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It cracks me up how much the hn userbase has changed. Apple has traditionally been very user hostile, but they make some grandstand PR move and so many people f

It cracks me up how much the hn userbase has changed. Apple has traditionally been very user hostile, but they make some grandstand PR move and so many people fall for it like Apple cares about user privacy/freedom, etc. As Richard Stallman said, Apple puts the user in a prison. Just because the warden is getting better at playing nice some of the time and making the prison more beautiful doesn't change the fact it is a prison. In a free system, the users could have done this themselves years ago instead of waiting for Apple.

bbatha 9y ago
Unless you're installing AOSP android on your phone, you're in the same boat with Google. You're increasingly limited to what Google will allow on the play store. You may have some more flexibility, but to continue your analogy: android is a like a low-security prison run by gangs you may have more freedom but at the end of the day you're still on the inside and now you run the risk of getting shanked.
- mikegerwitz 9y ago
  !Apple !== AOSP/Google With that said, the FSF endorses Replicant (which actually just had a new release and added more device support[0]). I use Replicant. Given the free software philosophy, a free program is always superior to a non-free program, no matter how bad that free program is. But Replicant isn't bad; the most recent version is a fork of "the latest changes from LineageOS 13.0 ".[0] What this emphasizes is the need for a fully free/libre mobile device, which has been the topic of other HN discussions. [0]: https://blog.replicant.us/2017/09/a-new-replicant-6-0-release/ https://blog.replicant.us/2017/09/a-new-replicant-6-0-releas...
  - mac01021 9y ago
    > Given the free software philosophy, a free program is always superior to a non-free program, no matter how bad that free program is. I never understood this opinion. If I need to navigate to drive to my grandmother's house, and none of the free nav software knows how to get there, but I have access to some proprietary software that will do the job, then why not use it? I can stop using it at any time I want, no strings attached. I can also reason about its ability to perform actions that serve its creator's interests rather than mine (capture my data and send it to the mothership, mine bitcoins on their behalf, ...) and I can make rational decisions about whether the ability to find my way to grandma's house is worth the risk. Often, the math works out that I am better off occasionally using the proprietary software.
    - mrguyorama 9y ago
      Your average user will be unable to make those "rational decisions" as they are often not made aware of the downsides. This is intentional
- tonyztan 9y ago
  (Almost) All Android phones allow you to sideload apps without having to root, AFAIK. So you aren't really limited by the Play Store.
  - skiman10 9y ago
    I'm curious, are there actually any Android phones at all that don't let you sideload?
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    I have little idea about how the android market is. But when I had a rooted phone, the rooted market of apps/tweaks wasn't too impressive. I personally felt like iOS's jailbreak market was doing better even though it had dramatically shruken too. This is about 2 years ago. So if the rooted tweaks and apps market isn't that strong for Android, how big would the side loading market be? I'm obviously thinking there's not much there. At least not for people where Google services and apps are included normally with Android like the US.
- SCdF 9y ago
  > Unless you're installing AOSP android on your phone, you're in the same boat with Google. You're increasingly limited to what Google will allow on the play store. I'm not aware of any android phone where you can't install whatever apk you like.
- computerex 9y ago
  Could not disagree with you more. Google's own Pixel line is more controlled for the benefit of the user, in that the user ends up with a more unified and cohesive experience. OEM's readily make modifications to Android, and you can install a completely custom ROM as well. Finally, you can install applications by consuming third party APK's directly and bypassing the Play store entirely. So no, your comparison of iOS to Android does not apply 1:1.
thanatropism 9y ago
> In a free system, the users could have done this themselves years ago instead of waiting for Apple. Could they? I was dimly aware of third-party cookies and enabled options to block them. Kind of made sense, but only because a big fuss was already being made. These new tricks for fooling the browser into thinking third party cookies are first party? I wasn't aware of them at all. NB: I'm kind of an HN addict. Are there any free-software browsers addressing this issue at all? Ones that ship by default with KDE, etc. at least?
joosters 9y ago
A prison you can choose to enter and leave at will? This is either excessive hyperbole or Stallman has no idea of what a prison is.
- mikegerwitz 9y ago
  What about the term "jailbreak"? The problem is also vendor lockin and customer loyalty (often times because people don't like change). You can leave, but most users won't or don't want to.
