Hacker News Reader

Comment by freedomben | Hacker News Reader

I'm disappointed that this question is downvoted, because I would also like to know the answer. I would guess it's "because even an artifically limited iPad is still better than every alternative," (which is fair. It's a personal preference, and those are all equally valid IMHO), but I've been trying to understand why people who dislike Apple's philosophy still buy so much Apple stuff.

View on HN

Imagine having a 0 to 100 scale of how much we value the device. Some of us are somewhere around 70 or 80 for the mac laptops, and 50 for iPads.

That’s why you’ll hear very critical takes while people might still be buying the device.

Also I’m of the opinion that buying something shouldn’t mean closing ones eyes about its flaws or being lucid on what you hate about it. The “voting with your wallet” thing is to me just a meme that want the world to look more simple than it is, except if you’re actually donating to lobbies to bribe politicians.

To take another example, I would understand someone buying iPhones while completely hating Apple’s attitude toward developers and consumers in general, the world is just that complicated.

Even so, this just goes back to the question of "why does Apple get 30% of each transaction", since artificially preventing people from sideloading Android is one of the main ways they achieve all of their goals: 30% cut of video game IAPs, security in the face of evil maid attacks, and maintaining their brand image (since people might still blame Apple for Android running slow/having short battery life on iPhone hardware). All of this is because iPhone is a product, not a general purpose computer that you can do anything on, and this philosophy is the reason iPhone "just works", while everyone has seen some windows laptop running slow due to McAfee or Norton Antivirus bloatware, or infested with adware and 100 shell extensions. Even Macs are more likely to have malware since you have the choice to install whatever you want, while the furthest iOS malware can go is excessive tracking to third parties (the xcode virus/the Life360 app); you won't find adware that infects every app or uses your phone as a botnet zombie.

I think the difference of treatment just brings different attack vectors. Monetary scams for instance, especially through subscriptions are more common on iOS. Apple taking 30% just means less incentives for them to drastically deal with those, as they still get a cut of the money passing by.

On the other hand browsers being much more capable on macos also means way less native apps to download/install, which allows to greatly reduce the attack surface IMHO. You can tell family members to just never execute anything (I don’t use windows, so nothing to say about antiviruses)

As a side not, the “just works” also often translates to “tough luck”. There’s still a number of times where I put down my iPad to take my android phone because it’s just much simpler. Some of these pains would be alleviated if I used Apple services absolutely everywhere in my life, just as Sony products would make sense if your housewold was 100% filled with Sony products in the 90s. But That’s really not a choice I’m willing to make.

Apple has paid out about $20 million dollars in their security bounty program, and a good portion of that must be iOS-related, so much so that they offer dedicated iOS devices to researchers.

iPhones have been jailbroken by visiting a webpage, receiving a message, or joining a WiFi network.

Just about every single iOS release is patching a vuln that was reported or found in the wild being exploited.

So, really, is the "furthest iOS malware" concern being 3rd party tracking a genuine statement?

Given it’s much harder to get malware through the App Store than it is to get it through the macOS notarization system (or just telling people to right click open your dmg), you certainly won’t find iOS malware affecting a large amount of users unless those users seek it out (via jailbreaks) or are individuals at risk of extremely targeted attacks, which is what lockdown mode aims to guard against: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/07/apple-expands-commitm...

You should define “malware”. There is wide variety of apps that harm users to different degrees, and I’m not sure we’re sharing the same definitions of what the App Store is supposed to protect their users from.

In particular, an app that signs you up for a $100/month subscription behind your back that's impossible to cancel via some dark UX patterns, will make it through the notarization system just fine, no jailbreak or exploit needed.

> that's impossible to cancel via some dark UX patterns

The scandalous $10 per week kid’s games definitely exist, but in fairness, you made this part up, as all subscriptions are easily accessible on your clearly labeled ‘Subscriptions’ page, and canceled by clicking the big red ‘Cancel subscription’ button.

To note, the “easily accessible” part is for people with an Apple device with iCloud set as the target account.

You don’t have another Apple device to manage your kid’s subscriptions ? it’s simple ! Download iTunes on Windows! No windows or can’t/don’t want to install iTunes? Tough luck.

