I'm often faced with problems that would've been trivially easy to solve if I'd been dealing with them on 15-20 year old equipment and software. For example, the Google Assistant confirmation noise is ear-shatteringly loud and unpleasant. Facing a similar problem twenty years ago I could've just found the noise's audio file and deleted it, replaced it with something better, or even replaced it with a smaller-amplitude version of itself. In 2020 I can do absolutely nothing about this problem other than making my media volume so quiet I can't hear the things I actually want.
My phone is mounted in the center of my dashboard but faces me in the driver seat. The phone's compass senses this. Google Maps senses this as well, and on a good day shows my arrow sliding sideways down the highway. On a bad day it becomes convinced I am either driving down the highway in reverse or am actually in the opposite lane, and falls all over itself trying to recalculate my route. I often fantasize about the compass being a plug-in unit that I could rip out and smash into powder with a hammer.
This is why I use SailfishOS. Modern Android and iOS are so insanely complex, it seems impossible to do the simplest things with code. Yes you can root your phone, and you have access to (Android) source code including 3rd party FOSS apps and build tools. However, writing code, building, and iterating on the device is almost non-existent (I don't consider termux an ideal fit), not to mention the sandboxing/protections that are in place.
The hacker spirit still seems very much alive in the SailfishOS community. The community isn't big, but people come up with smart ideas that leverage existing solutions. SSH in, write Python code, write QML, zypp install build tools, pip install libraries (inside virtualenv), execute it, see changes on screen, hook into the existing system using xdg standards and dbus, manage services with systemd. It's fun to hack on.
If I had to characterise it, Android/iOS vs SailfishOS, is the equivalent to Java vs Python. The former is well-engineered, secure, perhaps overly architected, and widely used for "serious" and Enterprise solutions. It certainly has good reasons for how it does things. The latter is more organic; the same solutions can be achieved (with certain caveats) but with less hassle.
From a developer perspective, Android and iOS have sucked all the fun and creativity out of the devices.
* Sorry about piggybacking off top post, I just found that it strongly resonated what I've thought.
What device are you running SailfishOS on? I'm considering switching to a FOSS-based OS on an Android device at some point but I'm concerned about specs being poor and lack of availability of apps (living off FDroid's repos wouldn't be enough for me).
I use the Xperia X. Newer phones are supported (e.g. XA2), and I'm speculating here, but I imagine even newer phones are in the pipeline (e.g. Xperia 10 II).
I don't recommend SailfishOS to anyone who is looking for the fastest/most supported device out there. I recommend SailfishOS devices to those who primarily use their phone as a phone (and a desktop/laptop as their primary work station), and want an independent mobile device, or want the Linux ethos on their phone.
I can highly recommend OsmAnd+ for navigation, it's fully customizable to whatever you want it to do (I was rather suprised it had relevant hiking routes available on my last vacation). You can tell it to use the direction it gets from the compass to calculate your oriantation or, much more sensible for navigation by car, just figure that out from the recent gps fixes.
This is another in a long line of examples where I am coming around to the conclusion that "computer" is not what we should call these application delivery vehicles. In the post mathematician, electronic version, of the world "computer" was used to represent a tool on which the owner (or lease holder) would run "software" that could use some, or all, of the machine. And what was more, the machine ONLY ever executed software that the owner asked it to execute either directly or through the requesting of library services.
Systems that had computers in them, but ran applications written by the vendor so that the system could provide some function of value to the "owner" where always thought of as appliances. Perhaps the canonical example for our age is the Television, which has essentially one function "view video content" which is assisted by a control for selecting video content source. And yet, televisions today, have very powerful computer complexes within them that run vendor software.
The modes breaks down for me when you combine them, both because the software the vendor provides for their "computer" to provide application like services is written to defend itself from change/influence by the owner who has access to the computer.
From Apple's perspective, they are walking toward a world where one of the applications you can run on your device is "computer", which is nothing more than a virtual machine that you have virtually full control over (pun intended). IBM had a really great model of this called VM/370. Everything is a VM.
It is just a cash register or checkout line for the store owner.
I will say two things give me hope.
People on this site - technical people with the ability to make a difference - seem to be getting to the point where they care.
Also, while reading the .pdf of the lawsuit against google, one of the key points is that you can't fork android or uninstall google software. I wonder if that might apply to google, and possibly transfer to apple.
I would like to be able to install alternative "gatekeeper" software not created by apple.
> People on this site - technical people with the ability to make a difference - seem to be getting to the point where they care.
Apple's moves to interfere with what users can do on their own computers, plus the keyboard issues and that stupid touch bar, are why I went straight Linux for my latest dev machine, instead of buying another MacBook. There have been a handful of issues to iron out, but it is really nice having control over my own machine and not having to spend tons of time fighting with Apple.
I don't know how representative I am, but I'm hopeful more and more devs get motivated enough to stop putting up with these kinds of changes from Apple. Given the direction things have been heading with them, I'd guess that the dev experience on MacBooks is going to get increasingly worse.
Linux land has its own issues as people here are trying to copy things from apple but some of us are still here, fighting the good fight.
I just wish technical people can make the difference. It seems more like people with actual power don't make the difference because it clashes with their bottom line.
> People on this site - technical people with the ability to make a difference - seem to be getting to the point where they care.
Really? I feel like there's more support for locked-down hardware, proprietary software, devices where the owner doesn't get as much access or control as the manufacturer, etc., on HN now than there was in the past. I feel like a decade ago it was fairly common conventional wisdom among HN readers that you ought to have root on your devices, that jailbreaking or reverse engineering restricted devices is actively good, that the trends toward less owner control are alarming, etc.
> Really? I feel like there's more support for locked-down hardware, proprietary software, devices where the owner doesn't get as much access or control as the manufacturer, etc., on HN now than there was in the past.
