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iModem? No Problem (8/25/98)
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It appears that the biggest iMac glitch so far has been the way that many owners have been unable to keep reliable connections with their Internet service providers when connecting via the iMac's internal 56K modem. After widespread reports of connection difficulties, Apple formally addressed the problem earlier this week, when Steve Jobs himself replied to the complaints by saying that Apple had "jumped on this problem" right away, but found nothing wrong with the iMac's modem. Instead, Steve blames the problem on several ISP's who aren't using current equipment; many older, pre-v.90 56K modems apparently automatically hang up on the iMac's state-of-the-art modem, and so Apple is "trying to convince these ISPs to upgrade their modems," though of course that's about as much as Apple can do. You can read the full response at iMacInTouch.
We take issue with a couple of Steve's points, however. First of all, he claims that "customers using EarthLink... should have no problems whatsoever." According to Katie, AtAT's resident fact checker and Goddess of Minutiae, that's not necessarily true; she frequently sees her EarthLink connection get dropped after about twenty minutes of time online. Steve goes on to say that he recommends "anyone having problems with their local ISP just switch to EarthLink." That's what Katie did, but it didn't completely solve the problem, though it did make things better. And what about people like my father, who don't live close to an EarthLink dialin point? Toll-free access plans are very expensive, and not always a viable option.
We're starting to wonder if Apple's original plan to ship the iMac with a 33.6 modem instead of a 56K one was not because they were trying to save money, but because they knew that this kind of thing would happen. Of course, the best option of all would have been to ship the existing v.90 56K modem, and include two modem descriptions to use: "iMac Internal 56K" and "iMac Internal 33.6K (More Reliable)." As it turns out, several people who are having disconnects when connecting with the v.90 protocol are reporting rock-solid connections when forcing the iMac's modem down to 33.6. That was certainly our experience, too. If you're having difficulties, you might want to give it a try.
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SceneLink (967)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 8/25/98 episode: August 25, 1998: The iMac easily clears the first two hurdles of the dreaded "Dad Test." Meanwhile, Steve Jobs himself claims that the iMac's internal modem is peachy keen, and blames all connection problems on the ISP's, while labrats at UCLA show that a few Power Mac G3's chained together possess the same processing power as the best Cray supercomputer of eight years ago...
Other scenes from that episode: 966: Passing the Dad Test (8/25/98) Okay, it's official; AtAT now both acknowledges and endorses the iMac as the new "computer for the rest of us." We were holding off on succumbing completely to the iMac's "I'm the simplest" claim that gets trumpeted so loudly in Apple's commercials until the ultimate test of ease and simplicity had been passed... 968: G3 Supercomputer (8/25/98) You knew the G3 was fast, but how fast? Apparently fast enough to give a Cray supercomputer a run for its money, according to a MacCentral story. A group at UCLA has shown that, if used correctly, the raw processing power of the G3 yields a kick-ass number cruncher at a cost much lower that the millions typically associated with supercomputers...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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