Apple is basically saying: "Even if our rules are unethical, we still want you to take the blame for it. Don't even dare to explain to the consumer that you're merely following Apple's guidelines."
They are saying ‘when we ask you to stop doing something unethical, don’t try to make us look bad for making the request’.
However, I agree with Gruber on this - it’s wrong for them to try to stifle discussion about their rules, whatever the context.
Obviously they make their own ethical judgements when enforcing their own rules, as do we all.
My guess is that they wouldn’t object to the discussion though, if it didn’t make them look bad.
“we still want you to take the blame”
Neither I, nor saargarjha nor Apple are saying anything about blame.
You are putting words into Apple’s mouth here.
“Don't even dare”
There is nothing in my, or Apple’s or Sagaarjha’s comment that has this connotation.
You are adding in the idea that Apple wants developers to be afraid.
“merely following Apple’s guidelines”
Again, not something that is true, and not something reflected in either my or Sagaargarjha’s comment. If someone actually complies with a request from Apple, there is a lot more going on than ‘merely following guidelines’, an obvious one being that there may be a real problem with the content behind taken down.
By saying this, you exclude the possibility that Apple is acting in good faith.
To summarize, your comment was in no way a fair rewriting of Apple’s comment.
You introduced a set of additional content that weren’t in anyone else’s version, and which give the appearance of Apple’s actions being the meritless bullying of a bad faith actor.
That is the entire substance of your comment.
It’s certainly possible that Apple’s actions are disagreeable to many people, but HN shows that they are not universally considered meritless.
It’s also possible for Apple to act like a bully uninitentionally, or to actually bully developers. They are not above that and we should discuss it.
But those facts don’t make your ‘rewrite’ a fair reflection.
There is nothing twisted about my interpretations, and I’m not defending Apple.
Here are is a summary of my position:
1. I agree with Gruber - Apple shouldn’t be policing discussion of their rules.
2. Your comment is not the same as Sagaarjha’s.
I have clearly explained why, and you have chosen to ignore the points I made, and attack me personally.
3. I can understand why Apple is motivated to police certain comments, and I believe the motivations are based on real problems they want to avoid in good faith.
4. Despite believing #3 I also believe #1. Just because they are acting in good faith on real problems, doesn’t mean I think they are doing the right thing.
5. I believe we should choose open OS’s and there should be a possibly mandated requirement to be able to install alternate OS’s on Apple decides (and anything else in a wide similar class).
Not one thing I have said in this thread defends Apple’s actions at all.
I don’t find that it helps us to understand what is going on if we simply portray them as a nasty bully without considering their motivations.
If this is representative of ‘unbearable bias’, then so be it.
I stopped reading there. It's as false as it is shameless to make such a claim after all the comments you spammed across the whole thread.
But, since you have such a black and white view:
Can you quote a single comment from this thread in which I defend Apple?
"Obviously they make their own ethical judgements when enforcing their own rules, as do we all."
- It would have been more difficult to find comments from this thread where you didn't defend Apple applying all sorts of mental gymnastics.
That quoted statement is obviously true.
How does it “defend Apple” to state the truth?
It's a tautology and a miserable attempt at defending Apple. Like reacting to a victim's complaint by saying "Well animals also steal from each other, most organisms engage in such behaviour" Then saying - That statement is true so how am I defending the thief here!?
Even asking "hOw DiD I dEfEnD aPpLe" is absurd, when that's literally all you have been doing in most of the comments above. I'll no longer participate in your pointless hairsplitting games.
That is not a given in this thread, where people are writing comments that essentialise Apple’s ethics.
The reason I made that comment was to highlight this point.
Each of us is bringing a sense of what is right and wrong to this.
One we introduce this, we can start to reason about why Apple is taking what we think of as a wrong action, and what kind of compromises are leading to it.
Simply vilifying them just closes us of from understanding them.
Your analogy positions Apple as a perpetrator, the developer as a victim, and me as an apologist.
Once again, you aren’t actually engaging in a discussion.
You are begging the question with your framing.
You aren’t actually explaining why the framing is valid.
As I said, if I were really defending Apple, it would be easy to show.
Just repeating over and over again that I am is not that. You can’t explain it because it isn’t happening.
