clearly do not have any idea what they are doing.

Its very simple to find out what drive will work in your particular Mac. In my MDD I did a lookup on xlr8yourmac and it is well know that Apple uses Pioneer, LiteOn and Toshiba drives. I purchased a drive from NewEgg and I was ready to go.

Or find a system with a SuperDrive and look it up in the System Profiler as to what kind of drive it is.

Its nothing mysterious, esoteric, strange, insurmountable or technical to upgrade an optical drive in a Mac. It just takes using your brain.

P.S. No one forces you to stay on the phone for three hours. In a situation like that you have a choice. Apple didn't have a gun to your head. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 07:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >I know how you fee. I just bought a $75 Pioneer A08 drive for my $400 >Windoze box but my $2100 PowerMac still has the factory drive.

OK, and the same drive works in your Power Mac. What's your point? Fri, 31 Dec 2004 08:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/1775

"SuperDrive
A Macintosh® floppy drive that can access several different disks (e.g., 400kB, 800kB, and 1.4 MB, and PC disks)." Fri, 31 Dec 2004 09:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The Apple fans on this website have done a superb job of presenting themselves in the worst possible light. So many of the posts here are rude, aggressive and juvenile. Anyone reading these posts will come away with one crystal-clear impression - that Apple fans are the most rabid and zealous of all computer users and have a unflinching, irrational loyalty to Apple that simply defies explanation.

Mac fans can stop worrying about imaginary PC Trolls trying to sully the name of Apple, they do a good enough job of the task themselves. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 12:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Amen Fri, 31 Dec 2004 15:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I disagree. As the comments unfolded here, what surprised me was that there seemed to be an attempt made by someone to mod down every comment that disagreed with the author.

For example, there is a fairly early post by Father Baker, that to me seemed to state quite simply why he disagreed that Apple should support non-standard hardware. I noticed that the comment was 'pending review'. Strange.

That comment survived, but others didn't. (The whole mod thing seems quite arbitrary. It's not a simple question of inappropriate language or personal attack. It often seems strangely political somehow).

Regardless, don't try to spin whole groups of people as unreasonable because of select comments you don't like. I think the basic gist of this thread is that Apple consumers are not upset that Apple doesn't support aftermarket hardware. 'Not doing it yourself' has always been seen as one of the features of the Mac community, not one of it's shortcomings.

Many people here have a more DIY attitude about their machines. Windows and Linux users often build from components. Some seem to be building this story into some kind of outrage. (Those people should bear in mind that they are still dependent on others to provide them with drivers for their hardware to work. Not exactly DIY if you see what I mean. You have no choice but to stick with the OS that supports the hardware you buy, or buy hardware that fits your OS.)

To say Apple fans are worse than Linux or Microsoft fans is nonsense. By definition, a fan is a fanatic. Don't expect reasoned discourse.

The vast majority of Mac users are completely unaware this web site even exists, because to them the computer is just a cool tool that works pretty well with no set up or configuration by them. The details of how it works are unimportant to them. They get support from Apple for the product they bought, and that's all they need. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 15:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I never said that the PC guys go to each machine. Everything is done remotely from the servers. The PC team is has lot more to worry about. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 16:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Yes that's all fair enough, and exactly how Apple work, but that isn't a good reason not to sell the guy an Apple drive. Frankly there isn't anything special at all in their so-called Superdrives, and no reason why they shouldn't be able to be upgraded - if they sold one, I bet it'd be as simple as pulling the old one out and plugging the new one in.

Ask Dell/HP/IBM/[any PC vendor] to sell you an upgrade part, they'll do the same.
Side note: Upgrade part is different from spare part, I read someone else comment that Apple refuse to sell spare part. No, Apple sells them to authorized repairman. Apple just don't expect the end user to do the repair to the Mac package themselves.

PC (Windows, Linux & BSD inclusive) users always take the culture they had on the PC platform to the Mac. Well, they never notice that it is another society with another completely different culture.

Just like Japanese will think a western who step on their Tatami to be rude, but you'll never know that. You're just breaking the rule of the specific culture.

Apple fans are faithful to Apple, no one knows why.
I'm an Apple fan too. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 16:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? BTW, while my video, sound, lan, usb and fw board was nicely recognized by the Linux kernel, I can never get my TV capture card and web cam work on it. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 16:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This is a non-issue. Go to:
http://www.powerbook1.com/dvdr8xdt-d.html and get a bloody drive for $99.

