If people want to buy an iphone and shit it up, let them do it.
macOS has proven for decades that a reasonably proprietary OS can be distributed and kept reasonably secure when apps are installed on it outside of an App Store. There's even third-party App Stores on macOS like Steam, Homebrew, and a few more that Indie developers use to distribute apps.
I want this personally for me. But I paid extra money to get my mom an iPhone exactly because she won't be able to stuff like this.
I used to regularly have to fix her android phone and the last time she was trying to download an app for tracking hours at work, and somehow downloaded the wrong app with a similar name, this app loaded with 3 different pop ups telling her to install other ad filled apps with generic names like "PDF reader".
OP is right, it should be an explicit jailbreaking process that has a technical barrier to entry where my mom can't be talked into doing it over the phone but an enterprising young person could figure it out.
It probably doesn't need to be as cumbersome as a jailbreak. Maybe it's just a "Allow apps not approved by Apple" toggle hidden deep in the settings. I actually would love the ability to set "IT administrator account" on device setup. Then mom can't even change the setting without notifying "dmix" :)
People have been saying this for more than a decade, but it still hasn’t happened; there are still zero restrictions about what you can and can’t install on macOS.
> but "the exact same problems" is absolutely an incorrect statement
> the last time she was trying to download an app for tracking hours at work, and somehow downloaded the wrong app with a similar name
> There was even a post on HN last week about an scam app being the first result in the app store
it's the _exact same problem_
To me, for the problem to be "exactly" the same, it would need to occur at a similar level. I do not believe (based on my personal or professional experience) that this is occuring at a similar level on iOS or Android.
You're right the same specific style of problem happens at both, but if it's significantly more on one than the other then it's hard to honestly say they're the same.
That being said I don’t think that’s necessarily a valid reason to completely lock things down, but it definitely should be prohibitively difficult for a vulnerable-to-phishing person to enable.
I love that I have all non tech savvy people in my life are using. Devices that just work, they all seem happy too. I get the idealistic nature of these lawsuits but people buy these phones for the fact they work and for the protected App Store. Including myself.
At first I got into Apple’s ecosystem because it ticked the boxes of being Unix-compatible yet very capable (perhaps rivaling Windows) of working with multimedia, which I did and do.
However, the older I get and the more I lurk here and elsewhere, the more I realize there is another reason: I am not an expert, the aforementioned weeks spent on securing my device are not substantially benefitting my life and are better spent on something else, and while no one should completely give up on keeping up-to-date with modern attack vectors paying someone to do that work more competently is worthwhile.
I still go to crazy lengths to avoid closed products in actual work I do, but I consider a base system that is maybe proprietary but just works, and securely enough, to be providing value in that way and enabling me to provide more value in turn.
And I still consider myself more knowledgeable than 95% of my friends and relatives, so there’s them to think about.
If you want to child-lock you mom's phone, you should have the ability to do so. Default for adults getting any sort of hardware should be that they are in charge, and any nanny should be opt-in.
I like how iOS works and I would prefer the government does not force Apple to change anything about it.
It's much safer! Just think what could happen to you in some ghetto! And that guy is completely creepy anyway.
That's pretty much what your argument sounds like to me. Hardware vendors (perhaps other than hardware preconfigured for a particular purpose, i.e. picture frame) should have no say in what runs on that hardware, full stop.
I assume it is legally possibly to sell a car under those conditions, so I don’t even have to imagine. Nobody does it because it would be unpopular and serve no benefit to anyone, not because it’s illegal.
Oh, and pay a 30% tax on all petrol purchases straight to Mr Ford, how's that?
That’s called public transit.
Just not the freedom to choose a walled garden (with its own set of - yes - positives). That choice needs to be taken away. For your freedom.
One might say - managed freedom.
There, problem solved.
Wrong, they are not giving anything up. They gain an option and lose nothing. Gaining a new opt-in feature is not a loss and is in fact the opposite. Nobody has to "give up" anything.
> Remind me again why "buy any other phone in the world" isn't sufficient for everyone else if this check box is supposed to be sufficient for current iPhone customers?
Also - whilst you're correct in spirit - people are giving up an element of safety. The concept of being able to install anything I want on my iPhone is appealing to me, but not to when I support the technology my 90 year old grandmother uses. Having a locked down device is appealing to me and a complete non-issue to her.
We (in my country, I assume yours has similar rules) don't allow children to buy alcohol, cigarettes, knives or spraypaint, don't allow people to drive without seatbelts, don't allow guns without a license, don't allow cars to be sold without minimal safety ratings etc. These restrictions are annoying for a few but are a positive for most of society.
And unlike most of the above examples, you can easily and legally purchase another smart phone without the guard rails in place. This is for sure a loss for the consumer market as a whole.
Yes, you can buy a different phone, but Apple still has a serious hold on the market that affects its competitors, especially when it acts in a way that is anti-competitive. If Apple locking down their store in a way that is extremely user-hostile makes them a billion dollars and they walk away unpunished, how long will its competitors refrain from doing the same for? Apple is large enough that they affect me personally even if I do not use their products.
Agreed. But just because there are multiple potential vectors doesn't mean we should ignore them.
> If you believe it is an issue regardless then safeguards can be implemented such as child safety features or simply allowing you to opt-out (or even not opt-in) when you're setting up your grandma's iPhone for her or whatever.
You can MDM lock an iPhone (and I assume Android), but only from initial setup. This also requires a technical skillset and a backend or paid subscription. I agree opt-in safeguards are more appropriate. However until those are a simple option, taking away the alternative is not great.
> If Apple locking down their store in a way that is extremely user-hostile makes them a billion dollars and they walk away unpunished, how long will its competitors refrain from doing the same for? > Apple is large enough that they affect me personally even if I do not use their products.
How? I genuinely don't understand this rationale, it always seems so vague.
If a vendor acts in a way you don't like, you purchase from elsewhere. If an Android vendor decided to follow suit, another would choose not to and you could stick with them.
If bizarrely they all chose to, ColourOS, Graphine etc are all options, significantly easier than in the past.
Even Linux phones and KaiOS are potentially viable alternative to fill the needs of the average user.
How does Apple having a walled garden have any impact on you at all, aside from a theoretical house of cards that consumers wouldn't tolerate?
But there was nothing on the Mac stopping Zoom from putting a backdoor web server on Macs.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/10/20689644/apple-zoom-web-s...
No, I don’t want Apple to set the precedent that they will delete your whole business if you make an architecture choice they feel is not perfect.
That’s not really true. Despite the dangers of centralized app censorship, the state of security on iOS is far beyond that of macOS.
