Hacker News Reader

Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

The solution is this:

1. Apple iPhone needs to be an open platform. Users can install apps from wherever and don't have to go through Apple distribution. (But Apple can still provide this for convenience and discovery, and still charge a fee.)

2. Installing apps includes a strong permissions API. The filesystem, sensor access, GPS, etc. can be cordoned off and requires user intervention. Heuristics and isolation can prevent apps from sharing data for tracking/identification.

The reality is that Apple outgrew their platform and it can't continue to exist as a walled garden without being a monopoly. They can't have their cake and eat it too. Otherwise Facebook has a case. Epic has a case. Etc.

View on HN

I don't agree with this or want this.

I like that Apple has leverage to tell app developers to adhere to their platform rules in ways that benefit Apple's users.

If Apple was wielding this to harm users that'd be one thing, but they're not, they wield it to prevent spammy crap, to make it easy to subscribe and unsubscribe, to prevent spying and tracking, etc.

That's why I value and buy Apple products, if someone wants an open platform they can buy something else. They're not a monopoly and they don't act in a way that harms their users.

>if Apple was wielding this to harm users that'd be one thing

walled gardens harm users by definition because they reduce competition. Forcing an open API would immediately create the opportunity for people to offer competing clients for any Apple (or Facebook etc) service, drive down costs, produce new ways to interact with the services of large companies and so on, it would immediately unlock the ability of countless of independent creators to produce new products.

In fact if you were to open up Facebook, Apple's apis and so on and turned them into open protocols you would not even necessarily need invasive privacy regulation, people could just build a privacy respecting Facebook client that lets people interact with the service in a way they want, getting an algorithm free news feed if they want, stripping out baggage they don't need. It would solve a large majority of the exact issues that we have with large tech companies.

Apple does hold a monopoly over all Apple users, which gives them market power the same way a monopolistic company in a larger market exercises power. It's actually straight up depressing for someone to say "well I benefit from the walled garden". It's no different than someone saying "I like the oligarch because he treats me nicely"

Sure, but consumers should be free to make that decision themselves. The government shouldn't force it upon them.

Apple has not deceived consumers with regards to their App Store practices. On the contrary, they've been quite boastful about it. There are (and were) plenty of open computing platforms, allowing consumers to experience their benefits and tradeoffs. If consumers prefer to use a more locked down platform, then so be it.

Most people don't even know what a world would look like in which power was taken away from large companies and a genuine market of services would exists that gives power back to the users and developers rather than platform owners. The hold that Apple has on its billion users and that Facebook has on its 2 billion is too strong to be solved by some magical third party. None of the large firms which control our digital infrastructure provides an actual protocols.

The government should absolutely force it on Facebook and Apple and Google the same way the American government forced it on railroad barons a hundred years ago, when they were forced to make their networks interoperable.

Imagine if Volkswagen owned the streets and you could only drive your car on 30% of all roads. Sure you can go to Toyota, you just have to drive in circles. We'd laugh anyone out of the room who actually defended this. Yet this is literally how the internet is structured right now. We live in little fiefdoms where Android users can't talk to imessage users because feudal lords have decided to draw a line across the territory.

>Most people don't even know what a world would look like in which power was taken away from large companies and a genuine market of services would exists that gives power back to the users and developers rather than platform owners.

Consumers knew exactly what more open computing was like prior to the App Store. There were no App Store for Windows or OS X back in 2005, and you could largely install whatever applications you like onto the smartphone operating systems of the day. Evidently, a pretty large chunk of users decided the preferred the more restricted operating system with the "curated" store.

> Sure, but consumers should be free to make that decision themselves.

Why? The state makes a variety of judgements that corporations cannot leave things up to user choice because that's too dangerous to wider society.

Apple can't sell an iPhone that occasionally electrocutes users and out it down to "user choice." We rightly ban that.

> If consumers prefer to use a more locked down platform, then so be it.

There is nothing wrong with a consumer being allowed to choose to keep their own phone locked down.

Thats not the problem. The problem is when you go to a consumer and tell them that they aren't allowed to open up their own property, in an easy way.

You can keep your phone locked down. Just give other people the choice to also open up their own phone, easily, if they choose to do so.

> Apple does hold a monopoly over all Apple users

Starbucks holds a monopoly over all Starbucks customers.

If I want to be a Starbucks customer I have to go to Starbucks. Goddamn them I want to get my overpriced Starbucks coffee from Dairy Queen!

Speaking of Dairy Queen, why are they the only ones that get to sell a Blizzard??!?

*****

Your statement is just as nonsensical to me.

Starbucks is pretty generic. I'm not locked into Starbucks coffee.

In fact, in the past week alone I've bought coffee at both Starbucks and Dunkin. The product lines are similar and buying one does not preclude buying the other. There's zero lock in.

Once you start using your iPhone, you stop buying Android apps. You also don't use Google Wallet.

Starbucks is a corporation, it is not generic. You can't buy Dunkin at Starbucks.

It is your choice to shop at either. Just as it is your choice to use either an iPhone using iOS or a phone using Android/Google etc.

Just as it is your choice to choose a car from a particular manufacturer.

A closer analogy is Walmart deciding what goes on its shelves and it being hard for users to buy from any other store besides Walmart once they choose a “Walmart” device which locks them into their choice a bit.

