[HN Gopher] Facebook says Apple is too powerful - they're right
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Facebook says Apple is too powerful - they're right
Author : Trouble_007
Score : 360 points
Date : 2022-06-20 08:35 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.eff.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.eff.org)
| sprayk wrote:
| the '?' is not present in the title of the linked article. please
| remove it from the title. From the guidelines[0]:
|
| "Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading
| or linkbait; don't editorialize."
|
| EDIT: looking through older comments, it sounds like it
| originally had a '?' that they later replaced with a '.' .
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| tannhaeuser wrote:
| It's really pathetic to see EFF side with the likes of Fb and
| Zuckerberg. They seem like a one-trick-pony only caring about
| vintage software licenses, everything else be damned, like
| compensation for F/OSS developers and artists, innovation,
| developers sick of giving "cloud providers" tools for mass
| surveillance and monopolization (and for free), and focusing on
| open standards as opposed to open-source implementations. They
| should wake up to the world they themselves and their attitudes
| and outdated pseudo-socialist dogma have created in the first
| place, or make place for younger people to care about problems we
| have today.
| spacemanmatt wrote:
| Bring back meaningful antitrust regulation. No FAANG left behind.
| jakey_bakey wrote:
| The worst person you know just made a great point.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| It's not a super convincing argument. iOS is a closed, walled-
| garden platform. This is by design. It is also, however, a
| minority player in mobile computing. As long as there remain
| other platform options -- MacOS, Windows, Linux, Android -- those
| who WANT a different experience have many other choices.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| Nice to see an EFF article here. I'd like to point out that they
| are a wonderful non-profit organization that supports digital
| rights, and you can donate to their cause here:
| https://supporters.eff.org/donate/join-eff-m--h
|
| I've been a "member" myself for over 10 years.
| bloodyplonker22 wrote:
| This is exactly the same as when Emperor Palpatine begged "help
| me, I'm too weak". We all know what happened next after he
| received help.
| tcfhgj wrote:
| Yes, it is, and so is Facebook
| kderbyma wrote:
| they are both too powerful....
| mattanimation wrote:
| Remember when Apple killed Flash?
| quantum_state wrote:
| Meta should try to balance with its own mobile platform: devices,
| OS, app & dev ecosystem, etc.
| beloch wrote:
| When Microsoft built Internet explorer into the foundations of
| their OS, they got slapped with an anti-trust lawsuit because, it
| was argued, they were denying users their choice of web browser
| and, in effect, monopolizing that sector[1]. Nevermind that users
| could still install other browsers and use them. You just
| couldn't uninstall internet explorer.
|
| In 1948, the government brought an antitrust lawsuit to trial
| against Paramount pictures [1] in order to address vertical
| integration in the movie distribution system. At the time,
| theatres were either owned by studios or had to buy "packages" of
| films. In effect, no theatre could show the best films from
| multiple studios. They had to choose _one_ production company to
| buy a package from and that was that. Small studios and
| independents were effectively blocked from showing their films.
| The government won, and that 's why cinemas can actually show
| films from multiple studios and independents today.
|
| Apple now owns their platform down to the chipset and CPU. They
| jealously guard their spare parts supply chain and have tried to
| muscle out independent repair services, while designing their
| products with planned obsolescence as a main goal. The same sort
| of anti-competitive practices that once kept indie films from
| being shown are now used to stifle competition for Apple's
| offerings in multiple spaces. They even produce their own films
| and TV shows now! Want to watch them someplace other than Apple
| TV? There are no legal alternatives to installing Apple TV. The
| vertical integration in Apple is just as bad as it was in 1940's
| hollywood, but movies are just _one_ of the spaces Apple is
| trying to dominate.
|
| We can argue that users still have choice. They can choose to use
| alternative streaming services. (They just can't watch anything
| made by Apple Studios). They can choose alternative hardware or
| OS's. etc. However, it's clearly not Apple's _preference_ that
| users have those choices. They just have succeeded in squeezing
| out the competition yet.
|
| If Microsoft building Internet Explorer into Windows merited an
| antitrust suit just twenty years ago, why haven't we seen an
| antitrust suit brought to bear against Apple for doing _far_
| worse? Given what companies like Apple and, yes, Facebook have
| done in recent years, perhaps it 's time for governments to, once
| again, start advocating for the consumers that vote them into
| power.
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor..
| ..
|
| [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pic..
| ..
| rdxm wrote:
| bilekas wrote:
| > the company's executives, project managers and engineers
| frankly discuss plans to design Facebook's services so that users
| who leave for a rival pay as high a price as possible
|
| Serious question: What are some of the rivals of FB these days ?
|
| As for Apple, at least there are other, in many cases more
| powerful, mobile devices available, making the jump to Android
| from Apple isn't the big learning curve it once was. From a users
| perspective it's not that big of a deal usually.
|
| From a developers point of view - there is a discussion Apple
| need to consider around how much they gatekeep developers. Anyone
| who's developed for the AppStore knows the pain. And to add on
| top of that extremely high fees, it's a wonder there are any
| 'indie' / smaller developers at all.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > What are some of the rivals of FB these days ?
|
| Google, other major ad exchanges.
|
| Consumer facing: Tiktok, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn
| ohlookcake wrote:
| Tiktok, Snapchat, Twitter - all to varying degrees. More in
| other aspects of Meta's businesses
| [deleted]
| SilverBirch wrote:
| I just... don't see why you would frame an argument in this way?
| Are there problems with the way Apple operates? Sure. They've
| made some trade offs and some business decisions that I disagree
| with but often I can see the logic. There _is_ value to having a
| single App store controlled by Apple.
|
| There are also downsides, and pretty much the only reason that
| it's a serious problem is that Apple's products are so great that
| there's very little competition. That's about the long and short
| of it. Apple has no control over which Apps you run. It has total
| control over which Apps you run on an iPhone. Which you know when
| you buy the phone. I'm as much of a hostage to Apple as I am a
| hostage to my local pub in terms of which Beers they have on tap.
| I knew that when I walked into the pub.
|
| You know what _isn 't_ helpful in discussing these issues,
| framing the entire argument around a malign competitor of Apple.
| This article does a great job of presenting the arguments against
| Apple in the least helpful way possible.
| Mindwipe wrote:
| > That's about the long and short of it. Apple has no control
| over which Apps you run. It has total control over which Apps
| you run on an iPhone. Which you know when you buy the phone.
| I'm as much of a hostage to Apple as I am a hostage to my local
| pub in terms of which Beers they have on tap. I knew that when
| I walked into the pub.
|
| This isn't true, because Apple's influence means that
| developers on other platforms based on Apple's requirements
| because moderating in different fashions depending on reception
| device is basically impossible.
|
| Lots of social networks actively discriminate against groups in
| society due to the Apple App Store terms across the _entire
| service_ , and have for years.
| howinteresting wrote:
| Imagine if your bar was instead a chain of bars, and they
| didn't stock (for example) Belgian ales, and they were so
| powerful a bunch of Belgian ale makers have gone out of
| business due to that decision. That's a more accurate analogy.
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| Yes, they're 100% right. We should put all entities that hold
| monopoly or oligopoly power over someone's daily life, access to
| essential services, or access to their social graph under
| democratic control.
|
| After apple and google, facebook can be next on the list.
| baskethead wrote:
| It's Facebook's job to convince users that allowing access to the
| data is worth it to the users. It's not Apple's obligation to
| give free reign to companies to their users' data. Their
| obligation is to their users and I'm happy that they decided to
| do it.
|
| Facebook should instead spend more money and more effort to
| entice users to give this data that they used to get for free. To
| say that Apple has too much power is ridiculous. Apple and
| Facebook are orthogonal to each other in terms of markets so it's
| not even an anti-trust issue, it affects all companies that were
| used to this free data.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I find myself agreeing and disagreeing with this article.
|
| As a consumer, I like Apple's App Store. In general I don't like
| 3rd party apps and prefer web apps but when I do install a 3rd
| party app I feel that I am not loading malware. Also, when I buy
| books, audiobooks, and movies from Google Play I don't mind
| buying from a web site and then having the content available from
| the apps.
|
| I would like to see maximum support for web apps for too many
| reasons to list here. Apple should do better. I also don't like
| Apple not holding themselves to the same privacy standards as
| other companies and platforms.
|
| One thing that irritates me is not having easy access to books
| and movies bought from Apple on my Chromebook. I should re-check
| this, but except for going through the iCloud.com web portal, I
| am stuck. BTW, there is so much I like about the Chromebook
| model, especially because of built-in Linux containers.
|
| Apple is definitely a compromise, at least in my opinion.
| seabriez wrote:
| Apple is not compromise of anything. It's a company that is
| evil, but only isn't yet because it didnt win in all the market
| segments. But as soon as it gains majority share they will
| fuckover all their customers, because they are evil and they
| can. iPhone is already a hell hole from a lockin and customer
| freedom perspective.
| zeepzeep wrote:
| weird that Facebook would say that
| mymilacct wrote:
| Totally agree. I have adblockers on my browsers (FireFox -
| uBlock Origin, Safari - 1blocker) and don't remember the last
| time I saw an ad (even on YouTube). Been years since I last
| logged on to any Facebook property. Switched to mostly using
| Safari after iCloud Private Relay came out. Thought I was
| following good privacy hygiene. Covid lockdown freed up some
| time to focus on health so started consuming strength
| training/workout content on YouTube and blogs. Logged into
| Facebook on my Mac a couple weeks ago to view a family video
| that a relative forwarded. The first ad I see on my feed is for
| protein powder. Totally blew my mind! There is no escaping
| Facebook surveillance.
| nowherebeen wrote:
| They are being squeezed by Apple. They are used to be the one
| squeezing others, not the other way around. Even though Apple
| stands to gain from this, I am glad they are using their weight
| take on Facebook.
| moffkalast wrote:
| "Takes one to know one"
| kareemsabri wrote:
| Yes, you should be able to install any app you want, there should
| be many app stores, and the 30% cut should be more like 3%.
| ben_w wrote:
| I think it's possible to make other App Stores work, but they
| need to be regulated.
|
| Some of the things which 3rd party developers complain about
| Apple requiring are basically "comply with GDPR and no you
| can't spam popups to try and bore people into assenting that's
| not even allowed by GDPR". Without Apple gatekeeping, I think
| dark patterns would be the first thing to go wrong.
|
| The "no adult content" rule seems very weird given that web
| browsers exist, even though I can understand why they would
| want to project a "family friendly" corporate image. That said,
| I am aware that my Overton window isn't going to match America:
| I live in Berlin, and the spinning billboards here sometimes
| put erotic massage between family dentists and car repairs. But
| such things varying by county is still a good reason to have
| multiple stores with different rules, not just multiple
| availability zones for the same store.
|
| The encryption rules... well, that's a USA export requirement,
| even when neither the developer nor any of the end users is in
| America, and while I can easily see why the US wants to require
| it, that's not going to be acceptable to other governments in
| the long term. I can easily believe that the EU would demand an
| EU App Store that has an equivalent requirement but reporting
| to the EU instead of to the USA, and so on.
|
| That said, the fees structure is likely to be massively
| complicated by all this. The payment processing fee may be 3%
| (last time I looked was when Kagi was a payment processor and
| not a search engine), but the 15/30% that Apple (and on
| Android, that Google takes even though Android does allow other
| app stores) charges, also covers free use of iCloud databases,
| makes Xcode a free download, and likely helps pay for the
| development of the iOS/iPadOS/watchOS family the same way the
| same fees on the Play Store probably help develop Android.
| kareemsabri wrote:
| Yeah, I'm not saying it would be simple or even that the
| experience in alternative app stores / apps wouldn't be much
| worse. I expect it would be worse. I just think if I buy a
| phone I should be able to run what I want on it, without
| unreasonable impediment. I appreciate the App Store, app
| review and the relative thoroughness of it (though it hasn't
| really scaled) and am not suggesting they abandon it.
|
| There's room to quibble with my 3% number, but it can't stay
| 30%, that seems obvious at this point. I disagree that the
| 30% charge is what makes Apple able to provide those free
| things. I pay for my Apple Developer Account annually, so
| while XCode is free to download, distributing my app is not.
| Apple's hundreds of billions in idle cash to the point where
| they are flirting with becoming a bank also begs to differ
| that these fees are necessary to keep the App Store
| affordable. It's a very profitable business, and I don't
| begrudge them wanting to keep it, but I would support
| pressure to reduce fees.
| ben_w wrote:
| I'm definitely willing to believe 30% is higher than it
| needs to be, and while it could probably be argued either
| way for various reasons, Apple's large pile of cash is my
| main reason for anticipating that I would agree with you.
|
| However:
|
| > I pay for my Apple Developer Account annually, so while
| XCode is free to download, distributing my app is not.
|
| It's a nominal fee, and judging by how often the apps on my
| devices announce new updates, probably covers 15 minutes of
| human time in the average update/release review process. My
| guess is that's probably going to be the minimum App Store
| membership fee regardless of commissions.
| alfor wrote:
| I just 'fixed' a iMac that had half of the internet not working
| on it.
|
| The reason: Apple stopped updating it, a certificate on it had
| expired making half of websites blocked by Chrome.
|
| The hardware is still working fine, but Apple want to retired
| it's own hardware so they can sell more.
| simondotau wrote:
| It's a good article in many respects, but its logic unwittingly
| falls down when they try to have it both ways, advocating for an
| outcome that is functionally impossible. From the article--
|
| _" It's great when Apple chooses to defend your privacy. Indeed,
| you should demand nothing less. But if Apple chooses not to
| defend your privacy, you should have the right to override the
| company's choice. Facebook spied on iOS users for more than a
| decade before App Tracking Transparency, after all."_
|
| The important thing to appreciate is that App Tracking
| Transparency isn't something Apple can enforce with code. It's
| not an API or operating system feature which shields users
| against tracking. Enforcement is purely the threat of retribution
| by Apple, made legal by the terms of the agreement which all
| developers sign. Apple's monopoly on iOS app distribution means
| that a wilful breach of Apple's privacy policies is a dangerous
| path for any developer to take.
|
| I cannot see any plausible scenario where an Apple made impotent
| through legislation could possibly result in a net gain of
| privacy control for consumers. And even if there is a better way,
| how about we get that working BEFORE tearing down the current
| imperfect system?
|
| That paragraph is a layer cake of wishful thinking. How does the
| EFF propose to enforce a consumer right to override Apple's
| choices over privacy within iOS? This kind of rhetoric is
| unhelpful, eliding reality on so many levels. The notion of
| consumers self-policing their own privacy is a nice sentiment,
| but as an idea that must be implemented in reality... rather
| optimistic.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Besides laws regulating tracking (good or bad).
|
| There could still be a net benefit while also increasing choice
| and competition. By allowing 3p app stores.
|
| each app store competitor could create their own privacy
| policies, quality requirements, or maybe manual curation.
| whatever differentiation.
|
| Apple would still surely capture a large % of average consumers
| whose privacy would be protected. But those who care could seek
| out and customize their experience and chose a different
| privacy policy.
| onphonenow wrote:
| We ALREADY know how EFF / the govt protects privacy outside of
| Apple - they don't period. You are scammed and ripped off
| everywhere online with no consequence.
|
| Ironically, it's because Apple have kept EFF / Govt OUT and
| enforced their own rules in this walled garden that we all are
| rushing into it. We wouldn't need to if EFF / govt / developers
| did a fairer job outside of Appleworld.
| swagasaurus-rex wrote:
| > The important thing to appreciate is that App Tracking
| Transparency isn't something Apple can enforce with code
|
| Wait - why not? Apple controls iOS, they control the sandbox
| apps run in. Of all protections, app tracking seems like they
| aren't really fixing the problem by using monopoly power and
| threatening to pull apps.
| simondotau wrote:
| The entitlement cannot be enforced by the kernel. There is
| literally no API call associated with it. If the user
| requests no third-party tracking, there's literally no API
| for the sandbox to lock out.
|
| The entitlement is enforced by legal contract. The only thing
| stopping Meta from blatantly ignoring this policy is the fear
| of consequences by Apple.
| kec wrote:
| How do you keep an application from taking an entitlement it
| shouldn't have (such as location or bluetooth access for
| fingerprinting) via code? Sandboxes can be enforced via
| entitlement checks in code, but the act of holding an
| entitlement is policy.
| sitharus wrote:
| The usual way - entitlements are held in a kernel data
| structure, and the kernel and associated system services
| won't allow access to APIs when the entitlement isn't
| there.
|
| Try it on iOS, if you don't have the right entitlements
| system API calls will fail.
| hermitdev wrote:
| Surely the entitlements are enforced via code on iOS,
| right? It cannot be on the honor system.
| kec wrote:
| Using the entitlements are enforced at runtime yes, but
| granting them in the first place is enforced at app
| review time. If an app asserts an entitlement the
| developer can't justify it will fail review.
| [deleted]
| whimsicalism wrote:
| It is pretty difficult to ensure that tracking IDs are not
| passed between apps with a sandbox. The legal enforcement is
| a much bigger deal on these things.
| skohan wrote:
| You're basically describing GDPR right? By having state
| regulations, there's an agreed upon standard which is _not_ up
| to the discretion of any one corporation, but rather subject to
| the democratic process.
| simondotau wrote:
| Apple has implemented policy at scale, with a threat of
| enforcement which has been effective against the largest
| companies.
|
| On the other hand, the GDPR gives end users the privilege to
| engage in a legal fight with a multi-billion dollar app
| developer, assuming that they can even prove the existence of
| such tracking in the first place.
| Jcowell wrote:
| Exactly. The US needs strong, sensible, strict privacy laws
| before they pass legislation that would be detrimental to
| millions of Apple consumers who bought the iPhone for Apple's
| monopoly.
| corrral wrote:
| Yep. Buying iDevices is the libertarian dream of buying into
| private regulatory environments.
|
| I hate it, but it's the best we have until/unless government
| improves our terribly weak consumer protection & privacy
| laws. I really hope the option's not taken away, nor Apple's
| position as a regulator significantly weakened, until/unless
| government steps in and solves the problems Apple's currently
| solving. At that point, sure, break them up, ban app store
| platform monopolies, whatever, fine, go for it. But please
| not yet.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Buying iDevices is the libertarian dream of buying into
| private regulatory environments.
|
| I bet Libertarians would love to hear that, but even _they_
| probably wouldn 't put their money into a company that has
| time-and-time-again been proven to be in the Governments
| pocket via PRISM, iCloud data requests and Greykey
| Bruteforcing. Sounds like a libertarian nightmare to me:
| you give your data to a private company, but they
| immediately betray you and share that information with the
| government.
|
| ...that of course doesn't mean that Apple _shouldn 't_ be
| regulated into the ground. It does imply that they _won 't_
| be regulated though, as long as egregious data collection
| continues to appease our private and national interests.
| bigfudge wrote:
| The GP didn't claim this was a perfect or even good
| solution though: just the best currently available. That
| your vendor will sell you out to law
| enforcement/intelligence agencies is a given for ALL
| large tech companies. None has a clean record in this
| regard. I also wouldn't be super confident that an EFF
| approved stack would actually keep you safe from a nation
| state interested in your stuff.
|
| What you _can_ buy from apple though is i) services where
| your data are not monetised to the highest bidder and ii)
| being part of a non-ad-supported culture which seems like
| a prerequisite for a functioning public discourse and
| political economy.
| woojoo666 wrote:
| A libertarian dream would have free markets, and the
| article above shows that whatever market that Apple
| operates in is nothing like a free market
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| It still is a free market, you can buy an android if you
| don't want apple's privacy "guarantees"
| seoaeu wrote:
| "The USSR is a free market, you can just move to America
| if you want to buy something that isn't for sale there"
| gopher_space wrote:
| I don't get the analogy. Can you break it down for me?
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| "Ask app not to track" is great. Any solution to apple's power
| that means this privacy improvement couldn't have happened is a
| bad solution. That's the issue here. The only way to defeat
| network effects (like facebook's surveillance) is with other
| network effects (like apple's app store).
|
| To be clear, I'd love a less powerful apple, but it has to be a
| solution that can still lead to users actual wants overriding a
| behemoth like facebook. I don't know if that's asking to have my
| cake and eat it too.
| henvic wrote:
| So what?
| rglullis wrote:
| Every corporation that gets too much unchecked power will
| eventually abuse it. Why should Apple get a free pass?
| ig-88ms wrote:
| We'll because Apple is a way of life. A religion. Religions
| aren't bad, are they?
| jraph wrote:
| So, Apple wants to control what people can run on their devices
| and Facebook wants to track their users. Both are right about
| the other on these topics.
|
| As soon as Apple allows / is forced to allow other app stores,
| if ever, Facebook might tell their users "for the full
| experience, install Facebook from this alternative app store
| that allows tracking". It seems to me there's no good ending
| for this story.
|
| The choice for me is obvious and simple. Avoid both of these
| companies.
| r00fus wrote:
| I can listen to nothing that Facebook says without wondering how
| it benefits Facebook. They may be correct, but their credibility
| is negative in my opinion.
| willi59549879 wrote:
| It is apple's platform, that is the problem. I believe it would
| probably be better if the appstore was more open, but if someone
| puts out malware it is good that apple can take care of it for
| its users. But Facebook is the bigger evil of these two, so i'd
| want to have that broken up first.
| s3p wrote:
| >...and one of the solutions they've proposed is to order Apple
| to carry apps it doesn't like in its App Store. This isn't how
| we'd do it. There are lots of ways that forcing Apple to publish
| software it objects to can go wrong. The US government has an
| ugly habit of ordering Apple to sabotage the encryption its users
| depend on.
|
| > But Apple also sometimes decides to sabotage its encryption, in
| ways that expose its customers to terrible risk.
|
| Somewhat tangential note but this level of nuance in an article
| is just confusing. Why are they presenting an entire new argument
| (in the second quote) to refute the premise of their basis for
| rejecting the previous one? They dump this argument and move on
| to a completely unrelated point in the next paragraph, which
| frustrates me. Also, the second quote has "sabotage its
| encryption" and "expose its customers to terrible risk" as
| hyperlinks, meaning they are linking to entire write ups of why
| they believe this. I'm sure there is merit to the point, but why
| briefly mention such a bombshell point as an offhand comment in
| this article? Makes it much harder to read-- I feel like my
| attention is being pulled in a lot of different directions.
| LightG wrote:
| Translation: "Apple has the power to materially impact our
| business in a one-on-one competition"
|
| True.
|
| Good.
|
| It's called competition and strategic positioning. I'm willing to
| entertain that Apple have too much power. But to hear this coming
| from Facebook?
|
| * throws complaint out *
|
| * case dismissed *
| bee_rider wrote:
| This article was written by somebody at the EFF. They are
| pointing out that, while Facebook is basically bad, they have
| some point in this situation.
|
| I think it is a sensible take. Facebook is basically rotten to
| the core. Apple engages in lots of not-so-great behavior. If
| Apple had some non-evil competition, I'm sure we'd be less
| forgiving of them.
| prmoustache wrote:
| I personnally feel that Facebook is way too powerful.
