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Comment by ThePhysicist | Hacker News Reader

iOS & iPadOS devices would be so awesome if they could just run arbitrary software. The new iPad Pro is more powerful than my Lenovo T-Series laptop, and I would totally buy one if I could actually run e.g. Linux on it.

But unfortunately Apple deliberately cripples these devices. Really hope the EU will overthrow these hardware-facilitated software monopolies soon. The truth is Apple already makes quite sizeable profits with the hardware alone, so I think at least power users should be able to install arbitrary software on them. This whole "the hardware can only run software approved by us" is so ridiculous, really makes you wonder how companies doing this (not only Apple) can still get away with it.

Imaging Tesla would restrict which roads you can drive your car on, because just using arbitrary roads that haven't been thoroughly reviewed by them for security and safety would be a risk to you. That's essentially what Apple is doing with hardware that's perfectly capable of running general-purpose software.

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I really don’t like the idea of the government dictating what a company does with it’s software, so the idea of forced side loading or other app stores doesn’t sit well with me.

However as far as installing your own OS on the hardware, that seems like something we could require without a downside. I don’t think the companies should be forced to provide anything, other than the specifications of the hardware, they just shouldn’t be allowed to stop it. If someone wants to write drivers and get an OS running on an iPad then they should be able to.

If it’s a security issue then the preloaded OS could disable sensitive thing, perhaps Apple Pay and stuff stops working, but your in your own OS anyway so why would it matter.

I think it should go for any hardware. You could do it in a tesla, the insurance companies could decide not to cover cars that have custom software on them, but someone racing them could run their own OS if they wanted.

I think allowing something like this could go a long way to stop the people that seem to want the government intervening with everything these days.

In my opinion, a large portion of the benefit I get from iOS is due to the fact it’s a secure, locked down platform. If there were a way to run unsigned code on iOS, people would build exploits around it and malicious apps would just tell you to enable whatever “advanced mode” or be able to install a bootloader that transparently loads the OS but with a malware layer between the bootloader and the kernel. By disallowing unsigned code, these less-technical exploits become impossible, which also limits the blast radius of any exploits that are found.

If I want general purpose computing, I have other devices that allow more freedom (like a laptop or cloud server). I don’t need to be able to do everything with one device.

It's fine if you want to run iOS or iPadOS on your device, that shouldn't exclude other people from installing an OS of their own choosing though.

I would argue that being able to easily do that would be a security issue in itself - imagine an evil maid attack that is just installing iOS with a change that sends all keychain items to a remote server or makes it easy to obtain the encryption key that protects all user data.

Since iOS isn't flawless and it is ubiquitous across Apple devices, think of the damage that can be done by a single virus. iOS lacks diversity and is therefore a fantastic target for malware.

As these systems rely on trusted hardware, it's straightforward to do things like require the device be plugged in and in some low-level diag mode for 72 hours before allowing the root signing key to be changed.

Trusted hardware could be interesting if companies actually developed it to be legible to the user-owner, rather than their current approach of doing the bare minimum to bake in their own fixed root keys.

Next headline would be: "Apple cripple iPads, force Linux installs to take 72 hours"

It's becoming more and more clear that 'tech journalism' is essentially the same thing as the celebrity news rags.

Some tech news websites like The Register are completely self aware of that fact and lean into it completely and utterly

There can be other mechanisms here. For example requiring a notification or 2FA before replacing a non Apple sourced iOS with something else. If your device is encrypted it should require the keys to install something new.

With this it might be easier to just “gift” someone the latest iPhone on which you installed an hardware exploit.

The idea is that every physical device has some sort of trust root, whether well defined or not.

Traditionally this has been physical possession of the device.

The treacherous computing model is to make the trust root a key that only the manufacturer has.

I'm proposing that the trust root should be "possession of the device for X days", which doesn't privilege the manufacturer with indefinite control over something they've supposedly sold.

I don't understand what you're describing. Things like "2FA" and "notifications" aren't part of a bootloader, and therefore would have to be implemented externally. Keeping the manufacturer as part of the privileged base is still the dark ages.

FWIW the answer to the gifted trojan iPhone is to make the bootloader report the signing key that it is trusting. If you receive an iPhone from someone else and you want to assure integrity, you either plug it into another device of yours which checks the Apple signing key (possibly needing to wait X days to load it), or you bring the device to an Apple store where they do it for you.

Re: the gifted trojan device scenario, I think the primary line of defense would be to display a prominent boot time warning in the bootloader where a non-Apple root of trust has been used, just as many Android devices do already -- perhaps similar to the recovery screen, but with more warning signs and an open lock symbol or something.

Regarding the notifications and 2FA I was thinking along the following lines. Every device is unique. In order to get an unlock key and get the phone to unlock itself you need some signed payload by Apple. In order to obtain the unlock you would need to prove you own the iCloud account attached to the phone. That is where 2FA comes in. The notifications will go to all your other devices similar to the “your iCloud account is now being used on device x” messages.

Thanks for explaining. I do see how that could work, and would lead to perhaps even a better system if your average person could transfer stewardship of their device to a different service and away from Apple.

Some fallback to possession of a device for a time fallback would be good to avoid needless e-waste though. It's pretty ridiculous to have a perfectly good item that you can't actually use because it got software bricked.

So they steal the device from me, lock it in a Faraday cage for a few days, and suddenly now it becomes their rightful property with which to do whatever they want?

There’s something wrong with that model.

That's the way the world generally works with literally everything else, so yes. Physical crimes like theft are punished after the fact and for the most part that works. It's definitely much less common than the recently-created version of theft whereby a device is falsely "sold" while still retaining control over it.

But sure, go ahead and design a different system where say the device's current key can be used to replace itself with a new key - the important part is that there are no permanent privileged keys that cannot be changed by the owner. But then you have to mandate that this procedure is carried out when a device is sold, otherwise it's not really a sale.

Such schemes seem likely to have pitfalls for losing or corrupting the key though, and I'm personally more comfortable with falling back on physical reality which we've learned how to deal with over thousands of years rather than ending up with perfectly good devices that cannot be used.

Is this a common issue for MacOS?

