As was reported elsewhere on Macworld.com , Apple quietly included a Widget update mechanics in 10.4.7 , the most recent OS cristal 10.4 update . As some of you may echo , I was more than a footling worried when Apple did something similar with the iTunes MiniStore during a purportedly - minor update to iTunes . So I must be going absolutely over the border with this latest incident , good ?
Well , yes and no , but more no than yes . There are only two thing that really irk me about this new feature . The first is that it ’s not drug user controllable . Most every other syllabus I own that deterrent for update do so through a mechanism I can disenable ( there are exceptions to that rule , of course ) . With the Dashboard update tool , I have to use it , unless I qualify the system of rules by make a motion a file , as detailed at the end of the news account .
The update mechanism should be governable through the already - present Widgets widget — this is the widget that lets you blue-pencil third - political party widgets , as well as jump to Apple ’s situation to download other third - party widgets . It would be most logical to have a Check for Updates button here , as well as a setting on the back of the widget for the update feature — a pop - up to do the updates to automatic , manual , or disabled . ( If not on the Widgets widget , then how about in the Dashboard & Exposé System Preferences panel ? )
The second thing that irked me is that Apple did n’t tell us about it . The rationale for confirm that a third - party widget is both current and what you think it is is a good one — whatsis can do many matter , since they ’re really miniature course of study . So I actually look up to the fact that Apple is stepping in to hear to make certain that the gizmo I have really are the widgets I think I have . However , the fact that Apple added this feature “ on the sly ” makes my mind straight off suspicious . So instead of remember of the benefit of this new feature film , I ’m endeavor to figure out to what ominous consumption Apple might be set the information it ’s receiving — and question what data it is receiving ( more on that later ) .
Imagine now , if rather of let this raw feature be fall upon by those who monitor all their outward cyberspace connexion ( via , for model , tcpdumporLittle Snitch ) , Apple had been proactive , and included this in their release preeminence :
I consider the response to something like the above would have been positivist , not negative . And the last bit is true — those who have analyzed the data point being send out confirm that it ’s nothing more than the name of each gubbins and their interpretation numbers . counterpoint this with the iTunes MiniStore data , which include a cooky ( which had , at least accord to some analyses , your iTunes ID ) . The MiniStore data was also passed through servers belong to a third party ( Omniture ) . Clearly , there were chance for very bad things to happen , as the information being sent around included personally identifiable information , possibly include your iTunes news report information . Apple listened to the public katzenjammer , andquickly released an updatethat made it round-eyed to invalid the MiniStore .
Since the information being send about my widget exercise is completely unobjectionable and contains no in person identifiable information , I ’m quite fine with this young feature ( there ’s the ‘ more no than yes ’ bit ) . I just wish Apple would learn from its mistake and herald these new features ahead of time , rather than letting a firestorm erupt when they ’re discovered . I cogitate it ’d be easy on Apple and easy on the drug user . Most important of all , it ’s the proper matter to do .