|
| I don't want to use whatsapp, I could use any other messaging app
| and I'd rather use something open that is decentralized. But
| nowadays if you have to work with small business, it is either
| inconvenient by phone, or text based through whatsapp, many have
| abandonned the email (I can understand why). If you have kids,
| all the associative world use whatsapp by default to keep track
| of all the details about your kids
| activities/training/competitions. Nobody update their basketball
| club web page anymore. Heck, they don't even update or post on
| their facebook page, all his done on messy whatsapp groups these
| days. If you refuse to use whatsapp you can just tell your kids
| no more sports in a club for you.
|
| If you have remote friends and you stop using whatsapp, you can
| still call them once in a while but good luck convincing them to
| call you on a regular basis. Some may do but most won't. People
| have forgotten what a written letter or a regular non video phone
| call was. It is not that you count less than their other
| relatives, but they will reach other people so easily you will
| just disappear from their life natuarally and gradually if you
| are too far away.
|
| It is either you swallow it or you live like with only a tiny and
| very local social life.
| smoldesu wrote:
| The same thing could be said about Apple though, which is why
| _both of these companies_ deserve to be heavily regulated. I
| don 't understand why people have to take sides here: both
| Apple and Facebook are horrible companies who don't care about
| (You), the end-user. It shocks me to see how many people are
| taking bullets for either company in this thread.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| > both of these companies deserve to be heavily regulated
|
| They do, no question, but the overwhelming sentiment is much
| more single faceted. There's a lot of support for breaking
| Apple's iron grip on software distribution on iOS for
| example, but practically none for breaking Google's iron grip
| on the web, even though the latter is arguably far more
| dangerous since it's corporate appropriation of critical
| public infrastructure under a guise of openness.
|
| By all means, force Apple to open things up, but in the same
| stroke ensure that there's no uneven enforcement that could
| allow other corporate giants to expand their monopolies where
| they previously couldn't.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > By all means, force Apple to open things up, but in the
| same stroke ensure that there's no uneven enforcement that
| could allow other corporate giants to expand their
| monopolies where they previously couldn't.
|
| Well-met, I agree wholeheartedly. Mirosoft, Google and
| Amazon all deserve to abide by the same rule-of-law.
|
| > There's a lot of support for breaking Apple's iron grip
| on software distribution on iOS for example, but
| practically none for breaking Google's iron grip on the web
|
| Well... yeah. If I want to publish a website today, I can
| buy a VPS and a domain name and have it broadcasting my
| personal believes by the end of the day. Pretty much
| everything on the web is working as it should, besides it's
| monetization model. Google's "iron grip" on the web mostly
| boils down to Chrome, which isn't _terribly_ broken.
| Without a good App Store to deliver software, browsers had
| to adopt technology quickly to compete. That 's what
| birthed things like web notifications and WebRTC, both of
| which are arguably quite good for the development of the
| web. Hell, Steve Jobs himself[0] said that he wanted the
| future of applications to be on the web: Apple was the one
| who chose to neglect Safari's featureset, which ultimately
| led to Chrome being superior. Apple definitely has the
| money to compete, but they choose to drag their feet
| through the mud because webapp parity with native
| applications would bleed their App Store profits dry.
|
| > ...even though the latter is arguably far more dangerous
| since it's corporate appropriation of critical public
| infrastructure under a guise of openness.
|
| Speak for yourself: the market says that Apple's approach
| is much more lucrative. Google profits ~60 billion dollars
| a year from all advertising (not just Chrome-enabled ads,
| but also mobile/YouTube ads as well). Compare that to the
| ~85 billion in annual revenue Apple gets from just the App
| Store (again, not iCloud or Apple One, _just their 30% cut_
| ), and it would seem that Apple's approach is certainly the
| more profitable one. It definitely explains why people are
| more interested in breaking Apple's monopoly than Google's:
| Apple's simply makes more money.
|
| Plus, who's to say which is more dangerous? Apple
| appropriates plenty of critical public infrastructure under
| a guise of benevolence (the App Store, iCloud, Apple
| Wallet), while many of their products continue to print
| money and undermine human liberties in oppressive countries
| like China and Saudi Arabia, where they comply with the
| outrageous demands of local governments simply because it's
| profitable to operate there. I don't think anyone can say
| for sure which is more harmful, unless they somehow started
| and directed both initiatives.
|
| Ultimately, I agree with you. We need harsh regulation, and
| it needs to apply to all of big tech evenly. However,
| people's arguments against Apple aren't ill-founded or
| unevenly distributed: they simply neglect their software
| platforms unlike any other developer today. Apple has more
| resources than any of their other peers, yet they choose to
| deliberately nerf their own software to drive sales. It's
| unique, it's endlessly frustrating for developers, and it's
| 100% a deliberate choice. If this is the pattern of
| behavior future companies follow, then capitalism will have
| failed. Societal progress shouldn't be withheld to progress
| the interests of a private corporation/board of
| shareholders.
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/p1nwLilQy64?t=1
| robonerd wrote:
| > _I don 't understand why people have to take sides here:
| both Apple and Facebook are horrible companies who don't care
| about (You)_
|
| Corps have gotten very good at exploiting the tribal instinct
| by encouraging people to view their affiliation with a brand
| as part of their personal identity.
|
| _" I'm a New York Yankees guy. If you've got a problem with
| the Yankees, you've got a problem with me!"_
| prmoustache wrote:
| Maybe argument if you are downvoting?
| tcfhgj wrote:
| They don't need to, because they can just push you out of the
| line of sight without bothering
| zamalek wrote:
| > Please don't comment on voting about comments. It makes for
| boring reading.[1]
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| matwood wrote:
| The point is big tech has too much power. Apple, Facebook, Google
| all have too much power. Unfortunately the US government can't
| pass any reasonable laws around technology so we end up relying
| on these companies with too much power to be (hopefully) a
| positive for the users.
|
| It's different for everyone, but for me in order of trust its
| Apple, Google, and FB is a distant distant last with almost
| anyone else you throw in there.
| randoglando wrote:
| Why do you choose that order?
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Do you not order them that way? That's my assumed ranking of
| trust.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Apple has some incentive to protect its users, as they are
| real customers.
|
| Google is at least clear, that they will suck in any data,
| they can get. But most of their clients are rather the
| product and not customers.
|
| And Zuckerberg has literally stated his disrespect for his
| users from the very beginning. "Dumb fucks to trust him".
| bogwog wrote:
| Yeah Facebook and Google are both in the same business of
| sucking up as much data as possible, but Zuckerberg has
| consistently proven himself to be a menace to society.
| matwood wrote:
| Apple's business is for the most part selling me things. They
| are not trying to capture all my data in order to drive their
| product.
|
| FB and Google are using my data to sell to advertisers.
|
| With that said, I'm not a Google hater. For my personal
| ranking Apple > Google >>>>>>>>>>>>>> FB. And following that
| model I have Apple devices, use Google, and haven't logged
| into FB in years.
| UnpossibleJim wrote:
| Apple, as opposed to Google and Facebook, "don't capture
| your data" to sell their product. That's their brand, and
| it has made them millions. They do give your data without
| question to authorities, without a fight. These battles are
| costly and the bottom line is the bottom line and money >
| people when it comes to FB, Google and Apple =/ but that's
| the world we live in, so I can't really blame them. We reap
| what we sew.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-30/apple-
| met...
| zip1234 wrote:
| Apple sells search ads for their app store...
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| They do capture a lot of data for their own purposes
| though. They're not selling it to other parties but they
| sure capture it.
| UnpossibleJim wrote:
| I wasn't aware of this, TBH. Well that's a little
| disingenuous.
| grumpyprole wrote:
| The business of "selling you things" as many and often as
| possible is a danger to the environment and future
| generations. There is 155 thousand tonnes per year of
| e-waste generated in the UK alone (source Gaurdian). The
| current situation is not sustainable. Apple are also
| masters of vendor lock-in, making it very difficult for
| people and businesses to leave the ecosystem.
| norman784 wrote:
| I think that you keep apple products longer than others,
| I kept my mbp retine 2013 till 2 years ago, iphones I
| change every 4 years or so (but they support for 5 years
| the mobile devices iirc), I bought in 10 years 2 apple
| tvs, while with google you can't keep your device more
| than 2/3 years because of updates, most cheap laptops are
| thrown in a year or two.
|
| So I disagree with you, apple isn't generating that much
| waste, but indeed they could generate less by opening the
| unsupported devices to install alternative OSes.
| kergonath wrote:
| > There is 155 thousand tonnes per year of e-waste
| generated in the UK alone
|
| How much of that is PS15 Chinese no-brand rubbish
| compared to PS1,000 phones? It sounds like barking up the
| wrong tree to me, there are hundreds of OEMs that produce
| disposable hardware, few of them end up supporting their
| devices as long as Apple or even Google (!)
| babypuncher wrote:
| Not the original commentor but I have the same order.
|
| For me it boils down to these companies' business models.
| Google and Facebook make their money by providing a free
| service and selling access to the data of their users. In
| that sense, I am not their customer, but rather their
| product, being sold to advertisers. My use of Google and
| Facebook services mostly boils down to a lack of viable
| alternatives, because nobody can really compete with "free"
| on the scale these players operate at.
|
| Apple's business model is very different. Apple makes their
| money by selling me hardware, and access to their ecosystem
| through that hardware. I am the customer, not the product,
| and that is reflected in how Apple treats their users. Apple
| are big fans of creating vendor lock-in with a walled-garden
| approach to their ecosystem, but they also know that they
| only get away with this as long as their customers are
| satisfied enough not to look for alternatives. So while I do
| not find this arrangement ideal, I do find it considerably
| more honest and palatable than what Facebook is offering.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Apple is the least trustworthy and morally punishing of the
| group.
|
| I trust facebook, google than apple.
|
| Facebook has been holding personal photos and connecting
| relationships for years. Google has been collecting search
| details for years. Both have a similiar business models and
| want to keep my data to themselves for realtime bidding.
|
| If Apple owned facebook everything would be highly
| censored. If Apple had Google's search all sites would need
| to be approved by Apple and all content must be family
| friendly. Apple creates a fake disney walled garden
| wherever it goes.
| zip1234 wrote:
| Allow me to introduce you to Apple search Ads:
| https://searchads.apple.com/
| pishpash wrote:
| On the consumer side, Google has begun charging for
| services like storage. It also sells Pixel phones and
| licenses Android. Maybe it's still heavily subsidized but
| it's not that clear cut.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| > but they also know that they only get away with this as
| long as their customers are satisfied enough not to look
| for alternatives.
|
| Which is entirely why they make it as hard to switch as
| possible, creating an additional barrier over just the
| user's satisfaction with the ecosystem.
| throwaway1777 wrote:
| This is such a common trope I have to push back. FB
| absolutely depends on user growth so you are a customer as
| well. Advertisers would leave if you left. If you go to
| tiktok because meta's products aren't as good/fun/cool that
| is a huge problem. It's possible for companies to have
| multiple customers, in fact it's pretty common.
| babypuncher wrote:
| TikTok is not really a direct competitor to Facebook. I'm
| trapped on Facebook because that is were a lot of my
| friends and family are, and FB Messenger is the only real
| way I have to talk to a lot of them. TikTok really only
| competes with a small part of Facebook's business
| (Instagram). Apple does not enjoy that kind of vendor
| lock-in.
|
| The impetus to move to competitor when you are unhappy is
| also a lot stronger when staying with your current
| provider costs you money.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| >TikTok is not really a direct competitor to Facebook.
|
| TikTok isn't a direct competitor _in your age
| demographic_. Almost no one under the age of 20 has a
| Facebook account nowadays - when I asked high schoolers a
| few years ago it was Instagram instead, and TikTok is
| increasingly getting bigger.
| babypuncher wrote:
| I use both. TikTok feels more like YouTube, Twitter, and
| Instagram. It is a social media platform where most users
| follow a relatively small number of influencers, rather
| than interfacing with their peers.
|
| Facebook is more of a communication platform between
| peers. It _kind of_ competes more with email and
| messaging clients. Facebook losing sight on this and
| pushing people to larger more impersonal groups and
| influencers is why I think they are dying, because
| everyone else already does that better.
|
| For my immediate family, Facebook has largely been
| supplanted by iMessage and iCloud. We hold conversations
| and group chats in iMessage, and share photos and videos
| through iCloud. TikTok fills a different purpose
| entirely.
| kergonath wrote:
| > FB absolutely depends on user growth so you are a
| customer as well
|
| This does not follow. KFC depends on chicken production
| scaling up as well, it does not make the chickens their
| customers.
| dickersnoodle wrote:
| According to Merriam-Webster, "customer" is defined as
| "one that purchases a commodity or service" so it isn't
| really a trope.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| A case of the pot calling the kettle black. It takes one to know
| one. Those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
| Hellbanevil wrote:
| nirse wrote:
| Indeed, any debate over who of the two is more powerful doesn't
| make sense. And the debate about who of the two (or 5 if we
| want to draw all of FAANG into it) is pointless, as they are
| powerful in different ways over different domains. And, second,
| I don't think the article claims that Facebook's power is ok,
| it just affirms Facebook's claim that Apple is too powerful.
| nowherebeen wrote:
| I came here to say the exact same thing.
| runevault wrote:
| Yup BOTH need to get smacked with the regulation hammer. Not
| that they will.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| _or_ the competitions regulators that were setup to stop
| another standard oil, should have come in a long time ago and
| sorted out this monopoly. Along with the horrifically shite ISP
| situation the US has.
| henvic wrote:
| Apple ascension has to do with satisfying customers' demands.
| Intervention the way Facebook seems to be promoting is crony
| capitalism, and is powers of magnitude more powerful than that...
| and in a very grim way.
| ig-88ms wrote:
| Apple's success lies in forcing customers to stay and do as
| they're told. Come hell or high water.
| samwillis wrote:
| Apple's success lies in creating the best ecosystem of
| products that work together. The individual products may not
| be best on the market at times, but by buying into the system
| as an individual or family, you gain access to the based
| collaborative ecosystem of products that work together.
|
| That's why they have the market dominance across such a broad
| range of products. No one else come close.
| ig-88ms wrote:
| hnplj wrote:
| samwillis wrote:
| Both Apple and Google have successfully "owned the platform" they
| rely on for revenue, Google with Chrome, Apple with iOS. Facebook
| have tried but never succeeded in owning the platform, it's the
| biggest risk to their position.
|
| Their strategy to owning the platform now seems to me not to be
| "owning" the legislative and political platform through lobbying.
| If they can't own the OS/Browser they are running on, then they
| want to "own" the legislation that governs it.
|
| If your competitors own the platform better to leapfrog them and
| attempt to gain control though lobbying for legislative
| limitations.
|
| Having your no2/3 in the company being a former Deputy British
| Prime Minister, only shows how important the political and
| legislative situation is to the long term stability of them as a
| company.
| nowherebeen wrote:
| I highly recommend this video I watched today about platform
| capitalism.
|
| THE METAVERSE: A Guide to the Future of Capitalism
|
| https://youtu.be/TM00M-dRMBk
| alexb_ wrote:
| Should note that Tom Nicholas is extremely political in all
| of his videos and his content - that's the point. There's
| nothing wrong with that, but treating opinions as good
| sources of information just because somebody knows how to
| edit a video isn't a good way to do things.
| nowherebeen wrote:
| It's food for thought. It's up to the viewers to decide
| whether what he saids makes logical sense and filter his
| political bias.
|
| I do agree with his argument here about Facebook wanting to
| own the platform. I don't think that part is political as
| it makes business sense that Facebook would want that. And
| Facebook isn't exactly trying to hide their ambitions
| either.
| oblio wrote:
| > Google with Chrome
|
| Or, you know, Android.
| samwillis wrote:
| Quite right, where I live, among the people I know, Apple
| have maybe 95% of the market. That's obviously not true
| globally or even nationally (I'm in the UK). But it does lead
| to carelessly forgetting the size of the Android market share
| globally some times. Thanks for the nudge!
| oblio wrote:
| Let me guess, 95% of the people around you also have Apple
| laptops? :-)
| samwillis wrote:
| Strangely, I have no idea. I work from home (and have for
| 10 years) and so the only other person I regularly see
| using a laptop is my wife, who does use a MacBook... so
| 100% of people around me use a MacBook...
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Because you live with young(er), rich, white, college-
| educated people - most likely. Android has great market
| penetration but that cohort has firmly fallen to Apple.
| wccrawford wrote:
| >Facebook have tried but never succeeded in owning the
| platform, it's the biggest risk to their position.
|
| They're certainly trying their hardest with the Oculus Quest,
| and they're doing a good job of providing the cheapest headset
| out there, and arguably the best in some ways. I wouldn't count
| them out of the picture on that just yet.
| samwillis wrote:
| I think that's why they have gone all in on VR, it's the only
| platform that's still up for grabs. I suspect they are quite
| worried what Apple will come out with when they enter the
| market.
|
| However I don't believe the market in VR/AR is as large as
| they think it could become. Unless I'm missing something
| obvious.
| runevault wrote:
| Just like everything else, you need a killer app/feature.
| Smart phones was basically internet everywhere first and
| then all the apps followed after. I have no idea what will
| drive the masses to want VR. Games in the space have mostly
| been lackluster, and the only app type that sounds
| interesting to me (but not enough to warrant the price nor
| having the headset on) would be the recreation of large
| movie experience.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| It also shows, how fearful they are of becoming irrelevant in
| people's lives. They try to entrench themselves everywhere they
| can, but if Google disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn't even notice
| for quite a while, except for web pages not showing up in
| uBlock Origin as loading Google trackers.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| You are in the minority of Western internet users, and I am
| sure many websites you visit would notice the loss in ad
| revenue.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| "Oho!" said the pot to the kettle; "You are dirty and
| ugly and black! Sure no one would think you were metal,
| Except when you're given a crack." "Not so! not
| so!" kettle said to the pot; "'Tis your own dirty image
| you see; For I am so clean - without blemish or blot -
| That your blackness is mirrored in me."
| ig-88ms wrote:
| Apple is way too powerful. Not that Facebook is any better, but
| Facebook is not the gatekeeper for millions of peoples lives.
| When Apple boots you as a customer, you most likely will lose
| everything about your digital life.
|
| If you lose your Facebook account, it's annoying but recoverable.
|
| Apple has control over your phone, your passwords, your photos,
| your music, your emails, your credit cards/payment methods. And
| you can backup nothing of it in a usable way. Without a working
| Apple account any iPhone is as good as a brick.
| signal11 wrote:
| > Facebook is not the gatekeeper for millions of peoples lives
|
| Facebook's influence over _billions_ of people's lives is far
| more insidious. What that platform peddles influences
| countries' political futures. It is absolutely a gatekeeper of
| _ideas_ to an extent AOL or the proprietary MSN of old could
| never imagine. Less charitable people could even call it a
| privately owned memetic weapon.
|
| > Without a working Apple account any iPhone is as good as a
| brick.
|
| Lots of people have iPhones without Apple accounts -- they're
| corporate "managed" iPhones. I appreciate the desire to
| decouple from Apple's services, but it's a stretch to say that
| you're locked in. In fact, most iPhone users don't use all of
| Apple's services can quite easily move to Android with only a
| little effort.
|
| If there's enough consensus though that Apple's policies are
| harming users, then I'm sure legislators can require Apple to
| (say) allow users to decouple from Apple services.
|
| I'm not seeing it though. There are places with Apple goes
| overboard, eg the "must pay via Apple" is being attacked by
| legislation already (eg in the Netherlands), and better App
| Store policies will probably help as well, as long as they
| don't open the door to malware. But to say that Apple is worse
| than Facebook feels like a very skewed perspective.
| natly wrote:
| I recently got a new phone and forgot my apple password but I
| considered just creating a new account because I didn't really
| consider it that big of a deal to just start fresh. I don't
| cling onto my emails and I only have like 30 contacts that I
| actually care about, all of which I have their emails stored in
| gmail rather than in contacts (and don't call them anyway). So
| I'm not sure I would care if I had to start from scratch.
| ChrisRR wrote:
| > If you lose your Facebook account, it's annoying but
| recoverable.
|
| I haven't noticed any negative impact since giving facebook the
| boot
| afr0ck wrote:
| How do you find out about events, gigs and stuff happening in
| your town?
| ChrisRR wrote:
| My town has a website for events, music, comedy, etc.
|
| Even when I used facebook I never used it for gigs or
| anything.
| threeseed wrote:
| So if Facebook shut down everyone would just be staying
| home confused about what to do ?
|
| Anyway in Australia at least we have sites like this:
| https://www.broadsheet.com.au
|
| Pretty sure every city does too.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| If Facebook shuts down people would flock to an
| alternative.
|
| If Facebook bans people here and there, the rest of the
| crowd won't give a shit.
|
| _That_ is the problem.
| jurmous wrote:
| In Europe and specifically here in the Netherlands, almost
| everything is going through WhatsApp. Without whatsapp you are
| disconnecting yourself from a lot of socialising
| groups/neighborhood watch and more. Recoverable, but still a
| main pillar of society here so it comes at a cost of losing
| social connections.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| > Apple is way too powerful. Not that Facebook is any better,
| but Facebook is not the gatekeeper for millions of peoples
| lives.
|
| I think Facebook inciting genocide is being more of a literal
| gatekeeper of lives than Apple allowing porn on their app
| store. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-
| facebo... https://about.fb.com/news/2018/11/myanmar-hria/
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| > If you lose your Facebook account, it's annoying but
| recoverable.
|
| Tell that to the large portion of the world living where
| government services, clubs, community and social events, second
| hand markets, contact with family or communication without
| usurious data charges are unavailable without a facebook or
| facebook subsidiary account.
|
| At least with apple you can just use a different phone. If all
| of the social activity in your area operates over facebook you
| can't get a new social graph that isn't owned by them.
| jurmous wrote:
| With Apple, any service you use is a choice. Ok you need an
| Apple account to download apps but that is the only mandatory
| one. But you can switch out all Apple apps with other ecosystem
| variants like those from Google or others.
| NorwegianDude wrote:
| That's not true at all.
|
| Apple goes a long way to sabotage and make sure what you're
| saying is not the case.
|
| You're not even allowed to use a browser that Apple isn't in
| control of. You're even forced to use Apple for payments.
| Apple even dictates what content an app is allowed to
| contain.
| threeseed wrote:
| a) I use Chrome. Apple doesn't control it except for the
| engine which is irrelevant to my day to day use.
|
| b) I don't use Apple for payments.
|
| c) If there is content that is highly objectionable I would
| just visit the website. But then again I am not really into
| that sort of content in the first place.
| EugeneOZ wrote:
| It's just ridiculous. I use whatever I want for payments.
| How is Apple forcing you to buy a fish in your shop only
| using ApplePay?
| jurmous wrote:
| I use Apple Pay as a protocol to pay with either credit
| card or maestro through my own bank or its competitors.
| Apple state they don't get any of my payment data as it
| stays on my devices and with my bank. It is a method of
| communication and not a payment provider.
|
| Apple dictates the browser engine for security and battery
| life considerations which I regard as a feature. There are
| multiple browsers which can implement any feature on top of
| the browser engine included.
|
| And Apple does not dictate what content is allowed to
| contain. But they do the opposite, they disallow certain
| content to keep their devices safe to use for the general
| audience/children. Anything else can be viewed on the web.
| They are over time removing restrictions in the browser
| like adding web push in iOS 16.
| https://9to5mac.com/2022/06/06/ios-16-web-push-
| notifications... And it was already possible to add full
| screen web apps to the Home Screen.
| joe_guy wrote:
| > Apple dictates the browser engine for security and
| battery life considerations which I regard as a feature.
|
| > Anything else can be viewed on the web.
|
| You've reconstructed your statement to be conditional on
| your preferences.
|
| It's now "You can... Except for the major situations when
| you can't... But I don't count those because of my
| personal preferences."
| kmlx wrote:
| > you most likely will lose everything about your digital life.
|
| "everything"? why would you lose anything at all?
