Apple continues to deceive users
[Be sure to see my follow-up post on this topic, Taming iTunes 8.]
Un-freakin-believable.
In preparation for a trip next week, I just took a notebook out of mothballs and proceeded to install updates and make sure all the software and data files I need are in service.
Along the way, I noticed an iTunes icon on the desktop and decided to check in with Apple Software Update. The blow-by-blow description appears in the extended version of this post.
Here’s what I saw first:
I don’t want Bonjour or Safari on this machine, so I deselected the iTunes + QuickTime check box, clicked the Safari box so that both it and Bonjour were selected, and then chose Tools, Ignore Software Updates. The entries for Bonjour and Safari went away, the updater refreshed itself, and a new list appeared, containing only iTunes + QuickTime. The check box was selected already, so I clicked Install 1 Item and approved the UAC consent box.
While the download proceeded, I opened the temporary folder where the update program stores its downloads (%LocalAppData%\Apple\Apple Software Update) and watched as the following five installer packages appeared:
Next, I watched as the status box continued to tell me that only iTunes + QuickTime were being installed. And then, when setup was complete, I looked in Control Panel’s list of Installed Programs, filtered to show only Apple software, and saw this:
The mind truly boggles here. I had previously uninstalled Bonjour and Apple Mobile Device Support. When Apple Software Update offered Bonjour to me, I specifically selected it and told the Update program that I wanted to ignore that update. I’m not sure how much clearer I could have been with my wishes. And yet Apple went and installed it anyway and then reinstalled Apple Mobile Device Support. Do they have no concept of how a software installer should work?
If anyone from Apple is reading this and wants to explain why they even bother to offer this choice and then ignore it, I’m all ears.
Meanwhile, I’m going to go uninstall the whole mess.
Update: The closer I look, the worse this gets. While the installer was running initially, I copied the five individual installer packages to a folder on the desktop so that they would still be around instead of being automatically deleted at setup’s end. Next, I uninstalled everything from Apple except Apple Software Update and QuickTime. After confirming that these were the only Apple programs installed, I ran the iTunes.msi Installer package. It proceeded to install itself and Apple Mobile Device Support and Bonjour.
Even more bizarre: I renamed the Bonjour and Apple Mobile Device Support installer packages, then selected iTunes and clicked Uninstall in Control Panel. The setup program appeared to remove iTunes and cleared its entry from the list of installed programs. But after restarting, when I ran the iTunes.msi Installer package, I was prompted to Repair or Remove iTunes. Despite the fact that I had explicitly chosen to uninstall iTunes, enough of it remained on my system that Apple’s setup program believed it was dealing with an incomplete or damaged installation. Choosing Repair finally got me the two programs I specifically authorized and no others.
Update 2: An anonymous contributor suggests a new “I’m a Mac” ad:
PC guy walks on screen with a softball-sized lump growing out of the side of his neck.
Mac: “What is that hideous thing, PC?”
PC: “Oh, that’s my new Bonjour. I didn’t really think I needed it, but the folks at Apple thought otherwise, so they just kind of stuck it there when I was trying to update iTunes.”
Mac: “It looks kind of weird.”
PC: “Yeah, I know, please stop staring at it. Say, did Apple stick you with a Bonjour, too?”
Mac: “Um, yeah.” He squirms uncomfortably.
PC: “So, where is it?”
Mac: “Are we on basic cable?”
PC: “Uh-huh.”
Mac: “Then, uh, I can’t tell you.”
PC guy winces.
You’ve been a wonderful audience. Don’t forget to tip your waitress. And try the veal!
49 Responses to Apple continues to deceive users
Holy dogballs… I can’t believe that!
That bad thing is, I have refused to install iTunes for a long time now because it sucks and so does iPods.
I use something called an “MP3 Player”.
I copy and paste DRM-free songs onto it… what a novel idea.
That said, I am still not exempt from this treachery since I have Quicktime player on my machine… which requires this crappy Apple installer, which then keeps trying to put Safari, etc on my machine.
Thanks Apple, you just decided for me that I will continue to avoid your products.
And they call Microsoft, “Big Brother.”
Apple has always wanted to tell you what you need, just look at their OS and hardware.
Apple isn’t about, “choice”, it’s about controlling your computer as to what they believe it should be/do/reflect.
