Excuse me... re: "works as advertised". Where does Apple have it advertised that Time Machine does this?

Some people are never satisfied. If you don't like the software go and write your own! If they released Leopard with problems in Time Machine due to backing up to network drives then you'd be complaining that it didn't work.

Be grateful you don't have to use Vista.

"We love Leopard but it ain't perfect.  Let's be realistic."

Its better than my Vista, I hate Vista, after using Windows for years, I want all those cool stuff that Macs have. Windows is not attractive. No stacks, no cover flow, no quick look, ah, everything is so sad. I want a Mac. And this is real, I am a real frustrated Windows user.

It did not work for me when I tried to enable a disk that was already in use as a Time Machine Backup. Whie the control panel shows up the disk is sort of "there", it refuses to back up to it and also to provide a look on the old data in Time Machine mode.

so does this mean you cant proform any system updates for fear of being iBricked?

is it sad that that was my first thought?

:-/

9to5MW: "T !b"

"Admin" is absolutely right when he says "It is really unattractive to the people outside of the cult and keeping people from switching."  I'm a long-time Windows user and I've been thinking about switching to a Mac, especially after seeing the previews of Leopard.  I have NEVER seen so much in-fighting as I do on most Mac blogs (especially this one).  What IS it with some of you people?? 

Apple pulled all references about this feature on its website today.

I think Mac fanboys are just pathytic!!  They don't realize that at the end Apple (or Stevie) does not give a shit about them.  They are in the business of making money not making people happy.  I don't understand the LOYALTY in here.  Come on guys, we are talking about multi billion dollar companies that are good at one thing and that is "doing business".  They are not emotional about you and I.  So don't get emotional about them.  Apple is not different from Microsoft (and in some cases is even worse) when they get a chance to monopolize something.  Look at the iPhone case for christ sake!  I own one and love it as the most fun toy I ever owned.  But I have also never been so frustrated try to play the damn "Cat and Mouse" game.  I am a long time windows user and  a windows/unix developer and have recently started to look at Mac and bought a Mac book pro last month.  The reason for that is solely because Mac is catching up with windows in the sense of productivity.  For years windows has been (and still is) the platform where you can find more applications to go about doing what you want to do.  Mac has always been "cool" but when it comes to productivity and the number of available applications, it has always been far behind windows.  I am experimenting with my new Mac just because I believe it has potential to change this.  Don't get me wrong, in terms of technology, it is way ahead of windows in my opinion.  But not flawless.  So be objective and stop bashing any constructive criticism.

As usual people are arguing and the fanboys think that there right. It is sad to see so many people argue about the silliest things. First of all, I am disappointed in the fact that Apple dropped the bomb on supporting Airport Disks. It was the main feature why I chose to switch from Windows to Mac amongst other things. But just because it isn't going to be released right away doesn't mean it won't come in an update. Apple is probably working on a firmware update for the Airport Extremes and soon after it will release a patch with the necessary support for Time Machine. I still will be buying a MacBook with Leopard installed because I'm tired of using Windows XP.

Typed off my iPod Touch.

I used to like your blog, now it seems almost as if you're anti-mac and just itching for something to bitch about, especially with the iphone,  Some people are never satisfied, at least its not vista, go whine somewhere else

If you think apple has flaws sure, but why concentrate so hard on what isn't right?  Look at how superior their product(s) are.  Are they greedy?  Well I say about Fing time!  Just  compare them to  all of  the other computer/software manufacturers.  Apple has been way more than generous, adding all the functionality of the ilife suite to all shipped computers.  Name one other company that comes close. 

All this crying about the iphone makes me sick, folks this is a ground breaking revolutionary device, all of the cell companies said F U to Steve Jobs, and I think SJ has a right to protect the one company that would support him here in the USA, and even more importantly he needs to support the integrity of the phone, all it takes is a few bozos to write an app that f'ks the whole device.  They are doing whats right for the Apple name and business even if it means pissing off a few crybabies

I think they are conducting business perfectly. and making me a bundle in the process  as a long time shareholder  If you aren't a shareholder, I strongly suggest you jump on board, and enjoy (not bitch and moan and cry about (9 to 5 mac))  the technological par Apple has set above everyone else.  T

Wait a sec, how did this end up as a fan boy arguement, my thoughts at least are that they removed the airdisk backup feature because the reliability is fairly lowsy just using airdisk alone. As I am sure anybody who actually uses an airdisk regularly will know, if you dont unmount it correctly at any point, including, i discovered yesterday whilst the mac goes to sleep to preserve battery, it wont mount again without having to connected to the drive maually by usb and then unmounting before reconnecting it to the Airport. at the very worse a airport restart is required. These are more real problems I think need solving before I will trust my airdisk to back up my whole mac. for now I will just connnect by ethernet.

