Facebook says Apple is too powerful – they're right
eff.org
eff.org
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...
What's the saying? Die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain?
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.
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.
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.
M series are also the best laptop CPU available currently. The same trio of weight, processing power and battery life just don't exist anywhere else.
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.
https://scottrlarson.com/publications/publication-transition...
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.
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.
While I think this discussion is moot, as you're claiming this is a reason to start charging for IAP in MacOS apps and Epic has decided not to release new Fortnite seasons on MacOS, because of their beef on iOS, you're also talking about a specialized and high profile game, where most IAP are targetted at mobile specific games. Just look at the backlash that Diablo Immortal is receiving right now. Non-mobile gamers complete reject the style of monetization in mobile games.
Again, is this something you actually believe is true? Apple execs are looking to monetize their desktop OS as a mobile OS? Microsoft is already very carefully trying to do this and it's being pretty unsuccessful. There's a lot of rejection for this aspect of Windows 11. Remains to be seen where it's going to be in 5 years, but for now, I don't think this is where desktop OS's are going.
Back to the real meat of the article, Apple is both doing it's customers a service and a disservice at the same time. What is the solution to that? Let 3rd party app stores on, so that we can go back to no protection against tracking and a store full of garbage? (looking at you, Google Play)
Yea Microsoft has tried to do it but Apple will succeed and the announcement will be “The New MacBook, shipping with the worlds most loved OS with the largest number of apps, iOS”
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.
lol welcome to Hacker News.
Furthermore the Mac's status as Apple's development platform means that locking it down is a non-starter.
For people who want a managed computing experience, Apple already has a solution for them—the iPad. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if we see Apple releasing iPadOS devices in other form factors. An iPad notebook to compete with Chromebooks. An iPad desktop computer for people who want a large screen iPadOS experience. But the Mac will never go away. It's necessary for the iOS/iPadOS app ecosystem to work.
It's been shown over and over again, if you're going to build a mobile app and want to make a profit, you build it for iOS first, then if it isn't a huge cost sink, also make it for Android. The people most likely to pay well are iOS users. Why is that? Anybody against Apple will just call the users stupid, but if you really analyze it, most users believe that Apple provides a better platform, better app selection on their app store, etc.
There's clearly still an issue between "Apple wants to protect its customers" and "Apple wants to _protect_ its customers".
The app store fee is a "roll-up" of numerous fees including transaction costs, cost of running the store, and license fees for use of Apple intellectual property (all that Apple code that you import into your iOS app when you hit compile).
What Apple are actually charging for is the first item in your list - access to the users. Apple wired the hardware to make themselves a middleman in every transaction. That's it, that's all it boils down to.
The visibility and access to the user base that the App Store provides is a valid incentive, depending on the product.
I worry about the people living under such digital serf conditions. It was only a matter of time before they started promulgating changes like lords, like the client side scanning "feature" they tried to push. That is absolutely a problem that needs to be addressed and the answer is always computing freedom.
With that said... I shed zero tears when Apple screws over even worse exploitative corporations like Facebook. I simply have no sympathy for advertising giants complaining about being unable to continue their surveillance and exploitation of the most profitable market segment. The only problem is it took an Apple to put a stop to them when simply saying no should have been sufficient.
Social classes already exist in the US. The digital divide in internet access, software availability, and technology literacy between states is stark and almost comical. Software engineers consistently earn more comparatively than almost any other industry or profession. You lot and these monopolistic companies already 'promulgate changes like lord's.' The future is now; awareness just isn't evenly distributed.
In the end it was a win-win for myself and the customers, and I don’t feel like anyones privacy was exploited.
As an aside, I think the only real problem with targeted advertising right now is that everyone is trying to do it in a covert way. Why?
Just straight up ask people what kind of ads they want to see. Relevant ads are much better than random ads, and in a lot of cases are genuinely very useful. Personally I’d happily fill out a Google “ad preference” form in great detail.
Disagreed. Most people have no idea how pervasive the stalking is (FB stalks you outside of FB too, thanks to their spyware being embedded in a lot of other apps & websites) and don't really have a choice if they are forced to use FB for work/social reasons.
Indeed, if ad targeting was absolutely opt-in and would only use information you explicitly provide I would agree with you but I don't see that ever being the case without enforced regulation that bans nonconsensual data collection & processing.
Is anyone surprised that the iOS App Store, which makes the bulk of its money from games, operates similarly to other walled garden game stores?
It is sort of complicated. I understand why Microsoft and Sony would fight for gaming revenue as the playing field moves to a more “all screens everywhere” platform. At the same time I think: what have these middle men actually done in the past couple of game console cycles to warrant a platform they deserve to defend? They have basically been living off the innovation of x86 and GPUs made by others and packaging it in a power hungry box that plugs into a TV made by someone else. They are living off network effects not innovations. From a hardware standpoint, Apple has earned the right to pull in more of the profits in my view. They innovated across the entire stack to build lower power draw, high graphic intensity, custom silicon, deeper integration etc.