One of my friend works for an advertising company who specialises in social media marketing. Their clients have a budget of 100,000 to 250,000 per month for only hiring people to post on social networks! The job includes identifying all negative posts about the company or its product or business model, and to politely rebut it and offer the company's point of view. Or to just plainly promote the product / services / company on the social media platform to create a buzz. Unethical social media marketers go beyond this - their job includes creating and supporting a negative campaign against their client's competitors.
As the former Google CEO said, social media works like an "amplifier for idiots". I'd rather not comment on whether we are all idiots here, but I am sure none of us can deny the "amplifying" effect of a message here on HN or other social media platforms.
My interpretation of the guidelines is that you shouldn't use accusations of astroturfing against a specific comment you disagree with, because you cannot know in any particular instance whether or not it is indeed astroturfing.
I don't think the guidelines are meant to ban all discussion of astroturfing in general as a marketing tool.
There are users who can see the security benefits of such a system. And if you use your computre like an appliance to exchange data and authorize purchases, it's not too bad of an idea to use an appliance.
But my opinion is the exact opposite, Apple is not getting a penny of mine until they give their users the freedom that they deserve. General purpose computing devices should allow people to compute generally, without the blessing of some corporate deity.
Honestly I get the opposite of hope from people on this site.
There is a large vocal population there that seems to _want_ Apple to continue to lock down and take control of their devices, all in the name of "security." Read any comment thread on the Apple vs Epic lawsuit, lots of people defending Apple's "right" to dictate what you can and can't do with your own device.
While there are others on here who don't think this way, I find is a disappointingly small minority on a site which calls itself "Hacker" News.
When my MBP 2015 croaks I don't think I will use any Apple machines regularly again. They've been my main laptops since the iBook G3/900 (prior to that I've used Apple as well, alongside other systems). So it's going to be a solid 2 decades or so.
For most of that time I had Linux/BSD/Win/Mac machines that I'd use for different things, the Mac being the "personal" computer first option. At some point Windows became unbearable and I simply stopped using down to the point I couldn't justify maintaining a machine for it neither in the physical nor logical sense (even maintaining familiarity with what's on them). This was roughly 2~3 years ago and being forced to switch to Win10 eased the decision to just EOL it.
Recently I'm doing most of my daily stuff on a Linux desktop machine (I've been a Linux user since the mid 90s) partly because of the lockdown. In the desktop, Linux has been the best experience for me for many years. Just not on the laptop for a variety of reasons. With Apple's increasing anti-user hostility I think it's time to deal with the mild problems and annoyances your typical Linux laptop is expected to cause.
Speaking for myself only, I have an iPhone with iOS and a MacBook Air with macOS and a desktop computer that runs FreeBSD. Haven’t used Windows for years. Was purely Linux and FreeBSD for several years too.
Back when I left Windows, Windows 7 had just come out, and I switched over to Linux and FreeBSD because I learned about those at the university and I came to appreciate open source software.
Then came smart phones and I heard that Android ran Linux. So I was like wow finally a computer in my pocket where I can do everything I can on my laptop!
But I soon learned that this was not the case.
Mobile platforms are fundamentally different, and the terminal is not relevant for most things I want to do with a phone.
I want to record videos, watch videos, talk to people, read stuff. And I still have an SSH client on my iPhone for when I need to remote into my server to do stuff on it while on the go.
And iPhone is giving me the best experience, with the addition of being really tight on the security. And for my phone this is what I want.
I am staying with Apple until they take it too far. Then I will leave them in a heartbeat. But for all the years I have been using iOS, everything Apple has been doing has been a betterment of the experience.
The only one thing really that bothered me was I had a magazine subscription and reading those magazines is in theory only possible on iOS. Even though actually it’s just an app for reading PDF files. And I didn’t have access to the PDF files directly. But that was a minor thing anyway, and recently I jailbroke an old iOS device that I have had laying in a drawer that was running an old iOS version and I was actually able to extract PDF files from the app.
But that subscription or two that I had, those were an exception anyway. Mostly when I read something on the phone I read on the web. And all of the eBooks that I have ever bought I have bought on the computer and not locked down in an app.
> I want to record videos, watch videos, talk to people, read stuff. And I still have an SSH client on my iPhone for when I need to remote into my server to do stuff on it while on the go.
I do all these things on an OS that is entirely a open source community effort using absolutely nothing proprietary. F-Droid and it's derivatives offer all these things easily. Maybe I'm missing the point here?
Can we see the source code for your iphone ssh client? How sure are you about its security?
> Mobile platforms are fundamentally different, and the terminal is not relevant for most things I want to do with a phone.
Computer freedom and programming is about far more than the terminal.
My biggest issue with the locked down nature of phones/tablets is that they hold the next generation of programmers, and instead groom users to be just dumb consumers.
For many people a phone or tablet is their first and often only computer. Especially in emerging markets. You can't create on these devices, they are designed only to consume.
No more curiosity driven discovery of programming. You're not allowed to extend your device, that is reserved for silicon valley elites who can afford an additional $1500 device. So stop asking and just consume what they produce for you.
> You can't create on these devices, they are designed only to consume.
Not sure I agree entirely. You still have apps for making music and video content, as well as drawing and painting etc. But I absolutely see your point. Hopefully with time they will make it possible to write and compile apps on iOS directly.
> Hopefully with time they will make it possible to write and compile apps on iOS directly.
I'm not holding my breath for this. There's no indication that they're planning on it and every step taken since the inception of the iPhone has been to lock the device down more in the name of "security."
You can make what the walled garden owner has graciously allowed you to create. Now try making a video game on an iphone. That's how we used to learn to program, on Commodore-64s and such.
> Then came smart phones and I heard that Android ran Linux. So I was like wow finally a computer in my pocket where I can do everything I can on my laptop!
There's an explosion of people trying to get their software on your phone and application tricks scraping away information and control from the end user. Someone has got to filter the deluge of garbage, and people cling to Apple to do it.