It's not. They made it all up.

Yes it should, because being able to install an OS on their device means they can install one on mine.

And people will come up with all kinds of farcical workarounds for this, like that nonsense about 72 hrs in diag another comment made (right, because someone can't hold a device from you for 72 hrs), but I'm not interested.

Jailbreaks are security flaws, I like that they're patched and I like that there's no blessed equivalent. I liked that I can trust my iPhone in ways I can't trust the Android devices I'm paid to develop for.

The same freedom that makes developing for Android fun is the same freedom that ruins them for any reasonable use I might have.

You advocate breaking the first link in the chain of security.

If anyone can install any OS they want on any device in their possession, even if it’s a device they stole from me, then that reduces my security.

I prefer to keep all the links in the chain of security as unbroken and undamaged as possible, and if the only way to do that is to have a company like Apple run a closed walled garden, then I’m okay with that.

Give me an alternative that doesn’t require the Apple solution but still actually works, and I’ll be happy to take a look at it. But so far, the market hasn’t come up with anything that can compare or compete.

I’m of the same opinion, and I wouldn’t be looking to install a different OS personally. But I think it would be a good general rule that that you can run whatever software you want on your own hardware, but not expect the manufacturing to help you, just not actively hinder you.

Seems like “not expect the manufacturing to help you, just not actively hinder you” risks a lot of “interesting” interpretations.

Is my Microwave’s manufacturer actively hindering me by sealing access to its firmware behind a wall of plastic with no external port? If it’s not, could Apple just remove the iPhone’s port, throw a wireless charger in the box, and call it a day?

Yes the microwave should have accessible firmware. All electronics should have accessible firmware, software and hardware. Because it prevents abuse of powers (like Epson printers, for example) and, most importantly, it prevents waste.

Apple, due to its war on repair, locked software and influence among its peers is an environmental catastrophe.

You can install anything on your hardware you want, assuming you find a way to do that - apple doesn’t have an obligation to make it easy, but they can’t go after you legally for using https://projectsandcastle.org/ on a supported device.

That’s the thing - I bought a completely locked down device where a central authority dictates what can be installed since I trust them to verify the app’s capabilities and the source’s identity. I know the software isn’t impenetrable nor apple infallible, but it reduces my threat model a lot compared to if I were running Android.

This makes no sense to me. I was under the impression that Android is essentially spyware for google.

You don't need a Google account to use an Android phone, and even if you choose to use one, you can turn off sensitive things like location and app tracking if you want.

I am not if Google (Facebook, etc.) always respect the location tracking preferences of users.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/27/18114111/google-location...

https://apnews.com/article/north-america-science-technology-...

https://www.businessinsider.com/google-location-data-violate...

All those articles seem to say if you leave App Tracking on, and use Google Maps, yes, Google will save your location. Someone who is anti-Google shouldn't be leaving any tracking on, and shouldn't be using Google's Apps.

If you have any evidence that someone who uses Android without a Google account and doesnt use Google Apps is still getting tracked by Google, I'd be interested to see it.

Apple also tracks your GPS trace just like Google Maps does, the difference is they don't seem to share it with you.

Apple Maps employees use these "anonymized" GPS traces to correct roads, show business hours, find new points of interest that are unmapped, etc

They don’t share it with you because they can’t. It’s anonymized.

The GPS trace is not practically anonymized, comparison with public and semipublic datasets would deanonymize a large portion of the GPS traces.

You don't have to use Android. You can use AOSP. You can use /e/. You can use LineageOS with microG. Even then, with microG, you don't have to use any Google services.

Well your want for a locked down device is restricting my freedom. Too bad.

You should probably read the whole post before replying in clichés.

If you're in favor of a locked down operating system there's nothing else I need to know.

If you think I said that then there's likely a huge amount you need to know.

Your freedom to purchase a different product is not in qustion.

The locks on my front door also restrict your freedom. Please feel free to try to enter a house that does not have locks on the door.

I do not agree. It's not because my door does not have locks that you can feel free to enter. And vice-versa, it's not because there are locks on a door, that you don't have the right to try to enter...

Your analogy is not exactly correct. With an iDevice, this is someone else installing locks on your own door and not giving you the key, and they monitor who is allowed into your house. Even if you wanted the key they won't give it to you nor let you replace the locks.

You're free to purchase something not locked down. If there's no market for a device like that, then you're out of luck.

Imagine being such an apple shill you make logical fallacies to try to prove your point. I have ZERO freedom to not own an apple device when someone gives it to me for free. Nor do I have any freedom to not own iOS toys garbage when working on it for work. Please fuck off with your bullshit. Apple is already flagrantly violating right to repair laws with shills like you cheering them on.

You are literally standing in the way of progress and you're NOT more secure on iOS. If anything you're a bigger and easier to break down target.

You can refuse to accept the device.

If you work at a place where part of the job description is that you must work on devices that you refuse to accept, then you can always choose to leave that job and go somewhere else.

Don’t pretend that you don’t have a choice here.

I'm literally staring at a stack of old work iPhones I had zero input into owning or having that I could easily turn into a mini distcc cluster and make use of their computing power but I can't cause there's no app for that so instead they are digital bricks waiting for the landfill.

This anti freedom nonsense must stop. The ability to side load does not make an eco system weak.

You could get the same security if you voluntarily limited yourself to the app store, or never unlocked your iPhone.

> apple doesn’t have an obligation to make it easy

Nor do countries have an obligation to allow Apple access to their markets if Apple refuses to respect user freedom, should that be legally required.

> Nor do countries have an obligation to allow Apple access to their markets if Apple refuses to respect user freedom, should that be legally required.

Well, yes. Go look at China[0] and see just how far apple is willing to bend over backwards to stay in a market (although for China they pretty much had to unless they wanted to lose access to their entire existing supply chain). My point is that I should be able to purchase a device completely locked down and Apple should be allowed to make that device. People who don't like that can purchase something else.

0: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-ce...

But you tacked on that your threat model is less than Android because Apple babysits your device. An alternative app store existing does not have the ability to compromise your device unless you use it. Android has many app stores and 95% of users use the platform's default one. Therefore it is the same level of security as your Apple product with more freedom should the user take advantage of it. Walled gardens are not secure.

