Comment by ksec | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ksec | Hacker News Reader

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I actually view this as not a good sign. That many are still in the very very early stage of shock, what Apple is doing does not align with their perceived values. Deducting points from Apple in their own mental model. They write these letter because they think Apple is still mostly good and hope they could have a change of heart.

What would happen as some others have pointed out, people will forget about it. Apple will bump out decent Mac products line, along with very good iPhone hardware in a few months time. Which will add points back to their mental model.

"May be Apple is really doing it in good faith"

"They aren't so bad, let's wait and see."

Apple's marketing and PR have changed in the past 5 - 6 years. My guess is their KPI had changed. And they will ( successfully ) white wash any doubt you have. And 2022 Q1 results ( That is the iPhone 13 launch quarter ) will be record breaking again.

And that is not even including competition. I mean for pete sake is Microsoft or Google even trying to compete? ( I give credit to their Surface Laptop and Pixel team, but still far from enough )

It might be hard to understand, but iOS is a blackbox. Based on what they add and say, we still don't know what exactly is happening. All we have is trust. We can speculate that with "what ifs", but same "if" is applying already.

Once we take other big platforms on account, Apple is actually trying to note privacy. Other platforms just scan everything you put in cloud, but Apple tries to limit the information what they acquire, by scanning it on device. And based on their specification, they scan locally only what is going into the cloud. It took me a while to realize, but this is improvement for what has been happening in the industry for years already.

This is an interesting point. I think you might be right.

IIRC, Apple was already scanning iCloud server-side for CSAM [0] so I'm not sure if that excuse holds.

[0] https://www.macobserver.com/analysis/apple-scans-uploaded-co...

They did not scan everything. Only suspected ones, this expands scope to everyone by default. But this is still improvement. We might see followup as added E2EE services which was not possible before.

So are they only scanning things you specifically upload to iCloud, aka if you disable iCloud and photo syncing you are fine.

Or does that include ancillary data like images in iMessage chats (even if you have iCloud data basically shut off)

I read the scans were done on device but prior to upload. Just unclear what that really means to me.

> I mean for pete sake is Microsoft or Google even trying to compete?

Forget the evil monopolies. Consider GNU/Linux phones, Librem 5 and Pinehone. They may not be ready for an average user, but the HN audience can take advantage of them and help their develoment.

I would love a phone based on the ideas from Plan9.

Would you? How often do you come into contact with the OS when developing for a phone, let alone use a phone?

Phones are products for people who use them. What sells phones is not what OS is underneath layers and layers of code, but user experience. If we are to even hope for alternatives, this is where the focus needs to be.

If the OS underneath mattered the Nokia Communicator would have been a runaway success. It wasn’t. It was a useless brick of a computer that almost couldn’t do anything compared to even the first generations of smart phones from Apple and Google.

>How often do you come into contact with the OS when developing for a phone, let alone use a phone

That's exactly the point,

Maybe you don't know what Plan9 is, but see it like that:

The Phone is just a Terminal. If i want todo business i connect my terminal to my Workplace-servers, every application, datas and settings are there, the calculation heavy stuff and backup is made on the server. If finished i connect to my private plan9-cluster, the Phone is just a bit more than a intelligent Terminal.

The difference is with a plan9 phone you would ~never have anything todo with software ON the phone, let alone having to worry to "sync" to the cloud to make backups, update Apps or need to encrypt the datas in case of loss.

It's a bit like Cloud-gaming or Virtual Desktops with thin-clients, but much much more integrated.

Slightly problematic when your phone loses service, but I get where you are coming from. It would be nice for that to be viable, we’re probably decades away from having good enough network connectivity.

Truetrue, it need's some caching and cpu capability, like the map when your offline...stuff like that..but with 5G...well we will see ;)

Ah yes, 5G. The bag of promises telco execs have dangled in front of large customers for nearly a decade that will deliver on all their needs.

If they could just figure out how to deliver on it ;-)

>If they could just figure out how to deliver on it

Install an antenna? You know that before 5G there was a 4,3,2,1,0.5 G?

Well, no.

Most of the attraction of 5G isn't really anything you as a consumer will ever see. Like more advanced spectrum management and more advanced core network components that allow what you can think of as "virtualization with quality of service guarantees" for multiple tenants. On top of that 5G also makes use of higher frequency spectrum which has implications both for use and the design of mobile networks.

To really make life interesting, 5G also aims to enable private 5G RANs. For instance industry in some countries are heavily involved in building their own 5G networks for their own use in geographically limited areas (made possible by allocating higher frequency spectrum for these uses).

The customers that 5G targets isn't so much the consumer as government and industry. For instance by removing the need for building dedicated infrastructure for emergency, defense, law-enforcement, manufacturing etc. which would represent cost savings.

Part of the challenge of 5G is that regulatory authorities don't understand how 5G differs from what they are used to, so many places in the world (with eager lobbying from the telco industry) one will try to keep new players out of the market. (Of course, they might understand, but there may be "motivating factors" to cling to the status quo where spectrum is mostly allocated in large chunks at significant cost and with bureaucracy that ensures smaller players are kept out)

>Most of the attraction of 5G isn't really anything you as a consumer will ever see.

I see the speed difference definitely, that's was the point here remember?

How long have you used 5G?

I both know plan 9 and what falling in love with an idea to the degree where one stops thinking about the implications looks like.

Having Unix and try to implement Plan9 on top of it?

If open phones actually do get market traction (and I'm hoping they do), then I'm pretty sure that Apple/Google/etc will attempt to get laws passed banning them.

There are all sort of avenues that could be taken for such laws unfortunately. :/

Which is why supporting Electronic Frontier Foundation is important.

Depends Apple is on my "call first list now" on my CV along with Chem and Bio weapons and payday loan type companies.

And I wont be buying the ipad I was thinking about.

Fair point and you are probably right. However, this is getting them a ton of bad press from pretty major players in the privacy world (Edward Snowden for example). This has high chances of a lot of people abandoning Apple products (I'll no longer purchase new apple products and already switching over to de-googled Android).

Privacy is obviously just a marketing play by Apple but this time, they can't hide it and it might actually hurt their bottom line.

I actually expect most to support Apple’s approach here. But it is early.

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