There is nothing terrible about Apple making devices my 80+ year old mother can safely and easily use.
I have a Mac, and I also have Linux machines. Nothing is stopping people learning about computers.
Why would anyone spend $1000 on a computer from Apple if it’s not what they want?
I just don't understand this argument. Never did and I don't think I ever will. If apple allowed you to install custom apps, it would change NOTHING for your 80+ year old mother. Literally nothing. Her device would still be just as safe and secure as ever before.
On iOS devices, you have to use a developer account to sideload the app and it only works for a short time, IIRC. I’m fuzzy on the details because the places where I’ve worked, it mostly just worked although the experience was way, way better on Android. At one point I was on a team that ran a system for deploying apps for sideloading, and for years I’ve been carrying both an Android and iOS phone, so I feel like I have a handle on these differences, but I also am missing out on some of the problems that our team already solved.
On macOS, you can download an app and run it. Depending on the provenance of the app and the security settings, you may get a message like “this app is from an unknown developer” with no apparent way forward. The solution is to right-click the app and select open from the context menu. When you open an app by right clicking on it, the OS gives you an option to open the app. This depends on security settings, but I think this is allowed by default.
There’s a lot of malware out there these days and I think it is good and correct that it should not be obvious how to run arbitrary software you downloaded. We know people will just click through dialog boxes to try and get where they’re going, which is way (for example) there’s no button to visit an HTTPS site with a broken certificate in most browsers these days. Some things should not come with instructions, because the risks are too great for unskilled users.
Not it would not still be as safe.
Malware and scams would come with instructions to install their custom bad app.
“Install this custom Deals app to save money”
I would love a single example of that happening(on android)
Some people apparently need help making judgment calls about what is and is not safe to install on their devices. I feel like Mac OS might strike the right balance here: you can install anything you want, but the OS throws up speedbumps if the app doesn't have the right signature, is not from the App Store, etc. These protections can be easily circumvented, but they send a signal that you should think twice about doing so if you don't really know what you're doing.
in contrast to what other phone? Was your 80+ year old mother sideloading bootleg apks on her android after turning on developer mode? This is the reverse version of "but think of the children" except it doesn't even make any sense. In every one of these threads there's a mysterious influx of senile parents who apparently can be trusted with the call function of the phone and fend off every fake grandson phishing attempt but not the option to install software
It’s in contrast to the openness of the platform people seem to be demanding from Apple. Current Android is obviously not open enough for them, so it’s not a valid as a point of comparison.
Because marketing.
Then again, maybe the truth is that what people really want isn't the best tool for the job but the best-marketed tool for the job, and they spend their money accordingly.
Hell, it's easier and cheaper than ever. You can run Linux in your browser on an iPad, just by visiting a URL. Or shell into various free-tier VMs, for... free. Maybe a one-time cost for an SSH/Mosh client if you're on iOS I suppose. Swift Playgrounds and a hundred other learn-to-code apps and sites exist. And that's if you're "stuck" with a locked-down device running iOS—you can pick up cheap but pretty damn powerful second-hand x86 computers with money earned from a shift or two at McDonalds and do whatever you want with them. Practically all libraries have lots of computers now (and see again that you can run Linux in a browser, or remote into VMs from the browser, if you're concerned about how locked-down a library computer might be). I routinely end up with free or nearly-free surprisingly good computers (even Apple ones!) without even trying.
Resources, including entire books, available for free and on demand—and almost any information relating to computers is free if you're willing to sail the high seas and hoist the Jolly Roger, which is exactly what learners did back in the "good old days", too (but we pirated software, not books, mainly because the books were rarely available in digital form and we had worse ways to read them than we do now, even if they had been available).
I'm free to install software I write on that iphone, right?
I'm free to sell the software I write using those skills to those other people, without risk of Apple arbitrarily shutting me out, right?
Or much more malicious, moving me down below their own shitty version, right?
All of those things - the things someone who goes to the trouble to learn about computers might want to do - I'm free to do those?
I couldn't (practically) develop for my NES, either. But it'd have been rad if I could at least write software on it that'd run somewhere else. Or in a sandboxed environment on the NES, also allowing me to share it, even if the capabilities were a slightly nerfed. Way the hell better than nothing. ("Well yeah but you could have bought a Commodore 64"—OK, cool, sooo.... why are we worried about iOS devices when the same 'so get a different device' counter applies there, and also you actually can learn a great deal of computing on them?)
