Worst of Apple's products

[Raghav Sam]

Amongst the ones I have used(both h/w and s/w), I feel QuickTime is the worst! Sluggish and featureless. Which one do you feel is the worst?

[Dean Fredericks]

This is not strictly and answer to your question.. more of a rant..

There iBook G3's where pretty terrible, suffering from a faulty logic board.. which cause the screen to go blank... not to boot, all sorts.

Id say the apple laptop range sucks as well. The 13.3 Macbook, is a size that doesnt suit everyone... they should have have kept a '12 for the people who want light weight, and a 14' for those wanting larger screen size. 13.3 is niether here nor there... and does suit users who want a light laptop, and doesnt suit users who want a bigger screen.

Dam you apple for having such a limited laptop range. I want a replacement for my 12' powerbook!!

[Bear Bibeault]

Are you talking about QuickTime the application, or the video platform? On OS X or Windows? In my opinion, QuickTime is an amazing and versatile video format, well-suited to a vast and broad range of applications. The player runs fine on OS X, but is a bit quirky on Windows. No surprise there. The Pro version is pretty full-featured. The non-Pro version is, not surprisingly, just a video player.

And, I loved my G3 iBook. Never had an issue with it.

Aplle product that I've liked the least? Probably iCal.

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

The iChicken. Hated mine. Didn't taste like chicken at all.

Then there was the iRack. Terrible product.

[marc weber]

Originally posted by Bear Bibeault:
...In my opinion, QuickTime is an amazing and versatile video format, well-suited to a vast and broad range of applications. The player runs fine on OS X, but is a bit quirky on Windows. No surprise there. The Pro version is pretty full-featured. The non-Pro version is, not surprisingly, just a video player...

That's my impression as well, so I'm a bit puzzled by Raghav's comments.

[marc weber]

The one thing I would mention is that a small percentage of media (commercially pressed CDs or DVDs) fail to mount, even when brand new. The problem discs fail consistently on my iMac, PowerBook, and my girlfriend's iBook. The Macs spin them around for quite a while, then eventually just spit them out. I don't know whether this is a hardware or software issue (failing to read or failing to recognize), but -- as much as I hate to say it -- these same discs work fine on my old Dell XP machine. (Again, this is a small percentage -- maybe 3-4% -- but when ripping hundreds of CDs, this amounts to a small stack of frustration.)

Another issue (that might be related?) is that blank media often can't be burned when trying to create a CD using iTunes. The error message says something about the laser not being able to calibrate for the media. I've tried several brands (Sony, TDK, Verbatim...). I've also tried a CD lens cleaner. The interesting thing is that if I keep trying, all the discs eventually work. It just takes several attempts sometimes.

[Deepak Bala]

Thanks for the link EFH. That was pretty hilarious !

[Raghav Sam]

Originally posted by marc weber:

That's my impression as well, so I'm a bit puzzled by Raghav's comments.

Okay, I have used it in Windows only. Most of the time I have used, it loads slowly and freezes. So may be its my bad experience. Compared to a RealPlayer I felt QuickTime was less feature-rich and I dont the like GUI as well. I have not tried the latest version, in fact I stopped using QuickTime long back and instead prefer Real player most of the time. Probably my irritation also comes because of the browser plugin issues. Never has it opened up when I wanted to watch a QuickTime movie.
[ June 06, 2007: Message edited by: Raghav Sam ]

[Anupam Sinha]

Ditto (for Raghav's post) though I avoid Real player as well.

[marc weber]

Originally posted by Raghav Sam:
...Okay, I have used it in Windows only...

Now that you mention it, when I used Windows, I do recall occasional problems with Quicktime files in webpages. But RealPlayer was far more problematic for me -- to the point at which I avoided Real files whenever possible.

But on the Mac, Quicktime is fast and smooth, and has never frozen on me. Surprisingly, RealPlayer even works flawlessly on a Mac.

[Bear Bibeault]

Originally posted by marc weber:
But on the Mac, Quicktime is fast and smooth, and has never frozen on me. Surprisingly, RealPlayer even works flawlessly on a Mac.

Gee, do ya think that software quirkiness might have something to do with the platform on which it is running?

Naw......

[marc weber]

Originally posted by Bear Bibeault:
Gee, do ya think that software quirkiness might have something to do with the platform on which it is running?

Naw......

Doh!

The thing is, I had convinced myself that the RealPlayer app was junk. Hmmm... A parallel?

[Raghav Sam]

There are few other players left which I could use:
Windows Media Player(which I dread to open due to obvious reasons)
WinAmp (I used to like the 2.x versions-simple and did the job well...but I lost interest in later versions)
Then there is the Google player..

On the contrary, I didnt like the earlier versions of Real. But now, it is the only reliable player for me. In all this may be the GUI interface has also a role to play. At work I use only VLC player. Just wondering why I didnt install this at home Have to get it. Just about plays anything without downloading additional s/w.

[Deepak Bala]

How about VNC media player ?

[Raghav Sam]

Did you mean VLC Media player which I already mentioned in my prev post? I am not able to find anything for VNC Media player.

[Frank Silbermann]

Saturday Night I saw an advertisement for the I-Rack. I think that's a candidate. Apple must have been one of MAD TV's sponsors that night.

[Deepak Bala]

Originally posted by Raghav Sam:
Did you mean VLC Media player which I already mentioned in my prev post? I am not able to find anything for VNC Media player.

Yep. Didnt see that some one else mentioned it. I like it

[Bill Mc Coy]

I think safari will soon join the list .
THis browser is too much a beta to be used.
This browser had bugs discovered by developers within a hour of its launch.
i think there are in some kinda race with MS as to who will develop the worst browser.

[Bear Bibeault]

That's why it's a beta.

The point that many people seem to be missing is that Safari was ported to Windows not to enter the browser foray, but to serve as a cross-platform development platform for the iPhone.
[ June 13, 2007: Message edited by: Bear Bibeault ]

[marc weber]

Originally posted by Bear Bibeault:
That's why it's a beta...

Exactly. Safari 2 is by far my favorite browser, but I have no desire to load a beta version of Safari 3.

[Raghav Sam]

Never used Safari, but the looks are cool. Will wait for a stable release to try it on my XP m/c.