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Comment by Techowl | Hacker News Reader

Wouldn't car parts be a much more accurate analogy, though? Apple isn't suing anyone for not using Apple-branded electricity to power their phone.

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>Wouldn't car parts be a much more accurate analogy, though?

Yes. The FCC actually sent out reminders to phone companies two days ago reminding them that use of aftermarket parts cannot void a warranty. This also applies to things like "warranty void if seal removed" stickers etc.

https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/04/10/ftc-reminds-phone-m...

It doesn't change your point, but that was the FTC, not the FCC.

It does a little bit. The FCC has teeth when it comes to maintaining their regulations. There's little else you can do to bring suits to your door faster than to operate an unlicensed transmitter. The FTC is not so potent, as indicated by the behavior of all these cell phone manufacturers for the past decade.

Don't give them ideas.

I don't understand why the geniuses at Apple haven't seen the obvious flaws in our American/European/Asian/etc wall plugs and sockets and created Apple branded proprietary wall plugs and sockets that are totally incompatible with all current American/European/Asian/etc. plugs and sockets. Apple products would all use the proprietary plugs, while 'obsolete' devices with standard plugs would require a $40-100 Apple adapter. The Apple home isn't truly going to be an Apple Home until you can't plug a non-Apple device into a wall socket without forking over money to Apple for an unnecessary adapter.

It's easier to just change the plug on the other end of the power cables every release.

This criticism rings extremely hollow.

The 30-pin connector lasted from the third-gen iPod (2003) through the iPhone 5 (2012), or around nine years. Lightning has remained the connector of choice since then for the past six years.

MagSafe debuted in 2006, was improved to MagSafe 2 in 2012, and is being phased out for USB-C (which is terrible, but I digress) in 2018.

One change in fifteen years for their handheld product lineup and two changes in twelve years for their laptop lineup seems pretty reasonable.

Asian outlets are amazingly versatile: they happily take both European and US plugs. It's a real pleasure not having to bring converter plugs with you. I am still wondering why airports all over the world have not adopted them.

That sounds great. Though, how is the voltage difference handled?

Most power adapters for electronic devices will take any AC input from 100-240v and transform accordingly to the device (which cares more about DC), but definitely check before plugging it in. The Americas and Japan are 100-127v, and the rest of the world is 220-240v with a few discrepancies here and there. They also range from 50hz-60hz AC, so some devices that rely on the frequency for time may slow or speed up depending on what region they were made and where they are used.

No, but they are making it very difficult for anyone to use, for example, non-Apple-branded cloud storage. And they are making it nearly impossible for anyone to use non-Apple-approved apps.

Isn't it nearly impossible to so much as download a file from the Internet on an Apple device, or have they changed that?

No, you can totally do this even on iOS.

Ah but isn’t it true that iPhones have no right click?

Uh, yes. Why is this relevant, though?

Heck even apple approved charging cables sometimes give me the "this accessory might not work correctly on this device". Gives me pause, but it goes away once I retry...

> they are making it very difficult for anyone to use, for example, non-Apple-branded cloud storage

Which is why they added support for arbitrary file providers to integrate with iOS 11's Files app, and why they announced that iWork will support collaborating through Box last month?

I still can’t use whatever SMS app that I want to. I still can’t replace Safari as the browser that opens links from apps. I can’t replace contacts or the phone dialer and I can’t open contact address links in anything but Apple Maps.

Heck, they don’t even let me organize my home screen the way that I want to.

At this point, you are just complaining that iOS is not open source.

Those are pretty basic functions that Apple just locks you into. iOS would not have to be open source for those things to change… At all.

That wasn't my point. My point was that all those requests are feature requests, as opposed to lifting some artificial restrictions. Because iOS is not open source, they would need to be coded by Apple, so it's a perfectly valid business decision on their sise not to invest in them.

Macos is not open source. You can use Firefox as your default browser.

I don't know. Those all seem like valid complaints to me. The os is separate from the applications and everything he listed has its own industry.

Microsoft was reamed over installing IE as the default browser on their OS, so how is not letting you change safari as the default on iOS any different?

Microsoft had a monopoly. Apple doesn't. If you don't like it, go buy an Android phone.

I mean, that's exactly what many of us are doing.

I know. That's my point. People are complaining about decisions made by the company as if they're civil rights violations.

"I can't change the default SMS app on my phone!" This has always been the case with the iPhone since the beginning. Until Apple says that this is now a new part of the OS, pretending like that was some kind of bait and switch or deceptive business practice is completely silly.

> People are complaining about decisions made by the company as if they're civil rights violations.

No they aren't - not here at least. Scanning this thread, it looks like they're just complaining.

> pretending like that was some kind of bait and switch or deceptive business practice is completely silly.

Who did that? Can you point out a specific comment? I certainly didn't and I don't see any other comments that did. I simply pointed out how Apple makes their product difficult to use by being so stingy with the level of access that they allow me to have.

Anyway, there is an anti-trust lawsuit against Apple right now. Since their iPhone does have somewhere around 50% marketshare in the USA I think there's a chance for it to succeed and I hope it does.

>Anyway, there is an anti-trust lawsuit against Apple right now.

And what are the damages claimed against them? Even if they have 50% marketshare, they still have competition with a larger marketshare both domestic and worldwide. There's nothing that can be brought against them because they're not doing anything illegal or immoral.

You can read about it for yourself - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-court/u-s-appeals-c...

Coulda said the same thing with Microsoft, go buy a Mac. Monoply power isn't a binary stat, it's a sliding scale and eventually these companies get enough power to start affecting other industries

A court judgment that a company has abused its monopoly power is a binary stat.

Yes, and Apple might have one of those binary stats coming their way soon. Let's hope, right?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-court/u-s-appeals-c...

I was actually thinking that plain old bolts, also available at the hardware store, imagine if Ford could ban all 8mm bolt import and sales just because they had one in one of their cars

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