Seems we made a mistake in yesterday's episode when we stated that the distribution license fees for Quicktime 3.0 were reasonable, especially considering that the fee is waived if the installer software installs a promo movie that hawks the upgrade to Quicktime Pro. As faithful viewer Charles Moylan rightly corrects us, the fee waiver requirements are considerably more stringent-- and ridiculous-- than we originally thought. See, it's not that the installer has to put this ad movie on the user's desktop; it's the application itself that needs to do this-- every time it's launched.

Suddenly we understand what all the fuss is about. Imagine that you buy a game that requires Quicktime, so it's on the CD-ROM in case you need to install it. Even if you already have Quicktime installed and you don't even use the copy on the CD, every single time you play that game, a Quicktime movie called something like "Upgrade to Quicktime Pro" appears on your desktop. Every time you trash the file, it reappears when you fire up your new game. And this happens until you actually shell out the $30 to upgrade to Quicktime Pro, which many, many people don't need. This is, without a doubt, the silliest Apple strategy in recent memory. Whose bright idea was it to try to annoy people into buying software they might not need or want?

Odds are, this strategy is only going to hurt Apple in the long run. Fewer developers will use Quicktime (especially on the Windows platform) because they can't justify an extra buck or two per box and they really can't afford to annoy their customers with a respawning ad movie. End users will be upset at having their desktops held hostage for a $29.95 ransom. Note to Apple: the whole licensing scheme makes sense except this silly respawning movie requirement. Change the waiver condition to what we originally thought it was-- require that the installer program put the ad on the desktop, not the application itself. Why guarantee the alienation of hordes of Quicktime users and developers, just when the software is hitting its prime? (Unless it's a genetic self-destructive tendency, or the effects of a voodoo curse, of course.)

Well, how about that? Just because Apple has no faith in the recently-Steved Newton platform doesn't mean that others out there don't think it's worth saving. Planet Computing of Austin, TX is a small developer of software for handheld computers who says they made an offer to buy the Newton from Apple some three weeks ago, but it seems Apple's not selling. A PCWeek article has the details.

According to Planet, after receiving the offer, Apple "asked for the moon," whatever that implies, though they haven't actually made a written counteroffer yet. Regardless, an Apple spokeswoman claims that they'd consider selling Newton "if an attractive value is presented." Er, forgive us if we're being a tad dense, but what constitutes an "attractive offer," we wonder? After all, Apple's ceased development of the platform, so selling it for any price sounds like a profit. Granted, we wouldn't like to see it get sold for twenty bucks and a pack of gum, but we'd downgrade the requirement of an "attractive" offer to that of a "reasonable" one. (Of course, what Apple considers "reasonable" is anybody's guess, but we're willing to bet it's quite a lot higher than what most people would accept.)

Now, why would Apple be hesitant to unload Newton? Could it be that they still harbor some hope or plan of resurrecting the platform when they're on better financial footing? Or, more likely, they plan to strip-mine the Newton OS for facets to use in the upcoming "thin client" version of the Mac OS, which will run on new Apple handhelds in 1999. But if neither of these is the case and Apple's just clutching for the sake of clutching, we'd like to see them do the right thing by their Newton customers and sell the technology off to someone who will continue to develop and support it. Imagine-- maybe Planet would release a Pilot-sized Newton. Now that would make us smile.

Oy vey, just when it looked like the default Apple-bashing in the media might finally have passed, along comes the New York Times, otherwise known as "Old Faithful" among those who are familiar with its record of Mac-slamming. Their article "Clan Macintosh Feels the Pain" is more of their standard "Apple is dying" rhetoric, but dressed up with a few recent numbers and quotes from Mac folk who are finally bailing on the platform. While it may be a bad idea to read it on a full stomach, it could serve as a powerful drugless appetite suppressant for you dieters out there. (See? We find the good in everything.)

We're not all that great with the self-righteous anger bit, and we paid our point-by-point refuting dues in comp.sys.mac.advocacy ages ago, so we'll leave it up to the pros to tear this thing to shreds. Our good buddy John Farr gets his licks in over at AppleLinks, in particular wondering just how aware Bob Levitus and John Warnock were of the context in which their comments would be taken. And then there's Don Crabb, whom we just knew couldn't leave this story alone if you paid him. His analysis is available over at MacCentral, and is required reading for anyone who reads the NYT article. As for us, we'll just rest content in the knowledge that after being awake for thirty-six hours straight, we were still able to talk a computer novice located three thousand miles away through installing and setting up a U. S. Robotics PC-card modem on a Powerbook 1400, including ARA and TCP/IP setup, in about an hour's worth of conversation over a barely-audible cellular phone, to save the day at an important trade show-- while our dedicated and able-bodied system administrator wasted five hours to get the exact same modem working on a stubborn Windows laptop sitting right in front of him, due to IRQ conflicts and Plug and Play that only Plugged and then sort of sat around instead of Playing. For us, that's the only counterargument we need.

Don't take this the wrong way, but in a warped sense, we're glad the article got published. Truth be told, we've seen so much Apple-bashing in the mainstream press for the last couple of years, this recent trend of "Apple may survive after all" stories had us a trifle uneasy. The cease-fire was dulling the once-sharp edge of our paranoia. But now that we know the New York Times hasn't lost sight of their ultimate goal of the complete and utter destruction of Apple, we can breathe a little harder, tense back up, and start jumping at shadows again. Ahhh, it feels good to be back...