Clueless Law Columnist Slams Macs

Alright, I just couldn't leave this one alone:

My guess is that this is a planted story, since it just reeks of fabrication (or just plain stupidity):
Commentary: Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (article found via MacSurfer)

I'm going to respond to the author in order here (I didn't see any way to leave comments on the original post):

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Last month, in Law Technology News' Tech Counsel column, California attorney Ed Siebel sang the praises of running his law office with Apple Inc. computers and peripherals. Today, I'm singing a different tune. In fact, right now, I'm completing an online ad to sell my Power Mac G5 Dual 2.7GHz computer.

I was suckered in by the hype about freedom from viruses, simplicity of computing and versatility. Instead, I bought a boat anchor that can't view Web sites properly, is not compatible with Microsoft Word and can run only dumbed-down versions of regular software.

This time, I'm buying from Hewlett-Packard Co. or Dell Inc. -- anything that runs on Windows. (I'll assume the risk of flaming batteries.) Goodbye Steve Jobs, hello Bill Gates. I'll be lucky to get half of the $4,552.71 I paid for the Mac on May 21, 2006.

I'm curious as to what, if any, research you performed prior to purchasing your Mac. By May 21, the transition to Intel processors was well underway, and pretty much the only people still buying Power Mac G5s were professionals who required that sort of horsepower for pro-level applications such as video production and graphics editing. Even Boot Camp, Apple's solution for dual-booting Intel-based Macs in Windows XP SP2, had been available for over a month. Any knowledgeable salesperson would have steered you clear of the Power Mac and recommended an iMac Core Duo, given your particular needs. If for some reason you simply went with the most expensive Mac, thinking it would be the best solution for your needs, then that was simply poor research.

I realized it was time to unload the silvery box of frustration when I had to buy a "Dummies" book on how to operate it. I'm smart; I shouldn't need this. Aren't Macs supposed to be intuitive and easy to learn? My mistake.

Anytime someone makes a fundamental change from the way one is accustomed to doing things, there will be a bit of a learning curve. It's not a matter of being smart, it's a matter of being patient. The longest I've seen a full transition take place from a comfort level with Windows to a comfort level with Mac OS X is about 4 weeks.

With a former PC, I had to have my hard drive wiped clean and formatted -- several times -- after catching nasty viruses. So I was enticed by the thought of being online without fear of viruses.
I dreamed of going fearlessly to all the sheet music and game sites that are rife with Trojans, spyware and other dangerous bugs.
I was encouraged to make the switch by artists, ad agency employees and junior high school kids, even though I don't really create graphics, listen to iTunes or make movies. They all used Macs and were intractable in their support. They seduced me with siren songs, especially good customer support -- which did turn out to be excellent and was staffed with American speakers working in the United States. I liked the sexy FireWire with its zippy transfer speeds, although I used it only to transfer data to my external hard drive.
The signs of doom were there on day one, but I ignored them. I pretended that I liked the one button mouse. I quickly started using click + command keys (and other keyboard shortcuts). I really missed the little scrolling wheel in the center of the mouse. I put up with the fact that the HP printer, which I had purchased on the recommendation of an Apple Store, would work about 50 percent of the time with the Mac. I was constantly deleting print jobs and starting them over.

I'm a bit confused here; you claim that you purchased your Mac in May 2006, but by then, every Mac was shipping with the Mighty Mouse, Apple's multi-button successor to the original one-button mouse. By default, it's configured to act as a single-click ('one-button') mouse, but a simple trip to the System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse panel will allow you to configure the right side of the mouse to register as a 'right-click.' Additionally, the Mighty Mouse has a scroll ball that replicates the function of a scroll wheel (by default), so I'm not sure why you would have 'missed' the scroll wheel.

I have no idea why your HP printer wasn't functioning half the time, but I suspect it may have been user error (no doubt caused by frustration or impatience).

I noticed it was slow; I saw that stupid spinning colored wheel a lot. The Mac would hang up; the TV ads said Macs didn't do that. The widgets were cool and snappy, but after a while I stopped using them. They were fun -- for five minutes. I did like the Finder because it was quick in locating files, but it would turn up a lot of false hits. It was comparable to the Google Desktop searcher on my PC.

Not knowing what you were doing when the 'stupid spinning colored wheel' appeared, it's hard to say what may have caused that to happen. Sometimes things do hang up, as I'm sure you're used to with Windows. Generally speaking, however, on the Mac, it's only the application that hangs/crashes, and it doesn't usually take the whole system down with it. Also, by 'Finder,' it appears that you're referring to 'Spotlight,' the system-wide search feature in Mac OS X 10.4 'Tiger' -- the Finder is actually the desktop environment that is always running (it's how you navigate Mac OS X).

What drove me nuts was that I would open Word for Mac and couldn't delete files while I was in Word. There is no File | Delete option. So the documents took up space on my hard drive, until someone told me I had to find the document in Finder and then move it into the trash from there. This seemed stupid to me; I just wanted to highlight a file and tap "delete."

