Apple Computer said Friday that it plans to issue an update to older versions of Mac OS X to fix security flaws that were patched as part of the new Panther. Read on for more Apple news.Elsewhere, a number of hard-drive makers have released patches designed to prevent a glitch that has caused some FireWire 800 drives to lose data when used with the new version of Mac OS X. Apple is working on solving the problem on their end too.
Additionally, Panther upgrade breaks Printing, Mac users say.
The headaches don’t stop there for Apple though: Hundreds of owners of Apple Computer’s new 15-inch PowerBook G4 are complaining about an apparent design fault that causes white spots to show up on the notebook computer’s liquid crystal display.
In the meantime, Apple released software which provides support for the Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) specification for the AirPort Extreme base station and AirPort Extreme client.
Also, on Thursday, Apple seeded “Developer Preview 1” of Java 3D and Java Advanced Imaging to developers. Both are APIs that extend the Java platform.
I got the same problem with a Gericom Worldbook. I think the cover isn’t rigid enough.
When you grab the closed book, the LC display is pressed from the back. The bright spots are actually placed like the four fingertips.
Does this issue pop up on any of the 17″ or 12″ powerbooks?
No, only the 15″ have being reported…
a close friend of mine was affected by this issue and returned his powerbook for a full refund. apart from the white spots, the latch didnt work and the backlight of the screen died too. I guess the first run of powerbooks had problems. My friend ordered a 17 inch and it’s flawless
My Mac too lost its ability to print to a Windows shared printer after an upgrade to Panther from Jaguar. I uninstalled and reinstalled Ghostscript, ran the Gimp-Print installation again, and printing works fine once more.
I have every symptom that is posted hear and apple has been giving me the run around for 2 months!!!!!!!
Never buy the “Latest and Greatest”. I always stay at least one version behind on everything. I will take note of all of the solutions BEFORE I buy the product. That is true of windows and all other software as well.
All the Mac fanboys tell me that Apple hardware is flawless! That by paying lots of money I get high quality hardware in return.
Seriously, though, I think Apple has some quality issues to work out. Between all the problems I’ve heard of with their laptops, and their continual quality issues with the iPod, I think they’re not doing a very good job of living up to their “cut-above” hardware quality reputation. Hopefully, their future hardware will be more like the G5(which I hear is one very solid piece of hardware) and less like some of their other products.
yea and windows fan boys are prefect. This is a first run on the laptops, check out the second runs on the 12 and 17 powerbooks, any probelms. no they have all been fixed. Every first run comes with probelms.
I haven’t heard of the quailty issues on the ipod,and I look daily for them. please provide a link.
I would rather have steve jobs philosphy, than bill gates. people who put product ahead of money should win. Windows wouldn’t not of made it if it wan’t a monopoly from day 1. Windows XP is at least decent though every time I use my friends laptop I trash it. windows XP just doesn’t like me
That’s the way fans are. Don’t expect reason from them. Mac, anti-Mac, whatever fans areall same beast same coat. Yesterday I have seen a lot of comments about how Apple was ripping its clients, forcing them to buy an upgrade to have the security patches for Jaguar. I bet today they’ll be very quiet on that subject, don’t you think?
I know what you mean. But seriously, Apple hardware is the best built stuff around. Look at the iBook G4 for example. A similar spec’ed PC notebook will probably be a bit cheaper, but with an Apple you are getting great looks and build quality. The Apple’s I have at work just keep on going, whereas the HP and Toshiba ones we have are constantly breaking. They just aren’t designed to last. They are like ‘disposable’ laptops…
However, I’m not sure you can make the distinction with build quality for the desktop line of products. Sure the G5 looks very nice and the noise of it is very quiet indeed – but a lot of PC manufacturers have really caught up. Alienware for example, while being a Gamers PC, they are built very very well.
Windows wouldn’t not of made it if it wan’t a monopoly from day 1
Then what was that popular operating system that DOS was made to look and work like ? CP/M ?
