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Comment by Nifty3929 | Hacker News Reader

I think people forget that Apple is not making devices for the Hackernews community. They are making devices for people that just want something that works pretty well and has reasonable security - even to the extent of protecting them from themselves. They have other things to do with their time than learn about security vulnerabilities and how to avoid them. They want to just click 'yes' on every popup and expect things to keep working. Because they know that they are not qualified to answer that yes/no popup question. And those people do not care much about lock-in and walled gardens. They are not interested in jailbreaking and sideloading apps. They've never heard of Pebble or have any interest in it.

This is 90% of humanity, including people we all know and love.

Apple serves these people pretty well.

View on HN

Couldn't you make that argument for literally any anticompetitive practice? Like in the 1990s: "Microsoft isn't making an OS for people that want to try different browsers"

Yes, you could. It's indeed troubling to see this mindset on HN. We have an overflow of professional "explainers" these days, we need more doers and fighters.

Oh whatever :P Don’t be condescending about a mindset you don’t experience yourself.

I ran debian as my daily driver for like half my life; now I’m on mac and never have to worry about my friggin wifi driver.

You can both use macs and criticize Apple to be and do better. Why would they change for no reason? I've heard this myth about companies listening to customers :)

It's been many years since I had my last driver issue. I find that impressive considering how many different platforms Linux has to run on.

Have you noticed how bad the Docker experience is on Macs though, after how many years?

Not sure how that’s the fault of MacOS

Whose fault is it? Also, as opposite to the Linux wifi driver?

I have never had an issue with WiFi drivers as an Arch and EndeavourOS user for 6 years now. And for the last 3 years my Framework Laptop does just work as my daily driver.

I think it is unjust to share strong opinions about previous issues that Linux distributions had without recent evidence.

That’s fair :) Guess I’m just scarred.

I haven't had a problem with my Wi-Fi in Linux since 2006, what are you on about?

Congrats? I've personally experienced driver issues on my laptop and desktop, both from the hardware being too new for the kernel (or at least the version being used by that distro), within the past two years. And this is LMDE, not some fringe one-man fork.

If we want to pile anecdotes, it just works for me as well. The most recent driver problem I had was Windows, needed to preload something during the installer to get it to recognise hard drives in proxmox working if I remember correctly, and that's not even speaking of printer problems on Windows compared to the seamless integration they now seem to have on Debian (or is my desktop environment responsible for that? Not sure, I'm not super deep into Linux stuff)

Yeah, I'm running PopOS woth minimal issues and have been doing so for 5 years. The only issues I have is that they built it on a jank stack of Gnome, but they're fixing that at this moment.

It sounds like a lot of the "I used to use Linux, but nothing worked" crowd are either previous Arch-users (no shit you had to do everything manually) or older folks.

You're squarely in the minority, mate.

Nah he's not. Stuff has been pretty stable, impressively so. Especially if you keep to certain hardware options which Apple users also accept.

If you want to do and fight, use Linux. Apple made their intentions clear decades ago.

Better than voting with your wallet is voting with your vote and getting regulations in place.

You state that as if it is fact despite there being no evidence to support that viewpoint.

Emphasizing voting with your wallet means those with the most money dictate how things work. Google and Apple vote with their wallet all the time. When they’re buying competitors, buying preferential treatment for each other, and buying law makers and regulators.

We aren’t going to out bid them on any of these things. We have to make it illegal, and vote in people who will enforce the laws.

Is not the EU's regulations largely successful? Some have underestimated maliscious compliance, but for most.

It depends on how you define success; the EU has certainly managed to achieve a great deal of standardization and compliance, at the cost of rate of progress and business model innovation. You might think this is a worthwhile trade off, but people differ in their priorities.

Fewer deaths, higher quality of life, more job security. Seems like for the average person, the trade off is well worth it.