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| The three primary ways I communicate with friends and family
| are FB Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Facebook could
| decide it doesn't like me at any time.
| SllX wrote:
| > Apple has control over your phone, your passwords, your
| photos, your music, your emails, your credit cards/payment
| methods.
|
| This gets repetitive but: only if you let them. I'm not even
| sure you need an Apple ID to use an iPhone either, although you
| will for the App Store. Everything else is extra: iCloud, Apple
| Music, iCloud email, the Apple Wallet. Your Dropbox, Spotify,
| email host and credit cards don't just fall into an abyss when
| you create an Apple ID.
|
| Apple has what you give them. That's true for every single one
| of their customers. Contrast that with Facebook that built
| shadow profiles before people even had accounts because the
| websites you visited and apps you used were relaying
| information back to them.
| gpspake wrote:
| I've solved this problem for good with email - since I think
| it's arguably the most important thing here (all my
| financial/important life stuff is ultimately tied back to my
| email).
|
| I kinda think everyone should do this...
|
| - First I got a custom domain email address that I own and
| control (like name@myname.com).
|
| - Then I set up what's basically a burner account with a
| popular email service just so I could take advantage of the web
| UX (it could be gmail or whatever, I don't really care). This
| email address never gets used or exposed. The account is merely
| a forwarding bucket that I can use to check my email in a
| browser.
|
| - My personal email all gets forwarded to the burner address
| (at the host level). The burner (gmail or whatever) acct is
| configured to send from my personal address.
|
| - I have the account set up in outlook so I can access/backup
| emails locally.
|
| I'm not really worried about losing access to my web mail
| account but I've read horror stories and the cost of that
| scenario is just intolerable so, if I did, I would just set up
| another account with the same or a different service, forward
| my personal email to the new address, add it to outlook, and
| drag all my existing emails in to the new account. I don't even
| need to worry about accessing my existing emails because
| they're all backed up locally.
|
| Sidenote: as part of this process, I quit filing my emails in
| folders (search is good enough to find any email these days). I
| just put all my read emails in a single flat folder called
| archive. This makes it a lot easier to keep my inbox clean (no
| more meticulous filing) and easier to migrate if I ever need to
| (different services have different implementations and
| restrictions around folders - but a bunch of emails in a single
| folder is universally deal-with-able.).
| abraae wrote:
| Apple doesn't harm your mental health or facilitate threats to
| democracy though. They just want your money, and they'll sell
| you beautiful gadgets to get it.
| rglullis wrote:
| "Brave New World" is also a dystopia. The more unchecked
| power Apple gets and the more Apple zealots think that it is
| okay, the closer we get to live in it.
| 988747 wrote:
| Apple is not in control of your credit cards - it just allows
| you to use them more conveniently. And for photos and music,
| and even passwords there are alternative services, no one
| forces you to use Apple provided ones.
| moonchrome wrote:
| > Apple is not in control of your credit cards
|
| Maybe OP was referring to https://www.apple.com/apple-card/ ?
|
| > And for photos and music, and even passwords there are
| alternative services, no one forces you to use Apple provided
| ones.
|
| Apple has a real tight lockdown on what gets published to iOS
| devices and ships defaults built to the OS so I don't really
| buy this argument. Microsoft got punished for way less back
| in the day (eg. IE bundling vs being forced to use webkit for
| your rendering engine...)
| threeseed wrote:
| I really wish people would stop bringing up Microsoft.
|
| They had ~95% market share when they were pulling this IE
| nonsense. iOS is ~28%.
|
| And they didn't get in trouble just for bundling IE. It was
| the coercion of OEMs to not bundle Netscape. Many of the
| companies at the time wanted to offer both but weren't
| allowed.
| moonchrome wrote:
| > iOS is ~28%.
|
| This is a deliberately misleading number.
|
| They own ~50% of US market, they have close to 50% of
| global mobile revenue, >70% of profit, etc. etc. They are
| a huge player and abusing their market position - and are
| big enough to bring regulatory attention in multiple
| countries.
|
| This is exactly the situation where proper government
| intervention into markets is a good thing and I've seen
| multiple proposals to deal with "Apple tax" and walled
| garden strategy. Hopefully they come sooner rather than
| later.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| I some countries FB is the Internet and provides "the Internet"
| through FB. That is quite some gate keeping there.
|
| Someone getting into your FB account can ruin your complete
| social life, if you were relying on FB too much. Could also
| ruin your job perspectives and thus financial security.
|
| Not merely annoying. Self-inflicted mostly, yes, but definitely
| serious.
| drexlspivey wrote:
| I am not sure that's the case, I know a lot of (mainly older)
| people that if facebook was gone from their iphone they would
| ditch their iphone for android instead of not using facebook.
| shmel wrote:
| On the other hand, you can choose to not use Apple and your
| life won't be affected at all. I don't use Apple at all and
| don't feel I missing out. Apple doesn't have any network
| effect.
|
| If FB goes nuclear on me, I will lose the main platform to
| discover local events (like gigs, festivals, meetups and such),
| pretty much the only social media for a hobby of mine
| (photography) and the most popular messenger used by family
| members (ok, I could probably convince them to move elsewhere)
| and lots of local group chats (multiple attempts to move those
| group chats on telegram ultimately failed). Most of it is
| irreplaceable because FB killed off most of the competition.
|
| Compare it to Apple where you can just use Android and forget
| Apple exists at all.
| blfr wrote:
| I use neither Facebook nor Apple. Let's hope Google doesn't
| ban my account since it has everything.
|
| Or perhaps we could have a regulatory regime that doesn't
| press every consumer into becoming an e-peasant of one of
| five mega corps.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I recall that scifi from the pre-2000s, had loads of
| scenarios with a "house computer". All personal stuff was
| stored there, even if it was net connnected and
| collated/performed searches for you.
|
| Maybe this will be the blowback reality. An applicance in
| every home, stored in a black box (fireproof, etc), which
| stores all your stuff.
|
| Computing at this level, email, notes, personal records,
| has the capacity to stabilize and change freeze. Which is
| _good_ , if you want personal records to last 100 years.
|
| And looking at email, mbox formats have been static for
| decades. Static image formats too.
| justinclift wrote:
| > Maybe this will be the blowback reality.
|
| Wonder how that'd play out for home ownership vs renting
| then. "Whose data is it?", etc. ;)
| rambambram wrote:
| Just like your couch in your rental apartment is yours,
| and just like your raincoat in the trunk of a rental car
| is yours. ;)
| bbarnett wrote:
| I used to rent a place, furniture included, but
| everything smelled funny.
|
| Later in the year, during rainy season, I bought a used
| raincoat. It too smelled funny, and I soon discovered, by
| googling, that apparently people with a rubber fetish may
| do things to such garments.
|
| Horrible horrible things.
|
| Soon after, I became concerned about my smelly apartment.
| I started to google, but everything I googled with the
| word "fetish", returned unspeakable results.
|
| Each worse than the last!
|
| So I bought new furniture, bedding, cutlery(oh god!),
| plates, everything.
|
| Even toilet brushes are not safe from the horrors, so I
| bought one of those too.
|
| One night, I woke up in a start. An idea was in my head,
| and I rushed to google, and horribly found that factory
| workers making my stuff, have fetishes too.
|
| Nothing safe, I disposed of it all. I got out my
| chainsaw, and cut down a tree. I made plates, cutlery,
| even a wooden cup! And ate off of these plates and so on.
| However, just last week, I noticed a squirrel apparently
| randy and without a mate, doing something to a tree!!
|
| There is no end of the perversion I tell you, no end!!!
|
| So now I sit in the corner, drool upon my chin, eyes
| glassy and void of energy.
|
| (Brought to you by bbarnett's house, and the embarricon
| virus.)
| sbarre wrote:
| Hah you just reminded me of something...
|
| In the late 80s as a kid I remember reading a scifi short
| story from probably the 1950s that speculated that "in
| the future" the average suburban family would live
| _inside_ their computer, as it would need to be the size
| of a house to perform all the support duties for a
| family.
| int_19h wrote:
| There are some attempts:
|
| https://thehelm.com/
|
| The problem is that it's not cheap to keep running, if
| you want it to integrate with the rest of the Net (i.e.
| also handle email and such).
| ryandrake wrote:
| All three of you seem to have the same general problem,
| just the company name is different. No single account
| should gate access to _everything_ in your digital life. If
| getting banned from one company's platform would be a major
| problem for you, that probably means you should take steps
| to correct that now, no matter what the company is.
|
| If Facebook or Twitter banned me, it would have zero
| effect, because I don't ever use any of the services. If
| Apple banned me, it would be annoying, but I'm not heavily
| dependent on iCloud, so could switch to an Android phone
| pretty quickly. I certainly don't keep anything critical on
| iCloud or locked behind Apple services. If Google banned
| me, I'd lose an old gmail account I no longer use and I
| guess Google Voice, which I do use. Honestly losing Voice
| would probably be the most painful. I don't use any other
| Google service that requires a login so it wouldn't be a
| huge deal.
|
| We keep seeing these "XYZ banned me and I lost access to
| all my digital life" posts on HN, and they should be wake-
| up calls, yet people still think It Won't Happen To Me, and
| then we get another "ABC banned me..." article next week.
| blfr wrote:
| I have backups from Google Takeout, email in my own
| domain, and I use Linux on my laptop. I'm about as
| independent as you reasonably can but let's not pretend I
| could actually easily replace Google Photos, Maps, or
| Android. That grade of software simply doesn't currently
| exist outside of the big tech.
|
| More than that: Photos+Maps+Timeline combo doesn't even
| exist at Apple. Google is strictly far and the best
| choice for quite a few functionalities I cherish and a
| move to iCloud would be a downgrade. Not to mention the
| expense of buying new devices.
|
| I wouldn't really lose access to anything but my digital
| life would be greatly diminished.
| sbf501 wrote:
| Yep. There needs to be a policy for data rights that is
| larger than the companies. Something government level.
| arbirk wrote:
| Exactly. I have a Quest - I guess I could have choosen not to
| buy it - but I can't not have a fb account because a lot of
| important events only run through there.
| alexb_ wrote:
| >On the other hand, you can choose to not use Apple and your
| life won't be affected at all
|
| Green bubble exclusion absolutely, 100% is a real thing.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| iMessage doesn't actually require an account. You can be
| banned from iCloud and still use iMessage.
| alexb_ wrote:
| but iMessage requires you to use an iPhone...
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Which you can buy for cash if necessary. There's no way
| to ban you from buying an iPhone.
| Miraste wrote:
| What are you going to do with an iPhone without an Apple
| account? Use it as a coffee coaster?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The only important functionality that requires an Apple
| account is the App Store. For that you can create an
| account with no/limited identifying information and pay
| for it via iTunes gift cards if necessary. A ban is
| trivial to circumvent.
| alexb_ wrote:
| I think you missed the topic of this thread.
| shmel wrote:
| I've heard about it, but never experienced IRL. Is it
| really a big deal?
| bombcar wrote:
| It's a tiny minor annoyance to me sometimes, but I don't
| usually groupchat (and the most annoying thing I've seen
| with group chats is if there are other iPhoners it is
| REALLY WAY TOO DAMN EASY to accidentally FaceTime them
| all).
| usrn wrote:
| I live entirely without a smartphone and centralized social
| media (unless you count my Pinephone but that's really a
| small laptop and small forums of which HN is probably the
| largest.) I recommend this to everyone but even I recognize
| it's not really a casual decision for most people anymore. I
| was extremely careful to not let Google/Apple manage much of
| the things in my life and I still felt pain leaving them
| behind. Most people are not at all careful and probably don't
| even know what they would do without the services from these
| two companies.
| turndown wrote:
| You could make the exact same arguments about FB being
| irrelevant, the difference is that your social group doesn't
| revolve around iMessage group chats and twitter, they revolve
| around facebook and Facebook Messenger. Using an android over
| an iPhone basically locks you out of most group chats because
| Apple refuses to be normal human beings and develop an open
| API - So please tell me again how I can ignore Apple when
| it's actually Facebook you can safely ignore? Note that I am
| a long-term android user.
| corrral wrote:
| FB is where basically all local social interaction takes
| place. Restaurants, schools(!), neighborhoods/HOAs, local
| governments, kids' sports stuff, et c., all treat it as
| their main platform for communication. These may ( _may_ )
| provide info through other outlets, but they're usually
| neglected, outdated, and incomplete--you are _expected_ to
| use Facebook.
|
| I don't even have an account with them, but I have to visit
| the site all the time. If my wife didn't have an account,
| I'd _have to_ get one, for the times when it 's needed. FB
| _is_ the Internet, as far as local real-world stuff goes.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >I don't use Apple at all and don't feel I missing out. Apple
| doesn't have any network effect.
|
| there were quite a few stories about kids being ostracized
| from groups because they started to bully each other over
| lack of messaging features. Certainly not the worst thing
| imaginable but Apple's apps do have network effects.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/10/22876067/google-apple-
| ios...
| Beltalowda wrote:
| I was bullied at school for not having Nike shoes; I
| remember one kid literally telling me "I can't be friends
| with you until you have Nikes".
|
| I love kids; I used to work with kids and I kinda miss it,
| but man kids can be petty assholes.
| bombcar wrote:
| Sadly the solution isn't banning Nikes or whatever the
| current "they're being petty about it" thing is - they'll
| just find something else to latch onto.
| usrn wrote:
| The solution is for mature adults to not behave like
| children because they understand being petty about brands
| creates serious problems both for themselves and everyone
| around them.
|
| Children doing it is just part of the series of learning
| experiences that comprises maturation.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| That was my point indeed. Although thinking about it
| again, in some countries (not mine) they got school
| uniforms for this reason. I don't know if it helps (as
| in, there will still be bullying no doubt, but is there
| _less_ bullying without than with school uniforms?)
| bombcar wrote:
| I suspect if there are variations on "amount of bullying"
| it comes down to culture rather than "school uniforms" -
| at least one Japanese manga is all about bullying in a
| school uniformed school, so it must happen enough to be a
| bit of a trope.
|
| It _may_ happen less in places where the private schools
| can be school uniform or not, but there I suspect it has
| more to do with expelling the bullies than anything to do
| with the uniform itself, since it won 't usually cover
| other status symbols that can be obtained (shoes, hair
| decorations, etc).
|
| That's not to discount that the uniform may be useful for
| various reasons.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| With regards to messaging, Apple's "network effect" is an
| oblong Parrish Blue text field. That says more about how
| petty children and even women on dating sites are and less
| about Apple "monopolizing" anything.
| Karunamon wrote:
| It's not quite that petty.
|
| It's not that the background of the message is the wrong
| color, it's that having an SMS user added to an iMessage
| chat degrades the functionality away from what iMessage
| supports down to what SMS supports.
| kop316 wrote:
| From what I understand, one can't even change the title
| of the chat if it is SMS/MMS versus iMessage. That is a
| client side issue that Apple chooses not to allow, so I
| would argue, yes it is that petty.
|
| I know it is a client side issue because in Chatty, I
| quite literally wrote the functionality to change titles
| of group chats.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| Degrading to the lowest common denominator is what an
| interoperable standard is supposed to accomplish. The
| alternative is for iMessage to entirely decline SMS usage
| in group chats.
| greiskul wrote:
| Back when Microsoft used to adopt interoperable standards
| and make modifications to it to kill the standard, people
| here rightfully called that behaviour evil. Apple get's a
| pass for doing the same for SMS.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| There's nothing inherently evil to EEE. Plenty of
| software and standards have benefited from it (e.g.
| Linux, Ethernet, USB, PCIe, Thunderbolt, Bluetooth). The
| question as whether EEE is "bad" is a matter of motive.
| Edit: Is it being done solely because there's money to be
| made in locking down the tech to certain platforms or
| because there's a superior or more convenient solution?
|
| iMessage has been on phones for 11 years and so far Apple
| hasn't gone out of its way to pull the plug on SMS. Apple
| doesn't seem to have an active desire to extinguish it
| either. Other companies have put a more serious effort in
| that regard: Google has RCS, Signal has its own
| unfederated protocol, and various companies have their
| own messaging platforms (e.g. Telegram, Discord,
| WhatsApp).
| Karunamon wrote:
| Technically that's accurate, but that does nothing for
| the social stigma of being that one guy who makes the
| chat suck for everyone else just by being present
| bombcar wrote:
| Even so if you're not on "iPhone" you get a bunch of "Bob
| laughed at TEXT" kind of things, which can be annoying.
|
| I wonder how much Apple would make (and how much they'd
| lose) if they had a paid iMessage app for iCloud
| subscribers.
| kop316 wrote:
| > social stigma of being that one guy who makes the chat
| suck for everyone else just by being present
|
| I have been trying to parse this. You do understand that
| for some people (like me), I explicitly DO NOT want an
| iPhone, right? It isn't I cannot afford it, I do not want
| it. The reason the chat "sucks for everyone else" is
| because Apple doesn't open up the protocol. Don't blame
| me for not wanting an iPhone.
| 3qz wrote:
| It's not just kids. Adult women don't want boyfriends with
| Androids. Having green texts is unacceptable in such a
| competitive dating market.
| heartbeats wrote:
| Competitive ... dating ... market? Have you considered
| hanging out with more, uh, human people?
|
| I'm not exactly a playboy, but I've really never had this
| problem at all in my life. For what it's worth,
| approximately half of the women I speak to (in my
| subjective experience, eminently normal people) use
| Android phones.
| howinteresting wrote:
| *straight dating market
|
| This is not at all a thing among the queer people I know.
| Most of my partners have Androids (one has an iPhone) and
| we all use Signal or Discord.
| 3qz wrote:
| The gay men I date also bullied me when I still had an
| Android. If your social circle uses discord then they're
| probably not concerned with being normal.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Really? I don't think I've ever dated a man who cares
| more about the phone I use than the job I have or the
| clothes I'm wearing. I think if anyone pestered me about
| using a Thinkpad or an Android device, I'd walk out of
| the venue and foot them the bill.
| howinteresting wrote:
| Yes, gay male dating culture is also quite bad with its
| focus on superficialities and appearing normal, as you
| put it. Talking mostly about lesbian and non-binary/trans
| culture here.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Texting androids from an iPhone is a legitimately bad
| experience. No clue why iPhone users don't just get whats
| app, but if they're not willing to it's not surprising
| that they're uninterested in having text conversations
| with androids.
| smoldesu wrote:
| It's a deliberate choice on Apple's behalf, too. iMessage
| could adopt RCS anytime without losing features and
| actually becoming _more_ secure. Apple deliberately
| leaves iMessage as a terrible SMS fallback device to
| increase social pressure on competitors.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Obviously it's a deliberate choice, iMessage is somehow
| one of apple's strongest moats. Strange to me that users
| accept that though when their are so many great, free
| alternatives.
| usrn wrote:
| My girlfriend is an Apple nut (she even asked for airpods
| for her birthday, now that I've listened to her use them
| for a two way conversation I can safely say they're
| garbage) and she tolerates me not only not having an
| iPhone but even using cheogram for all my MMS. We just
| use other protocols for chatting more than the protocols
| "messages" supports.
|
| She even gave me one of her old iPhones to try to convert
| me but I wasn't impressed and eventually she dropped it.
| Would iMessage help if you're single? Maybe the same
| amount having some fancy shoes would but IMO it's really
| a surface level thing.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| > you can choose to not use Apple and your life won't be
| affected at all
|
| You have to choose among Google or Apple though, and both
| could just randomly ban you over night and make all your data
| inaccessible. If Google banned me I wouldn't be able to use
| my bank account without buying an iPhone/Mac or reinstalling
| Windows. And at this rate Windows will soon also be only
| usable with an account.
|
| This kind of limitation is bad and will cause a lot of
| unnecessary, expensive problems before regulations catch up.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| If that's the deal, ?porque no los dos? I use an iPhone,
| but sync my pictures with Google Photos in case any one of
| them becomes aggro. I also keep my passwords in a password
| manager, so Apple and Google only have access to the bare
| essentials. My docs are in Google Drive, SyncThing,
| Dropbox, and an external hard drive, and so on.