Yet Steam takes the same 30% cut. So far others with money, like Epic have been unable to break Steam's stranglehold, even though they take a much lesser pay cut of the earnings.
Every dev ever who has posted about game sales says that non-Steam merchants are a rounding error in terms of revenue.
In practice, the PC being an open platform has only allowed giants like EA and Epic's Fortine to get around having to pay the 30% to Valve.
I feel like this situation would be similar with Facebook and Apple - if they manage to break Apple's monopoly, still nobody would use a 3rd party app store, save for people forced by giants like Facebook.
The Amazon app store exists for Android. And yet Google Play still commands high platform fees.
As you note, Facebook is probably big enough to force people to use their 3rd party app store (and thereby avoid Apple's privacy regulations, which interfere with Facebook's business model.)
I sold the iPhone, got back to Android and will never touch an Apple product again. They represent EVERYTHING that's wrong with the tech world nowadays.
I guess it's time other major companies start screwing over Apple as much as they screw over them.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
Similarly, a resident of a communist country could theoretically leave and buy things elsewhere, but in practice almost no one will because of the high overhead of moving countries.
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.
Try it on iOS, if you don't have the right entitlements system API calls will fail.
The entitlement is enforced by legal contract. The only thing stopping Meta from blatantly ignoring this policy is the fear of consequences by Apple.
Apple can absolutely make API changes to prevent tracking. They could implement DNS blocking as part of the DNS lookup API. They could add a toggle that requires the user to whitelist any network connections. They could do analysis and provide users reports of which apps they think are doing tracking, with options to disable whichever feature they think is accomplishing the tracking. They could add temporary grants (i.e. "allow network access for the next 15 seconds").
Hell, Apple doesn't even need it's own app store to threaten Meta. They can blacklist binaries and network connections at the OS layer.
Apple likes this setup because they remain the gatekeepers of users, which is extremely profitable.
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.
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.
The only thing other than price is the opportunity to attract less scrupulous developers in a race to the bottom with respect to policy enforcement.
It's not seeking out and customizing my experience if the only choice is "have my privacy violated, or don't use the service. That's the experience that already exists on platforms with less strict privacy protections.
If this dystopia of Government control over my phone comes to pass, I personally predict that we'll see companies like Google, Meta and Adobe run company stores as the exclusive way to load their apps.
As others have pointed out, this only works as well as it does for Apple because there isn’t a reasonable way to side load apps. As soon as there is, Facebook will just jingle their large carrot on their own distribution system that lets them do whatever they want.
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.
The EFF are a non-profit that has nothing to do with the US or any other government.
They have no power to do a "fairer job", they're an advocacy group, not a regulator. That's like complaining that Greenpeace haven't set decent climate change policy.
What has happened is apple has taken on things that EFF / govt have failed to succeed at in the broader internet / app / tech space. They are leveraging their market power to demand concessions that users would NEVER get negotiating individually, and that govt has completely ignored in the online marketplace world.
These are things as simple as crystal clear trial terms where ongoing monthly cost is in EXACT same font as promo rates and much more. Why isn't that the rule everywhere? Even if it was the rule, where is the enforcement? We see overseas call center scammers ripping off folks blatantly day and night - crickets.
So the moralizing from these folks who seem to do nothing to solve real programs is tiresome. The market is speaking, and it's away from trust in govt and eff and into trust in Apple with correspondingly insane profit margins to apple as trust is substituted.
I'm not saying this is a good thing, but I'd like to see a LOT more done by govt against MANY MANY pure online scams and bad behavior. Instead, EFF and the govt are fixated on folks like apple that frankly are showing the EFF up horribly by creating spaces online that users like.
And yes, that includes the CSAM content stuff that EFF freaked out about. Average users will WANT these controls for their kids etc.
Applying the same analysis, I can't say the same for the US Government or my own country's government. Or even the EFF, which (and I realise this is a controversial thing to say) does NOT have any economic incentive to protect my privacy.
That's not how the market works. Consumers don't like, choose to funnel donations away from the EFF/taxes away from the government to Apple on the basis of "trust" in terms of all of this specific debate on privacy and the walled garden.
They are constantly ripped off, scam called, misled and hassled elsewhere. Everything from lying promo offers that jump hugely after X days, hard to cancel subscriptions and endless bad behavior such as spam calls / texts and emails and mail with misleading headlines (urgent: last chance).
