The bulk of this week's emails come in response to Lack of USB Modem Support Could Be a Lion
Deal Breaker, which points out the problems for users worldwide
when Apple stopped supporting its own USB Modem when releasing its
newest version of OS X.
If you need a dial-up USB modem, the USRobotics
56K USB Faxmodem ($43 at Amazon.com), Zoom Model
3095 V.92 USB Mini External Modem ($46 at Amazon.com), and
Best Data Smart One 56Kbps Mac External Serial V.92 Data/Fax Modem
#16160 ($60 direct) explicitly support Lion.
Apple USB Modem 'Really Badly Designed'
From Romeo:
Dear Charles:
The Apple USB Modem is a really badly designed USB Modem. Many of
them have failed for me when using them to receive faxes on my Macs
using PageSender. Apple's USB
Modem is well known for being poorly made and prone to failure.
On the other hand, the US Robotics USB Faxmodem and the Zoom USB
Faxmodem are both OS X 10.7 compatible, as described in their
respective manufacturers' websites. Zoom even gives you detailed
information for setting up the modem in Lion.
These two third party USB modems are much much more robust and
stable for daily use in my office for receiving faxes. They should be
very robust for dial-up Internet connections.
Apple did not remove USB modem support in Lion. Apple just
eliminated support for its own bad product.
Romeo
Hi Romeo,
Yee-hah! This looks like the cure for my modem
woes.
Thanks for the information. I used USRobotics modems
back in the day and found them excellent performers.
I've never had any problem with the Apple USB modem,
but I don't do a lot of faxing, and dial-up speed here maxes out at
26,400 bps on good days.
Charles
Best Data Modem Supports Lion
From Scott:
Charles,
I'm out of town on business right now, so I can't check, but what do
you know about the Best Data line of USB modems? I have one in a closet
that I can try out with Lion when I'm back home. I need to, because I
still have a dialup account for emergencies. The Best Data modems were
real hardware modems that only used a simple script (that I still
have). They ran off the USB power but won't work with a USB hub.
I bought one when I learned that the modem in a 12" 1.5 GHz
PowerBook was essentially a software modem. Using [the internal modem]
for anything used 20% of my CPU and made it run really hot even if I
wasn't doing anything else. The Best Data modem solved that problem.
Since it's a hardware modem, in theory, it should work in Lion as long
as you have the script.
Finally, I just checked, and Best Data seems to still be selling the
Mac version of its USB external modem:
Smart One 56Kbps Mac External Serial V.92 Data/Fax Modem #16160
($60)
Another choice would be to find a used graphite AirPort
Base Station with the built-in dial-up modem.
Scott
Hi Scott,
Thanks a bunch for the information and tips.
I'm eager to hear how you fare checking out the Best
Data modem with Lion. If it works, it looks like the answer to my
dilemma.
Hadn't thought of the AirPort Base Station workaround.
Plan B.
Charles
Best Data 56k USB Modem Works with Lion
From Jeff:
Charles,
Just read your article about Lion not supporting the Apple USB
Modem. I have used a Best Data 56k modem as a backup for several years
here in Malawi. It is model "Smart One", or
56USB-SP/56USB-SPMAC/56USBP. I am happy to report that I plugged it in,
it was immediately recognized, and I was then able to connect and have
access to the Internet through our local phone company.
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for the report and information.
Are you running Lion? If so, I'm guessing that you
didn't download it via dial-up.
Charles
Charles,
I have Lion on two older MacBooks. I have Lion installed on an
external drive, which I have tested on my 2009 Mac mini, which now boots up
the 64-bit kernel. Once Lion gets up to 10.7.2 or .3 and my company's
Juniper network VPN is stable, I will move the mini to that too.
Jeff
Apple USB Modem Support Broke with 64-bit Snow
Leopard
From Kev:
Charles,
This has actually been coming for a while. If you booted OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard into
64-bit mode, which is the default for the Mac Pro, it would not work with Apple's
USB Modem. I found this out when I wanted to use one in order to add
fax functionality to a server I set up for a client. I did get another
modem (US Robotics, IIRC) that looked like the Apple one with a
pituitary problem. It worked immediately on plugin, since it was
controller based.
Kev
Hi Kev,
It's looking like USRobotics, Zoom, and Best Data all
have modems that reportedly work with Lion, so that crisis is averted,
albeit with more hardware expenditure.
