Controversy Surrounding Safari Being Added to Apple Auto-Update

The other day, on both of my computers, an auto-update popped up for Apple and I was hoping it was a new iPhone update but it was to install Safari. I was pretty surprised by this considering I don’t even have Safari installed on my computer. I wasn’t sure if it was an update of Safari for the iPhone, but it wasn’t. Apparently, this tactic has become a bit controversial. The CEO of Mozilla, John Lilly, stated in a Blog that this practice was wrong because it violates the trust that companies have with their users because an update notification should just be for updates and not for the installation of a new program.

I kind of agree with Lilly but at the time I thought it was a slick sneak in of their browser. I am sure the majority of people installed the application without even realizing that they didn’t have the browser previously installed on their computer. I do agree with the trust factor and that nobody agreed to receive new applications with that service, just updates. Although, it was really simple to just not accept the application and if you even installed it unknowingly, that doesn’t mean the user would even use Safari as their browser of choice. The precedent this could set could be dangerous. There could be other companies that see this as a sign of what is acceptable and get even more aggressive than what Apple has done.

Apple seems to have become a little more sneaky recently in some of their moves. The quick price drop on the iPhone left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths. I am not as convinced as others that the move was pre-planned but it seems like the quality of Apple is deteriorating with size and popularity. If they aren’t careful they will even offend the Fan Boys that love their company and are their ultimate marketers.