If it wasn't for network and ecosystem effects, I'd agree with you. But much like I can't simply not visit websites with Facebook's or Google's trackers, without cutting myself off from a huge chunk of the modern world, allowing locked-down devices to take up a larger and larger chunk of consumer computers has effects beyond the initial purchase.

The minute you buy something, what you do with it has to do with your rights and not the rights of the company that created that thing. I don't get it this line of argumentation.

Imagine someone was kidnapped against their will, and once we were to discuss the rights of the person being kidnapped the person kidnapped with stockholm syndrome have argued in favor of the kidnapper, as if it was within his rights to break its own rights.

Because this is what you are advocating here. That a company should have the right even to break your rights because they are a "good willing actor" or that they are doing it thinking in your well being (which you are inclined to think with tons of well crafted and manipulative propaganda towards this goal).

And its even worse because, its not the third party that its at fault according to your point of view, but the government that is trespassing by trying to force with laws, approved in a democratic regime, that your rights have to be respected and there are limits into how they can limit you or forbid what you can do with something that you bought and therefore its your property.

I don’t think the laboured kidnap scenario is useful. Neither is the song and dance about democratic regimes, I’m not arguing the government shouldn’t regulate, I’m saying that I don’t think they should regulate like this.

But I do think you should be able to do whatever you want with what you purchased. I just don’t think that includes forcing them, or using the government to force them, to make changes to their software to suit you.

So yes run your own OS, but if you bought a product and expect its software to do things its creators are clear it doesn’t do, then that’s on you.

> So yes run your own OS, but if you bought a product and expect its software to do things its creators are clear it doesn’t do, then that’s on you.

That's the point being argued here. They doing all they can to not let this happen. You are saying as if there's still an option to do this.

It gets even worse, because inside the OS, you are their lap dog. They are enforcing options to curb any form of competition. Technology is being forcefully crippled so they can resort monopolistic forms of control.

And with the other hand they teach you to like it in a paternalistic way.

Don't bother. Apple zealots will tie themselves into knots defending Daddy Apple.

My problem with all this, is that they don't get it where this is taking us all.

Big Tech have a tremendous power all over the world. Lack of regulation and civil rights enforcement is taking us into a era o digital feudalism..

So its not just about their rights to let Apple strip their rights, but the rights of us all.

It's about our future, because governments are getting weaker and big tech companies are start to take over with power that transcend territory.

So its our duty, to not let this happen, because they are not really seeing, being selfish and thinking about their own convenience.

The worst part is that, it will not change anything to them, but the marketing machinery whisper all the time how this is bad for them, making they fear any sort of change in that direction.

100%. They are diving head first into a digital dystopian nightmare where no one is allowed to install anything without approval. I wouldn't be in tech if I couldn't experiment and tinker when I was younger. iOS is more of a toy than an actual useful OS.

> if you bought a product and expect its software to do things its creators are clear it doesn’t do, then that’s on you.

I'd expect a computer to compute, whether it's scheduled by Windows, Linux, or iOS; whether Apple thinks I should install a software package or not. It should compute what I want it to, after all, it's using the electricity that I paid for.

It does compute, using iOS. If you want to use Linux or Windows why would you buy a device known to not work with them?

It can work with them, only Apple has locked down the bootloader.

> I just don’t think that includes forcing them, or using the government to force them, to make changes to their software to suit you.

I don't want to force them to make changes! I want to force them to not make changes. These devices are not locked down by default, the manufacturer implements these locked down restrictions in software manually. Rip that out and I'll be happy.

This particular part of your argument is overwrought IMHO:

"Imagine someone was kidnapped against their will, and once we were to discuss the rights of the person being kidnapped the person kidnapped with stockholm syndrome have argued in favor of the kidnapper, as if it was within his rights to break its own rights."

1. Apple did not kidnap anyone here. Their customers _voluntarily_ buy Apple products. Don't like Apple's products? Do not buy them. Pretty simple stuff.

2. The government forcing Apple to do certain things is closer to your kidnapping argument. Apple doesn't want to relinquish software control on the devices they make. That is their right. They invented it, created it, and marketed it. Just because they are popular doesn't give anyone the right to control them.

3. You have the right to not buy Apple products.

This. I really don't understand why people both buy their products knowing what iOS allows them to do and what not, then still complain.

Don't like iPhone/iOS? Don't buy it, go and buy Android. Simple as that.

> Don't like iPhone/iOS? Don't buy it, go and buy Android

Two choices is not enough. And, there are more choices than these 2. AltStore being an example.

You are correct, two choices are not enough. The problem is that both of those choices are significantly influenced by big business.

Google has a "free/open" version you can use if you like and also on their more restricted version allows you a fair amount of freedom.

Apple takes a more constrained approach and assumes that if you are purchasing the product you want to live within the ecosystem it supplies. No effort is made to allow you to move out of that ecosystem even though this may be possible through the exploitation of software/system bugs. Once those bugs have been identified, Apple feels it has a responsibility to lock down those loopholes in the name of creating a more secure system.

This can (and maybe should) be interpreted as Apple restricting your rights to jail break the system. Others interpret this as a responsible company maintaining a secure system.

The question is if Apple allowed side loading of software would that, as per their current claim, reduce the security of the entire system? I don't think that there should be any debate on this. Assuming Apple software has bugs, then allowing side loading of potentially compromised software inevitably increases the attack service available to a malicious actor. The OS now has to defend against untrusted loaded software, not only external network based attacks. Not only that, I would assume people would still want random software to be able to access their iCloud drive and other apple shared infrastructure, even more attack surface.

My feeling is that for most people with Apple devices, the devices are pretty much working as they desire and in a way that is easier (and potentially more secure) the alternative. Are there things that people don't like, sure, but the pain is lower than the pain of the alternative.

I don't think most people care a toss about the ability to side load apps, there are millions of apps on the ios store, more than can be found. The only people who don't like it are the ones who are having to comply with Apples rules and are missing out of $$$ because of it.