However, it hasn't been explained to my satisfaction
why Apple couldn't have accommodated folks like me who bought its USB
Modem not so long ago by including support for it in Lion.
Charles
I have to agree, they were extremely uncommunicative about the issue
in Snow Leopard. Thankfully, I didn't irrevocably buy the Apple
modem
Kev
Apple Dropping Legacy Modem Support
From Joseph:
Mr. Moore,
I read your article on Low End Mac, and I wanted to share my 2 cents
with you.
In 1999 I was exposed to my first Apple computer, a G4 used for
Photoshop, and then a year latter we added an Avid video workstation.
Both of these machines used OS 9, which I quickly learned my way
around. Having been exposed to Windows and Amigas, I knew that all
computers did the same thing pretty much. Just different names/words
and methods. In the early 2000's we added a couple of Final Cut Systems
running on OS X 3 & 4.
In the last 10+ years I've seen Apple go from OS 9 to OS X, PowerPC
to Intel, and now into the iOS/Lion. Each change Apple has made a
determined cut of support for "legacy" items. From a business
perspective, I understand what they are doing in pushing forward, and I
agree that one of the problems with Microsoft's Windows has been the
constant support for legacy hardware and software. At some point you
have to have a cut off of older equipment, but here is where I
take exception to what I'm seeing in the industry as a whole.
For many people that live in the large cities where high speed
Internet is readily available then and they have disposal income then
the constant change is not a problem. But there are still numerous
places in America and the world where there is no high speed or at the
most limited high speed Internet. So for the Apple App Store, it
becomes a burden to download large files. I live 16 miles from the
capital of the state that I live in, and only in the last 4 months did
we get a cable modem. For the last ten years that I've lived in my
house, I had to use dial-up and then a cellular air card - neither of
which is great for large Internet usage. The air card is expensive and
now limited to 5 GB a month. While I don't blame a company from
moving forward with technology, when it starts to become more difficult
to maximize the usage of a product, then I am more likely to stop using
it. Prior to our cable modem, my wife and I made several decisions to
bypass products simply because they didn't work in our household.
...Tiger did everything that I needed it to
do.
Also, for many small businesses the price to replace hardware and
software every two years or so is expensive, especially when the old
stuff is still usable. I know I've read forums and had discussions with
people that bemoan people still using G3/G4s and even OS 9 or even OS X
3/4. I held off upgrading from Tiger to Snow Leopard for the longest
simply because Tiger did everything that I needed it to do.
I still have a large collection of CDs and DVDs (okay, albums, 45s,
and VHS tapes also), and while I am excited about the advances in
technology, I'm in no way ready to abandon what I have just to stay up
to date. I appreciate your columns and some of the real world insight
that you and the rest of the contributors to Low End Mac give.
Joseph
Hi Joseph,
I agree pretty much comprehensively with your
observations and analysis. It's also interesting to hear that folks who
live less far out in the boonies than I do still have challenges with
up-to-date Internet connectivity. I'm 50 miles from the nearest
(smallish) town, and my wife and I seriously contemplated moving
towards the end of the dozen years I spent being a Web worker using
26,400 bps dial-up. Thankfully, we've had access to wireless broadband
for nearly two years now, so I don't complain too vigorously about its
sometimes spotty reliability, so long as I can fall back on dial-up as
an emergency option.
I have nothing against moving forward with technology
so long as it represents an objective advance, or at least a perceived
improvement. I do have an iPad 2,
but I also spend four hours a day or so on my old G4-upgraded Pismo PowerBooks, running
OS X 10.4 Tiger. What I
strenuously object to is gratuitously enforced obsolescence of
perfectly good technology that still has practical and productive
applications. I'll concede that Apple probably had some good reasons
for going to 64-bit only with OS X 10.7 Lion, but I remain to be
convinced that the termination of Rosetta PowerPC emulation for legacy
software and support for Apple's own (albeit discontinued since
September 2009) USB Modem were not gratuitous examples of technological
elitism and snobbery.
Of course, I still have a bunch of long-play albums
and music on compact cassette tapes that I still listen to, and I still
use a VHS tape recorder for television time shifting.
I'm willing to be persuaded about synergizing iOS with
OS X, but only so long as it doesn't interfere with my productivity,
and unfortunately, at this point in time, the Rosetta issue does,
although information I'm hearing from readers indicates that modem
support is still available - just not from Apple.
