Of course, in the Apple dictionary, “update” means “install”.

Now, I’m a big fan of Apple’s products (except the Macbook Air - which is pointless) since being converted by my Nano, but fortunately I maintain the ability to see through a lot of the marketting dross spouted by Apple (hey, they’re a big company trying to make lots of money, fair enough, but I’m not kidding myself about it, unlike a lot of Apple fans), but this sets off my spider-sense.

So the other day, I’m running iTunes, downloading all my podcasts, and up pops an Apple Software Update dialog. “Ah-ha” thinks I. “A new version of iTunes then”.

Nope. Infact, I checked the dialog and noticed it wanted to “update” Safari. Something I’ve never installed on my PC, as I’m quite happy with Firefox, and frankly, the initial reviews of the Windows version of Safari were far from flattering.

I wonder how many non-techie PC users just clicked “Ok” without checking it properly?

Its a dodgy tactic. I wonder if Microsoft would’ve gotten away with pushing a brand new product onto people’s PC’s as an “update”? Probably not…

Fortunately, I’m not the only one who noticed it and its kicked off some discussion on the blogosphere (link, link). I’d like to see Apple get their fingers rapped (a bit) for this, but given we live in an age where they can brick any iPhone that doesn’t use their preferred mobile network, I’m not holding my breath.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 23rd, 2008 at 18:54 and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.