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Comment by duhi88 | Hacker News Reader

That's kinda been my experience, too. The amount of detail Apple has put into their drivers and software is truly underrated (and overshadows by their more recent scummy business practices).

The surprising thing to me is that most of the small details I rely were in OS X 10-15 years ago. If a Linux distro were created to mimic OS X 10.4 I would be perfectly happy using it as an everyday OS and recommending it to others. I keep hitting dead ends in my research, and it seems like the major desktop environments have a lot of architectural problems preventing them from implementing some basic UX improvements.

The barrier of entry to help develop these features also seems high to me, coming from web development.

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What recent scummy business practices did Apple do?

Their products are manufactured by literal slaves in concentration camps.

https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-forced-uighur-labor-ip...

The linked Business Insider piece falls into a category of stories that come out fairly regularly which could be described as "exposes on truly bad things about the global supply chain that many technology companies benefit from but we've learned we get way more attention if we say 'APPLE <sub>and also many others</sub>' and focus on Apple specifically." This is a pretty classic example on BI's part. The NGO in Australia that the BI piece links to describe their own findings with "The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has identified 27 factories in nine Chinese provinces that are using Uyghur labour transferred from Xinjiang since 2017. Those factories claim to be part of the supply chain of 82 well-known global brands." BI puts the focus specifically on one of those 82 well-known brands, writing, "Although the report highlights that the displaced Uighur workers are present in many different companies' supply chains including Nike, BMW, and Amazon, Apple features prominently as a case study." That's both true and misleading -- they could also have written "Nike features prominently as a case study" or "Adidas features prominently as a case study." The big Apple suppliers mentioned in case study #3 also contract for Samsung, HTC, HP, Microsoft, Oppo, Nintendo, Sony, Oculus, and others.

None of this "excuses" Apple; it's just that there's something faintly disingenuous about focusing on them as if they were a unique source of this problem. We could just as easily say "your Nintendo Switch is manufactured by literal slaves in concentration camps," but we don't, because... it's not as satisfying to be outraged at Nintendo, I guess?

At any rate: I strongly suspect the OP was referring to recent controversy surrounding the way Apple runs the App Store.

82 global brands are profiting from Chinese slaves would be even more accurate and doesn't in any way diminish the guilt of both Apple and literally everyone who bought a phone manufactured by slaves.

By which you mean a single organization has claimed that many Uigher people were forcibly moved to new areas, where they found work in factories making goods for a variety of western companies, including Apple.

Apple and Foxconn both claim to be unaware of any irregularities, and Apple said they're investigating.

I rather think the OP meant something more like their practices surrounding their App Store than this not-quite-substantiated and hyper-sensationalized claim.

We have many credibly reports that slaves have been placed in concentration camps virtually entirely because of their ethnicity and or religion where they are obliged to work for free. The malfeasance of China in this regard and others for example using religious minorities as literal organ banks to be slaughtered for parts has been discussed for years. Anyone who claims at this point to be "investigating" is entirely dishonest. Characterizing this as one report is entirely incorrect.

They haven't changed because moving away from china would cost them billions and they as most people would rather keep themselves warm with a pile of money than worry about the ethical implications.

Nobody here is disputing that China is abusing Uigher people.

But now you've shifted from the part I found dubious--that companies are knowingly engaging in slave labor--to a more clearly established pattern. One can be both horrified by China's treatment of Uigher people and skeptical that Foxconn, Apple, or any one of the 82 companies to which you've referred are complicit.

Trying to run and enforce a monopoly on repairs, for once.

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