> business model innovation

The OpenAI grift, the Facebook & Google stalking advertising, the Uber “independent contractors”, and the Amazon two-for of workers pissing in bottles and squeezing your suppliers so prices rise everywhere.

Yes, what a loss for the EU.

> at the cost of rate of progress and business model innovation

That's a pretty massive claim. Do you have any examples of this?

Their entire tech sector compared to the US or China

Goodness, how specific.

If you want a more specific example, it's the company we're already talking about. There's no EU parallel to Apple, or the other FANG.

SAP, NXP, ASML, Hexagon, Infineon... These are all companies guaranteed to be touching hardware or software, they you use today, and will use tomorrow.

Biggest market cap out of those is SAP at $333B, which is less than the least valuable FAANG company Netflix.

We were talking innovation, not market cap, right?

If the software you use today, that the businesses you go to, even in the US, are using it, then there's hardly stagnation, is there?

I drink milk every day, but there's no innovation there

You jest, but milk production in Europe is far more sophisticated than in the US. Innovation has occurred there [0]. There's no stagnation, despite being a heavily regulated industry. There are new products coming to market, the market is growing at a predictable and fairly decent rate.

And if you need market cap to understand these areas, both Nestle (France) and Lactalis (Switzerland), outpace the entirety of the US industry.

The average person probably thinks that their phone, or websites, show no innovation, despite the rapidly changing underlying technologies.

[0] https://www.ahfesproject.com/app/uploads/2022/04/AHFES-A6.2_...

He is conflating progress and business model innovation with profits. That since the US allows its corporations to get repugnantly large and wealthy, enough to rival many developed nations' GDPs, the US necessarily has more progress and business model innovation. It's just American exceptionalism.

Citations needed. The DSA never applied to a single EU company and GDPR is the bare minimum on user privacy.

And by the time the EU attempted any of those, we already had the duopoly and the competition was already dead.

Please don't "source?" this, it's just a viewpoint.

We’re in agreement that it is a viewpoint. I think it’s bad for productive conversation to state viewpoints as absolute facts that everyone else holds.

Then I'm guilty of this too.

Sure, but I hope you recognize that it is possible to do two things at once.

Corporations have pressure points and there are a myriad of ways to contribute to the overall progress that each one wants to see for themselves.

The "hackers" grew up and made money. Don't rock the boat!

If you want an alternative, android exists. I actively want a tightly integrated system that I know works well together. I don’t want to worry “does this device really work with this other device, even if it says it’s compatible” which was a constant source of issues I had on Android.

Your desire for Apple to become an open system removes my choice to opt into a closed ecosystem, when you already have an open ecosystem to play in.

>I actively want a tightly integrated system that I know works well together. I don’t want to worry “does this device really work with this other device, even if it says it’s compatible” which was a constant source of issues I had on Android.

Yeah, I mean Linux is an abject failure, nothing ever works or runs on it. Nobody needs open data formats or open protocols for interoperability. Binary blobs for the win! /s

>Your desire for Apple to become an open system removes my choice to opt into a closed ecosystem, when you already have an open ecosystem to play in.

Don't worry, it's easy to lock down any open system and we can give you that should you desire it.

I don’t think this comment is in good faith. I gave you a reasonable viewpoint and you just dunked on me with snark.

>, I mean Linux is an abject failure, nothing ever works or runs on it. Nobody needs open data formats or open protocols for interoperability. Binary blobs for the win! /s

I didn’t say anything of the sort. I said I actively choose a “more closed” ecosystem. Linux has similar problems IMO - “I want to buy a GPU” shouldn’t come with trying to figure out whether the device drivers will actually work, to me. If you want that, you have that choice.

> Don't worry, it's easy to lock down any open system and we can give you that should you desire it.

Only within the constraints of what you want which is that everything should adhere to a standard and be interoperable. Which, again, as I said you can have on android. Go buy a pixel phone, and a samsung watch and see how good the experience is.