Charles
Lion's Lack of Modem Support
From Owen:
Hello Charles,
My DSL "modem" is upstream of the router; the computer has no
control over it. Isn't there any equivalent for telephone modems?
Something like the 3Com
3C886 OfficeConnect 56K LAN Modem maybe.
Owen
Hi Owen,
Thanks for the link. Yes, I've now learned that there
are several non-Apple telephone modem solutions available that support
Lion.
Charles
The nice thing about the one I linked is that it establishes &
maintains the connection without any computers attached or even
running. Pricey though.
Owen
What About Using an AirPort Base Station?
From Wayne:
Read your articles for many years, and truly respect your views on
most every topic - especially faith!
Do you know if anyone has tried connecting with Lion through an old
AirPort Base Station set up as a modem? I have my MacBook Pro (with
10.6) set up to access one of those units (a white one) - used only for
my backup Earthlink dialup
account when my cable is out. Actually, any of my machines in the house
access it that way, so it's quite convenient. I have not installed Lion
yet.
Thanks,
Wayne
Hi Wayne.
Thanks for the kind comments and for reading!
I don't have any AirPort Base Stations, or for that
matter Lion installed on my one Mac that will support it, so I can't
positively confirm that Lion will connect to dial-up Internet through
an ABS, but it seems likely that it would.
Hopefully, someone will be able to confirm this yea or
nay.
Charles
Question about Lion and PowerPC Software
From Lance:
Hi Charles,
I've just read your article of May 9 on Low End Mac, The Implications of Losing Rosetta in OS X
10.7 Lion. Many thanks for your research into the matter of Lion's
incompatibility with Rosetta.
I would appreciate if you could clarify something for me.
You've stated that the incompatibility issue will occur for those
who load programs on any new Mac running Lion. What about Macs
already loaded with Snow Leopard or previous and running Rosetta?
If Lion is download onto those Macs, will those older
programs including Rosetta still run well, or will their be
compatibility issues in that scenario as well?
Thanks,
Lance
Hi Lance,
If you're booted into Lion on any machine that
supports it, there is no Rosetta, so applications with residual PowerPC
code will not work.
However, there is the option of partitioning your
drive and being able to have Leopard installed on one volume and keep
Snow Leopard available for alternate booting on the other for access to
older software that requires Rosetta (however, you'll have to quit one
OS to run the other).
Also note that the Lion
install from the App Store is essentially an upgrade of your
existing Snow Leopard installation, so you'll need to either make a
bootable clone of your Snow Leopard volume and install that on the
partitioned drive, or go with a fresh install of Snow Leopard from your
10.6 installer DVD.
Charles
The Times Have Already Changed
From Dan:
With the arrival of Mac OS X Lion, users of PowerPC Macs are
apparently asking themselves a difficult question. Should I stick with
my PowerPC Mac or buy a new one?
There's a simple answer.
Of course you should buy a new one. New Macs are so self-evidently
superior to every PowerPC Mac, in every way! The time's aren't
changing; they changed years ago. You had since the summer of 2005 to
prepare for this. Whatever outdated PowerPC apps you're using, there
are either newer versions or newer, better alternatives that you aren't
even aware of. Most developers dropped Universal Binaries a long time
ago, and many of today's popular apps never even had any, having first
appeared in the Intel era.
LEM columnists, I beg you to temper appreciation of classic Macs
with a dose of reality. Accept and appreciate these machines for what
they were and are. Don't elevate them to something they aren't. Writing
about how great these Macs were in their day and how amazing it is they
still work and can do the things they do is one thing. Nobody enjoys
classic Macs more than I, but you couldn't pay me to use a PowerPC
system today other than for strictly hobbyist reasons. The simple truth
is nobody should be using any PowerPC Mac as a primary machine in 2011.
Doing so is little more than self-flagellation. Recommending someone
else do so is lying. Seriously.
And don't even get me started on that recent facepalm-inducing
article about TenFourFox and
iCloud.