You’d think icloud.com has feature parity regarding payment managements and critical settings, and no, it doesn’t [0]

BTW having multiple Apple devices still won’t make it that much easier if you happen to use different Apple IDs (if you need access to more than one country’s store for instance, or separate work and personal profiles): logging in and out is a PITA with the Find My Devices lock and 2FA.

[0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202039

> To note, the “easily accessible” part is for people with an Apple device with iCloud set as the target account. > You don’t have another Apple device to manage your kid’s subscriptions ? it’s simple ! Download iTunes on Windows! No windows or can’t/don’t want to install iTunes? Tough luck.

Wow I’m speechless.

Not having access to your kids’ device, and not having access to a linked Apple device, and not having access to a Windows device, and not being willing to download iTunes is considered a dark pattern??

Sometimes I really wonder about the little anti-Apple bubble some people live in…

It isn't that hard really.

You're a linux/android parent and your teenage kid wants an iPhone. Will you take their phone every now and then just to check subscriptions etc. ?

Or, each family member has an iPhone with their own account, and no other Apple device. You'll be switching anytime you want to check. etc.

I'm aware of these limitations because I've hit them so many time, while having 5 Apple devices at hand. I get it might be s 80/20 split with it being really simple for 80%. But IMO that's just not good enough, at least not 15 years after the first device launch.

[edit] I'm kinda surprise how the goalpost is shifted from "hey it's easy" to "go install iTunes if you're on windows". I having a website too much to ask really ?

> I'm kinda surprise how the goalpost is shifted from "hey it's easy" to "go install iTunes if you're on windows". I having a website too much to ask really ?

Dunno where you got the idea that I somehow ‘shifted the goalpost’ from “it’s easy…”?

The poster I was answering said that Apple made it “impossible” to cancel subscriptions by using “dark patterns” and this somehow got transformed into some vanishingly tiny, special HN-case of a person running Linux who doesn’t have another Apple device and ‘cannot’ install iTunes with a teenager who’s phone they can never access to check subscriptions…

Oh well - the anti-Apple fanatics here will downvote absolutely anything, I guess - including anyone responding to utter garbage like this.

F-Droid app store has no malware, even though it does not benefit from Apple's approach to security. All you need in practice is free software.

Which besides a few users waiting for the return of OpenMoko, no one else cares about, including malware authors.

Would you say the same about the Linux repositories?

Depends on how we go about regarding the Year of Desktop Linux, alternative repos, snaps and flatpak, and best of all, curl | sh installs.

Let's just limit ourselves to servers with the original repos, for simiplicity.

So be it, many of these vulnerabilities can be used as entry point,

https://vulmon.com/searchpage?q=debian+debian+linux+11&sortb...

I did not find any evidence of malware in the repos from your link. Vulnerabilities also exist for iOS and MacOS.

My original claim was that, in order to avoid malware in repos, all you need is free software.

If you want to avoid all vulnerabilities instead, try Qubes OS.

Windows.is slowly going away from the "general purpose computer".

That was definitely the reason I got an iPad. I looked but haven't found a tablet that has the same build quality, performance and battery life. Too bad the software is so locked down!

I can't find anything even close to the iPad plus Pencil for sketching/crative stuff. First I tried a Yoga 2-in-1, then a Surface, both Windows & Linux... Then I tried an iPad pro. It's just no contest. The iPad and Pencil always have battery, always ready to go, and there are tons of very high-quality stylus-oriented apps. The other platforms were a laborious wasteland.

It's frustrating because I mostly use Linux elsewhere.

(that said, the iPad has some idiotic warts too... like file sync is terrible, and Apple makes it so it's basically impossible for apps to fix that. And 30% is highway robbery)

Next time go with a Samsung tablet.

At least iPadOS isn’t preloaded with crud and questionable at best modifications like Android on many devices is.

One of my biggest gripes with Android devices is that they don’t come with the option of installing plain mainline Android out of the box, meaning you’re stuck with whatever modifications e.g. Samsung has deemed necessary until a big third party distro like LineageOS adds support for your device or someone on some forum posts a dodgy unofficial build. This means that if you want a clean experience your best bet is to be behind the curve on hardware but that’s no fun, particularly if you’re wanting to use the device for a task where the extra power (or lack thereof) is readily apparent.