Phones aren't simple enough that the end user can manage everything it does and the software world isn't well behaved enough that we can exist without gatekeepers.
As relevant as the gatekeeper argument is, there is also a big drawback: you need to trust the gatekeeper's competence and motivations. Not only do you need to trust them in the here and now, but you have to trust it into the future. Keep in mind that a change in management or a change in the viability of a company can lead to radical changes in their direction.
Contrast the locked down model to the open source approach. Yes, there are nefarious operators in the world of open source. On the other hand the privacy concerns are much lessened. Now there are many reasons for that, but two of those reasons are the visibility of how the software works and the ability to modify it when necessary.
Wake me up when Apple filters away Facebook and a host of Google Apps from its store, since their apps trick users into divulging information involuntarily.
While potentially true, I don't see how posting on HN is protecting much. What's more likely are ofc people who work in relevant spaces who are paid to maintain the walled gardens who therefore are incentivized to not accept criticism of said systems.
That is because a lot of people here see the masses of 'normal' or non-technically-inclined people that need to be protected against themselves because their usage of devices they do not understand has a real-world impact on everyone else when things go wrong.
There is no true ideal version of this, there is no perfect world and there is no situation in which you can have full control but also have full protection without also knowing everything about the system you have.
Phones and Computers are 'appliances' that do not need to be changed by the user (and we are talking about the mass-market user here), if anything it needs to prevent being changed by the user due to the larger ecosystem a device is part of.
You can make the choice to not be part of the ecosystem, but most people would very much like to be part of a system, together, and one way of doing that is to have a level of sameness and consistency that so far is not viable without some sort of 'appliance-like' properties of the devices in question.
You can still buy a different device, not take part in an existing system, and do whatever you want. But you will have a hard time getting the benefits of interconnection, scale, and support. Those three elements are pretty much why some brands or devices are sold in masses and some aren't.
To this end I simply have multiples of most things. Some just need to do what it does for everyone else (interconnect, function the same way every day, have some company bear responsibility for practically everything), others are for me (open source hardware, open source software, no protections, but also no end-user support or responsibility).
> You can still buy a different device, not take part in an existing system, and do whatever you want
This may not always be true, in a practical sense, for those with intense cultural pressure to fit in. And fitting in means having a green bubble, i.e. Apple phone.
Well, that's what 'not take part in an existing system' stands for. If you want to be outside a social system, that can be your choice. If not, then you'll have to deal with all of the constraints. That could be ICQ vs. MSN vs. AIM vs. YIM or BBM vs SMS or now iMessage vs. WhatEver.
The mass consumer market won't all join IRC to chat, they could have (and still can) for decades and it just isn't happening. And that's fine, but that also means that other systems (like iMessage but also Facebook) gain users with all the lock-in that comes with that.
Apart from the "green bubble" cultural pressure, the fact is that I cannot get a fully unlocked device at all if I want anything relatively modern. Tell me what is the "free" alternative for a top notch galaxy Note20 ultra or iphone 12 pro max.
You can't get it because nobody can afford to make one. It's technically feasible but from a business perspective it's not something achievable; the closest would be something like the Pinephone, but that is suboptimal to say the least.
But no - I mean because they use multiple apps. E.g. WhatsApp, or Facebook messenger, or Signal etc. Even the people I know who have iPhones tend to use these things. If I want to know what kind of phone someone uses, I generally have to ask.
The thesis seems to be that people are so unable to think for themselves that they are compelled to choose their device by means of colored bubbles.
If this is really true, then surely it’s the best argument one can possibly make for why the ecosystem needs to be locked down.
> You can still buy a different device, not take part in an existing system, and do whatever you want.
The point is you can't. Intense social pressure to interact with people who _do_ take part in the existing system means you have to partake in the existing system to interact.
My friends use Messenger so I need a facebook account, or my family uses WhatsApp so I need a non-rooted android phone.
No mainstream messaging apps support federation and many are hostile towards reverse engineering. WhatsApp for example will permaban accounts who do not use official clients in the name of "security."
You don't notice because you have already excluded anyone who chooses not to use a mainstream Android or iOS device. Or anyone you know who _would_ like to make that choice doesn't, cause they don't want to be that one friend who can't be reached as easily as the rest of the group.
Ok - so this is much more interesting than the more trivial green bubbles comment I originally replied to, which decidedly was not making this point.
It’s true that if you need to interact with people on most of these systems, you need an account. I have a Facebook account I use only for messenger, and I would prefer not to.
However, your argument has a few flaws.
1. I obviously haven’t excluded the people would would like to choose a non-mainstream device but who hasn’t.
2. You seem to assume that I won’t install apps so that I can communicate with people who don’t use the networks I’m already part of. That’s not a reasonable assumption. I have quite a few messaging apps installed, some of which I use with just one person.
The question this raises for me is - are there any federated messaging networks that do not have any clients available for mainstream platforms, but are in significant use?
> People on this site - technical people with the ability to make a difference - seem to be getting to the point where they care.
I agree, hopefully we can inform and influence our less aware friends and peers elsewhere.
One of my biggest concerns is that this unreasonable control of our hardware by the manufacturer is extending to vehicles - electric cars and motorcycles- even bicycles seem to want to track our movements and phone home.
If it becomes true of Apple, it will necessarily become true in many other domains. Xbox, Switch, PS, etc. What about car computers? Not just the infotainment system, but the actual engine computer modules?
For what it's worth, the US Air Force has been burned in the past by having game consoles locked down.
They bought a bunch of PS3s to make a cluster back when the machines could run Linux, but Sony removed the ability to run a custom OS when people started to actually use it.
I think the military got a special contract for continued support, but why shouldn't that be a feature that is expected of any complex computing device?
People do also modify their car and motorcycle ECUs, it's called "chipping". Again, this is expected of a product that you purchased and own, and it's still illegal to operate vehicles that don't pass local environmental and safety inspections.
