Planting my ideological flag

A month or so ago I unapologetically revealed my Top 3 Tech Hate List on Twitter – Facebook, Blackboard and Apple. The ranking of these companies is frequently subject to change – but all of them in one form or another, at least in my view, place corporate interests over those of the user community.

• Blackboard is designed to exert strict control over when, how and in what form people learn, with most resulting content tied to the learning management system.
• Facebook has notoriously tyrannical user administration policies; equally strict prohibitions on pulling your own content from the system; and a very liberal approach to privacy and what is done with user data.
• Apple advocates DRM; subjects iTunes apps and content to a set of criteria that complies with their corporate interests and subject matter ideologies; and pursues perceived trademark infringers with a fundamentalist zeal of self-righteousness.

I recently deleted my Facebook account; am constantly at odds with myself over my relationship with Blackboard; and have a personal moratorium on purchasing of any Apple product. For me, these ideologies are far more important than any functional benefit or opportunity these three companies could offer.

Pedagogy First

However I also firmly believe that my role at UNSW is more significant than my opinions. This is ultimately what has led me to justify assisting the faculty with use of Blackboard. I see it as my responsibility to point out alternatives and other ways of working, however if people are interested in leveraging the LMS to assist in the learning process it is my role to help support that.

Concerns about Apple

It’s Apple that has me in conflict at the moment. The emergence of the iPad has seen an explosion of interest from the educational community – both positive and negative. Many people see it as a tremendous opportunity for mobile learning and tout it as “revolutionizing,” while others, such as myself, see it as a potentially powerful idea soured by corporate interests and another example of Apple trying to control and dictate our experiences with technology – and arguably the information we have access to.

In that sense I see an inherent danger in the close relationship that my university has begun to cultivate with Apple. iPhones are being afforded more recognition as mobile phones than other providers, both in terms of available support and considerations for web site optimisation; iPods are the assumed standard for portable media players to the extent the two phrases are used synonymously; we have also become an “iTunes university,” with a large proportion of media downloads expected to go through iTunes rather than other software. This all gives me a very uneasy feeling.

Contempt prior to investigation

On a personal level I continue to have no interest in the iPad and perhaps reactionarily unfollowed anyone who proclaimed the device “game changing” on Twitter in the days following its release. How anyone can see an immediate need for something they haven’t even touched, let alone used is still beyond me.

And yet, in many ways I am guilty of contempt prior to investigation. There may be real, tangible learning opportunities in the iPad that I am overlooking because of my passionate hatred of the company. As with Blackboard, I am beginning to think I need to look past this bias in favour of an objective evaluation on behalf of the faculty.

And yet this idea is a bitter and tough pill to swallow. I fail to see how open education and diversity of information can truly flourish in an environment based on locked down, filtered systems. Surely educational solutions should be easily transferred and transferrable between systems and circumstances, rather than restricted to or dictated by technologies or companies?

Then again, how can I make an informed decision or recommendation without having experimented with all the available options – open or locked down?

What do you think?

First, it delineates the clear existence of two different models of innovation and company operation – for instance, the Ubuntu development model versus the Apple product development model – and exemplifies all too clearly the consideration and input  (or lack thereof) that users and user interests have in the evolution of a product.

[This analogy is not ideal I admit, because Ubuntu is not a company and Apple is.  Hopefully my comparison is still logical.]

Ubuntu

In Ubuntu you have a product that is built by the community for the community.  While Canonical is a business which underwrites a fair amount of Ubuntu’s development, by and large decisions on functionality, aesthetics and the direction of the software are all discussed and debated in the open, by anyone who wishes to participate.  There is very much a democratic ethos to the software, which extends far beyond the operating system itself – people feel as though they have a real voice in the evolution of Ubuntu.  Other examples of this model include Kaltura and WordPress.

Apple

In Apple you have a diametrically opposed situation.  Apple has a sleek a sophisticated reputation to be sure; but also one that aggressively and closely guards their own corporate interests and corporate secrets – secrets and interests they are all too happy to protect with an iron first.  You need only look to the recent debacle with the “discovery” of a lost next generation iPhone, and the arguably excessive reaction from the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team (REACT), which included search and seizure, to see the sort of influence that Apple enjoys and is all too happy to leverage.

God forbid you make the mistake of creating a project that begins with a lowercase “i” – apparently Apple feels that letter is reserved for them and them alone.  But I digress.

Steve Jobs is renown for designing products that aim to be “game changing” and establish needs and markets that weren’t there before – the iPod, iPhone, and potentially iPad are all cases in point.  Almost by necessity this entails looking beyond the needs of your users into uncharted territory, and in the process trying to affect user demand as well as the flow of the technology market.  But to me, what we see in Apple is much more than that and extends to a personal quest or mission that is far more about Jobs’ personal agenda and visions of grandeur than what users want or need.  Fortunately for them, and for Jobs, many Apple enthusiasts have reached the point where anything that Jobs does is instant gold.

