Given that the horror stories (some are articulated in the OC Register’s article) seem to vastly outweigh the stories of happy timeshare owners, I would say avoid these like the plague.
John and JoAnn Belczak vacation in Hawaii every year.
Let me join the crowd of users extremely irritated by Microsoft’s decision to force Windows Updates on users. It is arrogant and disruptive and I will not forget as other options become more and more viable (think Chromebooks).
I’m a laptop user and this morning I woke to find my laptop in the middle of the infamous Windows 10 Anniversary update, all apparently done automatically. Now, this particular update takes a long f’ing time, requires multiple reboots, and you are told not to turn off your computer! So, Microsoft, what am I supposed to do about going to work? You leave me with two bad choices, 1) don’t take my laptop, or 2) disobey your instructions not to power off the laptop. I am not going to sit for hours waiting for the update to finish, so you’ve ruined my day.
The arrogance of forcing this major time consuming update on me at the most inconvenient time is unbelievable. As I said earlier, I will not forget.
I’ve owned a 3rd Generation Apple TV for about a year now. During that time Apple has issued several updates that seemed to apply to the device just fine. Well no longer, today Apple put out an update that made me jump thru hoops that basically pissed me off.
Here’s what happened.
Now, at this point I’m mad. A simple update is already going off track and Apple, in it’s arrogant manner, assumes I am supposed to figure out what the screen is trying to communicate. Well no, I don’t grok what Apple wants so I Google, only to find out that I am supposed to;
I am steamed now. I am not an Apple fan and don’t have these cables laying around and I find it mighty presumptuous for Apple to assume I will have iTunes installed anywhere. Roku doesn’t do this to me when I update either of my Rokus. Chromecast doesn’t do it to me. Only Apply forces me to use a piece of software that has nothing to do with my TV.
So, I borrow a cable and try to connect it to the Apple TV device. But no, nothing can be easy. It will not fit since Apple put the two connections way too close to each other. The fat HDMI cable makes it impossible to insert the mini-usb connector.
Back to Google. There I find a post that says to disconnect all cables from the Apple TV except the power cable. Not fucking intuitive at all here Apple. I’ve been performing an update on your damn device all along while getting the feedback on the TV screen, and you somehow expect me to just know that when I connect to iTunes I should disconnect the TV screen? I cannot believe you do this to your customers and still hold onto them.
So finally, I get the Apple TV and iTunes communicating. And what does it do, it does a ‘recovery mode’ whatever that is. When it finishes it tells me to disconnect the Apple TV and reconnect it to the TV.
I do so, and now I get even more angry. Seems that recovery means factory reset! All my settings are gone. Everything. I must now go thru the painful and slow process of inputting everything all over again. At this point, Apple is a bad word in my house. I am cursing the day I wasted my money on Apple products.
To anyone thinking about buying one of these I say don’t. The Roku is a much friendlier device and priced the same or cheaper so save yourself the aggravation and go with it.
