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Comment by zeusk | Hacker News Reader

By offering the user a choice for the browser, which is exactly what I want from Apple - a choice for app store, or the default maps app.

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And quite literally a choice for a browser, because Apple mandates that all browsers on the App Store use Safari on the backend, which means that Chrome and Firefox are just skins over Safari on iOS.

This would be huge because Safari is missing so many APIs and leaves users on an unusable browser when they stop getting OS updates.

This would not be huge, because iOS devices don't stop getting updates for 6-8 years, by which time it is very unlikely that third parties would bother making a special browser app just for that unprofitable 0.1% slice of the market.

But don’t you think — it’s their phone, they have spent billions of dollars developing it, shouldn’t they get the choice of how their own product should work?

It’s not like the user doesn’t know what they are buying. It’s not like Apple doesn’t have strong competitors. It’s not like the app developers are like, “Oh, 30%?! I didn’t know!”

People want the product that Apple is making. They buy it knowingly and willingly in droves.

Look at the M1, the culmination of decades of hard R&D, beating Intel at their own game.

You want to tell this company — which is absolutely killing it and creating absolutely tremendous value for consumers the world over — you want to tell them how their own device should work?!

Explain to me why the free market has not spoken, and spoken clearly in favor of the products that Apple has brought to market for their customers. Why in the world should the US Government say that what this truly amazing company should do in their own code and product roadmap.

Honestly, it’s a travesty in the making. What Apple has accomplished — coming back from the brink — is one of the greatest success stories in the history of capitalism.

Why, why in the world should the US Government — a true paragon of incompetence — dictate terms on how they should run their lawful, competitive business.

>But don’t you think — it’s their phone, they have spent billions of dollars developing it, shouldn’t they get the choice of how their own product should work?

Maybe? But then they're not selling it, they're leasing it, and they need to say that.

>> But don’t you think — it’s their phone, they have spent billions of dollars developing it, shouldn’t they get the choice of how their own product should work?

No. Its MY phone from the moment I bought it. If I want to change some aspect of how it works that's up to me.

On the other hand, you knew these restrictions before purchasing it and still continued with the transaction.

I understand both perspectives here but I don't think one is objectively right.

Most farmers buy John Deere, doesn't mean they shouldn't fight for their right to repair (which btw is an issue with Apple as well).

Then buy another brand which is easier to repair. You buy the tractor with eyes wide open.

I agree with you that repairability would be nice, but some brands prefer not to do that. Let other brands drive them out.

This is a little harder to deal with because often its not obvious what repair issues you will have in the future or what will stuff up and be difficult to replace. The restrictions on ios are obvious and you would notice them within your 2 week return period.

The phone doesn’t magically just work the way you want it to, and the functionality you personally desire doesn’t come without trade-offs and consequences to Apple, to other developers, or to other users.

You’re saying that because you bought a single iPhone that Apple now essentially reports to you. That YOU get to decide how Apple spends millions of dollars in its R&D, and that you get to decide how their software should function.

What makes you their master just because you freely chose to buy a single unit of a device from them? A device that, by the way, has sold billions of units.

You're way off base.

If a customer buys a phone, no investment or R&D is required by Apple to support other search engines, apps, browsers or payment systems.

It would actually require a massive investment by Apple to actually support all of those things as tested, enabled, documented, secured, stable, and fully supported (by the help-desk) features of their product.

Calling the work apple would need to do a "massive investment" is disingenuous at best.

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