Thanks,
Dan
Hi Dan,
It probably will be no surprise that I disagree with
you profoundly on several of the points expressed. I have no metrics
for reference, but I suspect that there are still a substantial number
of LEM readers who actually are still using PowerPC hardware for their
primary machines. [Publisher's note: 56.6% of visitors to LEM do so
using Macs, and 12.9% of them are using PowerPC machines, which we'd
conjecture is probably their primary machines, since they are using
them on the Web. dk]
Personally, my number one Mac has been a Core 2 Duo Unibody MacBook
since early 2009. It is currently running Snow Leopard 10.6.8, but, as
I've noted, I still average roughly four hours keyboard time on my old
Pismo PowerBooks daily, and that's 98% for production work.
I made no recommendation that anyone either use or not
use PowerPC hardware. It depends on what you need in terms of power and
current compatibility. For many folks, PowerPC will remain perfectly
viable as a computer platform for years yet, thanks in no small measure
to efforts like TenFourFox.
Regarding software, I wish you were right about there
being adequate Intel-native substitutes for all software applications
that for some of us remain mission-critical. For me, it's Tex-Edit Plus, which over 15 years of using as
my primary text crunching and general dogsbody software tool, and have
customized and tweaked to a fair-thee-well to accommodate my production
workflow. The developer, Tom Bender, has indicated that he will be
updating TE+ to native Intel at some point (see The Future of
Tex-Edit Plus on the Mac), but no joy so far, and consequently it
remains probably the most formidable obstacle for me upgrading to Lion.
if there is any substitute that could replace TE+ satisfactorily for
me, I'm unaware of it, and it's not been for lack of looking.
Charles
Publisher's note: As I type this in Claris Home
Page on my dual 1 GHz Mirror
Drive Door Power Mac from 2002 using OS X 10.4 Tiger and Classic
Mode, I profoundly disagree with Dan. Older versions of the Mac OS,
older apps, and PowerPC hardware remain very useful production options.
While Claris Home Page (not updated since 1997, the year I began Low
End Mac) is outdated in many ways, it remains quick, and after almost
15 years of use, it's very comfortable. The only freeware WYSIWYG HTML
editor I've found that finally comes close is BlueGriffon, and that's not for lack of
trying a multitude of freeware, shareware, and demoware options over
the years. BlueGriffon is free, based on Netscape Communicator, mostly
works like I want, and supports Windows XP and newer, Ubuntu 10.10 and
newer, and Mac OS X 10.5 and newer - only on Intel hardware. I have
used it on my 2007 Mac mini
to write, edit, and update some articles, but it's not quite ready to
replace Claris Home Page - yet.
The only reasons this is not my only production
machine are:
- NetNewsWire got to the point of requiring Google Reader for syncing
RSS feeds instead of NewNewsWire's own servers, and that version of the
app requires OS X 10.5 Leopard, so I set up a second G4 Power Mac
(a Digital Audio
model from 2001 with a dual 1.6 GHz processor upgrade) for Leopard.
However, I still need Tiger for Classic mode, and the freeware Teleport app lets me control
both Macs with one mouse and one keyboard.
- At this point, so many new apps are Intel-only (Google's Chrome
browser, for instance), that I finally bought my first Intel Mac
earlier this year, a four-year-old Mac mini with a dual-core 2.0 GHz
CPU and Intel's much maligned GMA 950 integrated graphics. Other than
needing a memory upgrade (from the stock 1 GB to 3 GB) and a
faster, higher capacity internal hard drive, it works okay and does let
me test Intel-only and Snow Leopard-only apps.
- Because of the limited memory in the Mac mini, I can only run 2-3
apps at once before it bogs down horribly.
