Brandon Live!

Two points I want to make based on the comments my last post is receiving:

1)  That post, and its title, are mainly about the outrageous ways in which people are jumping to Apple’s defense… not Apple’s action itself.

2)  If your argument is that user’s read the dialog and can uncheck the Safari box if they don’t want it, you are delusional.

Consider the recent report that 24% of internet users can’t find Google.  Now think about this from that user’s perspective.  They see a dialog that says, very clearly, “Select the items you want to update.”  Do you really think those users are going to know what Safari is?  Do you think they’re going to know that they don’t already have it installed?

I bet you way more than 24% don’t even know what “Quicktime” is.  I can promise you my sister, her roommates, and my mom all don’t.  They sure as heck don’t know what Safari is.  If they see it in that list, they are going to assume it is something they already have.  Probably something that came with their computer. 

If they’re “good” users, they will know that keeping their software up-to-date is important, so they’ll choose to update everything they possibly can because they don’t want their computers to be hacked, and we keep telling them that the best way to do that is to keep their systems up-to-date.  Apple is manipulating that to their advantage.  That’s exactly what John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, said yesterday.  He is right.

You can argue that it’s their software, and they can do with it as they please.  I will agree with you, actually.  However, just because I believe they can do this, and support their right to, doesn’t mean I have to like it.  I think it’s a shitty practice, and if we don’t make a big deal about it right now, it’s only going to get worse.

If you haven’t heard, Apple has decided to start forcing Safari down your throat if you use iTunes, Quicktime, or any of their other Windows software.

In response, lots of Apple fans have jumped to their defense.  They say that users read the dialog before clicking “update.”  They say users will welcome their new Apple overlords.  They say it’s okay because ”Microsoft is worse” - they make me reboot after installing updates!

Some nutjobs are even saying that Apple distributing new software through the updater is the “cost” of using their product - akin to ads in Messenger or fees for anti-virus software.  I don’t remember signing up for that cost when I bought my iPhone.  That same wacko makes a bunch of other outrageous claims about how it is a glorious achievement that Apple is assimilating your Windows machine without asking first.  You should read it, if only for the comedic value.

I think the disconnect here is simple. It’s just like the disagreement that arose over Apple’s font rendering when they first released Safari to Windows. And that is:

People like the way things work on their Windows PCs. They don’t want one app to have different, blurrier font rendering. They don’t want Apple installing apps on their machines without consent.

Apple and their fans don’t understand this, because they believe they are partaking in some sort of “holy crusade” and “bringing the light of Apple to the underprivileged in Windows land.” It’s an absurd mindset, but that hasn’t stopped them having it. They just can’t understand why Windows user’s wouldn’t welcome Apple’s software and UI.

They’re like the borg, “Why wouldn’t you want to be assimilated - we bring perfection!”

Maybe not, but close enough.  Anything that leads to users unintentionally taking an action is a flawed UI.  That could mean this is a design flaw - but Apple doesn’t make those =)  Besides, the intent is obvious - to get more people to install Safari whether they want it or not.  Rationalize it all you want, but you can’t deny the game they’re playing.Is it working?I’m a software developer, and probably one of the most generally computer savvy people I know. I got very used to clicking “Update” button on the Apple Software Update dialog so that it would keep iTunes and Quicktime up-to-date (along with the BootCamp software on my Macbook).I came very close to installing Safari by accident because of this, and would not at all be surprised to see lots of others clicking it without looking.

The right thing for Apple to do here would have been:

1) Don’t check it by default. You’ve gotten people trained to click “Update” since you don’t have an automatic update system, and now you’re abusing that.
2) The text in the dialog is inaccurate. It says “Select the items you want to update” - but Safari isn’t software on my computer, so how can I update it?

I had Safari installed on one of my machines to try it out when they released it. So it was normal for the updater to want to update it there.  Then when it popped up in the list on a different machine I was confused, and thought I had mixed up which machine I’d installed it on months ago. But I had not. They were trying to trick me.

