Apple is the new Microsoft

Get over it. We're Apple.

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Starting our fourth decade: Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously online for 31 years

Apple is the new Microsoft, or why I ended up with a Mac that couldn't shoot straight

November 16, 2014

By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2014, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2014, The Post-Standard

Note from a reader below.

Apple has a new operating system for its popular Macs. I'd love to tell you how it works and whether it's any good.

I'd love to. But I can't. When I installed the new operating system, which Apple calls Yosemite, my computer acted like I'd just tried to choke it to death. It gagged and seemed ready to barf. It lost the Wi-Fi connection every time it booted up or woke up from sleep. It sometimes paused for more than a minute when I tried to do essential things. It was unstable all the time.

Faced with this disaster -- after all, this was the computer I write with, the one I do research on -- I did two things. I checked Apple forums on the web to see if others were having the same problems, and then, when that was confirmed, I decided to revert to the previous operating system, which Apple calls Mavericks.

Sorry. I wasn't being exactly straight with you. I did another thing. I said some bad words. A lot of bad words.

Before I go on, let me explain something old-time Mac owners already know. In the good old days, when you bought a Mac, you paid more and got more, especially in terms of stability. Windows computers could sputter and stall as much as they wanted to. Macs would sail on. Updates were nothing; you could do them while napping.

That was the glorious past.

I have to explain something else. Apple no longer believes its users have a right to back out of an upgrade. I'm not teasing or kidding. Apple provides no way whatsoever to do this. Own a Mac and decide to upgrade the operating system? Look, pal, we tested it and it's great. Or we thought we tested it. No matter. Get over it. We're Apple.

No. You're Microsoft. The old Microsoft. The guys that couldn't shoot straight. The company behind those awful versions of Windows that came before XP. Microsoft before it grew up.

Like that old version of Microsoft, you're pushing software out the door before it's tested and ready. And you're not very good at testing it anyway.

Back to reality. As I said, Apple makes no effort to find a way for Mac users to revert to a previous operating system. The Mac actually refuses to let you install an older version. (This is still hard for me to believe, and I'm a tech guy and longtime Mac user!)

So I wiped everything off, found an old clone of my entire system on a spare hard drive and dribbled it over to my computer's boot drive. I ended up with what my computer was like before I lost my mind the other day and trusted Apple. I didn't lose much, maybe a bunch of notes and some photos. But mostly I lost a lot of confidence in Apple.

So, ahem. welcome to Yosemite, Apple's latest operating system! It's great!

So they tell me.

Note from a reader

I heard from many readers with the same problem, and from a few that had no problems at all. This is from a Syracuse resident.

Al,

My experience with Yosemite dittoes yours exactly.

My screen would intermittently jitter, goto locations would appear then disappear just as quickly, random screens would appear when I pushed a submit button. In the past two weeks, I have been to the Apple Store Genius Bar twice [they thought I had a harddrive drive problem], to their nearby tables for a two-hour overhaul of my files once, talked to Apple Support countless hours [over a dozen] trying to revive my iPhoto files -- all because I downloaded Yosemite; and after formatting my computer, the AppleStore downloaded Yosemite again so I could reload from Time Machine.

My iPhoto is still completely scrambled [I had, in the weeks before Yosemite, spent at least 30 hours cataloguing events and faces of my 13,000+ pictures — all the cataloguing is gone]; my Painter 12 program won’t run -- an “error 20” message appears [I had to buy the new Painter 2015]; my Time Machine files are two-thirds inaccessible, and (the scam "search site") Trovi just today popped up again on my browser location bar.

But what about all those small businesses that depend on their Macs?

I am asking you to please call for a file of those persons affected as we were. Maybe we can overwhelm Apple with a large number of disgruntled users.

So I again went through the process they recommend on Apple Support Communities, a process the AppleStore guy took me through Thursday afternoon. I went to http://discusions.apple.com/thread/6671501?start=0&tstart=0. I will probably have to repeat the process, maybe often. (That support page was unreachable when I tried it. -- Al.)

BTW I previously had MacKeeper on and ran it often. Apple is suggesting MK had something to do with the Trovi invasion. (Not possible -- Al.)