Yes, I know Apple already gave up on those of us that administer Macs when it torched the XServe line, but do they kindly provide a way to not install this as part of the core OS, or limit it?

It appears to require an administrator password the first time it's run, but all subsequent runs go without it. So the administrator can't use it, lest they unlock the store. But in the meantime, Apple drops their shiny, happy "new" app right into everyone's menu bar.

As far as I can tell, you have to open Safari just to change preferred browsers, and other settings. ( Mac Mail requires the exact same thing to change mail clients).

This has always bugged me - I found it because I went looking in the "preferences" session and couldn't find it, before reading that Safari was required to do this. My first reaction - "no shit? At least in Windows I just have to deal with the stupid 'do you want to change your browser' popups." Since watching this unfold, it's always nagged me that Apple, while not at the same scale, has a different standard apparently.

A lot of the arguments I see are about the monopoly influence of Microsoft, and that's not to be ignored. However, if the EU is saying "We're creating a rule so that no future vendor should ever become powerful to force a browser direction" - then Apple would be in violation of the rule as far as I've seen.

Maybe - but there is one point that always bothers me.

To change the preferred web browser on a Mac, you have to open safari and change the preference. To change the mail tool, you have to open mac mail (there may be some command line way to do it, but certainly it isn't obvious.) By definition, you have to use their tools just to change them.

While Apple may not be wielding influential power yet - if the EU was trying to be "fair" as it claims, I'm curious if they would see that as a violation. That would settle if the issue was market share, or if its being an OS maker and a Browser manufacturer [and a dessert topping, in the case of Linux].

AT&T + ( iPhone + iPod ) + Mac OSX

Are any one of those allowed to mess with the business of the each other's competitors? AT&T + iPhone may be more obviously collusive by crossing company boundaries, but Microsoft's taught us that desperate product lines used in collusion can still get you in trouble ( I.E. is a minority web browser ).

Sure, OSX may be completely innocent in dropping PalmOS support for age reasons. The article also comes across as dramatic. But as a curious bystander it still looks a little funny. While Apple may have a minority OS, they certainly aren't minorities in the phone or music player business. In light of the Palm Pre-iTunes issue and now Google Voice/iPhone debacle (also apparently "a supportability/customer experience issue") Apple certainly isn't making itself look too friendly. Compared to their usual "i'm a mac, what me worry" public face, anyway.

Seriously - this is the only firm requirement my employer had - "We have an exchange mail system, and we'll buy you any mobile device you want - so long as it can use ActiveSync." We were poised to use Android OS phones because iPhones were thought of as toys - with the exception of Exchange we're still mostly a *nix shop - but that one caveat changed the purchase of all our mobile devices.

I had high hopes after seeing the HTC Magic demos, but it turns out that was all smoke and mirrors. Trying to explain to my senior management that "it's a google phone but not really but it still has android but I'm not sure it's supported we'll see they bought the license" vs. "yes, the iPhone has ActiveSync capability" - guess who won?

what can be explained by sheer ignorance.

        Microsoft, though we keep referring to them in the singular, has well over 80,000 employees, and I'm betting most of them are not versed in the nuances of the GPL licenses, neither their driver developers, nor the paralegals writing the EULA's (though I bet the lawyers are).

        Now, this doesn't excuse them of a violation one bit. Though it's possible, I doubt they had a a strategy "all along" to open-source the drivers because they included GPL code - because they work with citrix maybe, but not purely due to the GPL bit.

          It also doesn't mean they did this in an effort to subvert or screw with GPL code - Microsoft's grand-poo-bah executive committee might "hate the GPL", but it'd be good to remember that eight levels of management separate them from some device driver writer tasked with getting Linux to run in hyper-V (who may or may not be employed there any longer).

Considering they already exist and are format neutral, can somebody tell me why solid state media, particularly USB keys and such, aren't viewed as the next logical step in all this? Hell, they've already done it with ghostbusters supposedly, with DRM even. Why wouldn't blockbuster just load up your USB key with whatever movie you rented that night if your connectivity sucked enough to not download it? Why wouldn't you buy "The Rock" on a key if it was important enough for you to own it?

I'm not saying it's perfect, and I'm sure the studios are drooling over streaming "pay-as-you-go" models, but Blu-Ray isn't exactly compatible with my laptop when I'm on a plane. And it's still a way to let me carry the bits home ("ownership") without Sony dictating the terms.

Of course, I may have answered my own question with that last part.

While your post is probably going to end up in Troll land - this is something that bothers me all the time. Everyone says "Vista's a failure", and from an install base, you'd be right - of about 300 PCs in my office Vista has about 5 adopters, mostly for non-XP compatible software (should this seem biased, we also have over 100 linux machines, so people are aware of the options).

However, from a financial perspective, is Vista still considered a failure? 250 of those 300 machines all have a Vista license. I suppose it would be more realistic to call it a "Microsoft OS license" at this point, but that doesn't change the fact that we still give Microsoft money in wee fistfuls regardless of Vista's success. Microsoft lost some margin because we didn't buy an upgrade for the remaining 50 machines before replacing them, but we're still giving them money hand-over-fist for Vista whether we use it or not.

Now, release enough non-viable OS's in a row, and you'll see that base erode. But already the mantra seems to be changing to "skip Vista, install Windows 7" - at which point we'll be giving Microsoft all those upgrade license fees anyway.

Thanks - that makes a tad more sense. I see everyone running around blaming Microsoft for the code since their name is on the product, even if it was a 3rd party vendor. They certainly are still liable for all the busted Zunes, but I couldn't imagine Microsoft didn't have *some* C leap-year code sitting around that actually worked, and could be compiled for any chip they wanted.

Microsoft still has to take the hit up front, but then they'll sue or "renegotiate contracts" with the vendor that supplied the bad driver code, based on what it costs them.

I'm still shocked that the manufacturer couldn't dig up *some* free/open calendaring code that's was around pre-2004. But hey, at least we know they were honest about not ripping off some other source code and calling it their own.

"From a coding/QA standpoint, one has to wonder how this bug was missed if the quality assurance team wasn't slacking off."

I can't remember the last time a QA department was asked to test date functions... but then again, I can't remember the last time anyone wrote their own Leap Year calendaring calculator from scratch.

I'm sure there are a hundred reasons to do it (licensing being one of them) but really, when was the last time you didn't just import calendaring from another library and call it a day?

Please clarify to me if this is something at the hardware driver level: I honestly don't know. If this were me, my own bosses wouldn't ask "Why didn't QA catch this", as much as "why are you wasting time writing your own calendar code? And then why didn't you flag it as functionality that needed to be tested?"