I can see the argument, I just don’t think the power is being wielded for consumer harm - if it was that’d be different.

If Apple was blocking some company from their store everyone wanted because they were competing with an Apple product that’d be an issue. As it is they’re making it easy for their users to not be spied on.

In the analogy it’d be Walmart checking that what they stock on shelves doesn’t poison their customers.

Are they wielding power? Sure - is that monopoly abuse? No.

The big point here is that Apple users choose the walled garden for themselves. Many people buy apple products specifically because of it.

Of course apple holds a “monopoly” over their own users, exactly the same as how Walmart and Target hold a “monopoly” over the space within their own stores.

If you don’t like the business model of Walmart because of how they have ruined local businesses, you can go shop at the farmers market or local organic shops. But you wouldn’t file a lawsuit which would demand that Walmart host the local farmers market in their own parking lot.

> If Apple was wielding this to harm users that'd be one thing,

The ones who have been killed in Hong Kong by Apple throwing protestors under a bus might disagree with this.

Or a variety of sexual subcultures, or sex workers, who Apple relentlessly attack.

You won’t find any disagreement from me on this. Western company deference to China is wrong: https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/13/zoom-in-china.html

That’s mostly a separate issue though.

Instead look at the literal millions of people who have fallen down the Q-Anon hellhole because of Facebook. And those that have been radicalized by YouTubes algorithms. The rampant disinformation that oozes from both platforms. Both firms should be charged with crimes against Humanity alongside Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News.

Why do you need the platform to be locked down to achieve this?

You can choose to only download apps from the Apple app store that follow those rules. You will in no way be effected whatsoever by the platform being open. For you, nothing will change.

Why do you feel everyone else in the world must live with in your limits and not limits they choose for themselves?

The lock down gives Apple the leverage to force good behavior and policy.

If it was left to choice the companies are incentivized to be shitty.

Users are unsophisticated so the incentive will be for companies to track, mine, and sell data and most will do it.

> “You can choose to only download apps from the Apple store that follow those rules”

There will be way fewer of them, if it’s even possible to tell them apart at all.

> “Why do you feel everyone else in the world must live in your limits...”

I don’t - they can buy android and side load if they want to.

Why do you feel I must be forced to suffer an open platform as well? Forcing Apple to do this removes consumer choice, it doesn’t add to it.

It's true that Apple's gatekeeping gives it a lot of leverage. In this case they're using their power in a way that benefits their users and that's great. Still, it shouldn't be necessary for a corporation to own its users and decide what's best for them on their behalf just so other corporations will stop abusing people's privacy.

In an ideal world, governments would step in and tell them straight up to stop invading people's privacy or face punishment. Obviously that's not going to happen: any proposed law would immediately be defanged by the industry's lobbyists on the basis it would hurt their "legitimate" business interests. Not to mention the fact governments would love to keep these global surveillance tools around.

It's not about what you want, it's about what the market needs to remain healthy and competitive.

It’s not about that either.

There is a healthy market here. Forcing Apple to do what you suggest is harmful to users and reduces user choice by making the Apple ecosystem like Android. This removes Apple’s ability to do things like block tracking and force store compliance which is the reason I and others choose them.

An option exists for people that don’t want a curated ecosystem. This is about you forcing your preferences on everyone else, specifically users that prefer and chose Apple’s model.

The reality is that the decision to use alternate stores will not be from user choice - it will be from large internet companies telling them the only way to get Facebook is via the Facebook store, to get Fortnight is from the Epic Games Store, to get Netflix is via the Netflix store, etc.

And the purpose of these stores will be to skirt Apple requirements on apps in their store - not just payment, but things like network traffic surveillance.

These stores will also not be pitched by companies based on informed user decisions. They will be pitched in order to get users to sign up in whatever way they can drive taps through consent screens.

So unfortunately to remain a user choice, there needs to be a strong disincentive for parties to force a customer into a third party store, but not so strong that it looks like antitrust.

Google Play for instance has tons of "Play Services" which are not available to apps from alt-stores.

The Mac has certain security settings which can only be disabled through a process requiring a reboot and command-line action as a way to limit vendors from driving customers through disabling essential security features without proper education.

Mac applications are also notarized, so whether they are downloaded through the official app store or a third party channel they can be scanned for static issues and revoked after the fact as malware in the case of dynamic issues.

I dunno, hasn’t Apple always been the choice for people who want a walled garden? Whether it was the old Macs, iPod or iPhone, Apple’s value proposition has always been a curated experience. Given the availability of Android, I have very little sympathy for claims that Apple is doing something wrong by setting the terms of access to its user-base.

Isn't this essentially saying:

1. Make Apple build a strong permissions API that covers the filesystem, sensors, GPS, isolation, privacy, tracking protection etc.

2. Force Apple to provide this for free to all developers (allowing them to charge for access to list on the App Store)

They already do. It's called Safari

The question is whether iOS is ready to run truly untrusted code. So far only web demonstrated proper sandbox which is rarely penetraded. Take Linux server for example, only few days ago sudo bug was found which could be used to escalate user privileges to root.

I'm not iOS expert, but the mere fact that there's private API which is forbidden to use by ordinary apps but that's only implemented by some static code checking rather than by OS means that iOS does not have proper security model ready to withstand arbitrary code execution.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com