SaudiMac Saudi Apple Macintosh Users
Last topic was about the brand new Arabic localization of Mac OS X Tiger! While checking the rest of the website for the “Official” Apple distributor in the Middle East, here are my comments about it:
- The site is a copy and paste of the template of the old Apple.com site, needs a lot of improvements. And there is a missing tab that doesn’t take you anywhere.
- Outdated Quicktime page with version 6.5 (current is version 7) and 3 year old movie trailers. And notice the 3rd generation iPod!
- Homepage mentions the 3rd generation iPod nano and other new iPods. The iPod/iTunes page mentions the last generations. Notice the unavailable images. Clicking the older nano pictures takes you to the new nano pages.
- Apple TV being sold here but no iTunes store at all (not even a music store). And the link to the so-called “Terms of Sales” is dead.
- The Mac for Education page doesn’t have any real information, it just copies Apple’s site and provide no information for any Middle East based education!
- Mac OS X page is still in Tiger mode no information about Leopard.
You’re right, but a question then is how much control do they have over their own site…
A quick WHOIS check reveals the owners of the site:
domain: appleme.ae
descr: ARAB BUSINESS MACHINES LTD (DUBAI BRANCH)
descr: 194.170.205.0 – 194.170.205.255
descr: P.O.Box 55563
descr: Dubai
descr: United Arab Emirates
admin-c: II26-UAENIC
tech-c: II26-UAENIC
zone-c: II26-UAENIC
nserver: dxbans1.ecompany.ae dxbans2.ecompany.ae auhans1.ecompany.ae
changed: hostmaster@nic.ae 20060705
source: UAENIC
person: Iyad Issa
address: Dubai
address: P.O.Box37465
address: United Arab Emirates
phone: +971 2 233438
fax-no: +971 2 227670
e-mail: waddah@appleme.ae
nic-hdl: II26-UAENIC
changed: hostmaster@nic.ae 20060705
source: UAENIC