> No effort is made to allow you to move out of that ecosystem

That's an understatement. They actively deny you the possibility of moving out of their ecosystem. They disallow mentioning alternative payment systems in applications, FFS. If that isn't anti-competitive, I don't know what is.

I got Apple devices, and I've been worried the past 10+ years that macOS (or Mac OS X as it was called) is moving towards the closed down iOS platform. Slowly but surely, its getting done. But remember: go sloooowwwww. They won't notice it then, less resistance.

>Don't like iPhone/iOS? Don't buy it, go and buy Android. Simple as that.

That's a completely disingenuous response to any criticism. I'm allowed to dislike and like features of both iOS and Android. Anything I don't like shouldn't just be disregarded with 'Just get an Android'. iOS isn't perfect, and wanting it to improve is not wrong.

It’s fine to not like things but that doesn’t mean we need to use government force to make people do what we want.

That's exactly what governments and politicians are for isn't it? Making laws (governing) based on what people want.

Apple can’t and probably will not try to stop you from performing any physical transformations to your Apple hardware after you buy it. You’re free to do whatever you want with it. That’s totally separate from whether Apple has to provide tools to make certain things easy.

>I really don’t like the idea of the government dictating what a company does with it’s software.

Never ever understand this angle. Don't let a government put their toe in the business even when it's utterly unfair to the customer, the environment. Why not? The artificially ginormous and obscenely wealthy 'company' that brags about welfare, rights, privacy, can already almost do literally anything it wants, data mining, price gouging, holding back innovation, monopoly, screwing its users for every penny its AI can scrape from your children to your grandmother... stop me when I reach your melting point...

I never said the government should get involved in anything. I actually said:

>However as far as installing your own OS on the hardware, that seems like something we could require without a downside.

I just don't think they should be involved in dictating how software works at the level a lot of people seem to be hoping for.

Getting the government involved in this stuff brings a lot of negatives along with it, so it needs a damn good reason to go that far in my opinion.

What I said and what you are saying, no person could argue against. On paper, it looks great.

But look at reality, and what we do have and it doesn't look so useful a list of ideals anymore.

I am very much against Gov toes. But it really is way past the time something needs to be reined in. Nothing is being done, or has been done, for decades and hope for change to come from the people 'up', has been sold for short term, looping, distraction.

To think my children's children will no longer use the word 'search', they will use the word 'google' but google is google, its not searching. This is the reality.

Politicians are in their pockets so deep before too long there will no one with any power, in power. That's what I see. It makes my skin crawl when Tim Cook talks about how green the Apple Campus is. This is base irony, and not enough people bat eyelids, imho.

> I really don’t like the idea of the government dictating what a company does with it’s software

And I really don’t like the idea that an entity more powerful than most countries should be able to do whatever it wants and be unaccountable to the public just because it is not called “government”.

Software, especially closed source, literally dictates what your device does, and you don't know what most of that is. But you're sure that you wouldn't want the government regulating it any way ... whatever it is doing.

The “user journey” you talk about, the road traveled to a destination, is not the software, it’s the job to be done with the combination of software and hardware.

There may be roads less traveled or places off road, but Apple has no obligation to release some kind of universal automobile fit for highway comfort as well as every terrain.

Apple doesn’t owe you a computing device without a user experience any more than Mercedes owes you an engine without a carriage. They are designed together, and sold together.

The old school insistence on an arbitrary division between hardware and software is like the 1900s division between carriages and bolt on engines before Ford and others realized designing them together made a better car. In modern computing, this false division forces a constraining snapshot of where that line happens to be drawn on this model, instead of recognizing the line is moving all the time as hardware is virtualized and software becomes firmware, all in pursuit of a better journey to the user’s destination, the job to be done.

With the majority of firms and devices selling badly matched hardware and software you can readily strip apart, Apple is making a user experience choice rather unique in the industry and their market success because of this thesis should not be resented or begrudged.

If you believe in general purpose hardware for arbitrary software, if you think Linux has done fantastically with, say, touchpads, touch input, and pen devices relative to Apple with the Magic trackpad, multi-touch screens, and Pencil with the hardware+drivers+OS+apps ecosystem to manifest user intent, invest in that. Buy that, code for that, advocate for that.

If you believe in a customer centric emphasis on “job to be done” and giving less technical end users frictionless tools that get out of their way, appliances for accomplishing their goals, advocate for Apple and the like.

Or don’t advocate, but at least don’t try to tear it down.

Compelling argument. I think it would be fine if Apple hardware didn't look and feel so good in itself, without the software. It's just a shame we can't use them with anything else we might prefer - I really dislike macOS and Windows and I wish these devices could run Linux simply.

But as you say I buy Asus or Lenovo and they work very well too, and they're starting to look and feel good too nowadays, so like you I won't care for long. Apple can try to solve specific problems with hardware-assisted software, and I can do my work on an Asus.

> Apple doesn’t owe you a computing device without a user experience any more than Mercedes owes you an engine without a carriage.

Maybe not the best analogy since auto makers have to sell spare parts to third part repair shops.

Yes it's a very bad argument - there are all sorts of regulations in place to prevent the types of monopoly powers which major software vendors currently enjoy.

Actually it's a fairly good argument; it's just a argument against their position, not for it.

Well apple may be forced to sell physical hardware to shops, I agree with many here you can’t force them to provide everything. Mercedes for example has tons of software and software tools just for mostly internal and some dealer use, that allow you to do many more things with the car (like changing configuration flags, updates for the ecu and entertainment systems…).

The thing is, just like a car can travel on any road a computing device can execute any software. Apple deliberately breaks this functionality.

Apple does not sell a subscription to me, they sell a physical product that can perform computing. That device is absolutely able to run a Linux kernel (in fact people already have made Linux work on M1), so why can't I just flash a new operating system and do that? I'm owning the device already and I don't have any obligation to Apple to buy more software from them, and I don't think Apple does me a favor by offering me an iPad to a "subsidized" price (like other people are arguing). Of course right now it's legal to do this kind of shenaningans, but I surely find it absurd.