That’s why I’m a PC man, this doesn’t come as a shock to me at all.
If it weren’t for so many sites insisting on Quicktime, and the fact that I have to sell iPods at work, I wouldn’t ever look at an Apple product.
Mic
Hey, you said to IGNORE the updates. Clearly if it installs while you are ignoring it, that is your fault for not paying attention. The next version of Apple Software Update needs a “Distrust selected updates” option.
You can install quicktime, then uninstall the apple updater. Quicktime will still check for updates from its own interface, although if it finds one, I assume it might reinstall the updater.
I don’t ever notice any of this foolishness from my Zune software, which is awesome in other ways as well. I don’t badmouth iPods, never having owned one, but I like the Zune enough to never consider an iPod.
I’d suggest that QuickTime is no longer necessary for 90% of users. With the Flash video revolution, you can totally get by without QuickTime installed. If they don’t offer Flash, use a competing site.
Flash is still disturbingly prone to crashing the browser. Even then, I’ve found it to be significantly better than QuickTime. Adobe is a better Windows coder than Apple is.
if you need quick time and or Real player jsut get the alternative software.
http://www.filehippo.com/download_real_alternative/
http://www.filehippo.com/download_quicktime_alternative/
oh yes sillie wabbit Itunes is for kids!!!
(excuse my poor english)
ITunes is a great software – in it’s natural habitat Mac OS X. While I was using Windows (some years ago) I hated it on my PC. It felt clumsy, slow and a like a overprotecting nanny I don’t wanted. Apple software for windows is like an OS-culture-clash; Apple seems to have big problems coding regular Windows software. Just compare the font-rendering in Safari for Windows with any other Windows browser. One can argue, that Safari’s rendering is better, but that’s no excuse for breaking the rules. This goes for the UI of Apple software for Windows as well, which follows the rules vor OS X, not for Windows. I guess, from a Mac-perspective Apple has some good reasons for this otherwise unacceptable behaviour. But: if you want to code for Windows, you’ll have to follow the Windows rules.
And besides that: Apple has some serious problems in consumer communications. Nevertheless – I don’t regret switching
(BTW – Bonjour is really cool. On a Mac, that is. Or if you want to connect Windows and Macs in a network.)
@Giesbert
Why do you read this blog if you don’t use windows anymore?
Robert, Giesbert and I worked together in Germany about 15 years ago. I have tremendous respect for him and his point of view, and I think the feeling is mutual.
I uninstalled Bonjour a couple of days ago when I noticed it in Programs and Features. I was sure I had already gotten rid of it. Next time I sinked my ipod it warned me that I was missing Bonjour, and wouldn’t be able to use my Apple TV as well as a few other things I never do.
Itunes was nice enough to tell me reinstall itunes so I could use my Apple TV ect, so apparently Bonjour comes with itunes now like it or not.
Ed, an off topic question about this post. How do you get the torn paper effect on the image? I’ve seen it on many websites and I always got curious.
Thanks
I was surprised to see you didn’t note one of the other misleading upgrade tactic which Apple has recently employed which is the “Mobile Me” Control Panel icon. I believe initially they threw it in with the iTunes 7 update (no prompt/checkbox) and then in iTunes 8 they decided to make a checkbox for it. I really find this to be extremely bad taste on the part of Apple, I mean clearly they want their presence to be felt in the Windows desktop world, but I dont think this is the way to do it.
I’m sure this won’t satisfy you, but Apple treats Bonjour and Apple Mobile Devices as part of iTunes. The separate checkbox is there if you wanted to only update Bonjour and not iTunes. Selecting iTunes will upgrade all components Apple is considering a part of iTunes.
Ed,
Like Time F. says, this probably won’t satisfy you, but here’s a shot anyway
iTunes is going to include all the software that Apple knows is necessary to deliver the features they have implemented. Normal users expect that when they install iTunes, all the iTunes features are going to work. Here’s how the individual packages relate to features:
1. iTunes – Media library management and iTunes Store browser
2. Quicktime – Audio and Video decode and encoding
3. Bonjour – Discovery and connectivity to other LAN connected services, including printers, iTunes libraries, and Apple TV
4. Mobile Device Support – Communication and syncing stack for iPod Touch and iPhone
5. Setup Admin – Wrapper around the whole thing.
In your scenario, you are presented with a patch release to an already installed Bonjour separately since your machine hasn’t been on for a while, and iTunes 8, which includes whatever the latest version of Bonjour is. So while you ignored the Bonjour service pack, iTunes 8 is still going to install Bonjour because that’s how some key features in iTunes are implemented.
