bsherm@umbio.MIAMI.EDU (Bob Sherman) (10/23/88)
AppleLink - Personal edition - A Review.
What do you get when you spend the required $35 fee for AppleLink software, and
a years membership, or when you obtain the software package free from one of
Apple's promotions? Well to begin with you get 2 hours of connect time
FREE. FREE do they say?? Sure, but try using it without having to provide
your credit card number or checking account information BEFORE they will let
you have what they offered as FREE. Now, if you have already spent your
$35 to buy the package, you don't find this out until AFTER you open the
package and read the book. What happens in that case if perhaps you do not
have a credit card, or a card of the type they accept, well folks, you
are STUCK with the opened package that the dealer will not accept back, and
you cannot even use the FREE time that you already paid for..
Will they send you a bill?? Heck no, they want permission to dip their hands
into your bank account or credit card, in other words, they will not trust
you to pay your bill, but you should trust them to have access to your
assets.. Gee, didn't they ever hear about a dis-honest employee?? I must wonder
if they give all of their vendors open access to their bank accounts, or if
they demand to be sent invoices, check them, and pay them if all is in order?
Oh, before I forget, the $35 fee is an annual one, so every year you must
pay it on renewal.
OK, on to the service.. The software download sections appear quite sparse,
with only a dozen or so programs in most areas, compaired to say Compuserve
with hundreds of downloads in each section, and of the few AppleLink has to
offer, most, if not all can be found on the other services.. It appears that
BLU, which has become almost a standard on the other services is not
acceptable to AppleLink, so they make you download and use ALU to pack and
unpack the download files (it appears that Floyd Zink is the author of
both)..
In the bulletin board areas the message base appears very small, many of the
messages dating back several months, and only a few current ones.. The
technical library has been offline now for a while and is not accessable, as
are a few of the other features.. The newsroom had about 3 current stories,
the rest were 1 or 2 days old.. In all, I found nothing in these areas to
interest me in returning anytime soon...
So what is AppleLink - Personal Edition good for?? It might be good if you
wanted to read press releases issued by Apple, and it might be good if you
want to send e-mail to someone at Apple, but then MCI mail, and the US Mail
do the same thing, but cheaper.. It might be good if you want to spend
endless hours in one of the "rooms" (electronic CB) chatting with others,
but then, what happened to the old fashioned telephone, which when you
think about it, is also cheaper in off hours.. 2 people in a room chatting
at $6 per hour = $12 per hour, Reach Out America only costs $8 per hour
for the same 2 people to chat via phone, which for sure is much faster..
My last observation about AppleLink is that they REQUIRE you to use their
software to access the system, and of course it only operates on an Apple.
This means that if you use a laptop when you travel, AppleLink cannot
be your road companion as can all of the other services, or if you should
have another brand of computer at work or school, you CANNOT access
AppleLink as you can the other services, and if you should already have a
favorite terminal program that you use on your Apple, you must ditch it
whenever you wish to access AppleLink - Personal Edition..
On a 1 to 5 scale I would have to been in a very liberal mood to even give a
rating of 1 to this service, and even then I cannot excuse them for
refusing to give the promised FREE time without being required to give
them access to my bank or credit card accounts.. I suggest that you save
your time and money, and if you are looking for an online service to
subscribe to, check out the others such as Compuserve, Genie, or Source.
I'm sure I will get some flames on the above, but it gives you the basics
of my review which will appear in a national publication soon..
--
Internet -- bsherm%umbio@umigw.miami.edu
UUCP -- {uunet!gould}!umbio!bsherm
Miami's Big Apple 305-948-8000 1200 baud 24 hours 8 years onlinelwv@n8emr.UUCP (Larry W. Virden) (10/24/88)
1. If this review goes into a national publication in this form, expect at LEAST flames - dont be surprised to get even hotter responses than that! 2. I was on Delphi 4 years ago and in this time it has as little or less than what you just described for a 6 month old service; what in the world do you expect for a service which had NO regular subscribers until a month ago? 3. With regard to the payment setup - this is the same way that Delphi and Compuserve work (except that CIS has a checkfree payment setup I think it is called; not a billing service, but you pay them how much you think you are going to use and they lock you out of the system after you have used up your money.) You honestly think that anyone with thousands of customers racking up LOTS of dollars of online time is going to try to use a billing method? Good grief! What a cash flow night mare? Any GENIE or Source users out there have payment method coments? I know at one time Source required a minimum monthly payment of $10 - even if you hadnt logged on for a single second! That made a $120 a year payment; makes $35 a year look like of puny doesnt it? 4. I have NO connection with AppleLink - I ordered one of the 'free' kits and never received it (i am sure LOTS of others did likewise so I dont expect to get one till next year or later). So I have no vested interest here. I just think folks should get a break. 5. As for small amounts of downloads - look at usenet/bitnet apple downloads recently - rather miserly theirselves! -- Larry W. Virden 75046,606 (CIS) 674 Falls Place, Reynoldsburg, OH 43068 (614) 864-8817 osu-cis!n8emr!lwv (UUCP) osu-cis!n8emr!lwv@TUT.CIS.OHIO-STATE.EDU (INTERNET) We haven't inherited the world from our parents, but borrowed it from our children.
SEWALL@UCONNVM.BITNET (Murph Sewall) (10/27/88)
>Will they send you a bill?? Heck no, they want permission to dip their hands >into your bank account or credit card, in other words, they will not trust >you to pay your bill, but you should trust them to have access to your >assets.. Gee, didn't they ever hear about a dis-honest employee?? I must wonder >if they give all of their vendors open access to their bank accounts, or if >they demand to be sent invoices, check them, and pay them if all is in order? It's a better idea to use a bank credit card than a direct transfer from your checking account. If you using a microcomputer, it's a good idea to have a bank credit card to charge mail order purchases to. You can dispute a bill charged to a credit card account for up to a year later EVEN IF YOU'VE PAID the credit card balance. That right is based on a Federal law. Consumer Reports published the details a year or so ago (better to look it up in your local library than to trust my feeble recall). I have used the clout of a large credit card company to deny payment to mail order vendors until I actually received the ordered software. I got far more satisfactory service in at least once instance than I would have as an individual. You may not always be happy with the quality of services for AppleLink PE, but I doubt you'll have any real disputes over billing --- HOWEVER, on the off chance that there is an error in your bill, it's MUCH easier to get straight answers to questions posed by an organization as large as the one sending the bill than you'll get all by yourself (the bank credit card organizations WILL help you out because there's a statute that makes that a condition of their staying in business). [The Far Side shall return (I hope)] Murph Sewall Sewall@UCONNVM.BITNET Business School sewall%uconnvm.bitnet@mitvma.mit.edu [INTERNET] U of Connecticut {rutgers psuvax1 ucbvax & in Europe - mcvax} !UCONNVM.BITNET!SEWALL [UUCP] -+- My employer isn't responsible for my mistakes AND vice-versa! (subject to change without notice; void where prohibited) "Close enough for government work" - source unknown (naturally ;-)