Sorry, I shouldn’t be so sarcastic. After all, you went through all the trouble to pour on the hyperbole and told me to “stfu” while insulting me, so of course I’m going to take you seriously.

So did all the good Apple trolls take the weekend off or what?

When microsoft software engineers start offering up free advice to Apple about ‘the user experience’ any reasonably, partially sane person should laugh hard out loud and tell that messenger to stfu!

Brandon, go for a walk.. think this through again… then, seriously, on this topic leave it be… this is not an area where you’d have any credibility and you’ll appear to be silly and I’m sure you are a nice guy.

Now, if you criticised Apple for actually suggesting software to download when that was not asked, that itself is a legitimate argument. I also do agree with you that unless there is a reason that Safari is needed in order to run an Apple software already installed by the user, Apple should not have Safari pop up.

Note to Brandon: I am an Apple fan, but not all of us bow down to Apple. Undeniably when compared to Microsoft, Apple has in most years (except for that really awful period from the mid-1990s to around 2000) produce software that is more user-friendly. In those awful period of the 1990s to 2000, I too had thought about switching to Windows when the operating system in Macs was quite unstable. There are some things I like about Windows machines but for maintaining them, I don’t like it at all!

Something different about this?

This allows more people to consider more web-standard compliant browsers other than Microsoft’s IE. And Safari is THE most web-standard compliant browser.

Microsoft is the Borg.

But Captain Luc Picard and Captain Janeway had to infiltrate the Borg to disrupt the Borg hive and culture. Both Star Trek captains ended up with pieces of the Borg inside of them. But this ends up being useful for them to anticipate what the Borg would do.

GO APPLE!
Booyah!

No arguing with you on your response. Using the Apple updater mechanism is … sneaky. The whole industry could use a change, but it’s hard to do so when the whole industry spends an inordinate amount of time figuring out how to best take over a user’s PC experience. I’d be happier seeing the current ire at Apple directed at companies like Symantec, HP, NVidia, etc. who load up their software/drivers with unstable bloat that destabilizes Windows in a meager attempt to get more screen real-estate from the user as if they were the one program their customers actually cared about using. (Hint to Symantec, HP, NVidia: if you did your job right, I wouldn’t want to see any of your logos past the install procedure, I’d just expect things to work!)

Microsoft is in the interesting position that they’re they only ones out there with the remote possibility of fixing the issue by putting more restrictions on each app, but doing so would break so much in terms of backwards compatibility that it’s probably not a reasonable option.

As I said, I don’t really *care* that much. It’s not the end of the world, just an annoying decision on Apple’s part.

Of course, the difference between Apple’s so-called “updater” and Windows Update is huge. Windows Update updates Windows. It only updates things that have already been installed. It has the ability to offer “recommended” software like Silverlight, but you have to explicitly choose to install offerings like that.

Apple’s utility makes it look like you already have that software. Do you really think an average computer user is going to know whether or not they have something called “Safari” installed already? 24% of web users can’t find Google. Do you really think they know what Safari is?

They get a dialog that says “Select the items you wish to update” – that sounds pretty clearly like those items should be things I already have, and that are out-of-date. Are you seriously denying that this is an attempt to get Safari on to PCs without the user knowing about it? Because that’s EXACTLY what it is. Whether it’s evil to do that is another matter. I happen to think so, but every company has its flaws. I just wish the Mac fanatics would wake up and realize that Apple is capable of making mistakes or making shitty decisions. Some of the justifications out there for this “feature” are simply outrageous.

Please, explain the difference to me here. I’m not talking about Windows update set to automatically download and install updates. I’m talking about Windows update set to download updates, but wait for my consent before updating.

No matter wether I am working on a Windows PC or a Macintosh, I always check the list of items being “updated” before I consent to the update.

For someone that is supposed to be “savvy” with computers, you seem to be a little lax in your use of update programs.

I agree to an extent, but I do see a difference. It’s one thing to bundle apps with an installer. It’s another to have an “updater” dialog for years and then one day have that “updater” start installing things.

I just think they could have messaged the change better, that’s all. As I said, my criticism is less directed at Apple and more directed at the ridiculous defenses of their actions.