  - nkrisc 9y ago
    And most users would never take advantage of a truly open platform phone. Maybe it's a prison, but it's a prison that might as well not even exist for most people because they'll never even see the walls.
  - freeone3000 9y ago
    It's a prison because they make it so enjoyable most people don't want to leave?
  - lghh 9y ago
    If they don't want to, what's the problem? It's more of a hotel than a prison.
  - KyeRussell 9y ago
    Jailbreak is a viral marketing term, and says very little about the actual situation. Is that really the leg you want to stand on?
  - joosters 9y ago
    I'd say that vendor lock-in is unrelated; any platform can have it regardless of the openness of the platform. Jailbreaking is not part of the lock-in. It's a way of doing more stuff with the hardware than the original software allowed you to do. The fact that the term has 'jail' in it doesn't make the users more locked in than they already were, they were free to enter and leave without jailbreaks. Tangentially, I used to jailbreak my iphone because it offered me useful extra features that I couldn't otherwise get (e.g. a SSH client back when Apple didn't have such apps). But I haven't felt the need to jailbreak iOS for years now, because just about everything I could want to do with the system is already possible. Finally, 'jailbreaking' is effectively another word for 'security hole'. If my iOS device can be jailbroken, it's actually a worry to me, not a benefit. Google's chromebooks do offer a better alternative to this, whereby you can flush out ChromeOS by making a physical change to your device (in my case, disassembling the laptop and turning a particular screw). But it still can be a security risk; if there was some physical means of replacing iOS on a phone with alternative software, you could never trust that a secondhand iPhone hadn't been maliciously tweaked to preload malware.
myrandomcomment 9y ago
The average user has no ability to do this, nor the will or want to.
- hellbanner 9y ago
  That's OUR FAULT as programmers. We need to improve product design of open source software to make it accessible, easy to use and secure.
  - rimliu 9y ago
    So do what Apple has done, except for the first part about which only programmers care?
- kodablah 9y ago
  That's not an excuse to prevent every user from doing it IMO.
mikegerwitz 9y ago
More information on the FSF's position: https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-apple.html https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-apple.html And rms' perspective: https://stallman.org/apple.html https://stallman.org/apple.html
hellbanner 9y ago
I agree. I think sentiment changed on HN when they apparently resisted the FBI. But the company who does: http://bgr.com/2015/04/01/iphone-location-tracking-map/ http://bgr.com/2015/04/01/iphone-location-tracking-map/ https://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/20/apple-spotlight-suggestions-privacy-statement/ https://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/20/apple-spotlight-suggest... ... no thanks.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  > http://bgr.com/2015/04/01/iphone-location-tracking-map/ http://bgr.com/2015/04/01/iphone-location-tracking-map/ That's had a toggle in Settings for several years. Also "Significant Locations are encrypted and cannot be read by Apple."
rimliu 9y ago
People quoting Stallman have very little knowledge about the users.
specialist 9y ago
I never bought into Google/Android. I strongly preferred Java and Android over Obj-C and iOS, but I'd already seen the market fragmentation caused by clones (Windows OEMs), and had a pretty good hunch how it'd play out. I was right.
SolarUpNote 9y ago
> Apple has traditionally been very user hostile Here's an interview with Steve Jobs on privacy regarding location data: https://youtu.be/39iKLwlUqBo?t=23s https://youtu.be/39iKLwlUqBo?t=23s Apple takes care of their users.
- TremendousJudge 9y ago
  the fact that they care about privacy doesn't mean that they aren't user hostile
  - lolsal 9y ago
    'user hostile' is too ambiguous to be useful. I would argue that some of the perceived 'hostility' is a Necessary Evil® for improved UX elsewhere - specifically implementing DRM paved the way for Apple users to be able to "just buy/lease/get/download" lots of media (or actually licenses to media) very easily. I'm an Apple FanBoi though, so I am heavily biased because I really like their ecosystem. Specifically about user privacy, Apple has a track record of being a decent advocate for user privacy. More publicly than I have been, that's for sure!
- zeveb 9y ago
  A rancher takes care of his cattle too — but they're not free to leave, and eventually he's going to slaughter them. With Android, I can choose to load my own OS. With iOS, I cannot.
KyeRussell 9y ago
