I was catching up on the Apple-related news yesterday (after returning from the long weekend) and learned about an unwelcome new feature that came along with the 10.4.7 update. 
Apparently there is a new component of the Dashboard which ‘phones home’ to Apple on a regular basis. Ostensibly, this is to check the installed versions of your Dashboard widgets against the ‘official’ versions to make sure they have not been modified.
It sounded like a reasonable explanation to me; perhaps it’s a preemptive strike against malware that might masquerade as a widget*. Reflecting on the pros and cons of such a system reminded me of a conversation about similar things in the Apple boardroom several years ago.
The iApps Review Meetings
During the big push that led up to the new products being released at MacWorld, there would be a regularly scheduled weekly meeting where Steve would review the progress on the ‘i-apps’. It was held in the Apple boardroom and usually attended by the product managers and engineering lead on each of the applications. Senior execs, like Avie Tevenian, Eddie Cue, or Phil Schiller would also attend if there were particularly important things to review. Each product group would bring a Mac configured with latest build of their software so Steve could check it out.
I always enjoyed these meetings, in spite of the intense pressure that went along with them, because it was a chance to get more of the ‘big picture’ view of what was happening with the new products. Apple is quite compartmentalized, so it’s common to not know what other groups are working on; but at the review meetings, the barriers were temporarily lowered. It was a rare opportunity to how Steve worked to bring all the details together to achieve Apple’s overall goals.
Steve would review each project in turn, confirming that previously discussed changes had been implemented and discussing what needed to happen next. Both large and small issues were covered. In spite of what you may think you know about Steve’s methods, there was always a lot of give and take during these discussions. Everyone present was welcome to contribute to the debate, even if they weren’t technically part of that application’s team. I have said this before, but it bears repeating: the goal was to make great products, not just to do what Steve said. On the other hand, the product had to actually ship eventually, so practical considerations had to be discussed too.
It was never dull.
Questions About DVD Burning
The decision to include DVD burners in the new Power Macs was risky. The drives increased the cost of the computer considerably, and we had to make pretty big commitments to the suppliers of the drives and the blank discs in order to get the best deal possible. But it was the kind of gamble Apple had taken many times before when they introduced new technologies before most people had even heard of them (ie 802.11). Although everyone on the team felt it was the right thing to do, the reality was that no one really knew if customers would embrace the idea of making their own DVDs, or if $10 per blank disc would be low enough to get people to use the feature regularly.
So it happened that during one of the review meetings, there was a lengthy conversation about how to measure the adoption of the DVD burning technology. We could get a very rough idea by looking at the number of SuperDrive systems sold. But some customers would choose the configuration featuring the SuperDrive simply to get the fastest G4, even though they may not care about, or use, the DVD burning capabilities. The sales of blank DVDs also gave some indication, but people could buy blank discs elsewhere, making our information incomplete.
Steve’s Suggestion
The iDVD team (which included me) arrived a little late for the next review meeting, having been delayed by a problem setting up our demo machine. As we came into the room, Steve was saying something like ‘how about instrumentation? wouldn’t that work?’ to those who were already there. I had no idea what he was talking about, but my fog cleared quickly. He was asking Avie and Eddie about the concept of including a ‘metering’ function in iDVD that would count how many time the application was launched and how many discs were burned. This data would be totally anonymous; no IP addresses or user names or anything like that, just the number of times launched and the number of discs burned. It would be great information to have, to help validate the decision to push DVD burning technology.
The reaction of those present was unanimous (and about what you’d expect from a bunch of passionate Mac people): bad idea. Everyone agreed it was not Apple-like to do this sort of thing secretly. The only way such a plan would be acceptable is if it were an ‘opt in’ deal where the customer was asked if they would like to voluntarily participate. Of course it was obvious to everyone that as soon as you make it optional, the collected data is pretty much useless.
Shot Down
Steve’s ‘trial balloon’ was completely perforated, and the idea was dropped (as far a I know.) The conversation did result in one change to iDVD though; the inclusion of a menu item to order blank DVDs. That feature was later removed when DVD media became widely available.
Personally, I hate applications that phone home. I hate automatic update checking and I hate HP printer software that asks me if I want to send information about how much I print, and I hate software that checks over the network to see if I’ve got other copies running. I really hate the concept of iTunes showing me other music it thinks I might like, based on what I’m playing. But I know, from first hand experience, that the motives for such things are not always sinister, and sometimes the people creating these systems are genuinely trying to improve their products or services. Just don’t get me started on the deceptively named Windows Genuine Advantage!
*This has been confirmed by a statement from Apple to CNET.
great post, mike. Glad to have you back and giving us insight. Great balanced opinion on the “phone home” thing also….
This may sound completely ridiculous, but when I buy a new laptop, I’m going to put some tape over the iSight that’s built in. I’m not a paranoid person, but man, that little thing freaks me out.
ditto to mpstrex. I totally understand that Apple doesn’t want to add hardware clutter to their products, but the little iSight light just comes one without warning and can be off again in an instant.
welcome back, mike. i was almost afraid that you lost your spirit on this project. i really enjoyed reading this post, it’s a writers block live classic.
greetings from sunny karlsruhe,
tibor
Really interesting to know about the iDVD story.
I think the dashboard new “feature†is ok, the only problem is that Apple should have announced that in the update and even created an opt-out option to it (but including a note that the user might have less safety without it).
It’s the iTunes “Mini Store†story repeating itself again.