View From The Quad

There are a few things which have gone wrong in the last year or so with Apple. In my mind, the main one was charging for the iPod Touch update a few months back, hearing the uproar and then deciding to charge AGAIN for the June update.

However, some would say that Apple’s move to get Safari 3.1 out into the Bill Gates ruled world of Windows computers was walking a little far over the line.

More after the jump.

Apple recently included an install of Safari 3.1 in an update to the Windows version of iTunes even if you didn’t already have it installed. I think that this was a terrible idea, and some (such as the CEO of Mozilla) are calling it a move which “undermines the trust relationship great companies have with their customers”. Now, some of you may think that this is an OK thing for Apple to do. Let me just go over why it is NOT.

The whole point of an update is that it updates a single piece of software to make it more secure and/or feature rich. Sure, it is OK to use the software update button to make users aware of other software, but don’t you just think that it is a TINY bit shady to automatically tick a box which installs a browser which most users do not want and will never use?

Don’t get me wrong. I like Safari. I just don’t think Apple should go around installing it on people’s boxes.