I don't need or want a new computer, but it looks like Apple isn't going to take "no" for an answer

Plus: There's a lesson somewhere in yesterday's Dilbert

-- from Apple's macOS Sierra Web page (click to enlarge)

by Ken

Dear Apple,

What about those of us who:

• have absolutely no interest in having Siri on our Macs?
• don't want help rediscovering our best photos, whatever that means?
• can already shop online way faster than we can pay for any of the stuff?
• and don't believe that you would actually help us work "more seamlessly between devices" even if we had devices we wanted to work "more seamlessly" between?

Yrs truly --
A longtime loyal Mac user

The question isn't meant to be rhetorical (I really would like to know), but it is, because I'm pretty sure I know Apple's answer: Drop dead.

I don't wanna talk about Matt Lauer, and for that matter I don't wanna talk about the vanished headphone jack (as previously threatened) on the new iPhone. I don't have an iPhone, and for all the trouble I've had learning to use my already-aged android phone, I have no intention of getting an iPhone, in part because of how badly things have deteriorated between Apple and me. For a long time I was a proud and happy Mac user, but that goes back a ways, to before Apple made it clear that it doesn't give the tiniest damn about my computing needs, and merely sees me as a captive patsy for forced software and hardware upgrading.

As it turns out, the "news" to which I'm responding is three months old. But it's news to me, so let the panic proceed.

I survived a scare awhile back when the company decided -- for no necessary technological reason, as far as I could tell -- to stop supporting OS 10.6.8, the perfectly good operating system then in use on both my main computer, an aging iMac, and a refurbished notebook computer I bought mostly for writing purposes. Suddenly, for one thing, my bank set a term limit on the time it would allow access to its website for pre-OS 10.7 Mac users. Not being able to access my account online would be a serious disruption in my life. Then I discovered that, while the notebook computer, which is almost contemporaneous with the iMac, indeed can't be upgraded beyond good old OS 10.6.8 (which I supposed is why it was so cheap), the iMac could be.

After adding some memory, I could not only upgrade the OS but jump it all the way to the current system, OS 10.11, El Capitan -- and I did just that. I know I've read all sorts of terrible things about El Capitan and why users shouldn't upgrade from OS 10.10, Yosemite. However, I haven't had any problems with it. Of course this could be because I don't do any fancy stuff with my computer. Mostly, I write and I go online. Just like I did in contemptibly obsolete old OS 10.6.8. As witness the fact that the notebook computer does these things quite okay, despite having not a whole lot of memory. (Hoping at least to speed it up a little, and heady with success from my successful iMac memory upgrade, I actually tried to jack up the memory, only to discover -- too late to seek relief from the vendor -- that the battery compartment is somehow locked closed! The joke was on me, as it usually is.


ENTER macOS SIERRA

Now I learn, via e-update from the vendor from which I bought my memory upgrades (which, by the way, was very nice about allowing me to return the notebook upgrade I couldn't install), that although Apple didn't mention it at the big announcement of the new iPhone (with the disappeared headphone jack), the company has announced online that on September 20 it's releasing a new Mac OS: macOS Sierra. (That's right, after all this time, no more OS X, or 10. So if you laid down any bets that there would never be an OS XI, or 11, it's time to collect.) As usual, the Apple folks are giddy with excitement about all the wonderful new stuff packed into Sierra -- see above.

Then, among the e-update's appended list of "Related Articles," I fixed on the last one: See If Your Mac, iDevices Are Compatible with Sierra, iOS 10. Do tell, I thought. Okay, here goes (note that the "today" referred to is in fact June 14):

Today’s WWDC keynote saw the unveiling of the next iterations of iOS and the newly named macOS. The announcements of iOS 10 and macOS Sierra will lead many to wonder whether their devices or Macs will support the new operating systems.

The Rocket Yard [the blog of the vendor, OWC, aka MacSales.com -- Ed.] has put together a quick guide of devices compatible with the new operating systems.

It appears that for the first time since 2012, older Macs will be dropped from compatibility and will not run macOS Sierra, many of which are 2007-2009 models.

Uh-oh! Now, as I think I've made abundantly clear, I could care less about what iOS which iPhones will or won't support. You can find that here. But I care very much about those "older Macs," from 2007-2009, that are apparently on the Sierra chopping block. Gulp.