MemoryCleaner ($5.99 exclusively through the Mac App Store), which
I'm testing and hope to review soon, helps a bit, but with Snow
Leopard, Teleport, Dropbox
, TextSoap, DefaultFolder,
Growl, Logitech Control Center,
Sidenote, MagiCal, smcFanControl, and SpamSieve always running plus the
Intel graphics using 64 MB of system memory, Memory Cleaner only
reports 295 MB free after a restart and time for Dropbox to do its
thing. Clicking the Clean My Memory button expands that to 411
MB, but opening a Finder window cuts 30 MB instantly. I don't strictly
need Sidenote (it only uses 6 MB of "real" system memory) or MagiCal
(51 MB!), but they are nice. I've already eliminated a few other Login
Items that I didn't need just to get this much free memory. (Safari 5.1
with Flash Player uses 100 MB of memory displaying only the
lowendmac.com home page; Firefox 5.0, 116 MB with Flash blocked; Chrome
12.0.7 with Flash, 145 MB; Opera 11.50,
84 MB; and Camino 2.1 with
Flash blocked, 68 MB - another reason to love Camino!) NetNewsWire,
which is almost always open, takes 84 MB of RAM, and Mail chomps an 86
MB bite. Take away another 75 MB for iTunes. BlueGriffon uses 73 MB
when it's not displaying a page, TextWrangler 3 nibbles away another 22
MB, and that initial 411 MB is gone in no time as I open browser
windows, read RSS feeds, edit pages, etc. (iPhoto takes a hefty 113 MB,
and Photoshop Elements 3.0, a PowerPC app, grabs 152 MB before you even
open an image.) 400-600 MB of free system memory just doesn't give you
much breathing space, but my Power Macs with 1-2 GB of system memory
can run dozens of apps concurrently without getting slow like the Mac
mini. Again, that's due primarily to too little system memory and
secondarily to not having a fast internal hard drive (I use a 7200 rpm
external desktop drive with the Mini). The current version of
MemoryCleaner has a bug that causes it to shut down Teleport, which is
an inconvenience.
- Problem is, Teleport is buggy between Snow Leopard and Tiger, so
the only way I can use both the MDD Power Mac with 10.4 and the Mac
mini with 10.6 is to have an intermediate 10.5 Leopard Mac, which is
mostly used to manage the mouse and keyboard but sometimes used for
browsing the Web.
In the best of all possible worlds, there would be
a good free or low-cost replacement for Claris Home Page and be able to
retire both Power Macs from daily use, but until I can match my
workflow with the current setup, I'm not leaving these wonderful old
workhorses behind. dk
iOS Coming to OS X
From Zed:
Charles,
In response to some of your recent
letters about the iOSification of OS X, I would like to say a quick
"stop for a second and just breathe". There. Now it really isn't the
end of the world any more than MobileMe was the end of the ability of
Macs to use the Internet. I have used Macs since the 80s, and it seems
like each new OS has brought howls of protest from users but ultimately
is declared to be a step forward. Don't like the Mac App Store? Well,
don't use it. Apple does not prevent you from going out and buying
whatever software you want and installing it on your Mac.
That said, I'm glad there is the iOS App Store, because I am
so unbelievably tired of crappy software that doesn't play nice with my
computers. I not only welcome the App Store, I cherish it. What a
shining example of putting the customer experience before the tech geek
crowd that really doesn't give a hoot about how you use your computer.
I'm glad there are alternatives such as Android and Windows, but I'm
also glad I don't have to use them.
I agree that iDevices lack in the keyboard department, but your iPad
can use an external keyboard. I belong to several chat groups,
and more than 90% of the entries are through iDevices, so clearly many
people not only don't care but actually don't find them that difficult
to use. Maybe it's an age thing? I know that people younger than me
love to text and are quite quick at it. Me, not so much.
Whether we're talking iOS 5 or Lion, I think we should really wait a
while before we pass judgment. After all, the rest of the tech world
looked pretty darn stupid for trashing the first iMac because it got
rid of the floppy.
Zed
Hi Zed,
Philosophical dissonance, I guess. For me, it's
largely a matter of control over my computing environment, which I
don't want to cede to Apple. The problematical nature of offering 10.7
Lion as an App Store download only, at least in the early going, has
been exhaustively discussed in the blogosphere over the past few weeks.
Assuming that I will eventually upgrade to Lion at some point in the
future, the first thing I will be doing is creating an installer disk
so I can cut the umbilical at least for system reinstalls.
Regarding your suggestion, "Don't like the
Mac App Store? Well don't use it," that isn't an option for anyone
wanting to upgrade to Lion, at least until Apple starts shipping the
promised 10.7 installers on USB stick drives (for more than twice the
money of the download). There are plenty of applications that are now
exclusively available from the App Store that used to be acquirable by
means not involving Apple's gatekeeping.
I find the iOS App Store convenient for iPad stuff,
but for serious production applications I use on my Mac, the concept is
inappropriate and transforms the transaction from purchasing software
as a commodity on tangible media to fee-for-service licensing, which is
an entirely different paradigm - and one that I don't gladly embrace.
That's huge.
