[geeks] Apple applications phoning home

[Shannon Hendrix]

On Oct 22, 2007, at 7:21 AM, Mark wrote:

> On 22 Oct 2007, at 08:24, Shannon Hendrix wrote:
>
>> How is the Internet useless if a vanishingly tiny fraction of a
>> percent of it is not available?
>
> Erm WTFBBQWorldWideWeb?

I'm talking about <idonotneeditmyself>.apple.com, obviously, not port  
80 everywhere.

...and for that matter, sometimes blocking port 80 makes it more  
useful... :) :) :)

> If you block it permanently and unconditionally it just gives you a
> polite message saying it was unable to verify your .Mac settings,
> then resumes operation normally.

I rather I was able to tell it to not try.

It's pretty common wisdom that it is better if applications tell you  
if they are going to make connections.  I think it is perfectly  
reasonable for users that want it, that they should be able to get  
this information and make their system work--without annoying polite  
messages--even if they block things.

It's just good design.

Apple is famous for highly detailed design, so this isn't a major  
expectation given their attention to detail elsewhere.

> It will, I am sure. I think you are just overreacting because you
> found out it makes a HTTP request when you open the Prefs pane, you

No, I'm noting the fact that setting preferences should not require  
net access.

Even if I were a .Mac user, I would only want my system to  
contact .Mac for things like addresses or deliberate sync and share.   
I would not want it syncing my preferences.

Seems pretty obvious to me, but Apple pushes their pay-for services  
very hard, and makes it difficult to not use them instead of  
something else.

Aside: one guy has used a UNIX server to replace .Mac with his own  
server.  Pretty neat, and worked out because Apple is basically using  
WebDAV for nearly everything.  I'm not sure how hard it would be to  
keep maintaining something like that, but I for one would like to see  
Apple publish .Mac as an open standard so that their applications can  
be used with other services.

The reason is simple and pragmatic: I already have net services from  
other places, so I have no need to buy .Mac.

Of course, I'm sure Apple is not interested... :)

> What software/hardware are you using to 'block' it? Little Snitch is
> just a very compact and useful packet sniffer and firewall app. I
> don't rely on it for security, more just to see what stuff is doing
> (especially Abode and Microsoft stuff).

Little Snitch.  I never got a dialog like you did.  Maybe something  
about our configuration differs?  Do you still use .Mac?  I could  
sign up for a 60 day account and see what happens.

>> Any application that phones home when it doesn't need to is broken.
>
> It does need to, you just don't use the features that want it to...

...which means it doesn't need to... :)

>> I should be the one that decides what it does and does not do.
>
> Hmmm... welcome to the world of Apple. They decide what you want,
> based on what the screaming fan-boys tell them they should have. I
> personally have lost a lot of faith in them in recent years. Don't
> get me wrong, I still love OS X, and I wouldn't let my Mac Pro go for
> anything, and think it's one of the best OS/hardware combos around at
> the moment, and it's getting better every time, but the more I use it
> the more I get frustrated by stuff I never really wanted to do things
> I never really need, but unlike Windows you *can* usually safely
> ignore it, or turn it off. This instance is just one tiny thing. When
> you start getting into a discussion this big about a problem this
> small you *know* the OS is pretty good, because there's really
> nothing major anyone can talk about that's wrong anymore ;)

Agreed.

I was faced with two alternatives three weeks ago: buy a Windows  
machine or buy an Apple.  I needed some new things for home and work,  
and Linux wasn't able to cut it.

Windows was the most pragmatic choice, and I tried for two weeks and  
gave up.  That's pretty much how it has been with me for 15 years: I  
try to like it, and just can't stand it enough to use daily.

MacOS generally works and stays out of my way.

I think geeks needs a Mac list...

> I'll let you know if it's still in Leopard when I get it, or wether
> they altered that version of Address Book to stop it doing it, then
> you can upgrade with complete peace of mind :)

I ordered Leopard for $10.50 today.

I will probably put it on an external drive to play with it first.

I'm hoping it will fix a few problems in Tiger instead of create too  
many new ones.

For example, Tiger is rather famous for kernel crashes triggered by  
USB devices.  I have seen far too many grey screens of death due to  
USB IOKit failures.








-- 
Shannon Hendrix
shannon at widomaker.com