Meanwhile ordinary computers are practically free. Like you can probably go beg around and make a couple Reddit or Craigslist or Facebook posts (use the library computer I guess if somehow you live in the developed world and don't own or have access to any other Web-capable device?) and land one (maybe not a great one, but hundreds of times more powerful than what many of us learned on) for $0 in a matter of weeks, at most. Or scrape together $100 or so and go to Goodwill. Not $0, but it's very cheap. Your library probably even has free computer classes. So might your community college. Learning how to "really" use and program a computer is vastly more accessible now than it's ever been, and i-devices aren't harming that a bit.
You keep harping back to some bullshit hand-me-down machines, as though that's what my customers will want to carry in their pocket. As though that's the ideal machine to implement software on - and I'd argue you're just soundly avoiding the real discussion by mentioning them (perhaps intentionally, given your fascination).
Trust me, I fucking have those machines, they're great for some things (they run my home network, they run my home cluster) - but they're not the things that people walk around with. They're not the computer in everyone's pocket. They're not the laptop my potential user-base is working on at work.
Doesn't it strike you as somewhat sad and pathetic that you're arguing that folks who want to do general purpose computing should be relegated to cast off devices, or be subject to the whims and mercy of the richest company in the world? Begging for the scraps after Apple shoves their own products right to the top, cuts off and strangles any real competition, charges racket money to allow users to even install your damn software, prevents you from using the devices they claim you own?
Pathetic. Locked down proprietary systems that trap folks in what they believe is a benevolent dictatorship. At some point you'll look around and realize you're being robbed blind. You claim to value learning computer skills, without realizing the learning has NO value without the ability to use those skills. And if you can only use those skills when Apple lets you... who's really in control?
This - this line is the part of your argument I find fairly bullshit.
There is nothing stopping Apple from making the same device, but giving you the keys to install your own software on it. Hell - They can even bury it in the settings, or lock it down through a provisioned profile so you can help your mom by turning it off if you're worried.
Instead - you're arguing that apple should abuse their position to keep other competition locked out. Because you think it makes you "safer". I don't think it makes you safer. I think it makes life easy for you, at the expense of everyone in the long term.
You have fallen - hook, line, and sinker - for the marketing of the richest company in the world, telling you "trust us - we'll keep you safe". You should ask more questions about why they need to do it this way. Why keeping you safe involves abusing their power.
That's the same safety China promises with their great firewall. Trust us - we'll keep you safe, happy, and ignorant.
Maybe that's a good deal to you - I think it's a shitty trade.
They do, at the app level. As a developer you can install whatever app you want on your own devices, even apps which would never be allowed in AppStore or TestFlight (although still not with all the entitlements Apple’s own apps can get.)
OS level, your point stands.
You utterly do not own those devices. Apple sells a house where they kept the keys to all the locks, but people think it's ok "because they'll keep me safe and unlock my doors when I need them to!".
Nevermind the risk is mostly a marketing boogeyman in the first place.
You... don't think you can install your own software on MacOS?
They're both perfectly fine general purpose machines - except apple holds the keys to the engine, and only hands them out when they approve of the use case.
I don’t love where that leaves us but it does make me wonder whether a better compromise would be something like regulation requiring third-party app installs but with some kind of business liability & registration requirement so e.g. Epic could set one up but fly by night scammers couldn’t easily set something up and spam AARP members.
They bought them because it was a new category of device (and extensive marketing from Apple - although I don't mean to discount the product with that statement - very solid phones, but also very excellent marketing). If anything - the early tech adopters moved to the iphone because it was more open than the existing phones at the time, which were definitely not general purpose computers. The iphone got us halfway there - I'd like to see us take the last few steps.
only today, I was talking to a lady walking her dog, who's close to 80 (I don't ask her that), and she owns an iPhone. When my phone started talking, she commiserated that she's always getting woken up because the phone is making noise and she can't make it stop. I told her to keep it in another room like I do.
I have Android, but if I look it up : https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208353
apparently there IS a way. Either it doesn't work, or she doesn't know about it.
You're right. It's also true that there's nothing terrible about making devices that Chinese dissidents can safely and easily use. Luckily there is no government that wants to limit your mom's freedom (unless she happens to be a Chinese dissident).
There very clearly is something terrible about this level of control. You're arguing that there's also some benefit -- yes of course there could be. But the point is that there are also massive problems with this level of control, some of which pose existential threats in areas far more important than (entirely debatable) usability improvements.
These problems can be solved in other ways. You can do what I did and remove administrator access entirely. You can create a curated list of appropriate apps without the totalitarian aspect. You can let people opt-in to various levels of filtering and control over software without excluding people who want to ahem think different.
You're presenting a pretext, not a credible and necessary conclusion.
