Don’t you hate it when that happens? This particular wheel lasted for well over ten minutes–until I forced a restart on my MacBook Air 7,2. This is but another reminder of how much I’m gonna enjoy making this my last Apple hardware purchase (I spitefully hope). As far as MacOS goes, Apple has really dropped the lead ball and shown its corporate intentions with this once great computing platform. Obviously iOS is the future (for Apple). And that’s all fine and dandy–if you don’t mind obnoxious closed eco-systems and pseudo-computing. I’m just too old for that sort of thing. Seriously. I tried iOS. I purchased an iPad4 from Apple US refurbished store about three years ago. I used it on and off for about a year, testing if it could replace my 2010 13″ MacBook Pro. I bought a keyboard for it, too. Even typed a few thousands words on it. But was seriously no match for a real computer. The new iPad Pro is another story. My better half has one. Other than her work’s krappy use of spreadsheets and closed eco-system corporate communication, she uses her iPad for everything. It has replaced her use of a PC. My problem is, even after trying an older iPad and still using an iPhone is different. I just don’t like iOS. System upgrades on that platform are worse than on regular computing platforms. I’m assuming the reason for that is simple: they got you more by the balls with their closed eco-systems then they do with real computers. With every iOS update (especially on my iPhone 6s) I’ve never actually seen any improvement in the device. The only thing you get is the/a need to replace what Apple is making obsolete. Btw. When I started computing it was all about owning a device. It was about data being mine. It was about me being part of something as an individual. The thing is, I’m seriously not impressed anymore with the industries move away from personal computing to collective, eco-system digital consumption. But then again, I haven’t been impressed with an OS since I moved from WinXP to Mac Snow Leopard about ten years ago. With that in mind, I suppose my time is up. Indeed. Time to move on from Apple. Time to figure out how not to follow trends. I guess.
The pic above is from a system downgrade I did recently on my ageing MacPro which serves as my home network server. I was upgrading drive capacity and decided to do a clean install. I used to do them every year so this one was long overdue. While erasing and cleaning disks, I installed Snow Leopard 10.6.3 (yes, from original disks) for the heck of it. Nostalgia rules, baby. And boy does it still work great. Since I mainly use this device as a “headless” server for iTunes, Plex and file sharing, it’s not possible to keep Snow Leopard running. Also, even though I boot El Capitan from a PCIe SSD on the motherboard, the important stuff is on old fashion spinning drives. Apple’s High Sierra is using a new file system specifically for SSDs. Sure, the new file system will work with old spinning drives. But I’m not going there on this device. El Capitan is the end OS for this great machine which no existing NAS can replace. After it no longer works, then maybe I’ll just finally get to install Snow Leopard and do lots of nostalgic fiddling or maybe even turn it into a fish tank.
It’s such a shame that Apple and its Macintosh has gone down the road of suck.
Rant on.
-T
worstwriter 