Oh sorry, they were trying to “show me the light.”

Update:

I just posted a follow-up to this entry.

 Update 2/23:  Apparently the infamous Fake Steve Jobs has linked to this two-week-old post because of the little anecdote at the end, with an interpretation I didn’t quite expect.  After all, the main purpose of “the wall” is to remind us how awesome the work we’re doing is by comparison.  As always, Fake Steve is good for a laugh, although it’s a bit less enjoyable when you’re the one being picked on!  ”Microtards?”  Ouch.  Of course, I think it should hardly be surprising that people in any business compare themselves to their competition.  Can you imagine any place where that doesn’t happen?

Like the Japanese car in the Dearborn auto plant parking lot, Macs and iPhones must create problems for switchers working at Apple competitors as well as companies with a PC-or-die IT policy.

He then goes on to link to this very blog!

However, Microsoft appears to be okay with at least one of its employees running Vista on a MacBook in the office. Blogger Chris Pirillo pointed to Brandon Paddock, a self-described geek who works on search technology at Microsoft (but not in the Microsoft Mac Business Unit, where it’s okay to show up with Mac hardware and software, or at least it is at the “SVC,” the Silicon Valley Campus in Mountain View, Calif.).

It’s true, I’m a Microsoft developer (on Windows no less) with a Macbook.  And an iPhone!  I’m also rather fond of both of them.

I’m not the only one, either.  I see as many iPhones as Blackjacks these days, maybe more.  It’s really an awesome device and it doesn’t surprise me at all that geekier folk would pick one up.

I also wasn’t the first on the shell team with a Macbook.  My friend David used to be an SDET on the team, but is now a PM.  His primary machine is a first-gen black Macbook.  I’m pretty sure I’ve seen at least one Macbook Pro in a nearby office, and my boss has an iMac at home.

Many of them are like me, and run Vista pretty much exclusively on them.  I know some didn’t even keep the OS X partition around when they installed it.  It’s neat to play with once in a while (and the VMware Fusion and Parallels stuff is getting really impressive), but not terribly useful for practical purposes, especially if your life revolves around building a competing OS.

If you do run OS X, you can even get it on our network, although some things like getting on the WiFi take a fair bit of extra work.  Luckily there’s an IT help page that walks you through it.

But as I said, in my case it’s pretty much a PC.  A stylish, well-put-together PC.  I even recently put a Vista orb sticker on top covering the backlit Apple logo (which likes to shine through while it’s running, creating an eerie, ghostly effect).  Not because anyone ever cared that I carried a Mac around, but because I’m very proud of the team I work on and what we do there.  And it fits perfectly =)

If I haven’t mentioned it before, I love working at Microsoft.  I love that I can carry a Macbook around to every meeting and have others think nothing of it.  I love that others on the team are willing to look at, use, and sometimes even live with our main competitor’s product.  I think it’s important to know what “the other side” is doing, and to understand what users are talking about when they make comparisons.  I think it’s also important that we respect the great things they’re doing down there, and strive to do better if we see some area where they’ve got an edge on us.

Little tidbit on that note:  One day a friend of mine on the team printed off a couple dozen screenshots of Leopard, showing off various tasks the user can do in OS X, and hung them on one of our hallways.  Across from it are pictures of the same tasks in that incredibly well-kept secret of a project that we’re working on.  There are post-it notes and markers next to each wall where passersby leave comments / questions.

I wonder if any hallways in Cupertino have something like that?

Sounds like Nik Cubrilovic has been enjoying his Vista experience on his Mac as much as I have… so much that he’s switched (back) from OS X.

Some big news out of Mix07 today.  Silverlight itself had been announced a week or two ago.  Now they’ve gone and announced the next version of it already (Silverlight 1.1) which will includes the CLR for the Mac (and possibly other platforms?  Or perhaps they’ll come later).  This is pretty huge, and I wonder what it will mean for projects like Mono.  A new beta of Silverlight 1.0 was made available, as well as the Mac-CLR-supporting 1.1 alpha build.  Release notes for both are here.

