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Comment by post_break | Hacker News Reader

"On an unrelated note, when people call Apple a monopoly because the only way that you can reach IOS users is via the App Store, I always say how is that different than the console makers[1]? "

Phones have become more than just an electronic device, just like the internet, water, power, in a way. Now I'm not saying you can't live without a phone, just that it's difficult and the general feel is that you must have a cell phone to function in society. So with that mindset not being able to install any app does have some merit.

Everyone "needs" a phone, not everyone "needs" an xbox.

Taking my comment with a grain of salt though, I think that's a generalization but I think that might be why people want iPhones more open over xbox's.

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>> Everyone "needs" a phone, not everyone "needs" an xbox.

I would add "not everyone 'needs' an iPhone" to this.

iOS is not the only major OS in the phone market. And like Macs, a significant chunk of people (including normals) choose iOS, knowing that they're participating in Apple's walled garden.

I'm not a huge fan of Apple's rent-seeking behaviour (which is why I left Apple), but because Android exists and is flourishing, I don't think you can necessarily call Apple a monopoly. They only have a monopoly on their own customers, which isn't very different from a lot of businesses who have created their own platform.

Seconded.

I do not use a smartphone (my last one broke and the RMA process was too much trouble on top of moving and doing my job, and now I'm used to not having it), and while it seems that some people assume you have one, you can generally get by without one just fine.

Now, I will say: given that Microsoft was charged for bundling IE with Windows in a highly integrated way which competing browsers could not replicate; it seems that some case can be made. Granted, I'd sooner make the case that Paypal is enforcing the anti-competitive desires of their neighbours against those neighbours' competitors.

So if Android would be similar to iOS, no side loading, and we have only 2 bad choices each with 50% market share we are still in a shit situation but no monopoly.

What we need is laws for ownership of the hardware, I should be able to ask Apple or Sony to unlock my hardware because it is mine, the warranty is debatable but ownership should not be debatable.

My belief is even more draconian: I believe you shouldn't be able to cross "industries" like that. If you are hardware, you don't do software, and vice-versa. If you deliver content (cable companies) then you don't make content. It's like we're now back to the Andrew Carnegie days.

Right because having hardware and software separate has done amazing things for the usability of Android devices and Windows PCs....

I don't know about android, but I can put virtualbox and a dev stack on windows and do all kinds of stuff. I have a broken terminal emulator on my iphone. So, to your point, yeah.

Edit: I'll add to this point. A couple of nights ago my son accidentally (? i dunno how) a crapload of text messages from his iphone. There's no "eco-friendly" way to get them back. This is a disasterous situation for a teenage boy who struggles socially. They are still on his phone, but he can't get to them because Apple won't let me get to them. There are some sketchy third-party apps that claim for a king's ransom to be able to do it (they showed him a preview then asked him to pay up- that's how he knows they were still there). But I can't get to it at all from linux. Apple deliberately blocks me from accessing my own file system.

That's just mean.

Yes because it makes total sense for an app to be able to access another apps private storage. What could possibly go wrong....

If the messages are deleted and still accessible, that’s an even bigger problem. I would hope if I delete s message there would be no way for anyone to retrieve them.

But what if Apple delete function does not really deletes things you would need to run a better deleting application like you can on other OSs to be sure a delete is unrecoverable.

The point is about freedom to do what you want with your hardware, give the people a way to remove the restrictions, put a huge warning but let me do what I want with a physical object I own.

Gee, Mr. Sarcastic, aren't we now?

"Delete" has always been separate from "purge" since the beginning of PCs.

> They are still on his phone, but he can't get to them because Apple won't let me get to them.

What makes you think this is true? iOS clears up space on your disk when you delete messages, so presumably it’s actually clearing them out?

As I mentioned, but didn't explain: There is online software that you can download to your computer to "rescue" them. Apparently it accesses the file system to get them. He said he knew it had them because the software showed him some of the messages and demanded a fee to restore them. He recognized them.

Mostly, clearing space simply amounts to setting a flag that space is available and it doesn't actually clear stuff. That's what 'shredders' do (as well as overwrite, etc.).

I say it was great for PC, I can build a desktop with CPU from AMD or Intel, I can add if I want a GPU from AMD or NVIDIA, I have a lot of choices for motherboards, power supply, harddrives,optical drives, sound cards or other components. Then I can run Windows,Linux, BSD, ReactOS , toy kernels or OSs . If I want I can create a hardware project ad I do not need to pay someone to let me connect it with my computer.

Though DRM and IntelME is a major step backwards.

Most people are buying laptops and every time that Microsoft tries to bring anything new to market with their OS, the race to the bottom OEMs won’t have the hardwarecto support it. Can you imagine Windows PCs having the right integration between the OS and something like the T2 chip?

Even worse is Android. Google releases a new OS and may see low double digit adoption after a year. OEMs have no incentive to push upgrades to their users. iOS’d ArKit can only work as well it does (not saying much bet still better than what Google could muster) because of tight integration between a known subset of hardware and software.

This isn’t even to mention all of the bespoke custom interfaces on Android and all of the adware on consumer PCs and Android Phones.

Not everyone “needs” any apps on their phone though. A mobile phone is necessary because we need to make calls, send texts, and receive voicemail. We don’t really need much beyond that. You could make the case for email being a need on the phone, but you don’t need a Facebook app, or Shazaam, or Angry Birds.

...and I use Fastmail’s web interface on my iPhone rather than configuring an IMAP service.

How are you deciding what people “need”?

For many people, their phones are synonymous with the internet. That’s why the App Store being a closed ecosystem is much more troubling than the XBox.

Luckily there is that little app on iPhones called Safari....

iPhones have direct access to the Internet and to the power infrastructure. Apple does not limit which websites can be loaded in Safari, or which emails get delivered, or which electric sockets can charge an iPhone. Anyone in the world can reach an iPhone user by standing up a website and sending some emails.

The issue is the App Store, not the phone. And it's a lot harder to argue that the App Store is public infrastructure, in part because of the open access to the Internet that comes with every iPhone.

Reminder that Apple launched the iPhone with an app concept based only on open Internet access (web apps, no approval needed). They only added an app SDK and the App Store because of public outcry demanding it. Now we want to be mad at them for doing it?

> "iPhones have direct access to the Internet and to the power infrastructure. Apple does not limit which websites can be loaded in Safari, or which emails get delivered, or which electric sockets can charge an iPhone"... yet

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