Bit by a Leopard

I hadn’t really been paying attention to the hype (if there was any), so the release of Apple’s OS X 10.6 “Leopard” (someone in the marketing department over there needs a good talking-to) caught me by surprise. I hadn’t preordered it and I first learned it was out when reading a Web comic. The second place I heard about Leopard was from a user of Jer’s Novel Writer. That message: “it’s broken!”

Grand. Over the weekend I searched Prague for a store with Leopard in stock. Nope. No clue when it might arrive, either. There was a hint of bitterness on the part of some shopkeepers, a small resentment at being second-class citizens in the eyes of Apple, but mostly just the Czech shrug. Wait and see.

“It’s an emergency,” I explained to one clerk. “Can you find out when it might come in?” She answered in the negative. That doesn’t mean it was not possible to find out, it meant that she wasn’t going to try. (“It’s not possible” here means “I don’t know how and I can’t be bothered to figure it out.”)

I’ve gotten some helpful diagnostic information back from a couple of users, and I’ve built a shot-in-the-dark attempt at a fix. We’ll see how it goes. Meanwhile, I’ll be turning to mail order today. Why couldn’t Apple have delayed just a little longer, until I was in the U.S.?

ADDENDUM: HEY! APPLE! Czech Republic is a country too! It’s in Europe and everything! First I wasn’t eligible for your software contest, and now you won’t even ship me your product! AAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!

I feel better now.

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5 thoughts on “Bit by a Leopard

  1. That’s a sad state of affairs, but I think that the shop person is pretty standard in the global service industry nowadays.

    Here in Tokyo, I’ve seen people go into the back of the shop, glance through a magazine, and then come back and say they didn’t have what I asked for. At least they were polite enough to maintain a pretence. There’s an old saying here – if you have to ask, then the answer is no.

    On the bright side, I’m posting this from Leopard, so at least *this* works on the new OS.

    It seems a *lot* of devs are feeling a little put out that they didn’t get a copy before it went public – even those in the ADC (?). As a user, I’ll wait an extra week if there’ll be apps out ready for me on the release day. OK, waiting the odd week wont kill me, but I dont want to go back to writing in BBEdit, no matter how good an editor it is.

    As per my forum post though, let me know if I can test any builds.

  2. The leopard release was a little bit in the news stateside, mostly because it had been delayed – which I guess caused consternation – and then released to little fanfare so as not to draw attention to the fact that it was delayed. Apple has been F* up lately on the pro-consumer and pr front what with sudden price drops on iPhone and iPod battery issues.

    In other good news, the EU is successful in their anti monopoply lawsuit against Microsoft. So now for a mere (a paltry, a smidgen, a trifle) $15K you can get all the access to microsoft codec you need to port JNW to MS, and you don’t have to ever pay them a residual on units sold.

  3. …except for the thousands of dollars I would have to spend for the privilege of writing software for windows at all, and screw the api’s. No, thank you.

    As far as Apple Developer Connection, I could have had the new OS months ago if I had a few hundred extra bucks to throw around. I don’t. I’m just some guy coding in his jammies and forecasting when the money is likely to run out.

    A message to all you computer giants out there: I can make your platform more valuable to your users, but I sure as hell ain’t going to pay you for the privilege.

  4. I wish I bought Apple stock when it was under $10 a share a few years ago. It might not be too late even a the price it’s at now. hmmmm

  5. I think it was around $20 when I jumped in. I’ve been telling myself that now might be the time to jump back out, though I haven’t checked the price in a couple of years.

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