Snow Leopard Could Eat Your Data, But Apple's Working On A Fix
Apple prides itself on providing operating systems that "just work," though some are saying OS X 10.6 (its latest version) "just works against you." Too harsh? Maybe, but there's no denying that the latest bug is one that's simply too large to stay quiet about. For years, OS X was as stable a consumer OS as the world had ever seen; by and large, the system never really caused users any major issues, and security concerns were practically nil.
With the introduction of Snow Leopard, however, more bugs than ever are surfacing. Some of it probably has to do with the wider customer base that Apple has gained with its surge in popularity, but there's just no excuse for having a bug that literally consumes a user's data if they make one wrong move in the Guest Account. And mind you, this bug is still present even after 10.6.1.
As the story goes, users upgrading their Apple system to 10.6 could actually delete all of their data by entering the Guest Account at the wrong time. Users all over the Web have reported that entering the Guest Account would cause the system to hang, and when the forced an exit, their main profile greeted them with no user data at all. Documents, media, everything--just gone.
Of course, the easy fix is to simply disable the Guest Account, but what if that's a feature you routinely use? After widespread outrage, Apple has come forward to acknowledge the problem and promise a fix. In typical Apple fashion, it asserts that the problem only occurs in rare cases, but still, this is a huge, huge issue. If you don't backup your data, and you accidently surf over to the Guest Account in Snow Leopard, you just might lose all of your data. Not cool. Oh, and considering that Windows 7 launches next week, the timing here couldn't possibly be worse for Apple (or better for Microsoft, as it were). Might a new PC vs. Mac ad be on the horizon?
With the introduction of Snow Leopard, however, more bugs than ever are surfacing. Some of it probably has to do with the wider customer base that Apple has gained with its surge in popularity, but there's just no excuse for having a bug that literally consumes a user's data if they make one wrong move in the Guest Account. And mind you, this bug is still present even after 10.6.1.
As the story goes, users upgrading their Apple system to 10.6 could actually delete all of their data by entering the Guest Account at the wrong time. Users all over the Web have reported that entering the Guest Account would cause the system to hang, and when the forced an exit, their main profile greeted them with no user data at all. Documents, media, everything--just gone.
Of course, the easy fix is to simply disable the Guest Account, but what if that's a feature you routinely use? After widespread outrage, Apple has come forward to acknowledge the problem and promise a fix. In typical Apple fashion, it asserts that the problem only occurs in rare cases, but still, this is a huge, huge issue. If you don't backup your data, and you accidently surf over to the Guest Account in Snow Leopard, you just might lose all of your data. Not cool. Oh, and considering that Windows 7 launches next week, the timing here couldn't possibly be worse for Apple (or better for Microsoft, as it were). Might a new PC vs. Mac ad be on the horizon?