I'd love it if Apple provided a way to protect against this sort of thing.
This is Hacker News; maximizing the freedom to hack our own property is an inviolable position.
I agree we should force platforms to be more.open and interoperable, but we can get at least part way there by not allowing them to sue innovators.
They didn't tell Apple not to charge 30% for their App Store. They can charge 90% for all they care.
They told Apple they mustn't block other installation methods.
So the question remains whether the spirit of the DMA is "users should be able to install the software they want on their computers" or "businesses offering apps and services should be able to compete with Apple on the iPhone". Is this a fundamentally a pro-user law or a pro-business law? There may be overlap, but they are not the same.
It really is amazing hearing Apple people talk about the world.
Luckily, you have a choice. Other companies make handheld computers that align better with your definition of ownership.
—they were marketed as phones that can compute, instead of as computers that can phone.
That's the crux: people would never have accepted the restrictions on computers like the iPhone, if that thing were instead sold as a general computer called the iPalm or similar. But since it's sold as a phone, any thing else it can do is more easily perceived as a bonus, and we hardly feel the restrictions at the beginning.
Only people who see smartphones for what they really are, general purpose palmtops that can make phone calls, can really perceive the egregiousness of those restrictions. The first step then, is generalising this understanding to everyone.
A good first step, I think, would be to start naming those things more accurately. I'd personally suggest "palmtop".
A general purpose computer would be hard to use if it had an OOM killer instead of swap and if running the CPU full speed shut it off because it got too hot inside. (Using it too hard can also drain the battery even if it's on a full strength charger.)
phones are actually more general-purpose since they travel with you and know where you are.
This is straight up lala-land. Phones do banking, browsing, document writing, printing, video editing. Many people don't even have a computer.
> OOM killer instead of swap
Windows 10 apps work like that.
> Running the CPU full speed shut it off because it got too hot inside.
Happens to some crappy laptops. These are basically irrelevant details.
And remember, they don't do Flash ;)
It's web pages that changed to fit on phones, more than the other way round.
Don't most modern (>2010) CPU's thermal throttle until they are back within operating temps? You'd have to stuff a laptop inside a backpack while maxing it to get it to overheat to the point of resetting
Yes, apple has about half the market today, that’s not the same thing as being first-mover. In fact it’s actually completely different because people had to make the choice to move away from the first-movers to apple.
People literally did give up their blackberries and palms and Jornadas for iPhone, consciously and deliberately, because it was a better product. And now you want to change the product and erode the benefits back to the minimum standard defined by android. That’s a taking.
It was a better product because of its capacitive multi-touch screen and its overall speed (which I must insist depends more on what apps are installed by default than on the restrictions on third party apps).
Do you remember the first iPhone? Or for that matter what "mobile development" looked like before the iPhone? The first iPhone was more "tolled" and "gate kept" than any iPhone we have today. There was NO app store. To get an app on the iPhone, Apple had to make it, which meant you had to be big enough for Apple to care. Google got a Youtube app because they were that big. At some point Facebook had a built in integration (though I don't remember if it was a full fledged app). That was it. Development for the phone was going to be "web apps" only, without the biggest "web app" framework at the time, Flash. Compared to the first iPhones, a modern iPhone is wide open to all sorts of developers.
But perhaps more than that, even that first iPhone was leaps and bounds for most people over what prior devices were (save perhaps Palm Treos) in terms of "openness". Before the iPhone, the carriers decided what your phone could and couldn't do. A Razr phone from AT&T could send and receive data over bluetooth (like contacts and ring tones). That same exact phone from Verizon could only use bluetooth for headsets. Data transfer was locked down to vVrizon's own service (with a fee of course). Mobile app development was a crap shoot of different sdks and licensing costs per device, and then a hope that each carrier would allow your bejeweled clone, and served up through their services, of which they took HUGE cuts of the revenue. The 30/70 split of the iPhone app store was quite literally "revolutionary" in the cell phone space.
Which leads one to wonder if the tolling and gate keeping is such a hinderance, why is it that the iPhone remains so successful despite their largest competitor having none of those restrictions, pretty much from the get go. It's not like Apple was open and suddenly slammed the gates down on apps and iPhone development. And it's not like Android's openness is brand new. So the question that has to be asked is why does Apple continue to sell so well despite the restrictions? Why hasn't Android eaten all of Apple's market share as a massive open platform where anyone can do anything?
I don't know, perhaps you should ask that to someone who actually made that argument? If I recall, people are still buying cigarettes, are they not? Stuff doesn't have to be good for you to sell good.
---
I don't dispute the facts you lay out here. I'll even cite game console as other general purpose computers that were (and still are) quite heavily locked down too. Apple however made one step further, and managed to sell a locked down general purpose computer for purposes other than gaming.
At the root of it all, I think, is how hardware vendors got away with selling their stuff without the full manual. Some instead provide a proprietary Windows driver. Others hide keys in them, don't tell users what they are, and then lobby to send heroic reverse engineers to jail. If I was the regulator I would probably start there.
It's even worse than that: though I stand by what I said, you're correct, people are gradually realising that the difference between their smartphone and laptop/desktop (if any), is one of degree, not kind. But we don't see the push back we would have seen if they had realised right away. Instead, as you rightly point out, companies are building on Apple's precedent to try and expand their model to our good old laptops and desktops.
And it looks like they're succeeding. It would seem one has to pay Apple to even get the right to distribute a regular MacOS program regular users can actually execute (no Apple developer plan, no code signing). And newer versions of Windows are displaying increasingly scary warnings for programs telling you they "protected" your computer, which are bad enough that we get tutorials about how to get past them.
So long as it is the customers making that choice, and they have access to alternatives, then it's not really a problem. If apple were advertising the iphone as a consumer product that had no such digital restrictions in an effort to hoodwink people into buying them, or if iphone were the only serious game in town, then those restrictions would be an issue, but right now iphones are advertised as being worth more than their competitors specifically because of those restrictions, and people are willing to pay such premiums. That you personally would not make the same decision does not mean they've been manipulated by anti-competitive measures into making theirs.
If someone were to make a consumer product that worked better for my use cases at the expense of being worse at or even incapable of doing things I don't intend to use it for, I should have the option to buy it. If you don't like the restrictions, buy something else. That's not anti-competitive, that is exactly how competition is supposed to work.
Can you buy the display from a supplier that supplies Apple and put together your own phone? No, they have exclusive agreement with apple.
Their anticompetitive practices Make It incredibly difficult and complex to put together a device. That's the whole point!
