If I buy a software application as a download, why would there ever be an update to that software available 30 seconds after I download. Case in point – I just updated my Quicken and TurboTax software in preparation to get my taxes done. This wasn’t the retail box from Best Buy, this was a download from the Intuit Website. Moments after I get the software installed, it checks for an update and upgrades me from build 5 to build 6. Shouldn’t the download for sale in the store be the latest build?
I understand updating the software and fixing bugs – awesome, I’m glad the software continues to get improved. But making me download it twice? That’s stupid. Intuit isn’t the only company guilty of this kind of idiocy. Not too long ago I downloaded a Microsoft product that needed updating immediately after download. I’ve downloaded media editing suites that have similar practices. My time has value. Waiting for something twice is a waste of my time (not to mention your bandwidth).
Actually this doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. I’m in the software industry myself and a lot of times the main installer will be a different package than updates and because deploying an installer requires lots of testing and QA time we may only update the main installer once in a while and continue to deploy updates (ie patches) more regularly. Deploying a patch means we don’t have to go back and spend time testing the main installer as well as the patch. Hope this makes sense.