I went to Toyota to get a part for my van - cost? $2100 plus taxes.
On the net? $70. Amazing but true.

Huge companies really love to run a kind of diy parts dept - its SO profitable - not.

Apple buy the parts they use from places like Panasonic, etc.. Guess what? So can you.

But this is just an Apple whine, isnt it? Why does Apple get people so worked up?
Is it because they go their own way and dont follow the herd?
Are you a herd person?
Can you say 'individual responsibility'? No? Oh, well then I have a house run by the government made of cotton wool for you. Its right next door to the tax office, the schools, the hospital, the Tsnunami warning system etc. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 18:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "I disagree. As the comments unfolded here, what surprised me was that there seemed to be an attempt made by someone to mod down every comment that disagreed with the author.

For example, there is a fairly early post by Father Baker, that to me seemed to state quite simply why he disagreed that Apple should support non-standard hardware. I noticed that the comment was 'pending review'. Strange."

So you can disagree with the author, that's ok. He wrote of his experience, and your may very well be totally different with Apple costumer service.

However, I would like to point out that is ok for someone, not to like Apple, or to think that Apple has done something wrong. That happens to every major company in the world. What I find surprising is the conspiracy theory that you put forth.

Friends, Apple make mistakes, is a fallible corporation make of people that can err just like you and me. Lets not spun conspiracy theories and the like. Not admittiding that a company can do wrong seem unreasonable.

Anyway, I do not agree completly with the article, but I can see that he has a point. The world is not just black and white, it is also full of greys.

As for OsNews, I think they are quite balanced, they have both positive and negative articles for all major Oses. I think they are doing a grand job!

Cheers for the coming New Year! Fri, 31 Dec 2004 19:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Holy shit that's a lot of effort when you should have just bought one on newegg in the first place. What a tool. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 20:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? How old are you?

Just buy one from a third party. Fri, 31 Dec 2004 20:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Quote: "i'm not sure what this big stink is about.
i wanted a dual layer burner for my powermac, so what did i do? went to newegg.com, bought a dvr-108, put it in, and ran patchburn. wasn't hard at all."

It's called decent and proper customer service, is that really too hard for you to understand and comprehend? You've bought a product and you have a right to expect a certain level of support. Being told "sorry sir we don't sell dvd burners for your machine, they only ship with brand new computers that we sell" is damn right rude.

As archangel has pointed out, the computer industry is the worst for the respect of rights of its users and consumers. EVERY single other area of manufacturer offers a warranty. It's mostly unpoliced, and manufacturers of both hardware and software run riot and do exactly what they want, without care for their customers who purchase the products.

Imagine if Ford said to you, "sorry we only support our cards when they're in your driveway, immobile, with no one seated in them and fully locked up". There'd be an uproar and we'd have consumer bodies the world wide taking action. This is the sort of behaviour that computer software and hardware manufacturers have and they get away with it.

Dave Fri, 31 Dec 2004 23:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? So, you admit that this rant about apple is miss targeted and that it should have been targeted at more OEMs in general.

I myself probably would not have a problem with an article that talks about Dell and HP and Gateway at the same time as it talked about Apple.... but when you write a single shot diatribe like this one above you are insinuating that apple is the only one causing problems for customers.

David Adams wrte back to an e-mail reguarding this and he said that this story got on here on a second attempt after he had told the writer to rewrite this to be more of an article than a whine fest(my words) (you know investigate other manufacturers and such).... he said that the second time he did not get a chance to see it before it was posted... I assume that our estemed Editor in Cheif was the one to post this. I think that the editorial staff at OSNews needs a more structured system so that either all articles get funnled through multiple people for approval before posting or the peopel that send an article back are the ones that must approove it before posting it. eitherway... this post by fiat backdoor that exists has to go. Sat, 01 Jan 2005 03:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? That is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler to leave the typo online and suffer
the slings (and swings) and arrows of outrageous articles
or to take up arms against a sea of reasons,
And by fixing typos, end them? To correct: to republish;
No more. Sat, 01 Jan 2005 06:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Apple is missing out on making some money this way although after the warranty period is over it may be best to get the repairs or upgrade done through a third party (I don't take my car to the dealer once it is past its warranty period). When I upgraded my QuickSilver 733 to a DVD burner, I did an internet search and finally bought the drive from OWC. It is working like a charm after I installed it according to their instructions.

