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Dan Knight at Low End Mac has posted an insightful essay on the latest Apple firmware upgrade fiasco.

On Friday, Apple released firmware updates for the G4, iBook, Cube, slot-loading iMac, and FireWire PowerBook computers.

Soon after, Mac web message boards began being swamped with messages from irate users who had installed the firmware upgrades and had their third-party RAM disappear from the System's radar screens. Some machines refuse to boot at all.

Apparently, the new firmware is less tolerant of RAM performance, and memory modules that worked fine previously becomes unrecognizable.

As Dan notes, "Some third-party RAM modules were no longer recognized after the firmware update -- but some non-Apple memory worked just fine. Apple branded memory (at about 4x the price) appears to be unaffected by this problem," and that as I noted in my report yesterday, "In reading the TIL articles about these upgrades, there is no warning that they may disable memory that has been working flawlessly in your computer until now."

"If the price of increased system stability and improved FireWire target disk mode is the possible loss of some or all third-party memory in your computer, it's a price not worth paying.," says Dan. I wholeheartedly agree.

I also agree with Dan that "Apple had better make this right -- and fast... To shoot themselves in the... foot with a blunder like the firmware update makes the "missing" OS X features look minor.

Why in the world would Apple create an upgrade that cripples some computers?

Why indeed? As I said, sometimes it seems like Apple has a corporate death with, or a perverse desire to test the patience of its loyal fans to the limit.

Dan sensibly advocates that Apple do something immediately to remedy this farrago, and also do "something for the poor guinea pigs who installed the update over the weekend and completely lost the use of their computers."

And, I will add, as a general rule beware all Apple firmware upgrades until they have been well tested.

Mac users who have been around the Mac orbit for a few years will recall the infamous v. 1.1 PCI firmware ROM update that disabled the blue & white PowerMac desktop systems if it detected a G4 processor upgrade. Blue & white owners were less than enchanted. As the saying goes, "fool me once -- shame on you; fool me twice -- shame on me."

You can read Dan's article here:
http://lowendmac.com/musings/foot.html

Charles W. Moore

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