Another interesting announcement is that Windows Live will be offering a new serivce which reportedly offers 4GB of storage to Silverlight developers to host applications and media (videos, etc).  Joshua Allen’s post seems to suggest that this is a Windows Live Platform initiative.  That could be big, and I can’t wait to see how it comes together.

More:

WebWare keynote coverage
Channel 9 video on the cross-platform CLR
Silverlight.net

At last, no more scheduled task to restart my mouse driver everytime I resume from sleep =)
The updated driver installer works great on Vista, and installs all the little utilities I hadn’t enabled like the brightness/volume controls. Supposedly there’s some application for controlling start-up options, but I haven’t found it.

Oh, and sound works better now (for some reason, lots of system sounds frequently wouldn’t play on the old driver), as do the idle timers for sleep / screensaver.

It seems like they’ve fixed all the rough edges, except for one thing. For some reason, whenever the Macbook comes out of sleep, it chooses a random state for the NumLock key - but the light on the key itself doesn’t light if it decides to be on. This means that 50% of the time I end up typing an invalid password (because the right half the keyboard becomes a number pad).

All in all, that’s a pretty darn minor gripe compared to the plethora of issues that my Toshiba laptop had.

Bootcamp 1.2 with Vista support

Following up on my last post, Walt Mossberg himself decided to drop by my comments section to justify his position. As I said in another comment answering his, I believe his explanation that the 50% difference in cost includes the price of an add-on WiFi adapter to be quite reasonable. However, the article makes no mention of that and in my mind it’s just as reasonable for any reader to believe that figure is in error.

What’s more, I still believe his response to my initial e-mail was uncalled for, and that his suggestion that I should apologize to him is rather absurd. However, I’ve been wrong before. So rather than arguing any further, I’ll simply the share the e-mails in question and let you decide who overreacted.

From: Brandon Paddock
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 1:34 PM,
Subject: Question about Apple TV article (error?)

Hi there,

I’m curious about this quote from your Apple TV article.

“But the comparable Xbox costs 50% more than Apple TV, is much larger and stores only half as much material.”

Where does the 50% number come from? I would think the Xbox 360 with equivalent functionality would be the Core System, which is priced identically to the Apple TV box ($299). I say equivalent functionality because as far as I’m aware, the Apple TV doesn’t yet store anything on its hard drive, and its primary purpose is to stream data from an iTunes-equipped PC. As a bonus, the 360 can be equipped with a hard drive at a later date (possibly a much larger one) and play games and DVDs.

However, more concerning is that the 50% number doesn’t even make sense for the most expensive Xbox 360 system, which is priced at $399 (thus a 30% number would make more sense, or you could just be clear and say $399). Thus I have to believe the 50% number to be in error. If not, I’d be interested in a clarification of where it came from.

Thanks,
Brandon Paddock
http://brandonlive.com

From: Walt Mossberg
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 1:42 PM
To: Brandon Paddock
Cc: Katherine Boehret
Subject: Re: Question about Apple TV article (error?)

Boy, you really have to read more carefully before accusing people of error. The $299 Apple TV has a 40 GB hard disk and can sync with any Mac or Windows computer, storing the media from those computers, PLUS stream from five more Mac or Windows computers and stream directly from the internet.

Next time, READ the article before emailing.

Walt

Walt insists he read my message “word-for-word” before responding. Doesn’t look that way to me, though.

This afternoon I was reading an article about the new Apple TV device written by Walt Mossberg and Katherine Boehret of the Wall Street Journal.

As I was reading it, this line jumped out at me:

But the comparable Xbox costs 50% more than Apple TV, is much larger and stores only half as much material.

50% more? Where did they get 50%? The Apple TV is $299, and the most expensive Xbox 360 is $399. By my admittedly hasty calculation, that appears to be about 30% more, not 50. Curious about the origin of this figure, I clicked the “Email” link at the bottom of the page and politely inquired about it. I concluded my message, “Thus I have to believe the 50% number to be in error. If not, I’d be interested in a clarification of where it came from.”

I also suggested that a comparison between the Apple TV and the equally priced Xbox 360 model might be more appropriate than they had suggested - as the main functionality of the Apple TV doesn’t make use of its 40GB hard drive, making it of questionable advantage with the current software. Surely the Xbox’s ability to play games and DVDs (plus support any resolution including old TVs and the top-end 1080p) could help balance out that largely ethereal advantage.

I received a response within 10 minutes from Mossberg himself, which normally I’d find to be quite impressive. Unfortunately, what I got was an unprofessional flame mail that didn’t address my concern. Instead, it very rudely suggested that I was too uninformed to comment on the Apple TV. He said that if I thought there was an error, it was because I didn’t read the article “carefully” enough. He concluded his message saying, “Next time, READ the article before emailing.”

Perhaps Walt should take his own advice and READ his e-mail before flaming a concerned reader. Even if the error wasn’t in plain sight, his response was uncalled for. Who knows, maybe he’s just having a bad day. That still doesn’t excuse such an unprofessional response from someone of his supposed journalistic integrity. Walt, you need to chill out. Maybe someone needs a vacation?

Ryan Faas has an article up highlighting the upgraded Spotlight feature of Apple’s upcoming “Leopard” 10.5 release of OS X.  It’s got some really cool stuff coming, including:

• Searching remote Leopard clients and server shares
• Full support for file permissions and ACLs
• Expanded “Recent Items” functionality
• Advanced search with a much more robust query syntax
• Use Spotlight as an application launcher (a sort of “Start Menu” if you will)
• Preview results and files without opening them

Those are all really great features!  I just can’t put my finger on it, but for some reason I feel like I’ve seen them before.

Update:  None of this is necessary anymore. Just install BootCamp 1.2

If you’re running Vista on a MacBook, you might be aware that installing the Apple Trackpad driver will let you scroll with the trackpad and let you right-click by holding two fingers on the trackpad and clicking the button (sadly there’s still no “tap” support, but hopefully that will come soon).  You might also be aware that if you install the driver, it fails after resuming from sleep or hibernation, meaning you have no mouse input until you reboot or go into device manager and restart the driver.

Well, neither of those options was going to work for me, so here’s my solution.  By the way, this assumes you have your machine set to be locked when it goes to sleep.

1. Download DevCon.exe (free from Microsoft.com)
2. Save it somewhere (I put it in Program Files\DevCon, but it shouldn’t matter where).
3. Open the Task Scheduler (type “task” into the start menu to find it quickly).
4. Click “Create Task” and give it a name (like “Fix stupid Apple driver”)
5. Choose a user to run the task - should be a member of the machine’s Administrators group.
6. Check the box that says “Run with highest privileges”
7. Select the option to “Run whether user is logged on or not”
8. Go to the Triggers tab and click New…
9. Select “On Workstation Unlock” from the drop-down and click OK.
10. Go to the Actions tab and click New…
11. Point it at wherever you saved Devcon.exe
12. In the “Add Arguments” field, type:  restart USB\VID_05AC&PID_021A&MI_01
13. The above string was one of the two Hardware IDs listed for my Apple Trackpad device (NOT the filter device).  It’s possible yours might vary, so check in Device Manager to make sure it’s the same, especially if this one doesn’t work.
14. Go to the Conditions tab and uncheck the box that says “Start the task only if the computer is on AC power”
15. Click OK and verify the password for the account you chose for the task to run under.

Now test it out by putting your machine to sleep and waking it up.  After unlocking it, you should find that your mouse works instantly!  Huzzah!