> Also, while reading the .pdf of the lawsuit against google, one of the key points is that you can't fork android or uninstall google software.
Except you can and you don't need Google's permission to do it either. Many devices come with unlockable bootloaders, and all custom ROMs come without anything Google so you actually have to install Google apps manually should you want them.
I do not mean "can you do it", I mean can a commerical entity do it or allow you to do it.
The .pdf says specifically:
"Google’s anti-forking agreements, however, have inhibited operating system innovation through forking, ensuring that manufacturers and distributors are beholden to Google’s version of Android. Distributors know that any violation of an anti-forking agreement could mean excommunication from Google’s Android ecosystem, loss of access to Google’s must-have GPS and Google Play, and millions or even billions of dollars in lost revenue sharing. Thus, distributors avoid anything that Google might deem "fragmentation” — a term that Google “purposely leave[s]... very vague” and interprets broadly."
Their anti-forking provisions put them, in some ways, close to what MS got in trouble for in their anti-trust case (removing or threatening to remove OEM pricing from OEMs who sold non-Windows OSes).
> This is another in a long line of examples where I am coming around to the conclusion that "computer" is not what we should call these application delivery vehicles.
Funny tidbit, there was a stereotypical cosmopolitan ipad ad of a young kid riding their bike through Brooklyn who uses the ipad throughout the day. At the end of the ad, a neighbor says something like "whatcha doing on your computer" to which the kid replies "what's a computer?"
It's funny because Apple's vision of the "computer" isn't really a tool for the kid but a means to control them and use them for value extraction, as we know.
> It's funny because Apple's vision of the "computer" isn't really a tool for the kid but a means to control them and use them for value extraction, as we know.
Really? My kid uses their iPad for content creation and whatnot and as far as I can tell they aren't controlled in particular. The only value that is extracted is that from my wallet for additional apps.
I wish the article had actually elaborated on the question posed in the title, rather than assuming the implications are obvious. I think it’s a vital question, but I have a hard time figuring out why I’m so uncomfortable with Apple’s decision here.
I think the thing that this article could and should have made clear now that I think about it is that you are being forced to choose between a computer secured against Apple or one where you are secured against others. You are not allowed to secure it against others and Apple.
I think the crux of the issue is OS vendors are withholding agency that users and developers are used to having over computers, and getting away with it by a combination of being duopolies and PR spinning restrictions as good for the user, even when that's clearly not the primary justification. Everyone is debating whether any given restriction is good or bad, warranted or not. The bigger issue is that vendors get to set whatever rules they want, because if users or developers don't like it, where are they gonna go?
Sometimes they withhold agency for good purpose though.
Actually, a good anecdote from today. We have an internal app within our company that a user had gone in and messed with a file it relies on. Consequently, the app stopped working correctly and multiple other people started complaining that the app wasn't working.
To prevent the issue from happening again - we've "Secured" the file away so users can't mess with it like they did ever again...
As so - vendors sometimes withhold agency to control how the product works - so it works as designed for their customers.
You own the hardware, but not the software. Re-read your EULAs.
The hardware is fine, you can (still) go and install Linux or maybe the open-source Darwin on it. Then you'll have the complete control, and also the complete responsibility.
The idea of iOS, and increasingly macOS, is that it's like a hosted service controlled by Apple, but on your local device. This allows for various valuable security and usability guarantees, and for an ecosystem for which commercial vendors are willing to develop software. It works exactly because much of the agency is removed from the user, and given to Apple, which has both different expertise and incentives.
I like my distro's package manager more than App Store, it gives me more freedom and a different set of choices. Most people, who are not versed well in computer internals, won't be happy to trade App Store to a package manager, and limit themselves with free software.
Freedom has a cost, and for many people the cost of a particular piece of freedom is too high.
This is free market for you. They offer something, you accept the offer if you want. Re-read the EULAs, for you have agreed with their provisions.
Would you prefer the government to set rules about what kind of access you have to have to your computer (and maybe force the evil corps give you more freedom)? That won't even be funny. Corporations at the very least are interested in keeping you as a customer. Any government, given a chance, would mandate spyware and backdoors, for your safety, but mostly for their safety. Examples abound; look at China, Turkey, Kazakhstan, etc.
Please realize that the lack of agency is the principal component of the price you pay for the polish and cleanliness in the walled garden. There is no known other way to run it.
2 vendors, Microsoft and Apple, have almost 100% of desktop OS market share, so no, that's not a particularly free market.
> Please realize that the lack of agency is the principal component of the price you pay for the polish and cleanliness in the walled garden. There is no known other way to run it.
This is completely false, because Apple has radically changed how they've operated the Mac in the past 20 years. That's my complaint. Apple keeps getting worse and worse, year after year. I was quite satisfied with the Mac years ago.
In the past, the Mac was more open. Believe it or not, there was a time when code signing didn't exist, and you could modify your system however you pleased.
Along these lines, I really loved Apple hardware at the times of Apple II, and Apple software at the times of HyperCard.
By that time, and through 1990s, Apple was very niche, much like desktop Linux today. It did not have viruses because nobody cared to seriously write them. Apple were catering for some specific professional circles, power users who were ready to pay quite a premium for the machine.
Since the iPhone revolution, Apple is about the mass consumer, with much more non-geek mindset, buying at much more affordable prices. They lock down their ecosystem both for users' security (because non-IT people have hard time understanding computer security), and to extract more money via App Store-only software installation in the future.
Againx the problem with freedom is its cost, and you have fewer chances finding pockets of it where the majority is. Fringe groups have more chances to value and protect it, like OSS movement, or early Apple / Amiga / all the way to Altair customer base.
> In the past, the Mac was more open. Believe it or not, there was a time when code signing didn't exist, and you could modify your system however you pleased.