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| Open android builds, postmarket os, ubuntu touch and
| sailfish still exist (if just barely) for now.
|
| Please use them before we lose free communication and
| access to banking and government services without signing
| over your life to one of two companies forever.
| prmoustache wrote:
| you are kind of forced to use somehow google backed
| products/services, but you are not forced to own and use a
| google account.
|
| Bank apps are accessible through the aurora store for
| example and many work well with microg instead of google
| play services.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Installing a bank app seems like the ultimate horror
| story to me. The unholy tracking must be insane.
|
| You cannot just log in via a web browser? If so, why not?
| prmoustache wrote:
| Well in europe regulations have kind of forced 2FA (which
| is not bad in itself). At the beginning most banks were
| relying on sms but most of them are phasing it out.
|
| Problem is instead of choosing a TOTP which would have
| been compatible with any OS/device they favor their own
| proprietary app with a push based solution. This suck.
|
| No idea about other continents but my MX girlfriend is
| locked out of her own MX bank account until she go there
| to sort this out because she do not have her original mx
| phone number anymore.
| buzer wrote:
| > Problem is instead of choosing a TOTP which would have
| been compatible with any OS/device they favor their own
| proprietary app with a push based solution. This suck.
|
| As far as I understood from the news the reason was that
| regulators (or the regulation itself) told banks that the
| 2nd factor could not be easily cloned. Before this
| regulation most Finnish banks were using one time pads
| (actual physical paper), but because it was possible to
| make a copy of it they had to phase out the usage.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Wait you need a smartphone to login?! How bizarre.
|
| Paypal has recently locked me out of my account, because
| I don't have a mobile phone number. Why would I?
|
| I have a landline phone, and, I have terrestrial high
| speed internet.
|
| So I have an Android tablet with wifi. It works at home,
| and worked when I used to goto office. I have voip too.
|
| However, there is no mobile service in my area. I'm very
| rural, so it's fine a few miles from my home, but not
| anywhere on my land.
|
| Paypal has my landline number, but recently insists I add
| a mobile phone for SMS auth.
|
| It is unclear to me how this could possibly help.
|
| Should I decide to spend cash on a mobile phone, just and
| only just for paypal, I'd have to try to login, drive a
| few kms to town, get the SMS code, then return.
|
| Surely, a timeout would happen by then. Not to mention
| the entire idea is absurd and smacks of ineptness on
| Paypal's part.
|
| Talking to paypal results in support personalle who
| literally do nothing but search a database and respond
| with circular, broken logic. I was even told repeatedly
| to login, to open a ticket, about not being able to
| login.
|
| And this was not just one support person either.
|
| Any push to speak to a supervisor results in a disconnect
| on transfer.
|
| I have been with paypal almost 20 years. It appears that
| will soon end.
|
| Bah.
| bombcar wrote:
| As an aside some (most? All?) iPhones and carriers seem
| to support "WIFI calling" which lets you get calls and
| texts when you're on WIFI (and even outside of cell
| signal) - I get Ting calls and texts when I'm deep in my
| basement where no cell signal is available, as long as I
| have WIFI on.
|
| I assume something similar exists for other carriers and
| phones (Republic Wireless is _build_ around it).
|
| There are also some land-lines that can get texts, but I
| don't know how they do it (I suspect they're actually a
| cell line disguised as one).
| bbarnett wrote:
| _You have to choose among Google or Apple though_
|
| You do?
|
| If you just want a phone with SMS, a web browser and email,
| an android device can easily be nonGoogle.
|
| And Samsung, for example, has its own app store, as do
| others.
|
| We aren't quite locked into two options. Not yet.
| disiplus wrote:
| my bank does not offer the banking app on the Samsung
| market. my mobile token is there.
| threeseed wrote:
| Then use a bank that does have a mobile website or non-
| Samsung specific app.
|
| Companies will not change behaviour unless you vote with
| your wallet.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I don't think your "let the markets handle it" solution
| will work (at least, it hasn't worked for the past 20
| years, has it?). America screwed up. We let a duopoly
| control our technology, and there's no point in defending
| these powers like Apple, Facebook and Google who
| repeatedly attempt to undermine our sovereignty and
| privacy. As much as I'd love for everyone on this earth
| to use Nextcloud and Linux, we both know that's not a
| reasonable expectation.
|
| Everyone knows it, there's bipartisan support behind Big
| Tech regulation right now in America. Regulation is
| inevitable, the _real_ question is how long we have until
| the lobbying money runs out...
| th3typh00n wrote:
| The point is that avoiding Apple and Google, while it may
| be technically and theoretically possible, is going to
| make your life extraordinarily complicated and is
| completely unrealistic for the average person in our
| modern society.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| > a phone with SMS, a web browser and email
|
| really hasn't been enough for communicating with most
| people for at least 5 years. the messaging app of choice
| of your social group (wpp, telegram, signal, or god
| forbid fb messanger) is needed as well.
| tcfhgj wrote:
| Telegram isn't really any better than FB Messenger
| lynndotpy wrote:
| Huge parts of social life are gated behind smart-phone
| services and the workarounds are burdens.
|
| > an android device can easily be nonGoogle.
|
| But I don't think "Easily" is true here. I do it, and
| it's easy for me, and presumably for you, but presumably
| because we have the time and skills to make it work. And
| even the most ideal "non-Google" phone takes hefty
| compromises.
|
| KaiOS used to be the only real alternative someone might
| have, since it had some apps like WhatsApp, etc. But as
| of Sept 2021, that's no longer available.
| bogwog wrote:
| > On the other hand, you can choose to not use Apple and your
| life won't be affected at all. I don't use Apple at all and
| don't feel I missing out. Apple doesn't have any network
| effect.
|
| This doesn't change the _reality_ that Apple has too much
| power. Just because it 's possible to not use Apple doesn't
| mean we should ignore that one company has nearly complete
| and unchecked control over the digital lives of more than
| half of the US population, as well as a massive chunk of the
| tech industry as a whole.
| dmz73 wrote:
| So for Apple "Oh, it's their platform, they can do whatever
| they want, you can choose not to use it" and for everyone
| else "They should not use their platform to
| $DoWhateverTheyWant this is the platform used by many people
| who expect...".
|
| I get this impression that most Apple users are brainwashed
| morons who think that sucking on Apple's dick unconditionally
| is so much better than having
| Google/Microsoft/Facebook/whoever try to shove their
| respective dick up your ass.
|
| All these companies are EXACTLY the same, they want you (the
| product) to use their service so they can sell you (the
| product) to whoever will pay for it. Apple is just the best
| at getting you (the product) to pay the most for their
| services (hw and/or sw) to help them force out the
| competition so they are the only ones who can dictate their
| terms.
| throw457 wrote:
| Makes sense to have irrational juvenile people like you
| discuss a topic for adults.
| EugeneOZ wrote:
| Apple only controls my phone and playlists in the Music app
| (from time to time I export them to have a backup, but only
| because the Music app is absolutely dumb in syncing).
|
| From my example, you can see that you have a choice about what
| you want to be controlled by Apple.
| fritigern wrote:
| > Apple has control over your phone, your passwords, your
| photos, your music, your emails, your credit cards/payment
| methods. And you can backup nothing of it in a usable way.
| Without a working Apple account any iPhone is as good as a
| brick.
|
| This is why no one could ever convince me to buy an Apple
| product.
| [deleted]
| rvieira wrote:
| I honestly think the other way around, that Facebook is way too
| powerful and in a more insidious way, than Apple.
|
| I'm coming from a Apple HW user perspective. This means that,
| yes, if Apple locked me out, I would have trouble using my
| machines. But I'm not an services user (music, TV or iCloud).
| So nothing would be lost from my digital life and it is
| elsewhere and well backed up.
|
| On the other hand, I genuinely despair at the amount of public
| services (at least in Europe), community services and
| businesses that require me to have a Facebook account to
| interact with them.
|
| The quickest way to reach a local politician might be leave a
| message on a local FB group. Some segments of society (and some
| age groups) just _assume_ _everyone _ is on FB. FB is _not_ a
| public service.
| lowwave wrote:
| Any pre icloud service Apple user knows you can just use your
| computer to backup all the apple devices instead of iCloud.
| Although apple is pushing their cloud services, you don't
| need to use it.
|
| Out of the big tech corporations Apple over all is more trust
| worthy than google, facebook, amazon. Of course getting
| LineageOS/Debian on Librium type of phone would be
| preferable.
| rglullis wrote:
| > businesses that require me to have a Facebook account to
| interact with them.
|
| Can you give examples?
|
| > The quickest way to reach a local politician
|
| Doesn't mean that it is the only one. There are still
| alternatives. If you feel that using Facebook is wrong, the
| solution is not to use Facebook and complain about it. The
| solution is to stay away from it and send a clear signal that
| Facebook is not the proper channel.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| > The solution is to stay away from it and send a clear
| signal that Facebook is not the proper channel.
|
| Collective action through the legal system is another
| legitimate approach. If enough people are unhappy,
| legislation can force a change.
| rglullis wrote:
| > legislation can force a change.
|
| No, the laws for it already exist. The problem is the
| difficulty to _enforce_ it.
|
| "Legislation" and "regulation" are not magic words.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| I never said they are magic words. And legislation _can_
| for change. Of course it requires regulation and
| everything else. That goes without saying. The fact that
| laws already exist doesn't mean that better laws that are
| more easily enforced can't be passed.
|
| Regardless that is almost getting into a semantic
| discussion. Collective action through _government_
| regulation is a perfectly legitimate approach if enough
| people are unhappy about the status quo.
| rglullis wrote:
| Legitimate? Yes.
|
| _Effective_? Rarely, if ever.
|
| I think that is the main issue here. Big corporations
| love to keep the meme around that "Government regulation"
| is a legitimate action, because they know how ineffective
| it is.
|
| If it were up to them, we might be spend our whole lives
| trying to craft the perfect law, constantly re-iterating
| in a game of cat-and-mouse against
| _$current_malpractice_du_jour_ , but at the end of the
| day it is all pointless because _people are not going to
| wait and just use Facebook anyway_.
| bombcar wrote:
| A law targeted _at Facebook_ might work, something like
| "posts by a business or government entity or non-personal
| entity" or something *must be publicly available without
| a login.
|
| A similar policy aimed at ADA requirements for
| governments, state and local and federal, might also
| mitigate some of it.
| moviewise wrote:
| I can give an example. My whole life I had avoided joining
| Facebook, even when pressured to do so socially. I just had
| someone from the group email me the FB messages that were
| important so I could participate in events/be informed. For
| another group, I persuaded them to post videos on YouTube
| instead of just on Facebook because the videos would cut
| off and not play through without a FB account.
|
| But then, Disney's "inclusion and diversity" writing
| program application materials were only posted on Facebook,
| not on a website. And that was fine, if annoying, because
| it was publicly accessible, until the application failed to
| send, and the ONLY way they had set up to notify them of
| "technical difficulties" was to message them through
| Facebook. So now I have a Facebook account, which I
| otherwise don't use.
| lloeki wrote:
| Can't be sure about what GP meant but over here many small
| biz (restaurants, bars, shops...) online presence is a FB
| page + booking/inquiry/support via Messenger (which has
| specific support for that on biz pages)
|
| > If you feel that using Facebook is wrong, the solution is
| not to use Facebook and complain about it.
|
| Do that and they could care less. The only one you'll
| impact is you, as the needle will barely move. You could
| say if enough people do that and talk enough about it
| things will change, but in practice they don't as it's very
| far from reaching critical mass. And yes I've tried! But
| the network effect is stupidly powerful here.
|
| > The solution is to stay away from it and send a clear
| signal that Facebook is not the proper channel.
|
| To be fair, many are being pragmatic as Facebook tools for
| business are useful, as in they solve a real use case in an
| easy enough way. So people use it, which means events,
| news, communication, end up happening via Facebook for a
| huge proportion of local life. Displacing that is capital H
| Hard.
| bombcar wrote:
| You can usually weasel your way in to see the basic
| business page, I even got a way to get the posts, but it
| is _really_ freaking annoying. I hate it (and learned
| that my local government posts to FB and not to their own
| website sometimes).
| rglullis wrote:
| I present you example #23 of "The law of unintended
| consequences", or what I prefer to call "Why all
| bureaucrats deserve to go to hell"...
|
| Do you know who we should thank for all businesses
| killing their own online presence and migrating to
| Facebook? I'll give you 4 letters to guess: _G.D.P.R_
| Kbelicius wrote:
| > Do you know who we should thank for all businesses
| killing their own online presence and migrating to
| Facebook? I'll give you 4 letters to guess: G.D.P.R
|
| Business started killing their own presence before GDPR.
| If GDPR did contribute to this, I doubt it, the only
| reason I could think of would be businesses not
| understanding GDPR.
|
| In your opinion what, specifically, about GDPR drove
| businesses to facebook?
| rglullis wrote:
| > only reason I could think of would be businesses not
| understanding GDPR.
|
| Yes, that was reason enough. They were scared of lawyers
| knocking on their doors and shake them with the threat of
| lawsuits over "GDPR violations". They had zero interest
| in spending more money on their websites to ensure they
| are compliant and Facebook made it convenient for them to
| outsource all of this _unnecessary_ headache.
|
| I don't want to get into a tangent, but I'm yet to see a
| better example of how regulatory capture works _in favor_
| of Big Corporations, and how I distressingly frustrating
| it is to see how often people throw around the
| "Government needs to regulate X" without thinking about
| the Law of Unintended Consequences.
| Kbelicius wrote:
| > Yes, that was reason enough. They were scared of
| lawyers knocking on their doors and shake them with the
| threat of lawsuits over "GDPR violations". They had zero
| interest in spending more money on their websites to
| ensure they are compliant and Facebook made it convenient
| for them to outsource all of this unnecessary headache.
|
| So it isn't the fault of GDPR but of stupid business
| owners? That is according to you. You can't think of any
| other reason why businesses would kill their own online
| presence?
|
| > I don't want to get into a tangent, but I'm yet to see
| a better example of how regulatory capture works in favor
| of Big Corporations
|
| What, specifically, about GDPR favors big corporations?
| Considering that it is the best example that you can
| thing of I'm sure that won't be hard to answer.
| rglullis wrote:
| There is nothing _stupid_ about the behavior of business
| owners. When facing a bunch of uncertainty with something
| that is not critical to their business, the most natural
| reaction is to simply step away from it and outsource it.
|
| Blaming business owners for being scared from the lack of
| clarity of the law is ridiculous.
|
| > What, specifically, about GDPR favors big corporations?
|
| If regulations were truly harmful to Facebook in any way,
| why would Zuckerberg be calling for it?
|
| Big corporations have armies of lawyers and can deal with
| all the requirements from complex pieces of legislation.
| They use that as a barrier against smaller sites who
| might try to compete with them on specific niches and use
| it as a protection racket against their own consumers.
| Thanks to GDPR, Facebook can go around the internet
| saying "Nice community site you have there, would be a
| pity if the government did anything to it..."
| Kbelicius wrote:
| > There is nothing stupid about the behavior of business
| owners. When facing a bunch of uncertainty with something
| that is not critical to their business, the most natural
| reaction is to simply step away from it and outsource it.
|
| If it is not critical to their business then there is
| nothing to worry about. Even if a business breaks GDPR
| they don't automatically get a fine but a warning and
| instructions on how to comply with it. Following that we
| can only conclude that destroying their online presence
| because of GDPR is a stupid move. While there is some
| uncertainty non of it really touches companies whose main
| business isn't collecting PII.
|
| > Big corporations have armies of lawyers and can handle
| with all the requirements. They use that as a barrier
| against smaller sites who might try to compete with them
| on specific niches and use it as a protection racket
| against their own consumers. Thanks to GDPR, Facebook can
| go around the internet saying "Nice community site you
| have there, would be a pity if the government did
| anything to it..."
|
| Can you explain how this scenario is in any way
| beneficial to big corps? I mean, you are saying that big
| corps need to hire an army of lawyers, spend resources on
| catching their competitors breaking the law and then
| informing them of it so that they could fix the issues.
| Nothing you wrote here makes sense.
|
| You did not write anything specific about GDPR that
| favors big corporations. Do you know anything about GDPR
| so that you can answer that simple question or are you
| just some libertarian/ancap who rages against regulation
| without actually knowing anything about it?
| rglullis wrote:
| > While there is some uncertainty non of it really
| touches companies whose main business isn't collecting
| PII.
|
| You are a real estate management company, and you have a
| form to collect names and phone numbers, just to call
| prospects back. Is your main business "collecting PII"?
| No. Were you affected by GDPR? Yes.
|
| Same thing if you are a restaurant owner with a website
| that had an OpenTable integration to accept reservations.
|
| > you are saying that big corps need to hire an army of
| lawyers, spend resources on catching their competitors
|
| Now you are just playing dumb. I am not saying that they
| need to _catch_ anyone. What I am saying is that they
| _benefit_ from the uncertainty and complexity from a
| piece of legislation that could potentially affect
| smaller business who were not equipped to respond
| properly.
|
| > are you just some libertarian/ancap who rages against
| regulation without actually knowing anything about it?
|
| I spent the 6 months before GDPR dealing with the changes
| that had to be done in an e-commerce startup I was
| working at the time, and I saw all the questions from
| vendors and all the people being worried because they
| simply had no clue what needed to be done to be
| compliant. But feel free to keep thinking I am just
| "raging against regulation".
|
| The hilarious thing about the "you don't know what you
| are talking about" accusation is that it usually comes
| from people who blindly bought into the idea that GDPR
| has any tooth into the fight against surveillance. If
| what I am saying is not enough to convince you of how
| backwards GDPR is, could I then ask you for _any_ example
| where GDPR was effective in reducing the amount of
| unnecessary data collection?
|
| Is Google/Facebook/Amazon/Twitter/Microsoft/Apple
| tracking you less after GDPR? No, they continue to do the
| same shit. They are still punching you in the face, the
| only difference is that now you are being "asked for
| consent".
| Macha wrote:
| Except GDPR came into effect in 2018, and local
| businesses started substituting small websites with
| Facebook pages since like... 2010. At least here it feels
| like the rate of that has actually decreased since GDPR,
| though that's likely largely due to the coincidental
| timing of Facebook's decline in popularity.
| corrral wrote:
| > Do you know who we should thank for all businesses
| killing their own online presence and migrating to
| Facebook? I'll give you 4 letters to guess: G.D.P.R
|
| Pure, absolute, grade A bullshit. The trend predates the
| GDPR and is widespread among US small business and
| organizations that I guarantee you have never heard of
| that law. It's not a factor at all. They use Facebook
| because it's as close to zero set-up and maintenance as
| it gets, it's free, they already know how to use it, and
| "everyone" has it anyway.
| rglullis wrote:
| > US small business and organizations that I guarantee
| you have never heard of that law
|
| Please, read the conversation in the proper context
| before hurling your opinion and creating a strawman. We
| were talking about businesses _in Europe_.
|
| The trend _started_ before it, but GDPR _accelerated_ it.
| corrral wrote:
| But the transfer of local business and organization
| websites to Facebook is all but complete in the US, and
| the GDPR had little to nothing to do with it--
| convenience, cost, familiarity, and going where the
| customers are, were plenty of motivation. Why would
| Europe have been different?
| rglullis wrote:
| There are plenty of business in industries that already
| had their sites and solutions and had no need to go to
| Facebook.
|
| Sure, it could it be that they would end in Facebook
| anyway. But there is no denying that the GDPR was a
| catalyst.
| rvieira wrote:
| As most people, I guess, during the peak of the pandemic I
| increased my online shopping a lot. From food take-aways to
| vinyl records.
|
| These can be examples: the majority of restaurants in my
| area proudly claim an "online presence" which is really
| just a basic FB page. And a 2nd hand record shop whose
| "site" was a minimal FB page with no way of looking at the
| catalogue.
|
| True, there are other ways, using the phone like a savage
| (joking), but when local councils force you to subscribe to
| their page to get important updates like school and road
| closures, there's this snowball effect where you either
| cave in and open a FB account or make your life harder.
| rglullis wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that there is some kind of legal action
| to be taken against any public organization requiring the
| population to access things through Facebook.
|
| How can a city council reconcile this with GDPR?
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| Same way the QLD government reconciled requiring an app
| from either google or apple which additionally logged
| your location and everywhere you went to microsoft in
| order to leave your house during the pandemic? Ie. not
| having any laws respecting privacy.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| GDPR has a major enforcement problem so a lot of
| offenders are allowed to run free and may not even
| realize they're breaching the regulation.
| rglullis wrote:
| Yes, sure. But this is not just random shop that happens
| to be dealing with European customers, it is an European
| city council. Is there any other place where people _can_
| and _should_ call for enforcement?
| AnonHP wrote:
| > Not that Facebook is any better, but Facebook is not the
| gatekeeper for millions of peoples lives. When Apple boots you
| as a customer, you most likely will lose everything about your
| digital life.
|
| What??? Maybe you're referring to one or two countries.
| Facebook is the gatekeeper for billions of people's (online)
| lives around the world. With WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook,
| Messenger, etc., the influence that Meta has is huge. It's far
| larger than Apple in terms of number of people who rely on it.
| jackallis wrote:
| this borderline appears to be "thief calling another theif,
| theif".
| dTal wrote:
| Another HN title weirdly editorialized to have a question mark.
| What is this?
| lizknope wrote:
| I like my iPhone. I've got nothing against Macs but I prefer
| Linux/x86.
|
| Facebook can die in a fire and the world would be better off. I
| was barely using my account before and I deleted it 4 years ago
| after all the Cabridge Analytica stuff came out. I haven't missed
| it at all. In fact I think my mental health improved.
| fumblebee wrote:
| This x100.
|
| Sure, Apple have a disproportionally large power that should be
| acknowledged and stifled sensibly by regulators, but man do
| they create truly beautiful products that make my life better
| in myriad ways.
|
| Facebook, on the other hand, maintain a business model that
| seems to do little but incentivise actions that exhaust ill
| societal outcomes. It's exhausting (pun intended), and I've
| certainly felt my mental health crack slightly under the burden
| of some of their products (not WhatsApp, which is fantastic and
| I hope isn't integrated further into their ecosystem from a
| user perspective).
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > Facebook, on the other hand, maintain a business model that
| seems to do little but incentivise actions that exhaust ill
| societal outcomes.
|
| Your claim is that people get little value out of Meta's
| products? I don't know how it is for the older generation,
| but people of my age (20s) get a ton of value out of
| instagram.
|
| I feel like in our critiques of social media people often
| forget that generally people like to communicate and share
| with others online.
| starik36 wrote:
| Depends on how you use it. I've long ago unfollowed anyone
| that was toxic or political in anyway. So these days I am
| either looking at someone's new baby, or something someone
| had for breakfast or vacation photos. And I participate in
| groups about 3D Printing, my vehicle, my favorite author and
| a couple of others, which are all entirely constructive.
|
| So I get plenty of positive use from FB.
| [deleted]
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I agree. Apple might need some regulatory action, but Facebook
| just needs to go away.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| I feel the same way, deleted my account about 5 years ago and
| dont miss a thing.
| leodriesch wrote:
| That's the thing with iOS, I feel like it is really built
| around the user and what the user wants. Less so around what
| companies want.
|
| Users love the product so it grew it's enormous userbase to
| what it is today. Companies have to comply to the restrictions
| that Apple imposes on them, because they can't miss out on the
| userbase as their customer.
|
| As a user I can't really think of any guidelines that I'd want
| to be changed or doors to be opened, I feel like it's mostly
| non-users or companies requesting them.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I want to be able to use iMessage with Android users. Apple
| doesn't want me to do that. It is not "built around ... what
| the user wants."
| hericium wrote:
| Powers Apple should not, in my opinion, have are:
|
| - slowing down customer-purchased devices before pushing new
| devices to the market. Not every Apple user wants, needs or can
| afford new phone every year or two
|
| - forcing users into SaaS model via secretive security updates.
| One can't have secure device (well, secured up-to-date, not
| saying that fully updated iPhone is secure) without Apple gutting
| existing software, changing UI/UX and doing whatever they please
| on the device customer has paid for, against the customer
|
| - blocking the possibility to upgrade the OS to previous version.
| IMO many versions of macOS and iOS were downgrades in comparison
| to previous ones. We couldn't rollback iPhones and now we can't
| even install macOS that came with the computer. Just the newest
| one (at least that's my experience: every installer but the
| newest one crashes at the very end)
|
| - pushing their agendas by forcing EVERY Apple device to download
| a shitty U2 album because Tim Cook says so. That's what I will
| remember Tim Cook for the most.
|
| Jobs was not ideal but he had drive and imagination. The company
| he largely participated in building was something different than
| your usual corporation. Cook is just an unimaginative pencil
| pusher.
| joshstrange wrote:
| > - slowing down customer-purchased devices before pushing new
| devices to the market. Not every Apple user wants, needs or can
| afford new phone every year or two
|
| Making this point throws the rest of your comment into
| question. This isn't at all a fair telling of what happened, it
| was done to prevent phones from shutting off as the battery got
| older, not some machiavellian plot to get users to upgrade.
|
| > - forcing users into SaaS model via secretive security
| updates. One can't have secure device (well, secured up-to-
| date, not saying that fully updated iPhone is secure) without
| Apple gutting existing software, changing UI/UX and doing
| whatever they please on the device customer has paid for,
| against the customer
|
| What are you even talking about here? Please give an example
|
| > - blocking the possibility to upgrade the OS to previous
| version. IMO many versions of macOS and iOS were downgrades in
| comparison to previous ones. We couldn't rollback iPhones and
| now we can't even install macOS that came with the computer.