For me though, the fascist PR tactics that Apple uses to quash the slightest encroachment into their territory (whether true or merely perceived) is just too much to swallow.  I use Apple products because my department at the university is an Apple department – if it were left up to me I’d happily use something else.

Facebook

In Facebook I very much see Apple; and in Mark Zuckerberg I very much see Steve Jobs – but I don’t mean that in a good way.  Facebook clearly maintains its own interests over those of the user community that has made it such a vast success.

Sure it’s a business, and businesses need to be financially profitable, yet what we’re seeing in Facebook – as has been demonstrated in both the Beacon debacle, and the current PR mess – characterises a company that just doesn’t care what its users think, in the ultimate Jobsian way.  Zuckerberg’s alleged IM conversation from 2003 is the ultimate testimony to that, in which he reportedly calls the early Facebook users “Dumb f–ks” for providing him with their personal details.

A willingness to share personal details is a sign of trust, yet for Facebook that trust is being exploited and mocked at the highest levels of the company – indeed, exploited trust and privacy seem to be the fuel for an entirely new business model for Zuckerberg.

Thus we arrive at the second important implication of the current Facebook debate – the notion of privacy.

Google Buzz

Another example comes to mind immediately here – Google’s Buzz.  Google’z Buzz appears to be  an attempt by the technology giant to erode some of Facebook’s success with updates and sharing of updates, websites, photographs and videos.  Integrated with Gmail, Buzz initially identified all of your email contacts and added them all as contacts.  The problem?  Not everyone wants to be closely linked with their contacts.

One lady in particular found herself linked with her abusive ex-husband and was extremely displeased with the epiphany.  Google quickly implemented a change to make the Buzz privacy options more visible, and in fact added the ability to opt out of it completely.

The situation was pretty messy for Google from a public relations standpoint, but to their credit they acted quickly and seemingly sincerely to resolve it, alleviate user concerns, and provide people with options to ensure it doesn’t happen.  I fail to see anything remotely like this coming out of Apple or Facebook.

Implications

The nature of how we interact online has enormous implications for our privacy and personal lives; far more than most people realise I suspect.  Each incremental piece of information we reveal about ourselves may seem insignificant at the time, but when you consider that search engines like Google index everything that is visible online, make it searchable, and indeed are finding new ways to interpret the connections and meaning that this information has for other aspects of our lives – for instance, browsing history leading to increased relevance of advertisements – the realities of an “insignificant” comment  or photo aren’t  so insignificant anymore.

The nature of this reality is, I suspect, one of the key reasons why social networking has – or had been – so popular.  You could control who was able to see what, and ensure (as much as possible) that the special pieces of your life were reserved for select people only.  However recognition of the right and need to respect and protect a user’s privacy appears to be no longer ensured.

This is the reason why Mark Zuckerberg’s notion of the age of privacy being over is so inherently irresponsible and arrogant.  You see, that’s not his decision to make; it’s not his call to make.  I don’t care if he is the CEO of one of the most popular sites on the internet – the people, each individual user – make their own decisions on what constitutes privacy and what it means to them.

I wholeheartedly I believe in openness, as I hope is demonstrated through this blog.  However I also wholeheartedly believe that openness should not be imposed, it must be embraced.

As I mentioned yesterday, the slimy push to get Safari installed on PCs via the Apple Software update is poor form, but in and of itself it’s just irritating.  The motives that drove the decision on the other-hand are more disconcerting; but what makes me really angry is the arguments in support of the move coming out of the Mac-head camp.

In a comment on Paul Mison’s post “A Translation of “Apple’s Windows Invasion“, Tom Insam writes:

“Obviously Apple realised that if they wanted to get accepted by all those windows users, they had to install irritating system tray icons and background processes and intrusive update software like everyone else. Not to mention apps with their own look-and-feel that don’t look like anything else on the desktop. It’s just Apple trying to fit in on the platform.”

This argument is pathetic and echoes of school-yard me-toism, where the only logic is “Everyone else is doing it.  Why not us?”It reeks of an application that lacks the appeal and quality to be adopted on its own merit and therefore can only get into the user radar through underhanded tactics.  It reflects very poorly on Safari, as is being demonstrated by the outrage across the web as we speak.

If Steve Jobs was trying to gain the ear of PC users this way, it hasn’t worked.  The move is being seen for what it is: a desperate ploy for attention.

But to be fair, as has been explained elsewhere, this tactic is nothing new. Apple hasn’t sunk to depths unexplored by other companies.  They’ve just joined their ranks.

