A Mac has a couple nice Apple stickers on a sheet that you can put on your notebook or your car window or even on your shredder. Windows machines have stickers all over them. HPs are the absolute worst. The stickers are a pain in the ass for people who don't like them and a loud neon sign of mental retardation of the people that leave them on. Yuk!

iMacs and MacBooks come with: "Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Test Drive, iWork (30-day trial)". Looks like 2 craplets to me.

Macbook Pros come with: "Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Test Drive, iWork ’06 (30-day trial), FileMaker Pro Trial". That is 3 craplets.

Mac Pros come with: "Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Test Drive, iWork ’06 (30-day trial), FileMaker Pro 8.5 trial". Three craplets.

Apple is not innocent in this regard.

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Macs also have craplets

But you can ignore that trial software, if you want. And it doesn't take long to remove those apps from your system, since you don't have to run an uninstaller. Just drag them to the trash.

That doesn't sound like much compared to the mountain of crap that comes with Windows PCs, as Mossberg demonstrated. As someone who has purchased three new Macs (an iBook, a MacBook, and an iMac) over the past year, I have to say that the experience of booting up a new Mac and transferring my old data to the new machine is wonderful.

Whether you're talking about Macs or iPods, Apple simply knows how to treat consumers as if they've just uncovered a treasure waiting for them to enjoy. I realize not everyone appreciates that, but there are also people in this country for whom a typical dining out experience is a meal at McDonald's.

Actually Dave, it wasn't really about the "innocence" of Apple, but rather that on the PC side of things, all things mentioned are ANNOYING. As in, they make themselves known without any prompt from the user.

On top of that, I use both Office and iWork now - neither of them I consider craplets for one allows me to completely interact with my co-workers and the other allows me to make creative stuff for my relatives.

Windows on the other hand, throws all kinds of crap at you, sometimes right after startup with stuff you don't necessarily need to use, or as more is the case, WANT to use.

Many of those things, by the way, are what are included, paid for, and work, out of the box from Apple.

Maybe in your eyes Apple isn't innocent, but it sure is a hell of a lot better experience than on a brand new PC.

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Bosco wrote:
A Mac has a couple nice Apple stickers on a sheet that you can put on your notebook or your car window or even on your shredder. Windows machines have stickers all over them. HPs are the absolute worst. The stickers are a pain in the ass for people who don't like them and a loud neon sign of mental retardation of the people that leave them on. Yuk!

Right on! Down with stickers!

Reminds me of the infamous video done by Microsoft folks about how Microsoft would have packaged the iPod.

I read this and thought--"Hwa?"

You bought the machine from Sony. Sony put those applications on the machine because they agreed to do so. How does that make Sony not the "culprit"?

And the "It happens on any new PC" makes it sound like these application "just show up"--like malware. Again, the fact is that companies will pay computer OEMs to put trial versions of their software on the computer.

Mossberg just doesn't want to bite the hand that feeds him.

Big difference is that Apple doesn't stuff it's craplets in your face.

I would hardly call 3 demo apps that can be removed by dropping them in the trash as craplets. Try that on a PC and see what happens. There are no in your face maleware, no AOL, no stickers all over the laptop or desktop. No advertising popping up when you are booting the OS or opening Safari web browser for the first time. When you boot a Mac for the first time you are guided through the OS settings to get you working on the net and registered and that's it.

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Guest wrote:
I read this and thought--"Hwa?"

You bought the machine from Sony. Sony put those applications on the machine because they agreed to do so. How does that make Sony not the "culprit"?

And the "It happens on any new PC" makes it sound like these application "just show up"--like malware. Again, the fact is that companies will pay computer OEMs to put trial versions of their software on the computer.

Mossberg just doesn't want to bite the hand that feeds him.

You are totally right. Sony IS the culprit. But Mossberg is NOT the culprit. Notice the lack of quotes?