If the linux community as small as it is can produce multiple varied and unique linux distributions largely on the backs of volunteers, there's no reason why these manufacturers (especially some of the bigger names) couldn't do the same with Android / Linux and their own hardware. And whatever reason is behind the failure of literally the entire cellphone industry to do what they were doing before the advent of iOS and Android, it isn't because Apple is somehow stopping them from making their own OS, and SDKs and app stores.
Huh, I must've missed all the iPhone ads touting the device's inability to play Fortnight as a premium feature.
I mean, what gp wants is literally just there on the shelves and they don’t want it. But they also want it, but in Apple, because it’s nicer when Apple does[n’t] it. Why would they want it after Apple does it?
Voting with your wallet works very badly when there are two main options. Which anti-consumer behaviors do you pick? When something is bad enough, it's better to make it illegal for all options.
But allowing software vendors to ignore AppStore will eventually lead to my bank apps, local maps apps, delivery apps etc to go non-AppStore-only route and do whatever they want on my phone, because I have no alternative (except for not using my phone). The first thing one of my bank apps did on my android phone was to install some sort of an “antivirus firewall” which abused every access and semi-exploit to make sure I’m “safe”.
Your ideas will affect me, and I can’t see why your (and my) inconvenience is more important than my security. It’s not just “better”. I’m asking to consider this perspective as well.
And I'm skeptical that governments would stop Apple from enforcing a rule that says apps have to let you refuse permissions.
This is the very definition of bad-faith motte-and-bailey argumentation, and it’s logically incoherent to boot. Get apple out of regulating apps and App Stores, no more telling developers what they can do! Oh and i guess they can tell developers to do one thing…
My opinion isn't changed by the fact that I can purchase from a company that doesn't do that.
Why not? If you don’t want a car with this property, don’t buy one — how are you being harmed?
One good reason in this particular examples is I don’t want subscription based heated seats to become popular, because then I won’t have a choice anymore.
How the DMCA hasn't been struck down by the Supreme Court as an abridgment of the 1st Amendment, I really don't know.
This whole situation maps to iPhones as well. As things stand when you purchase an iPhone you own a glass brick, and Apple owns the phone part. They graciously allow you to use their phone to perform a certain limited set of activities. I am fundamentally opposed to this sort of non-ownership. Whether the buyer had an option to purchase a roughly-equivalent item with different terms is irrelevant; selling someone a product while retaining ownership of it is a mockery of property rights. Some rights are too important to allow people to sign them away with the tap of a button. When the market missteps by rewarding bad behavior like this it is the job of our democratic governments to step in and mandate good behavior.
[0]: this is made up to illustrate a point, I don't actually know how Roomba service works
I feel like someone who woke up in the middle ages with a fever and they are trying to cure me with leeches. Yes yes. No need to worry. Let the leech do it's work and you too will be secure from the plague.
Does anyone actually know anyone that has gotten hacked on their Android phone?
I do see people saying they like how Apple devices work, and that they consciously choose Apple devices over devices from other manufacturers. Those are informed consumers making a choice you wouldn’t make. It’s not sad. Some people won’t agree with you in life. That’s normal.
Choice does exist in the market. There are far more than 2 manufacturers, and some of them focus on more HN-ish people who have more principles than I do.
I don’t really want the government to limit my smartphone choices in this way, but I also realize that Apple devices will continue to exist and will mostly work the way they do today, so it’s not that big a deal to me.
Point 2 being the H in HN stands for Hacker defined as: "a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data." Then the argument becomes why are people who are reading HN and, presumably, calling themselves hackers so interested in keeping status quo and letting Apple control everything? I think we go back to argument 1 and excluding others, green bubbles and such making a subset "better" than others. Elitist as F and some folks, like myself cannot stand for this and take time to explain the failure to others.
Pretty simple really ;)
It sounds like you’re assuming that people are in a “cult” because they don’t share some of your opinions. I’m sure that’s not what you’re doing, because you are a rational person engaging in a rational discussion. Can you help me understand what you really meant?
> Then the argument becomes why are people who are reading HN and, presumably, calling themselves hackers so interested in keeping status quo and letting Apple control everything?
Because they like Apple devices. Next question.
> I think we go back to argument 1 and excluding others, green bubbles and such making a subset "better" than others. Elitist as F and some folks, like myself cannot stand for this and take time to explain the failure to others.
It sounds like you’re upset because some people who buy Apple devices make jokes about “green bubbles” and “blue bubbles”. I’m sorry that happened to you. Nobody likes getting their feelings hurt.
I’m generally opposed to snobbery, but I don’t think it’s illegal.
> Pretty simple really ;)
Cool winky face.
I don't even use an iPhone, I do use some Apple hardware as well as my household, but still stand for openness and am not in favor of walled gardens.
Snobbery is mostly about people trying to explain their usage of devices that break core tenements of open [internet, hardware, software ...] with poor arguments of "I like what I get" or simply "I got mine" and you can't for reasons.
Pretty sure some of the shills here are heavily invested in Apple stocks.
Excellent comment, it sums the situation up very well. And the above extract encapsulates the matter in just a few words.
The issue is that your choice is constrained by vertical integration. If you like Apple's hardware, or iOS, or iMessage, or any number of other things, these are all tied together with Apple's app store when they should not be. It's like encountering a retail monopoly in California and someone tells you that you're lucky because you can shop at another store and all you have to do is move to Florida, which also has a retail monopoly, but a different one.
Obviously this is not the same thing, and does not have the same benefits, as multiple stores being right next to each other and allowing you to choose the one you want on a per-purchase basis.
The counterpoint is: if bacon is so bad awful and bad for you we should probably regulate its sale, rather than leave that up to a company bullying other companies.
No it’s not. It’s constrained by one’s preferences as a consumer. If I am concerned about vertical integration, I will not choose an Apple device. Personally, I am not concerned about vertical integration. It seems to make my devices work better.
> If you like Apple's hardware, or iOS, or iMessage, or any number of other thing, these are all tied together with Apple's app store when they should not be.
Why not? Because you say so? Or because it harms consumers? Can you describe how it harms consumers? Smartphones are cheap and plentiful. Cloud-based apps and services are too.
Yes, I might have to make some tough choices as a consumer. Maybe no company makes the perfect device for me. I might really like iMessage, but hate iPhone hardware. But there are lots of viable competitors to iMessage and plenty of viable mobile devices on which to run them. “I don’t get to use iMessage on my Pixel phone” is not evidence of harm.
> It's like encountering a retail monopoly in California and someone tells you that you're lucky because you can shop at another store and all you have to do is move to Florida, which also has a retail monopoly, but a different one.
