I have been responsible for creating and maintaining an app generation system. Among other things, it taught me that App Store Connect has many sharp edges showing how easy it is to abuse the kind of power you've correctly pointed out Apple has.
It's perhaps less evil than the kind of wholesale data-farming the other big tech companies are engaged in, but it still doesn't make me like the idea of Apple ascendant.
And I was raised on Macs, giving Apple a heavy nostalgia bonus that they burned years ago.
You find that you're being strongarmed. As a oonsumer, I could not care less. Hell, I am thrilled that developers are being strongarmed when it comes to user privacy and security.
I am concerned with things like Apple's terms of service saying "If you put an app in the store, we reserve the right to copy it and ban yours."
They don't spell it out quite that clearly, but sections 14.4 and 11.2 of the developer guidelines make it clear enough (https://download.developer.apple.com/Documentation/ADP_Progr...).
Yes, there are more charitable interpretations possible, but Apple does have some history of cloning and killing off third party software, so I see no reason to apply the more charitable interpretation.
Who said the Windows/Android model is the morally correct one anyway?
As a customer I'm glad that Apple is providing a truly different alternative.
I'm not scared of this anonymous signin feature, per se.
I'm scared of the sheer amount of power Apple has, and that they can abuse it to force third parties into compliance with what they think software should be.
That's what I was saying I found terrifying.
I'm not sure how this is manipulating to get me to purchase a new phone.
That's disingenuous. Apple has a recycling program, where they take apart every component to be reused or recycled into new materials.[1]
[1]: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/04/apple-adds-earth-day-...
7.8 million "Apple devices"[0] in 2018 is a lot, but an average iPhone is far more likely to end up on a landfill. If it were easy to extract the battery, that wouldn't be such a problem.
[0] They group them all together and I can't find any other metric: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/04/apple-expands-global-...
And this effect is massive last week I offered two of my old laptops to a friend child wanabee hacker. He quickly considered a 2012 HP for parts, then he kept on thanking me for a working state 2002 PPC iBook.
PS: To be honest he might be ranting about it in a few day, I’ve played around it a little and that 2002 iBook bios is a mostly undocumented nightmare!
The battery glue is like a 3M command strip, you're supposed to remove it by applying tension to the side. You need the heat source if the strip breaks and gets trapped underneath, but I used dental floss instead.
1. Services have little incentive to support mailinator, and indeed may deliberately choose not to if they feel it is leading to signups they don’t like. On the other hand it would be hard to argue with an incentive like the App Store requiring you to support apple’s service.
2. Because the service is built in to apple’s systems there seems to be an implicit contract that apple wont let it be abused for the purposes that many sites claim mailinator is used for (because it isn’t useful to apple customers if sites don’t trust it and it). So they might be more willing to accept these email addresses.
I guess neither of these help services like mailinator gain credibility.