| Just the newest one (at least that's my experience: every
| installer but the newest one crashes at the very end)
|
| I'm fairly certain you can install back to the version a mac
| was released with, your issues with downgrading sound like a
| problem on your end, not apple's. As for the phone I'm
| conflicted. Honestly I think Apple made the right choice is
| making the updates one-way for security reasons. Maybe now with
| the secure enclave there is a safe way to allow for "user-
| approved" downgrades but I don't know enough to say one way or
| the other. The goal, of course, is to prevent the ability to
| downgrade a confiscated/stolen device to a version that has a
| known-exploit to bypass the lockscreen. With how much sensitive
| data people have on their phones I have a hard time seeing one-
| way upgrades as anything but a good thing.
|
| > - pushing their agendas by forcing EVERY Apple device to
| download a shitty U2 album because Tim Cook says so. That's
| what I will remember Tim Cook for the most.
|
| It was a failed marketing stunt and people get so worked up
| about it. Did it really impact your life so negatively? This is
| what you will remember most about Tim Cook? Ok...
| hericium wrote:
| >> forcing users into SaaS model via secretive security
| updates.
|
| > What are you even talking about here? Please give an
| example
|
| There's been news in the recent week that users will be able
| to patch security holes in their Apple devices without full
| update. That's a step forward but I'm yet to see this in
| action.
|
| But until this very recent announcement, Apple was always
| hiding the details of security updates and when user got
| scared into updating due to security bugs, they got auto-
| shuffling in iTunes, "upgraded" Notes.app, idiotic UI changes
| and no longer the possibility to turn off tracking. Remember
| when there were privacy opt-outs in iOS and macOS installers?
| I do.
|
| > I'm fairly certain you can install back to the version a
| mac was released with, your issues with downgrading sound
| like a problem on your end, not apple's.
|
| First of all, please don't call installing faster and less
| problematic software "downgrading". Update and upgrade are
| completely different things. With Apple, updates are often
| downgrades.
|
| Installing older system was possible until recently but now
| erasing the disk and putting installation USB stick (that
| worked previously and wasn't erased/reused for something
| else) ends up showing random errors at the end of
| installation.
|
| How do you imagine I made this problem on my end by myself?
| Do you think I somehow broken my MacBook during parts
| replacement? The only updates that were made, were software
| updates made by Apple. They renamed and changed OS installers
| hanging in /Applications/ dir so why wouldn't they screw up
| USB installer as soon as it's plugged in, too?
|
| > The goal, of course, is to prevent the ability to downgrade
| a confiscated/stolen device to a version that has a known-
| exploit to bypass the lockscreen.
|
| Of course!
|
| > It was a failed marketing stunt
|
| And the most Cook thing Apple did since Jobs' death.
|
| > This is what you will remember most about Tim Cook? Ok...
|
| Yup. The man has no taste nor imagination and makes poor
| choices.
| Jcowell wrote:
| > Apple was always hiding the details of security updates
|
| This is untrue , here for instance is iOS 15.5 Security
| Update release notes: https://support.apple.com/en-
| us/HT213258
|
| Every update has a learn more button with a link to what
| security concerns have been addressed.
| hericium wrote:
| > For our customers' protection, Apple doesn't disclose,
| discuss, or confirm security issues until an
| investigation has occurred and patches or releases are
| available. Recent releases are listed on the Apple
| security updates page.
|
| The one you pasted is fairly new. I haven't been using
| their computers for some time now but I remembered that
| there were no details (or something extremely vague) any
| time soon after user was suggested to update.
|
| That's a good thing and I'm glad to be wrong on this one.
| Jcowell wrote:
| Maybe it's the soon after part but Apple has been doing
| it since 2003: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222
| Gigachad wrote:
| > slowing down customer-purchased devices before pushing new
| devices to the market.
|
| This is wrong. Apple pushed out a fix that when the phone
| detects it has crashed due to the soc getting undervolted, they
| would limit the maximum cpu frequency to avoid the phone having
| future power failures. This is absolutely what the user wants.
| There is no point getting full cpu speed if it means the phone
| just reboots when you use it.
|
| Where they failed was in communication. They should have
| signalled to the user that this has happened and that they
| should replace the battery. They now do this and have a whole
| battery health page.
|
| Communication is a massive problem for megacorps because
| everything (usually rightfully) becomes a huge deal. But id not
| be so quick to jump to malice as an explanation.
| hericium wrote:
| The CPU frequency situation was a one-time thing when they
| got caught throttling. Up-to-date iPhones getting slower
| around the time of new model release is an ongoing problem.
|
| I have a 3 years old iPhone with no 3rd party apps (recently
| removed Uber.app), unused Safari and few email accounts.
| Apart from emails, I'm using it as a phone. I'm not a heavy
| smartphone user and never was.
|
| As far as I'm aware the CPU is not throttled but the phone is
| so slow (even after factory reset and update to current iOS)
| that waking screen up takes 4-6 seconds. Buying new device
| with Apple logo is the last thing on my mind when my
| "perfectly good" 3yo iPhone is getting artificially aged.
|
| But most users are paying those fuckers just because their
| "old" iPhone got slow.
| dehrmann wrote:
| I wonder if we're moving past slowdowns the same way PC
| upgrades around 2010 didn't matter much. Once you have
| enough RAM and enough cores, it takes specialized
| applications to notice much of a difference.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| No, it takes a large, dedicated OS performance and
| quality team to keep things running fast on older
| supported hardware. Apple has one (as does Microsoft).
| apetrovic wrote:
| I have iPhone XS. Full of 3rd party apps. My wife and my
| daughter have iPhone XR. Also full of 3rd party apps. Other
| daughter have iPhone 11. 3rd party apps? Yes.
|
| Nobody in our home noticed any slowdowns, especially 4-6
| seconds to unlock the phone. That's just ridiculous. I just
| checked with wife's other phone (iPhone SE), it works as
| always.
|
| You can blame Apple for many things, but iPhone longevity
| isn't one of them.
| ig-88ms wrote:
| Jobs was a fucking monster, but people got brainwashed to love
| him.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| You really need to get some perspective if you think Steve
| Jobs was the biggest asshole of the last 40 years.
| jansan wrote:
| Or as James Gosling put it: "He was a jerk."
|
| https://youtu.be/IT__Nrr3PNI?t=3115
| dehrmann wrote:
| He was a brilliant asshole. He's like Elon Musk, but with
| focus and maturity.
| carlycue wrote:
| The iPhone is unironically the greatest product in human history.
| It's the most important piece of belonging in a persons life and
| it's the last thing they'll give up. They can be one misstep away
| from homelessness but they still buy a new iPhone. This gives
| Apple an incredible amount of power. The iPhone has built up a
| ton of goodwill that extends to everything Apple sells.
| sh4rks wrote:
| Prime bait
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > They can be one misstep away from homelessness but they still
| buy a new iPhone
|
| I strongly suspect they will buy the cheaper and possibly
| shittier Android. Even though it won't last as long. Those
| monthly payments are a drag yo.
|
| Look I'm glad you like the iPhone, but to say its the greatest
| product in all of human history is a touch _hyperbolic_. Yes
| its a great bit of engineering, but its not like it singularly
| went from 0-100 by it 's self.
|
| Let us not forget, the _only_ thing innovative on the original
| iphone was the large touch screen. Everything else was a
| compromise. The battery, the CPU, the RAM, the ability to run
| apps, _all of them_ were no where near as good as the nearest
| rival.
|
| But Apple managed to catch up enough to appear ahead of the
| curve, and well done to them. But let us not forget that
| without android, the iPhone would never have advanced. (Dont
| read this as me being an android fanboi, I have never owned
| one...)
|
| But to the point, in terms of greatest product, I suspect its
| probably either modern farming (and infra, so tractors) or
| something medical.
| Hellbanevil wrote:
| I have never seen a homeless person with even a flip phone.
|
| A friend, or actually a homeless acquaintance, of mine was
| charged with theft of public utilities because he was caught
| charging his ancient laptop into a city receptical that was
| put near the street to electrify Christmas lights.
|
| He was one of the original Programmers of Word Star.
|
| He got zero credit on his contributions though.
|
| He ended up homeless even though he was a decent Programmer.
|
| It always bothered me the way San Rafael Cops would harass
| him seemingly daily.
|
| It can all go to shit very fast.
| dTal wrote:
| >Let us not forget, the only thing innovative on the original
| iphone was the large touch screen
|
| ...and a full-featured WebKit browser. That was huge.
| V-2 wrote:
| That strikes me as a very US-centric point of view.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Very much so, Apple market share:
|
| - US: 51%
|
| - EU: 30%
|
| - Asia: 17%
|
| I suppose that makes sense since it's the main local
| manufacturer, whereas in Korea that would be Samsung with a
| whopping share of 65%. Apple would probably be way higher in
| the US if they didn't make overpriced closed-ecosystem stuff.
| capableweb wrote:
| > The iPhone is unironically the greatest product in human
| history
|
| Which "products" are you comparing iPhone to that makes you
| believe it's the greatest product in human history? Granted,
| human history is not that long in perspective, but I can think
| of countless of other things that are "greater", so curious
| what your perspective is on this.
| arethuza wrote:
| "It's the most important piece of belonging in a persons life"
|
| I'm a long term Apple user and but I think this is rather
| overstating things - do people really feel so strongly attached
| to what is, after all, a manufacturer of rather nifty gadgets,
| not a way of life.
| ecmascript wrote:
| lol, I think plumbing is the greatest product in the human
| history. It prevents us from getting sick and die, which is way
| more important than a slightly better mobile phone.
| cynusx wrote:
| Facebook is such a misunderstood company, I really wonder when
| and how they are going to communicate what they actually do to a
| sea of people who think they "spy" and "sell" data rather than
| guarding data religiously and enabling advertisers to feed data
| back to them so their ad placement algorithms can optimize for
| results that their clients tell them to look for.
|
| I guess highly personalized ads are too scary to see
| nicce wrote:
| Its not the ads only - there is huge power over people when
| they can't sort their feed and instead all they see is forced
| by an algoritm. It shapes people. Similarly how they recommend
| groups and people.
| jti107 wrote:
| they're a private company, i don't see why they can't dictate the
| rules for their platform/app store. facebook essentially will do
| the same thing with their occulus store once they gain enough
| market share to dominate.
|
| physical stores like target and walmart use their pricing power
| all the time.
|
| the issue seems to be companies like capitalism when its working
| in their favor but complain and ask for regulation when they dont
| have the upper hand. the first step would be introduce rules that
| limits the amount on money going into politics and then change
| rules that encourages competition and stifle monopolies. which is
| fundamentally very difficult to do in a globalized free market
| capitalistic economy.
| jleyank wrote:
| Log out of iCloud and see what does or does not work. Find
| alternative services for what broke, such as iMessage, and keep
| going without strong apple control. As others have said, use web
| pages rather than apps. Or get an android phone. Or a flip phone
| if you don't like google either.
|
| Nobody in the smartphone ecosystem is on your side. They see all
| your packets, they monitor your web usage, they track your
| movements, .... Some sell hardware and they all "provide
| services" that exist to scrape data and sell ads.
| kevincox wrote:
| Can you even install apps without being signed in? Certainly
| not purchased ones.
| jleyank wrote:
| Apple store account required, which is different than iCloud.
| I thought you have to have a store account for any phone from
| any vendor? Don't have to use their services though. This
| level of control is why people have gone back to (or never
| left) flip phones.
|
| All you really need is a web browser and a phone and I
| thought both could,e with all smartphones?
| kevincox wrote:
| You need a Google account to install from the Play Store,
| but you can also directly install apps or use stores that
| don't require an account (like f-droid) or use stores that
| use different accounts (Amazon, Samsung).
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| I'll take Apple over advertising rapists like Facebook any day.
| Advertising the data scraping that goes with it are way out of
| hand, and far too intrusive. You don't need to track and sell
| every aspect of everything I ever do in life.
| submeta wrote:
| In the case of Facebook, whole societies and the psychology of
| the masses have been negatively effected. So them being in a
| strong position harms society and individuals alike. - In the
| case of Apple we are talking about a company that dominates a
| market and harms its competitors and has the power to be the
| gatekeeper. Yes, that's power that should be limited, but it's a
| company that produces goods that their customers love. I don't
| see any harm in their products and services at all. Au contraire.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I think we often times confuse the harms of "people being able
| to talk to each other en masse" with "things uniquely caused by
| Facebook."
|
| I am not sure why this is, but I think a large part of it is
| that it sounds much better to rail against Facebook than to say
| "I don't like the outcomes when large groups of people are
| allowed to talk to each other online without intermediaries."
| But really, the second thing is what you are typically actually
| saying.
| bryan_w wrote:
| Sometimes they say the quiet part loud. I've seen people on
| here say things like, "You can't just let people say whatever
| they want!"
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Maybe a principled defense can be made for the quiet part -
| who knows. but it annoys me that it is implicit and not
| stated because I never understand what people are
| criticizing FB for.
| sgregnt wrote:
| > In the case of Facebook, whole societies and the psychology
| of the masses have been negatively effected.
|
| In my opinion facebook is very beneficial to society, so I find
| it strange that such a strong negative claim, stated as a fact,
| yet only a matter of personal opinion is left unchallenged.
| rglullis wrote:
| A golden cage is still a cage. No matter how comfortable they
| make your life, we can not look only at the services they
| provide, we need to also look at the restrictions they impose.
| Gigachad wrote:
| The iPhone is like a service. I don't see a restaurant as a
| cage because I didn't control exactly how my food is made. I
| don't want to deal with that, I want to build trust with a
| business and get the service I want. When I stop getting
| satisfactory service, I pick a different business.
| rglullis wrote:
| In your scenario, Apple is not a restaurant. Apple is the
| tomato farmer that makes perfectly genetically engineered
| red tomatoes, with extra vitamins and whose yield is
| unmatched by any other.
|
| It seems great, until you realize that all restaurants end
| up buying from them and after some years they put all other
| farmers out of business and you have no other choice in the
| market. Now they can charge whatever they want, and if you
| are a cook who would like to use some different variety of
| tomato, you are kindly told to get lost.
|
| Also, we _all_ have to spend the rest of your lives praying
| that there is no new disease that can come up and affect
| the tomatoes sold by them.
| ArrayBoundCheck wrote:
| Right or wrong, when it comes from fb I don't care. Meta has 0
| credibility to me
| graylien wrote:
| Apple probably the lesser evil, I mean at least they make
| products that help us create
| holoduke wrote:
| These statements true or false are only said by companies in
| decline. Meta/Facebook is dying. And they know it. A new player
| lures around the corner to become the new dominator of social
| networks
| whimsicalism wrote:
| In what world are they dying?
| api wrote:
| Facebook doesn't want Apple cut down to size for you. They want
| them cut down to size so they can get around their privacy
| controls to spy on you.
| Tycho wrote:
| Selling your user information/attention for ad revenue is quite a
| scummy business model when it comes down to it. I quite enjoy the
| fact that Apple could pull the plug on Google, FB etc. any time
| it wanted to by announcing steps to make their devices "ad free."
| Apple makes its money selling hardware and software and content,
| they have no need for ads. They basically have a gun to the head
| of the internet companies.
| cloutchaser wrote:
| Wrong. The rules apple is forcing on Facebook are not something
| it itself will obey. Apple is PR-ing privacy yet its own ad
| network will have access to vastly more data than FB.
|
| It's all a con, to make more apple profits. Its nothing to do
| with protecting your data, its about storing it with Apple not
| Facebook.
| drawingthesun wrote:
| Powerful company complains competition is too powerful, needs
| regulators to take sides.
|
| The issue of wether or not tech companies are too powerful should
| be one of "The People" vs these companies and we collectively
| decide what should be and should not be allowed.
|
| Facebook's only interest is reducing any competitors power as
| much as possible and whilst their argument might have a point,
| they might not have a point.
|
| This discussion needs to happen and if necessary laws changed but
| I feel Facebook spearheading this weakens the points made due to
| their clear conflict of interest.
|
| We as a society need to decide if the benefit of these large tech
| companies in their current state is truly worth the societal
| cost.
|
| Facebook being involved in such a fundamental discussion dilutes
| its importance.
|
| Also funny Facebook calling out another company as too powerful
| when they have one of the largest databases of personal
| information that has ever existed. Arguably much larger than the
| personal information Apple has collected on the world's
| population.
| Hard_Space wrote:
| I'm guessing that the sub-editor, inspired by legal, added the
| question-mark at the end of this headline.
|
| To everyone pointing out the hypocrisy, please read the whole
| article. The balance of blame and level of mutual hypocrisy is
| established pretty early, and reiterated throughout.
| sprayk wrote:
| The '?' was removed from the title some time in the past 6h,
| making "They're right" much stronger.
|
| Why do you think the '?' would be "inspired by legal"?
| ginko wrote:
| Who keeps adding question marks to titles on HN? I understand
| it's to soften strong statements, but it's clearly the EFF's
| opinion that they are right, why put words in their mouth?
|
| At the very least make it "Are they right?" so it's a correct
| sentence.
| deprave wrote:
| I have been a member of and donated to the EFF since 1998. After
| reading this article, I have decided to not renew my membership
| and not donate again.
|
| My criticism isn't about right or wrong. It's about priorities
| and weaponizing the corporations and business practices the EFF
| should work against.
| DwnVoteHoneyPot wrote:
| I don't feel Apple's "power"... I use an iPhone and Macbook Pro
| right now, but I could ditch them just like I did a few years ago
| when Macbook Pro was junk. I went to a LG Gram laptop, linux
| desktop (others could go to Windows and the wide variety of
| hardware available). I'm in Apple's ecosystem because I prefer to
| be, not because I have to. Same with mobile phones - could switch
| to Android. I appreciate they don't get along with the FaceBook
| and FBI.
| spaced-out wrote:
| The counter-argument people will make, which I'm not sure if I
| agree with or not, is that regardless of what Apple's customers
| want, one company having that much power over its own ecosystem
| is bad for the market as a whole.
| DwnVoteHoneyPot wrote:
| Apple should be able run it's ecosystem however they like, I
| just need to be able to leave when I want to. No Berlin Wall
| situations.
| tomp wrote:
| Cry me a river.
|
| Facebook was banning people for suggesting that the "lab leak"
| COVID theory has merit. It was recently endorsed by the WHO.
|
| A taste of their own medicine. Hopefully they choke and die (the
| company, not the people).
| cloogshicer wrote:
| This is because people (even in communities like HN here) are
| asking for this kind of censorship (guised as "combatting
| misinformation").
|
| In my opinion, social networks should only censor what is
| illegal, where ordered by a judge, and leave everything else
| alone. Otherwise we have private entities like Facebook making
| these kinds of decisions for us - why would anyone want that?
| danschumann wrote:
| how is there not a decentralized social network yet? Maybe a
| similar interface, like the main operating system, and maybe
| multiple 3rd parties hosts, but something like wordpress for
| social networks... like if everyone's facebook page were merely
| hosted on their own server ( or they paid a 3rd party a couple
| bucks a month ). Then, no more ads, and we get more of the
| geocities guestbook appeal.
| parkingrift wrote:
| On one hand we have Facebook. A company with billions of users
| that is routinely used to destabilize democracy and spread
| propaganda.
|
| On the other hand we have Apple. A company with a 14% market
| share in the mobile market that has restricted Facebooks ability
| to track users outside of Facebook.
|
| For the good of Facebook, Apple must be stopped. -Putin,
| probably.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Is it Facebook you don't like or the ability for billions of
| people to communicate with each other without an intermediary
| you dislike?
|
| When I hear people criticize FB for "destabilizing democracy"
| or "spreading propaganda" what I generally hear is: "Having
| ordinary people able to communicate to each other without
| review by media &/or government is dangerous for our society."
| Can you distinguish your critique from that?
| parkingrift wrote:
| WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram are places for people to
| communicate without review.
|
| Facebook is a place for a corporation to decide what you see,
| regardless of the impact on society. Maximum engagement at
| all costs.
|
| I would be happy to see Facebook revert to their original
| feed which only showed you content from your direct friends
| and in reverse chronological order. Facebook is
| indistinguishable from opinion journalism but they're allowed
| to masquerade as a social media site to avoid being treated
| as the news publisher they undeniably act as.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > A company with billions of users that is routinely used
| to destabilize democracy and spread propaganda.
|
| People criticize Whatsapp for this same thing even though
| it is merely messaging. Whatsapp is owned by FB.
|
| But okay, your problem is with the algorithmic feed - that
| is a good distinction.
|
| I will say that there seems to be substantial consumer
| appetite for algo feed given the success of TikTok. It also
| seems natural to me that they would want to maximize
| engagement - this is a proxy for the value that the user
| gets out of the platform.
| splistud wrote:
| ec109685 wrote:
| This point is wrong:
|
| "Nearly all iOS users opted out of tracking"
|
| It's 86%, not 96% as mentioned in the linked article:
| https://www.flurry.com/blog/ios-14-5-opt-in-rate-att-restric...
