Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Peripherals, Wireless, Cult of Mac, iTunes, Apple
The bright side of owning a Mac
This morning when my alarm clock went off (playing some Harold Budd) I was reminded how things have changed over the years for Mac users.My alarm clock is a Logitech Squeezebox Boom, a well reviewed product that will wirelessly stream your iTunes playlists, give you access to thousands of internet radio stations, wakes you up, puts you to sleep, and does it with good quality audio. It's basically a Squeezebox with speakers in a clock radio form factor. It has an extensive feature set, and like other Squeezebox products, can be controlled or re-programmed from Safari or Firefox from anywhere in my house.
Not too many years ago, a cool new product would come out, and the chances of it working with a Mac was pretty slim. In the mid nineties, when Michael Spindler, Gil Amelio and friends just about destroyed Apple, we Mac owners were pretty much on our own.
Now, companies are falling all over themselves to make nice with Macs, iPods and iPhones. Walk into any electronics store, or even a department store, and marvel at the gaggle of products that boast about how compatible they are with Apple. Long time owners of Macs will remember those dark days when nothing mated to an Apple product other than a SCSI drive.
While new owners of Apple products take this interoperability for granted, it wasn't always that way. Since we're talking about Logitech, take a deep look into its catalog. Mice, Harmony remotes, webcams, keyboards and of course the Squeezebox are almost universally friendly to Apple products. Many other companies are also on board. Even some of the Microsoft keyboards and mice advertise Mac compatibility. What's this world coming to?
How about you? Do you remember the days of near-zero compatibility? Are you thrilled about how things have opened up? Think there is still a long way to go?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Michael said 3:54PM on 4-23-2009
i had a pc transporter card in my IIGS so i could run DOS based applications.
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jtnessler said 6:42PM on 4-23-2009
I once went to Circuit City and asked whether a mouse was macintosh compatible. The store clerk openly laughed at me and said, "I suggest you get a real computer".
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bailorg said 10:45PM on 4-23-2009
I'd consider giving that clerk a piece of your mind the next time you return to that store . . . oh, wait . . . nevermind :)
Rob Conway said 4:03PM on 4-25-2009
i might have spit in his face. really, my daughter is looking quizzically at me because of my violent reaction to your comment. i'm usually pretty rational and level.
gariphic said 4:11PM on 4-23-2009
Hooray for Mac Plug'n'Play!
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Joanna D said 4:24PM on 4-23-2009
More than anything else, I think Logitech and Microsoft's Hardware Business simply looked for an opening elsewhere as the Windows market for peripherals is incredibly crowded. It's a good thing they did because Apple's mice are terrible in comparison.
On the flipside though, don't expect them to keep supporting these products. When Snow Leopard or another OS update arrives it will no doubt break any software required to make them work and there won't be updates to solve the issues. I've got two printers which have published drivers for 10.2 and no way to get them to work on my current MacBook.
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Zimmie said 4:35PM on 4-23-2009
I've actually noticed that a lot of companies are making parts that use standard drivers. For example, my Logitech G5 laser mouse presents itself as a standard five-button mouse with two scroll wheels to the OS. I don't have to care about drivers, since they don't give me much of anything I don't get from the OS.
Tony said 5:16PM on 4-23-2009
The big change came when the iMac went to USB only for peripherals. Suddenly, everyone started writing drivers for the Mac. (At the time USB was an afterthought on Windows machines, so mfg's like Canon and HP knew they could sell more printers if they started writing Mac drivers...)
BBanzai said 4:45PM on 4-23-2009
I find I must disagree. Logitech is definitely NOT the most Mac friendly company in the world. Most of it's keyboards are Windows only, very often it's driver software is subpar and buggy (check the forums on Logitech for confirmation) and when asked for fixes to these things, often Mac user are told "soon".
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chefgon_ign said 11:04PM on 4-23-2009
It's the same story on Windows. Logitech is a HORRIBLE software company. Their hardware rocks, but their drivers and software are always bloated, buggy, and frustrating no matter what OS you're running.
