tech industry
10/03/2005, 3:10pm, EDT
Monday, October 3rd
NYT: Mac mini, TiVo are "elegant underdogs"
The Mac mini is among the "elegant underdogs" in the tech industry, says James Fallows of the New York Times. "The devices or solutions that don't lead their markets but are in many ways more admirable than the ones that do." For years, the Mac has "defined this category." Fallows' review explains why the Mac mini reinforces this idea. "Less than five minutes after I had taken the mini out of its box, I was sitting at my desk typing on my usual keyboard, looking at the usual flat-panel display, automatically connected to the Internet through the usual Wi-Fi link, with pages coming out of the usual printer - but now I was using Mac software, under the Apple operating system OSX. No configuration was required for anything."
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That *THUMP* you hear is the old dog getting run over...
However, I couldn't agree more about Mac support for TiVoToGo. Speaking as a user of both, both camps of fans of eerily similar. Also, couldn't agree more about the support for two tuners for cable users - very jealous of my aforementioned friend because of that.
Still, though, after using my cable company's DVR for high-def content, I will say that, even with all it's failings, using a Tivo is like driving a porsche, while using a cable company DVR is like driving an old chevette. Sure, both cars will get you where you need to go, but one will do it in a very pleasant and ultimately more satisfying style.
Oh, and to say the mac is easy to use out of the box is a falsehood. Its easy to use if you know what you're doing. But does someone just know what they need to use to write a letter, or where that's located? No. Do they know what saving a file is all about, and where they can find that file later? Probably not as well. They'll 'know' these things if they've used computers previously, but if they're just plain neophytes, they're screwed.
Same goes with a Tivo.
Oh, I had no problem hooking up my tivo and using it. Followed the steps in the manual, worked like a charm. Although this was years and years ago. Of course, I bought it at Best Buy, and they actually explained the whole 'subscribe vs. buy' part of the deal (yeah, I know, hard to believe from Best Buy).
Then again, I wouldn't sign up with Comcast again unless I had absolutely no other choice in the matter. They've got to be the most inept company out there, when it comes to customer service, tech support, and just plain gouging their customers. (Friends of mine just signed up for Comcast, the installer was late - a shock! - took him 2 hours to get the cable set up, although it was fuzzy, and the cable modem didn't work, so they had to send someone else out, initially between 8 and 5 until she yelled at the people, and then the next tech came out to fix it, who found that the first tech plugged in the cables all wrong, and the cable modem would be spotty because they needed to boost the signal and that would take a week, oh, and BOTH remote controls for the digital boxes didn't work, and none of the techs seemed to care - they were both used and dirty as well, how nice. Oh, the joys of comcast....)