Seriously, though, I think Apple has some quality issues to work out
It’s not just Apple. I can’t believe how low the quality of PC parts has gotten over the last couple of years. Four of the six components I’ve purchased in the last two years have died. And now my two year old monitor has developed a weird color shifting problem.
If pieces of my PC keep dying off at their current rate, My PC will soon be as old as my Mac.
Tell me about it. Especially in contrast to some of the other hardware I have (i.e. an HP Apollo 715/50 PA-RISC box dating to 1993 in which not a single component has failed).
I’m not surprised there have been all kinds of hardware and software issues. The way Apple is now operating, they are always at breakneck speed, with a new OS release every year, new G5 hardware, new PowerBooks, which can always be problematic, etc. The cycle is very fast, perhpas a little too fast. They eventually fix everything, but it can be a pain for those who suffer because of it. Apparantly though, putting aside all pro-Mac and anti-Mac comments, this is their business model and it must be the only way they believe Apple can continue to be profitable and keep that “cutting edge” image.
“Seriously, though, I think Apple has some quality issues to work out. Between all the problems I’ve heard of with their laptops, and their continual quality issues with the iPod, I think they’re not doing a very good job of living up to their “cut-above” hardware quality reputation.”
And Intel chips always come out just fine? I seem to recall numerous recalls regarding computation errors. That’s real great…a computing device that can’t compute.
Apple outsources manufacturing, so they really don’t have tight control over problems like this.
And buying an established model isn’t always the answer. I recall iMacs whose video specs were changed and caused problems for several of my friends, even though there had been no model change.
The annoying thing is when Apple goes into denial about a problem, like the poster above who’s been experiencing his problem for 2 months.
It’s expensive to get macs repaired, so I consider 3 options before recommending them to my friends now: 1) buy AppleCare; 2) risk paying for the repair out of pocket (crap shoot); or 3) don’t buy a mac, because you can’t count on the quality.
you can’t count on any companies quality…..especialy in first run machines. I think the diffrence for apple is that they are coming into the normal level of problems that OEMs experience now that their product cycle has increased.
with our Dell roll out, we had deployed 500 new Dells, we had to have 50 of them serviced in their first few months because Motherboards, Optical drives, and power supplies failed.
I bought a 15″ PB Al about a week after they hit the shelves. I have neither the latch or white spot problems. In fact the only thing i have to complain about is the 3 hour battery life. Other than that it’s a beut!
Could be only a certain batch of 15″ are effected
Ciao!
is a bug in the Firmware of the Drive maker. that means that it is not apple’s fault.
All the Mac fanboys tell me that Apple hardware is flawless! That by paying lots of money I get high quality hardware in return.
It sounds like these are all manufacturing flaws. That happens to the best of companies. What I like about Macs is that the hardware that you get, barring any manufacturing defects, is going to work perfectly. That is not always the case on PCs.
To cite and example, the last PC I bought had a dual CPU. When it worked, it worked great. The problem was that any time I tried to use the CD-ROM drive for any length of time, the machine would lock up hard. It would also lock up after an hour or two even if it was just sitting there.
As it turns out, the power supply was unable to properly power what was inside the machine. After replacing it with a larger power supply, all my stability issues went away (I’m posting from said machine now).
While all the parts in my PC were good, they were not meant to work together. You don’t run into that problem with a Mac; and no, I’m not a Mac fanboy, I have never owned a Mac in my life, but I do use them at work occasionally and I have generally been impressed.
While all the parts in my PC were good, they were not meant to work together. You don’t run into that problem with a Mac; and no, I’m not a Mac fanboy, I have never owned a Mac in my life, but I do use them at work occasionally and I have generally been impressed.
This isent my experience with the newer Macs I have at work. We have 3 brand new Macs, one Dual G4 1Ghz (the one that sounded like a windtunnel) one Dual 1.25Ghz G4 and one G5 1.8Ghz.
I must say that the quality of hardware compability inside these three machines havent been tested enough together to say that I dont run into similar problems with parts not made to work together as in the PC scene.