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Think few people realize how bad the Apple situation is. If your
| company just ships like an iOS app and an Android app maybe you
| don't really notice or maybe don't care.
|
| But work at a company where you try to build something like new
| hardware devices or systems without having to resort to building
| either an iOS app or handing over 30% to Apple and the situation
| becomes very worrying to dire. Simple things suddenly become
| impossible or have workarounds piled on top to get their browser
| to function in the ways their desktop one does or Android's
| browser does.
|
| You can feel some of their engineering choices are actively
| hostile against anyone trying to exist outside the App Store
| ecosystem. Sure I know some advocates push this as a good thing
| but I think they'll disagree when the endgame plays out.
|
| Because in 10 years, what currently exists as the only option on
| iPad and iPhone will be the only option on MacBooks too. There is
| a reason why the last WWDC was all about making the iPad feel
| more like MacOS and making parts of MacOS feel like iPadOS.
|
| I used to be a huge Apple advocate but I'm really worried with
| where they're heading as I'm trying to create new technology and
| Apple causes so much pain when you try to make anything other
| than an iOS app.
|
| I do love my M1 MBP, have a lot less love for my iPhone these
| days but I'm worried where the tide is moving. It's all
| absolutely fine, until it isn't and then the problem is it's
| completely locked down from the touch screen to the silicon...
| Mertax wrote:
| I think we saw the same behavior with Microsoft in the early
| 2000s. When a company becomes more preoccupied with "shoring up
| the moat" to keep the stranglehold on the market more than it
| cares about innovating what's best for their consumer, the
| internal decay starts to happen.
|
| Fortunately I think for both Apple and Microsoft, they still
| have internal resources in the upper-ranks that truly care
| about what's best for their customers. If those people end up
| being the prevailing voices they will succeed. I think a lot
| depends on whether the CEO has control of the vision, or if
| they're actually just managing operations. Cracks are shown in
| the form of who they are able to retain & hire and who is
| leaving.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Apple hardware is generally quite good. Besides the complete
| lack of repairability on recent models, new Macbooks are really
| quite nice work laptops.
|
| The software experience, on the other hand... it's been
| slipping downhill for almost a decade now. I haven't been able
| to "full-time" MacOS since Mojave, and with each update I just
| find myself using it less and less. I suspect this is mostly
| driven by their attempts to appease shareholders: changes like
| the Big Sur UI overhaul, forcing everyone onto Metal,
| prioritizing SaaS offerings, all of it contributes to the
| Windows-10-ization of MacOS. Meanwhile, MacOS has _major
| architectural issues_ they could be fixing, like their
| increasingly broken BSD compatibility layer or rectifying their
| licensing woes with GPLv3.
|
| I really wish people luck in bringing Linux to modern Macs, but
| I'm not very hopeful that it will be a fruitful long-term
| relationship. Apple has time-and-time-again shown that their
| bottom line comes first, and if Linux becomes an appealing
| enough alternative for developers, I suspect they'll cut
| support for that too. People said the same thing about Nintendo
| when developing custom firmware for the Switch ("Who would shut
| down a project used for running Android/Linux on first-party
| hardware?"), but subsequent models came with extensive homebrew
| mitigations.
|
| Instead of dealing with these issues, I've just cut Apple out
| of my life. As a developer, my life has gotten so much easier,
| and as a user, I've got so much more peace-of-mind. It feels
| great, but it's not a path _everyone_ can take. Apple (like
| Microsoft and Google) deserves strict regulation to ensure that
| their behavior is ethical and doesn 't promote harmful lock-in.
| vinceguidry wrote:
| If only I could get employers to stop foisting MacOS on me.
| sigh.
| sydd wrote:
| Yep, and the same thing is true for the other giants - Amazon,
| Google, Microsoft.
|
| We're already living in a world where most segments of your
| life are taxed in a way from these 3. In a few years they will
| cannibalize the rest.
| boardwaalk wrote:
| > Because in 10 years, what currently exists as the only option
| on iPad and iPhone will be the only option on MacBooks too.
| There is a reason why the last WWDC was all about making the
| iPad feel more like MacOS and making parts of MacOS feel like
| iPadOS.
|
| This is pure supposition and reasoning with a UI feature that
| you have to explicitly turn on that helps you manage windows in
| way that's _more_ like a traditional desktop than ever for the
| iPad than it is like a tablet for macOS is quite a stretch.
|
| You could have said the same about other features that
| iOS/macOS got and it would have been just as unconvincing too:
| Screen Time, Control Center, Focus, Share Play, anything for
| Messages or Safari, etc.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Look at the profit charts for IAP/software sales on iOS vs
| MacOS then imagine you are an exec who has no reason to have
| any love for the concept of computing and ask yourself "Why
| is MacOS so unprofitable?"
|
| Fortnite runs on iOS and Fortnite runs on Mac, imagine you're
| an exec looking at that chart and asking yourself why
| Fortnite is so unprofitable on Mac and why it's financing
| whole Apple departments on iOS.
|
| It's hard to imagine any sane executive wouldn't be working
| towards the future I'm describing. Only an individual with
| extreme passion to the concept of free computing would do
| anything else.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| While this stuff makes it hard for developers, it makes it more
| secure for users, so users will keep buying stuff until such
| hindrances get in their way. If it's bad enough they will move
| on to other vendors.
| Aperocky wrote:
| > only option on iPad and iPhone will be the only option on
| MacBooks too
|
| I've had so many MacBooks but only because of the hardware form
| factor, the moment they wall off the terminal is the moment I
| would abandon mac forever.
|
| They will also lose all of their corporate customers.
| themitigating wrote:
| What about the hardware form factor? There are dell and
| lenovo laptops that are close enough.
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| I switch between a macbook and a thinkpad, mac's 3024 x
| 1964 resolution is certainly better for laptops than either
| 1920 x 1200 or 4K. The thinkpad is way better bang for the
| buck otherwise
| ubermonkey wrote:
| >Because in 10 years, what currently exists as the only option
| on iPad and iPhone will be the only option on MacBooks too.
|
| People love to say this, but there's no evidence it's true.
|
| Both Windows and MacOS now have features that can limit the
| sources of software to vendor-approved channels, but they're
| also very very easy to turn off. You can still run whatever the
| hell you want on a Mac, and on Windows -- by downloading from
| vendor sites, or even by building from source.
|
| Neither platform is EVER likely to block this. There's no
| upside to it. But having the OPTION to lock down either
| platform is GREAT because, well, we all have an Aunt Millie or
| whatever who clicks on everything and can't be arsed to learn
| to use the web safely, etc.
|
| Is iOS locked down? Sure! I love it that way.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| They were a great company that had the misfortune of making a
| shitload of money that now overrides everything else.
| a-dub wrote:
| it seems to me like the obviously correct policy intervention
| would be to legislate a reduction in switching costs/friction
| across the industry, as that is literally a cornerstone of how
| free markets are supposed to work.
|
| that said, easier said than done... but at least the ideal we
| should probably be striving for.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > it seems to me like the obviously correct policy intervention
| would be to legislate a reduction in switching costs/friction
| across the industry,
|
| That's not a policy intervention, that's a potential _goal_ of
| a policy intervention.
| a-dub wrote:
| thanks. can you recommend a good introduction to policy terms
| and associated wonkery for computer types? ... like some kind
| of policy in a nutshell ora book?
| fritigern wrote:
| I can't believe I'm saying this, but Facebook is right.
|
| Apple should be given a massive punitive fine for preventing app
| sideloading. This is disgusting anti-competitive behaviour.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| The problem they have is not that Apple is too powerful. It's
| that they're more powerful than Facebook in this case.
|
| Though I totally agree that Apple is not the privacy deity they
| claim to be, it's funny hearing complaints from Facebook which is
| far worse. It says several times that Facebook is totally right.
| Which is true but it ignores the bigger picture here. Facebook is
| by far the worst actor out of the two and their arguments are
| total hypocrisy.
|
| I also don't like their approach around do not track which aimed
| at trying to find a middle ground between us and the advertisers
| that have been abusing our privacy for years. For me it's gone
| far beyond collaboration and trust. I don't think anything will
| come from this.
| blurrybird wrote:
| Ok so what happens when I choose iOS for myself and my closest
| family members specifically because of its inability for someone
| to coax you into installing a dodgy app?
|
| If 3rd party app stores are introduced it'll just create
| fragmentation, a race to the bottom on App Store commissions, and
| significantly reduce the quality and quantity of apps available
| on the 1st party store - which I would very much prefer to stay
| locked in to.
|
| This scenario creates more problems than it solves.
| alexb_ wrote:
| It's worth mentioning the case of tumblr - a giant social media
| company that was literally worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
| People remember the whole "wow, tumblr was so stupid for banning
| porn" but forget that the reason they did so was because Apple
| threatened to remove all of their users from tumblr if they
| didn't. Apple gave tumblr unreasonable "safety standards" that
| almost single-handedly killed a gigantic site for the vast
| majority of users.
|
| Apple should not have this type of power. Maybe they used it for
| good with Facebook, but I wouldn't count on it always being the
| case. Apple can kill entire social media platforms if they want
| to. IMO, it's a matter of time before they start charging an
| "adult tax" (that just so happens to be barely below the profits
| a company makes from adult content via Apple users). Maybe the
| only thing preventing them from doing so is regulatory pressure.
| mbesto wrote:
| > Apple can kill entire social media platforms if they want to.
|
| They also have the opposite - the ability to create entire
| social media platforms.
|
| > Apple gave tumblr unreasonable "safety standards" that almost
| single-handedly killed a gigantic site for the vast majority of
| users.
|
| > Maybe they used it for good with Facebook
|
| Devil's advocate - maybe what _you_ think is good isn 't good
| for the rest of society.
|
| > Maybe the only thing preventing them from doing so is
| regulatory pressure.
|
| Agreed. So what type for regulations need to be in place?
| HWR_14 wrote:
| There were several similarly large companies that Facebook
| killed by modifying their algorithm. Let's not pretend that the
| scale of "hundreds of millions" sized companies can stand up to
| pressure from Apple/Google/Meta/Microsoft/Amazon.
|
| And what's the new acronym to refer to those companies?
| ayewo wrote:
| It's MAMAA now = Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Amazon, Alphabet
| mojuba wrote:
| GAMMA - though it'd be too cool for these guys.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| MAGMA also works
| anonymousiam wrote:
| Or delete Facebook (Meta) and now you have MAGA!
| tsol wrote:
| G'MAMA
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| If we're renaming Facebook to Meta in these acronyms, why
| is Google->Alphabet always ignored?
| mojuba wrote:
| Because Meta = Facebook + Instagram + WhatsApp, all quite
| significant customer-facing products.
|
| What is Alphabet then? It's Google, which is a long list
| of well known customer-facing products, plus a bunch of
| obscure or experimental companies the public largely
| doesn't care about.
| jefftk wrote:
| Too many vowels
| int_19h wrote:
| Maybe instead of inventing a new acronym every few years, we
| should just call it the "tech oligopolists"?
| ec109685 wrote:
| Plus when they shutdown their app platform.
| nextstep wrote:
| How did Twitter avoid this same fate? Twitter has an iOS app
| (sort of their main interface nowadays) and they have tons of
| adult content.
|
| Is Twitter powerful enough to stand up to Apple and Tumblr was
| not?
| Mindwipe wrote:
| Because the App Store review team is capricious and
| contradictory.
|
| We've also seen third party Reddit app developers not allowed
| to feature content that the main Reddit app is despite
| toggles, and Discord not allowed to feature content that
| Twitter is.
|
| The policy is badly written and not even Apple's own
| reviewers understand it, and they overreact to complaints
| from religious groups.
| lrae wrote:
| NSFW content is disabled by default in the iOS app and you
| can only enable it via web iirc.
|
| No idea though if Tumblr had the same option back then.
| Mindwipe wrote:
| It did. Apple repeatedly said that wasn't sufficient.
| steego wrote:
| You're missing something. Both Twitter and Reddit have
| apps which allow access to NSFW content.
| nipponese wrote:
| Safari on iOS can load a porn site. So what's the problem?
| mhh__ wrote:
| What does that have to do with Apple killing Tumblr?
| ksec wrote:
| From Apple's perspective,
|
| If you want access to Apple's user. You have to play by their
| rules. Remember even if those users are Tumblr's reader or
| members, they are ultimately accessing it via iPhone, whether
| that is through Safari or Apps. And Apple dictate the rules.
|
| Since Apple is a force of Good. Apple are righteous. Their
| fellow evangelist will tell you everything else are by their
| definition are Evil. Such as Ads. And banning whatever it is,
| whether that is porn, news that does not adhere to their
| political views, or music that doesn't fits certain
| requirement. And they are fighting all these evil for you, an
| act of love.
| oaiey wrote:
| > Apple's user
|
| This ownership wording is the wrong thinking when it comes to
| platforms.
| munchenphile wrote:
| Exactly. If I buy and drive a BMW, I'm a BMW driver. I'm
| not BMW's user.
|
| What a scary way to phrase that relationship.
| xdennis wrote:
| But it is how these companies see people, which is what GP
| is talking about.
| int_19h wrote:
| More importantly, that's how these companies treat people
| _and get away with it_. So, however wrong and scary it
| is, it 's also true.
| lancesells wrote:
| I've never heard of Apple dictating anything through Safari
| on iOS. Are they blocking sites that they don't approve of?
| oaiey wrote:
| When I remember right, there is a blacklist but nothing
| serious on it.
| kmlx wrote:
| > Apple should not have this type of power.
|
| wait a minute, that's only because Tumblr wanted to be on the
| App Store. they've could've just as easily provided a web app
| and easily instructed their users to have a link on the ios
| home screen. but they wanted to be on the App Store, so of
| course they had to follow Apple's rules.
| Tostino wrote:
| Using the hobbled webapp features that Apple hardly allows?
| That's your solution?
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| I think you're making the case for Apple being too powerful.
| majani wrote:
| And for Tumblr (and most apps out there), they took on on all
| this headache just for some push notifications and fancy
| animations. They clearly didn't do their cost-benefit
| analysis when deciding to make their app
| Aldo_MX wrote:
| > that's only because Tumblr wanted to be on the App Store
|
| Yeah, because the iOS ecosystem is well known for allowing
| competition, especially competing stores.
|
| Many of the issues that Apple create wouldn't exist if
| competing stores were allowed to exist.
| Longhanks wrote:
| Why is it Apple's duty to provide an ecosystem for tumblr?
| If they want on Apple's platform, they have to play by
| Apple's rules - there's other ecosystems, too. No one is
| forced to enter the iOS ecosystem, and anyone can leave at
| any time they please.
| 7v3x3n3sem9vv wrote:
| hard for some people to leave when they've paid thousands
| in hardware, apps and media content that doesn't migrate
| easily to other platforms.
| Longhanks wrote:
| How is this different from any other industry? My VW
| engine will probably not work in the new Ford, will it?
| dahfizz wrote:
| That's a pretty bad example.
|
| There is a technical / physical aspect to
| interoperability. If you want to swap your engine, the
| new engine needs to fit and mate up with your
| transmission (though, this is easier than you might
| think). If you want to run an app on your phone, it needs
| to be in a format the OS can use.
|
| Then there is an extra, unnecessary, layer of political
| control. I absolutely can, with a bit of work, swap in a
| Chevy LS engine into a Ford F150. I don't have to ask
| Ford's permission. Chevy doesn't have to ask Fords
| permission. I, as a person with free will, can buy this
| engine and that car and combine them.
|
| Apple totally prevents this. They do not allow you to do
| what you want with the device you own. For good or bad,
| they absolutely operate differently than other
| industries. At least from the consumers perspective.
| toast0 wrote:
| > My VW engine will probably not work in the new Ford,
| will it?
|
| There's a whole subculture of engine swaps, afaik, they
| tend not to use vw engines as the donors, but whatevs.
| You've got to have or make room, probably adapt the
| connection to the transmission, plus any engine control,
| cooling, and air/fuel. It's really not that hard, as long
| as there is room.
| jedberg wrote:
| No, but luckily you have the legal right to change your
| VW engine with a Ford engine if you really want to.
|
| But in your analogy, your VW would only allow VW gas sold
| by VW at VW filling stations. And the only two types of
| cars on the road are VWs and Fords, and each have their
| own filling station.
|
| Now imagine you live in an area where only VW owns gas
| stations, they lobby the government and explain for the
| safety of the citizens they can't allow you to use any
| gas from anyone else, and the closest Ford station is 100
| miles away, and you already own a VW.
|
| I could tell you, "hey, you bought into the ecosystem,
| and you can leave any time".
|
| And you would tell me I'm being unreasonable, and fight
| your local government to allow 3rd party gas stations.
| capybara_2020 wrote:
| Imagine Microsoft saying something like that...you cannot
| install your app on Windows because <reasons>. Can you
| imagine the uproar at that.
|
| But Apple gets a free pass?
|
| For all intents and purposes Apple's iphone is the
| Windows equivalent in many parts of the world. If you are
| not on it, you do not exist. So Apple needs to be treated
| like the monopoly/duopoly they are.
| ezfe wrote:
| What about Tumblr requires an app to enjoy?
| PhantomBKB wrote:
| That's like asking why doesn't everyone switch to
| landline phones since they have the same calling
| functionality as mobile phones.
|
| Answer: Well obviously, since landlines are missing the
| biggest feature mobiles phones have: portability.
|
| Point I'm trying to make: 1. Apps are smoother than web
| experience 2. Have a much native-er feel, etc.
|
| If app is available, I'd rather use an app.
| ezfe wrote:
| There's no inherent reason that is - websites can be
| added as icons on the home page and can feel just as nice
| to use as an app for things like Tumblr or Reddit. The
| only reason the Reddit web interface is no fun is because
| Reddit makes it horrendous on purpose. I got a
| notification today in the Reddit webpage saying the app
| had more cats, whatever that means.
|
| A big thing would be notifications, which at the time of
| writing is still an issue but slated to be corrected next
| year.
| jedberg wrote:
| Push notifications.
| Aldo_MX wrote:
| I don't know, let me ask the anti-Electron gang their
| thoughts about less battery life just by running a
| browser environment instead of a native app.
| uncomputation wrote:
| This doesn't make sense. You wouldn't have an Electron
| app on iOS anyways. If you used Electron for desktop, you
| would generate an iOS bundle for the App Store but OP is
| suggesting just a web app in the vein of HN, just
| accessed via the browser. The only thing you would use
| Electron for is desktop but, also like HN, nobody
| accesses tumblr via a desktop app to begin with. They use
| a browser.
| woojoo666 wrote:
| From the article
|
| > Apple's restrictions on third-party browsers, and the
| limitations it puts on Safari/WebKit (its own browser
| tools) have hobbled "web apps,"
|
| Though I'm sure you can also ask many product managers
| how well native apps on iOS perform due to web apps (many
| companies have data on both). For whatever reason, users
| prefer native apps
| corrral wrote:
| I expect there's a ton of overlap between the anti-
| Electron "gang" and folks who don't think a website needs
| an app at all.
|
| Plus most of those website "apps" are just a bunch of
| webviews anyway, so you're not going to save battery by
| using them. Just like Electron.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| 1. Safari did not support PWAs at this time. Other browsers
| did.
|
| 2. Safari had and still has some pretty gnarly bugs that
| require special workarounds.
|
| 3. You could not put a link to a website on the homescreen of
| iOS
| ec109685 wrote:
| Apple has had PWA's for years.
|
| Tumblr is perfectly fine on the web, but they want people
| to download the app so they can use push notifications to
| juice engagement.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| That's a lie.
|
| As of Aug 2021, PWA support basically didn't exist except
| for some parts of the manifest file. No background tasks,
| none of the major APIs were implemented, and you got
| nothing but an app tile on your homescreen.. even
| navigating back and forth from the PWA to another app
| caused the PWA to lose state. Data storage was basically
| a nightmare.
|
| There are STILL basic fundamental things missing.
|
| When the tumblr saga was going on, I still don't think
| you could even read PWA manifests or add them to your
| homescreen!
| robin_reala wrote:
| Tumblr's management actively hated their web team:
| https://twitter.com/edent/status/729223162467106816
| justinclift wrote:
| That's not really anyone's fault but Tumblr though. They
| could have fixed whatever issues they had with the
| website/team/etc.
| alexb_ wrote:
| The point is Apple's rules are not really rules (as evidenced
| by Twitter existing on iOS) and are really just excuses for
| selectively bullying out companies they don't like. There is
| absolutely no reason that Apple should have the power to do
| that. Sure they could have "provided a web app" that gave a
| really really shitty experience to everyone compared to an
| actual app, but that's not an actual alternative and still
| loses out on a ton of users. Apple has the power to control
| what software you can download and run on YOUR device, and
| these are the consequences.
| threeseed wrote:
| > and are really just excuses for selectively bullying out
| companies they don't like
|
| Except that if Tumblr had chosen to take responsibility for
| the moderation of their platform then it would still be on
| the store. Twitter, Reddit etc are heavily moderated hence
| why they are still there.
|
| > Apple has the power to control what software you can
| download and run on YOUR device
|
| iPhone has been around for 15 years. We know. That's why we
| bought it in the first place.
| Macha wrote:
| I really don't think Reddit, especially in the time that
| the Tumblr ban happened, was actually more moderated than
| Tumblr. Tumblr was just the one that got their moderation
| found not to be up to Apple's standards first at a time
| Apple needed to make a statement that they're "not like
| those other big tech companies". Arguably this was also a
| warning shot to other social networks like Reddit who did
| up their moderation afterwards, for both good and bad.
| cloutchaser wrote:
| > The point is Apple's rules are not really rules (as
| evidenced by Twitter existing on iOS) and are really just
| excuses for selectively bullying out companies they don't
| like.
|
| Exactly right. It's amazing to me that with these global
| platforms we are seeing exactly why the legal system
| evolved the way it did, and why we have things like
| appeals, precendents, the judges, and levels of courts.
|
| Getting rules and regulations right is not easy. Relying on
| these platforms to do it is basically reinventing the
| wheel, except they don't seem to be reinventing it
| correctly. They are creating kafkaesque impossible to
| communicate with bureaucracies.
|
| And the funny thing is, due to their focus on profits, they
| don't really care if 5-10% of the population find it
| impossible to use their platforms of get banned, because it
| just doesn't matter to their bottom line if courts and
| appeals are more expensive to run than just banning them.
|
| And then we basically see why equality before the law
| evolved, and why its to fucking important.
| mcphage wrote:
| > really just excuses for selectively bullying out
| companies they don't like
|
| That seems a strong claim--why do you think Apple doesn't
| like Tumblr? They're not a competitor in any space.
|
| > Sure they could have "provided a web app" that gave a
| really really shitty experience to everyone compared to an
| actual app
|
| Tumblr is an actual web site, right?
| kmlx wrote:
| > as evidenced by Twitter existing on iOS
|
| there is no "evidence". it's a 17+ app with sexual accounts
| actively banned all of the time which you can't even access
| if you're not logged in, NSFW is disabled by default etc
| etc
|
| > There is absolutely no reason that Apple should have the
| power to do that.
|
| actually there's a huge reason: they built it, they own it.
|
| > Apple has the power to control what software you can
| download and run on YOUR device
|
| the device is meaningless, it's all about the software. and
| you don't own that. so you can't impose your own rules.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > so you can't impose your own rules.
|
| Actually, we can. We can make a law and enforce it. And
| there are literally laws being considered to do this.
|
| If you don't like democracy, then feel free to move to a
| different country.
| mrcartmeneses wrote:
| There's a lot of "feel free to... {vote, leave,
| whatever}" in this thread but I just want to add there's
| very little freedom in the American voting system. You've
| got two choices, sometimes no choice if you live in a
| "safe" district. Ya'll need to get angry about not having
| 1 person 1 vote before angrily telling everyone else to
| use theirs.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Those two (or one) choices are also voted on. You can
| vote in primaries.
|
| AOC won the primary in a safe district against the 4th
| most powerful Democrat in the federal government.
| int_19h wrote:
| In fact, most American voters live in "safe districts"
| today, and their number generally goes down over time. On
| the federal level, we currently have something like 350
| districts that lean strongly towards one or the other
| party, and 80 that are actually competitive.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| > actually there's a huge reason: they built it, they own
| it.
|
| Well we built our society, and we own it, so they can
| fucking deal if they want to sell stuff in our society
| and we set some rules about what they can do.
| [deleted]
| TameAntelope wrote:
| "We"? Which "we"? The larger you make the pool, the
| smaller your individual impact is in that pool. If your
| "we" includes everyone in the US, then your voice is one
| of ~330m people, and should have vanishingly small
| impact. If "we" includes ~8b people, then your voice is
| ~20x smaller still.
|
| I think you'd be surprised at how many of those ~330m (or
| ~8b) people would be perfectly okay with what Apple has
| done, and generally how much more important property
| rights are to what "we" have built than some esoteric
| fight about how you don't want to allow me the right to
| sell my privacy for a price I deem appropriate.
|
| "We" don't want _you_ to tell us what we can and can 't
| do with our own data. Maybe _we_ are perfectly happy to
| let Apple have some of our data, and are honestly tired
| of hearing _you_ talk about how _we_ don 't know any
| better.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| So if America declares some laws that state Apple can't
| do this shit you'll be cool with it because the large
| group did do some collective action, right? Because your
| problem isn't the issue but that we just haven't done it
| with laws?
| [deleted]
| TameAntelope wrote:
| My "issue" here is that you're presupposing this is what
| the people want, and that Apple is acting incongruently
| with what American society was built by "us" to support.
|
| I'd use my one vote and my voice to try and avoid that
| situation, but I accept that in a democracy my vote is
| not meant to have a significant impact.