I’d be more inclined to buy something like a Galaxy tablet if I could treat them like prebuilt Windows PCs and upon receiving them nuke them and put clean Android on them, but that doesn’t look to be happening any time soon. I know open tablet projects exist to fix this and that’s great, but those suffer from hardware that’s anemic in comparison to flagship bigcorp stuff.

> I’d be more inclined to buy something like a Galaxy tablet if I could treat them like prebuilt Windows PCs and upon receiving them nuke them and put clean Android on them

I'm a bit confused by this statement.

1. What is "clean" Android?

2. How do you put clean Android on a prebuilt Windows PC?

3. Why do you put clean Android on any PC?

The them isn’t referring to a windows PC.

“I’d be more inclined to buy something like a Galaxy tablet if I could treat them [a Galaxy tablet] like prebuilt Windows PCs and upon receiving them[a Galaxy tablet] nuke them [a Galaxy Tablet] and put clean Android on them [the Galaxy tablet]”

For #1, "clean" Android is analogous to "clean" Windows, in other words Android minus all carrier and manufacturer junk.

For #2 and #3, it's as the sibling comments say; I want to be able to replace the customized versions of Android bundled by OEMs with "clean" Android, even if the device was just released yesterday.

Replace all instances of the word “them” with “tablet” and re-read.

I'm pretty pleased with my Samsung Galaxy Tab S8+. The stylus feels nice and the performance is good. I can even run 3d games like Warhammer 40k mechanicus and it's not too much of a downgrade from pc graphics. All this whole being super thin. Removable SD card is also great. There's some rough edges: chiefly the stylus only charges in one orientation. And Samsung preloads it with a bunch of crap. But I'd prefer it over a iPad any day.

I'm in the same boat. I've got an ipad pro, meaning m1 and a good enough amount of ram and storage. I'd love for it to be able to run MacOS.

I bought it because I wanted a good tablet. I'd just like to be able to have a good tablet and not have to buy a Macbook too since I have decent windows machines anyway. It's a want, not a need, to be able to run macos.

What do you use it for?.my tablet is primarily used for reading comics and technical books, at which it excels. If I need to do anything more challenging then it makes sense to use my laptop, even copy and paste between applications is a ballache on any tablet compared to a pc. So what is the extra apple price getting you, or more usefully what are you doing on the iPad that an alternative tablet could not do?

Valid question. For me, it’s about being in the apple ecosystem and seamlessly integrating with my other devices. I use it as a second monitor when traveling with my MacBook and use it as a HomeKit hub.

In some cases like phones, it is because Apple supports their phones much longer than any Android phone. My iPhone SE from 2016 just got an update -- that's crazy. That being said, I still dislike many of Apple's practices, but there really isn't a better alternative. (IMO, Phones in general are trash. They should last as long as desktop computers).

iPhone SE is £450 right now, I could buy a Xiaomi for less than half that and another one in 2 years time, getting hardware updates and software updates. Combined with apples policy of throttling older devices the ongoing OS support isn't that much of a benefit. Personally I stopped using iPhones after the iaPhoje4 when apple made it a huge ballache to repair a broken screen. The iPhine 3g was the easiest phone I have ever replaced a screen on and I fixed a lot of them from the original iPhone, but the time sink on a 4 made it uneconomical, infused to do then for £50 and would have it done I. 15 minutes. The 4 had to be disassembled entirely and reassembled, and you couldn't check the screen until it was all back together, loose connection, bad part, tough, disassemble/reassemble

I like extended software updates NOT for the price, but because I don't create as much e-waste buying 2 phones instead of 1.

> Combined with apples policy of throttling older devices

What policy are you talking about?

Oh yeah no it was a whole thing. Apple paid out over $100 million because they were slowing down older phones.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/11/apple-settles-wi...

It was typical Apple arrogance but the actual issue is not nefarious, aging batteries deliver less and less current and eventually it makes devices crash or power off unexpectedly. Always been that way. They just figured out you could improve stability by throttling the CPU to reduce current draw and didn't bother to tell customers.

In reality we should think of most modern devices as wearing out over time. Batteries age, flash cells go bad, LEDs dim, OLEDs burn in... Most everything gets slower / worse with use and it would be better if device manufacturers disclosed that clearly.

> (IMO, Phones in general are trash. They should last as long as desktop computers)

This is exactly why I bought Librem 5 smartphone running desktop Linux. It will get updates forever.