I am tech savvy. iPhones are not "easy" to use. It's a nightmare of hidden gestures to accomplish even the most basic things.
Yes, for someone who spend 8 hours / day on their phone you eventually learn the necessary gestures. But that's no different from Android or any other electronic device.
Apparently that's a radical position to have these days and I find it irresponsible that software folks of all people won't stand up more for the right to run their code on their own devices without the approval of the manufacturer. As you said, the existence of our industry is due in large part to the openness of previous systems. We owe it to ourselves and those that will come after to ensure this level of openness persists.
I don't know many engineers who actually like how Apple locks down their platform—it's just to them the perceived trade-off of "Apple's polish" vs "configuring free OSS software" isn't worth it.
If we're being realistic, most people I encounter want Apple to loosen their grip a bit so they can run software without Apple's permission or paying their 30% App Store tax.
At this point I don't think it's realistic to expect engineers to solve this problem —Apple would retaliate by booting them from the App Store of burying app reviews in red tape. What's probably needed is legislation that mandates hardware manufactures can't restrict what users are allowed to run on their devices.
This isn't accurate. macOS' default security settings (System > Security & Privacy) have "Allow apps downloaded from:" set to "App Store" by default. Selecting "App Store and identified developers" allows you to install anything from the App store, or anything that's been code signed.
If you want to execute unsigned code, you can disable SIP (System Integrity Protection) and relive all your 8088 glory days.
> You can only pay for software on their own store.
Also entirely inaccurate. Almost all of the macOS software I've purchased was done so outside of the App store, paying developers directly.
This still reads like all or nothing. All as in "App Store and identified developers", or user can turn off "System Integrity Protection" completely. Turning off SIP eliminates any protection.
Is that what it means to disable SIP?
I'm not aware of any Mac user among my friends who isn't aware of this.
Most OSS installers but even many commerical ones aren't code signed because devs don't want to pay the Apple tax.
I don't think any of my non-tech friends would know this.
As much as I love to hack and tinker with my OS, I also appreciate the safety inherent in the Apple ecosystem. That's why even as a life-long Windows user, I bought my Dad an iPad - I know the chance of him getting p0wned via some social engineering attack and having his banking password stolen are a lot lower than with a Windows or Android tablet.
I think if you want to just run any code you want, you sudo spctl --master-disable. I’ve never had to use it.
Disabling SIP is generally a bad idea, but there are times when it can be useful, e.g. modifying stock applications like Dock.app.
You don't need to disable SIP to run unsigned code. If a binary is unsigned all you need to do is hold a key down while clicking the program. macOS will show a warning popup and let you continue. This isn't super user friends, but then again the majority of Apple's customers are not going to (or want to) run untrusted code, and if you do want to run untrusted code it is not that big of an inconvenience.
It’s really exhausting pointing out how your argument would effectively force others to produce what satisfies your sensibilities and to protect what you feel is sacrosanct.
Programming is “just math”. I don’t need an 8088 to prove its adding, subtracting, comparing memory addresses. All the cognitive structure and literalness of the past has nothing to do with software and everything to do with hardware engineering.
That the industry has not clung to your nostalgic ideal does not mean there is a tyrannical conspiracy. It means the industry evolved.
Perhaps you’re just on the wrong career path?
This is actually very untrue in my experience. I can't tell you how many "normal users" ask me whether there is an open source equivalent they can use so they don't have to pay for X, for example, and many have shown interest in doing what they can to optimize their setup and/or reduce their financial burden by getting smarter about how things are set up.
Reusing existing software is not equivalent to expecting users who want share pics to learn from 8088 on up. In fact it’s quite the opposite; it’s good engineering to not waste time recreating the wheel.
I don't think I've ever had a non-dev ask me about "open source". Asking for free alternatives, sure, but it's very rare that I'd recommend open source alternatives for whatever normal people are doing.
Installing app from any source is not outrageous, I use it for my Pioneer receiver who would otherwise have no remote, I use it for my paragliding variometer. And I could use it for anything else I chose to, since I am free to decide. The list of what I can do with similar other devices but can't do with the most expensive of them is quite long. This is not expert level, experienced beginner at best (not for Apple products obviously since jailbreaking is advanced topic).
Due to above also being 100% stuck with only Apple payment system which takes 30% all the time vs having the freedom to choose. This can't be more un-american (at least to ideal, reality is another topic).
Life for others does not need to conform to your ideal - that goes both ways. Closed vs open systems to 'hackers' have a special meaning to many people here on this forum. And yes these topics are exhausting to us all, explaining ad nauseum why more freedom is better for users especially long term, and why Apple et al desperately don't want users to have it.
