Cancel Computer, Daring Fireball. First I wanted to blog this post for one fantastic quote: “To be trustworthy is to do what you say you will do; to do whatever someone else wishes you to do is to be obsequious.”
Then I got an even better, if more irreverent, one: “It’s hard to work the concept of a ‘software update’ into a cow analogy, but here goes: You willingly purchase a cow, which, the purveyor of said cow makes explicitly clear, is intended only to be used to produce milk. You buy it and figure out a way to make cheese. Two months later the purveyor of the cow offers you a pill, free of charge, which, if administered to the cow, will result in slightly better-tasting milk, but which pill comes with a stern and plainly worded warning that, if administered to a cow that had been used to produce cheese (which, recall, was made clear from the outset the cow was not intended for), the pill might kill the cow, and that, even if it doesn’t kill the cow, will prevent all previously known cheese-making hacks from working. Further….”
Great pull quotes aside, it’s a nice bit of analysis, too, and John Gruber is the wisest (if unapologetically biased) Apple observer around. So we’ll just link to the whole post.
Cancel Computer, Daring Fireball