NotPractical

Probably would work better as a userscript, so you don't have to rely on a random personal website never going down just to use HN. I don't have a ChatGPT account but I am curious as to if it could do that automatically too.

No they aren't. They sync almost all of your data across the both of them; that's touted as a benefit of the Apple Ecosystem. Your juicy iPhone data is directly accessible via the linked Mac.

A better argument is that Macs are less popular and thus less targeted.

I mean yeah, that's bad, but enemy of my enemy? Asking the EU for something doesn't imply that you endorse everything they do. Also, they've already reached out to the EU, IIRC. (Not sure if that went anywhere.)

As for whether or not the EU can or will help them, I have no idea.

That is a good point. I wish dual booting with different security settings was possible on Android as well. The incentives for Google to implement that aren't really there though.

> You're either fully locked in, or fully on your own.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. You can trivially root a Pixel factory image. And if you're talking about how they will punish you for that by removing certain features: Apple does that too (but to a lesser extent).

https://github.com/cormiertyshawn895/RecordingIndicatorUtili...

Unfortunately Apple is in $HN_GOOD_COMPANIES and Microsoft is in $HN_BAD_COMPANIES so facts don't matter, but yes Windows Recall is objectively more private than Apple Intelligence.

> It’s not about “all software needs to let my desktop look like a clown makeup set

Except it literally is about that? Libre software guarantees users the right to make their own modifications to it. That's basically the entire point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software

Being actively hostile towards users making and sharing modifications to your software, while still technically permitting them, probably doesn't disqualify your project as "libre" software, but it goes against the spirit of it.

Distributions are operated by users. They're basically just a collection of recommended packages, curated by the distribition maintainers. Why should users be prevented from sharing their preferred themes with other users, in the form of distributions?

Besides, if app developers are doing their job properly as described in the parent comment, then neither user themes, nor distribution themes, should break anything.

Why would different business practices shield console makers in the first place, legally speaking? As in, even if all consoles were always sold at a loss, how would that help someone's legal case that they should be excluded here? Does the law state that, "if your business practices are incompatible with antitrust legislation, and you'd end up having to raise prices, shut down, or decrease your CEO's paycheck, if we enforced it on you, then we won't do it" or something along those lines?

F-Droid [1] has a squeaky clean track record when it comes to malware [2]. Might be mostly just because the number of users is relatively low. Quality of course varies wildly, but that's to be expected.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-Droid

[2] According to the Wikipedia article there were (are?) some old unmaintained apps using vulnerable native libraries but that's not intentional malware and every app store has apps with vulnerabilities of some sort.

OP didn't say they were better overall, rather that they were a better "actor", as in, they play nicer than Apple with other actors (companies) in the tech space, and as such you'd expect them to be less targeted by antitrust laws than Apple, but the opposite has occurred.

> I'd love to install unsanctioned software from GitHub on my iPhone

You can, but Apple won't like it:

https://sidestore.io/

https://altstore.io/

Typical lazy Ars reporting. The feature originates from GrapheneOS, not iOS.

Yes, developers are of course going to opt for APIs that allow them to be as lazy as possible, forego proper backend security, and reduce costs. But is allowing developers to be lazy worth the cost of destroying user freedom? If so, maybe we should work on bringing back the Web Environment Integrity API. That would really help out web developers and would make web apps a lot more secure. Nobody uses Linux on the desktop anyways besides weird nerds so it wouldn't have any real impact.

Can't wait until we finally kill hacker culture for good. Everyone and everything will be fully secured. It's going to be beautiful. The nerds can cry about it all day long, but they're powerless to stop it.

Thanks for your thought-provoking response. I agree with most of it.

The vibe I generally get from Graphene users is that they feel that they are taking control over their device by installing Graphene onto it (which is almost always a manual process, at least for now). I probably exaggerated when I said the vast majority of users care deeply about this, but I think it's still a major selling point of Graphene for a lot of people.

And yes, I do agree that sandboxing actually provides more control to the user, not less! I'd just hate to see Graphene become more like iOS over time and start intentionally omitting features that would otherwise empower the user, for security's sake. If "security" and "giving users a say in how their phone works" really are diametrically opposed, and user freedom isn't a concern, then it would probably make sense to start gutting out stuff like developer mode, adb, and sideloading for the user's own safety. But the project's track record has been pretty good so far from what I can tell, and I don't think this will happen.

> "security" and "giving users a say in how their phone works" are diametrically opposed

Try putting that sentence prominently on the front page of the GrapheneOS website and watch the monthly download count rapidly drop. It would not be out of place for an Apple press release, but it would be out of place there.

