Does Apple Hate Dialup Users?
Apple's Website has always been slow on dialup, but since the site redesign a couple of months ago it's been absolutely abominable. "Speed" is relative in this context, but even with my poky connection, a lot of sites load with reasonable dispatch. Not Apple's, and yesterday afternoon was something of a nadir.
Three browsers in succession, including Safari, locked up, with the spinning beachball and "not responding" showing in the Force Quit dialog. They might have eventually sorted themselves out had I waited, but I have little patience for such things, and killed them. I did eventually get on the site (with SeaMonkey) and found what I was looking for, but the whole exercise took more than 20 minutes.
It's hard not to infer that if Apple doesn't have it in for us dialup users, at least they have cast us adrift. Macs - even portable models - no longer come with internal modems. You have to cough an extra $50 bucks (Can$60.00 here in Canada, which is another rip with the Canabuck having hovered around the US$ . 95 mark for about a fiscal quarter now) for a clumsy USB modem dongle in order to use newer Macs on dialup. The slow-as-molasses-running-uphill-in-January Website load is just another backhand.
I'm not an intentional Internet Luddite. I was the first to sign up the day dialup service arrive here back in '97, and would order broadband service in a heartbeat if it was available here, but it isn't and won't be until at least late 2009, if current projections hold. Yes, you can get satellite Internet, but the cheapest deal I costed out worked out to a bottom line of more than $3,000 over a two year contract, locked in with a punishing penalty for early cancellation. Plus I would still need dialup service for weather-related satellite outages. I just can't afford or justify it.
And according to the Nova Scotia government, a lot of us in this province are in the same boat - 22 per cent of Nova Scotians don’t have access to broadband. That’s 200,000 people or 93,500 households, and 5,600 businesses. OK, we're a small province, with a total population under 1 million, but broadband Internet is a virtual necessity these days if you're in business.
However, Website designers might spare a bit of compassion for those of us who still live on the disadvantaged side of the digital divide for a little while longer. It's not an inconsequential market. US broadband penetration broke 80% in February 2007, with dialup users connecting at 56Kbps or less now comprising 19.84% of active Internet users in the US, but that's still an awful whack of users.
CM
Charles W. Moore