Our representatives are no better. I donated to the "defenders of rights" the democrats last cycle. You are SCREWED if you do this, you CANNOT get off their mailing list, because they resell your name 100x - your rights, in practice, are FAR secondary to their need for power and your money. They epitomize horrible behavior as they preach about tech CEO's, it's totally pathetic.
More on the dems good behavior here: https://medium.com/@jjdanek/ngp-van-and-the-endless-deluge-o...
I'm sure republicans are no better, but I don't donate to them so have no clue.
So yes, when it comes to user trust, folks are picking a corporation (Apple) vs their govt reps (dems and republicans).
What you learn in business is TRUST is literally the highest margin product you can have. You can sell the EXACT same product, but if you are trusted, you can charge more, the value of a trusted brand is huge. And apple has a trusted brand on metrics that matter to most users (and hated by scammers trying to exploit them). Folks like match.com are exploiters with a TON of scam / dark behavior in their playbook, even as they fight apple for "users".
And apple knows this.
Here is something interesting - when Apple sponsors something, because their brand is so strong, they often don't have a nonprofit announce their sponsorship AT ALL. They don't need the brand buff. So you won't (normally) see titles like "The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, powered by ExxonMobil" with Apple as a sponsor.
I just feel like the previous comment was setting up a false dichotomy to argue for popular support for a position most people aren't even aware of.
It happens in bits. You buy the phone that isn't locked up by apple from your carrier. It comes with a ton of crapware and bloatware on it, maybe some backdoors built in. All totally legal per the FTC because buried in some fine print on a 50 page clickthrough license on some setup screen they say they are allowed to do this.
Or, you buy the apple phone. Totally locked up, your phone company can't install their "user experience" enhancers (ie, to track and sell your data to marketers). And yes, before you tell me how regulated comcast and the TV companies are and how they would NEVER do this, I've got a bridge to sell you.
And yes, surveys DO show that people don't actually trust their politicians. You might think they are amazing, more power to you. But this is data backed to a large degree these days, more trust / brand value in Apple then Dem party or republican party for example. 98% of folks don't think politicians will do what's right almost always. NPR did a piece on this, trust in govt is at historic lows.
So we are seeing some substitution effects and for good reason. The policing of the internet at large is pretty horrible, so walled gardens start looking more appealing.
What you and others fail to realize is that I PAY apple money. That at least loosely aligns their interests with mine. I've been very happy with what they've done as a result, showing up the EFF and the govt (with their stupid and toothless cookie popups and unders and privacy policies flooding my mailbox). Apple gives me actual control, and backs it with market power that makes it very dangerous to cross them to try and exploit users.
Facebook is paid by business, corporations, but NOT by their users. Just think about that for a minute. The specific issue here, facebook and eff vs apple, is easy for most users. We've already voted, instead of forcing tracking off the way they used to, apple let's users indicate what they want. They have agreed with apple, don't track. I personally wish apple would go further, and just force it and let users go into some setting to turn on the allow app to track me setting.
Same with the EFF issues about warning on bogus batteries being put into phones. Just ignore these guys.
I'm not usually prone to conspiracy theorising, but if I were Russia in the 2000s and 2010s, I'd be throwing lots of money at Greenpeace to get France, Germany etc to shut down their nuclear energy programs.
Whether you agree or disagree with this stance is completely irrelevant.
My point was that Greenpeace don't make environmental policy, the same way the EFF does not write privacy legislation.
The government (especially in the US) are perfectly happy to go against Greenpeace or the EFF. In fact, it’s a badge of honour for a subset of idiot on the right (“drill baby drill”, etc)
The irony of the Greenpeace anti-apple stuff is in terms of secondary markets and device support, apple historically has crushed competitors. This has pretty significant impacts on things like waste - the folks Greenpeace say nothing on basically drop support when device ships, and sometimes ships with outdated software to start. Apple is on the relative other end of spectrum there. So it's seriously kind of weird.
Government have the power. But giving government so much power is not something I feel comfortable.
Having one monopoly in each field is, sometimes, better than having a single entity(the government) own limitless power.
This is precisely how I feel about the situation.
The EFF article doesn't seem to provide a solution that keeps the privacy control still in favor of the user while breaking down Apple's monopoly of an app store. Until there's a proposal that includes incentive for companies to protect their customer's privacy (as you pointed out, this is not something you can just control with code, this is something the company has to actively pursue and enforce) while enforcing the freedom of choice and inability for Apple to force high commissions to make apps available or sell anything, really... then what we have is still going to serve a large part of the market in a net positive way.
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.
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.
On a blog with heavy video, you could manage to freeze your desktop browser within minutes.
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.
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.
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?
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?
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
AOC won the primary in a safe district against the 4th most powerful Democrat in the federal government.
She was the most prominent upset result, but that's because of how powerful who she defeated was. There isn't much room above what she did.