This is simply a matter of learning a different way of doing things. You'll find that there is a lot of consistency in the way many apps handle things on Mac OS X. Deleting files from within an application menu is simply not the way Mac OS X does things. A better understanding of Mac OS X would have helped with this problem, and it doesn't take a long time to gain such understanding, if you're willing to put a little effort into it.

Word files transferred from the Mac were missing pictures. PowerPoint files transferred from the Mac would lose their formatting. PCs and Macs are not compatible, regardless of what they say.

If I were to venture to guess (and I have years of experience to back this up), the lost pictures in the Word files were most likely cut/pasted into the documents, rather than properly placed (Insert > Picture > From file...). This would also be problematic on another Windows PC, not just on the Mac; it's a matter of Word's loose standards for how documents are structured. The PowerPoint files most likely lost formatting because the fonts used on the Windows PC on which it was created were not available on the Mac. This problem is not a Mac problem, it would happen on another PC, as well...you can thank PowerPoint's poor font/resource management for that.

The multiple clicking to accomplish simple tasks was a constant annoyance. Things I could do with a PC in two keystrokes took four or five clicks with the Mac. To do a "fast print" required clicking File, Print, find Copies & Pages, click Paper Type/Quality, click Normal and finally clicking Fast Draft. And there was no way to leave the setting as the default. I had to do it manually every time.

There actually is a way to save the setting as a default; you simply did not know how to do so, and did not bother to learn. It's actually quite easy.

Doing a simple screen capture was an immense chore. On a PC you just press Alt and tap PrtScr. With the Mac I had to download and launch special programs to accomplish this simple task.

Again, this is simply not true. Screen capture is built into Mac OS X: Command-Shift-3 takes an entire screenshot; Command-Shift-4 lets you select an area to capture (tap the spacebar after that last command, mouse over an open window to select it, and click on it to capture the window only). This information is easily available from within the Help system on your Mac.

I didn't even bother with the Mac's iCal or Mail, which required me to buy an @mac.com address. Instead, I went straight to Outlook for Mac. A lot of the software for Mac -- such as AOL for Mac OS X -- was dumbed down and missing may features of the current PC versions.

Neither iCal nor Mail require the purchase of .mac. Again, you didn't do any homework here. Also, there is no Outlook for Mac. Office 2004 for Mac comes with Entourage, which is a feature-rich mail client that includes project management and calendaring features.

I can't speak for AOL for Mac, since I don't use it.

For me the killer was the Web browser. Safari simply cannot read Flash. It is, quite simply, a second-rate browser.

Flash is available as a plug-in for Safari. You simply did not bother to download and install it. The real problem here is that you're used to using Internet Explorer, which is a third-rate browser that has no regard for standards or interoperability. Safari and FireFox are actually huge steps up, but that's not what you're used to.

I even called Apple headquarters and asked when a better version would be available and was told that Apple is in no hurry to improve it.

Nice negative spin on words there, I'm sure their terminology was more like 'update' than 'improve,' but that wouldn't support the claims of this stellar research project now, would it?

On the suggestions of friends, I downloaded Netscape and Firefox, which were no better.
I scraped along with Internet Explorer 5.0 for Mac, and then discovered in 2006 that Microsoft would no longer support the Mac version. You can't do WSYWIG on Typepad (where many folks create their blogs), which you can on a PC.

You discovered this in 2006? You mean the year that you actually purchased the machine? How did you 'scrape along' with IE 5.0 for Mac when it wasn't even available for download from Microsoft after January? Of course you can't do much of anything on the internet in 2006 with a browser that ceased development in 2002...does that really surprise you?

I run several Web sites, all optimized for IE 5.5 or higher. I couldn't operate my own Web sites with the Mac. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Then the hard drive croaked on me after only three months of owning the machine. I couldn't tell what was going wrong and had to hire someone for $125 an hour to come over and tell me what the heck was happening. Apple replaced it for free, but I became leery of what other hardware would fail unexpectedly.

If your web sites are optimized for IE only, then you are a poor excuse for a webmaster. Standards are king, and IE is nowhere near a standards-compliant browser.

Also, you apparently didn't read your product's limited warranty very closely (funny, since you work with lawyers and all...), or you would have seen that your Mac is covered by a one-year limited warranty that covers things like failed hard drives. In fact, there's an on-site service clause in that warranty, so you pretty much pissed that $125/hour away to get your Mac serviced because you failed to read your paperwork. That's nobody's fault but your own.

You also mentioned earlier that there was an Apple Store that advised you on your printer. If you were in that store, you probably saw a little counter there called a "Genius Bar" that is available to every Apple customer as basically a free walk-up tech support service. I'm sure they could have diagnosed your HD free of charge. Again, your lack of homework bites you in the ass.

I let the repaired shiny Mac sit on the floor for weeks, and instead used my reliable IBM ThinkPad, and rediscovered how much I enjoy it. Wish me luck on selling the Mac.

You won't need any luck; there are plenty of people out there looking for a good deal on a reliable machine. It seems that all the problems described here were pretty much self-inflicted.

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I'm wondering if this is an actual true story, or simply a feeble attempt to spread more FUD around about the Mac. I'm betting it's the latter, but if this is an actual true story, I'd be delighted to hear from the author.

I call shenanigans on this one.