If Apple were to provide this service at slightly higher costs than their competitors, many would opt going this way just to be assured of a perceived higher quality-whether true or not.

Happy New Year Y'all! Sat, 01 Jan 2005 07:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Just thought I would mention this in case it helps someone out there. I needed a newer DVD ROM drive in my G5 Sawtooth that would play both +R and -R. The origional drive was too old to play all the newer formats. I tried this 16x Lite-On drive from my P4 Compaq Persario and it would work as a CD drive but the Iapps especially IDVD would not work. I then tried a brand new Sony 16X Black DVD ROM from New Egg and it works 100% with all apps. Though that might help someone who was seeking a new DVD ROM for their Macs that works 100% with OSX.

It does bother me sometimes that all drives just won't plug in and work but there are many out there that will work with OSX and all Applications. There is a database on http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/ that tells what drives will work with OSX. I saw the Sony listed there so popped it in and it works great. Sat, 01 Jan 2005 07:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? That should have been G4 Sawtooth! Tired I guess! Sat, 01 Jan 2005 08:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I think people fail to understand that when they chose to buy a mac the are purchasing a proprietary device. its like purchasing a VCR or a stereo. "There are no user servicable parts inside" It is a disposable device and you are required to purchase a new one when the current one no longer suits your needs. I dont think Apple even advertizes their wares as "upgradeable" So using PC mentality when purchasing a MAC is, shall we say, ignorant. If you want that flexibility then you have you computer custom built where they will give you support on a much wider variety of components than companies such as ApPLe or Dull. Sat, 01 Jan 2005 12:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune"

Not swings. Think David vs Goliath.

Yeah, that kind.

only 133 hits for "swings and arrows" on Yahoo compared with 118,000 for "slings and arrows." however, the former is used in reference to golf clubs. Sat, 01 Jan 2005 13:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Since you say that there are no servicable parts inside a Mac indicates that you have never worked with a Mac. In addition, Macs are PC's so you need to look at the meaning of PC. It means 'Personal Computer' and a Macintosh is that. Maybe you meant that the Mac is not an x86 platform.

Contrary to what many people think, the Mac is upgradable. You can upgrade the processor. It has a PCI bus and many PCI bus compatible devices work on it (video cards, wireless cards, etc.) but not all. Sometimes there are no good software drivers for these devices. However, looking for drivers is not unique to the Mac computer. One has the same problem with any platform.

I have had several knowledgeable friends that lost lots of sleep trying to get their not-purchased-from-the-manufacturer DVD burner to work on an x86 platform. Neither the DVD provider nor the computer manufacturer had a clue on how to solve the problem. Maybe they admitted ignorance since no drivers had been written and they did not want to write the drivers.

If you wish to say that a 'put-it-together-from-parts' is not possible for the Macintosh I would agree with you. If you mean that you wish to upgrade the motherboard of a Mac then it is not upgradeable. But peripheral devices and cards can be used to upgrade a Macintosh. Sat, 01 Jan 2005 13:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? So using PC mentality when purchasing a MAC is, shall we say, ignorant. If you want that flexibility then you have you computer custom built where they will give you support on a much wider variety of components than companies such as ApPLe or Dull.

CD/DVD drives just have to work inmediedly after the initial install.I'm quite sure i can plugin whatever drive they sell these days and i assure you they will run on my Debian box.Elementary peripherals just have to work out of the box.I will never buy an Mac ,not even the headless one if i can't switch the drives as easily when on Linux.However i doubt that MacOsX is bound to a very limited set of elementary peripherals such as graphics/sound-cards and cd/dvd-rom drives.Personally the hyped i-pod is a lesser concern,the're better or equivalent storage players with the same capacity or more.In fact you don't have to buy an Mac in order to load some music on your i-pod.Gtkpod runs on pratically every Linux box and friends.Love to finally get my hands on MacOsX instead. Sat, 01 Jan 2005 16:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This is flamebait pure and simple....
Just use the internet and buy a Pioneer A07/08 and stop being a jackass Sat, 01 Jan 2005 16:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? is that apple makes idvd, a app that only works with a small group of burners (the ones they ship with their computers) and then they refuse to sell those burners outside of a whole system. yes one can allways pick up third party burners and apps but then what is the value of the apple brand name? they are in fact no better then dell: a collection of stock hardware, rebranded. why then the apple premium for quality craftmanship?

