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Comment by EMIRELADERO | Hacker News Reader

> An iPhone is the private property of the user, and if you are skilled enough you can jailbreak it and there is nothing Apple can do about it. If you're not skilled to do it, then that's your own problem.

No, because Apple chooses to prevent me from controlling the device the way I want. The skill involved is about finding holes in the system, not in enabling an "expert mode" or something.

The imbalance of power is itself a problem. A hardware manufacturer should be legally prohibited from designing their devices in such a way that they retain more control over them post-sale than the actual owner. Device ownership should mean maximum control over code execution.

> Who was forced to buy an iPhone?

Nobody, but I'm not a free market absolutist.

> Who was forced to develop for Apple devices?

Every developer who wants to cater to ~half of the mobile user population (~85% if it's young Americans)

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I assume an expert mode (where you can sideload anything you want) is what you are asking for. To that I raise the standard objection: how do you protect grandma from having a criminal social-engineer her into enabling expert mode and then having her sideload malware onto her device?

I mean if you're gonna stop people from owning their device and doing what they want with it just because of the possibility of crime occurring then their are quite a few more things that probably should also no longer exist because of their potential use in crime.

That's a pretty ridiculous argument if you ask me.

That is exactly what Apple has decided to do. You have named the tradeoff. Stop the possibility by disabling everyone. It has always been this way. People have had nearly 20 years to leave Apple

You can say that about a lot of things in life. Legalized gambling, for example. Tons of people ruin their lives with it and this creates big externalities for society. But we tolerate it so that everyone has the freedom to gamble.

Apple on the other hand offers a locked down product that many people want because they don’t trust themselves. I think a lot of people have short memories for all the hacking and spyware that plagued Windows users a couple decades ago. I think we also need to remember that Apple is not the government so people have alternatives to buying their devices.

Personally, I think people should have the right to buy a locked down device. It’s not on Apple to provide open competitors to their product. And why should developers have a right to develop for the platform? Heck, I wanted the iPhone back when it didn’t even have 3rd party apps at all.

>>hacking and spyware that plagued Windows users a couple decades ago

And that still plagues every computing platform now. Including Apple platforms. So the lockdown clearly didn’t completely solve that problem like a lot of people seem to claim

iOS is noticeably better for this though because it's more locked down, there is a real tradeoff there

> Apple on the other hand offers a locked down product that many people want because they don’t trust themselves

The idea that, for many people purchasing an iPhone, the inability to install apps from alternative stores or the web is a selling point seems rather questionable.

On top of that this could easily be provided by an optional switch that enables you to enforce this on your own device if you so desire.

It is a poor reason to request that all app distribution for everyone else also has to go through Apple and its terms, basically for your convenience.

I’ve already given one reason why the switch is a bad idea. Another reason is that powerful third parties such as Meta and Google could force users to disable their own protections and give those apps full access to all data as a condition of installation.

Ultimately, an option becomes a requirement and then the protection for users is totally gone.

> No, because Apple chooses to prevent me from controlling the device the way I want.

They have no power to prevent you from doing anything you want to your device. Just like Ford has no power to stop me from modifying my truck in any way I want. Or any other product from any other company.

Not helping you is something different, that's not preventing.

> Every developer who wants to cater to ~half of the mobile user population (~85% if it's young Americans)

That's a choice for them to make. You might then say that Coca-Cola is forcing supermarkets to carry their product because customers want to buy them.

> They have no power to prevent you from doing anything you want to your device. Just like Ford has no power to stop me from modifying my truck in any way I want. Or any other product from any other company.

They have the technical ability to prevent me from running the code I want, and they exercise that ability for that purpose. They're not a passive actor in this situation, they explicitly block me from doing things that they themselves can do, even after the sale.

Again, this should be a concern merely because of the power imbalance.

> That's a choice for them to make. You might then say that Coca-Cola is forcing supermarkets to carry their product because customers want to buy them.

Not the same thing at all. The mobile app market is a top-level one in a way the Coca-Cola one is not. Apple is controlling a huge amount of commerce for products that have nothing to do with them, besides being digital accessories to iDevices.

The better analogy would be: there are only two store companies in the entire US. If you want to sell any product at all, of any category (silverware, food, lawnmowers etc) you must contract with them and there's no other way, and anyone who wants to purchase any product whatsoever only has those two options.

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