What happened to Save As?

Steve Maximus wrote:

The ability for everyone to choose. Now they want to remove choice. Regardless some users hack their iPhones, hack their iPads, run Linux on an Apple computer etc. That is their choice. People are looking for ways to turn off Versions to have that choice. It is all about choice. You make the main operating system simple and safe for those who don't understand, and there are layers deeper for those that do understand. You don't just block it off. Because you don't know how many users want that extra functionality. Even though I just had to use the terminal and change a file in the library a few times, I still had that choice. If instead there is no choice, those few times I cannot do what I want, they are enough to make me leave this.

This is the crux of the matter, and I'm simply amazed that Apple doesn't get this — particularly as it's something they've always historically got before.

I would like to urge everyone here to keep the pressure up and not let it slacken. Silence will leave the impression that everyone has just given up and accepted this fiat from Apple.

Joining the "Bring back Save As" Facebook group that was promoted here a few posts back would be a good idea. For reference, here it is again: http://www.facebook.com/groups/356767911010984/

Dennis Burnham wrote:

That's the best question of all. Kurt: "why?"

With such a rich tradition of building an operating system that is adaptive to the needs (Universal Access, for example) and personal preferences of users of all age groups, genders, nationalities, languages, etc., it really makes you wonder what reason can there be for a programmatic insistence that denies this choice. Especially one that does not require new, additional engineering but merely the preservation of something that already exists.

Not that I want to hear more from certain other contributors to this thread that answers the question "why" by saying "because it's the future and you need to get with it," but I truly would welcome any rational explanation for why the versions and auto-saving cannot peacefully co-exist with a Save As command.

I have been asking this very question, both here and in other forums, for months and months now.

Not once has the "rational explanation" you seek been put forth. Most of Apple's defenders don't even make the attempt — they just crawl back into their holes and clamp their hands over their ears.

The very small number who have attempted an answer have had it shot down immediately with logic — and logic being a quality that is in very short supply on their end, have simply slunk away and not even bothered with a rebuttal. (Small wonder, as there is none...but you might have thought they would have at least had the guts to admit this.)

DChord,

A successful company filled with great people can change in an instant when the CEO changes. Steve Jobs was sick for a long time before he died. In the last months he couldn't even speak to people for more than a few hours a day. Therefore Tim Cook has been running Apple for some time. Steve Jobs used to have the energy to stand up to people and get his own way. With his lack of energy that would have diminished greatly. Therefore these decisions have probably been with someone else for some time. If the boss says "This is what we are doing" everyone will just do it. It is rare for people to speak out against their boss. And if a few do and get fired the probability diminishes. A friend is an architect working on some new Apple stores. He said that they may not be including the amazing glass staircases any more. If the new boss has no vision the company has none. Changing just one person at the top can change everything.

Steve.

Hi:

I am not a member of facebook, twitter etc... just refuse to get on any of them...

However I am continuing my battle of many years with suppliers of software. I am at this point in time communicating with companies that have implemented the new apple versions. they basically said they had to because that was how it worked.

I then told them of how others on the app store and not on app store had implemented opt-in/out functions.

first reply cannot change then I emailed screen samples of implementation. they acknowledged receipt, Explained they would go back to ??? and will get back to me...

could be a long wait!!!!

however they are now aware of the issues....

will continue the battle from this front. they will all ( I believe) let Apple know that their potential clients are walking away....... because of Versions.....etc...

cheers elo

Every hero is a rebel in the eyes of the dictatorship. Keep up the good work. The fact that Apple is forcing other software companies to comply to this is scary. Yet they let an App upload your entire address book, without permission. It seems that someone really has a desire to "think differently" to Steve Jobs and that is sad.

Although none of my local Apple Stores in Dallas have glass staircases and I've not seen one, I can imagine that there might be a valid reason to replace them with a different material. Maybe they won't withstand the wear and tear, maybe safety. Who knows. But one thing is sure: if the store has more than one level, they offer their customers the CHOICE of using stairs or an elevator. Why? Because the local building codes and the federal government now insist on it.

Imagine if they were not compelled to offer that choice and one fine day you walked into the store and found that the only way to get up or down to another level is to ride the cool, new elevator. It's so cool that there is this long line of people waiting to ride the elevator ... you know, the new modern way of getting up and down without any risk of tripping on the staircase. No effort involved, just push a button. They even gave it sweet name that changes when you push the button: "Auto-Ascend" or "Auto-Descend". Don't you suppose there would be some customers who say, "I'm old fashioned, I prefer to walk." ??