atleast when you pick up a burner for a windows machine its comes supplyed with a app that is supposed to work with the burner. and ahead, the makers of nero, makes sure that they support as many as they can.

so how come then that apple refuse to do the same? that in fact like some posts here points to, the system have to patched by third partys for some of the hardware to even work as a basic cd-rom drive, much less a burner. i have yet to see any burner on the x86 platform that didnt work as a cd-rom out of the box, no special drivers or anything like that.

yes one can hunt for the original of the rebranded apple superdrive but then why should that be needed when apple makes a point of rebranding it and with a eye-catching name no less.

basicly this article is pointing out a case of apple arogance, nothing less, nothing more. there is a reason why x86 systems stopped shipping with custom mohterboards some time in the 90's. so why is apple still doing something similar in the 21. century? Sat, 01 Jan 2005 17:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I type in the following for a Google search:

PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-103

Amazing. The x86 machines have serious problems installing one on such obscure (sarcasm) computers as a Compaq. This is not just an Apple problem. Sat, 01 Jan 2005 17:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? re-branding?

dude... everyone knows it is a pioneer 106. the 107 was added to their driver as have a couple other manufactures.

and patchburn works perfect for currently unsupported brands.

I have an NEC dual layer burner that I added and it works in all the iApps and Toast takes care of the +r media and dual layer media (though I have no use for +r since -R /RW is just fine.)

seriously... a person has to go out of their way to get messed up when buying a DVD burner upgrade for a Mac. Sat, 01 Jan 2005 18:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Quote: "dude... everyone knows it is a pioneer 106. the 107 was added to their driver as have a couple other manufactures. "

Really? I think you jest. I suggest maybe you go work on Apples technical call centre and see how "many" customers know this. Go on. I'd say less than 10% of the Apple users would know, or even want to know. You're making a presumption that because you're a power user, everyone else that uses a Mac is as well. You're wrong, blatantly wrong. I spent 9 months in the Australian Tier 1 Apple Call Centre, so, I think I might know what i'm talking about here. Been there, done that. Have you?

Quote: "I have an NEC dual layer burner that I added and it works in all the iApps and Toast takes care of the +r media and dual layer media (though I have no use for +r since -R /RW is just fine.)"

That's really compatible - NOT. The whole point of it is you should be able to get a DVD Burner from Apple, that suits their machines and works with the range of iApps. Without having to resort to 3rd party hardware and software. Is that so hard? When I worked for Apple Australia, the superdrives only supported dvd-r. Not sure if they support more now or not, but I doubt it, unless iDVD has been upped to support the other formats. It can't be that hard either to support multiple formats, I mean if k3b can do it, then surely Apple can do it with iDVD? I know who has a lot more money etc.

The entire reason why Apple doesn't want to support anything else other than it's very limited choice of hardware is to ensure that OS X doesn't break, ie. hardware drivers. Apple controls the list of hardware that works with it's premiere operating system, and by that they control how "reliable" it remains. Limited hardware, means limited driver support, which means less trouble. Apple Macs support the least amount of hardware out of the box of any platform that I can think of, i'd even say proprietary Unixes support more hardware (although it'd be close). Apple wants OS X to look reliable, and it will manufacture results to do so. Look at their initial G5 apple campaign and how misleading it was. That said, every manufacturer does the same thing, but in this instance Apple didn't get away with it.

Why is this so? Apple WANTS you to buy its hardware. It wants your money. As dodgy as Microsoft Windows is, it, at least, supports a reasonable amount of hardware (although mostly cos it bludgeons hardware manufacturers to support Windows with drivers - take away those drivers and the actual kernel for Windows supports very little out of the box).

Don't get me wrong, I like Apples OS X, very much, it's a fine operating system. But it has a lot of shortcomings as well. Flexibility leaves a lot to be desired hardware wise, and that's a deliberately manufactured issue (by Apple). Apple Macs are nice, but they are extremely proprietary hardware wise. They are pricey as well, and not that much better build quality than rival x86 PCs I might add.

Want to know a secret? eMacs had a a 1 in 10 dead on arrival rate. I'm not joking. That's 10%, and for a large manufacturer that's disgraceful. Utterly disgraceful. Of course I don't have the numbers in writing, they're the property of Apple and carefully hidden away from public consumption. iMacs weren't much better, PowerMacs seemed more reliable off the ramp. iPods were even worse in terms of dead on arrival, or failures within 3 months of purchase (and not due to customer abuse either).

