NOT ALL THAT
Written: Oct 24 '01
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Pros: QUICK
Cons: TOO MANY PROBLEMS
The Bottom Line: TOO MANY PROBLEMS OVERALL STAY AWAY FROM MACS FOR NOW.
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| TAMPAMAN's Full Review: Apple PowerBook G3 (M7308LL/A) Mac Notebook |
Just like everyone else watching the keynotes for MacWorld San Francisco, I drooled over the new features Apple will be offering called 'iTools.' The iTools provide email (username@mac.com), web page creation and hosting, storage space, and online greeting cards for Mac users. Eager to try it, and luckily having just installed OS 9 on my new iMac, I downloaded the set-up utility and ran with it.
After having entered all the necessary information and picking my new username, I hopped on over to the Homepage iTool to give it a spin. I chose to create a resùmé page with it and was delighted to see that the layout was actually quite nice, ignoring the fact that there was only one template one could use.
My first complaint about iTools itself is that the fields for name, address, etc., on the resume page are actually limited by the visual length of the field instead of allowing the user to type beyond it. I can't enter my entire street address into the street address field, nor "Baltimore, MD 21236" into the city, state, zip field because it cuts it off. City, state, zip cuts off at the 3 in the zipcode and we won't even discuss the last eight characters of my street name that won't fit. Luckily they had the foresight to make sure there is enough space to put ten-number phone and fax numbers.
But even ignoring that, there are still huge flaws in iTools. I clicked the 'Publish' button and that took me to a congratulations screen that listed the new URL of the page. I clicked the link as the page suggested and got a "File Not Found" error. I thought Well, that's cute, and then tried to get the web browser to list the contents of my user folder by deleting the filename after the username. Even cuter, this was the pre-fabricated iMovie Theatre page that Jobs previewed during the keynotes, complete with the title "Macworld Movie." I didn't specify for that page to be there! Sounds like a bug to me.
Another complaint that is not really a bug, but still an annoyance, is that it doesn't appear to be possible to create a regular "homepage" with the Homepage iTool. The only options available for this page-creating widget are photo album, iMovie theatre, invites, baby announcements, and resume. Hopefully they will be adding more, but they haven't announced any official additions.
As for the other iTools, it does not appear that any of them have any outstanding bugs—which makes perfect sense as they are not nearly as intricate in their web-based programming.
iReview, on the other hand, seems to be deficient in a function of most importance: user review posting. Jobs wants iReview to be the Amazon of webguides, with intelligent comments from intelligent users, but it appears that users are unable to post their reviews at this time. I attempted to post a personal review of WIRED's online website and failed; I entered all necessary information, clicked "Submit My Review," and then the page reloaded itself. All that changed was that the text at the top of the page ("Before submitting your review...") and before the area for the lengthy review ("Write your detailed review here") had turned bright red. One assumes this is indicative of WebObjects thinking there is an error. I double-checked everything and hit submit again to no avail; it gave the same response. I reproduced this bug on several other Macs, using both Internet Explorer and Netscape Communicator—it's obviously server-side.
Lately Apple has been trying to physically ship products as soon as they announce them, and if they force themselves to announce at MacWorlds, there inevitably are delays and bugs and it eventually causes more trouble than if the product had not been announced then at all. Though it appears that Apple did not exercise this unusual error in judgement yesterday regarding any infant hardware (specifically the new PowerBook), they did with their infant Homepage iTool and iReview site. What's worse, no disclaimers were posted so users are left to wonder what is wrong with their system. C'mon Apple, at least admit it when you're wrong.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 2,000
Operating System: Macintosh
Processor: Don't Know
Processor speed: Don't Know
Screen Size: 12
RAM: More than 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 21-30
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Epinions.com ID:
TAMPAMAN
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Reviews written: 23
Trusted by: 2 members
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