Here is a list of Mac models that will be compatible with macOS Sierra, according to Ars Technica:

• MacBook: (Late 2009 and later)
• iMac: (Late 2009 and later)
• MacBook Air: (2010 and later)
• MacBook Pro: (2010 and later)
• Mac mini: (2010 and later)
• Mac Pro: (2010 and later)

I don't want a new computer, and given my computing needs, I don't need a new computer. At least I won't until Apple turns its back on all the pre-Sierra OS-es, and all the Web outlets that hate having to support Macs to begin with follow suit.

It would be one thing if these software and hardware upgrades offered significant upgrades to the way I do the stuff I do. But they don't. Of course, the very fact that I'm not a frequent upgrader probably explains why Apple doesn't care about me, or my patronage, or how badly they piss me off.


BONUS: THERE'S A LESSON LURKING
SOMEWHERE IN YESTERDAY'S DILBERT

DILBERT by Scott Adams

[Click to enlarge.]

#

Are ballads and epic poems written to celebrate renegades who stand defiantly outside the reach of a mandatory software upgrade?

No, this isn't my office computer -- and it won't
be after I'm mandatorily upgraded either.

by Anonymous
[see? they can't prove nuttin'!]

I thought you folks might enjoy this tale of life in My Company. It even comes with a surprise twist at the end!

Since our office move last fall into the belly of the New York Stock Exchange security-zone beast, we peons who don't have offices are just about completely exposed to everyone's view -- when you walk down the aisle between cubicle row, it's almost impossible not to look in everyone's cubicle as you pass. As a result, I have established that, unless I've missed somebody somewhere, I am the only person in the office still using a CRT monitor, as opposed to a flat panel screen. From which I conclude(rather proudly, I must say) that I have the privilege of having the oldest and crappiest computer still in use on the premises.

OK, "crappiest" is perhaps a bit judgmental. The fact is, it's perfectly adequate to my job needs, and I've learned to live with the limitation that I can't make any changes of any kind to the software on it, all of which would require a password known only to IT. And so, while the rest of the Mac world has marched on through the operating-system world of Tiger (OS 10.4) and on into the paradise of Leopard (OS 10.5), I'm still firmly grounded in yesteryear's Panther (the final version of it, OS 10.3.9). Which also means that I can't use most any current-release software, which increasingly requires OS 10.4 or later -- even if I could install such software, which I can't.

(True, I could ask for luxuries like a more recent version of Flash, to enable me to open Web pages that my old version won't. Yes, I could ask. Maybe the answer would be yes, maybe it would be no, but either way my permanent record would indicate that I was the troublemaker who asked. One of our highest-ranking officers is a gentleman whose principal, er, gift is remembering such things.)

Now, to the story. We began hearing awhile back that we were all going to be upgraded to Microsoft Office 2008. This is actually not much of a deal for me, since I hardly ever use any of the components of whatever version of MS Office I've got. When the HR director circulates attached documents, they're usually in MS Word format -- that's about the extent of my excursions into Office.

Nevertheless, we soon began to hear about commencement of the "mandatory upgrade" to Office 2008 -- are there other companies where a software upgrade can be made to sound like a punishment? The memo drumbeat indicated that the upgrade was closing in on us. From our IT guy in, apparently, San Francisco (we have a SF office?) comes word of arrangements made with Microsoft for free online training courses!

Then came the memo from the IT guy in our Las Vegas office (now, I knew we had one of them!) who is apparently in charge of Mandatory Upgrades, asking us in the New York office please to leave our computers on when we left the next few nights, since it will be easier for him to perform the upgrades while we're out of the office. The procedure should take 20 minutes, Mr. Las Vegas says.

Of course, since the memo wasn't sent till 5:53pm our time, and as the clock ticks down to 6 I don't usually keep checking for e-mail, I didn't see the memo till the next morning. (It's true that I would know I had an e-mail waiting if I kept my "dock" permanently displayed, but unlike all my coworkers with their bigger monitors, I can't afford to give up that chunk of screen real estate, since I'm trying to display magazine pages in readable form.) But I figured I wasn't likely to be in the "chosen" group of First NY Upgradees.