Also, having used Cyanogenmod and LineageOS while I was an Android user I can tell you the Linux community would design a working OS for Apple tablets in no time if there was a legal way to do that.

> The thing is, just like a car can travel on any road...

I don't disagree with your comment as a whole, but this stood out to me as a classic example of why car::computer analogies always suck. No, not every car can travel on every road. Send your typical Camry or Accord down a fire road and it will be lucky to make it half a mile. Without some modifications, my 4x4 Bronco II would have issues with some trails.

Now, if you were limiting your scope to paved roads, I can kind of see your point, but there again there are certain roads that would give issues to the average car, particularly in places like Detroit where the road itself can be so deteriorated due to municipal neglect that it will destroy a car's suspension. Or, San Francisco where the hills can be so steep that driving a manual transmission car daily requires skill beyond that of the average driver to avoid rollback accidents, not to mention the extra wear on the clutch.

> ...a computing device can execute any software.

Not quite true. A microcontroller is a computing device; it executes code written in a human-readable language that has been compiled into a machine language, just like a full-blown consumer computer. However, you can't just throw any software on the microcontroller's storage medium and expect it to run. First you must be able to recompile it, which means you need access to the source code. Second, if said source code is not in whatever human-readable language the microcontroller's IDE expects, you'll have to spend the time porting it over to that language before even attempting to compile it. Even then, the microcontroller may not be powerful enough or have the right features to run the software the way you intended.

The point is that you can drive the car onto any road, not that it would be any good at it. I can buy a Camry and drive it off a cliff into the ocean. It's my right as its owner to do that. If Toyota said, nope, even though you paid full price for this car we're still not going to let you drive it off a cliff, I would be upset at that limitation. Even if my intention is not to drive it off a cliff.

It's about allowing the consumer to use the device however they see fit, there's no expectation that the car should be able to do everything outside of its operating range well.

You're moving the goalposts. The original statement was that just as any car can travel any road, any computer can execute any software. Both statements are incorrect, for different reasons. I get the point of the comment as a whole and I agree wholeheartedly with it, I was simply pointing out a bad analogy and an incorrect assertion.

By this argument, automatic braking systems should be disallowed since they attempt to limit your freedom to rear-end other cars or drive into barriers (“however you see fit”).

And that’s a great analogy to Apple’s approach: “It’s for your own safety and that of others.”

ABS can be disabled by pulling a circuit breaker in the car's electronics box, usually installed somewhere near the wheel or in the glovebox. I would be upset if my car started demonstrating problems consistent with faulty ABS and I or my mechanic would have no way to troubleshoot it.

> The thing is, just like a car can travel on any road a computing device can execute any software. Apple deliberately breaks this functionality.

But in this analogy, the hardware is the road, not the car. The road is the literal platform on which everything else runs. And Apple's argument is that they aren't quite building a "road", they're building a bespoke people-mover system that they continue to maintain (like the Boring Company's Las Vegas tunnel system).

Just to nit-pick the analogy some more, real cars don't run on just any road. Roads have weight limits, height limits, and speed limits (and most places make it illegal to drive significantly slower than surrounding traffic, effectively creating minimum speed limits). John Deere builds golf carts that aren't permitted on highways, and Scania's trucks too heavy for some bridges.

I just wish my thousand dollar “not a computer” could keep three tabs open in safari without reloading them all every time I switch to check a text message.

I’ve been a very heavy iPad user for over a year now. I keep telling myself things will get better. And you’re right, Apple doesn’t owe me. But I wish they’d just hear what people are asking for.

This Safari refreshing thing annoys me very much, specially when there are opened sessions that gets destroyed due to that..

same! And it’s senseless there’s no need for it whatsoever!

When my first gen iPad was no longer able to keep up with the increasingly bloated web, I sold it and got a 3rd gen. Eventually that too succumbed to the increasing bloat.

The Safari tab reloading was one of the biggest problems. If I was writing an HN comment on the iPad and needed to look something up, I had to select my in progress comment, copy it, switch to Notes, and save it there just in case Safari decided to refresh the HN tab. If after my lookup, Safari did indeed refresh the tab and wipe out my comment, I'd try pasting. Sometimes that would work, but sometimes that was gone. Then it was off to Notes to grab the saved copy and paste it into Safari.

The iPad Pro was fairly new at this point, and I considered getting one but could not find anyone who could tell me if they ad improved memory handling enough to get rid of the issue. Instead, I went with a Microsoft Surface Pro 4. The browser situation wasn't the sole reason--I also wanted something with a stylus what would be good for writing math/physics/electronics notes, and I had seen several positive reviews by scientists and engineers of using OneNote and the Surface Pen for that.

Browsing on SP4 was great--I could have many tabs open and switch between them without losing anything. The Pen and OneNote worked well too.

However, I'm not sure I can recommend Surface Pro. I used it heavily for a couple years for browsing, reading PDFs, and taking notes. But then I took advantage of Comcast's baffling iPad offer [1] and got a 6th gen iPad.

The iPad quickly became my choice for light browsing. Later I got an Apple Pencil and the iPad took over most note taking (using the Notability app). (I just really need the electronic equivalent of paper with multiple ink colors and copy/paste, and so a simpler program that does that well is fine).

After a couple years of that, with the iPad used daily and the SP4 used less frequently--the SP4 battery is heavily degraded. I think part of this is because it is not obvious how to really turn an SP4 off so if you take a fully charged SP4 and don't use it for a week it will be significantly drained. So even if you are infrequently using it, you are still putting mileage on the battery.

At 4 years old, now my SP4 does not run very long off charger. An out of warranty battery replacement from Microsoft is something like $500.

My iPad battery is degrading much slower than my SP4 battery did. I'm confident it will be in way better shape when it reached 4 years old than the SP4 was. And if it isn't, an out of warranty iPad battery replacement from Apple is $99.

Anyway, if you need to do a lot of browsing in multiple tables using a tablet, and are OK with the power management issues I mentioned above, the Surface products might be worth a look.

[1] Comcast had an offer open for a while to most of their subscribers to get a 128 GB WiFi iPad for $5/month for 24 months (which you could pay off faster if you wished). That's $120, which was around 1/3 of what you'd expect to pay.

