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Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

It's time for the DOJ to break up Apple. Together with Google, they're destroying the Internet and open computing. Soon, it'll be all information that is locked down and controlled.

Computers didn't use to be like this. Apple has land grabbed their way here and is now clamping down harder than ever before. If we don't revolt, we're going to wind up in a terrible place where Apple and Google make all the movies and games and we rent everything and own nothing.

Call your representative and ask them to put an end to this.

Demand open computing. You own the computer, you get to run whatever software you want.

(Side note: iPhones are the only computers a large segment of Americans own!)

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Ain't gonna happen. This is how they want it. If they didn't, Big Tech would have been better regulated long ago. Having top down control over communication through private multinationals that all politically act in unison is exactly what the state desires.

The state desires what the voters demand. Apathy will be the death of liberty.

It is a simple matter to make voters demand central control of all computing resources. All they have to do is mention the fact that terrorists, drug dealers and child molesters also happen to be computer users. Can't even offer a counter-argument against that without being marked as a pedophile sympathizer.

Put enough fear into the population and they'll accept anything any authority presents as a solution. That's the danger of relying on democracy. You depend on the public to do the right thing and the public is easily manipulated.

This is exactly the apathy that threatens democracy.

What do you suggest? Give up? You have condemned democracy itself.

That's right!

This sounds entirely plausible but I wouldn't be surprised if it's utter incompetence of government workers (most of them are old and have no idea how the internet works) and fear mongering on behalf of tech companies that if we regulate, we'll lose the tech race to boogeyman competitor country of the decade.

Regulating big tech and keeping all tech under government's thumb are not at odds, so it makes me lean towards incompetence as the more likely culprit.

I predict there will be some government intervention but it'll be clumsy and counter-productive for at least another decade or two.

I demand open computing. I have it, it's cheaper than ever, like RPis are given away in cereal boxes.

I also have an iPad. I know I lose some software access (e.g. Facebook streaming games) but I also gain software, like Slay the Spire and FTL and Bastion. These games are iOS exclusive in part because iOS effectively prevents piracy, which is another way of saying that users cannot run whatever software they want.

I'm quite happy having some general-purpose computers, and also some purpose-built app-console devices. Why must every device be general purpose?

>Slay the Spire and FTL and Bastion. These games are iOS exclusive

FTL and Bastion aren't iOS exclusive. Here are links to pages where you can find their Linux versions. Out of curiosity, where did you get the idea that they were iOS exclusive?

Edit: I hadn't previously heard of it, but googling reveals that Slay the Spire is also available on Steam. The steam page says it has a Linux version. That means that all of your examples of iOS exclusives could actually run on a Linux box, maybe even a raspi. ;)

I will counter with the claim that no major, artistically significant games of the past decade have been iOS exclusives. I might even go so far as to suggest that there are no leading iOS-only productivity apps (by leading, I mean better than what you can get elsewhere to the point where there's a major platform advantage, a status conferred to applications like Photoshop and Microsoft Office which used to be Windows-only). That's a claim that you might be able to refute, but I can't think of any at the moment.

https://lutris.net/games/ftl-faster-than-light/ https://lutris.net/games/bastion/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/646570/Slay_the_Spire/

Fair point and thank you for the clarification. By "iOS exclusive" I should have said "not on Android." I honestly considered it common knowledge that these games are available on Windows, Switch, etc. but maybe not all readers know that.

To refine my point, many successful games come to iOS because it is a controlled environment, with negligible piracy. The games come to Android later or not at all, because it is more of a wild west.

As for productivity, iOS has an undeniable platform advantage, and by that I mean tablets. Apple focuses on the iPad but Android tablets are kind of a joke. Here's androidpolice agreeing: https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/04/21/do-yourself-a-favor...

>many successful games come to iOS because it is a controlled environment, with negligible piracy.

How does that make sense when all of those games were originally developed for the PC platform, which has rampant piracy, even above that of Android?

Every PC game developer sweats piracy. Windows is targeted first (or only) because it is the vastly dominant gaming platform. But the piracy aspect is real, and important, and it hurts Windows gaming.

If you are developing a Nintendo Switch game, you can focus on building a better game, instead of anti-piracy techniques, or futzing with hardware incompatibilities. That's iOS too.

> instead of anti-piracy techniques

Or you could simply focus on the legit PC market instead of worrying about people who will likely never be your customers.

My take (I develop games) is that it's a combination of piracy on Android, and a prevalent unwillingness to pay for things upfront. Android users have come to expect that all apps are (initially) free. On PC there is piracy, yes, but there is also a large audience that is eager to purchase premium games (mostly locked into Steam though, but that is another discussion)

Your educated choice here, together with the uninformed choices of millions of Americans, support an economic system that disenfranchises device owners, software engineers, and small businesses.

It's okay, have your iDevice. But that choice supports a company that makes the world less equitable for others. To deny that is to deny economics and the power of monopoly.

We need to educate our lawmakers about this situation so that they can make a decision that most Americans are unequipped to understand.