- Best of all options

- … if more are needed, the pen and especially the keyboard are genius.

- I have grown more distrustful of what Google actually does than what Apple might

That all said, I can’t think of other devices that are so intentionally limited as the iPad(Pro) really is. Maybe a powerful sports car with a governor in it? Most devices are designed to meet a certain usage profile, but the iPad is unique in that there is so much left on the table in so many ways. I would be overjoyed if I knew one day I could load up an actual OS on to this amazing thing.

MacOS doesn't support touch, at all.

The day Apple will release a MacOS version with touch support that runs on iPads, most of the Macbook line-up will likely cease to exist.

While this may still happen one day, to this day Apple is already very happy to sell the current iPad to mostly buyers, not users, who may even be scared of the many buttons and windows of a full featured operating system on their limited but intuitive and easy-to-use device.

Hmmm, I used to use macOS with a Wacom "Pen & Touch" tablet.

Pretty sure (~85%) the "touch" functionality used to work fine.

I also used to have one years ago, like other solutions it mapped some gestures to some functionality, but at the end it just moved the mouse cursor and simulated mouse clicks or double/right clicks.

Really, macOS doesn't really support touch points. I'm astonished how many people don't get it on this thread.

Been thinking this over.

As it seems like people are using "touch" things on macOS and - for them - it's working well... perhaps the "macOS doesn't really support touch points" thing isn't really a problem?

When people can't tell, is it really needed? I mean, it's already working. At least for Wacom tablets. ;)

The modBook, released for the last decade, would like to have a word with you.

Again, Pen != touch.

I actually use a 10-points touch enabled monitor with macOS (because reasons...), it needs aftermarket drivers[0]. And even with them the macOS UI is not touch nor multi-touch ready.

And it seems there are no plans yet for it[1].

[0]: https://www.touch-base.com/

[1]: https://www.macobserver.com/news/craig-federighi-no-touchscr...

MacOS supports touch. Natively.

Try using an iPad as an external display on a Mac using Sidecar.

It will accept Apple Pencil input.

The pencil, unlike fingers, is an accurate pointer device, like the mouse cursor.

This is not a touch input. This is a pen input.

It’s an arbitrary restriction and would probably take 2 lines of code to fix it.

There are third party tools that have fixed it, namely Duet Display

Ok, proof, for everyone.

Just try this website on any iPhone or iPad: http://borismus.github.io/mobile-web-samples/browser-ninja/

You should be able to generate some graphic fractals by touch (or multi-touch).

Now try it with your Sidecar/Duet Display/Wacom touch/whatever.

Good Luck!

PS: You may try it also on some Windows device with touch support (both notebook/convertibles/Surface). It should work, because Windows, unlike macOS, natively supports touch.

They might not have known which chipset is in the device when they got it. It sounds like something you'd find out later own and look into expanding the device's usability, only to get disappointed because (surprise) it's Apple.

The sentence starting with "if only" doesn't sound like it's being made as a good faith argument. Within its form factor, the iPad is still, in spite of its limitations, an obvious leader.

Apple is just built different as a tech company. Even with the limitations their products are vastly, vastly better than the alternatives. It is literally impossible, for example, to get a smartphone from another vendor anywhere near as powerful as the latest iPhone. So people buy iPhones and deal with or work around the limitations.

Vastly, vastly is ridiculous. An iPad Pro is a bit faster than the Samsung Galaxy Tab and there's some nice iOS apps. But it's not leagues better, it's not like comparing a C64 and modern PC, it's like comparing an i5 with an i9. And the limitations Apple stuffs in place actually makes it worse in some ways. Multi-tasking is just plain old better on Samsung Android with the ability to do radical things like have 4 way app splits, overlapping resizable windows and to top it off it's actually somehow MORE intuitive than multi-tasking on the iPad.

Superior hardware is useless if it can't do the things I actually want it to do.

> Even with the limitations their products are vastly, vastly better than the alternatives.

I could claim that my Pixel which lets me run multiple user profiles (each with its own copy of Gmail, Outlook, Teams settings - which I can switch while at work), run Firefox or any other browser, change default apps, change the default Home app, run a server in the background, a working voice assistant, etc - is vastly superior to anything on Apple's devices. But that would be a very subjective opinion.