No, it’s not. Switching mobile platforms is nothing like migrating 2000+ miles in terms of difficulty or expense. If you want to use a retail analogy, it’s like complaining that you can’t buy Kirkland-branded products at Wal-Mart.
Nope, the problem very much is that they won't allow alternative browser engines, specifically so that they can force a crippled Safari browser with limited APIs to force people to write apps instead of web apps, forcing more traffic to their store. It's explicitly anti-competitive behavior.
>It's their store and they ought to be able to curate it however they like.
It's kind of forced fraud to call Chrome in iOS as "Chrome". It's like trying to sell someone a Ferrari that's just a facade bolted onto 2010 Honda. It's not Chrome, it's actually Safari - and its seems like people are finally starting to wake up to this abusive behavior that Apple has been getting away with for far too long.
Microsoft had a famous anti-trust case against them for simply bundling IE with Windows - not from forcing their engine on every other "browser" that gets installed. Apple is doing far worse than that and getting away with it for far too long.
>The problem is that users cannot reasonably install software through any means other than that single store.
That's one of the many other problems outlined by the DOJ today.
>The problem is that Apple reserves special permissions and system integrations for their own apps and denies them to anyone else.
Also another problem.
>However, these sorts of lawsuits or regulations that seek to force Apple to change App Store policies feel so wrong-headed and out of touch.
I was clapped out loud when I watched the DOJ announcement today. I cheered. They actually mentioned "Developers", which is a group I am part of, and I feel the pain that dealing with Apple and Safari is. Apple absolutely deserves this, and it's about time.
Your goals aren’t aligned, you’re just a useful idiot to them and they’ll cast you aside as soon as they no longer need you. The end result of the push isn’t going to be “free as in freedom” for everybody here, just Microsoft capturing 90% of a revenue stream instead of 70%.
Classic populism moment - but of course it’s “populism, but on the computer”.
Freedoms for users and freedom for business are two fundamentally opposed and conflicting goals, see: GPL vs MIT/BSD. And in their moment of victory, businesses will just steamroll right over you - just like they literally already did with consoles.
It’s just crazy that they have these exceptions when their own hardware is very much general-purpose on a technical level, and when they’re actively pushing to use that general-purpose capability to ensnare users with AI features and other crap.
Sony and Microsoft are two of the platforms that stand to gain the most from AI adoption literally purely on the basis of being closed platforms with proprietary APIs (plus a minimal amount of interop for embrace-extend-extinguish) with millions of active users and a captive audience of dev studios who have no choice but to use Sony and Microsoft’s closed, gatekept platforms.
Somehow the plight of poor little Larian being stepped on by Sony and Microsoft and Epic just doesn’t make the front page of HN like apple hate.
The next generation isn't necessarily choosing, though.
Their parents are giving into their demands for *an iPhone due to social pressures entirely originated by Apple's monopolistic behavior (iMessage green bubbles).
Then, when they're locked into the Apple ecosystem from the start, it's almost impossible to break out -- even if you grow up into a mature adult that doesn't give a shit about bubble colors.
Interoperability (being able to exit an ecosystem without massive downsides, specifically) between the only two parties in a de facto duopoly is absolutely necessary and morally right, and it's a shame market failures force the judiciary to intervene. But we are where we are and there's no use putting lipstick on a pig -- the system as it stands is broken, and if left alone will feed on itself and become even more broken.
First of all, we don't have that problem here in europe. People just use cross-platform messengers.
Secondly, I don't understand why a company should be forced to bring its service to a platform it doesn't care about. Apple supports the default carrier messaging standards (SMS/MMS). It's not Apple's fault that they suck. In fact Apple explicitely created iMessage because SMS/MMS were absolutely terrible.
If RCS is considered a standard (is it?), then Apple should absolutely support it and apparently they plan to do so. Seems fine to me.
While I personally don't use iMessage I'd prefer it if the service was available everywhere, but I don't see why Apple should be forced to support other platforms. Just because iMessage is popular? Imagine a world where WhatsApp was either an iOS- or Android-exclusive app. Should they be forced to develop for a platform they don't care about too? What about popular iOS-exclusive apps like Things? What about Garageband or Logic? Or Super Mario games on Nintendo?
> Their parents are giving into their demands for *an iPhone due to social pressures entirely originated by Apple's monopolistic behavior (iMessage green bubbles).
First of all, we don't have that problem here in europe
Apple could have open up their API. Or not try to shut it down so hard when someone finds a way around to use their API
Find me any other service that would ok with this? Beeper wanted to piggyback on Apple's network _and_ charge users for using Apple's servers for free. Are we going to force companies to provide an open API for all their services _and_ offer them at a reasonable cost? We saw what happened with Reddit and I have no doubt Apple would similarly charge high fees. I'm not saying I think this would be bad thing (forcing open APIs) but it better be a wide sweeping change not something targeted at a single company.
Lastly what are the rules around spam? Where is the line where Apple can tell a client or a company they refuse to do business with them due to the spam/malicious messages they send. Say what you will about iMessage being locked down but I can count on 2 hands max the number of spam iMessage messages I've recieved. On the other hand I get multiple SMS spam messages every day that I cannot unsubscribe from or block (they change numbers with every message). Aside from TOTP (which I wish they'd just let me use my own client instead of sending them) I could block pretty much all SMS and be happier for it.
This is basically saying you only use TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, Tinder, Gmail, Google Maps, and play zero to some handful of mega huge F2P games.
Why have an App Store at all then? You don't use it. It's an installation wizard for you, not a store.
Don't you see? This stuff doesn't interact with restrictions at all. The problem with the App Store is that it sucks, not that it's restricted.
> making their app store worse
I've heard this take from so many people. It is already as bad as it gets. The App Store is an utter disaster. They have failed in every aspect to make a thriving ecosystem. It is just the absolute largest, hugest, best capitalized, least innovative apps and games.
This doesn't have to be the case at all. Look at Steam. Even Linux package managers have more diversity with more apps that thrive.
For me, one of the features of a centralised app store is that I buy and subscribe to apps through the app store, which centralises my app subscriptions within my Apple account. I wouldn't have this functionality if I was pulling in apps outside of the app store.
I can go into my Apple account and see every subscription I have and cancel it from within. No shoddy dark website behavior that makes it hard to unsubscribe, I can do it all there.
This just one feature that I find handy in having a single store.
My phone isn't a general-purpose computer in the way that my laptop is. My phone is an appliance. When I use my phone, I'm not actually using the phone itself, I'm using the email app to manage my emails, or the web browser to look at some news website, or Instagram to watch some reels, or Slack to communicate with my colleagues, or etc. The phone is just a conduit for apps/workflows.
