Apple Deleting Discussions Where Users Complain About Missing Firewire Ports On New Macbooks… WTF?
The new Macbooks that were announced yesterday have one serious omission. No firewire ports. I have commented on this myself, and apparently so have others. But apparently if you go to Apple’s discussion boards, any discussion of the lack of firewire in the Macbooks is being deleted. I’ve heard of reports of ths for years now. In fact if you check here, here, and here, you’ll see some examples of this. And to be honest, since it’s their board, they can do whatever they want. However, the optics of this just suck as they’re clearly doing more than keeping the discussions on topic and eliminating things like swearing and other types of bad behavior. It honestly looks like Apple is trying to create an aura where the only voices that you hear are the rabid base of fanbois that love anything that Apple does.
In my mind, this is bordering on censorship and I find it distasteful. But perhaps I’m over reacting here. What do you think? Post a comment and share your thoughts.
Oh by the way, If you really need to have firewire on your Macbook, the white Macbook is still available and it comes with firewire. So that’s an option. Or you can buy yourself a MacBook Pro, which is something that would make Apple really happy.
October 15, 2008 at 5:49 pm
While I’ve been a PC user since my 386 with 4MB of RAM with a 20MB hard drive, Apple computers are appealing to me for several reasons. However, these kind of things bother me about the company itself. If I were to be traditional about things, I’d not even consider purchasing an Apple produce because I disagree with their business practices so greatly. While I’m sure they provide great support for their products – and I love the fact that they have stores which, technically, should provide a consistent interface for consumers – I hate their “oh you don’t like it? then this isn’t the right product for you” attitude. Not only that but moves like this make it clear that they don’t mind kicking their customers in the teeth a little here and there.
Deleting criticism of their new projects is detestable. What’s the big deal with letting them have it for excluding something as simple as a firewire port from that computer? To the consumer that seems like a REALLY small thing that’s going to steer some customers away from that new model.