Hacker News Reader

Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

Yes, but should Apple be forced to sell it? You can buy a DVD player and a TV from Walmart that allows you to view pornographic and racist content but aren’t forced to sell it.

View on HN

There's a common standard for DVDs and a competitive market in them; if one maker won't sell what you want, another will. Apple should be either nationalised or broken up like Ma Bell, and the threat of the same should hang over any market where a handful of players capture enough marketshare to become a de facto cartel.

And since in this case we are talking about Google - you can already side load apps...

Apple has less than 50% of the market in the US and 15% of the market worldwide. People chose to use Apple without any coercion from the government.

But back to this case, people can choose to sideload apps on Android. So what’s the problem?

Apple preventing the sale of a product != Apple not selling a product.

I don't ask Apple for permission to visit a website on my iPhone. Why should I ask their permission to install applications? Would it be so awful if I were allowed to run my own software?

But you don’t have to ask Google permission to install software. So why are people asking for intervention in this case?

Choice is amazing. You had a choice to buy into Apple’s “walled garden” or buy an Android. You didn’t need the nanny state to make that choice for you.

You sort of do: before you sideload an app, you have to toggle a switch, agreeing that you are going to do something potentially unsafe. In the similar arrogant manner, they care about your safety purging Podcast Addict app, like parenting you.

The best solution would be an emergence of an Android fork and the corresponding platform, but this seems unlikely due to enormous (as in 100bn perhaps) startup capital required.

Do you propose any other constructive solutions?

Yes, so would you rather Google not warn users of the possible danger?

I would rather change some obsure the settings once (like tapping 5 times on phone info) than being pestered every time

Do you also log into your computer as root or administrator so you don't have to be bothered with pesky warnings?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com