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Dam brother, you cant dig Apple enough can you?  I dont know if this is a serious post or not?  Its almost scarry...or comical your blatant distaste for Apple.

Yeah I think Apple is mocking the "Handicapped", and because there are so many of them lined up for this movie on Apple TV...Steve Jobs should resign after a public apology.

Wow slow news day I guess.  Either that or food poisoning?

Let me guess Lindy - you've never had a person who is deaf or hearing impaired in your family or as one of your close friends.

If you had, you would understand Paul's frustration.

jono1.....no I do have a very close cousin that is deaf.  She is quite an amazing person I must say.

That said, I doubt she is waiting for the GREAT BLOCKBUSTER, Academy AWARD WINNING, Ratatouille.  Nor does she have Apple TV, or any device that would use iTunes save for her PC, and even then she does not use her PC for media other than print.

Nor would she think "Apple is STILL lying about closed captioning in Ratatouille"!!!!!!!!!  She would figure like most rational people that Apple has either made a mistake, based on its size and all that is going on to get this to market, or will at some point have a CC version of this movie.

I am going to go out on a limb here, and wager that this will not be on any other IT news site, or blog.  I would also wager that if Paul saw a add or demonstration of a beta product given by Mr. Gates that did the same thing that he would NOT state so passionately “Microsoft is STILL lying about closed captioning in SOME CARTOON”.

It’s Apple.  He likes to beat up on Apple in a dramatic way.  Then love some of their products, then hate them, then love them.  iPhone anyone?  He is all over the map back and forth, Zune/no Zune?  FireFox, no FireFox.  That said it’s entertaining in a Microsoft Apologetic sort of way.

Lets be real for a one second shall we?  It’s a brand new product/offering (movie rentals/Apple TV 2.0), that probably is owned by less than 1% of 1% of the US population.  It’s a cartoon and Apple is not lying or mocking the handicap, for the love of God.

I don’t know which is more crazy…..9/11 orchestrated by our own US government or Apple lying about CC on this cartoon to mock the handicap????  Maybe I am the crazy one?

But hey to each its own, and I love free speech.  Heck he could probably file a class action suit against Apple, and win some money these days.

Lindy, I think you're missing the point. I don't think Paul is specifically upset because the film in question is Ratatouille.

I see what Paul is getting at, and it does seem quite disappointing on Apple's part. If they are going to claim great support for closed captioning, they should at least have their facts right about their own services.

The amount of negative Apple posts on this blog is quite amazing. It's obvious it's biased and unbalanced. I mean, come on, nothing negative to say about Microsoft? I guess what they say is true; don't bite the hand that feeds you.

And in other news, MICROSOFT IS STILL LYING about their Xbox 360 FAILURE rate, causing millions of people to replace their Xbox 360 in upwards of 10 times.

Yeah...big issue here. Paul...it's evident that you don't like Apple. I believe you just post the occasional good article about Apple to make it "appear" that you are not biased.

Ok, Paul is a Microsoft guy. Paul also reviews Apple products. I have been reading Paul's articles and blogs for I think 10-15 years now.  Paul calls Microsoft out plenty of times.  Why just look at the article below this one on how he rags on IE7's UI.

Ok. I really think all your super duper Pro-Apple fanatics might want not to keep reading Paul's blogs. Why? Because he does call Apple out on it's failings as well as Microsoft. But the difference is, when Paul calls out Apple, you fanatics react as though someone just punhced your wife or little sister.  Get over it! Do you really believe your God Steve would even piss on you if you were on fire? I'm going to let you Apple fanatics in on a secret: Steve Jobs doens't give a sh*t about you. Steve only wants your money. LIke every other company does.

So, get over your rants.  By the way, I just bought an iPod Touch and I didn't have to pay the $20! HA-HA! on you!

mdsharpe....yeah it was never the movie per say.  It was the fact that he thinks they are lying too or mocking deaf people.  It’s a farfetched, baseless claim, that clearly shows his bias.  His movie choice to whine about just made the whole thing even more ludicrous.