Let’s get this straight, Apple: This tactic is unacceptable no matter who does it.  This goes for Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Apple.

From my standpoint as a consumer, this has broke my trust, my confidence in the company and eliminated any desire at all to use the browser.  I choose to use an application; it cannot be forced on me.  And the fact it is being forced on me means I will never use Safari by choice.

I am not a zealous PC-user either.  My laptop is a MacBook which has virtual installations of Windows XP Professional and Ubuntu Linux Gutsy Gibbon.  I see computer software as a tool through which I can achieve the aims and objectives I set for myself.  I do not see the borders of operating system or program that some people get hung up on.  If it serves the purposes I need it to, I’ll use it.

However when I see companies like Microsoft, Google, and Apple breaking my trust it alienates me – immediately.  I used to love Google but have begun to shy away from them; I used to trust Microsoft, but have done the same.  Now I do the same with Apple.

I’ve developed quite an appreciation for open source philosophies, and the freedom, choice, and openness they advocate.  Apple’s move with Safari has reminded me of what I don’t want to return to with proprietary companies.

References:

• “A Translation of “Apple’s Windows Invasion“, more chaff, 21 March 2008

Apple has recently begun to use and/or abuse their extraordinary share of the media player market held by iTunes as a jumping off point for spreading the uptake their Safari browser.  This has many PC users seriously miffed, and appears to have fanned the flames of the long-standing operating system war between Mac-heads and PC-users, which has been burning since the 1980s.

When installing iTunes, users are also required to install the Apple Software Update tool, which regularly checks for new versions of the software.  When a new version becomes available, users are prompted to download and install it.

Being prompted for software updates is nothing new.  What is stirring the controversy is Apple’s increasing tendency to use this update to try and piggy-back other applications.

This began with QuickTime, which is so closely integrated with iTunes you cannot install iTunes by itself anymore.  Apple has now expanded this tactic to include prompts to install Safari as well.

The symptom in question appears when you have iTunes but not Safari installed on your PC.  When the update appears, users now see the inclusion of Safari, with the install option selected by default.

While not nearly as bundled as QuickTime, the fact users are now being prompted to install unwanted or unrequested software is getting people’s backs up.  You need only look to the Digg thread on “Apple pushing Safari downloads on Windows users” for examples of the anathema this move is being met with.

More recently though, Mozilla CEO, John Lilly weighed in:

“…by and large, all software makers are trying to get users to trust us on updates, and so the likely behavior here is for users to just click “Install 2 items,” which means that they’ve now installed a completely new piece of software, quite possibly completely unintentionally. Apple has made it incredibly easy — the default, even — for users to install ride along software that they didn’t ask for, and maybe didn’t want. This is wrong, and borders on malware distribution practices.”

I for one find this irritating, but not nearly the personal afront that some people are making it out to be.  As Tom Kranit from CNet discussed yesterday (“Think before you install“), it’s important to pay attention to what you’re doing when you click OK when prompted to install something:

“Had Apple bundled Safari with iTunes, the way they bundle Quicktime, I can see where Windows users would have more of a complaint. Being forced to install something you don’t want just to get updates for something you do want is not cool. You can download standalone versions of QuickTime or iTunes on Apple’s site, but sometimes they appear bundled in Software Update and people don’t realize they have other options.

But that’s not what’s happening with Safari. If you don’t want Safari, don’t click “install.”

It seems that at some point people became conditioned to downloading anything that shows up from an official source, like Microsoft, Apple, AOL, Yahoo, or whoever. Remember, it’s your PC; spend your installation capital wisely.”

I don’t think this move is going to do much to increase Safari’s market share. PC users by and large seem to take their browsers in one of two flavours: Internet Explorer, or something that isn’t Internet Explorer.

In the case of the latter, this title is well and truly held by Firefox; and as far as I’m concerned, Safari just can’t compete with Firefox.  Sure it’s fast, but so is the Firefox 3 Beta 4 version, which I’m using currently. With Safari you’ve got zippo on the customisation options; with Firefox, you’ve got a massive library of tools and add-ons for building your browser experience exactly the way you want it.

So I don’t see Apple gaining very much by this move, except criticism that it’s becoming another Microsoft. These slimy install tactics have just given me another reason to ignore Safari, not embrace it.

References:

•  ”Think before you install“, Tom Krazit, CNet News.com, 21 March 2008
• “Apple pushing Safari downloads on Windows users“, Digg, first submitted 21 March 2008
• “Apple Software Update“, John Lilly, 22 March 2008

I don’t see how this serves the user’s interests in the least ­ – only the vendors, by enabling DRM management.

Ring tones, how you mock me so!