Steve Jobs’ infamous reality distortion field is a powerful thing. I almost get sucked into it on a semi-regular basis. My last Macintosh was a “WallStreet” PowerBook. I loved it, but it was pre-OS X and I hated its crash-prone operating system. It wasn’t uncommon for it to crash five or six times a day. Every day. Two years ago, I switched to a Sony laptop running Windows 2000 Professional and now Windows XP Professional. I’ve had a few nasty crashes that have required re-installation; probably because of something I did. That said, I never had to reinstall a complete Mac environment on any Macintosh I owned from 1986 – 2000). But with the modern versions of Windows, day-to-day operations were and are crash-proof, if mostly boring.
But I’ve looked back plenty. When the TiBook was first released, I was convinced I’d made a terrible, treasonous, mistake. Same when OS X 10.1.x became seriously stable. “If only there were OS X versions of Visio and a modern Microsoft Project…” I’d say to myself. Every time I think it’s time to return to the Macintosh fold (I really miss BBEdit and the elegance of a lot of Macisms; almost enough to make up for the absence of Visio and Project), Apple does something insanely stupid.
This was another one of those days. Last weekend Apple released OS X 10.2. Word on the street is that it’s faster and there are minimal compatibility issues. The reality distortion field — or rather, my susceptibility to it — is ratcheting up like a jack. “Click. Click. Click.” Notch after notch. Then, suddenly, in one sickening screech, the jack falls below the first notch, tips over, and lies there in the gravel, useless.
Apple’s lawyers recently went after one of its few dealers, Other World Computing, alleging that a patch to Apple’s iDVD burning software is a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
iDVD, you see, allows users to burn DVDs only on Apple’s internal Superdrives, not on external drives manufactured by third parties. Other World Computing began bundling a product called DVD Enabler with its external FireWire DVD-R/RW drives. DVD Enabler patches iDVD so it will write to an external FireWire drive. Apple took exception to that and had the attack-dog lawyers threaten one of its partners. Other World Computing promptly backed down, saying it never intended to offend the great Oz.
The DMCA, as bad a law as it is, was never intended for this kind of application. Specifically, the law prohibits software that is “primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner.” It’s quite a stretch for Apple to claim that DVD Enabler circumvents any “copyright protection.”
What this is really about is Apple wanting to obsolete its computers as quickly as possible, with the strategy that its user base will scurry out and buy new machines. Just like when Apple specifically engineered its computers so CPU upgrades wouldn’t work. Don’t fall for it.