Here is another example of the same behavior in case that wasn’t clear. You go to Windows Update. You see a hotfix listed for your machine in the same list as a Service Pack. If you uncheck the hotfix, and then install the Service Pack, your going to get the hotfix because it’s included! Same scenario as Bonjour 1.0.5 and iTunes 8 above.
Is Apple deceiving users? Not intentionally, it is a side effect of offering multiple updates at different times. If they did the opposite, hid the Bonjour update and only showed you iTunes 8, people would still complain. Again, same thing as hotfixes and service packs in Microsoft terminology. Further, what you are asking for from Apple, that they change their installer to make some or most features are optional, is irrational. The vast majority of the millions of Windows users that have iTunes just expect it to work, their normal people not geeks. Normal people don’t care if Bonjour is installed, but they do want to be able to browse other user’s libraries in their house, something Bonjour enables. If they are an iPod user, and upgrade to an iPhone, they sure don’t want to reinstall iTunes to get Mobile Device support, they just want it to work.
Asking for it is irrational because the vast majority don’t care, and if Apple implements a branching installer, their test matrix is going to explode with possible install combinations to make what 1% of all iTunes users happy? How about the support calls from frustrated non-geeks because they didn’t install CD burning, but now want it and don’t know how to get it back. Just a dumb use of resources.
Keep railing against the installer that installs all the software needed to implement all iTunes features, maybe they will change it for you, but I am pretty sure this ship has sailed. It would be like railing against Window because you get IE and Windows Media Player and can’t uninstall them, total waste of time and time to move on.
And as for the initial bundling of the MobileMe control panel, which isn’t bundled anymore, that was over the line. The test is “does this component implement a feature in iTunes or not”. The answer is no for the control panel, thus it shouldn’t have been included. Pretty straightforward.
No, Dave, I don’t buy that. They allow me to uninstall Bonjour after the fact, so clearly it’s not crucial to iTunes’ functioning. They deliver it as a separate installer package, so why not (1) offer the user a choice at install time and (2) fire off the option to install Bonjour the first time a user does something that needs it?
Answer: Because Apple’s developers are lazy and rude.
On the planet where I live, you don’t need to reinstall an 80MB package to add a single feature. Apple really needs to change their thinking on that.
As for IE and Media Player, the OS supports web browsing and media playback. That’s true of every modern OS. You can hide those specific apps ro replace them with ones you prefer. So the analogy is bogus.
Does anyone else find this as hilariously funny as I do?
Try replacing the word “Mac” with “Windows”, and “iTunes” with “Microsoft Office Viewer(!)” or any of the other packages that require large upgrades and reboots of my machine. (And if you didn’t catch the side-point, why does Microsoft Office Viewer upgrade require a reboot?)
I agree that the behavior that you saw is odd, I just wonder why you are complaining, and in what “world” you live in, as I thought you ran Microsoft Windows.
Knowing nothing about how bonjour is related to iTunes, I think the service pack analogy doesn’t really work, since the service pack is a superset of hotfixes. If they really want you to have bonjour as part of iTunes, and have the two updates available, perhaps the iTunes one should say “bonjour included” or something like that. However, if you can uninstall it later, then I don’t see any reason why it should be included in an upgrade (it’s more reasonable to include it in the original installer).
Lastly, I fail to see why its a knock on Apple that the Windows registry is so bloated that an application thinks it is half installed. Have you ever run an uninstaller on a Mac? Granted, they are hiding everything from you, but clicking the application and pressing delete can’t be much simpler. Again, I don’t know if there are hidden issues with Apple’s way, but from a user perspective, their installers and uninstallers beat all other OSes (and I’m not even a mac fan boy, nor do I run it on any of my machines)
And since I have already started (or perhaps simply joined) the age-old war about which OS is better, I can’t resist throwing in my personal favorite: the Debian distribution of Linux. I suspect why more people don’t use them is that they have the problem of many technically great products – that they don’t have the marketing, and so most people use technically inferior products because they don’t know about the better ones. I don’t know how to solve that problem.
