Seriously, Safari?

When a company as normally mindful of user experience as Apple violates usability principles, it can be more shocking than encountering the same error in software where one's expectations were low to begin with.

Installing the Safari 4 beta this morning, I completed the installation process and was confronted by this dialog box:

The idea of restarting my entire computer to install a single application is very Windows-like (I thought one reason for running a UNIX variant like Mac OS was to avoid this), but normally, not a big deal, since I can just delay that action for later.

Unlike most Mac OS X installations that do require restart, however, there was no option to "Restart Later." Still, never fear, there's always the trusty red button to close the dialog box. I pressed it, and voilà:

A nice zero efficiency sub-dialog telling me in no uncertain terms that I was not allowed to close this main dialog box without accepting the only choice presented, namely, restart.

Since I'm in the middle of doing my work right now, going through all my open applications to check save states, closing everything, restarting the entire computer and trying to get back to my previous work state is not something I'm inclined to do. As a result, I have no choice but to leave that dialog box open, and Safari in mid-install, until such time as which I am ready to take 10-15 minutes out of my workday to go through that process.

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

At least it's not as bad as the equivalent Windows experience, succintly conveyed by the Reddit article: F*** You Microsoft ... "Restart Later" means I will restart it whenever the F*** I WANT

The madness must stop.