We don't have that problem with airdisk....a whole family of mac laptops and we all connect to it, never unmounting it at all coming and going from the house or letting the laptops sleep. You have the latest airport extreme?

First, "better than Vista" and "better than Windows" are not the standards to which Apple should aspire. Long time Mac users expect more than that.

Second, the inability to use Time Machine with a drive attached to an AEBS is both a reversal of what was promised and a serious gap in the usability of Time Machine, especially for laptop users. I'd love to hear a real explanation for why they haven't already updated the AE firmware to address this after all the time they've been working on Leopard.

There are a couple of reasons I get frustrated about problems in early releases of various versions of Mac OS X. One is that there are always useless -- sometimes even detrimental -- changes that work while new, useful features are broken. (My transparent menu bar works like a charm at making my menu bar harder to read, but Time Machine is virtually useless to me without AE compatibility.)

The other is that Apple could do better. They have inadequate internal quality control, relying instead on developers with prerelease copies of Mac OS X to report problems, based on my years of experience as a Mac developer. I've seen cases where something in the OS didn't work simply because someone forgot to write the code for it. Users are usually shielded from these problems because developers find ways to work around most of them (which reduces the amount of time we can spend improving existing features and adding new features users want), but it's clear too much code is written at Apple that doesn't work correctly until one or more developers bring it to Apple's attention. Is Windows like that? I don't care and it isn't relevant. There are better ways to produce software, and Apple should be using them.

Sorry, but I think Apple dropped the ball on this one.

I am a UNIX fan.  I feel good when i type text-commands in the terminal mode.  NEXTSTEP (on NeXTstation) and Debian are my favorites.  Sorry i had needed to confide in.

HAHAHHAHAHHAA,

Wow, such genius I am to switch from Mac to Windows Vista Ultimate X64. It feels so good that Windows Bitlocker works great, without any hangups like time machine does. Ha...ha....ha....ha..   U know......it also feels good that i can actually build my own machine and not be led down a road anymore by Apple. I'm glad that I don't get that disappointed feeling whenever a new announcement of hardware is put out at macworld.....u know....that gee, why does apple put out outdated, slow, overpriced hardware feeling.....yeah.....O, I'm enjoying Quad Core processing @ 3.2GHz @ 1333 FSB for as much as a 20" Imac with only 800Mhz system bus, how sorry.....i feel for the graphic professionals that somehow keep holding on when apple has abandoned them long ago.

With such speedy, hassle free, stress free regards,

little stewie

I think they found out that on anything slower than 802.11n wireless network that Time Machine would be pretty unstable, and slow.

If you do the initial backup with the drive plugged in to your powerbook\macbook\pro and then connect to your backup drive as a share through finder, TM should keep chuggin along do the hourly differential backups.

If they would have kept it in, people with 802.11b or g networks would have bitched over how long it took, and it hanging when their machine went in to sleep mode.

Isn't that the whole point of beta testing, they just made the mistake of not pulling it from their advertising sooner, and should come out with a formal explanation, detailing if it will be available as a software update at a later date.

I help manage a medium size university network and the ability of doing a network backup through Time Machine was one of the first things I looked for.  In my view, the inability to do this points to Apple's continued lack of enterprise level suppot.  If Apple is ever going to make gains in the cash cow enterprise market they need to wake up to the existence of the enterprise environment itself and support it on both sides of deployment.  As it stands now, Apple's enterprise support in totally lacking in software development and technical support. 

Granted Apple has made major progress in making Macs play nice on AD networks and I like the network enhancements to Finder that Leopard offers.  Still, Appe seems indifferent to enterprise level environments