Apple hangs Mac users out to dry too often!
By Triston McIntyre
Looking back at my article about the April ‘07 security update, I realize perhaps I was a tad too excited; If you don’t know already, there’s a small epidemic of random wireless and proxy problems that have accompanied the April update. If you haven’t updated, don’t!
I must say I was a bit perturbed to find my wireless connectivity acting a bit..sketchy, as of late. In fact, I was having problems loading pages such as Google, Google Images, Adium, and others.
Originally I attributed the problem to my near-simultaneous install of Peer Guardian, thinking that perhaps the software designed to mask my IP was irritating my sensitive network settings, so I uninstalled it. Unfortunately that didn’t fix the problem.
Not until Saturday evening did I realize that the problem was no fault of my own (aside from being a good Mac citizen and installing all updates unquestioningly). Apparently many users have had similar problems resulting from the updates for Airport, proxies, and so on.
If you don’t believe me, you are more than welcome to vist Mac Fixit, who has kindly documented all the ways to reverse or aid the effects of the April update here. Though cleaning caches should do the trick for some people, I was unfortunate enough as to have to perform the ole’ archive and install (which saves your files, settings, etc, and then reformats the operating system to an earlier version).
Let me tell you, as a Mac lover, this was no walk in the park; not because it was particularly difficult, but because I never expected to face such problems with my beautiful Macbook. In the end, I was forced to do the rollback and clean out those nasty caches to reverse the effects of the update.
I hate to say it, but Apple isn’t always right; in fact, many times Apple is slow to respond to user feedback. Though this hasn’t been widely reported anywhere, in addition to the battery issues, Apple has been a bit lax in its response to consumer problems.
One such problem I have experienced (and am most likely still experiencing) is a flickering display on my Macbook. A little over a month ago, I was doing my work peacefully, when my screen began to flicker ever so slightly. I didn’t think about it until the flicker got substantially worse.
I visited Mac’s help site and found only a lone forum with thousands of posts of users experiencing the same problem. Apparently, Apple help will not recognize the problem, telling users to take it to their local Mac stores for a consult.
To the dismay of many of those users, they would arrive to the Mac store, and Geniuses would either deny they saw any problem, or the problem wouldn’t occur during their visit, so nothing could be done.
The only way users found to remedy the problem was to demand Apple replace the inverters in their laptops, which generally solved the issue; unfortunately, many of those same users were actually writing in again in later posts to describe the recurrance of the problem!
Luckily for me, my problem has subsided, which is a tad disconcerting; I think the problem could have been attributed to using my laptop for 10+ hours daily (what do you want, I’m a college student and a writer!) without shutting it off. Word to the wise; turning off the lappy every now and again can only help it.
Longtime Mac users know the machines aren’t without flaws; to the Mac noobs amongst us, be an attentive Mac user. Just because the machines are amazing doesn’t mean they don’t have issues, and just like anything else, don’t assume they will run perfectly every time!
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