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.
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.
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?
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.
"Additionally, a subset of age-restricted servers that are specifically focused on explicit pornographic content will be blocked entirely on iOS. "
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".
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.
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.
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.
> 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
You're missing the forest for the trees. The issue is not building an app specifically with Electron, but building an app which requires a browser. The browser is expensive in terms of resource usage, which results in less battery life.
Using a browser is OK for an app intended for a light usage session (like booking a flight). But not OK for an app which is intended for heavy usage sessions (like browsing pictures in an infinite timeline).
There's a reason Slack (which already has a reputation of impacting your battery life) decided to create a native app for mobile instead of using an Electron-like framework like Capacitor[1].
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.
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.
A big thing would be notifications, which at the time of writing is still an issue but slated to be corrected next year.
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.
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.
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.
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.
macOS exclusive apps, linux exclusive apps, FreeBSD exclusive apps, z/OS exclusive apps, etc..
And considering the state of the art of Linux GPU Drivers, maybe using Windows will be the only feasible way to actually run Linux apps.
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
Tumblr is perfectly fine on the web, but they want people to download the app so they can use push notifications to juice engagement.
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!
None of those things are necessary to create a very full featured Tumblr web application. E.g. twitter works quite well on mobile web.
Tumblr wants people to download the app for engagement purposes.
I don't think iphone market shares are large enough to make a company like tumblr die.
You can think what you like but they literally did so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Never before. Not with oil, cars, industrial products, pharma etc.
Is Twitter powerful enough to stand up to Apple and Tumblr was not?
No idea though if Tumblr had the same option back then.
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.
In 2017, Twitter had dedicated ML resources driving their recommendation engine + human moderators on fallback duty. You need to explicitly opt-in via web app before you can see NSFW using their app.
In comparison, Tumblr struggled with NSFW content as they relied heavily on users to police content.
Without opting-in, pornograhic posts regularly bled into standard content. With the demographics, CSAM content quickly started to do the same.
> 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).
Maybe Tumblr should have taken a page out of Apple's book and had reviewers.
traffic measured in visitors or bytes downloaded? any source?
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.
I suspect it's bullshit.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/20/the-fight-to-h...
Regardless, you're totally right that their numbers are relatively impressive and indeed "Google-scale" if we interpret that as within an order of magnitude. If the metric they used was "unique visitors per employee," then even with official source numbers they would be around 10x as successful as Google!!
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1201889/most-visited-web...
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
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.
Where? Which app?!?
The app I believed is called “the internet.”
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.
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.
"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...
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.
This ownership wording is the wrong thinking when it comes to platforms.
What a scary way to phrase that relationship.
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.
[0]: https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/20/18104366/tumblr-ios-app-...
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yahoo runs one of the biggest ad networks in the world, and you need to register to use Tumblr. They as already have everything they need to track you right there.
A mobile app in many circumstances reduces the data tracking (see this whole discussion about how effective Apple's do not track is because of their monopoly powers).
Just because Apple made it harder doesn't mean they made it impossible. There's a reason so many places work on making apps for multiple platforms (at least 2) rather than a unified web experience. There are benefits beyond serving a webpage in a native app, and they all want those benefits. Stick your head in the sand and deny it all you want, but it still happens.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I don't think you're in the target audience of Tumblr, which is fine.
I honestly worry for people that do. There's something sad to me about people that do.
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.
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.
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.
(I've got an oldish phone, but it performs fine on every website I ever visit except Twitter.)
Tested in Android Firefox on https://mobile.twitter.com/home.
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.
Strange. This is exactly how I use Twitter on my i-devices, and it's perfectly smooth.
Seems pretty simple.
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 (i.e. they say a site "has child porn", but not how fast it is removed, or if the site gives the IP of child-porn uploaders to the police, or anything beyond trying to establish in the viewer a bad site <-> child porn association).
Aren't there legal requirements in place for this stuff, at least in the US?
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's no way to treat adults.
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.
Kids have Android phones, so yes, it is clearly the case that most parents have no problem with this.
Not "can you go in and unblock profanity suggestions" ( https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/disable-android-offensive... ) but rather "is this the default"?
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).
You can of course install any keyboard you want with basically any behavior you want here.
Edit: Never mind, it's "Block offensive words" under "Text Correction". Easy to find, strange I never noticed it. Thanks!
And it ALWAYS refuses to type "fuck" when you do glide / swipe typing.
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.
https://www.macworld.com/article/673861/how-to-stop-an-iphon...
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...
Sometimes the agenda goes a bit too far.
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?
That isn’t true. Not allowing the tumblr app doesn’t remove all users.
And what's the new acronym to refer to those companies?
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.
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.
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.