Well I strongly disagree with all of that. You're talking about "uninformed choices of Americans" that are "unequipped to understand," but I was there in 2007 when the iPhone was introduced, and there's a reason that EVERY phone is essentially an iPhone and not a Blackberry. This did not "disenfranchise" anyone, it radically empowered us all (in the same way that google.com did).

I don't think you're using "disenfranchise" in the same way the parent is. You're being denied the ability to truly own your hardware and run whatever you want on it. You're being hurt in ways you don't even know because by definition you can't, as you don't know what you're missing.

You're ok with this now, and may never change your opinion on that, but you are being harmed by this in the long run, as is the entire market for these sorts of devices. An entire generation is being brought up on devices that they're not allowed to tinker with -- and don't know that anything different is even possible -- and that will have negative long-term ramifications, though we may not be sure exactly what those are yet.

Break up how? Apple's main argument against Epic is that the iPhone (and related devices) wouldn't be successful without the app store and the app store wouldn't be a thing without the iPhone, thus they're both a part of the same product (the Apple ecosystem). It's hard to argue against that, so there's not many more places where it would make sense for an Apple break-up.

Apple could be forced to allow alternative stores and browsers. They get money for iPhone there is really no reason for restrict the store.

So phone and app store could be naturally cut like for android ecosystem.

What’s separating the App Store from XBox, PlayStation, or Nintendo? None of them allow third party stores either.

And if you want to remove them, that’s just arguing that a business model is at issue not a specific business. After all Epic is selling ports of the same game across multiple platforms any paying each of them a cut of games sold in other stores. If Apple just takes the same cut and allows more App Stores on their platform, or is that ok or is this just a question of money?

I still don't understand what enabling multiple browsers, from an engine standpoint, would achieve. Is it competition? Don't all browsers just implement the same set of standards? What is the lack of competition holding back?

Apple ties Webkit versions to iOS versions. Once they stop supporting your iOS device every browser on it becomes obsolete.

They don’t all implement the same set of standards equally. The one that comes immediately to mind is one that comes up frequently as “hey do you know your website is broken on iOS” on HN is when someone is demoing some really interesting web-tech that requires SharedArrayBuffer (since it enables thread-like behavior in JavaScript and is super useful also for performant interaction with the GPU).

Browsers can of course be non-conformant on other interesting issues. Imagine if a browser came out that allowed the Unity Web Player to work. Instantly, people wouldn’t need to use the App Store to purchase games. Instead, they could just use the browser.

For the first point, that sounds like a standards problem and an ecosystem challenge. The association/consortium or whatever it is needs to protect and fight for this.

For the 2nd, it sounds like there needs to be a way for the web platform to evolve for things that require engine modification. I wonder if the web will break down into smaller standard components and new browsers can be built from those.

It's not useful to cast this in terms of standards. If your users use a non-standards compliant browser, you fix your website, not the browser.

With regard to your second paragraph, I believe you have made a category error between "the App Store" and "the browser." The browser is not a store.

The browser contains stores, and the browser can contain fully working applications. The point wasn’t that the browser is a store, but rather that allowing certain features to work on the web would destroy the walled garden of the App Store by enabling certain kinds of stores that circumvent the App Store.

A bit of an aside, but SharedArrayBuffer is likely not the best example It was disabled by default in Chrome and Firefox until recently due to Spectre. Chrome is still working on improving their security around this feature, and does not yet enable the feature for Chrome on Android.

True PWA's, for example, including push notifications.

This is false. Google has the ability to create true PWAs on chromebooks with ChromeOS. Why did they include the play store + app model instead of embracing a true PWA experience? Google has enough influence that if they could build a showcase PWA experience on the chromeOS/chromebook platform, they could get web ecosystem adoption. They were able to do this with AMP for instance.

> Why did they include the play store + app model instead of embracing a true PWA experience?

I can think of a few possible reasons:

1. Chrome (as in the browser) came out after the first iPhone was released (2007), and around the same time of Android's first release (2008). Chrome OS didn't come out until 2011. Android's app ecosystem started developing before Google had all that much influence on web standards, and likely before they realized that it would be a good idea to have that influence, or even knew that Chrome (the browser) would become as popular as it ended up being. I'll also note that Chrome OS wasn't anywhere near as successful as Google hoped it would be; while that doesn't invalidate Chrome OS's app model, it doesn't validate it either.

2. Android has done a decent amount of copying of iOS features (I say this without judgment or malice; I've been a generally happy Android user continuously since 2010 and have no axe to grind). Not having native app development on Android could have been seen as a possible market disadvantage when compared against Apple.

3. Google may have actually desired more Apple-like control over what runs on Android, or at least wanted to allow for the possibility that they'd want it in the future. That's harder when you base your app platform on web standards.

Is your claim simply that “true” PWA’s don’t exist? I don’t care what you want to call it, I still can’t do web push notifications on my iPhone.