I do avoid Windows for those things, though.
Very nearly every halfway serious computer-involved activity I do these days (=last seven or eight years) that matters in my actual, real life takes place on my phone, including approximately all banking. All the other computers—even the "real" ones—in my life are basically toys. 90% of my real-life important or meaningful stuff I do with computers happens on my phone, 9% on a tablet, and at-most 1% on everything else.
(in my personal life, I mean—unfortunately I still have to try to use "real" computers to accomplish allegedly-important things at work)
As it currently stands, the options for Linux VMs on an iPad are:
- iSH, a Linux kernel ABI compatible user-mode x86 emulator that uses threaded code (ROP chains) as a substitute for a proper JIT, but doesn't support all x86 applications[0].
- UTM, a port of QEMU that requires JIT (and thus, either an external debugger or a jailbreak) to run a full x86 or ARM OS.
- UTM SE (Slow Edition), which is UTM but using the threaded code technique from iSH, which is not only slower than iSH because it runs both kernel and user mode, but also got banned from TestFlight before they could even make an App Store submission (probably because it can get to a desktop while iSH can't).
All of these suck in different ways.
[0] Notably, rustc gives an illegal instruction error and mysql crashes trying to do unaligned atomics
> On my workstation and phone, where I do my banking and read emails, I'm willing to trade control and customizability for an extremely locked down high trust operating environment.
Excuse my French, but uh what? A browser accessing a bank in a Linux virtual machine running on bare metal is by far more secure than desktop MacOS running on bare metal.
At the end of the day, for the activity you described (browsing), what you must be able to defend against is the inherent insecurity of the browser. Linux provides all manners of process, network, etc isolation via CGroups and can be enhanced by SecComp to limit the usage of typical exotic syscalls used in kernel exploits.
MacOS has what for that? The best opportunity you have for defense is to run qemu so that you can run... Linux. The corporation you work for doesn't use Apple because of their stellar security posture, it uses Apple because they can buy mobile devices (phones, laptops) preconfigured with MDM which saves a lot of money.
It has sandboxing, which does all that stuff.
(iOS has even more, like JIT protections.)
Facts are most definitely not in evidence for this claim.
I get a lot of hard to solve Google CAPTCHA on many websites I visit so I know Google is having a hard time tracking me :-)
In terms of security, I don't think Pixel is less secure than the iPhone. It gets security updates regularly, Google invests a lot in security and I don't think the Pixel has more zero days than the iPhone...
So all in all, I don't buy into the "iPhone is more secure and handles your privacy better than Android" narrative
With an iPhone you are stuck with whatever new decision from Apple with no opt-out. That’s abnormal.
See, I’d be ok to say that Apple can do whatever they want with iOS the day they give me the keys to the boot loader. Until then, they’ll have to assume their role of gatekeeper.
I have no issues with walled gardens as long as you’ve got the key to leave. Here the key to leave is called "throw your $1000 phone to buy another".
And Airport security loves invasive search - why do people understand one is a violation of privacy, but tolerate the other?
Just look at cases where governments abuse Apple's power over users to squash protests and delete important Apps from the Appstore. Without competing Appstores users are left at the mercy of a trillion dollar company which cares about profits and profits only. Not being able to freely install apps from any source the owner of the computing device prefers is outrageous and we can only thank the EU commission for recognizing that.
https://www.npr.org/2019/10/10/768841864/after-china-objects...
Which iPad owner ever thinks "oh I wish my iPad were even less capable"? Most people are annoyed by its limitations but they accept it as a trade off. I personally would use my iPad much more if it were as capable & open as a Mac.
Me, kinda. I've disliked most of the moves to make it more like a general purpose computing platform and less like a slab of glass that becomes different tools (but mostly one at a time!). I have other options for that other crap, the iPad was (still is... barely) a distinct different category that I liked also having. iOS 6 is peak-iOS to me.
https://www.qubes-os.org/intro/, snapd and BSD jails are all forms of locking down a general computer OS ways similar to the way iOS is locked down, and things that individual users choose to do on their own computers. Sure those users can install anything else they want as well, but then there's also a reason why these things are niche, even within the nice of *nix users. Because the administration and management is a headache and people don't generally want to do that.
>Turns out that grown ups don't need Apple to babysit them for additional "security"
I think you have an over estimation of the average "grown ups" ability to judge the safety and security of their computer or the software they run on it. There are plenty of people out there who do not want or need to understand system security and administration and are much better served by having someone else manage that for them. There's a reason why Windows and MacOS are still more popular than Linux, and there's a reason why in the Linux world, Red Hat, CentOS, Debian and Ubuntu are more popular than Arch. People only have a limited amount of time and energy to dedicate to things and not everyone wants to dedicate theirs to our shared hobby.
And having certain restrictions to hide complexity from users to hide complexity is by no means comparable to "security" whose only purpose is to shackle users so they can never escape obscene fees because Apple uses the same strategy as the mafia: "pay us for protection".
If it's not voluntary, what's the difference between Apple's behavior and Tony Soprano's behavior?
If you read past the first sentence, you would discover I wrote more than just that one. In fact, the second sentence which starts with:
>Sure those users can install anything else they want as well
and then goes on to explain why super hardened security OSs aren't even mainstream among tech people who should in theory be all about super hardened security in their OS.
>If it's not voluntary, what's the difference between Apple's behavior and Tony Soprano's behavior?
Except it is voluntary. Apple didn't force anyone to buy an iPhone. They didn't walk into people's homes with a baseball bat in hand commenting on the "nice general purpose computers you've got here". They didn't promise free computing and the ability to install anything from anywhere and then suddenly switch away locking people in after investing in a huge open system where none of their apps are available anywhere else. Any user can walk away from the iPhone simply by buying a device from any one of a number of other sellers, all of which offer Android OSes with all the freedoms they could possibly want, and Apple can't do anything about it, nor will Apple show up at their house in the middle of the night to leave a headless server in their bed sheets.
>and then goes on to explain why super hardened security OSs aren't even mainstream among tech people who should in theory be all about super hardened security in their OS.
You are intentionally arguing in bad faith, the point is and was that Apple's intention is not restriction for the sake of "security" but for the sake of funneling everything through their gate so they can impose a tax on everybody. It's the same with their sanctimonious "privacy" arguments, it's all BS and the DOJ realized this too. [0]
>>If it's not voluntary, what's the difference between Apple's behavior and Tony Soprano's behavior?
>Except it is voluntary. Apple didn't force anyone to buy an iPhone.