Apple doesn't.
Those customers were free to use Tumblr on Android, Symbian, whatever.
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.
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.
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.
No? Google's grip on the web comes from their near-monopoly levels between search, email, docs, maps, advertising, Android, classroom, and everything in between. Chrome is the icing on the cake that strengthens their entire ecosystem. Google was an internet superpower before they released Chrome in 2008.
>the market says that Apple's approach is much more lucrative.
You're absolutely right, Apple makes more money than Google, but I find Google to be more dangerous than Apple. Revenue =/= Danger. At the end of the day Apple is a hardware company competing with other HW companies so they are beholden to their branding as the most luxury/conscientious/privacy/hardware/etc-focused company and create lock-in through synergy between their products.
Compared to Google I don't think your examples of Apple appropriating public infrastructure is accurate. Google offers all of those services, in addition to others that are relied upon much more. Search is used by 92.5% of users [1] and that gives them power to do nearly whatever they want with how people consume and find information. Combined with their data collection abilities and AI I'm surprised there hasn't been any scandals or leaks around data manipulation.
Amazon and Google's potential for misuse or power terrify me in ways that Apple doesn't even come close.
Okay, so how exactly do they pose a threat to the internet and how do you propose we regulate it? Google is certainly no saint, but their liability to protect the privacy of their millions of users' data is exactly the same as Apple. Hell, same goes to Amazon: if you asked most people if they preferred to have their Amazon info leaked or their iCloud leaked, and I think most people would jump at the chance to get their shopping info and Twitch history doxxed. Apple owns all of the data these companies collect and then some.
> At the end of the day Apple is a hardware company [...] so they are beholden to their branding as the most luxury/conscientious/privacy/hardware/etc-focused company and create lock-in through synergy between their products.
Right, but as a hardware company offering software services, they are also beholden to making them play nice with others. That means accepting common, secure chat standards when people make them, adopting the open-source graphics API that you contributed to, and not using proprietary connectors on their phones that are used on literally no other device on the planet. You know, common sense stuff. Regulation can help fix these things, and give the consumer what they deserve with zero potential to meaningfully harm Apple in the long-run.
> Search is used by 92.5% of users [1] and that gives them power to do nearly whatever they want with how people consume and find information.
Apparently Apple doesn't see anything wrong with that, since they're happy to leave Google as the default search on Spotlight, so long as Google writes them a fat paycheck in exchange for violating user privacy. It's the under-the-table deals like this that are prime examples for why all of these companies deserve strict regulation on data management.
Furthermore, I think you're missing the scale of the figures I posted: Google is an ad company, and their entire advertising revenue is overshadowed by one of Apple's side-hustles (not Airpods, not iPhone, not Mac, not SaaS subscriptions). That's a sign that something is terribly wrong here, and I don't think you can make a reasonable argument otherwise.
> Combined with their data collection abilities and AI I'm surprised there hasn't been any scandals or leaks around data manipulation.
Again, which is worse than Apple how? Apple also can collect all of the data off your phone, encrypt it, then send it back to their servers. They regularly do, even with analytics turned off. On top of that, they can get all this data off your Mac, too, which also regularly phones home as soon as you connect it to a personally identifying iCloud account.
Apple publicly admit that they cut out the middleman and just directly process data for the CCP now. iCloud servers operate on Chinese-owned servers operated in government-owned datacenters. Who's to say they don't do the same thing in the US, with more smoke and mirrors?
Its above my paygrade to be proposing how our data should be regulated. It's not going to be enough, whatever it is. Currently, it seems like what is happening is regulatory capture to weaken Apple so Google, Meta, etc can harvest more data from iphones while staying untouched.
I noticed you were comparing Googles advertising income to the revenue of the App store which aren't equatable factors but I didn't bring it up but I'm not trying to argue that Apple's tax is just or anything like that.
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!"
I basically have to use their products and in the case of WhatsApp, my experience is degraded unless I share my full contacts list with them (not going to happen) just to have a decent user experience. Friends names showing up...
Could go on about how I need to use Instagram for various reasons too...
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.
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.
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).
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.
So I get plenty of positive use from FB.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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."- 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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
> 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.
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.
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.
I guess highly personalized ads are too scary to see
Give me a break please...
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.
At the very least make it "Are they right?" so it's a correct sentence.
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.
Or, you know, Android.
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.
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.
With proper AR glasses, people (especially young people) could be constantly in contact with their friends without having to pull their phone out. Reading certain muscles could be used to control it, or maybe even direct brain interface.
Add in games that could be literally everywhere a la Pokemon Go, but better, and it'll be a very compelling experience for pre-teens, teens and young adults, and even many middle-age people.
It's going to be a hard sell for my age group, unless we're already really inclined towards tech, like me.
