Hacker News Reader

Comment by vezycash | Hacker News Reader

Used the app for a few days, and realized that keeping TikTok out of the hands of US tech companies is best for the users.

1. Registration not needed - without nagging. First thing Microsoft would have done is to require signup to use.

2. (Most important) copyright hunters will have a harder time ruining the experience.

3. Includes the ability to DOWNLOAD videos! (this blows my mind. I mean, consider the cat and mouse game google and others play to make video downloads difficult/impossible)

View on HN

Yeah. This kind of interface problem is absolutely mind blowing to me. iOS especially always feels almost dumb enough to be unusable to me in comparison with my computer. For example, the other day I just wanted to download an Mp3 to my phone so I'd be able to play it at night with the cellular network turned off.

It ended up taking almost an hour to figure out. Downloading a file to the filesystem is nigh impossible on iOS, and there are no native apps which helped with the problem. I had to jump from questionable app to questionable app until one would let me "paste a youtube link in" which eventually worked; albeit, it still won't let me play my new song in the native music app! It feels like user hostility and it surprises me that this behavior doesn't drive more people wild.

> It feels like user hostility and it surprises me that this behavior doesn't drive more people wild.

It does. The issue is that the alternative brings its own set of user hostile behaviour. At least this devil I already know.

This may not be your point, but I want to point out the VLC app on iOS provides a target for saving files, including mp3, for offline playback.

https://ytmp3.cc/ provides a general purpose online youtube to mp3/mp4 conversion service with no fee or registration.

If you have Spotify, you can also do this through offline syncing, but it's annoying to figure out. Less dodgy than this solution, though.

https://support.spotify.com/us/article/Listen-to-local-files...

Spotify has pretty low-level access to playing music on iPhones.

Try using a mp3 or whatever as a ringtone or alarm tone. Laughs We don't do that around here. I'm not even sure you can buy extra ringtones from the app store. Think different. And with different I mean e unison.

You can definitely buy ringtones, you just have to remember that the iTunes music store exists first. I haven't bought anything new on there in over a decade, so I'm waking up to music from High School still.

I made my own ring tone the other day because I recorded something I wanted to use. It's possible. Monstrous pain, but possible. You have to convert it to AAC, then import it to iTunes then sync it over. It was about the same effort of getting a ringtone on my feature phone in the early/mid 2000s. That seems insane to me these days.

I’m not sure exactly what you tried, but it’s actually quite easy to download a file to the Files app.

As a quick sanity check: use something like YoutubeToMP3 [0] to generate an audio file. Then, clicking the URL of that MP3 will prompt a download modal that will save straight to the Downloads folder in Files - right from Safari.

[0]: https://ytmp3.cc/

I would love this to be the case. If it really is this easy then I have failed my job as the head technologist of.. well, my family.

This is the interface I'm presented with when I open a .mp3 file in a web browser [0]. None of the available options prompts me to any file system access or the "Files" app. I've diven deep into the settings, permissions, and other menus to no avail. Am I missing something obvious?

[0]: https://imgur.com/2HKrCSz

Looking at the title bar of the app, it’s clear it isn’t Safari or even a web browser proper - what app are you using?

He also might have deleted the Files app.

Ha! You guys have a good eye. I opened it in the browser with FB Messenger, however the sharing/saving actions presented are the same when I use iOS Safari or iOS Chrome. And unfortunately, I do have Files installed.

Maybe what I'm experiencing is just an unfortunate consequence of not having upgraded my aging iPhone 6 yet.

> 1. Registration not needed - without nagging. First thing Microsoft would have done is to require signup to use.

The account-less app alone tracks way more than what microsoft could ever track with all their account systems.

MS own LinkedIn ... I think you'd be surprised.

TikTok makes people dance and smile.

LinkedIn... uh, LinkedIn...

Yeah, no. Not surprised.

I’m not a fan of this take. I think dancing and smiles is a great way to veil something more dangerous. I’m not saying tik tok specifically is doing so but just because something looks like a toy doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous underneath.

>The account-less app alone tracks way more than what microsoft could ever track with all their account systems.

I'm using TikTok lite.

TikTok only requested STORAGE permission when I wanted to save a video. That's all.

Tubemate - one of those youtube apps requires: Read phone state and location permissions. Won't launch without it.

I'll take, what is internet cookie for 1000 alex

There are still a ton of things Android apps can use to track you without permission. [1]

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_events/141...

Those are big issues for Android. What about IOS? As far as i know there is no persistent ID an app can grab from the OS.

iOS is very restrictive and Apple has actively been working to thwart fingerprinting techniques, so you'd have a hard time going about getting something reliably unique.

If you are targeting older builds, there is stuff like this which is pretty neat [1].

[1] https://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2019/papers/405.pdf

Correct me if I'm wrong but on Android wouldn't an app have access to all files if storage permission is enabled?

Not anymore.

It's still the fact for the vast majority of phones. That Storage Scope feature it's not even enabled by default, and only for Android 11, which isn't even released.

https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/stor...

Apps can still request the legacy behaviour (i.e. accessing all files on your phone). No thanks.

Provide some evidence for that statement, please.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com