Why Apple frustrates me. (Rant)

[sparks]

To make a long story short:

I have an old iMac at home. My sister has a new iMac at home. She wanted me to update and optimize the system for her so I asked her to bring it over to my place since I have broadband and she dosen't. I told her I didn't need the keyboard since I already have a Mac keyboard and mouse. Imagine my frustration when I discovered that there is NO physical CD eject button on the system. Seems the CD eject button is on the keyboard, the older iMac keyboard lacks this button. I just don't understand Apple's philosophy in building computers. It took me almost 10 minutes to finally eject the CD tray. Seems the OS has no command to do it, neither did the Apple DVD player, I had to finally install Toast Titanium through a share I created to my iMac and then use the eject comand from Toast. It was totally frustrating. I hope that I didn't overlook an easier way to eject the tray. I'm just used to pushing a button to get the CD tray to open.

 

[Fencer128]

I thought you could drag and drop onto the trashcan?

Andy

 

[sparks]

Only if there is a CD/DVD in the drive.

 

[GL]

Holding down F12 didn't open the CD tray?

 

[xXgambitXx]

yeah, the lack of a physical eject button really bugs me too.

the first time i used a zip disk in one of the macs at school, it took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to eject the stupid thing, made me feel really stupid.

 

[EdipisReks]

Originally posted by: sparks
To make a long story short:

I have an old iMac at home. My sister has a new iMac at home. She wanted me to update and optimize the system for her so I asked her to bring it over to my place since I have broadband and she dosen't. I told her I didn't need the keyboard since I already have a Mac keyboard and mouse. Imagine my frustration when I discovered that there is NO physical CD eject button on the system. Seems the CD eject button is on the keyboard, the older iMac keyboard lacks this button. I just don't understand Apple's philosophy in building computers. It took me almost 10 minutes to finally eject the CD tray. Seems the OS has no command to do it, neither did the Apple DVD player, I had to finally install Toast Titanium through a share I created to my iMac and then use the eject comand from Toast. It was totally frustrating. I hope that I didn't overlook an easier way to eject the tray. I'm just used to pushing a button to get the CD tray to open.

holding F12 should have done it.

 

[benjamit]

yea macs are suppose to be real simple to use

sometimes too simple

the platform is best learned when you know nothing about computers in the first place

 

[AmdInside]

I love their laptops but I will not pay any money to buy a an Apple laptop until they learn that users need two mouse buttons on a laptop to be efficient. It still boggles me that they are still using a single button even though their OS supports scroll wheels and two button mice natively. I know I can plug in an external mouse but you are not always on a flat surface when you are using a laptop. It reminds me of when they used the serial port for their printers for so many years. It made printing on Macs so damn slow.

 

[benjamit]

yea have having to carry an external zip for their notebooks since their cases dont support modular drives doesnt help either

 

[sparks]

My old iMac has an eject button, I wasn't aware that F12 would eject the tray. I'll have to give it a try. Thanks.

 

[50]

MAC's don't have one of those holes you can stick a paperclip in to emergency eject???

 

[benjamit]

some do but you have to open them up

 

[randomlinh]

i actually like the single click on the notebooks... on wintel laptops, i keep hitting the wrong/both buttons. it's become habit to hold down whatever and click.

 

[rivan]

Apple irks me in much bigger ways.

Mostly, there used to be a *reason* their hardware was more expensive than comparably performing PC stuff- they had their own bus designs, used very high quality hardware like SCSI drives, etc. Nowadays however they cobble their machines together using the cheapest ATA drives they can buy from IBM, low end video OEM video cards (GeForce MX, anyone?), and replaced ADB with USB.

Generally, these are good things and improvements to the machines, but they also cut the costs in developing new models significantly by using industry standards which enable them to use less expensive parts.

I'll reiterate that I think these are good things. Where my issue with the whole mess comes in is in the lack of any impact on the price of a new Mac. The iMac was an interesting attempt at pricing themselves into the mainstream, but it was unfortunately limited to appealing to people who were ok with a 15" monitor they couldn't upgrade - it was the toy computer you bought for your kids - not the one you expected to be able to grow with. Depending on when you price them in comparison to their new products coming out, you can expect to pay $700-$1500 more for a given Mac (iMacs & eMacs excluded) than for a PC that would perform comparably.

I'd have a Mac at home if the box would justify an extra 6 months of payments, it just doesn't.

 

[addragyn]

In addition to the F12 method mentioned.

You can hold the mouse button down when you restart.

You can jump into OF and eject it.

Go here for more.

 

[ViRGE]

rivan, just one thing to note about video cards. The cards themselves are not the same ones you put in your PC; they're specially built PCBs that carry the power nessisary for the ADC connection, along with USB. Supposedly, the chipset is also slightly different to compenstate for big/little endian issues.