Fist of the “Windy” G4 well it works as it should but we hade to change the fans and powersupply to even be able to have it in our studio. And something generates a loud hum on the sound out port, we dont use the sound out to often since we have the Protools system on this machine so most often we use the ProTools DSP out for sound. Still its annoying.
The other (newer) G4 has severe problems to keep working normal, it freezes up, quits programs alot and just yesterday it forgot what the SD2 (sound desiger 2) audio format is for a kind of file and how it should be used. This migth be software issues, but I dont think a brand new machine should be reinstalled every two weeks to work normal. We have sent it in for service and no problems were found.
The G5 is working best of these three machines but still there is alot of new hardware inside similar to my home PC and its not working flawless. Strangely my PC works with the stuff even tough I choosed parts self and put it together. Hoppfully panther will fix this and if so its a software issue.
All these tree machines would never come up to quality compared to the old Macs we have just thrown out. Much of the stuff inside new machines are just as in the PC Scene from different manufacturers so how hard can it be to choose the rigth parts and do some heavy testing?
You must not be looking very hard. The iPod has had numerous flaws. The first-gen and second-gen iPods had severe battery problems, with the batteries just dying after less than a year of use. This problem was made more severe by the lack of replacement batteries, and the fact that the iPod itself is nearly impossible to open and service. The third-gen iPods also have battery-life issues (many people not getting anywhere near the full 8 hours), as well as skipping problems (fixed in most recent firmware) and freezing problems.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the things, but mine died (thank god for the free replacement) after 3 months, and my friend’s froze they very first day. These things are like Italian cars — sexy, but not super-reliable.
I’m not saying that Wintel hardware is perfect, but you don’t pay a quality premium on Wintel machines. These days, the only machines I trust are the ones I build with my own two hands. We’ve got a dozen hand-built machines at work that have never give us any problems, and I’ve got several at home that have been trouble-free as well. And best of all, I don’t have to pay several hundred extra for the privilege of having trouble-free hardware.
the ipod the battery should last 5 years. also, the longest battery life is achieved if you let the ipod play the songs randomly. that way you minimize the hard drive spins
It should last 5 years, but a huge number of the first-gen iPods had their battery die within a year. This was such a problem, that Apple replaced the lithium polymer battery with a regular litium ion one in the third-gen iPod. Just check out the various iPod forums for the horror stories.
Now I’ll be damned if I can find a comprehensive review of the G4 iBooks. I’ve been looking everywhere, but can’t find anything. Does anyone here have a URL for me?
I am very close to ordering a 12″ G4 iBook (in fact I was planning on doing it thid weekend), but these “first run” hardware problem reports are scaring me.
Everyone seems to be concentrating on the Firewire 800 bug, but Panther has a bug in FileVault that affects a larger number of Apple users.
FileVault will change your Safari preferences, delete your mail, delete your iTunes music library, delete your calendars, change your Dock settings, mess up your menu bar and even change your Desktop and Screen Saver settings. Others are experiencing the loss of the AddressBook and/or iPhoto pictures. All of these issues seem to happen after FileVault attempts to reclaim space on shutdown. If you don’t believe me, do a search on FileVault under “Discussions” in Apple’s support site and take a look at all the issues that people are having with this problem.
http://discussions.info.apple.com/
From what I understand, the problem seems to be an issue with permissions – the data is there, but the applications can’t access it.
This is by far Panther’s worst bug.
“But seriously, Apple hardware is the best built stuff around. Look at the iBook G4 for example. A similar spec’ed PC notebook will probably be a bit cheaper, but with an Apple you are getting great looks and build quality.”
You are joking, right? Are the iBooks not manufactured by ECS, who are a byword for corner-cutting cheapness? The prices cuts are very welcome, and dare I say overdue, given how low the price of PC laptops has fallen. Toshibas can be had from £500 new, now. However, for the same price as the 12″ iBook you can get a Sony 15″ which is better built, better designed to take knocks, has a vastly superior keyboard and screen and is overall better looking IMHO.
The USP of the iBooks over the Sony machines remains as ever the ability to run Mac OS X. None of the VAIOs can ever begin to compete with that.