So the freedom angle to them is they don’t have to schedule the meetings and be compelled to speak the questions and answers to output what you want, or open themselves to repercussions of a hack in a stack that would never be there if they’d not built it.
Because computers are also real resources they’re making devices for a broader audience than computer hackers. The hobbyist hardware scene has a questionable set of ethics given the long term impact of meeting hobbyist demands to consume whatever number of widgets they want, but that’s another thread.
If you’re arguing for an open boot loader, I’m here for it, but you’re going to need to change law to force it; they can freely stick to their choices. Posting grievances such as yours; we’re not oblivious as you seem to believe but HN is not a forum of real influence, preaching to the choir is not influencing anyone that needs to be influenced.
But iOS is a result of workers speaking free of coercion. If the output is not up to your expectations… I dunno what to say except other people don’t have to put you first, you know? Freedom equals tribalism. It’s a demand of freedom to allow tribalism not one size fits all literalism. deal with it gif
https://9to5mac.com/2022/11/01/eu-force-third-party-app-stor...
In 2022 the Internet is a hostile landscape where trillions of dollars are made on the back of malicious adtech by some of the largest companies in the world and there is no pathway for the average user to truly control their own system. At least Apple’s walled garden is better than Microsoft’s brothel and Google’s crackhouse.
They mostly just want a web browser and e-mail. They buy ~zero non-free apps. And they want the "freedom" you're selling about as much as they want the "authenticity" of living off the land in rural Alaska.
[1]https://forums.unraid.net/topic/113817-virtualizing-windows-...
edit: adding missing not
You can already see attempts at dissolving the rebellion against RA by Big Tech and the propaganda they disseminate. They don't want people to know this until it's too late. This warning should be taken in the same way as Stallman's "Right to Read".
For i-devices, yeah, true.
> You can only pay for software on their own store.
As nice as exposing the App store to more market effects might be, the app store monopoly enables them to force other companies to be less shitty on the platform (or else abandon it—but it's lucrative, so most don't), so it's a feature to me. I'd rather some of the behaviors they ban were simply illegal everywhere, but until then I like having the option to live the libertarian dream of paying for a private regulatory agency (Apple, that is). Beats having no option of that sort.
Despite the branding, "Chrome for iOS" and "Firefox for iOS" are fundamentally different products than their Android or desktop counterparts. They're both just wrappers around the same bundled version of Webkit that Safari uses.
The big issue, as I understand it, is JIT. You can run any browser engine you like on iOS, but only WebKit (its JavaScriptCore component) is allowed to JIT JavaScript. Without JIT, the JavaScript performance will be bad; and considering the contemporary JavaScript-heavy nature of the web, that makes any alternative browser engine a non-starter.
(I wonder how it is implemented. I'm guessing that WebKit runs out-of-process, and that process has the JIT entitlement, whereas the host app process doesn't.)
IDK how it is now, but Apple used not to allow e.g. alternative Javascript engines in apps—you had to use Webkit's.
Having developed an app-building engine for Android in the days when some vendors shipped different engines to supply webview functionality (is that a thing? I actually don't know if they ever stopped) I can say I'm extremely in favor of this part of their policy. God that was a pain in the ass.
App Store guidelines say you have to use WebKit JavaScript for web browsing. I believe you are allowed to use third-party JavaScript for non-web-related purposes. That’s a rather small use case though.
Also, we have to distinguish between App Store policy and technical constraints. If you are just running your own software (e.g. developer, adhoc distribution, enterprise distribution), you don’t need to care about the former only the later-lack of entitlements to JIT is still an issue for the later.
It isn't just a privacy argument. Browsers need security exceptions for full performance, such as compilation of Javascript/WebAssembly. The browsers may also not have enough process infrastructure to support their native sandboxing strategy on iOS.
Someone can make arguments on whether Blink's rendering engine would have business motivation for an iOS port. However, the sandboxing and javascript differences were large motivating technical factors in Blink forking from WebKit in the first place.
A few reasons for me, personally:
1) I like the consistency of all web pages being rendered by the same engine and having access to similar capabilities, no matter if it's a web-view inside an app, or in a browser.
2) Safari's a pretty great default for mobile devices, so I don't feel like I'm losing out by being "stuck" with it.
