Keep it Classy, HP

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Joel Mackey, on HP’s unfortunate habit of backdating warranties on computers:

If HP Computer does this to every single customer, or heck even if they just do this to 10% of their customers do you realize how much money they’re saving? They could be saving millions in warranty repair and service issues. Just systematically reduce people’s warranty by 6 months and you save millions. Brilliant!

Man, I love OEMs.

It’s a Wonderful Lie

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Scott Merrill:

I recognize that users don’t care about computers. The computer is a means to an end for them: a presentation to solicit more grant money, or a program to investigate a new computational method, or just simply sending a nice note to their family. They don’t want to “use the computer” so much as do something that the computer itself facilitates. I’m the same with with cars: I don’t want to know how an internal combustion engine works or know how to change my oil or in any other way become an automotive expert — I just want to drive to the grocery store!

But the damned computers get in the way of all the things the computers help us do. There’s this whole artificial paradigm about administrator accounts, and security, and permissions, and all other manner of things that people don’t care about. A host of ancillary software is required just to keep your computer running, but that software introduces more complexity and more points of failure, and ends up causing as much grief as it’s intended to resolve.

I love every word of this. The artificial, false reality that is the computer is sort of stunning, at least on a philosophical level.

‘You Can’t Put a Price on That’

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Charles Skoda:

What’s more, I remembered why I use Apple products in the first place. Sure there are a million choices in the PC (Windows/Android) world. I can make things look this way or that. I can download this or that utility. I can use this or that hardware. But really, I don’t want to. I want my phone to be done when I buy it. I want to know what it does, and how I’m going to do it. I don’t want to scour message boards for help when I’m in over my head.

iPhoto works, iTunes works, iMovie works, iChat works, Safari works, Apple stuff works. Sure there might be a program that lets you organize photos better than iPhoto, or a faster music player than iTunes. But my Mac was handed to me preloaded with 98.3% of what I want my computer to do. You can’t put a price on that.

[via Patrick Rhone]

On Google and Schmidt

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The WSJ:

In a conference call, Mr. Schmidt said the three had been making decisions together, but it was a slow process. The new organization is expected to streamline things by “elevating me and having Larry running things day to day,” Mr. Schmidt said.

Google has had an unbelievable run under Schmidt, but the company’s services and products feel more and more fragmented and half-baked. Hopefully, this change will be a good one. I think it will be.

On Gawker, AppleInsider and Tim Cook

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Gawker has published a lengthy look at Apple’s COO titled “Meet Apple’s New Boss, The Most Powerful Gay Man in Silicon Valley.”

Apple Insider linked to it yesterday, quoting large chunks of the original story.

Personally, I don’t give a shit about Tim Cook’s orientation. What I do care about is privacy and respect. This time around, the Internet seems to be okay not prying too far into Steve Jobs’ health, so Tim Cook seems to be the target of choice.

Yes, having a gay man as the number two executive at a major corporation could help gay rights, but only if Cook is actually gay, and if he decides to be political about it. Right now, the former is a rumor and the latter is pure fiction.

I’d expect such garbage from Gawker, but AppleInsider, you disappoint me. I understand that reporting rumors is a big, cut-throat industry, but keep some dignity about you.