THE METAVERSE: A Guide to the Future of Capitalism
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.
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.
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".
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.
The impetus to move to competitor when you are unhappy is also a lot stronger when staying with your current provider costs you money.
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.
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.
This does not follow. KFC depends on chicken production scaling up as well, it does not make the chickens their customers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
They shipped 1.65 billion devices in 2021.
For the price we pay, we should be leasing them and Apple should be taking them back and properly recycling them.
How much of that is £15 Chinese no-brand rubbish compared to £1,000 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 (!)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-30/apple-met...
What is yours?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Wonder how that'd play out for home ownership vs renting then. "Whose data is it?", etc. ;)
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.)
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.
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).
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.
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.
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...
I love kids; I used to work with kids and I kinda miss it, but man kids can be petty assholes.
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.
Children doing it is just part of the series of learning experiences that comprises maturation.
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.
I wonder how much Apple would make (and how much they'd lose) if they had a paid iMessage app for iCloud subscribers.
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.
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).
I know it is a client side issue because in Chatty, I quite literally wrote the functionality to change titles of group chats.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Bank apps are accessible through the aurora store for example and many work well with microg instead of google play services.
You cannot just log in via a web browser? If so, why not?
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Companies will not change behaviour unless you vote with your wallet.
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...
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.
> 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.
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.
Green bubble exclusion absolutely, 100% is a real thing.
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.
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.
From my example, you can see that you have a choice about what you want to be controlled by 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.
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.
> 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.
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?
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.
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.
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..."
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?
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".
I give information on what that data will be used for and don't use it for anything else. I don't have to think about GDPR for a second more. What is the problem here?
> Same thing if you are a restaurant owner with a website that had an OpenTable integration to accept reservations.
Is the information provided necessary for service fulfillment and only used for that purpose? What is the problem here?
> 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.
Does the complexity of GDPR not cause more trouble to big corps since they themselves are more complex than a small business? With what complexity and uncertainty are my real estate management company and my restaurant hit?
> 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".
Then why are you having problems answering a simple question regarding GDPR? You say you have experience with GDPR so use it. What advice did you or your company give to those worried vendors and other people? On what grounds was your answer based? If you can't answer that then you really are just raging against something you don't understand.
> 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?
Literally the only thing you said is that big corps have lawyers so regulation isn't fair and we should remove it. You know what also isn't fair? Capitalism. Big corps have more money so we should abolish capitalism. That is your logic and level or argumentation. From now on, if you poses an ounce of intellectual honesty, you should be an anti-capitalist. Or at least explain why capitalism is ok but regulation is not.
> 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".
Yes they are because I didn't give them my consent.
Ridiculously naive. Do you have whatsapp installed on your phone? That's all Facebook needs to keep tabs on you and build your profile.
And if you don't? Then you can join my club. I'm pretty sure that Facebook really is missing all 16 of us...
> Or at least explain why capitalism is ok but regulation is not.
First, I am not saying that all regulation is bad. What I am saying is that GDPR is completely and utterly ineffective in what is "meant to do".
Second, it's not about being "anti-capitalist" but "anti-corporativist":
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31764137
How,why? I mean, I did ask you multiple times. Seems you don't know anything about GDPR. You even said you had experience with it?
> First, I am not saying that all regulation is bad. What I am saying is that GDPR is completely and utterly ineffective in what is "meant to do".
> Second, it's not about being "anti-capitalist" but "anti-corporativist":
Your only argument so far is that big corps have more money(more lawyers) than other players on the market. How can one be a capitalist and against money(inequality) at the same time?
GDPR stated purpose is to "increase data privacy for EU citizens". It added a bunch of directives that amount to "protocol theater", but did not stop Big Tech from collecting user data at large.
Facebook can only be profitable if they collect and exploit user data. If they are still operating in Europe, it is because they are either (a) operating at a loss or (b) still collecting enough user data.
Google is surely still collecting user data. Want to use Google Assistant? You consented for them to listen to you. Use Gmail? You consented for them to read your messages. In practice, GDPR did not stop the data collection.
Don't use Android and prefer iOS instead? Same thing. Amazon echo at home? SAME THING.
Saying that you have more privacy because now you "give consent" on some websites is a ridiculously naive notion. The only way to have actual privacy would be if the companies were not allowed at all to collect the data in the first place.
> How can one be a capitalist and against money(inequality) at the same time?
I've posted not one, but three links to different comments, all of them explaining the argument. I'll repeat again here: I am not (morally) against the concentration of money, I am against the concentration of power, and there are easier ways to eliminate the concentration of power without removing people's civil rights. In contrast, any attempt to control the concentration of money led to authoritarianism and people losing basic liberties.
Can you think of any regulation that you are for, against which you can not use those two arguments?