Victor said 5:29PM on 4-23-2009
I think the increased compatibility with Macs have had to do with increased usage of network technolgoies (like, the squeezebox can be configed from basically any browser) due to the advent of the internet.
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Bhima said 5:32PM on 4-23-2009
I am a mac user and I also own a Squeezebox Boom. Without a doubt this is the single most frustrating device I have bought in a decade. And the failures are all down to design choices.
It is not iTunes compatible but does coexist temperamentally with it. Maintaining a 2nd metadata database creates more problems than it solves.
The "never write to the iTunes database" makes it impossible to use in a way analogous to an iPod, particularly with tracks which you want re remember the position of or number of times played.
My greatest hope is that someone writes a Songbird plugin which replaces Squeezecenter completely.
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morelation said 8:48AM on 5-05-2009
A few months ago I thought about to get the Squeezbox for my bedroom. But I also own some of the airtunes receiver in my house witch are connected to stereos or desctop-speakers like from bose. The only disadvantage is, you can´t change the music from bed without a remote (like an iphone). Explainig my not-so-techy-girlfriend on how to do that let my looking for alternatives. That´s why I was funny about the Squeezbox. But I´m afraid it doesn´t support the airtunes-standard. That´s too bad! Someone has a better idea?
timepilot84 said 6:59PM on 4-23-2009
So, the bright side of owning a Mac is that you get some of the compatibility that Windows users have had for the last 30 years? Sign me up!
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glad said 6:07PM on 4-23-2009
I can remember trying to get my 7500 mac (bought it in 1999/2000?) and trying to get an ordinary 28k modem to work with it, which i managed to do using a number of mac leads. Webcams forget it. I can also remember the delight when my cable company NTL actually had a Mac software disk to allow me to get onto the internet, which at the time was pretty rare and that was only in 200. My how times have changed
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NoAndThen said 11:20AM on 4-24-2009
Yeah, tech used to be so slow in 200!
;)
Patrick said 1:22PM on 4-24-2009
Either you bought a six year old machine in 2000, or your memory is a bit compressed. the 7500 is a 1995 vintage Mac.
Simon Arch said 11:57PM on 4-26-2009
I had a PowerMac 7500 which I bought for $600 from Smalldog (arf!) in 1998. That was a great machine, especially when I upgraded from a 100mhz PPC 601 to a 200mhz PPC 604. I never had any problems getting it online with my 56k Zoom modem. Ah, those were the days.
Shunnabunich said 6:39PM on 4-23-2009
I suppose I'm not old enough to have been a part of those days, but I think you're seriously overestimating the amount of interest or effort being devoted to Mac compatibility by peripheral makers. Most basic devices like keyboards and mice work with Macs only because they happen to use USB, a bandwagon Apple was smart enough to jump on (and push) back in the days of the original iMac. Any software or driver support that big players like MS and Logitech provide is a token gesture at best, and I doubt there's any more behind that Mac compatibility logo on the box than someone saying "hey Frankie, plug this into your old Pismo and see if it types anything before I stick it in the box, eh?".
Graphics cards are a whole seething mess of their own. There is literally no physical reason a Mac Pro owner shouldn't be able to walk into a PC store, buy a video card off the shelf, slot it into his machine and install the Mac drivers for it. Except, oops, the Mac drivers were never written — were never going to be written in the first place. That would've redirected valuable developer time away from ensuring full DirectX 17.12397 SP1 compatibility.
Naturally, it still all boils down to the root problem of Microsoft sincerely believing that they're a worldwide government, and tech companies everywhere doing their bidding like good little social workers.
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Shunnabunich said 6:42PM on 4-23-2009
Little did he know that his fake [rant mood="pasv-aggr" cite="none"] [/rant] HTML tags would be coldly silenced by the steely-eyed, mechanical intellect of TUAW's comment system.