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Apple Stealth Markets MobileMe to PC Users

7:41 am, July 24th, 2008, Lonnie Lazar

mobileme_box.pngWindows XP and Vista users who update to iTunes 7.7 — the version required to access the App Store — receive a complimentary control panel applet for Apple’s MobileMe online sync and storage service, and some are not happy about it.

Some PC users have been surprised to notice a “MobileMe Preferences” panel in their new version of iTunes, which makes no mention of installing additional software in the Software Update notice used to download iTunes. Users who are not already MobileMe subscribers are taken to an Apple marketing site with details about the service when they click on the “Learn More” button under a “Try MobileMe” heading in the control panel.

Apple’s decision to include the MobileMe pitch with iTunes without telling users caught the attention of Stopbadware.org, an anti-malware advocacy group founded by Google Inc., Lenovo Group Ltd. and Sun Microsystems Inc., which complained in April when Apple bundled Safari 3.1 into a Software Update notice to Windows users who had not previously installed the browser on their systems. Apple subsequently agreed to separate updates for already-installed programs from offers to install new software.

Maxim Weinstein, manager of Stopbadware.org., stopped short on Monday of calling Apple’s newest move a repeat of the Safari incident. “We haven’t had an opportunity to look at it, so we don’t have a formal evaluation,” he said. “But our guidelines require and the [user] community expects that when an application installs new or different functionality that users are notified and able to consent to that.”

Via Computerworld

Posted by Lonnie Lazar in Apple, Software, iTunes | Comment on this article

About the author

Lonnie Lazar

Lonnie Lazar is a writer, musician, web designer attorney. He writes about Apple for Cult of Mac and Mac|Life, and about VoIP and telecommunications for Voxilla. Follow Lonnie on Twitter @LonnieLazar, join the Cult of Mac on Facebook, and find Lonnie's photos on Flickr.

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6 comments

    i don’t know if its true or not, but the marketing guys handling apple software stuff on the pc side are…. not so nice. then again, i don’t give a rats ass about pc users. fuhahahahaha

    Peruchito, on July 24th, 2008 at 9:46 am

    Stopbadware.org, an anti-malware advocacy group founded by Google Inc.

    That’s funny, cause I’m really tired of every damn Windows app I install trying to force the Google toolbar on me.

    nak, on July 24th, 2008 at 3:47 pm

    Some PC users have been surprised to notice a “MobileMe Preferences” panel in their new version of iTunes

    If only it were in iTunes. I just checked on my work laptop, and what I had understood before, I’ve now confirmed for myself; the icon is added to the Windows Control Panel. I really think Apple should know better than this, these kind of guerilla tactics will not improve their image at all among PC users (who, after all, are all potential switchers).

    Eelke, on July 24th, 2008 at 11:00 pm

    “Stopbadware.org, an anti-malware advocacy group founded by Google Inc.

    That’s funny, cause I’m really tired of every damn Windows app I install trying to force the Google toolbar on me.”

    yeah.. i tried surfing the internet on a pc once… my broswer had 20 search bars at the end of the day…

    Peruchito, on July 25th, 2008 at 7:09 am

    I wasn’t all that upset about getting the MobileMe widget added to my work PC – for all the bad press it’s been getting, it works pretty well on my Powerbook. But oh, my God. The PC application is seriously broken. I worked with it for hours, and after totally hosing both my calendar and contacts, I finally gave up. I have three calendars, and after the aforementioned hours (and some restores from backup) I was finally able to get two of them to sync from MobileMe to Outlook, but none of them to sync from Outlook to MobileMe. Meaning that any events created or sent to me on the PC were stuck there. The third calendar would not sync in either direction.

    Reading through the support bulletin boards at Apple revealed that this wasn’t just my problem – the application is apparently not capable of syncing between MobileMe and Outlook in any sort of usable way.

    I like Apple as a company and the idea of MobileMe… but holy crap – it should never have seen the light of day in this condition. Putting the widget into the control panel is a pretty minor sin compared to releasing it in such a terrible state.

    Sean Peters, on July 27th, 2008 at 6:50 pm

    What, no condemnation for Apple over this? Typical. If it was Microsoft doing something along those lines, I’m sure there would be all kinds of negative criticism.

    David, on August 2nd, 2008 at 7:08 pm