|
| For something like "data privacy" I'd go with what the
| country wants (not that I really have a choice), but I
| doubt the country would vote that way considering what
| we've built is largely based on the concepts of freedom
| and private ownership.
|
| It seems antithetical to those ideas to prohibit people
| from selling what we tend to agree is rightfully theirs.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > is that you're presupposing this is what the people
| want,
|
| At least in Europe it is pretty clear that this is what
| people want. And they are almost certainly going to pass
| a law that regulates Apple.
|
| > to prohibit people from selling what we tend to agree
| is rightfully theirs.
|
| The phone belongs to the user once they buy it. That
| phone is rightfully theirs, and these new laws will allow
| a user to do what they want with that phone.
|
| Apple also has the protection of patent and copyright
| laws. Those are government regulation that prevent other
| people from selling software.
|
| If we really want to go full "people should be allowed to
| do what they want, with things that they own", then
| perhaps we should allow everyone to manufacture iPhones,
| and sell modified versions of that software. (as in
| literally, people should be allowed to steal Apple's, and
| make actual iPhones)
|
| I am sure that there are some factories that already have
| access to iPhone manufacturing plans that would be happy
| to do what they want with their own property, and sell
| iPhones themselves.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > We"? Which "we"?
|
| The "we" that is currently going through the Democratic
| process of passing laws which are almost certainly going
| to pass.
|
| > "We" don't want you to tell us
|
| Feel free to vote for a different lawmaker then. Or that
| is what you should have done, because it is too late in
| Europe already. They are going to pass the digital
| markets act.
|
| Go participate in democracy if you disagree.
| ericmay wrote:
| > Go participate in democracy if you disagree.
|
| Thanks - this actually inspired me to write to my senator
| and congressional rep at the federal level in the US to
| not regulate Apple or its ability to decide what content
| goes on the iOS App Store. I love the iPhone and App
| Store, and Apple has earned my trust with their
| stewardship of it, and there is no logical reason that
| they should be regulated differently than any other
| marketplace. Any proposed changes or regulations that
| I've seen that target the iOS App Store are bad for me
| personally. I'd actually like to see us pass a digital
| markets act or similar that _guarantees_ Apple (and
| Google, etc.) stewardship over their products and
| platforms.
|
| Certainly I'm one of many voices (honestly outside of a
| place like HN or tech journals nobody gives even the
| slightest shit about what Apple does on the App Store)
| here, but I'll make sure my voice is heard to the extent
| that it makes sense to engage here.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| Calling for serfdom certainly is an interesting take.
| Remember to ask Tim Cook if he needs you to shine his
| shoes next time
| stale2002 wrote:
| > this actually inspired me to write to my senator and
| congressional rep
|
| You could do this yes. But I think efforts to fights
| these laws will fail.
|
| The digital markets act is already almost guaranteed to
| pass in Europe, and once Europe has a law on this, the
| effects will go global.
|
| Whats Apple going to do? Pull out of all of Europe? Do a
| failed attempt to segregate the market, by making an
| unlocked EU phone, and a locked USA one (What happens
| when people import the phones? Sounds pretty easy to get
| around...)?
|
| Once the floodgates are open, you aren't going to be able
| to prevent people from installing whatever app store they
| want on their own phone.
|
| > that I've seen that target the iOS App Store are bad
| for me personally.
|
| Fortunately, you'll still have the choice to only install
| the iOS app store if you want. You just won't be able to
| prevent other people from installing whatever app store
| they want on their phone.
| ericmay wrote:
| > The digital markets act is already almost guaranteed to
| pass in Europe, and once Europe has a law on this, the
| effects will go global.
|
| Sort of. I think you are underestimating Apple's ability
| to get around these laws, or at least section off the
| worst aspects of them so that using an iPhone sucks only
| in Europe and not elsewhere. In the US we may see laws
| introduced, but such laws (thankfully!) will be neutered
| as they're bad for citizens anyway.
|
| > Fortunately, you'll still have the choice to only
| install the iOS app store if you want.
|
| Yes, but I'm not sure you understand how this affects the
| ecosystem. The benefits you _think_ you will incur, will
| not come to fruition. Instead, everyone will just be
| worse off except other multi-national American and
| Chinese internet companies. Privacy benefits are the
| first that come to mind, and such benefits that Apple has
| effectively collectively bargained for on behalf of users
| will be lost. Unfortunately, this will disproportionately
| affect the less well-off too because they won 't be able
| to afford to pay to avoid cryptoscams, OnlyFans, and
| insidious adware.
|
| > You just won't be able to prevent other people from
| installing whatever app store they want on their phone.
|
| That's a product feature. If you want multiple app stores
| you can already do that on Android. It's like buying an
| Android phone and asking where your iCloud subscription
| is and then demanding that Apple offer it. Totally
| different product.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > I think you are underestimating Apple's ability to get
| around these laws
|
| Sure they could try. At which point they would be fined
| billions of dollars. Just like how they tried to get
| around the recent app store dating apps law that was in a
| small country in the EU, and they got lost in court and
| kept getting fined.
|
| Europe isn't really a country that just lets people break
| their laws. If you break them, you'll be fined.
|
| > Apple has effectively collectively bargained
|
| What you are describing is called "using significant
| market power", and is specifically what anti-trust law is
| designed to prevent.
|
| If your argument is that "monopoly power is a good thing,
| and I want companies to use their significant market
| power, in a way that anti trust laws are designed to
| prevent" I guess you could make that argument.
|
| But I hope you also are consistent and want to repeal
| common carrier laws, and any other laws that prevent
| companies from using their significant market power.
|
| Just say it loud and clear, that you think that anti-
| trust laws are bad, and that using significant market
| power to anti-competitive control a market is a good
| thing, if thats what you believe.
| ericmay wrote:
| > Europe isn't really a country that just lets people
| break their laws. If you break them, you'll be fined.
|
| Europe isn't really that much better than the US in this
| regard. See Volkswagen, FIFA, etc.
|
| > What you are describing is called "using significant
| market power", and is specifically what anti-trust law is
| designed to prevent.
|
| Sure if you specifically want to interpret it in the most
| negative possible light. On the other hand, Apple's
| position in the market acts as a company who can
| negotiate on behalf of users (kind of a quasi-union). On
| our own, no individual can leverage a company like, say,
| Facebook to have to change how they track users.
|
| > Just say it loud and clear, that you think that anti-
| trust laws are bad, and that using significant market
| power to anti-competitive control a market is a good
| thing, if thats what you believe.
|
| No, because that's a very naive and unrealistic thing to
| say or think.
|
| Let's actually call this what it is, which is gigantic
| corporations like Epic and Facebook suing Apple (also a
| gigantic corporation) because Apple made their predatory
| business models less profitable. That's all this really
| is. In every capitalist economy ranging from Norway to
| Australia to Japan, companies are allowed to create
| platforms and then engage in business with who they see
| fit based on rules that they create and enforce on their
| platform. Facebook and Epic both have rules that they
| enforce on their platforms. To suggest that the Apple App
| Store is an anti-competitive marketplace is in the same
| breath to suggest that Wal-Mart is an anti-competitive
| marketplace because they won't allow me to sell
| pornography and Dogecoin. This is made all the more silly
| when iOS has less market share than Android and you can
| go and buy an Android phone and install whatever app
| store you want.
|
| If you are actually interested in anti-competitive
| behavior, take a look at schemes like the MLS (Multiple
| Listing System) in the US, or various other internet
| companies.
| int_19h wrote:
| A non-democratic union is not a union.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| Saying that Epic has a predatory business while actively
| praising Apple taking 30% for doing fuck all shows you're
| truly either in denial or have absolutely no idea what
| you're talking about.
| [deleted]
| oneoff786 wrote:
| It's more like asking where my porny tumblr app is, which
| they want to provide, and apple forbids.
| midislack wrote:
| We want big tech companies to attack each other though.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I cannot stand up to intrusive ad tech that Facebook can
| generate alone. At least, not at a reasonable time cost.
| Open source software can do pretty well. But I trust
| Apple more than myself to maintain a perimeter against
| Facebook and Googles intrusions on my behalf.
| midislack wrote:
| It means when you see Apple and Facebook fighting, you
| SUPPORT it. Every minute they're busy with each other is
| one less minute they can devote to fist fucking the
| public.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Yeah but you know what's better than relying on Facebook
| to write PR articles against Apple? Making sensible
| regulations.
| V-2 wrote:
| "We" as opposed to "they" is a bit problematic here.
| Apple, too, consists of people who have contributed to
| building the society, they're not some alien overlords
| from outer space.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| It's not. They're members of a larger group. They have to
| abide by the rules of the group if they want to enjoy the
| benefits of society.
| V-2 wrote:
| You mean legislation? :)
| vorpalhex wrote:
| > the device is meaningless, it's all about the software.
| and you don't own that.
|
| You are correct - that is the problem.
|
| Imagine if your car manufacturer prevented you from using
| Spotify or Deez or whatever music service you wanted and
| REQUIRED you to listen to SiriusXM at a significantly
| marked up cost.
|
| That's the issue.
| rglullis wrote:
| > actually there's a huge reason: they built it, they own
| it.
|
| Microsoft also built IE6 and they also built Windows.
| Should they have kept the power to bundle IE and to make
| it difficult for other browser developers?
| [deleted]
| CodeSgt wrote:
| Yes. They should.
| rglullis wrote:
| Why? Can you please go ahead and explain why monopolies
| and anti-competitive practices should be accepted by
| societies?
| CodeSgt wrote:
| I answered a single question, I did not endorse anti-
| competative practices across the board. In this
| particular case, they built it therfore they should be
| able to choose how to distribute it and establish privacy
| standards as they wish.
| rglullis wrote:
| What they were trying to do was considered anti-
| competitive practice, and "They built it therefore they
| can do whatever they want with it" in isolation makes
| absolutely no sense.
| CodeSgt wrote:
| > answered a single question, I did not endorse anti-
| competative practices _across the board_.
|
| I also didn't say they could do "whatever they want".
| Could you please be a good faith conversationalist and
| reply only to what was actually said, as opposed to your
| misinterpretation of what was said?
| rglullis wrote:
| Ok. Let's take what you said, so then maybe you can
| understand the problem.
|
| > they built it therefore they should be able to choose
| how to distribute it
|
| _Tied selling_ is against the law. No matter who makes
| it, no matter if its free, if you make the acquisition of
| a product conditional on the acquisition of another one,
| _it is illegal_.
| CodeSgt wrote:
| Okay? I never said it was legal.
| [deleted]
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| The funny thing is that they're doing it all over again
| with edge. And nobody is getting up in arms about it.
|
| Ps I still don't understand how "now copied from Google
| so it's better than that crappy earlier version we built
| ourselves" can be viewed in any kind of positive light :)
| It's basically an admission of incompetence. I mean, for
| a software company that's pretty bad. I just don't
| understand how they make it a selling point that they
| didn't write it themselves anymore.
|
| Also, I don't think the actual engine was why people
| didn't like the old Edge. It was more the UI for me. I
| never had issues with the rendering engine. The could
| have done the same overhaul with their own engine and it
| would have been fine too. An extra engine would have been
| better for the web as an ecosystem, we're now seeing too
| much of the "IE Effect" with chromium.
| ig-88ms wrote:
| Building mobile web apps back in the day was much harder than
| today.
| threeseed wrote:
| I built a number of them. It was significantly easier.
|
| The Javascript ecosystem today is far more diverse, complex
| and multi-faceted than in the past. It's hard to put
| together a simple to develop stack that will be supported
| and maintainable in the future.
| christkv wrote:
| They could have just enforced a age limit on the app instead
| and let the platform decide if they were ok with 18+ or not
| Mindwipe wrote:
| No, they couldn't. Multiple developers have said that Apple
| did not consider this acceptable. The Apple app review team
| is capricious and does not follow their own published
| guidelines, and that is not news.
|
| This was also an issue with Discord - Discord still doesn't
| (by Apple didact) permit some servers with adult content in
| the iOS app, because Apple said there was no way to do so
| and remain in the store.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > Multiple developers have said that Apple did not
| consider this acceptable.
|
| Given that the problem with Tumblr was the accessibility
| of CSAM, I think Apple are probably on the right side
| here saying "just marking it 18+ is not ok" since,
| y'know, the issue wasn't that "CSAM is available to
| minors" but "CSAM is available to _anyone_ ".
| robonerd wrote:
| Is there any reason to believe reddit didn't/doesn't have
| this same exact problem?
|
| I think Tumblr was singled out and made an example of
| because they had a narrower user demographic spread,
| particularly popular with young women. In cynical
| business logic, this made them a safer target for
| bullying than a site with broader appeal like reddit,
| facebook or twitter.
| Jcowell wrote:
| What servers ? I've seen a couple with full on adult
| content.
| Macha wrote:
| Partnered servers at least. The ffxiv subreddit server
| had to remove porn after discord partnership. I think
| nominally the rules are the same for all public servers,
| but much like early Reddit, or indeed like Tumblr,
| Discord does not have the moderation capability to
| actually enforce that.
| xwdv wrote:
| Companies can always find ways to screw another company over,
| this is not unique to Apple. Bad example.
| oaiey wrote:
| There was hardly a company that powerful ever. Controlling
| communication, media consumption and entertainment at will
| for a user group as big as theirs.
|
| Never before. Not with oil, cars, industrial products, pharma
| etc.
| 2malaq wrote:
| It's not a bad example when it's literally relevant to the
| article.
| prmoustache wrote:
| But is it?
|
| I don't think iphone market shares are large enough to make
| a company like tumblr die.
| lucideer wrote:
| > _I don 't think_
|
| You can think what you like but they literally did so...
| -\\_(tsu)_/-
| alexb_ wrote:
| Yes they are. iPhones make up over half of all
| smartphones in America.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Globally it is less than 20%.
| alexb_ wrote:
| Do you want to be the person who has to explain why your
| userbase just dropped 20% because you didn't want to ban
| porn? If Apple says you want to ban something, it's
| getting banned. "Globally" is also not a good metric
| here, since the vast majority of tumblr users came from
| english speaking countries.
| xwdv wrote:
| You're right. Better to just ban porn and lose 100% of
| the user base.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| Weighted by ad revenue, it's closer to 50%.
| Miraste wrote:
| Yes, the 20% that has all the money.
| simonh wrote:
| In the local galactic supercluster it might be less than
| 0.1%, but Tumblr happens to be predominantly used in the
| US, and that's what matters to their business.
| midislack wrote:
| Nobody cares about that though. US is where all tech
| happens.
| dwighttk wrote:
| >Apple threatened to remove all of their users from tumblr if
| they didn't
|
| That isn't true. Not allowing the tumblr app doesn't remove all
| users.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| > Apple should not have this type of power.
|
| Apple doesn't.
|
| Those customers were free to use Tumblr on Android, Symbian,
| whatever.
| pikseladam wrote:
| what about reddit?
| Gigachad wrote:
| It apparently went much deeper than just porn. Tumbler had a
| big pedo problem that they were struggling to deal with which
| is why Apple delisted them. So they decided that rather than
| try to filter legal from illegal porn, they would just ban it
| all.
| Macha wrote:
| There was a NY Times article about the problem Reddit had
| with r/jailbait, but Apple did not move against the Reddit
| app then. You can argue that they were wrong to move
| against Tumblr, or to not move against Reddit, but I don't
| think you can argue that the application of this rule is
| not variable.
| shagie wrote:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/20/us/opioid-
| reddit.html?unl...
|
| > A group called "jailbait" -- it contained provocative
| images of teenagers -- led to a ban of "suggestive or
| sexual content featuring minors" in 2011. The company
| also shut down a group called "beatingwomen," which
| glorified violence against women. Last year Reddit banned
| two so-called alt-right subreddits for repeatedly posting
| personal information that could lead to harassment. It
| took no action, though, against a subreddit organized
| around gun sales, which drew scrutiny after a 2014 Mother
| Jones article suggested that some arms dealers sought to
| exploit a federal background check loophole.
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/19/reddit-and-
| the... also goes into it.
|
| > In September of 2011, Anderson Cooper discussed the
| subreddit on CNN. "It's pretty amazing that a big
| corporation would have something like this, which
| reflects badly on it," he said. Traffic to Jailbait
| quadrupled overnight. Twelve days later, after someone in
| the group apparently shared a nude photo of a fourteen-
| year-old girl, the community was banned.
|
| ---
|
| The Apple / Tumblr issue is much more recent (did Reddit
| even have an App Store app in 2011 - the version history
| doesn't go back that far).
| Gigachad wrote:
| I remember that reddit had no official app for quite a
| long time, it was from memory only about 6 years ago that
| they purchased one of the community built apps to use as
| the official one.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| This seems to be way overstating whatever role Apple played in
| this. Tumblr debuted before the iPhone and continues even today
| to work perfectly fine in a browser. It's just a stream of text
| and images, effectively exactly what a browser was designed
| for. I'm sure they'd love the greater access to privacy
| invading hardware features they can get from a native app, but
| it hardly seems critical to their continue existence as a
| product. Also, the estimated drop in user traffic after the
| adult content ban was 30%. When Tumblr was purchased by Yahoo,
| they paid $1.1 billion. When Verizon sold it to Wordpress, it
| was for $3 million. They is _way_ more than a 30% value drop.
| It seems pretty damn likely to me that Tumblr has just always
| been somewhat of a niche community compared to the larger
| social platforms out there and Yahoo overpaid dramatically
| because Yahoo was one of the stupidest big tech parent
| companies to ever acquire other companies, and the failure to
| ever realize that hoped for value had little to do with whether
| iPhone users could consume through a native app or had to use
| the browser.
| rusk wrote:
| > unreasonable "safety standards"
|
| Are these the same safety standards that cause apple predictive
| text to refuse to recognise the cuss words I a grown adult use
| and have to go back and fix over and over again. Ducking stupid
| if you ask me.
| davesque wrote:
| If you think about it, you're probably glad they do this.
| Consider the damage that a stray "f*ck" could do if you
| didn't mean to type it and didn't notice that you did. Could
| even spell a lawsuit I bet in some cases.
| CharlesW wrote:
| You're exactly right -- surprise porn and surprise
| expletives at Apple scale would probably trigger a
| congressional hearing. Not only does Messages _not_ censor
| what you type, but one can easily leverage autocorrect to
| help you type the naughtiest of words.
|
| https://www.macworld.com/article/673861/how-to-stop-an-
| iphon...
| robonerd wrote:
| Apple treating the word 'fuck' like any other would
| "probably trigger a congressional hearing"? Give me a
| break.
| Dah00n wrote:
| So Android users have all been fired because of the damage
| they have done via SMS?
| davesque wrote:
| I've got an Android phone and I've never been able to
| swipe type swear words. And I'm kinda glad too. Yeah,
| it's a little annoying when I actually intend to type
| that word, but it would be way more annoying if it showed
| up when I didn't. I imagine it's this kind of reasoning
| that's behind why those words aren't available in auto-
| complete or swipe to type. Some people in this thread
| seem to be suggesting it's some kind of moral overreach
| or impulse to censor that's behind this behavior. I think
| that's an exaggeration and the real reason is the more
| simple and practical one that I've described.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Add contacts with curse words as their name.
| rolobio wrote:
| You can add custom words so that your iOS device will suggest
| them. Go to Settings, search for Text Replacement, add a new
| replacement with +, enter the same word for both replacement
| and shortcut.
| xdennis wrote:
| "Fuck" is not a custom word. It was first attested in 772
| AD.
|
| It's no way to treat adults.
| skohan wrote:
| It's also probably one of the most uttered 1000 words if
| I had to venture a guess.
| shagie wrote:
| The question is not is it a custom word or when it
| entered into the English language.
|
| The question is "as a parent, would you buy an {x} phone
| for a young family member that suggests profanity?"
|
| As an adult, you can go in and add the words that you
| want to use yourself... however, do you want profanity to
| be a default suggested word for children in your
| household?
|
| Realizing that the demographics of HN tends to the more
| technically literate, removing the all the words you
| don't want your children accidentally sending to their
| teachers wouldn't be a big issue, however as most of the
| population isn't as technically literate the "it just
| works" mentality for digital appliances would mean that
| most of the population that has a child who may use the
| phone would likely opt to one that is more proper and
| correct in its limited word choice.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| A child that's too young to see a couple of four letter
| words is too young to have a ducking smartphone in the
| first place.
| Dah00n wrote:
| >"as a parent, would you buy an {x} phone for a young
| family member that suggests profanity?"
|
| Kids have Android phones, so yes, it is clearly the case
| that most parents have no problem with this.
| shagie wrote:
| Are there any Android phones where the default is to
| autocorrect and suggest profanity?
|
| Not "can you go in and unblock profanity suggestions" (
| https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/disable-android-
| offensive... ) but rather "is this the default"?
| Griffinsauce wrote:
| This is practically helpful but asinine. The point is that
| these words are not "custom" or special, they should be
| handled like any other normal word.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _like any other normal word_
|
| But they're not normal words. They're expletives. If they
| have their own category, they're not "normal words."
|
| iOS doesn't know a lot of the medical words I use for
| work, either. But I don't moan about it on social media.
| robonerd wrote:
| _All_ words have their own categories. There are an
| innumerable number of categories you can put any word
| into. Give me a _single_ word that can 't be put into a
| special category; you can't do it.
| mwilliaams wrote:
| > have their own category
|
| Like adjectives, nouns, verbs, adverbs, or any other of
| many word categories?
|
| They are normal words understood by everybody, if not
| used by everybody, unlike your medical jargon.
| xdennis wrote:
| It makes sense to not include all medical words because
| technical jargon changes all the time, but common swear
| words are very old. The word "fuck" is more than a
| millennium old and every speaker would have understood
| you. It's not Tim Apple's business to determine what
| words people are allowed to use.
|
| The idea that expletives are not normal words is wrong.
| Common people have always spoken plainly. They would not
| have called their asses "bottoms" etc.
| adolph wrote:
| > It's not Tim Apple's business to determine what words
| people are allowed to use.
|
| Given that auto-correct is a function of software then
| yes, word selection is part of Apple's business. There
| are two parts to the solution. The technical aspect is
| probably not at issue. The socio-political component is
| going to reflect mainstream corporate culture and
| probably not meet many corner cases. The significant
| choices aren't Apple's to make sense they will bow to the
| anathema dictates of social and political power: such as
| Winnie the Poo in certain Chinese contexts or Swastikas
| in German ones.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| There are many words you would not want to send in a text
| to your coworkers, such as when you ask them to "re
| jigger the Q2 results." The only question is where the
| line is drawn for the OS to say "it's better that I never
| autocorrect into this perfectly real English word."
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| so typing an sms really quickly and having autocorrect
| decide that one of your misspelled words should probably
| be fuck just as you send it.
| cypress66 wrote:
| Can't you install other keyboards such as SwiftKey on Apple
| devices?
| asiachick wrote:
| you can but Apple decides when you can actually use it and
| when you can't and have to use the Apple provided keyboard
| kergonath wrote:
| Note that there are very good security reasons for this,
| as the keyboards can read everything you type. There are
| contexts in which defense in depth is more important than
| convenience.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Are these the same safety standards that cause apple
| predictive text to refuse to recognise the cuss words I a
| grown adult use and have to go back and fix over and over
| again._
|
| Only related in the sense that Apple takes steps to prevent
| surprise adult content. Just as porn is obviously trivial to
| consume with Apple devices, autocomplete can happily suggest
| your favorite salty language.
|
| https://www.macworld.com/article/673861/how-to-stop-an-
| iphon...
