In this article, the author initially totes the party line, but read down and you'll find where he glosses over what must be a lot of complaints with a quote from Doug Willen the Information Technology Services manager: "... the upgrade will allow all users to have improved security, faster response, more up-to-date software, and a state-of-the-art public computer system," blaming the slow logins on: "System load, viruses, and new computers all play a part..."

The alleged big security problem they have that OS X apparently solves is that it will auto-delete any files created by students on public use computers, thereby protecting them from themselves, I suppose, or perhaps to keep the public iMacs pristine and have more remote control.

I would love to read a follow up article in a month or three, to see if those complaints abate, ...or continue and perhaps even increase.

The link to the article appears to be working again now, in case anyone wants to read it.

In addition to allowing more management control,....


Neo, this sort of thing is exactly what I predicted an said about OS X three years ago. To me it was easy to see that the status of the Macintosh end user was shifted downward within the structure of the OS. This was done to appeal to the corporate and institutional buyer. Being able to exert managerial control over the end user is a large selling point to these entities.

Here we have an article, not just reporting that management is able to control Macintosh users, but bragging about it. It's a new and wonderful feature. Notice that in the whole tone of the article Macintosh users are no longer independent people making their own decisions. They are faceless consumers and decisions must be made for them, top-down, from management. And now finally, with OS X, Apple has made it possible to do this to Macintosh users; bring them into the 'modern world' for their own safety and security.

Looking at OS X, I believe Apple views even single computer users the same way. They are merely consumers within the structure of the OS and top-down decisions must be made for them.

Apple is not the same company that designed and marketed the Macintosh. It has the same name, but it is not the same company. Back then is was a rather small company trying to gain a foothold and battling multi-billion dollar, multinational corporations. These large corporations had a view of computing that meant large main frames with dumb terminals all controlled at a central point. They believed in this model because that's how they themselves are structured. The model itself reflects institutional structure and how things get done within them. Small companies like Apple and others threw a monkey wrench into this model by selling personal computers and empowering the end user. People bought them and even brought them to work in order to get around the centralized control.

People who manage billion dollar, multinational corporations believe in centralized control because they know it is the truth of the world. It is the truth of their world. How could anything really get done without it? To them, people who don't see this universal truth are just plain wrong. It's a fact. An unshakable, self-evident fact. The only alternative is chaos.

Apple is no longer a small company and hasn't been one for many years. It is a billion dollar multinational corporation. It has the same name, but it isn't the Apple you remember from your youth. Beseeching this established, giant corporation to do what the young Apple Computer did is folly. It makes as much sense as, back in the past, demanding those mainframe makers abandon what they were doing and believed in, and give you the tools to cut their throats. A billion dollar corporation pulling in millions for its main stockholders is not going to rock the boat very hard. Managers at billion dollar corporations are not happy to see hammers thrown into the faces of billion dollar corporations. Apple is a billion dollar multinational corporation.

This is pretty gloomy, but hey, all is not lost. Maybe if enough thalos send in enough of their heartfelt reports some authority at Apple will come to understand and issue a top-down directive for the marketing department to get right on the problem. They might hold some high level meetings and hash out some features that may be included in the OS to give customers what's needed; an illusion of freedom. Maybe then they could put together a few ads that explains how the end user can delude himself into think that he's in charge of things by using this product. This is probably the very best an established billion dollar corporation like Apple could do. Even that sounds a bit risky. It would just be pandering in any case. After all, to any such institutional entity, the unshakable, self-evident, universal truth is the world works by centralized control and that is precisely the way computers must work. There is no other way. Every other way is just chaos.

quote:

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Apple is not the same company that designed and marketed the Macintosh. It has the same name, but it is not the same company. Back then is was a rather small company trying to gain a foothold and battling multi-billion dollar, multinational corporations. These large corporations had a view of computing that meant large main frames with dumb terminals all controlled at a central point. They believed in this model because that's how they themselves are structured. The model itself reflects institutional structure and how things get done within them. Small companies like Apple and others threw a monkey wrench into this model by selling personal computers and empowering the end user. People bought them and even brought them to work in order to get around the centralized control.

People who manage billion dollar, multinational corporations believe in centralized control because they know it is the truth of the world. It is the truth of their world. How could anything really get done without it? To them, people who don't see this universal truth are just plain wrong. It's a fact. An unshakable, self-evident fact. The only alternative is chaos.

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Absolutely in-a-nutshell brilliant, HH. The only problem with your synopsis is that Apple was always top-down in the way they went about things (and what business isn't to some extent?). And you particularly have to be that way when you're envisioning a product that users (or the rest of the industry) could never conceive of. And as the Mac progressed and was refined the same thing was needed. A cadre of very talented and highly-specialized people at the top made decisions concerning the interface and the OS that would affect a lot of people. Sure, there was a lot of user and developer feedback (and, I think, for the most part, Apple kept a receptive ear). The difference is that the early Apple had its eye more directly on other things than profit or market share. Yes, these things would be the result and rewards for work well done. But the goal of the Mac team was to reinvent computers and put the power into the hands of the user.

I love your line about people bringing their Macs to work to escape centralized control. That's exactly what happened and, I suppose, this is exactly the game at thalo.net. It's extremely ironic (and quite funny at times) to see people so accepting of Apple's centralized control (and their control is about control for no other purpose than control: see Finder fonts, drop shadows, stripes, etc.). And yet they seem to accept this control in the name of freedom, because, as we all know, the Mac must survive in order to keep choice alive. Big friggin' deal if all you have left to choose from are two different flavors of control.

Explain to me how Apple has taken control out of the hands of the end user with Mac OS X.

In reality Mac OS X gives the end user more control than they have ever had before.

What Mac OS X gives the corparate world is a viable alternative to windows to fit into their world.

How this takes control out of the hands of the consumer is amiss to me.

Apple supplies the end user consumer with iApps which means they have abandoned the Pro market. Apple gives a whole suite of tools for corparate use to better manage their machines makes Apple uncaring to the end user.

What is the catch-22?