Like another poster had said, MS flat out lied about the 360 and its problems and only did something before it lost serious money.  They probably still will.  I know I have had 2 360's go RROD on me.

It looks like Apple has no control over CC in a movie...

discussions.apple.com/message.jspa

That took 6.3 seconds to lookup in Google, and 19.4 min in LIve search:)

I have to agree that Paul is being VERY negative towards Apple these days.  I listen to his Podcast and appreciate that his son has a hearing problem.  But the wording of this post is just way too over-the-top.  Man, without even trying hard, I can think of 20-30 things that Microsoft has done that is WAY MORE bone-headed than this...  And that is just when it comes to Vista.  (SP1 speeds up file copies but slows down USB copies by 50%!)

"Because he does call Apple out on it's failings as well as Microsoft. But the difference is, when Paul calls out Apple, you fanatics react as though someone just punhced your wife or little sister."

He never says Gates or Ballmer is lying - when they have made many outright, knowingly false statements.  He just "corrects" them.

The real problem is that Paul is working real hard to "show" that Apple is somehow just "as evil" as MS.  The truth is that is not the case.  I'm not sure MS is really evil - they just put making $$$$ above all else.  Including the interests of consumers.  In many, many respects, MS business model is directly against the interests of consumers. They get a monopoly, maintain it through anti-consumer  lock-in strategies, and then extract very excessive profits (80 percent on Office anyone?)

While Apple is actually interjecting competition, in an industry that really needs it at this point.  I mean - look what Apple has done to the phone?  Whether you want an iPhone or not, I don't think anyone would argue that what Apple has done will not help consumers in the mobile phone area.

So Paul has this obsession with trying to show apple is "evil".  It doesn't reallyl work Paul.  Sure, they do things that are wrong.  All companies and all people do things that are wrong.  But some are better than others, and when it comes to doing things that are in the interests of consumers, apple is at one end of the spectrum and MS is at the far end of the other.  Paul - I realize the fact that you income depends so much on MS makes this hard to recognize.  But it's the simple truth.  You just have to face it.

"The real problem is that Paul is working real hard to "show" that Apple is somehow just "as evil" as MS.  The truth is that is not the case.  I'm not sure MS is really evil - they just put making $$$$ above all else."

This kind of thing is ridiculous.  The simple fact that you somehow believe Apple doesn't live by this mantra is evidence that you're just as biased as you claim Paul to be.  Do you have any idea how much money Apple makes on every iPhone?  Obviously not, else you'd probably not have made such a silly claim about MS.

I've never posted here, but I am a long-time reader, and 2 things amuse me:

1 - Paul's blog posts criticizing Apple garner FAR more comments than those criticizing Microsoft.  And there is certainly no shortage of either type of blog post.  You sycophants might perceive a difference, but I think that has more to do with you looking for bias, rather than bias actually existing.

2 - Both companies suck.  Both companies have hardware & software problems, and both are in the business of making money.  To suggest Apple has some morally-superior motive is both incorrect and evidence of your own bias.

Get over yourselves.

Paul have you contacted Randi Wolfson at Apple (PR) about your concerns directly?

Phone: 408.862.1225

randi@apple.com

I'm not sure what the mac-loverboys are offended about with regards to the Mac reviews, nor why they are "all negative". Was it the 4/5 rating for Leopard? Maybe the 4/5 for the newest iTunes. Paul (and other primarily PC reviewers) aren't afraid to give Mac products good reviews, but unlike the Cult of Mac, are not afraid to slam a mediocre product (Office '08 for Mac was designed by who?).

Furthermore, why are you CRITICIZING someone for changing their stance on a product? Isn't that... rational? Assume for a moment that you buy a new car that is all the rage, only to find after a month of use that it gets poor gas milage and never stays clean. Would you revise your estimations of your car? Accusing Paul of flip-flops only demonstrates that the macworld only respects knee-jerk praise for a product. Perhaps you missed where Paul said he intends to revise the iPod touch review upward after use. Same with the iPhone. Recognizing benefits of a product after use is the sign of an honest reviewer, NOT someone who is a talking head for a particular company. If you worry about bias, an introspective gaze might be of benefit.

