Forget the 360, check out the Mac 180!

OK this has nothing to do with the XBox but I do have a few things to say about Apple's recent choice to make the entire x86 Kernel for MacOS X closed source. I find this to be something of a slap in the face to the hardcore OSS pundits that lauded Apple's adoption of a BSD kernel as the underlying structure for OS X.

I can understand why they want to lock things down more with the switch to Intel architecture over PowerPC but it wasn't even a slow trickle, it was an abrupt cut. There's a few trends at Apple that have me turned off slightly, and while as a business person I know where they are coming from, as a consumer and technology buff I find them pretty distasteful.

Besides the shift away from an Open Source model, Apple's track record with their manufacturing process appears to be taking a lot of PR hits as well. Sites such as Arstechnica have noted how the newer MacBook Pro's have had a bad time with heat due to, of all things, poorly applied conductant. Now if this were just someone building their own rig for the first time I'd say sure, its to be expected but this is Apple we're talking about. Where's the QA? Add onto that early fire hazards with the Mac Books' power cable and the slew of security vulnerabilities that have made headlines and you have a pretty hefty PR nightmare on your hands.

Will I still use Mac software? Sure, will I be taking the immediate plunge into the new architecture? Maybe not, I've got some tread left on my G4 PowerBook. Give it another year as the bugs get worked out and I'll probably follow suit. My only hope is that Apple hasn't alienated so much of its strong user base that they won't be able to keep their existing customers and grow their new ones.