By the way, another example of a technically superior product that no one knows about: malwarebytes.org – I just spent 7 hours removing a virus/spyware application (Internet explorer proxy run from driver level – really cool spyware app) from a user and I finally remembered to use malwarebytes’ remover, and it was gone instantly (with one reboot). I am not sure if it would have solved it from the beginning, but no other tool was able to remove it completely. Lastly (really this time) the virus came in through firefox, without user intervention, so I am less impressed on that level as well. Just have to stick with lynx I guess.
Jon, you lost me about halfway through with that stream of consciousness stuff.
“I agree that the behavior that you saw is odd, I just wonder why you are complaining, and in what ‘world’ you live in, as I thought you ran Microsoft Windows.”
Apple makes a set of codecs called QuickTime. Apple wants to install them with a whole boatload of software I don’t need or want. A music player. A network service. Kernel-mode drivers for my USB controller. None of which I want. I simply want to play back QT files using an authorized codec.
Btw, I didn’t even mention the Outlook add-in that iTunes installs without my knowledge.
Sorry – I’ve never claimed to be a great writer, just write large quantities…
I am not saying that what apple does is correct. My point is that it does seem that different from what Microsoft, or perhaps even lots of vendors.
You seem to be saying that Apple is unique in its poor installers and uninstallers.
I often service people’s computers, and the first thing I do when sitting down is open their task tray and kill or uninstall 4-8 applications that they don’t know where they came from. Then I open the startup folder, and delete adobe and microsoft office, and maybe a couple other apps that don’t need to run at startup, then I run regedit and comment out a couple things from the HKCU/Run and HKLM/Run, and *then* I ask them what their issues are.
Most of the time, I have already solved whatever problem they were having.
@Jon Daley
I think Jon is missing one key point to this argument, this is running on Windows, the Microsoft operating system. Based on the fact that this is running on Windows, Microsoft effectively has fair game to do what it needs in terms of updates and installations in order to make their OS run as they please. This is much different from what Apple is doing. Apple is attempting to piggyback its software on the back of iTunes. It has no right in its attempts to mislead users to install their software through an update.
Could you image the uproar that would occur if Microsoft tried to install IE on Macs through a Mac Office update? I can hardly imagine.
Ed,
You don’t have to buy anything, just test it yourself. Install iTunes, then remove all the stuff bundled in separate installers (Quicktime, Bonjour, Mobile Device) and see how much of iTunes actually still works. You can use my list above to guide which parts of iTunes are going to break.
It is unbelievable that you suggest Apple’s iTunes for Windows developers are “lazy and rude”. Have you met any of them? Personifying them through installer packaging choices, when they disagree with you, is just childish. You can keep throwing a tantrum that they aren’t meeting your needs, but you are clearly not their target market. I am sorry, but its true. A Windows journalist that installs Apple’s software to see what they are doing but doesn’t actually use it with their hardware. You’re not even on their user matrix, they certainly aren’t going to add cases to their installer test case matrix to satisfy you. That is not lazy or rude, you are not entitled to have iTunes anyway you like it, this is just software development and testing prioritization. If it’s not meeting your needs, then stop installing it. Do you actually use any iPods or an iPhone as a normal user would?
How wonderfully hypocritical and circular of you on Windows including IE and WMP because all modern OSes have those features, so you can’t choose if you want to install them, nor uninstall them! By your “logic” Apple is free to include any feature that is already in another media library management program. Do other media library management programs have to play by the same rule? If so, you have a deadlock, because then no media library management programs can add any features if it already has to exist. In other words, a chicken and egg problem.
The analogy is certainly not bogus because you want to remove features from iTunes, and MS with IE and WMP in Windows only lets you hide, not install or uninstall, products, let alone hide or remove features. If IE let you remove Favorites or the Phishing filter, that would be the equivalent of what you want Apple to do with iTunes. iTunes is the product. You want Apple to let you be able to dissect all the features out of iTunes, so you can play Dr. Frankenstein with features at your discretion to create iBotTunes, or their deceiving users and “lazy and rude”. If something doesn’t work in iBotTunes, I give you one guess who is getting blamed. You’re arguing for a “double standard” just because you don’t like Apple.