> GDPR stated purpose is to "increase data privacy for EU citizens". It added a bunch of directives that amount to "protocol theater", but did not stop Big Tech from collecting user data at large.
This is what I'm trying to get from you. What specifically makes GDPR just "protocol theater", what changes should be made to make it more than that?
> Saying that you have more privacy because now you "give consent" on some websites is a ridiculously naive notion.
Nobody but you is saying that. I'd say that you have more privacy because you "refuse consent". If websites are not honoring my choice then they are breaking the law. If that makes GDPR bad then, by that logic, all laws and regulations are bad.
> I am not (morally) against the concentration of money, I am against the concentration of power, and there are easier ways to eliminate the concentration of power without removing people's civil rights.
Money is power so saying that you are not against the concentration of money but of power.... makes no sense.
In the third post that you linked you recommend removing civil rights...
No, where do I say that?
My point is that GDPR still lets companies collect user data, legally.
"Oh, now they need to ask for consent" doesn't really change things in practical terms. If Facebook still has billions of WhatsApp users, and if every user had to give consent to have the data extracted to use the service, in practice Facebook still has access to the data and can build a profile of billions of people.
> What specifically makes GDPR just "protocol theater"?
I don't know how else to restate this, and I don't see how I can make it any clearer.
Companies are still collecting data at large. The requirements about consent do not stop them from doing collecting and exploiting data, they just add some extra hoops and create inconveniences. These hoops and inconveniences are enough to make data processing costly for smaller players (even for legitimate uses) but they don't do anything to stop the Big Players. We get the worst of both worlds.
> I'd say that you have more privacy because you "refuse consent".
On paper, you can "refuse consent". In practice, the absolute majority of people continued to use the services and devices from GAMMA (Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Apple), and the only way to use those services and devices is by giving consent.
> what changes should be made to make it more than that?
By forbidding data collection and brokering (tracking cookies, ad auctions) at all. By forbidding personalized advertisements at all. By forbidding ad-subsidized hardware. By forbidding hardware to be sold bundled with internet-connected software/services, i.e, they can either sell the software or the hardware, but not both. By forbidding any service to be commercialized unless it has a self-hosted version. By forbidding "freemium" services, i.e, either you charge from everyone or you don't charge from anyone.
----
> Money is power
This is exactly what I am contesting! Having more money can help with getting more power, but we can think of ways where the concentration of power is limited without having to fight over the discussion of how to limit the concentration of "money".
> you recommend removing civil rights...
No. People still keep property rights, and they are still free to associate with others. The only thing about my proposal is to eliminate corporations.
That is how I interpreted whole paragraphs that you wrote about how data is still collected despite GDPR. If data that is collected is covered by GDPR than that is breaking the law otherwise I don't see why you would mention that some companies are still collecting data that is not covered by GDPR.
> My point is that GDPR still lets companies collect user data, legally.
> "Oh, now they need to ask for consent" doesn't really change things in practical terms. If Facebook still has billions of WhatsApp users, and if every user had to give consent to have the data extracted to use the service, in practice Facebook still has access to the data and can build a profile of billions of people.
That is not how GDPR works. You don't have to give consent to use a service and if you don't give consent whatsapp can't legally share any data it has on you with facebook.
> Companies are still collecting data at large. The requirements about consent do not stop them from doing collecting and exploiting data, they just add some extra hoops and create inconveniences.
Not all data is covered by GDPR so of course data is still collected. It absolutely does stop collecting and exploiting some forms of data in legal ways.
> On paper, you can "refuse consent". In practice, the absolute majority of people continued to use the services and devices from GAMMA (Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Apple), and the only way to use those services and devices is by giving consent.
Again, not how GDPR works. Literally, in the text of GDPR, there is a provision that states that giving consent can not be a requirement for using a service. That's why you get, if you are in the EU, those consent forms with accept/reject on GAMMA sites and the only "service" you lose if you reject is personalized ads. Recommendation algorithm might also be different. You really have no idea how GDPR works but you certainly have strong opinions about it.
> By forbidding data collection and brokering (tracking cookies, ad auctions) at all. By forbidding personalized advertisements at all. By forbidding ad-subsidized hardware. By forbidding hardware to be sold bundled with internet-connected software/services, i.e, they can either sell the software or the hardware, but not both. By forbidding any service to be commercialized unless it has a self-hosted version. By forbidding "freemium" services, i.e, either you charge from everyone or you don't charge from anyone.
Those are new regulations not some fix to GDPR to make it more than "protocol theater". Even your reasoning about why GDPR is "protocol theater" is based on your faulty "understanding" of GDPR.
> This is exactly what I am contesting! Having more money can help with getting more power, but we can think of ways where the concentration of power is limited without having to fight over the discussion of how to limit the concentration of "money".