Utter nonsense, it's a tautology either way, it being derived from a subjective or objective source has no effect on it.
> Simply vilifying them just closes us of from understanding them.
"Simply vilifying" them? It's not rocket science, a trillion dollar business is trying to protect its image using shady tactics. Your framing is again reeking of bias: "people are just vilifying poor Apple" according to you, but it's more like you blindly defending Apple, spamming the whole thread.
> Once again, you aren’t actually engaging in a discussion. You are begging the question with your framing.
We are engaging in the discussion, while you are trying to fool people with deceptive rhetoric. You have been given many evidences, but you always deflected with pseudo intellectual, unconvincing rhetoric.
>As I said, if I were really defending Apple, it would be easy to show. Just repeating over and over again that I am is not that. You can’t explain it because it isn’t happening.
People besides me have given you enough evidence & have also pointed out your weaselly rhetoric. You are truly living in your own fantasy world, most of your comments are greyed out for a good reason.
If other people are saying I’m using deceptive rhetoric, perhaps you can find an example?
I am having discussions with other people here, but none of them support your assertions about me, and none of them are making accusations the way you are or the way you claim they are.
They are all reasoned interactions engaging with one another’s statements to reach understanding.
Some of my comments are grayed out because people are angry with Apple and like you, some people perceive me to be defending Apple, largely because I’m not joining in with the condemnation.
Once again, you haven’t found any examples of me defending Apple, and there are numerous examples of me criticizing them or agreeing with criticism.
Only one person has descended into name calling, accusations, and mocking in this thread.
As to people villifying Apple. I explained why I don’t think that is helpful. This is not the same as your begging the question.
As to it bring ‘obvious’ - if you’ve read my comments, you’d know that I agree that Apple wouldn’t care about these things if they didn’t make Apple look bad.
But that fact doesn’t make it helpful to write snark about them.
This entire sub-thread is driven by you not liking the analysis of your snarky original comment that you asked me to provide.
I question where the delusion resides.
Quite the convenient narrative you have there. No, it's because you make no sense and you are trying to defend the indefensible.
I clearly haven’t been defending Apple, but you can’t admit that now.
The statement that tipped me towards thinking you were defensive about Apple was here:
> One of the problems is that most of what people call ‘bugs’ or relevant ‘information’ about Apple is actually false.
No one challenged this, and you just dropped it there like it's a fact. I don't know that to be true at all, and even if it were, I don't think it justifies Apple's behavior towards a developer trying to inform their users about their efforts to work around a bug on the platform. Users knowing about a flaw in their device's OS is highly relevant to them, and indeed may inform whether they want to purchase such devices again. I believe Apple is wrong to try and prevent developers from communicating this through the app store, but I read your comments as defending it. I won't try and argue that Apple doesn't have a right to do so, however. I think they do, and this is precisely why I don't buy their products.
It’s pretty obvious that ‘Jedimind’ is biased, isn’t it?
As to my comment about ‘bugs’ etc. I don’t think it takes much to confirm that statement. Just look around online and in the press and then investigate in detail.
What you will find is some kernels of truth, plus a vast amount of telephone-game like inaccuracy.
This isn’t unique to Apple - it’s simply a feature of our current public discourse.
By raising this, I’m just pointing out that Apple is operating in that real world, so to expect them to operate idealistically is unrealistic.
As to me defending Apple - is it possible it only seems like this because my tone is less angry than some other people here?
Take another look at what I’ve said.
I don’t think you’ll find me anywhere saying their behavior is justified and you will find several places where I unequivocally say it’s wrong.
I don’t think this is any different to your final paragraph.
We can simultaneously think they are wrong, and try to understand what they are dealing with when they make their decisions. These two things don’t have to be in conflict.
What I often see is the desire to make simplistic declarations that reduce Apple to some kind of demon where the wrong decisions or compromises they make are evidence that this is something fundamental about them to just rage about, rather than a problem to be understood.
I see this as a kind of self-deception, which I would prefer not to fall into.
When you look around the thread, where people are comparing Apple to the Gestapo and shrilly calling for them to be “smashed”, and their money confiscated and redistributed, do you really think that my ‘bias’ is the issue here?