As for external keyboards and the iPad, I've
experimented with it, and it works, but it is so logistically
cumbersome compared to using my laptop that I have to ask why
bother? You need a stand for the iPad, and you're still stuck with
the maddening angularities of touchscreen pointing, clicking, and
selecting, only now with the added ergonomic grief of vertical screen
orientation, which even Steve Jobs has publicly conceded to be
problematical. Of course I'm presupposing that one has a laptop or
desktop computer.
I may eventually make my peace with the iOS, Lion, and
whatever comes in the future, but I can't conceive of it ever being as
delightful in matching my tastes and preferred way of doing things as
the Mac OS in its various permutations has been for me over the past
two decades.
Charles
What Is 'Real Work'?
From Mark:
Mr. Moore,
I enjoy reading your columns and news summaries. I have been
especially interested in your experiences with the iPad, as I chose to
take the plunge about the same time you did. I understand the device
does not fit your workflow very well, but I have a question about a
term that you (and John C. Dvorak, among others) have used. How exactly
do you define "real work"?
Being a low-end kind of guy, I purchased my iPad 1 soon after the iPad 2 was released. I
bought a refurbished 32 GB WiFi model for $429, and it has been a great
investment. In my work as a school administrator, I find myself needing
to refer to reports, data summaries, and other documents during
meetings. The iPad is much less obtrusive in these instances than
having a laptop open in front of me. It also lends itself to carrying
with me around the building, where I can make quick notes about
conversations, classroom observations, and other interactions with
staff, parents, and students. The onscreen keyboard is not like a
regular keyboard, but it is more than adequate for quick responses to
emails and quick notes. I save a lot of time by not having to open up
my laptop, wait for it to wake up, and launching or locating the file I
need.
Recently my wife attended a conference and was informed beforehand
that all of the speakers' notes were to be downloaded in advance as
they would not be distributed at the sessions. She found that there was
going to be upwards of 200 pages of handouts for the sessions she had
chosen and really did not want to kill that many trees. I offered to
have her download the documents to my iPad and carry that with her.
After attaching the files to Evernote, she was able to view all of
the handouts, make notes unobtrusively, and also was able to
immediately refer to and bookmark web resources highlighted by the
speakers. Yes, I understand that all of this could have been
accomplished with a laptop, but if you have ever attended a meeting and
tripped over all of the cords being plugged in by owners of laptops
with short battery life and been annoyed by the tapping of keyboards
during a session, I'm sure you can see the value of a tablet
device.
Again, I understand that the iPad does not fit everybody's work
pattern as well as it fits mine. Is what I am doing not "real work?"
Maybe defining the term will make it sound less condescending.
Mark
Hi Mark,
You make an excellent point, and I don't dispute in
the slightest that there are "real work" applications and circumstances
where the iPad can be entirely appropriate - and indeed preferable to a
laptop - although with machines like the 11" MacBook Air, that can last
through an 8 hour shift on one battery charge so long as you take a few
breaks, the distinction becomes less clear, and, of course, the MacBook
Air is capable of immensely more when relocated to other environments
and contexts. That said, if I was in your shoes, I would probably opt
for the iPad myself by preference for the type of mobile computing that
you describe.
However, in the context of my work as a writer and Web
worker, the iPad is a woefully deficient tool. A prima facie
case in point is multitasking. Being able to double-click the home
button and bring up a row of icons of running apps is not
multitasking; it is application switching. I usually have somewhere
between 15 and two dozen applications running on my Mac at any given
time, with several of them often doing things in the background
simultaneously. The ability to have windows from two or more
applications open side-by-side is crucial to the way I work, which is
why I have virtually zero interest in fullscreen mode. Large,
conventional scrollbars are also important for efficient navigation,
and while the iOS style of scrolling is fine for touchscreening on the
iPad, it just doesn't work for me with a mouse or rollerbar.
Speaking of which, the iPad keeps me jonesing for a
mouse, and I find tasks like text selection, cutting, and pasting using
touchscreen input probably the most profoundly distasteful and
frustrating aspect of using the tablet - worse, in my estimation, than
the shortcomings of the software keyboard.
To wit, I guess the short answer to your question
would be "efficiency." You can do actual work on iPad, but it will
never be as efficient as it would be on a laptop. That's pretty much
what I was getting at with the "real work" reference.
Charles
Tablets Only for Those Who Hate Computers?