And then it occurred to me: Can my computer even run the "mandatory upgrade" software? I figure there's no way it will run in poor old OS 10.3.9, and sure enough, Office 2008 is a member of the OS 10.4 or Later Club. (OS 10.3 is the now-antique Panther; OS 10.4, the already-aging Tiger; and OS 10.5, the still-current Leopard. Here comes Snow Leopard! And no, I'm not making that up.) And while my mind has detoured into wondering if my computer has enough RAM to handle an OS upgrade (the leaps in memory requirement for successive iterations of the Mac OS have been so enormous that I believe Apple is now measuring it in gazillionbytes), my eye, continuing to rummage through the system requirements for Office 2008, notices that if your computer processor happens to be of the heirloom G4 species, it has to be at least 500 MHz. I have no idea what mine is, but I check and discover that it is -- ta-da! -- a 450 MHz G4!

So now I know: My company has "mandated" a software upgrade that, as best I can tell, won't run on the computer it has mandated me, even if it's possible to run a more nearly current OS on it. I add this newly discovered info to the memo I have begun writing to Mr. Las Vegas pointing out that my computer is still running in OS 10.3.9, and I really can't afford to have it further slowed down by an OS upgrade if I'm to get any work done. I finish the memo by promising to leave my computer on as requested, apologizing for having shut it off the night before and explaining about not having seen the 5:53pm memo.

I don't know how many more nights I'm supposed to leave my computer on, but heck, I'm not the one paying the electric bill. I haven't heard anything more from anybody in IT, in Las Vegas or San Francisco or even New York. (Yes, yes, it has occurred to me that perhaps I should have brought this whole thing to the attention of our IT guy here, who's a good guy. But if he's not already in the loop on this, I'm afraid that dragging him into it may just result in my being ratted out to the Chief Punishment Officer in the head office in Florida.

I can't help wondering if the "mandatory upgrade" is turning out to be perhaps not absolutely, unmitigatedly mandatory.

NOW FOR THE SURPRISE TWIST!

The above was in fact written on Monday of this week -- that is to say, the 16th. I held off posting, or even thinking seriously about whether I really wanted to go ahead and post it, because later that day I got word from our NY IT guy -- who's both a good guy and utterly competent -- that the next day I and a colleague who does basically the same job (putting us pretty near the bottom of our food chain, it seems) would be upgraded to G5 computers. I have to guess that our great IT minds had collectively spotted this chink in the MS Office "mandatory upgrade" project.

There was some e-discussion of when our schedules would make it easiest for the NY IT guy to get at our computers. I explained that I don't really go out at any set time, but could almost surely work around his schedule, provided I knew when it was going to happen. A couple of hours' notice is what I was offered, and I responded that that should work.

So with developments developing on Monday, and theoretically scheduled to finish the process on Tuesday, I shelved the whole question of this post. After all, if and when the promised computer upgrade was to happen, there was still the question of what kind of equipment I would actually wind up with.

For one thing, I already knew that the equipment wasn't going to be new, and around here when we get a recycled computer, there's always the risk that it came from someone, like from the Art Dept., who had been upgraded because he/she had beaten the living daylights out of the old beast by performing the computer equivalent of mechanical-bull-riding.

I was once "upgraded" to one of these poor victim machines, which it turned out our IT folks at that time already suspected of being a victim of such abuse. Apparently it was easier to recycle and hope for the best than to actually check it out. That poor thing was swapped out for a hardier survivor, and presumably set aside for reassignment to some even sappier sucker. (Of course, at the moment the likeliest source of recycled equipment hereabouts would be stuff left behind by the fallen comrades from our January round of layoffs.)

Perhaps more important, while the software would undoubtedly be more up-to-date, there seemed no reason to assume that I would be equipped with stuff that enhances my actual computer use, at least not without asking, and having "troublemaker" notations added to my permanent record etc. etc.

These were all issues it seemed most prudent to deal with after I got my "new" computer. And who's to say that after being so gifted I might not feel churlish airing such unkind sentiments?

That was Monday, you'll recall. By my count this is Saturday. Monday's "tomorrow" has long since gone the way of the emu, leaving me still waiting for that famous couple of hours' notice. I guess I can suspend the wait for today and tomorrow. But starting Monday (again), it could happen at any time, with just those couple of hours' notice.

Meanwhile, I retain my "rogue" status in the face of the "mandatory upgrade" crusade. A rebel, or just a troublemaker?

POSTSCRIPT

Rode down in the elevator with the IT guy. He says Monday, only he can't tell exactly when. Says he'll give me an hour's notice. The old "couple of hours" window seems to have shrunk.

#