I think the Graphene people sometimes forget that the vast majority of their users are nerds who aren't being targeted by APTs, don't want to be locked out of their own device, and really just want a trustworthy Google-free OS on their phone. They also probably use Linux on their computers and yet haven't been hacked by "fake sudo" or "evil maid" attacks and likely never will be.

> It's not recommended, but you can install magisk + root if you really wanted to.

Apps will then either detect that you're rooted, or use AOSP attestation APIs to cryptographically verify that you aren't using a known-good custom ROM, and block your access to basic features of modern society such as mobile banking. This isn't Graphene's fault, but it should be noted that you will start losing out on things as soon as you start customizing or rooting the OS. So it does matter what upstream does to some extent.

FWIW I don't agree with the OP, just replying to your comment in particular.

So the law is now requiring that you find zero day exploits in iOS in order to make a banking app? Are there banking websites you can use instead? Are criminals incapable of using these websites for malicious purposes?

> Android’s security design has fundamentally been based on a multi-party authorization model: an action should only happen if all involved parties authorize it.

> these are user, platform, and developer (implicitly representing stakeholders such as content producers and service providers). Any one party can veto the action.

How is this not anti-user? It explicitly states that the app developer should be able to veto my decisions...

Those are very minor changes and almost everything besides superfluous things like the UI design are the same.

They weren't expanding any terms in the parent comment. "Android" (AOSP) is open source, but it's not good-faith open source.

Of note, so far, you can still take advantage of all the features that the EU has forced Apple to add, as a developer (though not as a user), even if your company is outside the EU. This could of course change in the future, but US companies (other than the largest in the entire world, such as Apple and Google) do very much stand to benefit from what the EU is doing.

> This would result in tech companies supporting Republicans

People often forget that these companies care about nothing but money. This isn't an anti-capitalist rant or anything; that's just how the world works. As publicly traded corporations, they are obligated to their shareholders to always make decisions that are best for the company, no matter what. That would include supporting Republicans, if necessary.

It doesn't matter how many angry engineers vent on Twitter about how their favorite megacorps are now Trump supporters. These decisions come from the very top.

Sure, but you claimed that they were definitely not a monopoly, which hasn't been determined yet.

> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors.

https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

Presumably the DoJ wouldn't have sued Apple for being a monopoly if it was impossible for them to legally qualify as one?

https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/gallery/justice-departm...

I would say that custom Android-based ROMs like GrapheneOS are the solution, but Google is actively sabotaging those with the Play Integrity API so I don't know if they will be usable by the average person in the long-term (unless Google is legally compelled to stop this).

So honestly I think that legislation such as what's happening in the EU is the only solution. This includes investigating Google as well as Apple. I'm not a huge fan of legislation in general but the current state of mobile computing is depressingly bad right now.

> However, I find it a bit of a stretch to claim that having iMessage access on a smartwatch is essential for being a functional member of society.

Btw I agree here. Perhaps the EU is being a little too overbearing in some aspects, but most of it is good. I think in this case Pebble is trying to take advantage of the existing interoperability provisions, which are a general framework allowing devs to request access to certain functions. However the EU has said that they want to target smartwatches in particular which sounds like misplaced priority to me...

> They want to just click 'yes' on every popup and expect things to keep working

This is an extremely dangerous mindset, even if you never leave Apple's garden. As a reminder, Facebook and TikTok are on the App Store. We cannot encourage this zombie-like behavior and simultaneously have a healthy, free society.

> Because they know that they are not qualified to answer that yes/no popup question

Apple put thought into their permission system and made it easy to understand even among non-HN users, so that regular people can make meaningful choices about what information they want to share with apps and the companies who make them. There might as well be no permission system and no sandboxing at all if users are just going to spam the "yes" button all the time.

> people can simply switch to an Android phone

Giving all your data to Google (an adtech company) is not an acceptable solution. Not to mention that it's incredibly difficult to leave the Apple ecosystem, by design.

You said that Apple makes the best tech, but you wouldn't know, because you cannot pair third party accessories with your Apple devices and have them work properly, so you cannot determine if third parties are capable of making accessories better than Apple or not.

Whether or not a third party is capable of making a better "ecosystem" of interconnected devices is a separate concern; I'm talking about accessories here, which is the topic at hand.

> ...but the Apple ecosystem has the best tech

You aren't in any position to make that call, since you have no opportunity to try competing products due to being locked in to an anticompetitive ecosystem. European iOS users will soon be able to decide if Apple really does have the best tech or not.

There is no specific purpose for an iPad.

> Over a million other ways to use it [...] Turn your iPad into almost anything — from a math classroom or workstation to a professional recording studio

Sounds like a general purpose device to me.