One last comment about the altruistic Apple business model -- if this is true, why did Jobs have to be dragged kicking and screaming to give up DRM on iTunes? Why proprietarily force consumers into particular products, if the bottom line isn't money? The empirics of the situation disprove your thesis.  

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befuson, you echo what i have said before, and that is when you are looking for bias, you will probably find it.  The Apple people think that they are totally unbiased and rational in all decisions, but this is not the case in any way, shape or form.  For BOTH camps.  

"I'm going to let you Apple fanatics in on a secret: Steve Jobs doens't give a sh*t about you. Steve only wants your money. LIke every other company does."

Exactly.

In any case, I would hate to say that a particular company is lying.  I'm sure they totally have intended/will bring this feature to fruition, but they are just having problems doing it or whatever.  It's not lying.

befuson - "To suggest Apple has some morally-superior motive is both incorrect and evidence of your own bias."

It's not really a moral issue.  It's a simple question of which company's business strategy -- strategy for making money -- is  more aligned with the interests of consumers.

Apple wants to make money - they have to.  But they (or at least Steve Jobs) thinks that you make great products and then the bottom line will take care of itself.  I'm not saying that makes them better in some moral sense.  It's just one way of doing business.

MS has a different business model.  It's not morally evil - it's just a way to make money and that's what companies are supposed to do.  But it happens that their way of making money  --  locking consumers/enterprise into their products so they can charge higher profits than would be possible in a competitive environment -- is contrary to the interests of consumers.

MS' business model today is fundamentally an anti-consumer approach.  It's part of why there's not a lot of love for MS, especially overseas where it's another country that taking advantage  of your consumers.

At the same time - it's not that MS doesn't provide any useful service to consumers.  They do - one thing they do is keep Apple and other companies innovating.  Because if you stand still, MS will catch up.  That's pretty valuable, but it only works where MS doesn't have a complete lock on the market.  Office is an example where they have a virtually complete lock, at least in the enterprise.  No matter what other companies do, they can't make a product that works with Office as well as Office, so nobody with real work to do is going to make a switch.  That's lock-in, and it's where a very large portion of MS's profits come from.

Look, I realize the bind Paul and Windows Enthusiasts are in.  It's not that you love MS's business model.  What you love is the flexibility, the open-ness, that comes with Windows.  You can do anything you want, build your own hardware, etc. etc.  I get that.  And that's a very valuable option to have in the marketplace.  It's just unfortunate that it happens to be that only MS is providing that option right now.  Hopefully in the future there will be more options.

Of course there is Linux - it is an option for some, but for most it's not.  Unfortunately.

cesjr,

On your response to befusion...well said indeed! It actually made me chuckle a bit as I've been using MS products and OS's for as long as MS was MS (was it really that long?). I've loved and hated the experience equally over the years, even praising and cursing their products at the same time once in awhile but all in all, I've never regretted not choosing another platform.

Yet ever since Windows 3.1 hit the streets I've always depended on Apple and  the Apple folks and their Macs to keep the love of their machines and OS (and now a whole lot more)  stable and strong so Microsoft would have to stay on it's innovative toes and not end up sputtering into stagnation which they have had a bad reputation of doing in certain areas in the past. Every time, back when Apple was having to struggle just to stay viable, I shuddered to think what what would happen if Apple ever ceased to exist.

Linux? My greatest frustration with Linux is that in all the years it's been around, no one has ever successfully centralized the concept although the Linux Foundation is certainly trying. I like Linux but until the OS and whatever desktop environment that get's bolted onto it becomes as easy for the absolute non-tech user to use as Windows and OSX is, I'm afraid it will always be stuck in the background. Too bad too because we really need a third competitor in the OS field.