This. I have recently gone back to the Apple walled garden and it's a next gen experience that transcends platforms. Now I only have to worry about what I want to do, never about how it should get done. I never 'see' the actual technology: hard- and software are designed together so well, it just works. There is no other platform in a position to offer that.

It would be no problem if Apple were just doing their best to deliver the best experience to their users as you are implying they are doing here.

The problem here is that they are deliberately crippling and limiting what the hardware can do in a way that avoid any possibility of competition.

Limiting JIT's and external web engines are an example of not allowing the devs to have an option to develop for web SDK forcing them to stick with the apple SDK.

So, there's no problem in Apple trying to do things better. The real problem is the limitations imposed to curb competition and freedom for the developers to use the hardware the best way they can.

Apple is ur-facism encoded in a private company. Google or Microsoft dont get away with half of what Apple do, so people should look more carefully to what is beneath.

> The problem here is that they are deliberately crippling and limiting what the hardware can do in a way that avoid any possibility of competition.

Do you know that as a fact? Any documentation to that effect? Or is it just speculation? There is a lot of stuff that is the way it is not because of the reasons you think. Adobe Flash on iPad was argued about the same way. But the answer wasn’t because of an attempt to stifle competition.

> and freedom for the developers to use the hardware the best way they can

iPad is a consumer device. They don’t make it for “developers.” You aren’t their target audience.

Won't comment on your first point because i think its pretty well documented by now, specially for the HN crowd. But if you really want to to go down into this rabbit hole..

> iPad is a consumer device. They don’t make it for “developers.” You aren’t their target audience.

Sure, but the consumer is, a consumer who would want the best experience and the best applications on his device.

Crippling and curbing the developer forcing the hand where he cannot use certain technologies or certain paths only to suit Apple monopolistic, control freak neurosis, will in the end damage the users, as he would not have access to goodies he would like and want to.

This is basically the reason why Apple is getting away with it. The user doesn't even know he is being damage in certain ways so Apple can resort its control, because the application that should reach him, apps he would want if the option was given to him, never will reach him.

Because even if the developer miraculously circumvented an obstacle (that is not there for the final users sake) and published its app, the control over app store publishing would take care of censoring the application through the evaluation process.

Just a sample of where the final user is being damaged, the fact that he cannot really run other browsers that are basically UI shims over Safari, because Apple is afraid of web based applications multi-platform applications to work on your device.

> Won't comment on your first point because i think its pretty well documented by now, specially for the HN crowd. But if you really want to to go down into this rabbit hole..

I would. Where is this documentation of how Apple is deliberately (and arbitrarily) crippling and limiting what the hardware can do?

> Crippling and curbing the developer forcing the hand where he cannot use certain technologies or certain paths only to suit Apple monopolistic, control freak neurosis, will in the end damage the users, as he would not have access to goodies he would like and want to.

All you're doing here is illustrating that you do not understand consumer products, the iOS ecosystem, or the tradeoffs involved. You're thinking of Apple like PC vendors.

In reality, iOS products are consumer experiences where the hardware and software are implementation details. 99.99% of iOS users don't know or care how much RAM their device has. Most can't tell you what version of iOS they're running.

As a concrete example, Safari Web Extensions for iOS must be able to be unloaded at will. As a developer who doesn't understand "why", this obviously complicates their development for no apparent reason. For the developer who does understand, the need is obvious.

> Apple doesn’t owe you a computing device without a user experience any more than Mercedes owes you an engine without a carriage. They are designed together, and sold together.

Computing is relatively new in historical terms, and I think we're still figuring out what the legal boundaries should be around it.

One huge thing which separates networked computers from pretty much every other product which has ever existed is that it allows other actors to "do stuff" with with your property, with or without your consent. Google can install software remotely, and use my electricity, my network connection, and my CPU cycles to do something on my device. I think in the next few decades, we will see some regulations around "freedom from" certain types of actions like this on computer hardware that you own.

On the other side, hardware and software vendors have taken a place as gatekeepers about what you can and can't do with your computer hardware which you own. Smartphones are the main way most people access computing, and currently there are two companies which decide what you can and can't do with them. There has been a long history of regulations to prevent companies which hold this kind of advantaged position from using it to gain undue power over the market. For instance, the railroads cannot bias which customers have access to transportation, and the phone company cannot decide who can and cannot make calls. I think we will see similar regulation, establishing a "freedom to" do certain things with your own computer hardware.

To those who would say "but people would be manipulated into installing malware".

Firstly, Apple could make the unlocking process purposely hard. Many Android phones come with unlockable bootloaders, but the average person has no idea because you need a computer with the SDK to run that specific command to unlock it.

Secondly, people do get scammed on iOS devices anyway. Both through the web, and through poorly reviewed apps that slip to the app store every now and then. Moreover, Apple has a vested interest in not policing these thoroughly because they get to keep the 30% cut from the scammers' earnings.

What happens when you buy a new or used Android phone with malware baked into the OS image and a reset done through the UI doesn’t remove it?

What happens when you buy a used laptop?

There's inherent risk in buying a device from a third party that you may not fully trust, but that risk is in the hands of the buyer to assess, and to mitigate as appropriate. When the average person buys a used laptop from Craigslist, I doubt they're doing a full disk wipe and reinstalling the OS, and they're definitely not verifying the bios or other motherboard-level code. There shouldn't need to be some special case applied for tablets or laptops either. They're all just computers.

Most will show a warning on boot, something like "the bootloader has been unlocked [...] Only store crucial data on this device if you know what you're doing".

Yes, it might be possible to remove this warning with sufficient effort, but it is not like there is no way to compromise an iPhone.

My concern here is that Facebook will require their app to be sideloaded so that they can continue abusing their users. Now I don’t use Facebook, but at least I know my family members are somewhat protected from Facebook by Apples rules. If their Facebook app were sideloaded it would be open season for Facebook.

On Android, there's nothing stopping Facebook from doing that right now. Why haven't they?

I'm guessing it's because Google Play is more lenient than the App Store when it comes to privacy.

Because Google isn’t preventing them from doing tracking and other nefarious things. In fact, Google themselves are doing it.