> and so many people fall for it like Apple cares about user privacy/freedom, etc. I don't care if you call it a "grandstand PR move". It detracts from what Apple has actually done. It was not a valueless statement of ideals. It's an actual piece of functionality that millions of people will have built into their smartphones. Stallman sits around hypothesising about vague 'open systems' that—when fleshed out—are completely impractical for the average user. This does very little. You can all sit around installing AOSP (or some other lesser-known open-source mobile operating system) and write your own ML-powered cookie bucketing engines and pretend that this is a viable alternative, and that Apple hasn't done something objectively pretty cool and great. Thee fact is, the Stallman philosophy is absolutely meaningless to the vast majority of end-users, and they are incapable of doing anything with it. What Apple has done is something that will help end users. It's a selling point, they might win some people over with it, boo hoo, there's no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism. It still means a whole lot.
- SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
  Stallman simply values other things than most users, as you correct point out. You can view a castle as either a prison or a refuge, depending on your political inclinations. Apple has built a very robust castle -- whether that's a good or bad thing depends largely on your personal views. Stallman detests all castles; empirically, most people seem to find them comforting.
- sipos 9y ago
  I think your comment downplays the importance of Stallman's work. Just because the vast majority of people do not use what he advocates, it doesn't mean he isn't having a significant impact on what they do use, indirectly. I think this is one example of a change that will affect people that happened probably in part because of people valuing rights that Stallman champions. It may not be him that directly influenced Apple, but he is a big part of influencing the bulk of opinion that did, so he has indirectly. It is not a case of one or the other. It is like high art. Lots of people rarely look at modern art, but it doesn't mean it doesn't influence the design and pop-art they do see regularly, indirectly. You are wrong to present behaving like Stallman and what Apple is doing as things that are competing alternatives, with things being in one camp or the other. Stallman's work influences the mainstream, so mainstream, less extreme, changes and what he does are not unconnected.
newscracker 9y ago
I have seen no one doing as much as Apple for privacy along with a good user experience (though it might look restrictive to those coming from Android or desktop PC backgrounds). I'm willing to trade off a little bit of convenience for better privacy preservation. Many security researchers have stated that the desktop philosophy of letting any program run, access any resource it wants, etc., is outdated and harmful to users in the mobile era. That's one of the areas Apple's start with a restricted system that slowly expands to fulfill needs in a better way comes from. If the users "could have done it themselves", we should have proof that someone did it in a way most people could use it. Where's such a system? Which mass market usable mobile OS does not put users in a prison? If the choices are between one that puts the user in a prison but protects the user better vs. another that doesn't, the decision for those who value this and can afford such a device is quite clear.
- kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
  > I have seen no one doing as much as Apple for privacy along with a good user experience Uh... Mozilla.
  - newscracker 9y ago
    Sorry, I missed stating the context of my comment explicitly, which was around smartphones. Mozilla, of course, is a great organization on this front. I've said that in comments here in the past, and am an unofficial Firefox evangelist.
csomar 9y ago
Can you care to point where Apple was user hostile from a privacy point of view? It can be arguable why Apple limited the user iPhone wise. Actually, limiting the user not only affected performance but also privacy since Apps are jailed and can't easily "hack" your phone/data. It be great to differentiate between two guys: 1. Who cares about freedom and performance and 2. Who cares about freedom only. I'd like to think that Apple is number 1. They care about freedom as long as it doesn't affect the performance vector.
yalogin 9y ago
You are conflating two concepts here. From what ever we see Apple has been really clear and focused on user privacy and security. They back up their words with actions and improve on them over time. Also if a free system lets users do it themselves why are we talking about Apple being a better option for security and privacy over google?
482794793792894 9y ago
And that fact would have any relevance at all, if there was a viable, free alternative to iOS and Android. For what is the Status Quo in the mobile market, Apple is doing well. Even Custom Android ROMs have inherent design flaws, because it's been ultimately designed by Google and certain things just can't be changed without Google playing along (or breaking compatibility with the app ecosystem).
eridius 9y ago
> Apple has traditionally been very user hostile What Apple are you talking about? The one I know has always held customer satisfaction as sacred. They've been fairly developer-hostile, but extremely user-friendly. They're literally famous for being user-friendly.

