iSync: Who stole my software?

I was totally appalled when I found that Apple ****** up my workflow without any good reason. I use isync to sync my calendar and my addressbook over onto my phone.

So Apple, you NEVER EVER want to **** with people's essential workflow unless it is absolutely necessary - and then if you do, you should WARN your customers! Just a little dialog box - we noticed you have isync configured for a device - this will no longer function after you upgrade to Lion. Do you want to proceed anyways?

Instead, Apple chose that theyd rather force consumers to buy an iphone. Btw, you cannot sync your addressbook with Google anymore either if you upgrade to Lion and enable icloud. Two stupid decisions where Apple gives priority to its own business interests (lock users into our ecosystem, push our own devices) over the consumer's interests (being able to continue syncing your data with competing hardware/webservices).

I will not be using icloud for anything, based on this scandalous experience with Apple.

The issue is not that I demand support from Apple, it is not whether isync/Front Row are useful programs. Keep your filthy hands off my fully paid software during a system upgrade - THAT's what I demand. If some of my old programs stop working, so be it and I'll deal with it.

When i bought my MacBook Pro, Front Row was a feature that partly made that decision. I also must have paid something for the remote. I have a current laptop model, yet cannot use my little piece of hardware any more. Why should I be forced to purchase Apple TV? Isn't that a kind of blackmail, or even extortion? I don't know what Apple are charging for a new front row remote but I think that I should get a refund for deliberately making a product obscelete. This probably applies to everything Apple have made since 1985.

Also, not being able to use Rosetta is disgraceful. I still have older software that uses it and a few games. I might ask Apple to refund the costs of those as well that I bought with good faith that I would be using it for years to come. Rosetta is software after all and could easily have been continued. Do Apple care about their customers' investments? Not a jot. There should be laws against what they are doing to protect the customers.

Personally, /care.

I never used FrontRow and if you're devastated about FrontRow leaving the building have a go at Plex and you'll be glad it did.
iSync I can understand people miss a little but with all the i-, A-devices around and a ton of other smartphones that can just sync OTA I can understand the move.
If I recall correctly iSync was also a left-over from the Carbon era so that might have been yet another reason to throw it out.

Phasing it out in this case is not an option. You can't tell fresh installs that they can't have iSync and that upgrades from Snow Leopard can. Besides that it will gigantically annoy a few people it creates a complete mess support-wise,. You'd need to distinguish between Lion - from Snow Leopard, Lion - from Snow Leopard from Leopard, Lion - from Snow Leopard from Leopard from Tiger configuration items in your CMDB and all possible iterations between them. It's a nightmare and one you really don't want to go into.

Don't think they should remove programs like this during upgrades. Better to phase them out by not including in new installs, and make them optional installs for an iteration or three. And I'm not talking about ancient third-party apps, we're talking about features that were bundled & preinstalled by default with relatively recent Leopard & Snow Leopard.

The answer to the question largely depends on whether Apple removes an application that you actually use. In my case I cannot say that I am sad to see the removal of Front Row or iSync. In the case of the latter it is something that I didn't use and in the case of the former it didn't really make things easier - even less so when Apple stopped providing Apple Remotes with new computers for free. Now that I have bought an Apple TV it is safe to say that Front Row has no place in my life.

I can't say I'm in support of a company taking such liberties with my software, whatever it may be.

I think there is a bigger issues here besides whether or not the lost applications have real value. Their value is subjective, and will be measured differently by different people. Those who use them, will miss them. Those who do not, will not. The issue that should be discussed is the loss of features, not the value of the lost feature.
The loss of an application such as Front Row limits the out of the box functionality of the computer. Yes, to many people, there are better alternatives to Front Row. For many others, Front Row was never used. These are valid points, but miss the larger point. I know several people who, in apartments, do not have a TV and use an 27" iMac with eyeTV. For these people Front Row was used daily to watch recorded shows as well as their iTunes Library. For them this is a step backwards. Again, I know installing Plex or XBMC will substitute fine, but that is not the point. The out of the box capabilities have been lessened. How many times have we all heard Steve Jobs say "it just works"? I recently purchased a Mac mini for my mother. She is 60, and not computer literate. She struggled for years in the no mans land of cryptic PC messages, and 3rd party drivers. She loves the ease of use of her mini. Until Lion, she has not had to install anything. It did everything she needed. I will be going over to her house tomorrow to set up Plex her. "It's so easy your mother can use it" just took a hit.
One of the biggest selling points for me when I was finally able purchased my first Mac was that I did not need a heap of 3rd party software to do what I wanted. Plug in my camera, it just worked. Plug in my scanner/printer, it just worked. My MP3 player (purchased pre iPod) it just worked. External hard drive, it just worked We have all heard Apple state that you can open the box and be on line doing what you want in minutes, with the understanding that with a PC you will first be installing 3rd party software and drivers before you can use the computer to do what you want. With the loss of Front Row, set up (for some people) will not be as easy as it was in Snow Leopard.
It is my view that Apple products, in the last 10 years, have been simple enough for moms, and powerful enough the professionals preferred them. Recently, there seems to be a narrowing the the span that Apple has been trying to reach. More and more reviews seem to mention the "Pro User" being left out, i.e. Final Cut, Aperture, ,Xserve, and the lack of updates to the Mac Pro. Now, the novice user seems to be falling off the other end of the product/software spectrum. It is, in my opinion, sad to see this occur to users on either side of the spectrum with Apple products.

Plaxo also uses iSync to keep my Address Book up to date.

I'm glad iSync is gone it didn't help with anything. It was junkware. I deleted in Snow Leopard anyways.

If Apple kept every deprecated program and backwards compatibility for old software platforms (PPC in this case) then OS X would be Windows all over again. Do we really need DOS compatibility? Mac users were outraged when Leopard dropped support for Classic apps too (not that 90% of current Mac users even know what OS 9 is!) but time went on and people got over it or stayed on the platform that ran the software they needed, or dual-booted. Good software titles will be updated; and it's not like Apple hasn't been hinting at this for quite sometime. The fact that additional software (Rosetta) was required to be installed in order for PPC apps to work in Snow Leopard was a BIG hint that Lion wasn't going to support it at all. Apple is about moving forward, and not taking the past with it.