Hacker News Reader

Comment by jeppester | Hacker News Reader

It's the same every time. When Apple gets called out for monopolistic anti-consumer behaviour, an army shows up to defend Apple with a bunch of FUD.

No, it won't hurt you or your grandma that you can choose app store, choose browser engine, choose payment provider, that you can charge with usb c, etc., and in this case that non-apple users won't be mocked with different colored bubbles and other limitations. Every concern is either blown out of proportions or can easily be solved with the slightest bit of willpower.

Choice leads to better competition and thus better products whereas lock-in leads to complacency and stagnancy.

View on HN

On the other hand, why is such a tiny, tiny fraction of people so insistent on invading the Apple ecosystem?

I made my choice for Apple in part because of its relatively closed nature compared to its only meaningful competitor. But it was a choice. I used to be the biggest anti-Apple person, too. Until I used their products. The quality is just superior in every way that consumers actually care about. Hypothesis: a substantial fraction of current Android users would switch if they could afford an iPhone (either by a price drop from Apple or an increase in their disposable income).

Wow, what a sanctimonious, holier than thou attitude.

I can easily afford an Apple phone, it's weird that you would even mention the price because they're not expensive compared to top end Android phones. But I wouldn't touch one with a 10ft pole.

I'm a power user who customizes everything and needs to do lots of nerdy things like use dvorak keyboard layout, ssh to my home server, use apps connected to services on my home server, use an offline password manager, "sideload" all kinds of shit that would never be allowed in their crappy dongle-addicted consumer-hostile "ecosystem", write my own apps, etc, etc. I prefer to have local backups/encryption keys, and as little cloud profile as possible.

I'm already irritated even just thinking about being forced to use an iPhone. "Quality is superior", HAAHAHA. I've actually worked supporting macOS stuff before. HAHAHAHA.

Yes I know I'm not the target market for Apple crap but Apple's success encourages other corporations to do the same bullshit.

I love computers, always have. I always thought Computers should make human lives better, more enjoyable and more connected, not be a mechanism to segment society and shovel more disposable dongles and earpods.

So I'm insistent on the government "invading" the Apple ecosystem because the Apple ecosystem is an anticompetitive cancer that infects other corporations, normalizing terrible behavior and creating arbitrary limits on the usefulness of computers where there should be none.

Of course it's more lucrative to milk your victims... That's why when corporations step over the line, governments need to step in. Yes I know how rarely that works properly.

Fuck Apple and fuck Apple apologists. They're ruining technology one dongle at a time.

We can’t have choice if bodies like the EU (led by appointed, not elected, politicians) decide on technical standards.

It’s egregious that the EU will force a lowest-common-denominator implementation of messaging on independent private companies who, up to this point, have all been innovating in this space.

The EU desperately wants to compromise end to end encryption, so we KNOW that that the EU is not acting in the public interest when it comes to legislating messaging services.

I’m taking the leap that you’re from the US - if you’re not, then the first comment may not apply to you.

> bodies like the EU (led by appointment, not elected politicians) decide on technical standards

The president of the United States is not directly elected.They are voted by the electoral college, which introduces all the problems of gerrymandering. EU council are appointed - by politicians from each country, directly elected. You could argue it is less problematic.

> will force a lowest-common-denominator implementation on independent private companies who, up to this point, Havel all been innovating in this space

I prefer to see this as “they will mandate a minimum interoperaability standard on a public, regulated, communications service, which is conceded by the nations. And colouring bubbles green or blue is not innovation. Neither is refusing to work with others that have at least as good implementations just to keep your walled garden. > the EU desperately wants to compromise end to end encryption

Not “the EU”, some council members. A sufficiently large number of EU countries are adamantly against that proposed legislation, it has more chance of not passing at this point.

I’m from the U.K. which is why I care deeply about representative democracy. Our system has stood the test of time.