I’ll say this again - there are open ecosystem alternatives for you out there, in android. Some people, even technical people, are ok with a smaller ecosystem knowing that there is lock in. If you don’t want that, don’t use it. But if you push your choices on me, you restrict my options and remove my preferred platform to have one more platform you want

You have your own viewpoint, and are assuming its "resonable" and so by definition I'm "unreasonable" is GOOD FAITH? No thanks, no interest in engaging with you.

No I think you’re being unreasonable by making strawman arguments against me and using those strawmen to attack my character, which you’ve done again here.

Only if they're a monopoly.

In the 1990's, Microsoft Windows had over 90% of operating system market share. They were a monopoly.

iPhones are only 58% versus Android in the US right now. That's nowhere close to monopoly. Globally Android has 71%. Android is thriving.

With Windows, you didn't have a choice. With iOS and Android, you have choice.

> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors.

https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

Presumably the DoJ wouldn't have sued Apple for being a monopoly if it was impossible for them to legally qualify as one?

https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/gallery/justice-departm...

The DoJ can sue over whatever they want. They also lose suits all the time. So now it's up to a court decision to make the determination, and it may very well be that Apple is not, contrary to the DoJ's assertion.

Sure, but you claimed that they were definitely not a monopoly, which hasn't been determined yet.

At which point does a monopoly becomes a monopoly?

There is no need to have a "clear" monopoly like Windows in 1990's to abuse your power and presence in the market.

> At which point does a monopoly becomes a monopoly?

It's generally in the 70-90% range. Right now, it's much easier to argue that Android has a global monopoly.

> There is no need to have a "clear" monopoly like Windows in 1990's to abuse your power and presence in the market.

Well it depends what you mean by "abuse". I mean, even small companies can "abuse" their customers by not building the interoperability their customers want. But we generally prioritize individual freedom, that private businesses ought to have free choice in what they work with or don't. That's important.

That only becomes a problem when consumers aren't able to switch to a competitor. I.e. when there is a monopoly provider. I.e. which controls 70-90%+ of the market.

> it's much easier to argue that Android has a global monopoly.

Sorta. My understanding is that Google Play has the global monopoly. If it were plain Androids that users bought to own, to do with as they wanted, I'd be much less sombre about where mobile ecosystems are headed (namely, that governments, banks, public transport companies, and many other organisations will require a DRM-locked device if you want to live a normal life, buying bus tickets while passing the algorithmic fraud checks instead of needing to travel to a remaining ticket counter for example). It's barely even the future anymore, bank and transit company apps already mostly only run if you have a Google account and are on a locked-down ("Google Safetynet") device or go to great lengths to hide that you've got full access to your own data on your bought-to-own device

we're getting close then in usa https://www.counterpointresearch.com/insights/us-smartphone-...

https://www.removepaywall.com/search?url=https://www.wsj.com...

The median in the first chart is 53%. So not really. Apple is just seasonally high in Q4 presumably because iPhones make good Christmas presents. And still below 70%.

If it's not a duopoly, then why there's no competition between the play store and the app store to get developers or users from each other?

The only tariff change ever made on the appstore was as a reaction to an antitrust lawsuit and copied straight to Google. Just that is enough of a proof.

Well, no, at least not honestly, because in the 1990s Microsoft was sitting on a true monopoly. Apple is one of several (3, at least) players in desktop computing, and one of two in mobile. Nobody has the kind of power Redmond wielded now.

And that's a key part of the discussion.

I honestly don't care about Microsoft bundling a browser. The real problem was that they intentionally broke web standards to push websites to "work best on Internet Explorer," so even those who chose not to use Windows were caught up in it. Whereas, Android users aren't affected by what Apple does here.

They still bundle Edge, and keep setting it to default. But idc, it's just one of 1000 reasons I don't use Windows.

Isn't the WebKit the only allowed browser engine on iOS?

Yes. Essentially Safari is the only iOS browser. Ironically, this is the only thing stopping a Chrome web monopoly.

