iMock part 2

It's time for iMock 2.0. In iMock 1.0 I mocked the Mac's price. Here, I mock the Mac's problems, and I bust the myth that they don't have any.

According to Apple's ads, you don't get the same problems on a Mac that you do on a PC. They name crashes, viruses, and "a ton of headaches"




Let's start with crashes.

You will recall from a previous blog entry that I explained how hard drives work. (What! You haven't read my previous posts! Blasphemy!) To recap, hard drives are a series of fragile, magnetic platters spinning at high speeds (around 7200 rpm.) Data is written to and read from hard drives by a magnetic read/write head that is not supposed to touch the platters. When you walk around with your laptop or Macbook powered on it creates instability in the platter spin and will eventually result in the platters touching the heads. This is when your computer crashes.

Apple purports that it's line of computers are the indestructible kings of computers. I believe this tends to make Mac users careless, and more likely to walk around using them. This results in hard drive crashes.

Now let's talk about headaches.

Apple, like many PC manufacturers, was using Nvidia cards for their integrated graphics cards back from 2007 through 2009. Every major manufacturer, including Apple, was caught by surprise when Nvidia shipped factory loads of defective cards. Here's some links:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2377 Apple gets hit and has to recall a ton of products.

HP has the same problem.

Dell gets hit, but refuses to recall or repair the effected systems.

Sony gets hit too!
Sony Support


Pretty much everyone that used the Nvidia GeForce 8000 series got hosed there. Apple wasn't immune. And if you think having a system that won't boot because the graphics card fried isn't a headache, you never figured out where the on button was on your Macbook.

There are whole websites run by Mac users devoted to complaining about defective Apple products. Here's a few:

appledefects.com

briancometa.com

Here's Apple's official recall page:

Apple exchange/repair


Not to mention that iPods and iPhones can turn into grenades.

The only truth to the ad is that Macs don't get viruses. There may be one recorded virus for the Mac, and it requires user stupidity to work.

On the other hand, Macs are extremely vulnerable to hacking. There is an annual competition for hackers called Pwn2Own, held by CanSecWest. They offer a series of computers as prizes for hackers, as well as a cash reward. Basically the first person or team to hack a device gets to keep it. Apple's computers are always the first to fall, and always get hacked within a matter of minutes.

Hacker commentary:

Why Safari?  Why didn’t you go after IE or Safari?
“It’s really simple. Safari on the Mac is easier to exploit.  The things that Windows do to make it harder (for an exploit to work), Macs don’t do.  Hacking into Macs is so much easier. You don’t have to jump through hoops and deal with all the anti-exploit mitigations you’d find in Windows.
It’s more about the operating system than the (target) program.  Firefox on Mac is pretty easy too.  The underlying OS doesn’t have anti-exploit stuff built into it.” --Charlie Miller, hacker.

Reports of hacks:
Mac falls in 2007

Mac falls in 2008

Mac falls in 2009

Mac falls in 2010.

So there you have it. Mac's crash. Mac's have faulty hardware. Mac's have recalls. Mac's are easy to hack and exploit. And Mac's have sites run by Mac users to complain about Mac's. Let's call this myth busted.