From Lloyd:
Hello, Charles,
Your iPad observations match those of my wife, whose birthday
present last year was a 32 GB WiFi model iPad. She loves using it as a
"big iPod" but does her grading and other administrative tasks on her
G3 iBook, the family Mac Mini G4, or even the
venerable Mac IIci/ImageWriter II
workstation that was our first Apple purchase ($25 in 2000, and the old
Mac had 11,000+ hours of service on it at the time). Typing is just a
nonstarter for her without an actual keyboard, and printing is easier
with any of her computers than it is with the iPad.
A very loose analogy might be drawn from our just-completed visit to
New Mexico. We took a course that followed old Route 66 from
Chicago west and back again. I prefer using "the Mother Road" to the freeways,
although for strict consumption purposes - crossing maximum space in a
minimum of time - the freeways work better. Our trip, in an
air-conditioned Buick, might be contrasted with two adventurers we saw
in an old Jeep. The Jeep had lettering on the side "From CA to PA in a
CJ." It had no top, thus no A/C, and we had 8+ hours of 110°F.
temperatures Tuesday when we were traveling the same stretch of road.
(They did have a tarp bungee-corded to the top of the Jeep for some
protection from the sun.) They were more in touch with the elements of
travel - stick shift, wind in their hair, etc. - while we had an iOS
experience driving a modern car with an automatic transmission, power
everything, and so forth, that "just worked," with minimal road feel or
interaction with the outdoors.
More automation makes for an easier experience,
but it comes at the expense of a richer experience....
The contracts - the old Route 66 vs. the interstate, the
air-conditioned car vs. the old manual-shift Jeep - parallel the
changes in how we interact with computer technology. More automation
makes for an easier experience, but it comes at the expense of a richer
experience, born of interaction with, and some measure of control over
the elements. I couldn't help but be a bit wistful as we left the old
Jeep behind for the last time. Even at 115°F (the hottest part of
the day), I could imagine myself enjoying the experience more if I'd
been driving the CJ, especially if I'd been taking it down the old road
next to the big freeway. In the same way, I prefer a production
machine, be it a WallStreet or a MacBook, to a consumption device that
limits my ability to decide how I'll use it, what I can put on it, and
makes servicing it a near-impossibility for the average user. (I feel
like I own the Wallstreet; with iOS devices, I feel more like a
"user".) Unless that changes, I'll continue to be a holdout from full
acceptance of the iOS way of computing.
Regards,
Lloyd
Hi Lloyd,
Thanks for the interesting observations and
analogies.
Like you, I would be torn between whether I would
prefer to be traveling Route 66 in the comfy Buick or the not-comfy but
more elemental CJ. My summer/winter daily drivers are a Mercury Grand
Marquis and an old '94 Mazda B4000 4x4 pickup respectively, which I
suppose speaks to the torn-ness. I love the big Merc, which has
refreshed my perception of full-sized American cars as being among the
most comfortable means of transport ever devised - at least that
ordinary people can afford. I think I would rate the 1973 Dodge Polara
I owned years ago as having the edge in comfort, but the 4.6 litre V8
in the Merc is a sweeter engine and gas mileage-wise in a whole
different dimension.
Not sure that the ancient CJ quite approximates the
full OS X Mac, though. My truck probably comes closer (and a late model
F-150 would even more so). But I get what you mean. When I need to get
some real work done, I want a truck computer.
Regarding control, you nailed the issue. As TidBITS'
Matt Neuberg commented
in a column last Friday lamenting the iOSification of OS X 10.7
Lion,
"Some people think of their computer as a Prius
hybrid; it's complicated under the hood, but in actual usage it just
works. I think of my computer more like an 1960s manual-shift VW
Beetle: it does what I tell it, and I can often repair it if things go
wrong. Lion makes me feel I'm being chucked out of the driver's
seat."
What he said. I really don't like where Apple is going
with Lion. The iOS is fine for iPads and iPhones, but I want my
computer to be a real computer with robust multitasking,
multiple applications running, and able to keep an eye on them
simultaneously with lots of open windows on the screen and none of this
fullscreen foo-fa-rah, applications opening and closing only
when I tell them so, ditto for saves, and so on. Full manual control.
Linux is looking better all the time.