And FWIW, the Pixel 7 was MKBHD's phone of the year. So I'd say your claims of Apple's offerings being vastly, vastly superious can be easily contested.

Is that portmanteau of "superior" and "specious"? I almost don't want it to be a typo.

. o O ( Leaving aside how typo-ridden some of my own pose have been. )

Their limitations are features in many ways. I don’t need to run a web server on my iPad, but I’m glad that shitty apps can’t be always running wasting battery to provide advert notifications like they used to on android.

That's fine and well, but it's still not a justification for taking the option away from other users.

I don’t need a justification for other peoples use cases. The device does exactly what I want so I bought it. If I waned a device I could run webservers on, I’d buy something else.

If they changed the advertised capabilities after purchase, that would be different.

The device does exactly what I want too, except Apple directly prevents me from loading the code that I want to run on-device.

> If they changed the advertised capabilities after purchase, that would be different.

The suggestion I'm making does not remove any advertised capabilities. There is no 'difference' to speak of. Again, nobody has given a concrete reason why the things that I want stop you from getting what you want.

I disagree for a few reasons. Apple hasn’t taken anything away - the option never existed. This is a meaningful difference up front.

Apple clearly intends to sell a product that delivers a consistent experience, and they do that by refusing to offer some kinds of flexibility.

The moment that flexibility exists, the entire ecosystem changes, and it’s not just about you individually having some option. At that point, it becomes a different product entirely.

I don’t try to take my two wheel drive hatchback off-roading. There are better vehicles for that.

Having a long battery life sells more iPads than being infinitely hackable.

You still haven't explained how the two are mutually exclusive.

But what good is all that power when you can't run the workloads you want to?

I don’t understand. If you can’t run the workloads you want why in the world would you buy one?

“But it could! It has enough power! All they would need to do is overhaul the OS, open the file system, and… Well ok it would probably be easier to add touch to MacOS, how hard could it be? Well ok, to do that properly would take a lot of work but I’ve got it all figured out and Apple is stupid for not….”

Every time people complain about how “crippled” the ipad is they inevitably point out some task that is perfectly suited to a laptop. On top of that, the laptops are less expensive and now have longer batteries. Apple has made the ipad very good at touch and pen computing with a very safe, simple OS. If they stick to that paradigm that will preclude running IDEs, servers, databases, and running arbitrary code. Most of the complaints boil down to MacOS not having touch which I don’t understand either but I wish people would just give the crippled ipad narrative a rest.

Sure, doing stuff like compiling code is perfectly suited to a laptop, but taking notes in math class or drawing a diagram is not. A tablet with a keyboard and pen can do it all, the iPad with its limitations can not. Now you need 2 devices when really one could do.

Personally I don't like MacOS, I'd rather iPadOS just dropped the limiters.

There are workloads that do use that power though. Various drawing, graphics, and photography programs make heavy use of AI. What other processor should Apple use for iPads that need that kind of processing? People that complain about power in the ipad have it backwards. Apple puts in the least powerful processor in the ipad it can and still be able to handle the AI demands, screen responsiveness, storage, and other high end processing needs used by creative people.

“What could you possibly need that much power for on an iPad?” Well, Apple put the M1 in it and now it can run Davinci Resolve, handle many more layers in Procreate, handle more tracks/virtual instruments/effects in audio programs, do incredibly fast ML adjustments in Photoshop/Affinity/Pixelmator etc. Who knows what will be coming out next because of the power available?

Apple takes advantage of economies of scale to put a more powerful processor in the ipad and people actually complain about it. In the meantime app developers make better products and people find new workflows that have opened up.

You can do video editing on the iPad which takes advantage of the full power.

You can also do a lot with audio. The touch interface is much better for playing/performing instruments, sequencers, etc. As the processors get more powerful the apps get better.

> It is literally impossible, for example, to get a smartphone from another vendor anywhere near as powerful as the latest iPhone

What's the point of having all of that extra power if the pre apple silicon iphones could already run their workload fine? It isn't like it will make the device last any longer because of the planned obsolescence with the battery

What's the point of having the most powerful mobile cpu if the average mobile workload won't come close to ever using it?

edit: Maybe it's because apple is trying to diversify the average mobile workload to cover more use cases. This way people who struggle with a full desktop OS won't have to leave the safe and happy garden

Reply on news.ycombinator.com