Steve Jobs may have passed away months after his illness caused his influence to diminish; I guess that's possible. But surely there are plenty of high-ranking executives who knew him well enough to remember what worked and what didn't. Maybe they didn't like his insistent style, but they have the help of biographers and pundits all around the world looking over their shoulders now. Yes, there may be pressures regarding China and Wall Street concerns, perhaps even political worries. But I have to think that the corporate ranks include enough people who still remain focused (for the sake of their paychecks, if not their dreams) on something as important as the operating system.

I also recognize the need for R&D to explore new systems for the future, and how we users are the guineau pigs for some experiments. But I can say this with confidence: if Lion was a feature that an auto-maker had rolled out in their newest model car, the owners would have gotten recall letters via certified mail, not Software Update alerts.

OK, your life is not at risk when you fasten your seatbelt to go for a ride on your Macintosh. Lion isn't causing y Mac to catch fire or give me electrical shocks when I touch the keyboard. But I remember what happened when the iPhone 4 was introduced and Steve Jobs was very much alive at the time: people complained that there was something odd going on with the antenna. The company admitted it, fixed it, gave customers a free protective case to mitigate the problem --- all examples of the kind of response that gave Apple the reputation that keeps peope standing in line to get into those stores, regardless what the staircases are made of.

Remember this Dennis, none of the board of directors wanted to make Apple retail stores. They all said no. Jobs had to secretly create the stores then show them before they agreed. These people didn't get it. So the company has gone back into their hands. People who don't get it. And when the CEO changes the company changes. The example for me was when a company had an app that uploaded all your address book to their server without the app asking if you wanted that. What did Tim Cook do? He yelled at the guy. Steve Jobs would have had his app out of the App Store never to return and him black banned for life. Tim Cook sent a message to app developers which was if you break the rules and get caught all that happens is you get yelled at. It wasn't even Apple that discovered this breach, it was a user. Now I don't trust Apple to protect my privacy. That is a new leadership sending a new message to the customer being "we don't care about you as long as we are making money." Having $75B in cash what does Tim Cook do? Give a dividend and give $10B to management not invest significant amounts in the future of the company. The direction has changed totally. It is 100% clear.

Off Topic

I follow Seeking Alpha and a LOT of people said Apple was going to $750 or even $1,000. I said that to do that they would have to sell 6 million iPads in a month, not just 3 million. If you do sailing you would know that a huge sail needs to be turned around when the slightest flutter starts in the sail. Small things indicate bigger problems.

The many glitches in Lion are reminiscent of Microsoft. I get at least one bug every day. iCal, Preview, Finder. My shortcut keys work sometimes, and other times they don't with no rhyme or reason. I move an iCal appointment and it jumps back to where it was for no reason. Finder goes unresponsive and I have to force quit. Every day.

It is an indicator of a change in the company. "Boss, iCal is not ready to be released." - "Well Tim Cook said to release Lion regardless. We need the money." And that is all it takes for a company to suffer. Another example would be "The iPad runs too hot." - "Well Tim Cook says we release it regardless. We need the money." What made Steve Jobs great was he didn't care about money or shareholders, he wanted Apple to be great. Now everything is focused on shareholder wealth, just like it was with the Pepsi guy. So Apple goes down now.

Steve, there isn't a "dislike" button or I would use it to express myself about the talk about the company's demise. You and I are in agreement on so much when we discuss the OS and Save As. I'm not ready to give up on the company's ability to come to its senses, or I wouldn't be here writing - and I suspect that is true to some degree for you too.

I bought my shares when the price was $12 in December, 2000. Thinking back, I had confidence in the new OS and Steve Jobs and the the rising share price bought me more than a few Macs over the years. Sadly, I got out when it was around $150. Who knew?

Let's say you're right and the focus today is all about making money. Let's say we're both right and the way they handle SAVE AS is an indication that they won't do as well. It's a simple equation: they will make less money.

Shareholders will have an easier time replacing Tim Cook than Steve Jobs if it comes to that. It takes a different skill set to run the Apple of 2012 than it took to run the Apple of 1992. Maybe Jobs was unique in that he could grow with the company, or even ahead of itself. Someone will take charge because there are too many users now to concede the market to Dell or Microsoft. It's more likely that something new will come along to change the game all over again. Where was Twitter 5 years ago?

