This morning, as I was reading my RSS feeds, I came across an article about a Microsoft venerability and how the patch was released on Tuesday. As my mind was mulling over this article and few errant thoughts floated around. “That’s right Windows Updates are always on Tuesday. Oh yeah, and Apple’s updates are on Wednesday aren’t they?” It’s at that point that I realised that today is Friday and I didn’t receive any updates. Something must be wrong.
Regardless of the operating system, computers aren’t perfect and problems arise from time-to-time. So I wasn’t alarmed by the fact that my new MacBook hadn’t alerted me to the fact that there were updates this past Wednesday. Microsoft Update gives me trouble all the time. I have several machines that I manage that still require manual updates, even though I have them set to auto-update. It frustrates me to know end, but that’s just how it works, or doesn’t as the case may be.
So this morning I fired up my System Preferences and then launched Software Update. I checked the settings and they were exactly how I had set them, so I clicked on the “Check Now” button. I waited while the program reached out to Apple and in a few seconds and then sat back in amazement as the following message was returned, “No new software updates were available”. :O
It’s been a full week since I last did an update. Are you saying that there are NO updates? None? But each and every Tuesday there’s something from Microsoft, so I was confused. There was an NPUG meeting today, so I ask Fred what the deal was and he confirmed what Software Update was telling me — there were no updates this week. When I asked him if this was unique, he said “No?” with a questioning tone in his answer, so I said “Well, aren’t there updates every week?” With that, Fred let out a huge gut-busting laugh. Eventually, with a huge smile on his face, he answered my question with definitive “No.”
After a good laugh, Fred schooled me on the fact that Apple releases updates whenever there is a fix and those don’t happen on a very regular basis. There are just updates “from time-to-time” unlike the like clockwork weekly updates of Windows. So I’m chalking this up as just another one of those little revelations that shows how different these two operating systems really are.
Michael your loving that Macbook aren’t you? Just as an FYI, in Bill Gates defense, I think Microsoft actually puts out their updates the first Tuesday of each month typically, not every week. Occassionally more often though. Bear in mind this too, if Apple’s OS was as widespread as Microsofts it would be more targeted by hackers and viruses. 😉
Steve,
I agree that there could be more updates if Apple had a bigger market share, but to some extint that’s a bit of a myth.
Even if more focus was applied to comprising a Mac, it wouldn’t be the widespread problem that it is with Windows.
http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/188
Maybe…guess we may never know.