iPhone, Leopard among ‘15 biggest tech disappointments of 2007’
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Dec 17, 2007 at 1:27pm
The iPhone and Mac OS X 10.5 (“Leopard”) are two of the “15 biggest tech disappointments of 2007,” according to PC World. The others are the Amazon Unbox (a video delivery service), municipal lWiMax, social networks, Internet security, the Microsoft Zune, wireless carriers, Office 2007, Voice over IP, the broadband industry, Yahoo, Facebook Beacon, the Blu-ray/HD DVD format war, and Windows Vista.
Here’s what PC World had to say about the iPhone: “Yes, we know. Sliced bread only wishes it were as great as the iPhone. And aside from minor flaws like a tiny touch keyboard and lack of Flash support, the phone itself is pretty terrific. But AT&T’s broadband service? Definitely second-rate. And if you want to switch to a more reliable or faster carrier, you have to take your chances with the hackers.
“The $600 price tag—which soon dropped by $200 and then was followed by a $100 quasi-rebate—didn’t help. ‘I think the biggest debacle of 2007 is the iPhone pricing bait and switch,’ says Peggy Watt, a PC World contributing editor and professor of journalism at Western Washington University. ‘People do expect tech prices to drop, but not as quickly as the iPhone did. Apple’s response was pretty lame, too; a partial credit that couldn’t be used for a lot of popular items (such as iTunes).’
“Worse, those who did try to open their iPhones to other carriers or third-party applications found themselves owners of $600 iBricks when Apple tweaked the firmware to lock them out. Memo to Apple: It’s time to treat iPhones for what they really are-pocket computers with phone functions built in-and open them up the world. Just a thought.”
And here’s what PC World has to say about Leopard: “Maybe we just got spoiled by the iPod and iPhone, but the glow came off Steve Job’s halo after this feline fleabag debuted. Within days of its release last October, Mac users reported dozens of problems with the new OS, some more serious than others. Among the many: Wireless connections that slowly petered away, administrative logins that mysteriously disappeared, and a disturbing tendency to nuke data when moving it between two drives if the connection is interrupted.
“Worse, a security bug that was fixed in OS 10.4 in March 2006 resurfaced in Leopard, according to Symantec. The Apple Mail vulnerability allows malicious attachments to execute code. German security researchers discovered that Leopard came with its firewall turned off, leaving users vulnerable to attack. Adding insult to injury, some upgraders even reported a Windows-like Blue Screen of Death when upgrading from previous Mac OSs. In mid-November, Apple released an update to Leopard that fixed some of the bugs, including the firewall glitch. Repairing Apple’s reputation, however, may take slightly longer.”
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Contributor
Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