bbatha 9y ago

Unless you're installing AOSP android on your phone, you're in the same boat with Google. You're increasingly limited to what Google will allow on the play store. You may have some more flexibility, but to continue your analogy: android is a like a low-security prison run by gangs you may have more freedom but at the end of the day you're still on the inside and now you run the risk of getting shanked.

mikegerwitz 9y ago
!Apple !== AOSP/Google With that said, the FSF endorses Replicant (which actually just had a new release and added more device support[0]). I use Replicant. Given the free software philosophy, a free program is always superior to a non-free program, no matter how bad that free program is. But Replicant isn't bad; the most recent version is a fork of "the latest changes from LineageOS 13.0 ".[0] What this emphasizes is the need for a fully free/libre mobile device, which has been the topic of other HN discussions. [0]: https://blog.replicant.us/2017/09/a-new-replicant-6-0-release/ https://blog.replicant.us/2017/09/a-new-replicant-6-0-releas...
- mac01021 9y ago
  > Given the free software philosophy, a free program is always superior to a non-free program, no matter how bad that free program is. I never understood this opinion. If I need to navigate to drive to my grandmother's house, and none of the free nav software knows how to get there, but I have access to some proprietary software that will do the job, then why not use it? I can stop using it at any time I want, no strings attached. I can also reason about its ability to perform actions that serve its creator's interests rather than mine (capture my data and send it to the mothership, mine bitcoins on their behalf, ...) and I can make rational decisions about whether the ability to find my way to grandma's house is worth the risk. Often, the math works out that I am better off occasionally using the proprietary software.
  - mrguyorama 9y ago
    Your average user will be unable to make those "rational decisions" as they are often not made aware of the downsides. This is intentional
tonyztan 9y ago
(Almost) All Android phones allow you to sideload apps without having to root, AFAIK. So you aren't really limited by the Play Store.
- skiman10 9y ago
  I'm curious, are there actually any Android phones at all that don't let you sideload?
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  I have little idea about how the android market is. But when I had a rooted phone, the rooted market of apps/tweaks wasn't too impressive. I personally felt like iOS's jailbreak market was doing better even though it had dramatically shruken too. This is about 2 years ago. So if the rooted tweaks and apps market isn't that strong for Android, how big would the side loading market be? I'm obviously thinking there's not much there. At least not for people where Google services and apps are included normally with Android like the US.
SCdF 9y ago
> Unless you're installing AOSP android on your phone, you're in the same boat with Google. You're increasingly limited to what Google will allow on the play store. I'm not aware of any android phone where you can't install whatever apk you like.
computerex 9y ago
Could not disagree with you more. Google's own Pixel line is more controlled for the benefit of the user, in that the user ends up with a more unified and cohesive experience. OEM's readily make modifications to Android, and you can install a completely custom ROM as well. Finally, you can install applications by consuming third party APK's directly and bypassing the Play store entirely. So no, your comparison of iOS to Android does not apply 1:1.

thanatropism 9y ago

> In a free system, the users could have done this themselves years ago instead of waiting for Apple. Could they? I was dimly aware of third-party cookies and enabled options to block them. Kind of made sense, but only because a big fuss was already being made. These new tricks for fooling the browser into thinking third party cookies are first party? I wasn't aware of them at all. NB: I'm kind of an HN addict. Are there any free-software browsers addressing this issue at all? Ones that ship by default with KDE, etc. at least?

joosters 9y ago

A prison you can choose to enter and leave at will? This is either excessive hyperbole or Stallman has no idea of what a prison is.

mikegerwitz 9y ago
What about the term "jailbreak"? The problem is also vendor lockin and customer loyalty (often times because people don't like change). You can leave, but most users won't or don't want to.
- nkrisc 9y ago
  And most users would never take advantage of a truly open platform phone. Maybe it's a prison, but it's a prison that might as well not even exist for most people because they'll never even see the walls.
- freeone3000 9y ago
  It's a prison because they make it so enjoyable most people don't want to leave?
- lghh 9y ago
  If they don't want to, what's the problem? It's more of a hotel than a prison.
- KyeRussell 9y ago
  Jailbreak is a viral marketing term, and says very little about the actual situation. Is that really the leg you want to stand on?
- joosters 9y ago
  I'd say that vendor lock-in is unrelated; any platform can have it regardless of the openness of the platform. Jailbreaking is not part of the lock-in. It's a way of doing more stuff with the hardware than the original software allowed you to do. The fact that the term has 'jail' in it doesn't make the users more locked in than they already were, they were free to enter and leave without jailbreaks. Tangentially, I used to jailbreak my iphone because it offered me useful extra features that I couldn't otherwise get (e.g. a SSH client back when Apple didn't have such apps). But I haven't felt the need to jailbreak iOS for years now, because just about everything I could want to do with the system is already possible. Finally, 'jailbreaking' is effectively another word for 'security hole'. If my iOS device can be jailbroken, it's actually a worry to me, not a benefit. Google's chromebooks do offer a better alternative to this, whereby you can flush out ChromeOS by making a physical change to your device (in my case, disassembling the laptop and turning a particular screw). But it still can be a security risk; if there was some physical means of replacing iOS on a phone with alternative software, you could never trust that a secondhand iPhone hadn't been maliciously tweaked to preload malware.

