11 karma · joined May 12, 2021
Caterpillar does it with phones[1], and their main business is heavy industry. Why not auto manufacturers? Could easier access to smaller process nodes incentivize them to branch out into new markets like that?
There is a firehouse of options in the app store, but you need to sift through conflicting reports about which ones are "still good" - the prevailing recommendations seemed to change every 6 months or so when I researched which ones to try.
When you do find some that seem worthwhile, the paid tiers are often expensive, and they will not work as well as the free browser extensions on every other platform.
And there is no replacement for NoScript at any price.
But in my experience, it simply does not work compared to other platforms. I still see a lot of ads even with their strictest settings, and it also seems to break a lot of sites without having any toggle switches in the browser UI.
It's gotten to the point where I put the iPhone down and pick up another device if I need to access a website. After a few months, I'd like to just resell the phone. But on the social side of things, having a number with blue chat bubbles is a depressingly effective status symbol, and Apple is better about in-app tracking.
It's getting hard to ignore how harmful the duopoly in phone operating systems is to consumers. Carrying two phones around is not a tenable solution.
Mozilla does their best with Firefox Focus (which is also a "Safari Content Blocker"), but you cannot use normal Firefox extensions on iOS, including ad and script blockers.
I was extremely frustrated to buy an iPhone for privacy, only to find that there is no way to selectively block javascript! They only provide a coarse toggle with Safari.
Lack of accountability for either criminals or negligent operators?
Monsoons are not directly caused by individuals, and they cannot be prevented.
The volume buttons don't seem to affect haptic noises, but the mute button does. The OS locks up for about a minute when you change passcodes while it re-crypts everything, but from the user's perspective it just looks frozen. The implications of opting into their 'find my...' and iCloud networks are not adequately explained. The devices take 15-30 seconds to actually cut power after they appear to shut down, and during that time they won't respond to any button presses.
The list goes on, using a modern iPhone feels like you are constantly negotiating with a disingenuous UI. The OS regularly claims to be done with something while it continues working furiously in the background, and it is full of undocumented exceptions to common settings.