3) From a big-picture perspective, Apple forcing Safari on iOS is the only reason the entire Web client space isn't completely dominated by Google and subject to that—omitting some words I might choose to describe them, for civility's sake—company's every whim (instead it's only mostly dominated by Google)
4) Conveniently for me, I also happen to have no interest in having other browser engines on my phone or tablets, since this one's pretty good, and in some ways best-available, anyway. I have zero clue why I'd want another browser engine on my i-devices, and I've been doing this whole Web thing a while, long enough that I happily adopted and evangelized Firefox back when it was still called Phoenix—normal users have even less reason than I might. As in, I can't think of a single reason being able to install other browser engines would make my time using the devices better. Better battery life? LOL no, it'd be worse. Features I want? Nope, but several I actively do not want developers to even have as an option. I'd rather keep those capabilities away so developers can't start depending on them, so start forcing me to choose between using sites I want to use and avoiding things I don't think browsers should be able to do in the first place (I'm sad Safari's given up as much ground on this as they have, frankly, but again, it's only because of their i-device browser engine monopoly that they have any leverage at all here).
5) Meanwhile, this doesn't get in the way of my using the actually-important features of other browsers, they'll just have Safari's engine under the hood. Not a big deal, or even a small one (to me).
Then use Safari and don't install another browser. Why should other people be prevented from installing other browsers based on your preferences?
> 2) Safari's a pretty great default for mobile devices, so I don't feel like I'm losing out by being "stuck" with it.
Then use Safari and don't install another browser. Why should other people be prevented from installing other browsers based on your preferences?
> 4) Conveniently for me, I also happen to have no interest in having other browser engines on my phone or tablets, since this one's pretty good, and in some ways best-available, anyway.
Then use Safari and don't install another browser. Why should other people be prevented from installing other browsers based on your preferences?
Already answered in my post. A cookie for you if you can quote the relevant sentences.
> Then use Safari and don't install another browser. Why should other people be prevented from installing other browsers based on your preferences?
Ditto.
> Then use Safari and don't install another browser. Why should other people be prevented from installing other browsers based on your preferences?
Ditto.
Ultimately, I really wish they had significant, competent competitors for the specific sort of thing they do. I like Apple because government has entirely failed to regulate absolutely horrible behavior by software vendors, so at least I can pay Apple to enforce some basic and largely no-brainer regulations instead, but I hate that the OS/platform market is so screwed-up that there's effectively no alternative that offers anything like what Apple does, and not just when it comes to defending against all-too-common bad actors.
From a bit ago: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/apple-announces-app-s...
> The new App Store Small Business Program will benefit the vast majority of developers who sell digital goods and services on the store, providing them with a reduced commission on paid apps and in-app purchases. Developers can qualify for the program and a reduced, 15 percent commission if they earned up to $1 million in proceeds during the previous calendar year.
---
If you are making more than $1M, then its 30%. If you are making less than $1M, its 15%.
For subscriptions...
https://appleinsider.com/articles/16/06/08/apple-announces-i...
> Although the company's current 30 percent revenue cut will remain in most cases, once a customer maintains a subscription for over a year, that cut fall to 15 percent, giving developers a larger share of revenue for long-term subscribers, Schiller told The Verge. Subscriptions are also opening up to all kinds of apps, including games, instead of just categories like music services and magazines.
It is also my understanding the cut they insist on taking on e-books and audio and movies etc. makes it impossible to sell those at all in the app. I guess that strictly makes the in-app experiences on the iPhone more secure, though still pushes it out.
With Audible, I have a subscription and get credits and can use those credits in the app... but I can't use real money to buy a book in the Audible app. Similar with Kindle.
The tangent to that is that Apple is managing it. When my nephew, as a very young child, bought in app purchases that was able to be refunded through a single point of contact - Apple and they did it (I normally am the only user of my iPhone and thus have rather permissive permissions on device).
I am not sure that Outfit7 (makers of Talking Tom) ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outfit7 note the "Acquisition and leadership change" section and consider the difficulties involved with international charge backs) would have been amenable to refunding the purchases if they were the payment processor instead.
As it was, it was a notification of credit card activity on another iPhone, looking over at it, and then going through https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204084
So for me, the question is "is being able to manage my subscriptions through Apple worth it?" And for me, the answer is "yes." My subscriptions to various news sites are managed through Apple so that I can cancel them easily (compare the infernal nightmare of canceling WSJ subscription otherwise - https://darkpatternstipline.org/sightings/difficulty-in-wsj-... ).
For the sites with a subscription, they likely wouldn't have gotten it if I had to purchase it through them instead at all. 70% (now 85%) is much better than 0%. Similarly, the ease and security knowing the Apple is the only one touching my credit card when doing an in app purchase.
I would love to see Apple adopt a more open ecosystem, and I could see it happening in the net 5-10 years.
But, nobody cares about this aside from the tech community. The average smartphone user is fine with the status quo.