I'm sure if Apple saw this post (and my comment) they'd want to sue my rear end off for some bullshit NDA - it's the type of company that they are. Apple would sue the fly off a dunny wall if it thought the fly had heard something it shouldn't have.

Dave Sun, 02 Jan 2005 02:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "I'm sure if Apple saw this post (and my comment) they'd want to sue my rear end off for some bullshit NDA - it's the type of company that they are. Apple would sue the fly off a dunny wall if it thought the fly had heard something it shouldn't have. "

Do you have delusions of grandeur much?
A nine month term apple call centre employee, and Apples gonna sue you? Sun, 02 Jan 2005 02:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? What a whiner. OSnews loves to post anti-mac idiocy like this for some reason. If you had half a brain you would have found out very quickly there are plenty of options for buying an internal drive gor a G4. Now go away "expert". Sun, 02 Jan 2005 04:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Did you actually read any of the posts before making this ignorant one?

"I cannot believe how Mac fans are defending Apple over this. As for claiming the original poster had unreasonable expectations - no, he absolutely did not. His expectations are exactly what the overwhelming majority of consumers would have expected in a similar situation. The expectations of Apple zealots on the other hand...well, the posts here speak for themselves don't they?" Sun, 02 Jan 2005 04:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Oh my god!!! How traumatic for you!! Eugenia up to her usual Mac-bashing. Give it a rest. You never know what your talking aobout anyway.

"I bought an external dual firewire/usb SONY DRX-510UX DVD+-RW and it wouldn't work as a burner with OSX. I had to use Patchburn!" Sun, 02 Jan 2005 04:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Unlike our "technician" writer I actually have 15 years experience in IT with every type of hardware/software combination you can think of. I have ben responsible for many millions of dollars in purchasing of hardware, OS', and support. Apples support is light years ahead of anyone else a fact constantly borne out be even PC Magazine. So quit yer whining and get your head out of your ass. Sun, 02 Jan 2005 04:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Sorry but this is totally lame. Your in Tech support for 10 years but you want to buy a part from the Manufacturer? That's just dumb, why pay that markup? I know of NO tech that would ever do something like that. Should Apple sell one to you probably? If you want to throw away $450 that's your business. the fact that they don't though? Big Deal.

My story:
The original CD-RW went out on my 744mhz G4 just recently and I had to find a replacement fast.
I jumped online and found out who made the 'superdrive'....Pioneer. (5mins)
did a search for Pioneer drives...Found the DVR-108 for $79 Off dealmac.com....ordered it....Waited 5 days
Recieved drive...Installed it...(5min)...Loaded Patchburn (It installs device drivers, It's not a 'hack')..(5min to dl and install)...Drive works fine,


To whine about not being able to waste $450 when It's not an issue what so ever to get a compatible drive Installed, In just minutes, Is just priggish. It makes me wonder what sort of 'tech' you were .

Btw I've been a Tech also. Sun, 02 Jan 2005 20:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Want to know a secret? eMacs had a a 1 in 10 dead on arrival rate. I'm not joking. That's 10%, and for a large manufacturer that's disgraceful. Utterly disgraceful. Of course I don't have the numbers in writing, they're the property of Apple and carefully hidden away from public consumption. iMacs weren't much better, PowerMacs seemed more reliable off the ramp. iPods were even worse in terms of dead on arrival, or failures within 3 months of purchase (and not due to customer abuse either)."

I am not surprised, consider that the eMacs were featured in the TOP TEN WORST PRODUCTS of 2004:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1735287,00.asp

However, the good news is that they will be dropping the dreadfull eMacs line, and there other good changes coming from APple. Also in general Apple does puts out a good quality package.

Cheers. Sun, 02 Jan 2005 20:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Where on earth did you get the 10% figure. Also, if you read the URL you referenced they give a reference to the top desktops and the iMac was listed (PC Magazine article cited). So, please enlighten us or your statements will have to be labeled as pure FUD. Tue, 04 Jan 2005 01:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm sooo upset that you won't sell me that hamburger on your plate! How dare you! McDonald's would do it, and so would Burger King. In fact you must sell me everything I demand you sell me, because you no longer have a right to run your business as you see fit without people whining about your choice of what products to sell. Wed, 05 Jan 2005 15:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments