Further Thoughts on Software Update

When I first thought about writing a translation of the Apple's Windows Invasion piece by Joe Wilcox, it was Thursday morning, and nobody else seemed to be overly bothered about the details of the updater; John Gruber, for example, where I first saw the piece, merely linked to it saying, effectively, "well, that's interesting". However, on Friday morning, there was a bit more commentary, so I decided to put something out; well, it was a bank holiday, and it was quiet; why not?

As the day went on, there actually seemed to be a bit of a storm (admittedly, one in a small teacup, sized about the same as the overlap between iTunes and Windows users) growing about the feature. A fisking is more set out to tear down than to build up, and I've had time to think about it, so here's some further thoughts on the subject.

Were you trying to make any points with that post?

Firstly: Microsoft, and others, either push software through their updaters, or have updaters that are otherwise rubbish. Secondly: I just boggled at the line "Apple one-ups Microsoft with a presumably more standards-compliant browser than the Internet Explorer 8 beta" - has Wilcox never seen an acid test? However, even that was nothing compared to the arguments that Safari may be insecure, when IE 6 certainly was.

Generally, I thought the piece was far more alarmist than it needed to be.

Do you actually approve of Apple having their own software updater?

Not really. In an ideal fluffy happy kitten world, Windows and Mac OS X would have an open infrastucture for software updates, where applications could all use the system's libraries to pull down upgrades when needed. Nobody would have an excuse for an updater like Adobe's, which can't seem to manage what Apple call "combo updates" (want to take Acrobat from 7.0.1 to 7.0.9? Well, please install 7.0.5, reboot, 7.0.8, reboot...), and Mac users wouldn't have fifteen applications bundling (sometimes outdated) copies of Sparkle.

Of course, this could go horribly wrong (see the proposed iPhone app store), and as Mark Pilgrim points out, Linux has this sorted out already. Also, note I said "open infrastructure" - I'm not exactly keen to have every app have to pass through Apple or Microsoft before you were able to distribute it.

As it is, we do not live in an ideal world, and I'd rather have apps that were up to date than ones that weren't.

Would it make a difference is the checkbox for Safari were off by default instead?

I'd already installed Safari 3 betas on my Windows machine, so I didn't realise that the 3.1 update I was being offered was either being pimped to people who only had iTunes, nor that it was enabled by default. I don't have a problem with the first: I know that real people don't know about software releases the way the Twitterati do.

However, I think I do agree with the critics of the decision to install Safari by default, even if, as Tom said in the comment on my piece, it makes Apple just like everyone else in the Windows world. Boot Camp doesn't install crapware, for example (although apparently it does install the software updater we're all talking about), and Macs don't come with Intel Inside stickers. It would be nice for Apple to be able to take the moral high ground on updaters, too.

Anyway, for all the hullabaloo about Google search kickbacks, what good are they if nobody ever uses your app? There's a saying to do with honey and bees - or is it bears - which, if I could remember it, would be appropriate here.

So the iTunes+QuickTime bundling is bad, too?

Actually, no, I don't think it is. If you don't have QuickTime installed, video previews, and more importantly, video downloads, don't work. I think Apple is justified in bundling the two to a single download. The same goes for the background processes that make the iPod work on Windows; not installing those would be lead to an incredibly bad user experience.

One thing I've seen mentioned that also annoys me, though, is the way the stupid tray icon for QuickTime is reinstalled every damned time you update the library. There's no good reason for it to overwrite its preferences every time, and I wish it would stop doing so.

Did you realise that comments on your translation post were disabled?

Not until I posted this, and double-checked the sharing settings, no. I imagine this post means that there's not much more that people want to say, but you never know. Comments are now fixed for Vox members on both this and the previous post. (Oops.)

When is Easter next year?

Sunday 12th April, which should at least mean it isn't snowing outside.

Does this mean you're done wittering?

Yes. Shoo.