Q: OS X Mountain Lion AirPlay Mirroring

Tomsmacs wrote:

 

Completely Agree with you, the "hardware issue" is a load of crap.

Try building an airplane before the wing was invented.

Lord Of The Weirdos wrote:

 

Read the community, people asking how to switch back are all over.  There are at least several 100 threads with multiple people asking how.

several hundred out of millions? you have better odds in the lottery

Well Deggie, I spent over an hour reading postings before I put finger to keyboard. I am not upset as you suggest I find the managerial decisions and explanations, unacceptable. To put this in perspective I spent my career in IT Management the later years at the cutting edge. Perhaps someone from Apple would like to come forward with an explanation of why airplay mirroring could not be implemented on a 2010 so that a reasoned discussion could be entered into, hopefully with people who know the technology. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video

I don't agree with your comment here. I am basically trying to explain that apple have simply just chosen not to bother making their software usable on slightly older machines.

The difference between PC and Mac prices in the UK are huge, and an apple product used to by far out last any Windows system. However, with apple pulling the plug on machines less than 2 years old, it simply does not translate into a good customer experience, and amounts to a huge proportion of waste.

I have a selection of power-pc/Intel macs and also Windows machines. Whilst I cant install anything past OSX 10.5 on my power-pc macs, I can install Windows 7 on a PC of similar age. Granted the experience wont be the same as if I installed it on a machine less than 2 years old, however it still works fine and I have full functionality with a £20 ram upgrade. With my power-pc macs's and now my intel macs, this isn't the case and I believe it is a real let down by apple, of which I am/used to be a huge fan and constant user for over 20 years.

Which brings me back to my Tesco analogy. A company that has grown so large, it has started to ignore its loyal customer base that got it there, and we all know what happened with poor customer service/satisfaction. No company can operate in isolation from this.

I pay for windows upgrades when they come out and i can be assured they will work on my windows machines. If course it was a managerial decision, but a bad one.

I do not see why getting a refund for a product that does not work fully is over the top. If you purchased a television that did not receive all the premium channels you expected, I'm sure you would return it for a refund. Just becasue its £20 compared with Windows price, doesnt make it ok not to deliver on its main features.

I agree and also unhappy that a feature that should be simply work with any Macbook or Macbook Pro was limited to only last year models+.  This was not a hardware limitation but Apple forcing users to buy newer Laptops.  Apple should apologise for this and provide an update removing this limitation.  I agree Airparot is not the alternative and this should be builtin. 

Apple I hope you are listening to these customers, we are your business.

joecarson wrote:

 

I agree and also unhappy that a feature that should be simply work with any Macbook or Macbook Pro was limited to only last year models+.  This was not a hardware limitation but Apple forcing users to buy newer Laptops.  Apple should apologise for this and provide an update removing this limitation.  I agree Airparot is not the alternative and this should be builtin. 

 

Apple I hope you are listening to these customers, we are your business.

Apple may or may not be reading these posts (Officially no) so go to www.apple.com/feedback and let them know.

Did you read the link I posted above your post?

hi deggie, yes though i am assuming you are trying to state that it is hardware related though I disagree otherwise Airparrot would not exist.  This is simply software locked down to force user to buy newer laptops.

You do realize they have the limitations listed as a note on the Airplay feature description.

I understand why people are upset, but do you really think Apple should cater updates to computers with old hardware? Unfortunatly, it is the nature of computing (specifically with CPUs and RAM) that updates are made constantly and sometimes significant changes are made and adopted in a short period of time. Catering to older hardware certainly would not lead to greater innovation.

As has been mentioned there are (whether you want to admit it or not) specific hardware limitations that affect older CPUs. Apple is not going to allow a feature that uses 80% of the CPU or leads to harmful overheating in these older machines. Just because third parties can accomplish the task, does not mean that it meets Apple's standards.

I agree with most of the others. I bought a Mac and paid considerably more for it expecting it to last many years. Because of this, my computer is now worthless. I bought it at the begining of 2011 and less than two years later it is virtually obsolete.

I believe this was a deliberate tactic by Apple to force people into upgrading more often. The "hardware issue" is nothing but crap. I wish that I had stuck with a PC. I could have upgraded to a newer model and still been ahead financially. I feel ripped off!

So I'm going to assume you read at least one of the links about Intel Quicksync (only the computers with this chipset can do AirPlay mirroring) and you are incapable of understanding the new technology involved, so you've labeled it all crap.

But say Apple had decided NOT to use this new technology? Or Intel had yet to invent it, so Apple did not include AirPlay mirroring for any computer. Those that wanted it could use AirParrot.

Would your computer still be worthless?

Ok, I will only mention this one more time, why can air parrot do this but mountain lion cannot on older hardware? Simply Intel Quicksync made it easier but this is not a hardware limitation just apple forcing people to upgrade but restricting features to latest hardware. Simple.

They wanted a guaranteed realtime video playback performance. If you use CPU the video coding can not be guaranteed realtime. As is clearly illustrated in the many performance issues and reviews of high quality video using Airparrot.

Using the GPU QuickSync is able to encode/decode HD H.264 dual realtime streams without burdon on the CPU. The simple fact is that QuickSync is a significantly better technology then Nvidia CUDA and ADM/ATI when it comes to streaming and coding.

and . . .

Apple is not going to release a product which:

1. does not work well in many older machines
2. is potentially damaging to older machines, especially laptops
3. (most importantly for costomers with recent purchases) does not utilize and take full advantage of the latest hardware capabilities

If Airparrot works so well why is this is even an issue? Its because it doesn't work that well with high quality streaming video, which apple obviously knew.

Unfortunately it is the nature of computing that older computers can not do some things that new computers can. Apple made a determination to focus the mirroring technology on a platform which uses the latest technology.

It is unfortunate that this was a change made for some users who made what is considered a recent purchase. But would you rather, upon realizing the limitations of the airparrot method were not satisfactory, they scrap the idea of mirroring untill a suitable time period had based for older users?