> The real problem was that they intentionally broke web standards to push websites to "work best on Internet Explorer," so even those who chose not to use Windows were caught up in it.

Microsoft tried to build their own extensions to the internet standards, like activex and proprietary DOM/JScript extensions, explicitly designed to lock devs into IE’s ecosystem. It's quite impressive that they managed to miss this opportunity to Adobe. And how Adobe then just... squandered it. I would expect that "being the necessary proprietary piece in significant chunk of internet" would have some deep strategic advantage, but both tech giants couldn't be bothered to do a good job.

Both Adobe and Microsoft missed the mobile boat.

Apple do this too with their products - but in more subtle ways.

For instance, try to play a video game on MacOS. While Vulkan is available on every playform, it's not available on MacOS or iOS despite the fact that it would take an engineer at Apple a weekend to implement (figuritively speaking). Apple are also killing off OpenGL support for MacOS.

Generally, Apple deliberately build a "dependence ecosystem" for their consumers on the product side while also actively preventing engineers from using portable technologies on their platforms.

The fact that MacOS is as open as it currently is is a miracle and I am sure executives hate that.

They create the fastest and most ergonomic mobile hardware on Earth but, outside of web browsing, video editing and some engineering workloads, there's very little you can actually do on it.

Oh yeah, Mac video games sorta don't exist. The dev can jump through all those hoops and still have random OS updates break it constantly. Almost as bad just for regular apps.

Re executives being mad: The thing is, they make money off Mac hardware, and even then its profits are dwarfed by iPhone and iPhone accessories. Which are of course locked down.

Not any anticompetitive practice, just the ones that allow in competitors who have different security models for human/computer interaction.

Imagine if you could swap out Siri for Alexa. The privacy guarantees are nothing alike. People buy iPhones because they prohibit unsafe choices.

Source? What data do you have that "prohits unsafe choices" is the only or #1 reason that people buy an iPhone over an Android?

I mean the security model for both is pretty similar, you have a provider which gets your audio and then decides what they want to do with it.

Unlike Microsoft of the 90s, there are alternative mobile operating systems that are actually competing with iOS and Apple, so the argument isn't the same. In fact, people point out that iOS doesn't have majority share when you look at global usage, and only has a small majority when you look at the US. Microsoft's next nearest OS competitor didn't make a browser, and a lot more than half of computer users were using Windows.

Making your own products interoperate better than competitors' products is pretty typical and I don't think it rises to the level of "anticompetitive practice."

If you don't like it (and I can totally understand why), there are numerous other smartphone makers out there with products that allow better integration with these watches and you're free to buy one.

MS didn't get into trouble because they went after competing browsers, they got into trouble for doing that while also having a monopoly on PC OSes. Apple doesn't have anything like a monopoly in this market (their US market share is about 50%, worldwide is around 28%).

Microsoft absolutely got in trouble for purposefully making other Office suites not work correctly on Windows, for using private Windows APIs in Office that other companies didn't have access to, etc.

If Apple makes a watch that can receive and send iMessages then there is no reason any other device shouldn't be able to use the same APIs that Apple uses.

It absolutely creates a system where competitors literally cannot compete with the same features.

They got in trouble for doing that stuff while having a monopoly on PC OSes. Using private stuff to give your own products an advantage is (legally) fine if you're not leveraging a monopoly to do it.

And really, these days that’s only illegal if it makes things more expensive for consumers.

We’re rapidly approaching the point where having a smartphone is becoming a necessity for being a functional part of the society. You could argue that is some countries we’re already past that point. A device of this social importance that’s also locked into one of the two American megacorps absolutely needs as much scrutiny as possible, since the interests of those megacorps are not aligned with the interests of the society.

To give one example, Apple has removed an option for Airdrop file sharing between iPhones that are not on one another’s contact lists after the pressure from the Chinese government to stop it from being used for protests coordination. And yet this change was silently rolled out globally as a part of an iOS update.

