Charles on… anything that comes along

I’ll probably get a zillion letters telling me it’s my own fault, but in today’s Guardian I’ve noted how many people are considering downgrading to Tiger after having installed Leopard. I’m among them (though a wipe-and-clean install is also under consideration, and is what I would do first):

Britney Spears on her own forms a useful control group for internet searches. Let me explain: if you’re using a search engine to try to find out how many times some phrase is mentioned - let’s say it’s “downgrading to Tiger” or “downgrade to Tiger” - then to cross-check your numbers, see how many times the phrase “downgrading to Britney Spears” appears. That’s because it’ll tell you the baseline of chance hits for that phrase. (It’s zero.)

Why was I looking up “downgrading to Tiger”? Because I’m considering it. And it’s clear from the search that plenty of other people, having upgraded to Apple’s latest version of OS X, codenamed Leopard, are doing the same.

The trouble out there was summed up best by a note from the ur-blogger Dave Winer: he moved back to the Mac a year or two ago and lapped up Leopard. But he says he’s not enjoying it. He mentioned this to a friend, who replied dismally: “It’s like Windows”. As in crashes, stalls, freezes. That must have hurt in Cupertino.

It’s not just me - there are plenty of other people considering the same thing, if you have a look. Why has this happened? I think because doing the iPhone and Leopard in the same year has been too much of a software engineering effort for a company with a comparatively small engineering base (though of course throwing people at the job wouldn’t get it done faster, only bigger).

I’ve also looked at the row over Western Digital’s network hard drive that won’t let you share files over the internet - if you consider it, not many do, but WD was trying to get some value from a company it bought. Unfortunately, it’s turned out to be negative value:

What Western Digital is clearly worried about is that protectors of intellectual property - such as the big record labels and movie studios - might, if they found that its drive allowed people to share files with the whole world, sue Western Digital for aiding and abetting in piracy. Sensibly, it decided to avoid that outcome.

What wasn’t sensible, though, was deciding to offer the internet sharing option but to restrict it. With the wisdom of hindsight, what WD should have done is much simpler: not offer the internet sharing option at all. (Gizmodo found that not installing the Anywhere Access software did the trick nicely).

And I’ve also reviewed Sony’s Nav-U NV-U92T satnav, and looked briefly at Ask’s “AskEraser” idea - which is really just a way to grasp at market share.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Predictions for 2008: they're back! (6 January 2008; score: 41.99%)
• Just a quick question (or two) for Apple, from today's Guardian (1 November 2007; score: 39.96%)
• Leopard running slow on your ageing Mac? Here's how to speed it up: fewer colours (update: except Apple won't let you) (3 December 2007; score: 39.13%)