Category: Mac

about:Aquafication

Kevin22 Comments

A little over a week ago, Ben informed me of the decision to push back the Mac-specific Firefox work to a 1.1 release that would come out in March 2005.

Firefox 1.0 was going to be released on Windows and Linux first. After the Windows version was out the door, we (meaning Ben and the few Mac hackers who work on Firefox) would focus on the Mac user experience to bring it closer to the level of polish and integration that OS X users expect.

But the Mac-specific work will take a while – with the holidays it could easily take until early 2005. Ben and crew want to merge the work that’s been going on in the Firefox branch with the Mozilla trunk as soon as possible to get on with the post-1.0 development.

Chris Hofmann wrote:

Ben, Asa and I met to review a plan for synchronizing the Mac 1.0 with the Windows and Linux releases on 11/9. We looked at feedback and satisfaction data from version tracker and other sources, recent Mac specific bugs fixed and decided to move forward with a plan to ship Mac Firefox 1.0 on 11/9. The hard and anecdotal data shows the satisfaction rating of Mac Firefox to be very close to Safari, and we see many users choosing Firefox over Safari which is a clear sign that we should be calling it 1.0.

This is disappointing but I agree with the reasoning behind the decision. Hopefully we will be able to use the extra time to make Firefox 1.1 the best browser on the Mac platform. Of course you can help! Look over the bugs targetted at Firefox 1.0mac and file requests if you think something is missing.

Apple Care

Kevin4 Comments

I had planned to write a few glowing words about Apple and their stellar repair service. My Powerbook has developed a display problem over the past month. I called Apple support, talked to a very helpful support tech and he diagnosed my problem quickly. It seems I needed to have my logic board replaced. Okie dokie. So Apple shipped me a box and I packed my computer into it. I dropped the computer off at Airborne Express at noon last Wednesday and I received it back on Friday afternoon – just two days later. Talk about turnaround time!

This is where my glowing words fail to actually glow. The problem is, the Powerbook isn’t fixed and still has display issues. Here’s a recent screenshot [PDF] of what I’m seeing. I called Apple today and arranged to have my Powerbook shipped back to Texas for further fixing.

I wonder, does Apple put more effort into getting the repair done fast over getting it right? Lest you think that I only base this question on one experience: My girlfriend recently had some problems with her iBook’s keyboard and it took three tries before Apple actually fixed it.