On the Closed Caption deal: I'm deaf myself although I can still get a bit of use out of a pair of high end hearing aids the VA have provided me (Good thing too. The street price on these babies is around $12,000 to $15,000. You want to talk about a markup? Apple and MS don't know the meaning of the phrase). I've had to use high end head phones in order to hear the audio portion of any movie for the last ten years especially DVD's where the dynamics aren't compressed. And I've just started to use Closed Captioning within the last few months because I can no longer hear the dialog. My point is that advertising for Closed Captioning using a movie that does not (yet) support the format is just plain sloppy on the part of Apple and there's no excuse for the oversight. It doesn't particularly offend me in any way but being involved in corporate business for more years than I care to remember, this kind of sloppy mistake should never have happened. It was too easy *not* to make the mistake in the first place.

I am a more of a Mac enthusiast, than MS, but I must totally agree with Paul on this. This is a big issue for those in need of CC. If a company advertises that you can pay for a movie with CC, and the movie does not have CC, I would go ballistic on them if I needed it. I think that it's just terrible. And if you use a movie title as an example to advertise, but don't actually sell it in CC version, I think that you are still wrong.

"It was too easy *not* to make the mistake in the first place."

But point me to any tech product with faultless marketing material since the early 90's.

Mum, but you should never mess with the handicapped or special needs, whatever the politically correct term is these days. Throw in minorities too [Sharpton will be on you like flies on crap]!

Mum,

You are of course correct and I've seen more than a few myself in my experience however, it's still a sloppy easily avoided mistake. So were all the others but when it comes to putting your company's "face" in front of the public you really need to have your act together. You know how the general public can be. The smallest mistake can have a massive effect no matter how illogical it may seem.

Come on Paul and defenders of this post!  Anyone that's ever worked in a large organization knows what this is.  It's miscommunication between the PR, marketing and tech departments.  Obviously, there's an interest in featuring the latest Disney/Pixar movies in any and all examples since it's got the whole close relationship with Apple going.  Then there's the fact that marketing graphics are prepped in photoshop, not simply taken with a camera, so that they look all slick.  

No rational person would think this is some kind of malice or knowing misrepresentation.  

Paul often defends Microsoft on the grounds that it's a company comprised of a tremendous amount of good people that care and work hard (and whom he knows personally).  He calls out people referring to the actions of Microsoft as this singular monolith.

And yet here he is, ranting and raving as if Apple is a single person.  And don't give me some nonsense about Jobs being a control freak.  Apple is a very large organization and no CEO on earth could be doing as good a job as he is while micro-managing to the levels he's implied to do.

Come on Paul and defenders of this post!  Anyone that's ever worked in a large organization knows what this is.  It's miscommunication between the PR, marketing and tech departments and possibly a delayed delivery of the movie with CC encoding from Disney themselves.

Obviously, there's an interest in featuring the latest Disney/Pixar movies in any and all examples since it's got the whole close relationship with Apple going.  Then there's the fact that marketing graphics are prepped in photoshop, not simply taken with a camera, so that they look all slick.  

No rational person would think this is some kind of malice or knowing misrepresentation.  

Paul often defends Microsoft on the grounds that it's a company comprised of a tremendous amount of good people that care and work hard (and whom he knows personally).  He calls out people referring to the actions of Microsoft as this singular monolith puppeteered by Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer.

And yet here he is, ranting and raving as if Apple is a single person.  And don't give me some nonsense about Jobs being a control freak.  Apple is a very large organization and no CEO on earth could be doing as good a job executing as he is while micro-managing to the levels he's implied to do.

To somehow suggest that a company whose operating system has some of the best integrated Accessibility tools for free (VoiceOver, etc) is "mocking the handicapped" in a "shameful" way is just friggin' nuts.  Totally, out to lunch.

Again, Paul, you demonstrate real underlying bias in your reactions to these things.  

Sorry for the re-post.  My net connection is wonky at work (since 10.5.2, actually).

