Apple gets mauled on Safari outside walled garden

Stan Beer
Monday, 31 March 2008 04:12

Opinion and Analysis

Apple is used to doing pretty much as it likes within the confines of its own rarefied kingdom and receiving nothing but accolades from its legion of subjects. The minute the company ventures out into the real world with an unwanted Safari download, Apple gets mauled and its adoring fans wonder why. From the looks of things Apple itself is still wondering why and that's a worry.

The troubling aspect of this unsavoury affair is not only that Apple by attempting to foist unrequested software on unsuspecting users behaved like a cheap malware purveyor. The real worry is that many of the blindly loyal Apple faithful have jumped to the company's defence, claiming that what it did was acceptable practice. Even more disturbing,  Apple itself has simply pulled its head in and not said a word - at least I can't find anything.

So what are we to make of this? Apple and its fanatical fans don't see anything wrong in tricking lax users who trust the company because of its reputation into downloading new software posing as an update.

Let's leave aside the issue that the new version of Safari has since been found by Secunia to have a couple of critical security flaws. All the browsers have security issues that will eventually be discovered and patched, discovered and patched and so on.

The really important issue is the code of behaviour that reputable software manufacturers adhere to and what users expect of them in the world of online downloads.

While some Apple fans and Apple itself may dismiss all the fuss as a storm in a teacup, this is anything but a storm in a teacup. The message it has sent iTunes users on Windows is that from now on they can't trust Apple not to attempt to foist bloatware on them by stealth. CONTINUED