That's a bullshit framing that's a bait and switch in level, which is similar to saying "well the rail barons didnt force you to use their railroads, just use other railroads LOL". If a product or service becomes so prevalent in society then certain rules and regulations apply in a fair market and the EU commission has recognized that and finally the U.S has recognized that as well. By making that argument you also implicitly admit that the "security" argument is actually bogus and not really for the user's protection otherwise they would see no problem in granting an escape hatch for power users, but they don't do that because it's not about security an it never was.
[0] https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/21/doj-calls-apples-privacy-j...
That's not true, if those "design decisions" are anti-competitive in nature then they are absolutely not allowed to do that, that's what the EU commission is fixing with the DMA and now the U.S. is suing Apple too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security-Enhanced_Linux
the delightful irony is you’re literally so wrong they put it right in the name. Security Enhanced.
The military knows damn well that limiting unprivileged users to running a limited selection of vetted and approved apps and restricting their ability to make tools that might aid their ability to jump the sandbox increases security. They literally built the canonical OS extension to do it. It’s not sufficient for security by itself, but it does additively increase security vs a non-policy-enforced environment with higher freedom.
It is, however, necessary for security. Literally every enterprise sysadmin, every single one, windows or Linux or otherwise, knows that letting users set policies on their own devices decreases security. And in the real world, those policies/access control are either: (a) mandatory, or (b) ineffective. If you allow a mechanism for users to opt out - they will opt out 100% of the time, and it’s ineffective. There is no middle ground, if there is a way to go around then users will do it, it's either a matter of policy or it functionally doesn't exist.
Facebook et al will certainly exploit their network power to push users to do that, just like any other attacker. No different than Chinese agents going after a debt-laden private. They literally already got caught using their dev credentials trying to pull a sneaky and tunnel users data via a VPN for data mining purposes.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-...
But I’m sure you know infosec better than the NSA. This is HN after all.
And again - such escape valves already exist. You can sideload apps on an iphone without paying any extra money. Altstore/Appstore++ exist to refresh your app notarization automatically etc.
Almost as if this is really all about the transaction fees and apple's cut of money that tim sweeney sees as rightfully his, and not user freedom at all... but I'm sure there's a very good, very pro-consumer reason Sony and Microsoft exempted themselves from the DMA?
The example you mentioned is fundamentally different, why? The owner has the option to completely disable anything they dislike or install a different OS, especially on linux which prides itself on maximum user choice. And even then it's asinine to compare features that are for enhanced security and Apple's version of "security" which just limits user choice to products that have to pass Apple's gate so they have to pay a tax to enrich Apple.
I'm no security expert, but I know that security is certainly not a linear, at the very least it's some multi-dimensional thing that's exceptionally hard to generalize.
One system can be more or less secure than another for some party or parties, for some particular threat models if you can or cannot install certain apps, etc etc. Skipping all those bits makes the statement vague, increasing the risk of misunderstanding of the implied conditions.
Just a quick example. Installing an app could paradoxically make the device simultaneously more and less secure for the owner. Let's say it's an advanced firewall app. On the one hand it improves the network hygiene, improving the device security against its network peers. On the other hand, it may help in compromising the device, if someone gains access to its control interface and exploits it for nefarious purposes.
Wow, gold standard for sure. Is this why iOS zero day costs less than Android one?
I would argue it's much more secure and more private this way
I want it to be semi onerous to enable apps outside the App Store, for this reason.
It’s the role of regulators to stop data hoarding.
Also this narrative is complete bullshit from Apple since those protections never came from App Store’s policies enforcement but from iOS sandboxing mechanisms which are not going to disappear for sideloaded apps.
I’m pretty amazed that on HN, of all the places, people still believe the narrative that the Apple reviewing process can enforce app behavior while all they’ve got to review is a binary. The App Store reviewing is just there to check if you are loyal into Apple.
Okay well they can stop Apple's enforcement of their tracking policies after they make regulations against data hoarding. Not beforehand leaving us with the only choices of be tracked or give up on the app entirely when we currently have a third option to use apps without accurate tracking.
> I’m pretty amazed that on HN, of all the places, people still believe the narrative that the Apple reviewing process can enforce app behavior while all they’ve got to review is a binary.
You don't need to believe Apple. You can believe all the ad companies revenue dropping by 30% for mobile users the quarter after Apple rolled out the tracking changes. There's a reason all these apps began you to click yes before showing the iOS system popup for tracking permissions.
The App Store review process actually does do a surprisingly good job at keeping malware apps off it.
Honestly, as an iPhone user I don't mind these changes as long as apps and services don't force me to use alternative app stores.
Sure, there was the direct commercial impact the moment the changes were implemented. But Meta is still doing the same business, it still keeps track of a tremendous amount of user data, and it's revenue is back to where it was before Apple's changes.
Same for Google or Reddit, they are in a position where Apple limiting their tracking range seem to have little to no impact on their whole business.
I still think some limitation is better than none, but it also doesn't look like a huge deal for any of them. At least not enough to force all users to go through sideloading just to get that extra bit of data.
And all that is way easier than rooting/jailbreaking. I doubt that will be enough of a deterrent considering the anti-trust angle being that you can't compete with apple's native software
The reason that Google lost the same type of cases that Apple won was because consumers knew iOS was closed before they bought it.
Bit confused by this. What prevents me from sending or receiving good quality images to/from Android users?
So... what?
Edit: Just realized that you I misread your comment and you and I agree
Remember, this is all a very arbitrary restriction by Apple that lets them take advantage of their monopoly to suppress sales of competitive products. That's the illegal part.
WhatsApp also enable free international voip calls.
[1]: https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prAP51933524
[2]: https://japantoday.com/category/tech/study-shows-iphone-the-...
Apple has a monopoly on what, exactly?
Let me answer. Apple has a monopoly on iPhones.
Just like Chevy has a monopoly on Corvettes and Ford has a monopoly on Mustangs.
> Remember, this is all a very arbitrary restriction by Apple
What are they restricting? I am still unclear. Their choosing not to do something is not restricting anything.
> that lets them take advantage of their monopoly to suppress sales of competitive products.
And we're right again back to them having a monopoly on iPhones.
Ask yourself, would MacOs have all of the restrictions an iPhone has? If not even Macbooks block installation of 3rd party applications, why does it change when you add a cell radio?
Honestly,if someone were being paid to change public opinion around the case, this is what i would expect to read. Don't fall for Apple's marketing
Just like I can put cases from arbitrary manufacturers on my iPhone.
> -use oil from arbitrary manufacturers
Just like I can use chargers from arbitrary manufacturers.
> -drive to arbitrary locations
Visit arbitrary websites...