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"Ok. I really think all your super duper Pro-Apple fanatics might want not to keep reading Paul's blogs. Why? Because he does call Apple out on it's failings as well as Microsoft"

Post here related to Microsoft are so sugar coated it's not funny. You watch the number of Microsoft fanboy fuelled anti-Apple posts written by Paul, compared to negative Microsoft posts, and the balance is so one-sided that it's toppling over. If he took the same tact with Microsoft as he did with Apple he would have 10 or more posts daily that made fun of, or were negative towards, Microsoft. Of course though, he makes his living from Microsoft (albeit indirectly), so to do the same to them as he does to Apple could damage his standing with Microsoft, damage how much Microsoft feeds him information, software, hardware etc.

Having said all that, he is a Microsoft fanboy after all. Don't be in denial about that.

"Linux? My greatest frustration with Linux is that in all the years it's been around, no one has ever successfully centralized the concept although the Linux Foundation is certainly trying. I like Linux but until the OS and whatever desktop environment that get's bolted onto it becomes as easy for the absolute non-tech user to use as Windows and OSX is, I'm afraid it will always be stuck in the background. Too bad too because we really need a third competitor in the OS field."

Look at the European market: There are two options there: Linux or Windows. Many schools, libraries, etc. institutions run Linux, and more and more businesses have set up Linux environments. People still complain they'd like a third option, too.

In North America, people seem to have only two realistic choices, Windows and OS X. They, too, complain about the lack of choices.

What comes to the difficulty of the Linux UI (Gnome or KDE), it is no more difficult than OS X or Windows XP. On all these platforms, I've had to help novice users to accomplish similar kinds of basic task. And it seems that once they become acquainted with the said environment, they need no more help on one than any of the others.

here is what i feel about the issue... Paul quite often disses products by Microsoft. The first Zune, windows vista (when it was in beta's)... of course he has a bias for apple. Most people choose one company over another, But i feel he dose tend to say what the facts really are of a product. Personally people i fined are way too defensive when it comes to products. If someone says they hate a OS another person says there wrong.... How can you be wrong about something that is your own opinion? Common people, Mac and Windows Fanni's ... can you people just stop obsessing over the company's like there some type of god?

If it helps, I agree Xtreem0. I am sorry for being so talkative today, but I had a lot of work to do [went to work on my day off] and wasn't feeling well, but at least the wife liked her presents. the kids gpt some too. Happy Valentine's Day everybody. Next Tuesday is my birthday and I will install Vista on my Mac Pro Tower. Wish me luck.

@Tero,

Fair points you make. Thinking about it, it comes to mind that there's a huge difference between the "out of the box" experience vs attempting to set up any new OS yourself. It's 2 mutually exclusive experiences. The biggest problem a technically oriented person faces (myself included) when referencing PC's and the OS's, hardware and software involved, is we have to remember that we're in the minority here. The majority of PC users are strictly non-tech. They just expect their PC of choice to work...period. In light of that I believe that one of the most effective solutions for Linux distros designed for the (US) consumer for example,  is to have the major computer manufacturers provide more Linux based desktop and portable computers as viable choices for the general public to choose from then are currently available. There's a heck of lot more "out of the box" preloaded PC's purchased these days as compared to "doing it yourself" than there was even just 5 years ago and it's nearly always cheaper to buy "out of the box" when it concerns you average PC.

If folks out looking for a new PC could go to their local "big box" computer store and try out the Linux based demonstration models lining the shelves sitting next to the Windows machines that have brand names like HP, Dell, Toshiba, Sony etc stamped on the cases, I bet that over a reasonable amount of time you'd begin to see a significant increase of Linux users. Th e biggest problem with this scenario is that the brand names behind these machines would have to be willing to take a loss for the period of time that it would take for people to realize that Linux is indeed a viable option.

Of course I could be just pipe dreaming here.

Sorry for the off topic comment here Paul but you can't squash an intelligent conversation otherwise you might gets rain. :)

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