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Stop using predictive text, you get more screen to read and
| it's just always going to affect your speech somehow.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| I moved from android to Apple recently and that is really
| pathetic indeed. It keeps predicting and correcting words
| that are obviously not what meant at all.
| bmitc wrote:
| There is something about Apple's keyboard, whether it's
| software, the physical placement of the on screen keys, or
| something, but when I use an iPhone, I make many more
| errors than I do on my LG Android phones. I haven't been
| able to figure out why really, but it is definitely the
| case.
| kergonath wrote:
| It has gone significantly worse over the years. About 3
| years ago it did not have any issue even when mixing
| languages in the same message. Now it gets confused all the
| time and puts stupid suggestions even in the keyboard's
| language. I am not sure what is happening, but it is very
| annoying.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| I mean they could just make that some option under parental
| controls. Course even then I'm sure some subset of adults
| would complain that their phone is suggesting naughty
| language.
| rusk wrote:
| I think you're right. They hobbled it, and made it less
| useful because they couldn't trust it. A fairly solid
| example of why we'll never attain the singularity: it's bad
| for business.
| personlurking wrote:
| The Inventor of iPhone's Autocorrect Explains How It Works -
| WSJ [7m50s]
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ncj3QAKvBBo
| halostatue wrote:
| According to an article I read a while back, the predictive
| text is not supposed to suggest / correct to a different word
| if you type _fuck_ , but it is not supposed to suggest _fuck_
| if you mistype it.
|
| That seems eminently reasonable to me, without being "safety
| standards".
|
| Yes, modern English is certainly saltier than what people
| pretended it was for the last century or so, but the line
| that Apple took seems to be the _right_ line (allow offence
| without correction, do not suggest offence by default).
|
| There are many things on which I disagree with Apple's stance
| (I think that Apple _should_ allow pornographic apps in the
| store, but that those apps should have tighter controls on
| them to prevent some of the scammiest behaviours reported
| against pornographic sites; I also think that Apple should be
| doing a lot more to prevent abuse of the pricing tools that
| it does have).
| vorpalhex wrote:
| For comparison, Google keyboard will allow you to have
| autocorrect fix _to_ fuck, shit, etc but you must opt in.
|
| You can of course install _any_ keyboard you want with
| basically any behavior you want here.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Where is that setting? I've never seen that?
|
| Edit: Never mind, it's "Block offensive words" under
| "Text Correction". Easy to find, strange I never noticed
| it. Thanks!
| skohan wrote:
| But the undeniable experience of many many iPhone users is
| that you have probably seen the soft keyboard autocorrect
| to "duck" many times when you intended to write "fuck".
|
| The soft keyboard is always using some heuristics to
| identify which characters you intended to type. In most
| cases it's quite accurate, but in this case it seems like
| it's over-counting the probability you would have typed
| "duck" or "ducking" by a fairly wide margin.
| Shank wrote:
| > Tumblr says that child pornography was the reason for its
| app's sudden disappearance from the iOS App Store. The app
| has been missing from the store since November 16th, but
| until now the reason for its absence was unclear -- initially
| Tumblr simply said it was "working to resolve the issue with
| the iOS app." However, after Download.com approached Tumblr
| with sources claiming that the reason was related to the
| discovery of child pornography on the service, the Yahoo-
| owned social media network issued a new statement confirming
| the matter. [0]
|
| [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/20/18104366/tumblr-ios-
| app-...
| wombat-man wrote:
| Hmm, so did tumblr just decide to ban all porn instead of
| spending energy on identifying the cp for a selective ban?
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I don't think they could have won. It wasn't as if CP was
| allowed to begin with.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Same as pornhub. No one wants revenge porn or CSAM. But
| FB Messenger is the largest distributor of that material.
| So long as companies are making a good faith best effort,
| or minimally the treatment should be the same.
| coldacid wrote:
| Yep. The easy, cheap, and in no way forward-looking way
| out.
| imoverclocked wrote:
| Forward looking is subjective here. Humanitarian issues
| should be weighed heavier than technological development.
| It's easy to relax rules later but you can't take back
| human suffering.
| coldacid wrote:
| Forward looking in the sense of the organization
| predicting well what will allow it to continue to thrive.
| Macha wrote:
| Note that banning "all porn" is easier than accurately
| sorting child porn from regular porn at that scale as it
| lets you avoid pissing off petite 20 year olds or getting
| in trouble because your moderators OKed a report of what
| turned out to be a more developed 16 year old.
|
| So yes, Apple may only have required Tumblr to more
| effectively moderate to prevent child porn, but from a
| business feasibility point of view the practical way to do
| that was ban all porn.
| nathanvanfleet wrote:
| Macha wrote:
| Yes. But to remove only child porn and not all porn
| requires you to have some way of determining what is
| child porn. So you need to sort it into "child porn,
| remove" and "porn of consenting adults, allow".
|
| Or you do what Tumblr did, and just ban all porn.
| cupofpython wrote:
| the person you replied to was being unnecessarily
| semantic, but in computer science "sort" has a specific
| meaning which is only the ordering of a set. So 'sorting'
| cp implies making it easier to find specific cp.
|
| The more accurate word might be "categorize" or "filter".
|
| It was obvious what was meant by "sort" when reading the
| full text, but I think the counter-point was more of a
| tongue-in-cheek retort regarding the above than an actual
| complaint.
| cjaybo wrote:
| If you read beyond those three words, I think it's very
| clear that they mean removing.
| oaiey wrote:
| It is called divide and conquer. Sorting is the hard
| part, filtering/deleting/alerting is the easy part.
| asiachick wrote:
| Twitter allows porn. How do they do it?
| Macha wrote:
| Twitter is probably big enough that more Apple users
| would complain if Apple enforced such a hardline policy,
| and has a pre-existing relationship with apple (If I
| recall correctly, Twitter and Facebook were the first two
| share with opitons on iOS), so Apple is more likely to
| forward on complaints than nuke them? Twitter also
| requires more personal data (e.g. phone numbers for new
| accounts), so that may discourage users from posting
| illegal content in the first place.
| car_analogy wrote:
| Child porn is an excuse. Every site above a certain size
| will have some, no matter how good their filtering. And
| sometimes even small sites when they come under attack.
| Then whoever wants to get rid of the site for unrelated
| reasons points to it, says "It has child porn", and no
| matter how quickly it is removed after reported, or how
| much effort the admins spend removing it, "it has child
| porn" is _technically_ true, and gives whoever wanted to
| remove the site the excuse to do so.
|
| It's nothing more than ammo that corporations use against
| each other in the fight for dominance, or sometimes, with
| the help of cooperative media, against politically
| disfavored sites like 4chan. In all my time browsing 4chan,
| I have not _once_ seen child porn, though I did see posts
| 404 'd for having contained child porn. Yet despite their
| efforts, any time the media talks about 4chan, they will
| introduce it in the same breath as child porn.
|
| In short, child porn has become nothing but a tool for
| corporations fighting for dominance, or a fnord to tell the
| masses to stay away. And in all of this no-one gives a crap
| about the children, since they rarely spend even a word
| talking about tracking down the uploaders or creators of
| said porn.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Why does tumblr need an app in the first place? Make it a
| website that is mobile friendly, and then Apple has no say.
| Oh, wait, you want to hoover up all of that user data to do
| what you want with it instead? Which fight are you actually
| fighting then?
| Raymonf wrote:
| Because of Safari.
|
| Safari works amazingly for small websites, but for
| websites with infinite scrolling like Tumblr and Twitter,
| it becomes unbearably slow after the first hundred or so
| posts. Historically, Safari is slow to adopt new web
| features, and it STILL doesn't have web push
| notifications (and more).
|
| You can run these same websites on Android Chrome just
| fine, even on a lower-powered Android phone. I'm not sure
| if they're using APIs that need to be polyfilled on
| Safari, or if Safari is just trash.
|
| At this time, I'm convinced that if Apple allowed other
| browser engines on the App Store, this would not be a
| problem at all, not that I can test it out anyways.
|
| So, yes, Apple still has a say.
| trafficante wrote:
| I can't speak on Tumblr, but the issue is even worse than
| "unbearably slow" on Twitter.
|
| Once I'm down about 50ish posts on my feed, hitting back
| from a post to get back to the feed seems to have around
| a 25% chance to quickly throw a "Safari has detected a
| problem" error and force a refresh - sending me back to
| the top of the feed. And this is on an iPhone 12 Pro Max
| so it's not like the hardware is out of date.
|
| I primarily blame Safari, but on some level I think
| Twitter is aware of the problem and has no intentions of
| fixing it. The mobile Twitter site is purposely designed
| to make it nearly impossible to open a tweet in a
| background tab if it doesn't have an image (the browser
| tries to select text on a long press). That's clearly
| something Twitter could fix if they wanted to.
| ccouzens wrote:
| Long press the timestamp to open a tweet in a new tab.
| This is a UI convention shared with Facebook.
|
| Tested in Android Firefox on
| https://mobile.twitter.com/home.
| lolinder wrote:
| Twitter's mobile problem isn't specific to Safari. The
| initial load of any tweet on my Android Firefox is ~20
| seconds. Every subsequent action takes at least a full
| second. Couple that with the huge "it's better on the
| app" banners you get every time you try to do anything,
| and it's obvious that Twitter is intentionally neglecting
| mobile web.
|
| (I've got an oldish phone, but it performs fine on every
| website I ever visit _except_ Twitter.)
| fsdjkflsjfsoij wrote:
| > Safari is slow to adopt new web features
|
| Good. These features need to be supported by browsers for
| an extremely long time and Google is trying to force
| garbage under the guise of "standards." I hope Apple
| continues to fight against the ridiculous power hungry
| feature creep.
| Maursault wrote:
| > if Apple allowed other browser engines on the App Store
|
| You mean Gecko or Blink? WebKit is really not the
| problem. Web Developers' strict compliance to only make
| sure their site works on Windows may be part of it.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Safari works amazingly for small websites, but for
| websites with infinite scrolling like Tumblr and Twitter,
| it becomes unbearably slow after the first hundred or so
| posts._
|
| That's absolutely not true, even if the web developer
| implements this in the Dumbest Possible Way. Please point
| me to an example page and prove me wrong.
| jldugger wrote:
| I'd say about half of the grafana dashboards i build
| trigger safari's "this page is using too much memory"
| popups.
| dylan604 wrote:
| And what does the assumed digging into the memory usage
| find?
|
| Is it a memory leak in Safari? Is it a framework issue?
| You've started us down the path to a thing, but then you
| didn't finish telling us the thing.
| Raymonf wrote:
| Sure, if you've got a tumblr.com account just start
| scrolling on your dashboard and have fun.
|
| You'll be able to see it take seconds to render at a
| time. This is true on an M1 Mac, as it is true on an A15
| iPhone and M1 iPad.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Sure, if you 've got a tumblr.com account just start
| scrolling on your dashboard and have fun._
|
| I scrolled through 300+ stories (or whatever they're
| called on Tumblr) and it still hasn't slowed at all. Not
| sure what you're seeing.
| Raymonf wrote:
| I just made a brand new account to try it.
|
| On M1 Max with Safari 15.5, it took me about 40 seconds
| of fast scrolling to get it to start stuttering
| occasionally. Then, another 30 seconds to get it to start
| blanking out for a second at a time. And finally, another
| 30 seconds to get it to start taking seconds to render. I
| won't give the number of posts before it started lagging
| because I don't know the exact number.
|
| On my phone (iPhone 13 Pro Max, albeit on the iOS 16
| beta), it takes Safari about 15 seconds of scrolling
| before the scrolling drops to around 40fps from what
| looked close to 120fps. Then, another 20 seconds to start
| seeing things rendering halfway before jumping around and
| then rendering the correct post. This isn't necessarily a
| fair comparison due to the usage of beta software, but
| even on an M1 on production OS software it doesn't seem
| to be much better. Chrome 102 on macOS handles the exact
| thing that I did without any problem at all.
|
| It's especially bad when you have a lot of videos on your
| dashboard. If you only have image posts, it might take a
| bit longer to start stuttering.
|
| This has been the case for years, so it's nothing new. I
| remember this being a problem almost a decade ago, on an
| 4th generation iPad with the A6X SoC. Things have
| improved since then for sure, but those it's probably
| mostly hardware improvements that's helping.
|
| I'll accept blaming Twitter's horrible performance on its
| use of React Native Web, but not Tumblr.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I have to give you credit for going this far into proving
| whatever we're trying to prove. However, who the hell in
| the real world infinite scroll this much? Some people do
| things that would make any QA team more valuable, and
| you're starting to sound like someone I'd love to have on
| any QA team I'd work along side.
|
| This really sounds like one of those issues a dedicated
| person finds where the devs look at it and say no
| reasonable user would ever do this. The issue if not
| closed as "won't fix" gets deprioritized so low that it
| never gets looked at again. Even as a dev, I'd not have
| the patience to recreate the problem. It's just such an
| outside edge case from expected behavior/usage that I
| don't even know what to say in response.
| h0l0cube wrote:
| > for websites with infinite scrolling like Tumblr and
| Twitter, it becomes unbearably slow after the first
| hundred or so posts
|
| Strange. This is exactly how I use Twitter on my
| i-devices, and it's perfectly smooth.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I don't build websites with infinite scroll or enough
| data that would justify it nor attract enough visitors to
| punish a t2.micro, so I have no first hand experience
| with any of that.
|
| However, curiosity requires that I ask what/how/why does
| any of that affect mobile-first web deployment in away
| that it is not addressed when a large chunk of that
| mobile use is broken? If you program yourself into a dead
| end, back up and take another turn.
|
| Oh, it is easier in a mobile native where you get the
| benefit of hoovering up personal data on all of your
| users? Gee, let's not expend effort to make something
| work universally, let's instead take the easy route and
| make money on the side too. The fact that losing this
| large share of users because of one type of content is
| not enough of a decision to go the other route shows just
| how much money there is in the hoovering of data.
|
| Still putting the blame on Tumblr.
| Raymonf wrote:
| If I understand what you're trying to say correctly, I
| need to say that I'm speaking fully from a user
| experience standpoint as an end user. I am not a Tumblr
| engineer. Anecdotally, out of the few people I know that
| still use Tumblr, they use desktop and mobile Chrome to
| access the website. I don't have any statistics on how
| many people use the apps.
|
| So, to me, Tumblr's website is already the main point of
| access, and these performance problems don't exist on
| Firefox or Chrome. I'm not talking about server-side
| response times, I'm talking about the time to render
| posts on the client. I find that a lot of times, after
| scrolling, you have to wait a few seconds before you see
| anything but the blue background that Tumblr has.
|
| So, no, I'm going to pin it on Safari if (even) Firefox
| can deal with it.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Some people just like apps. The experience can be more
| native to the platform and snappier.
| parkingrift wrote:
| iOS has a 14% market share and Apple has absolutely no way to
| police content outside of the App Store. How did Apple ruin the
| Tumblr site? Why hasn't pornhub met the same fate?
| robgibbons wrote:
| 57.43% in the US
| parkingrift wrote:
| Does Facebook only operate in the US, now?
| concinds wrote:
| > Apple has absolutely no way to police content outside of
| the App Store
|
| Wrong and naive. They have no direct way. Plenty of indirect
| ways.
|
| > How did Apple ruin the Tumblr site?
|
| Taleb's minority rule. Also read tumblr insiders' accounts of
| the porn ban that lay the blame much more on Apple than
| mainstream reporting does.
|
| > Why hasn't pornhub met the same
|
| If Twitter/tumblr/reddit had no app, their mobile engagement
| would halve or worse. Not true for Pornhub.
| parkingrift wrote:
| >If Twitter/tumblr/reddit had no app, their mobile
| engagement would halve or worse. Not true for Pornhub.
|
| This fails at even cursory inspection. Reddit thrived for
| many years without an app. In fact Reddit has ruined their
| own website so that they can push/force people to their
| mobile app. The website is so popular that Reddit considers
| it a problem. A problem because it's harder to monetize a
| website than a mobile app.
|
| >Taleb's minority rule. Also read tumblr insiders' accounts
| of the porn ban that lay the blame much more on Apple than
| mainstream reporting does.
|
| I'm sure the insiders at a failed business have everyone to
| blame but themselves.
| ig-88ms wrote:
| "If you want to watch porn, buy an Android" - Steve Jobs.
| parkingrift wrote:
| There's porn on my phone, Mr. Jobs.
|
| Where? Which app?!?
|
| The app I believed is called "the internet."
| Salgat wrote:
| iOS is at 50% market share of phones in the US.
| FinalBriefing wrote:
| Or reddit. I don't see how reddit is any different from
| Tumblr in this case, and it has several apps. Has Apple
| loosened up their restrictions since Tumblr went under?
| mgiannopoulos wrote:
| So Tumblr died because it was dependent on porn traffic? If
| that is the case, they were already "dead" (or at least not
| worth hundreds of millions), and Apple's rules had nothing to
| do with it.
| lucideer wrote:
| Even if you have some moral objection to porn that's still a
| massive oversimplification:
|
| 1) The definition of porn is fluid - adhering to an external
| third party's guidelines (Apple's) will always mean adopting
| an overly strict definition to ensure confidence in
| compliance
|
| 2) Moderation is a hard problem - false positives will always
| happen, and given point (1) above will happen a LOT in the
| case of Tumblr
| mgiannopoulos wrote:
| Not sure where I said I have problems with porn. It's just
| that it was something outside of tumblr's business model or
| any of their income sources
| lucideer wrote:
| Just to be clear, I didn't say you had problems with it:
| hence the "even if" preface.
|
| However, calling tumblr "dead" as a result of it does
| seem to imply such a problem. Their business model was
| ads, that doesn't inherently exempt porn in any way.
| hyperbovine wrote:
| Wait why? Porn sites are hugely profitable. Pornhub rakes in
| more monthly traffic than Google and FB combined.
| mgiannopoulos wrote:
| My use of "dead" was since (obviously) Tumblr's business
| model did not include serving porn. It did include
| appearing to be one of the most popular websites globally.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| It's only as profitable as what advertisers will pay. Porn
| is at the absolute bottom for ad value.
| mi_lk wrote:
| > Pornhub rakes in more monthly traffic than Google and FB
| combined.
|
| traffic measured in visitors or bytes downloaded? any
| source?
| hyperbovine wrote:
| > The company employs around sixteen hundred people, and
| the online platforms it owns, which include Pornhub,
| RedTube, YouPorn, and Brazzers, received approximately
| 4.5 billion visits each month in 2020, according to a
| company spokesperson--almost double Google and Facebook
| combined.
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/20/the-fight-
| to-h...
| lucideer wrote:
| Even in bytes that's a notable metric. What's your point?
| Macha wrote:
| In bytes it's even less believable. More traffic than
| Google, which owns YouTube? What are they doing, serving
| all the video in 8K?
|
| Even as someone who really doesn't have a problem with
| porn, I'm not going to spend 3 hours watching it, while I
| definitely have spent 3 hours watching youtube on many
| many occasions. There's also only one of the two that's
| going to be serving as background noise during working
| hours... Or that someone is going to put on to entertain
| their kids.
| lucideer wrote:
| Fair point - didn't really think of it like that before.
|
| I suspect it's bullshit.
| alexb_ wrote:
| In order for tumblr to get into the good graces of Apple
| (which again, they absolutely should not have to do at all),
| they had to ban an absolutely absurd amount of content.
| Especially bad when a large part of your userbase is LGBT,
| and anything relating to that gets flagged as "adult" by
| automated systems.
| threeseed wrote:
| > and anything relating to that gets flagged as "adult" by
| automated systems
|
| Maybe Tumblr should have taken a page out of Apple's book
| and had reviewers.
| marvin wrote:
| Tumblr should have just dropped the share of their users
| that accessed their platform through the iOS app. But
| meh. They chose the other option.
| nothis wrote:
| Honestly, this sounds like tumblr was crazy dependent on both
| apple and a porn-like business. That's a weird combo and not
| one that makes me feel particularly sorry for them. There's a
| reason facebook, youtube, pinterest and, ultimately, apple
| don't allow porn. It's a messy business.
| [deleted]
| simonh wrote:
| They took a hit for sure, but seem to be recovering.
|
| "Over the course of the pandemic, Gen Z flocked to Tumblr; as
| of early 2022, 61% of its new users, and nearly half of its
| active users, are under 24. Tumblr today has more daily active
| users than WordPress, its professional sibling, has per month,
| according to a spokesperson."
|
| https://qz.com/emails/quartz-company/2139456/tumblr-making-c...
| kmeisthax wrote:
| tumblr is a bad example. The reason why Apple got on their case
| about porn was that an app reviewer saw child porn on the front
| page of the site. _Massive_ red flag that whatever moderation
| tumblr was doing was ineffective at best. Even before that,
| their NSFW /porn filtering was so bad that they would literally
| just block certain search keywords on iOS to get around the
| problem.
|
| Apple's _actual_ policy for the bog-standard, consenting-adults
| kind of porn is that you can 't put it on the App Store, and if
| you are a social network you need to filter for it. This isn't
| a full ban; reddit is able to get away with having an off-app
| NSFW toggle that turns off filtering on the app.
|
| A better example _might_ be Discord, which also had a spat with
| Apple over NSFW servers. Apple wanted _specific communities_
| banned from the app; the actual guidance[0] provide by Discord
| is vague as to why they were banned, but suggests that there 's
| an extra level of NSFW-ness to which the "off-app toggle"
| solution isn't good enough for Apple.
|
| As far as I'm aware there's no appetite at Apple for an "adult
| tax" - it's specifically that they don't want the brand
| association[1] that comes with "porn on iPhone". If it was just
| a matter of the higher chargeback rates of porn, they could
| have a separate payment processor and commission rate structure
| for that.
|
| [0] https://i.redd.it/shpi09y71lt61.png
|
| [1] Casual reminder that people are absolutely terrible at
| separating the product, the OS, and the app vendor from one
| another when they are very mad at it. Or when a news outfit is
| trying to sell them anger.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| > Casual reminder that people are absolutely terrible at
| separating the product, the OS, and the app vendor from one
| another when they are very mad at it. Or when a news outfit
| is trying to sell them anger.
|
| To be honest I think Apple deciding users shouldn't have
| regular porn on _their own_ iPhone because Apple doesn 't
| want to be associated with it, is plenty reason to be angry
| at them. Especially because the app store has a monopoly on
| iOS. If it was like Android there would be no problem.
|
| They're a supplier, not the moral police. And they shouldn't
| have a say in how we use their products.
| faangiq wrote:
| Facebook is one of the most objectively evil companies on earth.
| So they can f right off.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| This is a common sentiment in the anti-FB media blitz era, but
| I find that people have wildly different (and often
| conflicting) reasons they think FB is evil.
|
| What is yours?
| bastardoperator wrote:
| I'm feeling good about seeing the demise of Facebook in my
| lifetime.
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