> -use a universal port to get error codes (OBD-II)
OBD-II is actually a good analogy because it exposes only a small set of standardized data, but the more interesting data (and ability to run diagnostics) is sometimes behind a manufacturer proprietary protocol and requires something more than just the standard OBD-II interface. Similarly Apple can choose what standard interfaces and protocols to implement and which proprietary ones they would like to create.
> why does it change when you add a cell radio?
Because that's what Apple chose to build and sell. You're free to build your own phone with your own feature set and sell that.
> Don't fall for Apple's marketing
Fortunately I'm capable of my own rational thought.
So I think the specific answer to your question is "iMessage and its lack of support for <protocol (RCS?)>".
But there are other ways to send images or arbitrary files. Why does iMessage need to support it?
Why do you have to defend every little thing that Apple does as if you were their lawyer? I get that you like some parts of their walled garden, but why do Apple stans behave as if Apple was a sacred company that could do no wrong, when there examples like this that they are literally harming their own customers to protect their moat. I get why Apple does it, I don't get why anyone here would side with Apple.
If someone doesn't like the fact that the Messages app doesn't support <X>, they should not buy an iPhone then, if it's that important to them.
Pretty simple calculus. Apple made a choice, and then they can suffer the consequences of a lost sale because of that choice.
imessage (the protocol) doesn't. iPhones should, because it's a common way for people to communicate. It was fine for us to start laissez faire but now that we see Apple abusing things by not interoperating -- deliberately in order to sell more phones [1], the people should intervene.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/9/22375128/apple-imessage-an...
> "The #1 most difficult [reason] to leave the Apple universe app is iMessage ... iMessage amounts to serious lock-in"
> "moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us, this email illustrates why."
iPhones are fully capable of transmitting images (and even other types of files--what an amazing world we live in). Feel free to install any of the numerous apps available that allow you to do this.
The US government claims that Apple is engaging in anticompetitive practices by degrading the behavior of iMessage when communicating to non-Apple devices.
Your stance seems to be, this should not be something for the government to be involved in, let the market decide.
This is ambiguous. Perhaps you believe that US antitrust laws shouldn't exist, or should be changed so they don't apply to this case, or actually don't apply to this case (ie the government is wrong that Apple's behavior violates the law).
Those are all coherent stances you could have, though I think it would be helpful if you identified which of them you hold if you want to engage in meaningful discourse with others.
Competitors stuffed around trying to build a competitor for over a decade and failed. Is that Apple's fault?
Plenty of other ways to send images.
That’s hard to do without the vertical integration.
If I can, I always use iMessage as the integration is just better - especially for media.
There's a reason Apple hasn't taken their garden wall that far, lmao. Same as being able to use "non Apple WiFi and Bluetooth devices".
Half the replies in this thread make me think they'd be happy if Apple restricted iPhone WiFi to only connecting to Apple APs becuz muh security, muh feature ecosystem
That would be significantly more fair to the end users than the current status quo, if they won't intentionally make obstacles for those users.
Obviously, that's not happening.
If they had one set of APIs for smartwatches that can be used by them for the apple watch and everyone else for their smartwatches they wouldn’t get sued. But instead they give themselves deep integration into the OS and limit everyone elses access. When you are one of the only available platforms thats not okay.
My grandma won’t understand the difference. So when she gets a text saying, hey install this cool new thing, and then gets hacked, these changes will be to blame.
Why can’t we have a close ecosystem and an open ecosystem? If you want to side load, Android is right there ready for you.
That's the whole problem. People don't know any better so they follow the instructions to get what they think they want. They don't know what they don't know.
I was in such a role in the exact time period you're writing about. At the time, most computer users were still at least kinda enthusiasts, if not particularly well-educated on their new toy. It's no accident that ordinary people got seriously interested using computers for important things in their lives when smartphones came around, and especially the iPhone—phones are like computers that are 80% less rage-inducing utter shit, as far as normal folks are concerned. "Real" computers are horrible for a majority of people. Notoriously horrible, like, listen to people talk about how they interact with "real" computers and their attitudes toward them; they don't trust them at all and often hate them, to them they're like expensive bulky frustration-machines that barely make any sense, don't do very much (the pieces of crap can't even replace a pocket camera, what a joke), and break entirely at random and frequently.
And I don’t give a crap. If it’s so bothersome for you - don’t do it. Just say no. People complain about shit all the time, shall we now remove all advances of humanity?
Open your bank account:
* Enter IBAN
* Enter amount
* Press send
Shall banks remove “send” feature completely to protect user?
I had a customer come in one morning steaming mad and demanding a refund for her new macbook. She was mad because (to paraphrase) she has been told that she wouldn't have all the problems and crashes her windows machine had and wouldn't have to deal with viruses and a host of other windows specific issues if she used a mac. But after a few weeks she was still having all of the same problems. The more she described the issue, the more it sounded like she'd never even bought a mac, but here she was with a 3 week old macbook in a box. And beyond that, she described having some hardware issues that had been corrected with a firmware update months earlier. The first boot and software update should have corrected all of that.
So I asked her to show me some of what it was doing. She took it out of the box, switched it on and it booted right into windows. And then proceeded to dump a ton of malware popups all over the screen just as she'd said. It turns out, she did indeed buy the macbook 3 weeks earlier, and then gave it to her "computer smart nephew" to setup for her. Well Mr. Nephew apparently decided in his infinite wisdom that is aunt didn't need macOS, she just needed an expensive windows machine. And so he'd downloaded bootcamp, shrunk the macOS partition to the smallest size it could be, and then installed windows and configured the machine to boot into windows by default. She'd never used macOS and didn't even know it was there, and so had never gotten the firmware updates for the hardware, and was of course having all the same problems she had in windows normally, because she was still using windows, only this time without any malware software because "macs don't need Norton".
The end result is I showed the customer what had happened, got them squared away with the mac OS side an asked them to give it a try for a few weeks with a personal guarantee we'd return it if she still didn't like it. She became one of our best customers. But the moral of the story is twofold:
1) Not everyone who uses tech makes the decisions for how that tech is configured
2) "no support" is a good way to ensure that those #1 people hate your product
The more I read from you people, the more I get amazed. I can’t believe how somebody would use such anecdotes with serious face against software freedom.
Have you ever had to do tech support for non-technical users? People will make poor tech choices and fault the manufacturer for it.
It never crossed my mind to reduce literal supercomputer that costs 1,5k euro, and can fit into my pocket, to a feature phone.
I want Apple hardware, iOS, sideloading and custom browsers with plugins.
