[MacDV] Re: The 20inch LCD Conspiracy

[Mike Stanley]

On Friday, January 31, 2003, at 09:28 PM, KathyMac! wrote:
> mentality. I understand everything you said but I think you clearly
> misunderstood my passion on the subject.

I do not understand your passion on the subject.  You seem to be 
demanding something that is completely unreasonable - perhaps to the 
point of being ludicrous.

>  In a nutshell, I'm for 100% truth
> in advertising and any way you slice it - the marketing of this 
> monitor has
> resulted in a bit of chaotic confusion and numerous questions (from the
> buying public as a whole), rather than useful and reliable information 
> in
> which an educated decision could be made regarding purchase.

Well, first of all I seriously doubt there is much confusion among the 
buying public as a whole.  A relatively small number of those Mac users 
who post to these lists and post to websites seem to have injected some 
confusion into the matter, but it seems to me (and others - even others 
who have participated in this thread) that Apple did as much as it 
could to *avoid* causing confusion.

I think some of you guys participating in these Macintoshguy lists 
think you're somehow the norm for Mac users - or general computer users 
for that matter.  You probably know how many PCI slots your computer 
has, what video card it has, how much ram, etc.  You probably update 
your software faithfully and can deal with at least minor technical 
glitches on your own.  In that respect many of you are like a number of 
PC users I know and work with - the uber geeks who build their own 
machines, compile their own Linux kernels, and write their own software 
to get their jobs done.  But you are *not* the buying public as a 
whole.  You're a very knowledgeable and experienced minority.

*You* want that list of tech specs under the 20" Cinema Display to list 
a bunch more information.  "Works with 9.2 and higher on G4 machines 
with AGP graphics with ATI or Nvidia cards with at least 32mb" - 
something like that and maybe more.  Probably alot more - because you'd 
want to know the various limitations you might run into - which 
resolutions will and will not work, etc.

But the bulk of the computer-buying public (yea even the anointed Mac 
faithful) doesn't want to see that - or if they did actually see it, 
they wouldn't know for sure one way or the other if they had the right 
system, the right OS, etc.  These are the people who, when they call 
their ISP to get technical support (I speak from first-hand experience) 
cannot even tell you if they have a Mac or PC, or if they can which OS 
they are running.  They don't want to see something as complicated as 
you seem to want - they want a yes or no answer, and for those who are 
still running OS 9 - they've got it - no.

It seems to me that what you want would cause much more confusion than 
you're perceiving in this situation.  Not only that, and this is 
something you seem to have ignored even though I'm not the only one who 
has mentioned it - it would create more support work for Apple and 
almost certainly result in at least some cases of mistaken purchases 
and hard feelings.  Apple has declared that this display requires 10.2 
- very clearly.  No confusion other than what some people want to 
inject into the situation.

> No, I don't want Apple to kiss my ass. No, I don't want special 
> treatment
> because I enjoy OS9.  I'm not crying for backwards compatibility 
> development
> of apps. In fact, I WANT them to keep moving forward and keep working 
> on X!
> Then when I have completely converted I'll enjoy it fully. In the 
> meantime,
> I just want my CHOICES to be mine and not feel manipulated in their 
> zeal to
> rule the world with OS X.

You're not crying for all that stuff - you're just assigning malicious 
motives to Apple and possibly other people who have moved on - as if 
denying you those choices even entered into the equation.  What I don't 
think you realize is you're being more and more removed from the 
equation - and until and unless you pay to stay in the game (by buying 
new machines and new programs and new OS's) - well, you should be.  OS 
9 support is irrelevant, by definition, with this product; you're the 
one who seems to be confused about that.