Why just report news when you can make incorrect assumptions and opinions and include those too! Come on people! Let's get thos talkback post counts up! I smell a Pulitzer!

regardless of whoever is to blame for putting all the annoying craplets on PCs, this is just yet another little sign of a fundamental difference in philosophy between:
a) companies that focus on a good out-of-the-box experience for the customer (like Apple) - after all, first impressions count
and
b) companies whose first priority is NOT the customer's enjoyment of the product (e.g. OEMs place higher priority on the money paid by craplet-providers without worrying about the annoyance factor or compexity to remove them)

p.s. I would not consider trials of iWork, Office or Filemaker to be craplets. Instead I think they reinforce the positive out-of-box experience, letting the user get right to work, if they choose. And if you don't want to use them, they don't get in your face to annoy you either. If you really don't want them, simply drag them to the trash in a couple seconds. No annoyance, no hassle.

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Guest wrote:
... Again, the fact is that companies will pay computer OEMs to put trial versions of their software on the computer.

And that's just the point, isn't it? Sony allows those companies to treat your computer as their advertising space.

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Guest wrote:
I read this and thought--"Hwa?"

You bought the machine from Sony. Sony put those applications on the machine because they agreed to do so. How does that make Sony not the "culprit"?

The article says Sony is not the SOLE culprit. This is true. You pointed it out yourself. Most PC companies do include a lot of crap. I guess that's one way they keep the prices down.



To be fair, I was offended when I saw MS Office and iWork "test drives". Sure, you can just drag them to the trash, but they ARE imposed on you. Download a Word file to a new Mac an double-click it. What loads? A craplet. (And one that takes waaaay too long to load, at that.)

Someone said that new Macs come with only a trial version of iLife. Is that really true? If so, that's really pathetic--I'm pretty sure they used to always have a full version for free.

Jack

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Guest wrote:
Someone said that new Macs come with only a trial version of iLife. Is that really true?

No, it's not true. iLife included with new Macs is the full version.

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Mikuro wrote:
To be fair, I was offended when I saw MS Office and iWork "test drives". Sure, you can just drag them to the trash, but they ARE imposed on you. Download a Word file to a new Mac an double-click it. What loads? A craplet. (And one that takes waaaay too long to load, at that.)

What would you expect to happen? What application SHOULD load? TextEdit? What would most users think, given that TextEdit will farkle much of the formatting of a Word document? Oh, I know--ou want it to open iTunes!

"Imposed on you"? How? If you don't need to work with Word or Excel documents, you may not even notice that they're there. Their icons are not in the dock as it comes, as I recall.

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gslusher wrote:

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Mikuro wrote:
To be fair, I was offended when I saw MS Office and iWork "test drives". Sure, you can just drag them to the trash, but they ARE imposed on you. Download a Word file to a new Mac an double-click it. What loads? A craplet. (And one that takes waaaay too long to load, at that.)

What would you expect to happen? What application SHOULD load?

Ideally, a capable, complete program. I think it's absurd that we get DVD-mastering software for free, but we're expected to pay $100 or more for a decent word processor. Apple used to have AppleWorks, but they've been neglecting it for almost a decade, and it's not even included with new Macs anymore (at least not all of them).

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Mikuro wrote:

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gslusher wrote:

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Mikuro wrote:
To be fair, I was offended when I saw MS Office and iWork "test drives". Sure, you can just drag them to the trash, but they ARE imposed on you. Download a Word file to a new Mac an double-click it. What loads? A craplet. (And one that takes waaaay too long to load, at that.)

What would you expect to happen? What application SHOULD load?

Ideally, a capable, complete program. I think it's absurd that we get DVD-mastering software for free, but we're expected to pay $100 or more for a decent word processor. Apple used to have AppleWorks, but they've been neglecting it for almost a decade, and it's not even included with new Macs anymore (at least not all of them).