You criticise companies for “refusing to work with others” on messaging. Why should companies be forced into a cartel-like relationship with each other? Surely innovation absolutely depends on companies independently creating new technologies and benefiting from that R&D directly? How can consumers have choice, and how can innovation flourish if companies are required to collude, rather than compete, on developing products?

This proposal is not intended to force Apple to work with anybody else. It’s intended to stop them from actively preventing others from working with them.

The example given in a few other comments is allowing anyone to build an iMessage capable app for Android. There’s no requirement that Apple builds this themselves, but it’s currently impossible and/or restricted by Apple. I don’t know enough about the How to comment on that part.

Do you understand how Apple does true end-to-end encryption with trusted enclave device keys? Or how they can now allow you to prevent Apple themselves from being able to see any of your data?

Do you follow why e.g. third party password vault companies can enable certain key protocols on newer Macs and iOS devices they can't on most other devices?

Apple's not just software. It's not just hardware. It's an experience built from logic expressed in both bits and circuits that works together to provide a solution.

Clamoring to be let into the middle of the stack misunderstands the nature of Apple's product offering, which is a trusted curated experience.

Passing rules against this effectively removes this option from the consumer marketplace, depriving consumers of the full-product (software and hardware seamlessly united to offer a capability impossible when separate) choice.

To be clear, nothing stops anyone else from also offering a comprehensive product with stronger guarantees and richer experience. But it's easier to be mad that Apple's users stay in the walled garden (they are lovely places, btw, there's a reason wealthy people build them!) instead of wanting riff raff to come in hawking their wares strewing litter everywhere. It's easier to incite the pop pitchforks and "we're doing something here" government critters.

Lobbying and propaganda costs less than R&D.

The UK’s “democracy” is a joke. Between an unelected head of state, first past the post and the most corrupt financial system on earth, almost any country does better.

The UK has an elected Prime Minister who acts as the head of state in all meaningful functions. The monarch has held a merely ceremonial position since 1688 (the Glorious Revolution).

Regarding electoral systems, I'd choose PR over FPTP, because PR suits my political aims at the current time.

Despite this, I understand the benefits of FPTP as a system, and I can see why a country with a long-running and mature democracy (like the UK) would want it. It's important that political parties are forced to develop a long-term record, and credibility. If we ditch FPTP, then single-issue parties will come and go frequently, allowing bad politicians to go somewhat unchecked.

In terms of corrupt financial systems, I think you need to read up on some history if you think the UK has the worst. Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Afghanistan, North Korea, Yemen, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Russia. And of course, the US, whose regulatory failures, speculation and novel (AKA sketchy) forms of debt caused the World's largest economic shocks in both the 20th and 21st centuries.

Tories think that. Almost no one else here does.

It does hurt as far as payment for me. Subscriptions with Apple Pay is where it’s at, one place to manage all subscriptions way outside the control of developers is peak use ability imo. I can personally get behind a different browser engine and maybe App Store but I hope they leave Apple Pay alone.

I think you mean app store subscriptions. Apple Pay and app store subscriptions are two different things.

But I do agree with you; I see three likely scenarios:

1. An application offers two payment options: app store and standalone, with a "discount" given to standalone.

2. They change nothing

3. They remove app store subscriptions and force you to their website/app for managing payment/subscription.

If an app chooses option 3, this is where the user is "hurt". I don't see this happening often because I would wager that a service's subscription numbers would take a massive hit. Too many users are accustom to the simplicity that has been offered by in-app purchases/subscriptions.

> It's the same every time. When Apple gets called out for monopolistic anti-consumer behaviour, an army shows up to defend Apple with a bunch of FUD.

It is mostly a response to the army that shows up to attack Apple with a bunch of FUD.

I don’t see speech bubble color.

I see speech bubble contents.

Green bubbles are limited in terms of contents too. iMessage allows uncompressed video and images whereas the regular messages are limited to smaller compressed videos and images.

Making iMessage available to android would be nice, but there’s no way Apple would make it convenient.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com