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Apple: I'm just not that into you. Leave me the hell alone!
By Andrew Pollack on 01/09/2012 at 04:57 PM ESTDamn if Apple doesn't still want to take over my PC every chance it gets!
You guys know by now that I'm not a big Apple fan. The only Apple device I own is a second generation iPod Touch that I like for listening to audio books and sometimes music. I don't have or want an iPad (though my wife loves her's), I don't have or want an iPhone, and I don't buy music through iTunes. I have nothing against people who have and like these things, I'm just not one of them.
Since I use my iPod Touch to listen to audio books and I can download those directly to the device with the Audible app, I don't plug it into my PC very often. Every time I do, iTunes launches and insists on adding several startup items to my system. It adds Quicktime -- does anyone still use this? It adds its own "Bonjour" utilty, and it adds its automatic update program. The update program then goes ahead and downloads later versions of Safari (which I use on very, very rare occasions for testing), Quicktime, iTunes, and other stuff.
I do not want Apple loading these things in my startup.
Now, FSM help me, I allowed iTunes to update my iPod Touch and suddenly Apple has (without asking) swept me up into its "iCloud". This includes re-routing messages from my wife's iPhone to my email account (that Apple knows about) so it goes to my iPod Touch instead (which is useless to me). It includes adding new software to my PC that I didn't ask for (the iCloud Control tool). It also auto-starts these things on my PC at boot time (which I did not ask for).
Apple, STOP THIS. It is not good behavior to do things to someone's machine when they don't want it. If any other company behaved this way, this would be labeled crapware or even trojan software. Apple gets away with it because they're so hip and cool. Not with me.
I had to load the "iCloud Control" program just to turn off the iCloud stuff that I NEVER SIGNED UP FOR, and just starting that program put the Apple startup crap BACK in my PC configuration and I had to remove again.
How come nobody in the industry calls these guys on crap like this?
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