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Comment by galangalalgol | Hacker News Reader

Except now you don't have control over your own device. I don't think they are orthogonal goals. Give me root on my iPhone and I'll switch for the privacy. Leaving gapps off an Android install is becoming crippling.

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"control over your device" isn't a big concern for many in the way privacy is, though. Certainly, in the early days of smartphones I rooted my Android phones and iPhones but these days I just see my smartphone as a utility that I want to work well. There isn't really anything I want to do with my iPhone that Apple blocks me from doing.

That was my path as well. There's a very large segment of the tech community with the same story. Started with Android, why not? Fully customizable, had features earlier like 4G. Then realizing that they can be as stable and as much of a hassle as maintaining another desktop computer too (if you're doing it well/right). While I had multiple Android phones over the course of 5 years, it became a habit to restart them daily. The best one I had in that regard was a Samsung Galaxy S3, but it still wasn't up to scratch with the iPhone.

Going with Cyanogenmod (now LineageOS) helped a lot but did not resolve the need to restart often. Then my device which is primarily a phone that absolutely must work reliably and must be secure and updated, is at the whims of a rather lackadaisical volunteer effort.

Irregardless of arguing merits, the bottom line is that it's clear to me that Android's quality does not match what Apple is doing with iOS. Ultimately, I need calls and texts to guarantee to not be laggy and be reliable. It doesn't just need to be reliable, it also needs to feel reliable. I can't remember a single time an iOS app crashed on me. Android failed me in both of those regards in favor of being a mini-PC, with all the positive and negative connotations that includes.

I moved over with the iPhone5S, loved it, still usable as a backup phone unlike all of my old Android devices which are useless today and not even supported by LineageOS builds that aren't years old. I'm using an iPhone SE today, 3 years on with zero issues, still secure, private, fast and stable. It'll be getting iOS 13 in the fall, which looks better than ever.

If Apple releases an iPhone XE, I'll be buying it at launch at any stated price. I would hand Apple $1,000 for the rumored XE. Even if I only used it 3 years, which is on the minimum end of an iPhone's lifespan, per month cost is $28 at that price for 3 years. Considering the support, build quality and reliable utility, it's an absolute no brainer. A bargain. Anyone ever use the 'Apple Support' app? If you have an issue, they help you, really help you, for $0.0. I'm speaking from my own personal experience alone. I don't work for Apple, and only buy index funds. They're simply doing business right, and making everyone else look like fools. They've built their own value through reliable, hard work. Even if the iPhone costs $50 to manufacture.

Apple is one of the very few companies that from what I've seen, gave me the impression that they actually give a damn or two about their own products. I'm actually a .Net developer, a Thinkpad fan (and Macbook, because of the copious service locations), and if it's not clear yet.. love my iPhone.

They block tons of competition in the App store.

Which isn't really privacy related.

I value privacy more than a robust and fair market. I can understand why others wouldn't, but I'm not the one spending their money, nor are they the ones spending mine.

I imagine you are doing something truly horrible if you need privacy over quality.

Yep, truly horrible things like buying power tools and wood working plans, but not wanting to see advertisements for those things on every last fucking website or application I ever use ever again for the rest of all time.

Do you mean you think privacy and control are orthogonal goals?

They aren't quite orthogonal because if you have root on your device, then you limit the security guarantees Apple can make about their privacy measures.

This is a fairly deep problem in the sense that there is a tradeoff between having a secure enclave to support interesting security protocols on the one hand, and the fact that a secure enclave almost by definition means you don't fully own the machine on the other.

Why do people actually want to root their phones? What kind of advantage does it give to the general user, who flaunts the fact you can do that on android? What can you do now, increasing the usability of a phone, that you couldn’t without a root?

Honest question, because I have absolutely no idea.

> What kind of advantage does it give to the general user, who flaunts the fact you can do that on android?

As a member of one segment of the cellphone user population, I'll say none, really.

The ability to root your phone, IMHO, simply makes it yet another device that sucks up admin time.

Life is too short. This is the major reason I'm a participant in Apple's walled garden. I don't want to mess about more than necessary with a device that I regard as a tool. If my hammer required admin time, I'd dump it.

Well, for starters: xposed gave me a LOT of options to customize every aspect of my phone. Statusbar tweaks, screen brightness tweaks, deeper tasker integration, to name a few... for a tech savvy person with too much time on their hands it is heaven to be able to customize your phone so much more than what is initially "allowed".

But is any of it essential? Those all seem like “nice to have” features instead of something major.

...isn't the vast majority of a smartphone just a collection of "nice to have"s?

Everyone values features differently. If my valuations aren't in line with yours, what makes yours more major?

Backups, for starters. Personally I value being able to restore the software to a known state in case something happens. Not having any way to back up my data was kind of a deal breaker otherwise.

Firewalling traffic and tunneling also requires root. I believe it is a popular way to block ads and analytics, either with a hosts file or iptables.

iPhones can be backed up to iTunes or iCloud or both.

The idea that the ability to easily root your own phone is going to make you more secure is laughable.

There's two competing threat models here. The first is that some shady government agency is going to take your phone and try and break into it. This is an issue if you're actually going up against a government in some form. The second is that the phone itself sends stuff across the internet that you don't want sent. Rooting your phone may hinder the first but it's necessary for the second.

Being able to root the device is pretty important for security research. It's much harder to do an in-depth analysis of a system without root access.

Apple products have had plenty of bugs leading to security issues, and I'd rather make it easier for researchers to discover these.

Security researchers aren't exactly Apple's target audience, just saying.

Possibly compromising security for everybody just so 0.05% of the users can be happy is not a realistic expectation.

Exactly. A much better idea would be to have "security researcher" phones that Apple could sell to such, which would be rooted and tracked.

How could you verify that these phones run the same setup as regular phones?

The only way to make companies fix bugs which may be difficult to find, expensive to fix, and potentially embarrassing is to make it easy to locate exploits on real hardware. Otherwise the only people with the resources to do this are government-backed entities like NSO Group, Vupen, etc, who somehow always ensure that exploits get into the hands of repressive governments.

It would literally be the same phone with the same software, but rooted.

Every iOS device gets cracked relatively quickly, there's nothing stopping security researchers from doing their work.

For the vast majority of users this isn't a concern or even a good idea.

Agreed, which is why I shouldn't have to. Give me root of of the box. Print the root password on a card in the packaging. Yes I can undo all the privacy measures if I make mistakes but that is on me.

> Print the root password on a card in the packaging.

So security isn’t a concern to you at all, huh? Or are you just really bad at understanding security?

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