Margie commented a few days ago that, in doing an iTunes upgrade, she’d been offered a chance to install Safari.
“Safari? That’s a Mac browser.”
“Well, it offered to install it for me.”
“Huh. Weird.”
Turns out that Safari is now available for Windows, too (not sure for how long) — but Apple’s drawing heat by slipstreaming it in as … well, as an “update” to iTunes (which it’s not), installed by default (bad dog!).
I agree with the critics — new products, or products that are not the core of what you say you are trying to install, should be clearly labeled and should not be chosen by default. I dislike it when other companies pull that sort of trick (“No, for the twelfth time, I do *not* want to install Yahoo’s browser bar while downloading your upgrade to something that has nothing to do with the browser!”), and I don’t dislike it any less that it’s Apple doing it this time.
Regardless, that’s why I always do a “Custom” (rather than “Default”) install when I load things onto my machine — so I know what’s actually being put in.
Apple’s taking heat? Mmmm, piiiiiie.
I had the same experience recently; when iTunes updated it offered to install Safari. I installed it because as we’ve recently drunk the iPhone koolaid over here, I figured it kind of would be handy for importing links. Apparently the only way to import links from Firefox was to first put them on the desktop, and then import them into Safari, where iTunes can find them. Seemed kinda silly, but okay.
I don’t care for sneak tactics – now Photoshop is convinced that it’s the only program that can handle new images, even though I’m quite happy with Picasa. Must delve into that as it’s annoying that both programs pop up now whenever I’ve got new images on a device.
Yeah. I seriously hate dueling “That extension belongs to me!” “No, me!” “No, me!” application wars.
So, how you liking Safari?
More. It’s pretty sad when Microsoft gets it right. Or less wrong.
LOL, we all do. And it’s why we need to start adopting open standards. If everyone, or the majority used open standards than we could stop this system of letting the loudest shouting company dictate what programs we use and how. Plus even MS can read open standards, they just prefer everyone use their system.
MS getting updating right? I will concede that MS’s updating process is simple and intuitive, but they are no better than Apple when it comes to abusing the updating system. How many times have updates torpedoed some other app? How many times have updates put settings back to defaults? No one knows what you want better than MS 🙂
More. The comments are particularly amusing (or scary). The Apple Fanatics (I would call them Loyalists, but I consider myself an Apple Loyalist) summarize their arguments as:
1. Microsoft did it first.
2. Windoze sux, Apple rocks.
3. Microsoft did it first.
Webs:
1. I don’t see how “open standards” would help this. The question is not what is a standard MP3 file (for example), but applications deciding that, no, they are to be your MP3 player of choice and seizing the registry association. (Arguably this is a weakness of the OS, but it’s bad behavior on the part of the apps.) (And some apps are very polite about doing this — “Here’s a list of formats that this app can handle — choose the ones you want.”)
2. MS hasn’t done a Windows update that automatically opts in for installing IE7. (It has tried to foist the Windows Anti-Piracy Stuff, but that’s a bit different.)
And note that I corrected “right” with “less wrong.”
Some products or companies inspire loyalty that crosses the line into insanity in some people. The reactions of those people are not to be trusted in evaluating other similar products or actions by those companies. The “fanatic” arguments you mention are tu quoque fallacies or ad hominem fallacies. I recommend that you regard them as the babbling of the insane and ignore them.
The fact that a company goofs up once or twice doesn’t make them evil. I think you need to evaluate companies on the basis of their overall behavior and assume that they will slip occasionally, just as you evaluate people by their overall character rather than by their occasional mistakes. It seems to me that Apple has a better overall record than Microsoft, particularly if you go back to the era when Microsoft was being investigated for monopolistic practices.
To me, the interesting question is whether Apple recognizes that they should not have made the Safari installation the default and corrects the problem. Microsoft seems to have learned some lessons from its battle with the federal government, and if Apple corrects its behavior on the basis of the public response to its actions without the intervention of the feds, then I think Apple will have demonstrated that it’s better-behaved than Microsoft is.
Agreed on all counts.
Even worse: While Safari gets its own checkbox, QuickTime is “Install Quicktime + iTunes.” I don’t use iTunes. I don’t need iTunes. I dopn’t want iTunes! But if I want the latest update to QuickTime, I either accept iTunes or I close the update window and go to Apple’s website to download the latest full version of QuickTime (if there’s a way to get just a patch for QT, it’s well-hidden).
What, do they think I’ll go out and buy an iPod if they install iTunes on my computer? >:-[