"Enabling multiple browsers" is a red herring. Android enables multiple browser engines, but non-Blink browsers are a rounding error; it's bought nothing in terms of browser diversity.

Really it's just code for "let me, a web developer, target Chrome only, so I can just tell Safari users to install Chrome."

Exactly. Run into this problem all the time on Mac with things like Youtube TV and Stadia.

That argument goes both ways. The iphone would be pretty lame without other people's content to gatekeep.

I am still waiting for someone to explain why an iPhone is a computer but not my Car, TV or Fridge.

All of them can access web content, facilitate payments, do shopping and run applications.

The reason it's important is because it would be the end of the gaming console model if they were forced to accept anything onto their app stores. Which would have pretty broad implications.

Because the iPhone's purpose is to be a computer. A car's purpose is to move people. My toothbrush isn't a computer just because it has a chip in it which technically computes things.

I do agree the lines can be blurry and poorly defined.

Have fun doing your taxes on your car, your banking on your tv, and your dating on your fridge.

I definitely enjoy sending emails and shooting movies on my Nintendo.

Speaking of which, should I get Shovel Knight on Nintendo Switch, Wii U, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, or Nintendo 3DS? I have lots of these, and I'm not sure which inexpensive device is the best for playing Shovel Knight.

Cancel that. I'm not sure I like all of that choice. Which of my seven affordable iPhones from a wide variety of vendors should I download and install it to? Can I redeem my Steam credit?

Fuck Apple. Their behavior makes them a blemish upon our industry.

> Have fun doing your taxes on your car, your banking on your tv, and your dating on your fridge.

Thanks! Just got to finish the level of Doom first.

> Have fun doing your taxes on your car

My car’s 17-inch touchscreen-based web browser happily runs turbotax.

> The reason it's important is because it would be the end of the gaming console model if they were forced to accept anything onto their app stores. Which would have pretty broad implications.

Which implications precisely? Because consoles not being sold at a loss seem like a positive outcome.

> "the end of the gaming console model"

How so?

Sony, Microsoft etc sell their hardware at a loss and recoup through software licensing.

Which is not possible if you going to force them to do things like have alternative app stores or to allow any content to be used.

Ok, let's say this happens. Why is this a bad thing?

So consoles get slightly more expensive, or other revenue streams are created. Steam, Origin, Epic, UPlay and GOG all compete on the desktop while earning plenty, even though people can download games directly from the publisher today. Why can't the same model be applied to consoles which have always been basically pre-built mini computers anyway?

If you say that all these devices are computers then why have arbitrary treatment of desktops, phones and consoles?

I am all in favour of even going after game consoles if it helps other platforms but smartphones are worth fighting for first.

Smartphones are logical successors to PCs as general purpose computing devices. A lot of people just have them as their device for photo editing, emails, gaming, spreadsheet editing, web browsing etc.

PCs had open software and hardware access, I think it is reasonable for us to want their logical successors to atleast have open software access.

There is trillions of dollars of ecosystem which PC had which has largely extended/moved to smartphones. Everyone should get a chance to compete on fair and equal terms in this ecosystem.

Game consoles aren't computers. They're much cheaper and last longer than phones. You can also buy and sell your games.

This is increasingly becoming less true as more people purchase the "digital only" version of most of their games. I haven't purchased a boxed copy of a game in many years, both on my consoles (PS3/PS4 + Switch) and my PC (Steam/Origin/Blizzard stores, etc). The only feasible way to resell a game tied to one of these digital accounts would be to sell the entire account.

You do you. But stop thinking that your economic choices and a lack of regulation don't impinge upon my freedoms. There are a lot of other people to consider outside of your circle.

I recently (6 years ago?) decided to purchase thousands of dollars of music on Google Play Music and look where that got me.

I can (and do) still play my Gamecube games.

This statement is a valid as: phones aren’t computers.

You can’t have such an arbitrary definition.

Smartphones are very much computers and intended for general purpose computing.

I think people with this notion either work at Apple, love their iPhone, or have lots of AAPL.

Please see what their behavior is doing to the rest of us. Fixing it is more important than any personal stake you have in this.

Game consoles run many applications that aren’t games (particularly entertainment), I’m still not seeing the distinction. Even their historical lockdown trends are similar; phones, even early smartphones, have traditionally been locked down and newer consoles are generally less so (e.g. UWP development on Xbox can be done without being a studio and buying a special console). In fact your ability to throw a dart on a board of phone models and hit one that you can root without fighting your manufacturer is as high as its ever been.

For what it’s worth I’ve never worked at Apple, down’t own any AAPL (unless you count indexes), and have bought Android phones off and on. So I’d focus less on acusing everyone who disagrees with you of alterior motives.

All of these things are.

Your best time to break up Apple was when Trump was President. Now it is President Biden on Jan 20th, 2021. Biden likes Apple and Trump does not.

Apple would be broken up into Mobile devices, Desktops, Software, MacOSX, and Internet services. MacOSX would have to be ported to the PC then with no owning the hardware the same with iOS.

Citation needed.

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