This isn't like the late 90's computer era. Apple doesn't fine BestBuy and AT&T for carrying non-apple smart phones. They don't obligate Samsung and Sony to buy licenses to iOS for every phone they ship, regardless of whether iOS is installed on it. Heck, even though they're bundling the web browser with the OS you can't even reasonably make the argument doing so is giving them a monopoly in the web browser space.
At the end of the day, virtually any hardware you hand over to a user they will be able to break past its security.
I agree people should be able to choose different things. But I also agree with the suit, that once someone gets in the position to control the market of 1000s and 1000s of companies, it's not longer just about user choice in phones. It's about the digital goods (apps/subscribtions/IaP) market itself.
I know some of us like to think of Apple as some kind of corporate diety, but even Apple has to answer to the US government.
My guess is that this is not as much of an issue as Apple claims, and this 30% premium will not be worth it to the consumer.
If your walled garden (App Store) is really better, people will stay in it voluntarily.
Like damn, what if I intend to build this ecosystem from the outset, does that mean as soon as it reaches critical mass the government is going to come in and dismantle it? It's bullshit. This is essentially saying you're not allowed to build ecosystems.
Consumer products don't demand the same flexibility in this regard that enterprise products do. This is just other companies crying that they want a slice of the pie.
Their ecosystem was closed from the beginning.
Nope, that's covered by basic consumer protections. Apple still has to offer support if the user has issues that weren't likely to have been caused by the modifications.
Your car maker doesn't get to refuse to honor your powertrain warranty just because you put in a custom stereo.
If only they had it left it there.
Some examples:
- A lot of these changes are like mandating that cars have a manual transmission option. Sure, there are plenty of people that love the control, but there are many, many more that appreciate not having to deal with it.
- Every dollar and engineering hour that Apple spends complying with these new requirements is time they won't spend on things people actually want, as well as increasing the surface area for bugs and security holes.
- Apple is the intermediary between other companies like FB, Google, ad networks, data harvesting, government apps, etc. They can't do things on my phone because Apple forbids it. The more Apple is forced to open up, the less protection I have from other powerful players in the tech market.
- Every place where Apple is forced to open up is a place where there's a choice that many users didn't ask for but will have to make (e.g. default browser).
- I've never had to help a relative with their phone. I've had many of them come to me for help with their computers. Their and my experience with computing platforms is worse without the guardrails
This seems a baseless statement.
" - A lot of these changes are like mandating that cars have a manual transmission option. Sure, there are plenty of people that love the control, but there are many, many more that appreciate not having to deal with it."
Nonsense analogy. Computers are General Purpose Computing Devices which people increasingly depend on in their lives where single point of control from Apple makes their lives artificially more difficult solely for the purpose of being able to squeeze out profits. It increases prices for consumers and allows oppressive dictatorships to demand certain apps to be removed and Apple always complies, leaving users without alternatives.
" - Every dollar and engineering hour that Apple spends complying with these new requirements is time they won't spend on things people actually want, as well as increasing the surface area for bugs and security holes."
Boohoo, the trillion dollar company has to do a little more work. They could just stop putting so much work into anti-consumer propaganda so they would have more time for actual work.
"- Apple is the intermediary between other companies like FB, Google, ad networks, data harvesting, government apps, etc. They can't do things on my phone because Apple forbids it. The more Apple is forced to open up, the less protection I have from other powerful players in the tech market."
This is exactly the kind of exaggerated, fear mongering narrative I've expected. Increased competition and openness could also lead to better privacy and security solutions as companies would need to compete on these features to win over users. Also, despite Apple's policies and safeguards, there have been instances where apps have found ways around these limitations or have used data in ways that are not transparent to users, because Apple only cares about Privacy as far as it benefits their bottom line, that why Apple also started to work on an advertising platform. They care about "Privacy" because now they can exclusively monetize user data.[Apple is becoming an ad company despite privacy claims - https://proton.me/blog/apple-ad-company]
" - Every place where Apple is forced to open up is a place where there's a choice that many users didn't ask for but will have to make (e.g. default browser)."
Nonsense, the only thing that changes is that other people can change the default app, so when they don't care nothing changes for them, they don't have to do anything. this argument of yours is the kind of absurd reach that makes your overall position look absurd.
" - I've never had to help a relative with their phone. I've had many of them come to me for help with their computers. Their and my experience with computing platforms is worse without the guardrails"
I've read this meme so many times and every time I read it I doubt that it's an actual thing instead it's something you desperately need to say in order to uphold your indefensible position of defending Apple's anti-competitive practices. It's not a good argument either, just because your relatives are incompetent we all should suffer under that?
" I think many computer savvy people don't realize how freeing and liberating it is for normal people to have an "appliance" computer."
Ah yes, less choice is actually more choice, slavery is freedom and war is peace.
- A lot of these changes are like mandating that cars have a manual transmission option. Sure, there are plenty of people that love the control, but there are many, many more that appreciate not having to deal with it.
- Every dollar and engineering hour that Apple spends complying with these new requirements is time they won't spend on things people actually want, as well as increasing the surface area for bugs and security holes.
- Apple is the intermediary between other companies like FB, Google, ad networks, data harvesting, government apps, etc. They can't do things on my phone because Apple forbids it. The more Apple is forced to open up, the less protection I have from other powerful players in the tech market.
- Every place where Apple is forced to open up is a place where there's a choice that many users didn't ask for but will have to make (e.g. default browser).
- I've never had to help a relative with their phone. I've had many of them come to me for help with their computers. Their and my experience with computing platforms is worse without the guardrails
Have you not had to use a third party security product on your work computer? All third party security products for computers are scams and inefficient
Small indie company, btw.
Those choices also affect me, though. Any shared albums, messages or other data I transmit with these users has a higher risk of being leaked.
There's some security in knowing almost all phones are not jailbroken and thanks to regular os upgrades, have a pretty solid security floor.
One way to handle this would be to decorate the comms ID, email / phone name whatever to show they aren't running a standard iOS. But I would want to know as easily as I do that messages I exchange with someone are going to an android device.
I shudder to imagine the headlines complaining about the "scarlet bubbles apple is using to shame freedom loving users" or whatever nonsense the media would scare up if they tried to do something like that.
Just let people wipe the phone completely - no drivers, no kernel, nothing, and bring their own. That's the proper solution to people wanting to own their hardware and do whatever they want with it. Want to install a different app store/browser/etc? Go for it, start by installing the new kernel and drivers.
Almost none of the "free" apps are actually free. However, the App store makes it impossible to find this out without first supplying credit card information and installing the app, and possibly setting up an account with an app.
It used to be great. Frankly, it's now abusive.