So, no, “Good enough for most people” is not actually good enough.

> having a smartphone is becoming a necessity for being a functional part of the society

This is correct, as in some countries, you use your phone to authenticate access to banking applications and payments (e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart-ID). However, I find it a bit of a stretch to claim that having iMessage access on a smartwatch is essential for being a functional member of society.

Corporations will always take steps to ensure their profitability. Apple, for example, is incentivized to keep its systems locked down to maintain its ecosystem. There are likely other justifiable considerations behind these decisions. While laws exist to regulate what corporations can and cannot do, there should be a reasonable balance. That said, I don’t think this is a battle worth fighting - people can simply switch to an Android phone, which offers better support for a wider range of smartwatches.

> people can simply switch to an Android phone

Giving all your data to Google (an adtech company) is not an acceptable solution. Not to mention that it's incredibly difficult to leave the Apple ecosystem, by design.

Apple is bad. Google (Android) is bad.

So what is the solution here for the common non-tech savvy smartphone user?

I would say that custom Android-based ROMs like GrapheneOS are the solution, but Google is actively sabotaging those with the Play Integrity API so I don't know if they will be usable by the average person in the long-term (unless Google is legally compelled to stop this).

So honestly I think that legislation such as what's happening in the EU is the only solution. This includes investigating Google as well as Apple. I'm not a huge fan of legislation in general but the current state of mobile computing is depressingly bad right now.

> However, I find it a bit of a stretch to claim that having iMessage access on a smartwatch is essential for being a functional member of society.

Btw I agree here. Perhaps the EU is being a little too overbearing in some aspects, but most of it is good. I think in this case Pebble is trying to take advantage of the existing interoperability provisions, which are a general framework allowing devs to request access to certain functions. However the EU has said that they want to target smartwatches in particular which sounds like misplaced priority to me...

> which sounds like misplaced priority to me

Agreed.

It's not easy to degoogle either. Just Youtube alone is next to impossible to get rid of.

What I had in mind wasn’t iMessage, but the fact that banking and digital ID systems such as Danish MitID are increasingly being built with the assumption that everyone owns a smartphone.

https://www.mitid.dk/en-gb/

There is also a code reader version available: https://www.mitid.dk/en-gb/get-started-with-mitid/mitid-auth.... In Lithuania, similar systems for banking have existed for a long time—especially code generators—as a method of authentication. In recent years, they have been widely adopted across various platforms, particularly government services, as a login method. Essentially, it functions as a digital ID.

What I originally meant was that I don’t see Apple’s reluctance to open up the iMessage ecosystem as an indication that they wouldn’t support a banking or government authentication system. I just don't understand the concern here.

This is somewhat false. It wasn't removed, it just takes intent now, and it has a timeout. I've been spammed by strangers with airdrop before, and have accidentally airdropped things to strangers. I enjoy the increased intent.

But, gone are the fun days people spam airdropping funny "This is the captain" pictures to everyone while waiting for takeoff in an airplane.

It took a 100 years from first phone public networks in the 1880s to the basic expectation that you would have a phone number in 1980s. Public internet came this way in ~20 years (early 90s-early 10s). Smartphones did it in 15?

The post has a section regarding these concepts and why the author disagrees, why not respond to that directly instead?

I tend to side somewhat with what the author is saying: they can be both relatively true statements and a way to abuse market power at the same time so identifying it as fitting the mold of one or the other is only the start of the conversation. People against the practices tend to care more about the latter and I think that's why we've seen the EU, Japan, and now Brazil regulate the behavior based on that rather than asking "what's Apple's target usage type".

> Apple claims their restrictions on competitors are only about security, privacy, crafting a better experience etc etc. At least that’s what they tell you as they tuck you into bed.

Ah, yes, the author is clearly interested in an in-depth discussion of the tradeoffs in allowing 3rd-party users access to data that you tell your customers is 100% always encrypted.