I imagine Facebook is big enough to get a deal with apple that has alternative rules

I think there was some fairly tight integration ios/facebook in an earlier version of iOS. Seems to have been removed. I don't think Apple would want to get into bed with Facebook now, their reputation as a supporter of privacy would be damaged.

You have the choice to purchase something else, though. Why is it a problem that Apple sells a product which comes with restrictions and intentions? Silly argument.

As a developer, you don't have this choice. You have to support the devices that people already have. Which, for iOS, means inevitably playing by Apple's stupid rules.

No one is forcing you to be an app developer. Why not consider a nice career in mainframe software development?

As a developer, a DevOps engineer and a cybersecurity professional I very much indeed have this choice.

You’d still need to support iOS even if running other operating systems was possible on these devices. I don’t get what you mean.

There's nothing wrong with supporting iOS. What is wrong, however, is Apple's insistence on approving every single instruction iOS devices run, and this policy being realized in hardware. You bought the device. You gave Apple money, they gave you an iPhone. It's yours now, and it's no longer theirs. So why do they still retain any kind of control whatsoever over it? A new iPhone literally won't let you do anything before it gets an okay from the mothership.

It should be illegal for hardware manufacturers to hardcode public keys and hostnames into devices such that the end user can't change them.

Then tell your customers that your product won’t be supported on their shiny Apple hardware and ask them to buy another hardware from a different manufacturer.

Yes I bought the device. Yes I have Apple money, they gave me an iPhone. It’s mine now, and it’s no longer theirs.

> What is wrong, however, is Apple's insistence on approving every single instruction iOS devices run

Why in the world would I trust any of the instructions YOU or ANYONE else have written?

I as a customer don’t care if iOS app developers don’t make any money, sorry I already have all the apps I need and you’ll find other work. As such, I would be ok with iOS sideloading, but only for GPL software. Because otherwise, what other recourse do I as a customer have to trust YOUR instructions?

I have tolerated arbitrary instructions on my desktop/ laptop for 20 years and consistently been bitten by it. There is a reason I no longer do anything important (barring work e.g. banking, email, etc) on my laptop.

These people are annoyed because they know all the other hardware is terrible. They want the good hardware but don't want the software that it comes with. Essentially they just wish Apple were a completely different company.

> These people are annoyed because they know all the other hardware is terrible.

This is an untrue myth that Apple fanboys continue to push.

I really don't like product design through antitrust. Consumers had a choice in more than half a dozen smartphone operating systems, and iOS (alongside Android) won, with its locked down (Apple would say safe and secure) nature being a cornerstone feature of the platform.

That said, I think this hack is really cool. I don't think an Apple sanctioned sideloading method would be the worst thing in the world, so long as its cumbersome enough to prevent companies like Facebook from circumventing the App Store to avoid Apple's pesky rules.

> ... with its locked down (Apple would say safe and secure) nature being a cornerstone feature of the platform.

It has only been a corner stone feature since Apple realized they could combine marketing themselves with demphasizing their biggest competitor.

Unregulated duopolies suck.

>Imaging Tesla would restrict which roads you can drive your car on, because just using arbitrary roads that haven't been thoroughly reviewed by them for security and safety would be a risk to you

Tesla has used their power to remotely dictate some odd policy. See https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-aut...

I just switched from Android to iOS, after a period of adjusting I only miss f-droid and the gems it brings (like GadgetBridge, OsmAnd full, a good Bitcoin wallet and my dear Firefox).

Ok, maybe I also miss that the auto correct does not correct things AFTER I press send ;)

Other than that I’m pretty happy, most of my foss/self-hosted needs are taken care of (Home Assistant, Nextcloud, WireGuard)

I never understood this argument. Many products in the past have failed because they were too restrictive. Apple’s current suite of products are doing very well, so they must be doing right.

If you don’t like Apple’s approach or products, then don’t buy them and let the market decide. No company is under obligation to do business according to what you or I think is correct.

If you think the market for a good phone with open hardware is there, then by all means go ahead and build such a product. There is plenty of VC money these days.

On HN, success is merit-based unless you're Apple.

merit as measured by market share?

If Apple allows arbitrary OSes to be installed I would want a hardware indicator that that has happened. Perhaps a tiny LED on the back that is permanently on as long as the phone hasn’t been tampered with. I wouldn’t want to buy a secondhand phone to find that it’s a fake malware OS.

I mean the whole restriction on which roads tesla can drive on kind of exists in the form of chrysler's autopilot which uses only specific roads for its own self driving ... imagine a future when the data about certain roads is somehow restricted by intellectual property and certain car companies refuse to license whatever source contains that data.... this isnt entirely unthinkable

on the other point you make as someone who uses their ipad for actual professional work (3d artist, film industry) there is absolutely no reason to update from my 2018 ipad pro that I bought second hand, because there's nothing the M1 does that adds anything significant to my life. worse than that, the ipad is really only useful because of its apps and power, while the OS itself feels like it actively hinders anything I really want to do with the device and in many ways feels mildly broken!

> the ipad is really only useful because of its apps and power, while the OS itself feels like it actively hinders anything I really want to do with the device and in many ways feels mildly broken!

It's weird for sure. The underlying problem is the latency of the pen, which is very hard to manage in 3d sculpting software.

I highly recommend you give something like Nomad Sculpt a try if you have a chance on an ipad pro (or android with a pen like the samsung tab series) It's easily just as if not more responsive than zbrush and the features as well as performance is more than plenty to create some amazing sculpts (which I have recently done on several commercial projects!)

Talking with "hardcore" Apple products users you find that they are the first ones who doesn't want it, arguing that this could make their products less safe, so I don't think Apple would change that in a near future.

I'm hoping that AMD/Intel would be able to build a competing CPU (Single threaded) for Apple's M series SoC otherwise their laptop manufacturers are going to loose their bottom-line to Mac books at least starting with the mid-high end.

I'm hoping that there's enough pressure from Microsoft for that to happen since their surface line-up is not where it needs to be for them to take walled-garden approach like Apple 'yet'. Although, I personally want better performing laptop CPUs to run only Linux.

