Lately I’ve seen the “Apple Software update” window on my screen rather frequently. It appears that if you’ve installed either Safari, iTunes or Quicktime Apple is trying to push the ones you don’t have installed as well. For those of us happy with other browsers and media players this is starting to get quite annoying.

I know Microsoft’s been doing this for years (try installing Live Messenger and see what happens), but I really don’t like the way things are turning. Imagine downloading Adobe Reader and then get an update option to download all the other products Adobe has to offer (both free and paid).

I assume this is all part of Apple’s marketing strategy. They know a lot of people are using iTunes which is a nice software to sync your iPod. However, this seams to have opened a new door for Apple to force people to download and (hopefully) use their other products, which in the end perhaps would lead to more people converting to a Mac.

To be honest I hate it when the auto-updater gives you options not related to the product you’re using. It’s like Firefox would dump Thunderbird in the same update as Firefox 3. So Apple, please stick with advertising and “normal” marketing, don’t just throw things at people!

What’s your take on this?

Update: This just popped up on my screen (I only have Safari installed for browser compatibility testing).