Power comes in many forms. Concentration of money is concentration of power so if you want to limit power you have to have a discussion on how to limit the concentration of money. By ignoring the question of money and concentrating only on other form of power money becomes more powerful.
> No. People still keep property rights, and they are still free to associate with others. The only thing about my proposal is to eliminate corporations.
No, go read your comment again. It isn't only about eliminating corporations it is about business not being bigger than 150 people (how is that not a restriction on free association?), and inability of an individual to participate in more than one business (how is that not a restriction on free association?).
1) WhatsApp IS Facebook.
2) there is nothing stopping WhatsApp from sharing your data, if they got it from someone else that interacts with you and that has given consent. (Which would be basically any non-EU citizen)
> Not all data is covered by GDPR so of course data is still collected.
How hard is it to understand that stopping collection of data at all is the only effective policy?
You are arguing on the technicalities of GDPR like a first-year law school student. My point is that all these provisions did not and will not stop big tech from collecting data.
You think you are being so smart by saying "oh, I can refuse consent", but you completely ignore that (a) you are a tiny minority of billions of people and (b) you are not stopping Facebook from tracking your location and you gave permission for them to turn on the microphone of your device whenever you open the app.
> Those are new regulations
Yeah, because the GDPR does not solve anything.
Are you paying attention or are you just trying to confirm your worldview?
> how is that not a restriction on free association?
You can still associate with anyone. People can still work on a common project, the only difference is that any interactions would be interfaced by these separate companies.
I want to make an analogy between monolithic vs message-passing kernels, but I worry you are going to go full-aspie and get stuck in some technicality. So let's just drop this.
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.
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.
Sure, it could it be that they would end in Facebook anyway. But there is no denying that the GDPR was a catalyst.
You say that there "is no denying that the GDPR was a catalyst". Well, in what way did it catalyze it? Static pages do not need any GDPR compliance anyway.
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.
How can a city council reconcile this with GDPR?
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.
Collective action through the legal system is another legitimate approach. If enough people are unhappy, 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.
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.
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.
A similar policy aimed at ADA requirements for governments, state and local and federal, might also mitigate some of 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.
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.
I haven't noticed any negative impact since giving facebook the boot
Even when I used facebook I never used it for gigs or anything.
Anyway in Australia at least we have sites like this: https://www.broadsheet.com.au
Pretty sure every city does too.
If Facebook bans people here and there, the rest of the crowd won't give a shit.
That is the problem.
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.
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.
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.
> 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."
"everything"? why would you lose anything at all?
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/
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.
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.
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.
This is why no one could ever convince me to buy an Apple product.
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.).
People forget about the carrier bit.
Whatever happens on the 'internets', well, carriers can bill for.
If the 'internets' becomes all that more indispensable, your MB/s rate just doubled.
It's not particularly competitive, and those carriers also own content, and other parts of the value chain.
Though their profitability may be lower, their revenues are not, they are just as powerful as Apple.
There needs to be more competition among carriers.
Then we can also apply some rules to Apple and Google about dividing up the value chain so that 'apps' and 'hardware/os' compete on independent layers.
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.
All you really need is a web browser and a phone and I thought both could,e with all smartphones?
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...
"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 '.' .
> 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.
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.
Google, other major ad exchanges.
Consumer facing: Tiktok, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn
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.
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.
Why do you think the '?' would be "inspired by legal"?
Enough said...
"Facebook says x is too powerful"...get out of my face, if FB could've been they would have been the most powerful, unethical company imaginable.
Facebook is winging because they're losing, good.
People choose to buy iPhones, they generally don't choose to be tracked and targeted in a predatory manner online. If people want different app stores (I've almost never heard anyone say they do), they can buy another phone from another vendor.
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.
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).
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?
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.
I've been a "member" myself for over 10 years.
If you want your 'secure' alternative to gain traction, it has to be less work. I agree security is more important than convenience in a moral sense, but not when influencing large bodies of people.
“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...
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.
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.
After apple and google, facebook can be next on the list.
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.
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 *
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.
Apple should be given a massive punitive fine for preventing app sideloading. This is disgusting anti-competitive behaviour.
That’s why they have the market dominance across such a broad range of products. No one else come close.
that said, easier said than done... but at least the ideal we should probably be striving for.
That's not a policy intervention, that's a potential goal of a policy intervention.
My criticism isn’t about right or wrong. It’s about priorities and weaponizing the corporations and business practices the EFF should work against.
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....
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
A detail I don't find insignificant - they haven't restricted facebook at all. They put the option to the user. I don't see it as Apple's fault that 80-90% of users prefer to opt-out.
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.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
...and a full-featured WebKit browser. That was huge.