iPhone crashing bug likely caused by code added to appease Chinese government

However because it’s China and Taiwan it’s a “thing“ because there’s a very heavy political angle.

My original comment was meant to point out that Apple isn’t hypocritical here as many people want to claim. They said they’d do the exact same kind of things here if required by US law.

We're all so used to ISO standards that we assume they are politically neutral. That's why everyone starts their weekend project with the ISO 3166 country list that includes "Taiwan, Province of China" [1] [2] [3].

This list is crap. It follows UN country names, and the UN is not a neutral entity. It isn't even logical that "Hong Kong" can stand on its own in the list, but Taiwan has to be suffixed with "Province of China". As far as I know, no major website uses this list unmodified. (The airlines that recently bowed to PRC pressure now call it "Taiwan, China").

If you see the "Province of China" label on a website, you should refer its developer to the Unicode CLDR data: http://cldr.unicode.org/index

The CLDR data is the actual industry standard, and tries to be as neutral as possible.

[1] https://github.com/rails/country_select [2] https://gist.github.com/DHS/1340150 [3] https://pypi.org/project/django-countries/

I think that public disagreement consistent with their principles regardless of region would be appropriate. I don't think many are asking them to not sell or not abide by the law, just that their pinciples ring hollow if they only voice them against certain governments.

And no, I think Apple should sell to as many countries as possible, but not at a cost of compromising integrity and universal value. Apple should sell their products INTACT across the world.

I lived in US for quite some time and travel to US regularly. But seriously, I feel much less safe or comfortable when I am in US, and a lot of things Americans care so much about doesn't mean anything

And yes it would be right in general to avoid doing business with authoritarian countries. Of course it ought to be a country-wide policy, but even if it's not it's still more ethical for a company to do so.

The "theory" that trade fosters democracy has been tested for long enough.

You are clearly drugged out of your mind by Apple's marketing machine. Who exactly uses iMessage in China? Everybody uses Wechat. Are you telling me iOS can protect Chinese users' privacy when the traffic go through their servers?

Also, Apple wouldn't die, no alone anyway. Foxconn and Apple would likely both die together. There's nothing scarier than 1000s of 1000s of laid off workers for the CCP.

> But for flag emoji? Who cares? That's an easy trade.

This is an extremely dangerous line of thought. Today you give them an inch, tomorrow they'll ask for a foot. It is exactly this kind of kautouing the West has given China in the past 20 years that led to its progressive erosion of universal values and leverage to safeguard those values across the world. When it comes to principles, espcially core values of a company, you don't compromise.

Second of all, even if it is a statute, you don't respect the law in China, you respect the MAN. What's legal and what's not depends on not the independent judiciary, as there isn't one, but how well your relationship is with key government officials.

Thirdly, all these world-wide subsidiary are there mainly for tax and payroll. Apple China does not operate independently as it's wholely owned by Apple US. Also, I don't know if you are aware, this is likely the decision made directly by Tim Cook if you've seen his activity in China recently.

The solution is very easy, appeal to Trump and I'm sure his ilks will go to work. You may not like Trump, but the outcome surely will be infinitely better than compromising your own core values and customer's trust.

  #1 The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the largest total prison population on the entire globe.
  #2 According to NationMaster.com, the United States has the highest percentage of obese people in the world.
  #3 The United States has the highest divorce rate on the globe by a wide margin.
  #4 The United States is tied with the U.K. for the most hours of television watched per person each week.
  #5 The United States has the highest rate of illegal drug use on the entire planet.
  #6 There are more car thefts in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world by far.
  #7 There are more reported rapes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.
  #8 There are more reported murders in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.
  #9 There are more total crimes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.
  #10 The United States also has more police officers than anywhere else in the world.
  #11 The United States spends much more on health care as a percentage of GDP than any other nation on the face of the earth
  #12 The United States has more people on pharmaceutical drugs than any other country on the planet.
  #13 The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is higher than in any other country in the world.
  #14 Americans have more student loan debt than anyone else in the world.
  #15 More pornography is created in the United States than anywhere else on the entire globe. 89 percent is made in the U.S.A. and only 11 percent is made in the rest of the world.
  #16 The United States has the largest trade deficit in the world every single year. Between December 2000 and December 2010, the United States ran a total trade deficit of 6.1 trillion dollars with the rest of the world, and the U.S. has had a negative trade balance every single year since 1976.
  #17 The United States spends 7 times more on the military than any other nation on the planet does. In fact, U.S. military spending is greater than the military spending of China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of NATO combined.
  #18 The United States has far more foreign military bases than any other country does.
  #19 The United States has the most complicated tax system in the entire world.
  #20 The U.S. has accumulated the biggest national debt that the world has ever seen and it is rapidly getting worse. Right now, U.S. government debt is expanding at a rate of $40,000 per second.

iMessage isn't iCloud, but iMessages are stored in iCloud, Apple also stores iCloud encryption keys in China. See https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/25/apple-moves-icloud-encrypt...