The worst part is all these people wanting to restrict my freedom to run what I want on my hardware just because of some dubious claims about security.

> Imaging Tesla would restrict which roads you can drive your car on

Isn’t a much better analogy a car that doesn’t (easily) let you install arbitrary software on it?

You can use the app iSH to run an Alpine Linux in an x86 emulator. However it’s tedious to use because most keyboard shortcuts are not working.

I agree to you and would love to use Linux on the iPad similar to how it works on chrome OS where you can use LXD containers in a highly secured KVM VM.

> I would totally buy one if I could actually run e.g. Linux on it.

I would totally buy one if I could actually run Mac OS X on it. But I'd also have a wireless mouse and a keyboard of some sort so... at that point, is it really a tablet anymore? lol

I have the iPad 8th gen and this one is also super smooth, I wish I could make it my default personal laptop as it is pretty damn good but I can’t. The apps are still very limited compared to their desktop counter parts.

Tesla too would be cool to program - if only even the navigation and entertainment systems.

>Imaging Tesla

That's not even the same thing. That's like saying imagine Apple won't let you peel fruit with an iPad.

It would be much closer to imagine Tesla not letting you install whatever custom OS onto the computer so that you can enable all features, bypass any safety features builtin to the stock system.

Except one is a goddamn car and the other is a portable general-purpose computer.

is an iPad a general-purpose computer?

Yes? In what way would it not live up to that title? It has plenty strong CPU and enough memory to put a lower-middle-end laptop to shame. Hell, before tablets, PDAs were also computers - they just only became much better. Also, for a significant percentage of people, their mobile phone is the only computer they own.

They're able to 'get away with it' since their profit models isn’t just the profit from the initial sale. If Apple didn't have their 30% cut of apps and in-app purchases, they would have to increase their margins on the product to make up for the years of income they otherwise would've gotten - I wouldn't be surprised if that meant a $500 increase since they're losing out on multiple years of income.

It's the same for consoles - PS5 and Xbox Series consoles are quite literally sold at a lost or at-cost, and that miniscule amount they make off the consoles doesn't pay for the servers, software, or the margin they actually would want for engineering the hardware if they didn't lock purchases to their own stores and take 30% of those sales.

The only difference between iOS devices and these is that you can see an upfront profit on the purchase for iOS devices, even if that doesn't include the margin Apple actually expects over the lifetime of the device.

https://www.gamesradar.com/ps5-is-being-sold-at-a-loss-but-h...

Apple doesn't target a particular level of profit that they refuse to exceed.

Nonsense, Apple prices the iPhone at a level they think the market would bear. Unless it's clients valued the ability to freely install any software at $500 (which I think is highly doubtful) there is no way they could increase their prices by that much without losing a lots of sales. And in any case Apple's profit margins on their hardware are considerably higher any other smartphone manufacturer's.

That's exactly my point - their current profit margins include post-sale app store driven revenue. Removing that means they no longer make the same money that they did before, so if they want to maintain that margin they'll have to increases upfront costs to offset the lost revenue.

One more example is the Oculus Quest 2 - it's $300 (64gb ssd) or $400 (256gb) for a truly outstanding headset, but it probably costs Facebook $400-$600 to make each unit of hardware. If you don't want to see ads[0] or log in with Facebook, that price becomes $800[1].

All i'm saying is that people will always pick the product that's cheaper but equivalent and are usually fine with post-purchase rent seeking via ads or a service fee that is (invisibly) tacked onto future purchases.

0: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57526135

1: https://i.judge.sh/lone/Derpy/HcfjI7YBPF.png ( https://business.oculus.com/products/ )

I think you misunderstand. A company will just charge whatever price maximises profit, there's no reason to "maintain margin" or anything like that. If they thought they could increase the price today and get a net gain after demand fell then they'd absolutely do it.

Sure, but more people are happy paying after the fact (in the case of oculus, via ads and 30% of sales going to FB) that I’m highly doubtful that they would make the same overall profit if they did sell it for the actual price they want without getting any money on the backend, especially if that backend money never stops even 10 years after the initial purchase.

They aren’t somehow entitled to make “the same overall profit”. You seem to think they are.

It’s additional revenue. The phone itself is already hugely profitable. In fact, the original business model didn’t include App Store revenue at all, and Apple were perfectly happy with that.

Are you serious about this? They charge 400 USD for a plastic keyboard. I have a hard time believing these are subsidized prices, Apple has some of the highest profit margins in tech, some say only the drug cartels generate more profit per dollar of revenue.

You could say the same for the Maserati Ghibi which is inferior to BMW 5 series cars in nearly every way but costs tens of thousands more. If you think the profit margins are too large you can just not buy that product.

>You could say the same for the Maserati Ghibi which is inferior to BMW 5 series cars in nearly every way but costs tens of thousands more.

Yeah so it would be ridiculous to say that Maserati would have to increase car prices if they couldn't profit as much off of after sale services.

>If you think the profit margins are too large you can just not buy that product.

Sure. Entirely irrelevant though.

Well, if they had to provide the same service guarantees without charging people for it, then you can bet it’d be factored into the initial price - I’m sure warranties heavily increase the price of cars since they have to do more engineering validation and testing.

I don’t have the calculations handy but at one point I was able to figure that the average iPhone user in the US spends (very roughly) $30-$40 per year in the App Store. Even at a 30% cut over the 3-4 year lifespan of the phone it’s not anywhere near $500.

Besides, the hardware itself is already very profitable. The argument that the phone is subsidized by the additional revenue Apple gets is not very good. Apple aren’t entitled to make a certain level of profit. They should have to earn it. Every step of the way.

I’m just saying - where does it stop? Would Sony or MS need to allow other app stores if they made a hardware profit of $1? $100? $600[0]?

0: Tony Chen suggests that their anti piracy measures only need to account for attacks that would be cheaper than purchasing 10 games https://youtu.be/U7VwtOrwceo

Why would it affect Sony or MS at all? Gaming is thriving market, not an unregulated duopoly. When market power becomes so great it negatively affects consumers we step in with anti trust regulation.

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