d00dism

Fire up software update or download the delta or combo installers. The enhancements, straight from Apple are:

Applications

• Allows TextEdit to open certain RTF documents that previously wouldn’t open, resulting in a “TextEdit Open Failed. Couldn’t open file” alert.
• Resolves an issue in which Safari, Mail, and other networking applications that use DNS lookups could experience intermittent connectivity issues with Security Update 2004-09-30 and Mac OS X 10.3.5 or later installed.
• Addresses an issue with Blizzard World of Warcraft in which the game’s frame rate could drop considerably when in “Ghost mode,” if the computer uses an nVidia graphics card.
• Resolves an issue in which enabling Vertex Shaders in World of Warcraft could lead to unexpected graphics issues when using an nVidia graphics card.
• Addresses an issue with World of Warcraft in which incorrect colors or unexpectedly flashing objects could appear when using an ATI Radeon 9600 graphics card, making gameplay difficult.
• Improves compatibility for Pacific Tech’s Graphing Calculator 3.5—some 3D surfaces might not render in Mac OS X 10.3.6.

Other

• Addresses an issue in which a brief “flash of lines” may appear on the screen when waking the computer from sleep after the “Flurry” Screen Saver has run, if the computer uses an ATI Radeon 8500, 9000, 9200, 9600, or M9 graphics chip.
• Improves compatibility for FireWire-based audio interfaces, including the Edirol FA-101 FireWire audio interface.
• Enables E*TRADE PDF account statements to be viewed in Preview.
• An Apple Cinema 22″ ADC display, when connected to certain PowerBook computers, no longer shows random “stuttering” or other graphics anomalies in the Finder and DVD Player.
• Addresses an issue in which shadowed text in a PDF file may print differently than it appears on the screen when printing to a raster printer.
• Filenames longer than 31 characters are no longer shortened when the file is saved on a server via Apple File Sharing.
• Resolves an issue with Mac OS X 10.3.6 in which some FireWire hard drives would not appear (”mount”) on the desktop.
• Addresses an issue with Mac OS X 10.3.6 in which DVD Player might not open on some Power Mac G4 computers that use an ATI Radeon 9800 AGP video card.
• Resolves an issue that prevented printing to some Windows-based print servers.

Following my post about Netflix, a new story about Blockbuster came to my attention. Blockbuster has announced that it will no longer charge late fees, or at least that’s how everyone is reporting the policy change. Putting it this way is a little misleading.

They are using this necessary change to their business model as a way to promote their own business. The growing popularity of Netflix (and even their own similar service) has demonstrated a strong consumer interest in being able to retain videos for an extended amount of time. Getting burnt by late fees once or twice is enough to drive any consumer to another system. Additionally, the way in which late fees were assessed made little sense. My roommate in college rented a movie and didn’t return it for three weeks. When he finally went to return it, they charged him in excess of $20. This is obviously more than the video cost to begin with and he didn’t even get to keep it. The fees weren’t based upon what it would cost to replace the copy of that movie, but instead based upon the amount of profit lost due to being unable to rent it to another member. Obviously, this was a broken system.

In order to add their own spin, Blockbuster supplied revenue numbers for their late fees. Late fees earned them appoximately $300 million. What is missing about this information is its relevance to the situation. That money shouldn’t be counted separately from its rental fee income as it is meant as compensation for that to begin with.

The new policy doesn’t change “due dates” for movies, but instead institutes a week long “grace period”. Let’s examine that a little further. You are entitled to keep that movie until the due date by virtue of paying your rental fee. If you can not return that video by the proposed date, you are allowed to keep it up to a week longer at no penalty. Because there is no penalty, the “due date” loses all significance. It is nothing more than a suggested return date. The real due date becomes the end of the grace period. It’s not going to take more than a month for consumers to figure that out.

The second part of their new policy is that following that week long grace period, you are not charged a “late fee” but you are charged that remaining cost of the video and it becomes yours. At least they recognized the problem with the old system. However, that charge is a fee and it’s assessed if you keep the video later than the grace period allows. How is this not a late fee? Well, the only functional difference is that you get to keep the movie. It is still a late fee. A change of nomenclature doesn’t mean that you’ve actually elimintated late fees. They’re just collecting them in a different way.

The next question is what if the renter doesn’t want to pay the (probably inflated) price for the movie. Blockbuster has you covered there too. Customers whom keep movies beyond the grace period may recoup that money by returning it within 30 days. The catch here is that you will be charged “restocking fees”. There is no functional difference between late fees and restocking fees. In both cases, you are paying money for keeping the movie too long and you don’t get to keep it afterward.

Is Blockbuster eliminating late fees? Not really. They’re eliminating it by changing the nomenclature. They can now advertise “No Late Fees” both in stores and on television. The sad thing is some people will be taken in by this and buy it hook, line, and sinker.

There was quite a stir when Real announced that they would make songs for their new online music service available for use on iPods. What made this so provocative was that their music service uses Digital Rights Management (DRM) to prevent copying, exactly as Apple does with FairPlay and Microsoft does with their own scheme. However, Apple didn’t license FairPlay to Real.

That was the rub. Real was maintaining DRM without a license to use FairPlay. In order to accomplish this feat, they reverse engineered FairPlay. They got to use software that Apple supplied without paying for it in some way. The fact that Apple didn’t want to license at any price is a moot point. They are the legal owners and it is their decision whether to sell licenses or not. Just because I’m not willing to sell my car to you doesn’t give you the right to jack it.

Well, it should come as no surprise that Apple has intentionally broken compatability with Real’s Harmony service with both changes in the iPod Photo’s firmware and the latest round of firmware updates to click-wheel iPods. Real itself knew this was coming, as did any well read user. However, many of Real’s customers may not have known this and may now be irrate that their music that previously played is now useless (at least until Real figures out how to remedy the situation). First they’ll blame Apple for breaking their iPod (even though it’s not broken at all) and then they’ll come to loathe Real as they find out iTunes songs and MP3’s play fine. The true loser in this situation is going to be Real, having committed themselves to a goal that is not only underhanded but nearly impossible to ever achieve over the long run.