Off Topic

Dennis, I like your style, you speak your mind. I am ok with your "dislike".

I will tell you about big companies that are too big to fail. MySpace was valued at $18B. A few years later they were sold for $35m. 1/513 of the value. IBM was the darling of the computer companies. Now they don't even do personal computers. Compaq? Yahoo? HP? Just look at American car manufacturers. Whenever someone gets so big that they stop innovating and stop listening to customers they decline and that makes a hole for another company to step in. While we don't have that new company yet, there are some big companies getting ready.

Microsoft was like that the last 5 years, not listening to customers and releasing crazy operating systems with features that no one wanted. Look what happened? Their share price is stagnant while Apple have taken a huge place in the market. In the smart phone market Android has 50% of the market, Apple have 40% and Microsoft have 5%. Google are developing an operating system to rival Microsoft and yet the same guy is running Microsoft. He hasn't been thrown out. It is never that simple. Even Ray Ozzie got in there and tried to get them to think customers and he ended up leaving, giving up on them.

Therefore while it may be sad to think about a post Steve Jobs Apple as failing, they ended up only months away from bankruptcy after Steve Jobs left them. He rejoined them and rescued them and made them great again. It is quite possible that they will head there again now that Steve Jobs has left.

I hope you're wrong and I'll bet you do to. But if the company does fail, it will be for the reasons we have both given.

With every foray into a new market space like music, retailing, phones, tablets etc. it must be a daunting challenge to maintain the edge. If TV is the next phenomenon, new sales growth could provide protective cover for what we've been discussing about the operating system.

Maybe the company's future isn't the Mac platform, as strange as that may be. Remember a few years ago when Jobs announced the change of the company name from Apple Computer to Apple, Inc.? Then, he announced a few years later that most of their business today is in mobile devices, not computers. Maybe the progressive minds at Apple believe that in our future we will not think of these personal assisant tools as "computers" but instead as electronic gadgets that brighten up our lives.

If that happens and they decide that the Macintosh and OS-X are passé, perhaps they will spin it off into a different entity or sell it. Recent trends suggest the opposite, as so may have written in this thread about the convergence of OS-X and iOS.

My attitude is: those are good ideas and well worth exploring. Get into the discovery mode, Apple, and study these things. But don't stop listening to the customers who continue to use the Macintosh, not as a toy or entertainment device, but as a productivity tool to earn their income or run their business operations.

It's because I have an Apple laptop that I have an iPad and iPod and MobileMe (now iCloud). They sync. If I had a PC I'd buy an Android phone and have a Samsung Tablet and a gmail account. So forgetting about the Mac is the death to their other products. The iPad brings people to the Mac as we ALL want everything to sync. Apple understood that. Everything works together. I have a Bluetooth keyboard for my iPad and a trackpad for my laptop. They just work. But when the operating system doesn't just work, or if there was no Mac laptop, I would not be invested in them so heavily.

Hi:

Steve and Dennis...... Love your comments and view of the past and potential failure of Apple

all good comments and very interesting.

but what are doing about getting these thoughts out and around.. only a few people (relatively speaking) actually read what we are saying. We should get out to the other software vendors and to those individuals who are likely to go to the developers conference in june. If they go with us in mind and our concern over the direction being taken by apple re Versions etc... it will help...

Every software vendor you have bought software from should be contacted....

Lets get your thoughts and opinions out there and not keep them here

still no reply from my last three developers...after the initial acknowledgements.

Four more vendors to approach...

cheers elo

re IBM.... they not only dropped PC's after leading the develpments in DASD they sold out to Hitachi

likewise laser printers, OCR, MICR. they have a habit of getting out of hardware when it gets to be a day today item.

only a few people (relatively speaking) actually read what we are saying.

Had this thread been in the Lion OS forum instead of somewhat buried within iWork > Numbers, there would very likely be three to four times as many views and posts. But I know what you mean. 🙂

Linda, Donnie, raft, DChord, Jezra, elol, Kurt and Dennis. I’m leaving you to this forum with much thanks for your input into my thinking. I am writing an ebook about this situation, and maybe that will make a difference. Other than that I shall watch with interest for the Mountain Lion release and to see if it really does become Apple’s “Windows Vista” moment, or if they listen. Thanks again for your open and honest thoughts on this forum.