This seems inevitable as computers become more accessible to less technical userbases. Foot-guns are fine(ish) when your user group is composed of specialists, but companies have incentive to minimize support requests.
> This seems inevitable as computers become more accessible to less technical userbases.
The only change is cost. Computers are more accessible because they're cheaper. My dad managed to figure out VisiCalc for himself back in the day, and he wasn't "technical", he was just in sales.
IMO there's an unfortunate tendency nowadays to infantilize users.
How can we say simultaneously that "computers are the future" and also accept a situation where the majority of people are just assumed to be technically incompetent and incapable of learning?
> companies have incentive to minimize support requests.
In my experience, for example supporting my mom, there's no difference in the volume of support requests. The only difference is that you can actually fix problems that occur on the Mac, whereas if someone experiences a problem on iOS, they're basically doomed.
> How can we say simultaneously that "computers are the future" and also accept a situation where the majority of people are just assumed to be technically incompetent and incapable of learning?
This succinctly captures the issue, though. Users don't want to read the manual, they want to use the appliance. They don't want to learn the idiosyncrasies of the device, they want to accomplish the task they had in mind.
As someone who always reads the manual, I agree with you on principle but the reality is, fewer people care how things work and just want to get stuff done.
I'm not sure how this is relevant? Almost every product of every kind comes with a manual or instructions, which buyers are free to read or ignore, possibly with dangerous consequences for the latter. You can stick a metal pot in a microwave. You can pop open a pill bottle and swallow. That's just a fact of life in a free society.
Going back to your minimization of support requests comment, if your mom is unable to delete a file (like when SIP is enabled) she won't make a superfluous support request as she was prevented from making the error. As computers continue to be used as appliances, we should expect similar controls over the device to be deployed to minimize the harm a user can cause. This in turn leads to loss of agency by the specialist.
Most people can understand the failure modes associated with microwaving metal and such (or if not, it can be a relatively cheap or expensive lesson). But that underscores the commoditization I was pointing at. The dangers of general computing devices can't be captured in simple aphorisms like "don't leave it on with a vessel that lacks contents" for a stove or "don't put metal inside" for a microwave. The warnings that accompany a computer would comprise encyclopedic volumes to encapsulate all the things that could go wrong, like "don't install software from someone you don't know on a computer through which you access your banking." There are so many instance like that it's unbelievable. Few other devices are so interconnected to so many aspects of our lives. The general nature simply lacks the guardrails and controls of a special-purpose appliance.
Put another way, can you imagine the reduction in request volume from your mother if she had a special device for reading the news, and another for banking, and another for shopping? This is the rationale. I don't agree with it but convenience seems to trump everything else.
Where you can choose between Windows's EULA and MacOS's EULA and declining is not an option.
Hardly a free market and "consent" is hardly valid if "no" is not an option.
Is there a huge barrier to entry? Some very expensive regulation to comply, like in pharma? Some colossal infrastructure cost, like with telecom?
I would say that the duopoly is due to the exclusive agreements with OEMs first and foremost (Windows, Android) and lock-up by the manufacturer (iOS). If I were to consider an anti-trust action, I'd concentrate on these.
Apple doesn't sell the product: "computer devices at which you can do whatever you want with". They sell "computer device which does lots of things easily. To ensure these things work properly, the nitty bits are secured away from you"
No, my problem is that Apple keeps changing the terms. The Mac that I purchased is no longer the Mac that I have.
Apple now only provides 3 years of security updates for the OS that came with your Mac. You can't even buy an extended service contract! So then you're forced to "upgrade" the OS or else live with a bunch of known vulnerabilities. But every new version of the OS locks down the Mac even more. That's not what I paid for.
Moreover, it was Apple's decision to start shipping major new OS versions on a yearly schedule. That's not how it was in the past. Mac OS X Jaguar lasted 14 months, Panther 18, Tiger 30, Leopard 22, Snow Leopard 23 months. But then Steve Jobs stepped down for health reasons, passed away, and Tim Cook "altered the deal".
If you don't like their terms or products - then don't agree to their terms and don't buy their products. If you want things your way - don't outsource - make it yourself.
Apple made their product. As so, why shouldn't they have the right to make their own terms?
> Apple made their product. As so, why shouldn't they have the right to make their own terms?
The issue is not legal rights. I have the legal right to be a complete jerk to other people. As a businessperson, I have the legal right to be a complete jerk to my customers. Normally, in a competitive market, I wouldn't be able to get away with that. But if the market is not very competitive, I can.
Apple has choices, legally. My problem is that they keep making the wrong choices.
Apple didn't always make the right choices under Steve Jobs, but they generally made much better choices than under Tim Cook, at least as far as the Mac is concerned.
>As a businessperson, I have the legal right to be a complete jerk to my customers
You're still not getting the point - which is you're not the customer Apple is trying to sell to - just as Mercedes isn't trying to cater to people who want ice cream.
>Apple has choices, legally. My problem is that they keep making the wrong choices.
This is your opinion. The world does not revolve around you. Do you honestly expect in a relationship that your spouse always revolves around your terms - and only your terms - and will not have terms of their own? Is it not fair Apple has their own terms? They don't want to be abused by their customers anymore than you do from them.
Apple has always made it obvious who they're customer is. That is someone that doesn't know anything about computers and wants email and stuff to work without problems as time goes on - so Apple to makes sure they hold the rights to update and secure things to ensure that product works for these customers.
Again, you are not the customer apple is trying to cater to. Steve Jobs himself never wanted to sell "computers which only nerds could use". He wanted to sell "an appliance which anyone's grandmother could use". Super customizability that you want was never their product! Don't buy it and then complain they're being a jerk when they stated what their terms were...
> You're still not getting the point - which is you're not the customer Apple is trying to sell to
Funny how they keep sending me marketing emails though.
This is kind of a weird notion, that Apple doesn't want me as a customer, as I've spent more $ on Apple products in my life than the majority of people.