The HN comments are for our discussion. If you choose to latch on to portions of initial posts or comments like the latter for swipes than that's the kind of discussion we get to have. If you choose to focus most of the discussion on other lines like:

> I personally don’t agree - they’re clearly using their market power to lock consumers into their walled ecosystem. This causes there to be less competition, which increases prices and reduces innovation. DOJ seems to agree.

instead then the quality of discussion here will match.

Okay, I was being a little snarky. But that quoted portion doesn't really contradict my point; that is in no way an exploration of good reasons why Apple might want to make these choices.

It wasn't meant to contradict this point, Apple isn't supposed to want to be regulated by the DOJ.

> They have other things to do with their time than learn about security vulnerabilities and how to avoid them.

You're making that statement as if iPhones don't have security issues and people using Android definitely have to learn about those things.

> They want to just click 'yes' on every popup and expect things to keep working. Because they know that they are not qualified to answer that yes/no popup question. And those people do not care much about lock-in and walled gardens.

What exactly is it that Apple does that makes it not matter whether you click 'yes' or 'no' on these popups?

To add: if the goal is to make a system where the yes/no answer is irrelevant, then it's a system when very horrible UX: the pop-up shouldn't be there in the first place!

This also doesn't address the obvious solution: safe and easy defaults, and an option for manual overrides in advanced "I know what I'm doing" settings.

And no pop-ups at all.

> They want to just click 'yes' on every popup and expect things to keep working

This is an extremely dangerous mindset, even if you never leave Apple's garden. As a reminder, Facebook and TikTok are on the App Store. We cannot encourage this zombie-like behavior and simultaneously have a healthy, free society.

> Because they know that they are not qualified to answer that yes/no popup question

Apple put thought into their permission system and made it easy to understand even among non-HN users, so that regular people can make meaningful choices about what information they want to share with apps and the companies who make them. There might as well be no permission system and no sandboxing at all if users are just going to spam the "yes" button all the time.

I kind of agree - while I personally don't like to be treated like a dummy because I do feel like I know what I'm doing with tech, I wouldn't trust e.g. my parents with that power.

If Apple wants to be the brand for the tech illiterate that's fine—the real problem is that their hardware (and to a lesser extent some of their software) is actually a lot better than the competition, especially every since the M1 CPU came out.

So people like me and other HN denizens are left to hope that either some competitor actually becomes competitive; or Apple positions itself in such a way that they can simultaneously provide the "dummy mode" for dummies, and the "power mode" for people like me.

For the latter option, they clearly don't want to do it, probably not because they don't trust power users to do power user things; but because leaning on the dummies for cover helps them protect their walled garden.

Cue great frustration.

This is a false dichotomy. You can build a system that is secure by default but allows you to opt out with sufficient technical knowledge.

Or also just have a corporation with enough technical knowledge themselves to work out security.... I suppose they figure it's not in their business interests though.

IMO, Apple's position as part of a duopoly disqualifies them that kind of defense.

When customers aren't empowered to choose which company they engage with, companies should not be allowed to choose which customers they support.

The customer has plenty of choice here, including just not having a smartwatch. It's a toy.

Plenty of choice... so long as that choice has been approved by Apple. It's a very convenient position for a company with a competing product.

Apple doesn't approve of me not having an Apple Watch.

What point are you making here? That Apple should be able to leverage their market position to crush their competition for a particular device just because it doesn't affect you in particular? You don't care for smart watches so the smart watch market should be exempt from regulation?

Exactly. They're just toys. I also don't care that my Nintendo GameCube can't use an Xbox controller.

Third-party controllers have been widely available for every popular video game console including the GameCube. Nothing was stopping anyone - Microsoft included - from creating an Xbox controller which would also work on the GameCube. Nintendo certainly didn't stop anyone.