AppleWorks was not included on PowerBooks or Power Macs, only iMacs, iBooks, and the Mac Mini. I'm not sure that AppleWorks, on its own, will open a current Word document. (I can't tell, as I have Dataviz's MacLink Plus installed, which adds translators to AppleWorks.) Even when it does, the formatting is often (most of the time) messed up.

I expect that a lot of people wouldn't want to pay an extra $199--the cost of MS Office 2004 bundled with a new Mac--to have Office included. (If you don't get the bundled version, it's $369 or so.) Some will want it, while others won't.

Suppose you already owned MS Office 2004: would you want to have to pay for another copy if the new Mac replaces an older Mac?

As for the free DVD mastering softare (iDVD), it's part of iLife, which sells for $79, not $199 or $369. Big difference.

I'll also ask you this: what mid-priced Windows PC includes MS Office in the standard price? Most include MS Works, if anything, not Word or Office.

I have a HP a1520n (8 months old) and I am still removing the junk!!
Some the junk I still cannot remove from the computer, like crap in the 'Program list"
To remove a trailware Norton anti-virus I had to request a special program from Symatec, and then manually search the registry for norton and symatec.

I only have this (PC) to write Garmin maps to my Garmin GPS.

never had this with a MAC, and I am a new user to MAC's (>3 years) compared to almost 20 years with Win-Tel!

first of all. person can easily go to remove programs and get rid of the software he or she doesn't need.
second of all, people hated it so much they wouldn't be buying pc's at all. the buyers control what gets sold in the stores.
lastly mossberg breaths, shits, eats apple he is biased in his reviews. i just wish he would stop being such a biased reviewer.

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Anonymous wrote:
first of all. person can easily go to remove programs and get rid of the software he or she doesn't need.
second of all, people hated it so much they wouldn't be buying pc's at all. the buyers control what gets sold in the stores.
lastly mossberg breaths, shits, eats apple he is biased in his reviews. i just wish he would stop being such a biased reviewer.

First, it's apparently not that easy to remove the software in some cases, as pieces are apparently installed all over the place. There are even utilities to remove them. If they were easy to remove, it wouldn't be such a problem. Some load bits during startup--that's one reason Mossberg's Vaio took 2-3 minutes to boot, right out of the box. The MacBook takes about 30 seconds, as there are no startup programs pre-loaded.

Second, people buy PCs because they want or need them; many make the choice based upon price. The manufacturers are paid to include the crapware, which allows them to lower the price. Dell (and, perhaps, others) offers to sell you a crapware-free PC at an higher price. As Mossberg and others say, the PC manufacturers take money to turn your desktop into a billboard.

The PC manufacturers are also a bit disingenuous about what they include. I went to Dell's site and looked at both the Inspiron and XPS laptops. I found little mention of the software they came with except Microsoft Works and a trial version of McAfee Antivirus. The tech specs said essentially nothing. Later, in the process of configuring a laptop, I found mention of trial software from Corel and Yahoo--nothing more. By contrast, the Mac tech specs list all the software that comes with a Mac, including stuff bundled with the operating system, like Mail, Safari, iCal, iChat AV, Address Book, etc. Perhaps the PC manufacturers don't want to call attention to the stuff they push with the computer, but they could at least have a link where one could find out what is installed.

Third, Mossberg wrote two articles, the first on April 5, the second a week later. Read both before you open your mouth and stick your foot in it. From the April 12th article:

"Last week, when I condemned the flood of crippled trial software, ads and offers that come loaded on new Windows Vista computers, readers reacted strongly. I received roughly 700 emails, all but a handful agreeing with me. The column was the most popular article that day on WSJ.com and was cited on numerous other Web sites."

It's not just Mossberg in the press, either. See Joe Wilcox of e-Week's Microsoft Watch; gottabemobile; Ars Technica; computers.net; and many more. Just Google "crapware" and check out a few of the 242,000 hits, or craplet and the 48,000+ hits it gets.