> This is your opinion.
Does this really need to be said? Of course it is! Why would I state someone else's opinion?
> Steve Jobs himself never wanted to sell "computers which only nerds could use".
This is a straw man argument. I already mentioned that I preferred Apple under Steve Jobs to Apple under Tim Cook. They're not the same. Jobs said, "the computer is the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with. It’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds." For Tim Cook, though, computers seem more like a bike lock for the mind.
> Super customizability that you want was never their product!
Again, I'm comparing Macs today to Macs literally only 10 years ago. Those products existed. It's historical revisionism to claim that current Apple is exactly the same as past Apple. It's not. Not at all.
The strangest thing about the argument "this is the way Apple has always been" is that the linked article of this HN post is talking about a new change that hasn't even shipped yet but exists in the Big Sur beta. It's a completely novel macOS behavior, not the way the Mac has ever behaved, so it's just bizarre to argue in this case "that's just the way Apple has always been". Apple is changing... for the worse IMO.
>Funny how they keep sending me marketing emails though.
>This is kind of a weird notion, that Apple doesn't want me as a customer, as I've spent more $ on Apple products in my life than the majority of people.
Maybe that's because Apple is a company and you're 1 in a million? You bought their product so presumably maybe you're interested in what their products are? That you're one of their customers their trying to cater to (when you're actually not)?
>Does this really need to be said? Of course it is! Why would I state someone else's opinion?
Great we established it's an opinion, and not a fact!
>This is a straw man argument. I already mentioned that I preferred Apple under Steve Jobs to Apple under Tim Cook. They're not the same. Jobs said, "the computer is the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with. It’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds." For Tim Cook, though, computers seem more like a bike lock for the mind.
It's not a straw-man unless you want to have a separate argument over what Steve said / didn't say.
>Again, I'm comparing Macs today to Macs literally only 10 years ago. Those products existed. It's historical revisionism to claim that current Apple is exactly the same as past Apple. It's not. Not at all.
So what if they're different today? They've outlined what their products & terms are today just as they had in the past. How are they being a jerk when you can freely agree to or walk away from them?
> Apple has always made it obvious who they're customer is. That is someone that doesn't know anything about computers
What!?!?
No. Definitely not correct. They might be doing that now, but if so that change is precisely the complaint at some level. I used to buy Apple computers precisely because I did understand computers, but now I buy them in spite of that.
>I used to buy Apple computers precisely because I did understand computers
Maybe because computers were always complicated and messy to use - so someone who understands computers would appreciate a 'friendly to use' computer? My Dad is the same.
Steve Jobs anyhow, always wanted to make the computer as user friendly as possible, so that anyone should be able to use them - not just some super skilled tech person (which is what I meant in my above post). Hell, Steve even hated the concept of a multi-button mouse... deeming it as something unnecessary if the UI was simple enough.
I think an employer wanting to make decisions about how employees can interact with internal software isn't a good stand-in for OS vendors dictating terms to third parties.
But even given that example, we can learn from how Windows protects it's critical system files. They're hidden unless the user goes out of their way looking for them. But if you think you know what you're doing, MS lets you take control, for good or ill.
Even assuming OS vendors are truly benelolent, I'm not sure that makes it okay for them to make themselves the sole arbiters of how we use our computers.
Ummm... free software? This is pretty much the crux of the ethical argument for free software. That you should have the freedom to control your own system. You're lamenting this issue while ignoring your biggest ally. Why?
> but I have a hard time figuring out why I’m so uncomfortable with Apple’s decision here.
You are facing what marketers fear the most - a "cognitive dissonance". Basically, when words don't match deeds, you start questioning and start thinking instead of blindly believing someone. When customers start to do that, it creates a lot of headaches for brand managers and marketers because it implies that you are starting to lose trust in them, and that obviously doesn't bode well for a company's profit margins.
With respect to Apple here, I have been quite vocal on HN for a long time that Apple has been repeatedly LYING to us that they care about our privacy. They absolutely do not. They are using the exact same tactic that Google used in the beginning - pretend to be trustworthy and than slowly change the terms and policy to mine our data for profit. In fact, Apple has been increasingly becoming more and more intrusive in mining our personal data. And their marketing narration has been to try to paint this as a good thing - that they are protecting our privacy by being the sole custodian of it, but you have to "trust" them to do the right thing.
> I wish the article had actually elaborated on the question posed in the title
The answer is, as it has been for the last decade or so, "not yours even though you paid for it."
> assuming the implications are obvious
They are to me. Computers are great because we can control everything about them. Now we're not allowed to do so anymore, because the manufacturers said so. And, since a computer today is likely connected to the internet, control is more important than ever. Because if you're not in control, then who is?
> I have a hard time figuring out why I’m so uncomfortable with Apple’s decision here.
Maybe because they, like most other tech companies, go on and on about security and privacy while time and time again showing they do not actually give one single fuck whatsoever about it?
> choose between a computer secured against Apple or one where you are secured against others
Not quite sure I follow you. I'm pretty sure any Linux or *BSD box can be as firewalled as you like to as many parties as you like.
A while ago I half-wrote an article on the warring factions for control. I have since posting this edited "the device owner" in at the top, because people have been misinterpreting the intent.
0 The device owner
0.5 The device user (not necesarily the purchaser)
1 Phishers, fraudsters, harassers
2 Governments, policemen, censors & spies
3 The media industry
4 The advertising and marketing industry
5 Platform holder (controller of the company store monopoly)
6 Manufacturer (may be the same as the platform holder or may be rivals)
7 Network operators (telcos or cable companies)
Each has their own agenda and reasons for taking away control from the legitimate user. So far they seem to be stalemated.
The media industry, the advertising industry, the platform holder and the manufacturer are sometimes one and the same. And of course they're not separating those roles. Like Google protecting you from other companies' ads but not their own, or Microsoft pushing ads on an OS that you paid money for.
