News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
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The transition from .Mac to MobileMe could have gone a little smoother. OK, a lot smoother. Let's face it, it was a debacle. When a company like Apple — notoriously reluctant to admit anything is wrong — is forced into two apologies in a week, something is definitely up. What's more, the time may well be ripe for a third.
Windows XP and Vista users who bought iPhones and duly updated or downloaded iTunes 7.7 found an extra little surprise on their machines: a control panel for MobileMe preferences. Just like the preference pane in Mac OS X it allows users to log in to MobileMe, set up their iDisk and set what content they want to share between their devices and the "cloud".
Very convenient, if you happen to be a MobileMe subscriber.
If you're not, though, the control panel does nothing for you except take you to a web page advertising MobileMe. There's a really catchy word for unsolicited commercial communications. Let me just try and think for a moment what it is ...
Oh yeah. Spam.
Apple was criticised a few months ago when Windows users checking the Apple Software Update control panel found that Safari 3.1 was ticked and ready for them to download, even if they didn't already have Safari installed in their systems. The absurd thing was that most of the criticism came from the CEO of Mozilla, whose Firefox browser updates itself without any user intervention — just the kind of thing malware does.
Users could at least decide to untick Safari 3.1 and not install it if they didn't want it. Even so, Apple changed the default behaviour of the control panel so that Safari was unticked. Everyone thought it had learned its lesson.
But, no.
By installing what amounts to advertising by stealth when people download iTunes 7.7 Apple has violated an important trust between users and corporations. In the case of Windows users that Apple wants to woo over to the Mac with brilliant industrial design, superior usability and an increased sense of security, this is a particularly egregious oversight.
OK, there are exceptions to the laws about Spam. The fact that by purchasing an iPhone and installing iTunes 7.7 the users have established an existing commercial relationship with the company means it's technically not an offense. But while iTunes 7.7 is essential to using an iPhone, MobileMe isn't. Over the past couple of weeks some might even have argued it was an impediment.
Sneaking ads onto Windows users' systems may not technically be Spam, but it's some other generic brand of tinned spiced ham. It looks and smells like Spam to me.
America Online and Netscape once forged an unlikely alliance against Microsoft. Unfortunately their choice of pet names let them down, and the rest is history.
Matthew JC. Powell | Jan 2, 2008
Microsoft has had a change of heart about the non-disclosure period for beta-testers of its Office 2008 for Mac. So it's time to spill some beans.
Matthew JC. Powell | Jan 4, 2008
"Don't forget to get there very, very early", was the advice given to me by practically everyone prior to this morning's Macworld Conference Keynote. "Things get pretty hairy", they claimed -- and they weren't referencing Australian Macworld's fine editor. So at 5am, having been woken by the loud gentleman speaking German VERY LOUDLY, I prepared towander down the chilly streets of San Francisco and wait. And wait, and wait, and wait. Annoyance doesn't quite cover my mood when another Australian journalist makes an appearance two hours later, right behind me.
Alex Kidman | Jan 17, 2008
Former Apple CEO Gilbert Amelio once famously remarked that "I thought I was leading a company; I didn't realise I was leading a cult". If he thought that job was difficult, imagine what it must be like for Steve Jobs. Where Amelio was leader of the cult, Jobs is the object of its worship. Think of it as the difference between being the Pope and being the Messiah — I know which I'd take. Name another CEO, company founder or Chairman who is expected — indeed, required — to change the world on at minimum an annual basis. Michael Dell? Bill Gates? Steve Ballmer? Rupert Murdoch? Robert Iger? Samuel Palmisano? Does anyone even know who he is? All of these people have great responsibilities and a duty to shareholders to drive their companies. Jobs's burden is different. He is expected somehow to be a few steps ahead of the world, living in the no-too-distant future, bringing tomorrow to us today. Which is not to suggest he is the only person in the computer industry expected to innovate. Google, Amazon, eBay ... any number of companies innovate and do so successfully, What's different for Apple and its CEO is the expectation that it can happen on demand. If anyone but Apple had released a product as successful and groundbreaking as the iPhone last year they'd still be dining out on it. Apple is already copping criticism for not having a 3G version out yet. Compare it to, for instance, Paul McCartney. Some decades ago McCartney wrote some pretty darned good music. Now he's in his 60s and puts out the occasional listenable bit of work. It's not amazing, but it's pretty good and leaves most contemporary "music" for dead. But because it isn't as good as the Beatles it may as well be rubbish. No-one else has to be compared with the Beatles.
Matthew JC. Powell | Feb 13, 2008
