Comment by horsawlarway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by horsawlarway | Hacker News Reader

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> What are your ethical issues with Apple?

I don't believe you can genuinely purchase an Apple phone at the moment, and I think they're trying pretty hard to move their laptop/desktop machines in the same direction.

Namely - Much of their mobile ecosystem is utterly hostile towards non-Apple developers - including the owner of the device.

They lock hardware/software features behind entitlements that require Apple's permission (and of course an accompanying fee) to use. Good luck using multicast on your personal device on your personal network. Turns out you can't. The hardware can, of course, but only if Apple allows it.

In fact, turns out almost all of the software Apple provides to run their hardware treats you like a user, and not an owner. They riddle (and cripple) the product with digital locks, and do not provide the keys to the owner.

Instead they provide keys only to apps submitted for review to their store, signed with their certs. So again, it's hard to say I actually own the damn thing.

Is technological lock-in, or "hostility" toward a user as you put it, an ethical issue?

I would think the use of Chinese labor abuses to make iPhones is the ethical issue. Funny you didn't mention that.

Yes, but if one used that as their moral standard they wouldn't be able to purchase anything made by an international company. It's really easy to bash iPhone on things they do exclusively, but harder on industry practice.

Wrong.

You are making the "all or nothing" fallacy.

You absolutely can make the ethical choice when you have the choice. In some cases, you are simply forced to make the lesser evil choice.

Transparency is the first step. Yes, in some cases it is unavoidable, but to translate that into overall inaction, IMHO, is lazy.

That's reductive of my point. The overall being one's choices for a new smartphone are iPhone, Android, or abstain. When the parent comment elected Android for "ethical" reasons those reasons would not include the labor conditions of the phone's manufacture since that doesn't vary between most Apple and Android phones.

> That's reductive of my point.

> they wouldn't be able to purchase anything made by an international company

I suggest you don't make sweeping generalizations, then.

> The overall being one's choices for a new smartphone are iPhone, Android, or abstain.

That's why I took care to point out "In some cases, you are simply forced to make the lesser evil choice."

> When the parent comment elected Android for "ethical" reasons those reasons would not include the labor conditions of the phone's manufacture since that doesn't vary between most Apple and Android phones.

You're not allowing for someone to still consider the ethics of an issue: it's not like subtraction, if A has it and B has it than neither have it, so why consider it. IMO that's reductive. It can still be considered.

From my understanding, the factories that inflict these terrible conditions are shared between companies. The lesser of two evils isn't something that is easily findable. Apple's public controversy was specifically an investigation of Foxconn factories in China who have clients other than Apple. You've yet to convince me that the same workers in the same factories with the same terrible working conditions are somehow more justified if they're not putting an Apple logo on the products they manufacture.

Wouldn’t be able to go with pretty much any one then. Probably wouldn’t be able to wear much of your clothing either if labor abuse is an issue.

Gustin and Everlane.

These two clothing companies provide 100% transparency on their sourcing and labor practices.

You absolutely can choose to wear clothing that doesn't enslave people. Maybe not 100% (shoes are still difficult to source), but it doesn't mean throwing your hands up and walking away. Or being cynical toward someone who is trying.

Sorry if you do, do that. I’m almost every other case, people are not consistent with this sort of stuff. I was wrong with the way I wrote my comment and my attitude.

Apple has the strongest protections against unethical labor of any tech company. The main reason we know of any issues is because apple is literally the only company that audits and publishes the results of supplier audits.

If you think that somehow the people working on apple hardware construction are treated worse than the people working on the vastly higher number of android devices, etc you need to provide some evidence.

I recall a case where apple audits found a supplier using child labour, included that in their report, included the remediation (including cases where they outright dropped suppliers). The headlines weren’t “apple found child labour and stopped it”. The headlines were “apple uses child labour”.

The reason you don’t get that for other manufacturers is that they a) don’t audit, and b) don’t publish details even if they somehow become aware.

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