Craftsmanship Takes Time (9/15/00)
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Okay, maybe we're just overly-antsy, but we feel like if this were a cartoon, we'd be walking around with giant suckers for heads. Forty-eight hours after placing our order for the Mac OS X public beta and ponying up an extra ten bucks for FedEx shipping, we're still betaless. Not only that, but checking the status of our order through the Apple Store's (admittedly cool) order tracking system reveals that our order is still "being assembled." Being assembled? It's a freakin' CD-ROM, for crying out Pete's sake-- what, are they hand-carving each disc from a solid block of plastic or something? Tell you what, Apple-- we'll gladly forgo the fine Cupertino craftsmanship of an individually-etched unit for one of those soulless, machine-stamped CDs if it means we'll receive it before we keel over from impatience. Even if Apple ships it today, that would mean we pretty much blew $10 for nothing, since FedEx presumably wouldn't deliver until Monday and standard U.S. Mail would probably get here by then anyway.

Then again, it sounds like it probably won't ship today; a reader over at MacInTouch spent forty minutes on hold with the Apple Store to find out what was up with his beta order, and was finally told that his copy would ship "no later than next Tuesday, September 19th." The reason? "Unanticipated response." Apparently Apple had no idea that a lot of people might like to order a copy of the beta, and was utterly shocked and taken aback by the fact that the first public release of an operating system that's years overdue is actually generating some interest. Granted, it is a very heavy volume of orders-- 29,000 as of yesterday afternoon-- but still, you'd think that Apple might have prepared for something like this to happen.

So much for a weekend spent trashing our data by recklessly installing beta software without backing up first. Sigh. Guess we'll have to find some other way to get our death-wish kicks... at least until Apple's artisans catch up on their CD-whittling and ship our order.


 
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The above scene was taken from the 9/15/00 episode:

September 15, 2000: Apple enlists Chiat-Day to secure written promises of "no Mac rumors" from publications where it pays for ad space. Meanwhile, new Cube commercials hit the airwaves, and the Mac OS X public beta is taking slightly longer to ship than anticipated...

Other scenes from that episode:

  • 2550: Sign This Or See Ya (9/15/00)   Ladies and gentlemen, if you thought Apple's aversion to rumors was a bit over the top before, we're here to tell you that the latest chapter in the saga has become positively surreal. It's one thing to sue an employee who violates his nondisclosure agreement and posts trade secrets in a public forum...

  • 2551: The End Of Silence (9/15/00)   AtAT junkies will recall that a couple of weeks ago, we bemoaned the lack of TV commercials for Apple's spiffy new G4 Cube. The new iMacs had commercials; so did the Pro Mouse. So why was the Cube kept off the air?...

Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast...

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