Charles
Hello, Charles:
It's good to hear from you. I just finished reading your Lion column
on LEM before this email came in, by the way. I think along the lines
that you do. Lion is likely to drive me back to Ubuntu Linux, on
cheaper hardware than a MacBook, no less. I don't like "magic" devices
that only a priesthood of techno-experts can fix or that limit what I
can do with them. It's one of the reasons that I keep OS 9.2.2 on the
WallStreet, have a Newton, etc. (The
latter two would be better approximations for the ancient Jeep CJ,
too.) Apple's move to mass-market and up-market, the latter in a
serious way that virtually dictates upgrades on their schedule, is a
deal-breaker for me. (This puts me in an odd position, as, ironically,
I was recently put on the board of our local Mac user group.)
I'd add to the above this observation: 60+ page license agreements
for iTunes updates that I have to agree to in order to access the
company store, update the software, etc., are very Microsoft-esque. I
prefer open-source for several reasons, and lengthy tomes in legalese
are perhaps chief among them. While I don't necessarily have to go as
far as Mr. Stallworth in advocating 100% totally open-source software,
I do think that he's in the right, and I prefer his world to the one
that Apple is creating with iOS.
Regards,
Lloyd
P.S. Here is a link to the Jeep story - I Googled the "From CA to PA
in a CJ" verbiage and found this.
Like you with your Merc, I enjoy the old-school Detroit lead sleds
because of the comfort and space they provide the average Joe with. The
old Polaras, Furys, and other creatures of a bygone era did connect us
to the road more than their automatic-everything cousins of today ever
could, and I, too, miss that. If I had my druthers, there would be at
least one full-size sedan on the market with Grand Marquis/Park Avenue
comfort, but without the "standard" automatic transmission, power
doors, windows, steering or brakes, or auto-lock doors, while we're at
it. Fewer extras would mean a lower price, less weight, and fewer
things that could break, yet the ride would still be a smooth one.
One last thought about being on the road: If a latter-day Chaucer or
Longfellow had the opportunity to be stranded at a diner on Route 66
during a storm, think of the stories he (or she) could glean from
fellow travelers on the concrete river flowing through the heartland to
share with the world. It would make good reading.
Hi Lloyd,
I know the feeling. I'm not quite ready to jump ship
to Linux yet, especially if I can get non-Apple modem support to work
with Lion, which seems to be a go based on information sent by readers.
I have too many years invested in the Mac OS on Apple hardware to
contemplate giving it up lightly. It would also be reassuring if there
was some evidence that desktop Linux is gaining traction in the
marketplace, but regrettably the opposite obtains. I've been scanning
the
Hitlinks OS market share monthly metrics for years, and the
trajectory for the past couple of years has been mostly negative, with
Linux below one percent for six months or so now, while the iOS and
Android gobble up share. Like Dylan said, you don't need a weatherman
to know which way the wind is blowing. We'll see.
Thanks for the link to the CJ article. I love the
unretouched patches of surface rust!
It's very sad to see the big Detroit iron
disappearing. Speaking of which, this month marks a major part
milestone in that context. Ford is going to close down its plant in St.
Thomas, Ontario, which was the last redoubt of their body on frame
Panther
chassis manufacture (Ford Crown Victoria and Police Interceptor,
Mercury Grand Marquis, and Lincoln Town Car). Actually, the Grand
Marquis ended retail production in October 2010, while production for
fleet sales continued until January 2011. The last Grand Marquis built,
which was also the last Mercury ever produced, rolled off the St.
Thomas assembly line on January 4. The Grand Marquis was also the most
prolifically produced Mercury in the brand's 70-year history, built
from 1975 (not Panther until '79) to 2011. Indeed, the Panther platform
is Ford's longest-ever produced design, first launched in 1979, and,
according to Wikipedia, used longer (32 model years) than any other
platform in North American automotive history. It will be missed
profoundly by fleet operators and individual aficionados alike. The
front or all-wheel-drive Taurus and the various SUVs and crossovers
that Ford proposes as replacements just aren't the same. For an
affectionate retrospective, if you haven't already, check out this
article from automobile magazine by Joe Lorio,
Last Call for the Lincoln Town Car.
I'm guessing that Ford's domination of the police car
and taxi markets will end with the Panther discontinuation, especially
with General Motors and Chrysler still offering full-size rear wheel
drive alternatives to Ford's Taurus police cruiser. As an interesting
aside, although I'm not sure what it signifies, those surviving GM and
Chrysler full-size rear wheel drives are based on designs from
Australia and Germany respectively.
Charles
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