Lately I've really wanting to get into the phone/laptop manufacturing and OS development industries to design better ones that are designed to serve the user. Basically do what Apple does, but more honestly and more open source. No walled garden unless the user wants it (because some do).
Of course I have no way to actually start doing that, and I certainly lack the expertise. It's not an easy market to enter.
It's telling that you apparently didn't consider legitimate users a peer of the other factions fighting for control. Unfortunately, that just means the user is being abused by all of the others to varying degrees rather than one dominant abuser.
I wrote "for taking away control from the legitimate user" at the end and you didn't read that far. I have since posting this edited "the device owner" in at the top, because people have been misinterpreting the intent.
I wrote "for taking away control from the legitimate user" at the end. I can't believe people are taking the worst possible interpretation of this, but I suppose that's HN. I have since posting this edited "the device owner" in at the top.
I use L Snitch from version one. After Catalina I plan to run offline mac for design, photography and video work connected to intranet/NAS. Everything that connects to outside network traffic will be properly run on linux boxes. This is the future. You will not own your data until you create a procedure to guard it as permitted by law. Apple is gone, you have now a different company working for shareholders only. Another step that I personally advocate to my friends is to use only software designed to run on multiple os hosts. I cannot risk some corporate decision motivated by pure greed to kill my workflow. Apple has a plan to close Mac Os completely, its their business to make more money by controlling the experience full circle. Thats why I overcome the lust factor and will not buy any Apple product anymore. If I need a camera - I will buy a camera, if I need a phone I will buy something that can be rooted and I have control over it. I expect in near future more commercial software to be made for linux and will pay good money for it without a moment of hesitation
> After Catalina I plan to run offline mac for design, photography and video work connected to intranet/NAS.
Good luck. Keep in mind you won't be able to use any software that requires online activation (Adobe products, Sketch), and certainly none of the apps that won't launch without internet (Figma).
In my office I have chosen to invest in “no cloud” design software dependency. We don’t believe in collaborative UX/UI design workflow outside the office. We use our own code based workflow for prototyping. I am in design field 18 years, there is a way to deliver quality in pure form without using trending tools, cloud based plugins and direct collaboration. Convenience is not always the king. But this is strictly my decision and I don’t imply thats is for everyone.
For UI/Graphic design/Print : Affinity Designer / Photo / Publisher. For UX our in-house software. For Video/Animation : Davinci Resolve/Fusion. 3d/Animation - Blender. Raw Therapee for photo processing.There are small apps that help in between but none of them are cloud based. More emotionally explained: I started to hate Adobe with my heart after they killed Fireworks. When Affinity launched their products I was skeptical at first but now are very, very good.
"Is there any proprietary OS that is NOT pulling these shenanigans in the lastest versions?"
That's impossible to answer accurately, as by definition being proprietary means even if they say they don't, we can't verify it by seeing the code for ourselves.
"Suppose I want to buy a OS or a computer+OS (like Mac), so not talking about Linux and FreeBSD and whatnot.
Is there any OS that won't attempt to screw me by taking away control under the guise of security?"
The short answer is "no", you cannot. However, you can indeed buy devices with no OS and load Linux (even Linux Certified devices from major OEMs), and even better you can buy a device from a Linux-first/Linux-only vendor like System 76, Think Penguin, Star Labs, etc.
If Linux isn't your cup, OpenBSD is a strong contender for truly owning your equipment at the software level, as it is open source and well documented, with security as a major goal. Thinkpads and enterprise-class workstations fare best, but it also works great on older Macs.
I think that is, at least for general purpose consumer level hardware, exhaustive.
The article excludes macOS and by extension iOS. It also excludes Android, since it points out these are the same shenanigans pulled by Google.
The only possibility, then, is Windows. Microsoft have root access to your system and can do an update whenever they want. There has been a back and forth about how much the end user can push back, but obviously Microsoft wins that battle. This is definitely a security benefit - but it also means you cannot check out the behavior of the system and have confidence about the behavior of the system tomorrow.
So the answer is no. Anyway this is no surprise. Business have worked out they can rent you the things they used to sell you. Why wouldn't they?
AmigaOS is still being actively developed, and there's even a new computer -- called the Vampire V4 -- that will run 68k AmigaOS and software, much faster with the ability for modern addons like USB. AmigaOS 4.x is for PowerPC machines which can get pricey.
But if you're looking to buy a modern PC with an "it just works" OS that asks no effort of you -- nope. See, the thing about putting in no effort is, somebody has to put it in. So effort that you don't take responsibility for yourself, you delegate to the vendor -- and you give them license for the same shenanigans Apple and Microsoft are getting up to. Restricting what apps you may run, tracking you through telemetry, and forcing updates on you is perfectly good business sense if you want to cater to the clueless but cannot handle the volume of support calls from them or the risks they present.
In reality you're probably best served with some common Linux distro. There is probably more software and hardware support for Linux than there is for AmigaOS or RISC OS, which are today primarily of specialty or historical interest and only kept alive because, for example, Amiga people are too stubborn to admit that the Amiga boarded the White Ship bound for the Undying Lands a quarter century ago.
I don't know about the latest versions, but I don't recall any shenanigans from ChromeOS in developer mode, as of about 3 years ago. I'm sure if my impressions from 1000+ days ago aren't still valid, someone will be along to correct me being Wrong On The Internet(tm). :-)
ChromeOS Developer Mode is an option for all customers.
It's not described in Google's marketing materials, and it compromises the trusted boot model of course -- but it's just a magic (but well-documented) keypress and a confirmation screen away, for all privately-owned devices.
However, recent Chromebook models make Developer Mode less useful for most customers. Google is no longer shipping alternative boot ROM payloads, and there are firmware bugs which do not affect ChromeOS, but do affect other Linux distros.