This example completely misrepresents the issue. Nobody is asking Apple to add support for Pebble watches to their devices. They're asking Apple to stop preventing Pebble (and other smart watch manufacturers) from being able to support Apple devices.

Ok, then Microsoft put a famously large amount of effort into stopping people from installing other software on each version of Xbox. And Nintendo at least made it difficult to create unlicensed GameCube games.

Game consoles are not general purpose computing devices. People do not buy Xboxes with the expectation of running Photoshop. But people buy smartphones with the expectation of being able to use smartphone peripherals.

Nobody buys an iPhone expecting it to be an open device. You can't even sideload apps on it.

Really? Did you have to pair your Apple watch? Did Apple sign the software on the watch? Did Apple build special APIs and tools into iOS to support certain features of the Apple Watch?

Apple is demonstrating here that they can control every aspect of what you can do with your phone, including not allowing Pebble to work.

Apple doesn't even allow you to replace broken parts in your phone unless it has an Apple approved signature that can be validated.

I'm not sure what you mean, I don't have an Apple watch. Also idk what a Pebble is.

> Apple doesn't even allow you to replace broken parts in your phone unless it has an Apple approved signature that can be validated.

That's fine, I don't want to buy a used iPhone and find out it has random parts in it.

Honestly, if you don’t even know what Pebble is, and you don’t have a smartwatch, why are you even commenting on this topic?

I have an iPhone.

Yeah, and I have a microwave. Despite being vegetarian myself I don't complain that it has a button for "chicken" on it. I don't even really know what it does. I don't really care.

iPhones are the Starbucks of phones. They were sort of novel and better than competition for a few years after launch maybe, became a status symbol, and then all the people who bought in stuck around while it became a bit old hat and uninteresting while paying the price that it was when it was still cool. If I want a capable rectangle, there are plenty of options now that are better and cheaper and more reliable. iOS and iPhones and just fine if you don't care, just like Starbucks is fine if you don't drink black coffee or have no options

People cares, but not care that much.

They care about privacy and freedom, so they have different opinions besides Apple. But they don’t care that much, so not everyone is trying to figure out if their phones have a hackable toggle.

Wouldn't "see my text messages on my watch" be included in "works pretty well?"

Apple are making devices for people who want things that look pretty. Functionality is generally not the major concern. Think about it.

They are late with most new tech as they will just wait until it becomes cheaper, why? Because they already know it's not a deal breaker.

They removed a bunch of fundamental and heavily used ports from the Macbook for years. Because they knew people would just work around it and buy dongles.

They put the charging port for their wireless mouse on the bottom of the mouse so it wasn't possible to charge and use the mouse at the same time. Because they knew people would put up with it because it was pretty.

For a lot of people, it's not that it works well or anything. It's about the brand and the design. It's about the marketing. And when it's about that and not the actual product you can do whatever you want to your product and it doesn't really matter. And compatibility with other brands doesn't matter because they've already bought into Apple's brand over everything else including basic functionality.

I'm annoyed about the dongles, but that's about it. Macs work better.

It all depends on what you're doing. For many on here, Macs are technically worse because they use docker and that means instead of just running docker and using the container functionality in the Linux kernel they have to virtualise a Linux VM to run docker in. If you're gaming it's not as good as Windows. Macs are ok, they do the job and in some areas they are better. But really, for most it doesn't matter, it's all about brand.

Docker is fine on Mac but still a small sliver of user base, and nobody is buying a Mac to play games. For all those other general uses, they're better, that's why they buy them. Battery lasts long, fan doesn't spin up, you don't get harassed by Windows, you don't deal with Linux Bluetooth drivers. Not for style.

Apple Watch for style, sure. It's a watch after all. Not that it actually looks good.

Docker is slow on Macs. That’s why there are multiple packages to try and solve it. And still it’s slow. And that is a massive amount of people.

Plenty of people play games on Macs. It may not be the purpose they bought it does they bought it for general use and that’s part of the general use for many.

