The system wanted to upgrade Safari, so I just clicked the little button and carried on in Firefox. The next thing I know is that the computer needs to be rebooted.
That’s a whole OS to be rebooted JUST for a browser.
If Microsoft did that for IE the mac fanboys - and other mac users - would deride the event. Yet I hear no noise from the mac users. I also hear no noise for the continuing huge security updates which get pushed out with increasing frequency. If Apple had their own version of the Microsoft Tuesday then people would really see what is going on. Odd that sites go on about those Tuesdays but never mention what must be the increasing fragility of Apple’s OS.
Since when does a browser hook so deeply into a system that it even needs a reboot?
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IE on Windows used to require rebooting all the time, like every time it was updated. Worse, it wasn’t until windows 2000 came along that changing your IP address didn’t require a reboot.
If they were just updating the browser app (i.e. Safari) the reboot wouldn’t have been needed, but it wasn’t so much that Safari was updated as the underlying frameworks that belong to WebKit were.
WebKit is what renders the HTML and executes the JavaScript. It’s used to render DashBoard widgets, the Help viewer application, emails (in Mail.app) and I’m pretty sure it renders the Dictionary views as well amongst other things. Oh and Safari pages. :)
When something that is fundamental to so many processes changes, the proper thing to do is reboot the machine (you probably could get away with restarting all the apps that require it, but that’s less appealing from a usability perspective).
Often you can just force quit reboot notices from the Apple installer quite safely. But don’t expect whatever was just upgraded to play nice.
The reason FireFox doesn’t require a reboot when it upgrades is because it is a self contained app. It carries everything it needs. Which is why it is 47MB on disk compared to Safari’s 9MB (for an english-only version).
So if it wasn’t an update to Safari but everything else, why didn’t they say so? Probably a “They don’t need to know” attitude which annoys me about Apple.
Webkit I understand though from what you list I use solely the browser.
And I really do look forward to the day when the EU Monopoly Commission stare hard at the apple products. Apple among others whined about integrated browser, integrated media player and yet they are equally guilty.
Now if only Apple would have 1 day a month where they update - like Microsoft - then we’d see what a monster lump of code they send, and we could reboot all changes all at once.
Wouldn’t what you say be more of an OS update?
Just read your other post mentioning Hana. Hana almost certainly uses WebKit too, but I digress.
Yeah, it’s more of an OS update in my opinion, but they probably did make some changes to Safari as well (at least bumped the version number).
I guess it’s all about brand recognition with regards to what they call it. When we update a small portion of WordPress, - let’s say it was XML-RPC - we don’t release an update called “XML-RPC update”, because less people would install the update because they think they don’t use it. We call it WordPress 2.5.0.1 or whatever.
WebKit used to be part of Safari, but it has become more pervasive as time has passed. However, the browser is fundamentally de-coupled from the frameworks, if not in a marketing sense at least it is in a programatic sense. The case with IE (back in the day) was not the same, IE was deeply embedded in Windows to the point that much of the OS GUI required it. To be honest though I never saw that as the huge problem it was made out to be in terms of user choice. It made for some horrible headaches in terms of system management. Actually I was generally more annoyed back then when I couldn’t un-install Outlook Express, no matter what I did.
Anyway, I’m not here to defend Apple. I was just disturbed by the IE doesn’t require reboots claim. I don’t know how many hours I’ve wasted watching Windows reboot after updates (or crashes).
I also see Apple’s faults. I’m personally annoyed that software update has been dumbed down. I don’t like having to click “Show details” or whatever it is to find out what the updates are and if they are going to request a reboot.
I was advised when I got the mac to not uninstall iphoto, itunes, ichat even though I will never use them. So there is some embedding even if Safari could be uninstalled.
What I find really annoying is that while Microsoft say “Security Update” Apple use crap like “will enhance the user experrience” or “will allow continued enjoyment of..” and other garbage which really means that it is security related.
And hours watching Windows reboot? I had it down to 40-45 seconds that’s with open apps - you just need to get into that registry :) My macs now take a whopping 5 minutes to reboot.
And I take your point about WP but ours is an option - Apple don’t believe in that. We will take what they offer.
You can un-install those apps. They are just bundles. Drag and drop them to the trash and they are practically gone bar a couple of user folders in your home directory (caches and settings).
You are probably advised against it because they are pretty hard to re-install without going through the system installer.
I haven’t timed my Mac’s reboot, I don’t think it is anywhere near yours, but you do have a penchant for running those cute little MacHeist style apps :) - god knows what they are doing in there.
My hours of watching reboots was mainly due to the fact that I used to do a lot of system installations on lots of computers. I almost had photographic memory of every required reboot. Installing Windows 2000 at one point got up to something like 11 reboots just to get the system installed and up to date with patches and service packs (and latest Internet Explorer). Each reboot would be progressively slower than the last, despite the fact that the software was getting “better” each time. Those were the days…
It sounds to me like your system is reaching the stage where it could probably use a clean re-install (as much pain as that sounds like). I used to do that every month or two on Windows, since coming back to Mac on OS X it has been more like every 6 months. Which is still too often really. Now I know there are some Gentoo Linux servers I’ve set up in the past that are still going on the same install after years. If we want to talk about system architectures built to last, then we need to start talking about the other OSes out there.
The Gentoo meta-distribution method, Free/Open/Net-BSD. Those guys have got so much stuff right. But it doesn’t sell shiny laptops. To be honest I’ve been heading away from Mac OS X towards linux for the past 6 years. It’s just taking a long time for them to get the desktop experience right (not to mention all the right support for laptop power-saving hardware). I think I’ll probably be using Linux full-time as a desktop within the next couple of years.
Hmm.. I’m ranting now… :)
My Leopard installs are less than 4 months, maybe even sooner hence my being perplexed.
I found that I could keep XP fast simply by taking care of the registry / startup items and defragging. Boot was always fast, reboot faster. It’s part of my OS X annoyance that I can’t see where to fiddle around (and a reinstall wouldn’t be a problem).
I can see your Windows frustration though. Perfectly understandable.
I’ll do a timed reboot later and blog it.
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