Well it depends what you mean/want by "proprietary". There are commercial versions of Linux you can buy with money that come with some amount of support. This seems like the best of both worlds to me - open source, but with official support behind it.
HaikuOS, ReactOS, AROS, MorphOS don't have phone home features in their OS and are as easy to use as a Mac. They also run faster because they have a smaller RAM footprint.
I run Windows 95 in VirtualBox on my current modern system with Windows 10. Windows 95 runs super fast with Office 95, Visual BASIC 6.0, Delphi 2.0, etc. Sure they are old but they don't have the crap in them or the bloat.
In some important ways, the computer you sit down in front of is at the mercy of the network that you attach it to. There are many things you can control about the computer if you control the machines it can talk to.
A linux box running several pieces of software that the community works on to thwart this kind of misbehavior is something you can control, even if you can't control your Chromebook.
Rather than “network you attach it to,” would it be more precise to say “repository it can automatically install software from”? What I think of as “the network” has very little control over my devices, and some of them even work without network access.
A lot of software is set up to be run in a corporate environment, because that's where the money is.
There are a bunch of spam blockers that utilize these features in order to keep, for instance, a browser, from misbehaving too badly.
So from that standpoint, you need a piece of hardware you can trust implicitly, and tell your other applications and hardware that they're only allowed to talk to the Internet by talking to this machine.
>Is there any proprietary OS that is NOT pulling these shenanigans in the lastest versions?
>Is there any OS that won't attempt to screw me
Technically, all products are made to work a certain way. Take a car engine for example. Imagine if someone wanted to rip out their car radiator and attach something else in place and then complained to the dealer when the engine failed. This is why dealers sometimes void warranties if you didn't let them handle any repairs. This is also why OS makers secure some things away from you - to ensure their product works as they had intended. They don't want to be held responsible for any mess-ups their customers could make.
As so, no one is trying to screw you. If you want control over an OS, then maybe don't buy a product from a vendor and instead make your own...
And which of those laws was written to allow hardware manufacturers to artificially limit what you could do with a product you had bought just because it happens to also have a software component?
The corruption of copyright to serve entirely different purposes from its original intent, with the goal of artificially giving a manufacturer ongoing control of hardware products after purchase, is a buyer-hostile abuse of the legal framework that should have been comprehensively blocked long ago, whether it's related to your personal computer, your vehicle, your TV...
Echoing @Silhouette’s comment: having IP laws has not meant (to my knowledge) that companies could dictate what a customer did with tangible goods that they purchased legally. Not until the past couple decades.
Could you try and explain what you believe are the reasons are for the state of GUI frameworks on Linux? Additionally, I'd be interested in reading what it is you believe should be done to rectify what, in your opinion, is suboptimal.
The real problem here is Big Sur's root snapshot system. Everything else, as far as I'm concerned, is fundamentally trivial to deal with. I've kept SIP turned off since it was introduced, and in the brief time I was using Catalina, I had a launchd job that ran at load to set the rootfs to read write. The computer was mine, and I edited plenty of system files like this.
But Big Sur makes it all much harder, because changes to the root filesystem don't take effect until you reboot. That is really, persistently annoying!
During early betas, some Macrumors users reported that if you powered off a computer at the right point during the install process, you'd end up with a version of Big Sur that didn't use a root snapshot. If there was a more consistent way to enable that, it would help a lot.
They are now using this stuff to force you to waste 2Gib on about 6 desktop wallpapers. The only user-doable solution that won't get undone at the next update seems to be to buy a new SSD with more storage to make up for it, for 2-3X the retail price of non-proprietary SSDs.
For some reason they thought the stock wallpapers needed to change with the time of day and the way they implemented it takes hundreds of megs each. Then it is locked down by this system protect stuff so you can't get rid of them.
Why have no die-hard, many-times-burned Mac fans not yet picked up GNUStep and launchd and polished them into an acceptable replacement for the 2010-era Mac desktop? Most Mac developers don't seem to be that kind of developer. (So much for "Think different"?) It seems clear that the beatings are just going to continue.
I am not an apple fanboy, but I was under the impression that the major selling point of Apple is that you don't _need_ to be that kind of developer. A lot of things that are very fiddly on Linux just work on macos.
Those are opposite user experiences: the sealed, polished decisions made for you vs. gluing together obsolete technologies. And I say that as somebody who used to be a big WindowMaker fan.
Personal investment into the platform has yielded professional returns. If that return dries up or frustrations continue to mount, you will see migration.
If I were trying to do something that I really needed to be secure-- really secure-- from companies and state actors, my instinct would be to start from Raspberry PI because I can control the software it boots from. Is that a bad idea?
I think the Raspberry PI is awesome, but it is a big pile of closed source processing units that no-one completely understands. For example it boots from the GPU, not the CPU. Wow...
I understand why they stopped working on the Pi, but I don't necessarily agree with the reasons.
I've got several arm64 boards, and only one of them comes close to a "libre" boot. The Marvell Espressobin runs a fork of the Arm Trusted Firmware that diverged so far from mainline that after Marvell stopped working on it in 2018, it hasn't been touched, CVEs and all. The Pi actually has a chance of having a reimplemented bootloader and being used by a lot of people.
After the last Mac I bought (not to mention the first one) quickly developed a bad hard drive (ignored partitions) and then the display failed about 14 months into warranty (like hundreds of other owners reported on Apple's site forum - before they erased those complaints....)
"I did some tests and I’ve found ..." that I could indeed live without a Mac. For a decade I did like Logic and Garageband, but not THAT much.
My phone is mounted in the center of my dashboard but faces me in the driver seat. The phone's compass senses this. Google Maps senses this as well, and on a good day shows my arrow sliding sideways down the highway. On a bad day it becomes convinced I am either driving down the highway in reverse or am actually in the opposite lane, and falls all over itself trying to recalculate my route. I often fantasize about the compass being a plug-in unit that I could rip out and smash into powder with a hammer.