For general uses they aren’t better. They cost more. You’re unable to upgrade them. They have less ports and require dongles. The list goes on.

I’ve not had any issues with Linux Bluetooth drivers is so long I can’t even remember when.

You may buy macs now because you’re used to them and you think they’re better. But really you got into macs because of the brand. Because there are very few areas where it is truly better than the others.

> They are making devices for people that just want something that works pretty well and has reasonable security

This statement doesn't make sense except if you are implying that Android doesn't have reasonable security despite not being a walled garden like iOS, and allowing e.g. interactions with smartwatches.

Apple Propaganda.

There's extremely few reasons why a modern Android phone from Google or Samsung is less secure than an iPhone, against any attack vector that 99.sevennines% of people [1] would ever experience. The worst way I've ever seen the most tech-illiterate person ever mess up an Android phone is by installing some QR Code reader that took over as a home screen launcher so it could (nonmaliciously, but questionably) put its QR code reader as a home screen left of the app icons. It should be way harder for Play Store apps to do that, because this guy needed professional help (me) to figure out where his home screen layout went.

But that was it. That's the worst I've ever seen. Android's security is very good.

While not a security concern, I've had multiple iPhone users ask "what the heck is this screen to the right of my app icons" (referring to the App Library introduced ~2 years ago). One person thought they'd been hacked. Kind of a similar inconvenience vector as that QR code app.

[1] The 100-99.sevenines% of people who might actually find themselves the target of an attack vector that Apple's unique security can help mitigate are, for example, journalists or dissidents who find value in Advanced Data Protection and Apple's generally very good and healthy stance on cloud security and end-to-end encryption. This level of security should be available to everyone, on every cloud provider, even if it only directly advantages a small number of people, but Apple is the only one really doing this right now.

Replacing a launcher can be pretty bad.

This happened to people I know. Some innocent sounding app replaced their launcher and added a fake Gmail widget to their home screen. It prompted them to login and, well, you know the rest.

This would never happen on iOS because you can't change the launcher.

Agreed. Its my opinion that you should be able to replace the launcher on Android devices, but the Play Store should refuse to distribute apps that do this.

I really like this.

People that know what they're doing can go nuts and sideload apks all day long, which is still more flexibility than you'll ever get with Apple.

People that barely know how to use their phone outside of a few key apps will never have to worry about this attack vector.

Many people are mentally still in 1997, when Apple was the scrappy upstart against the Micro$oft goliath.

> This is 90% of humanity, including people we all know and love.

I'd say more like 95-99% of humanity tbh.

I’ve been a professional software engineer for 20 years and this is how I feel. And I’m an iOS engineer!

I mostly want my phone to just work.

I thought this community is security over convenience? 12 years ago my iMessage got hacked. Someone was sending messages from my name to my relative. My password was secured and there were no ways I thought it would get hacked but there it is.

> protecting [people] from themselves

I finally understand what exactly I dislike in Apple. It's an authoritarian company.

It's crazy that so many don't realize this. I am not an Apple user, likely never will be, but I recommend their tech frequently. They meet that market's needs with aplomb and I respect that.

People who don't read Hacker News occasionally want nice things too, and don't necessarily deserve corporations infantalising them.

Sub $200 smart-watches would be great for a lot of people.

There are a bunch of them in the market already. You can also buy used/refurbished.

> And those people do not care much about lock-in and walled gardens. They are not interested in jailbreaking and sideloading apps. They've never heard of Pebble or have any interest in it.

Customers are interested in new products and services that are good. This is how all currently popular products began, obviously. By preventing competitors from being good, as Apple and Microsoft and Amazon and other mega corporations regularly do, there’s no chance for competition to get to the point of attracting customers in the first place. Those people that you think are not interested in one thing or the other COULD want those things if they were allowed and easy to do without all these anti competitive practices.

Whose side are you on exactly? I'm sure Apple doesn't need help amplifying their position.

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