myrandomcomment 9y ago

The average user has no ability to do this, nor the will or want to.

hellbanner 9y ago
That's OUR FAULT as programmers. We need to improve product design of open source software to make it accessible, easy to use and secure.
- rimliu 9y ago
  So do what Apple has done, except for the first part about which only programmers care?
kodablah 9y ago
That's not an excuse to prevent every user from doing it IMO.

mikegerwitz 9y ago

More information on the FSF's position: https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-apple.html https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-apple.html And rms' perspective: https://stallman.org/apple.html https://stallman.org/apple.html

hellbanner 9y ago

I agree. I think sentiment changed on HN when they apparently resisted the FBI. But the company who does: http://bgr.com/2015/04/01/iphone-location-tracking-map/ http://bgr.com/2015/04/01/iphone-location-tracking-map/ https://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/20/apple-spotlight-suggestions-privacy-statement/ https://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/20/apple-spotlight-suggest... ... no thanks.

zimpenfish 9y ago
> http://bgr.com/2015/04/01/iphone-location-tracking-map/ http://bgr.com/2015/04/01/iphone-location-tracking-map/ That's had a toggle in Settings for several years. Also "Significant Locations are encrypted and cannot be read by Apple."

rimliu 9y ago

People quoting Stallman have very little knowledge about the users.

specialist 9y ago

I never bought into Google/Android. I strongly preferred Java and Android over Obj-C and iOS, but I'd already seen the market fragmentation caused by clones (Windows OEMs), and had a pretty good hunch how it'd play out. I was right.

SolarUpNote 9y ago

> Apple has traditionally been very user hostile Here's an interview with Steve Jobs on privacy regarding location data: https://youtu.be/39iKLwlUqBo?t=23s https://youtu.be/39iKLwlUqBo?t=23s Apple takes care of their users.

TremendousJudge 9y ago
the fact that they care about privacy doesn't mean that they aren't user hostile
- lolsal 9y ago
  'user hostile' is too ambiguous to be useful. I would argue that some of the perceived 'hostility' is a Necessary Evil® for improved UX elsewhere - specifically implementing DRM paved the way for Apple users to be able to "just buy/lease/get/download" lots of media (or actually licenses to media) very easily. I'm an Apple FanBoi though, so I am heavily biased because I really like their ecosystem. Specifically about user privacy, Apple has a track record of being a decent advocate for user privacy. More publicly than I have been, that's for sure!
zeveb 9y ago
A rancher takes care of his cattle too — but they're not free to leave, and eventually he's going to slaughter them. With Android, I can choose to load my own OS. With iOS, I cannot.

KyeRussell 9y ago

> and so many people fall for it like Apple cares about user privacy/freedom, etc. I don't care if you call it a "grandstand PR move". It detracts from what Apple has actually done. It was not a valueless statement of ideals. It's an actual piece of functionality that millions of people will have built into their smartphones. Stallman sits around hypothesising about vague 'open systems' that—when fleshed out—are completely impractical for the average user. This does very little. You can all sit around installing AOSP (or some other lesser-known open-source mobile operating system) and write your own ML-powered cookie bucketing engines and pretend that this is a viable alternative, and that Apple hasn't done something objectively pretty cool and great. Thee fact is, the Stallman philosophy is absolutely meaningless to the vast majority of end-users, and they are incapable of doing anything with it. What Apple has done is something that will help end users. It's a selling point, they might win some people over with it, boo hoo, there's no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism. It still means a whole lot.

SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
Stallman simply values other things than most users, as you correct point out. You can view a castle as either a prison or a refuge, depending on your political inclinations. Apple has built a very robust castle -- whether that's a good or bad thing depends largely on your personal views. Stallman detests all castles; empirically, most people seem to find them comforting.
sipos 9y ago
I think your comment downplays the importance of Stallman's work. Just because the vast majority of people do not use what he advocates, it doesn't mean he isn't having a significant impact on what they do use, indirectly. I think this is one example of a change that will affect people that happened probably in part because of people valuing rights that Stallman champions. It may not be him that directly influenced Apple, but he is a big part of influencing the bulk of opinion that did, so he has indirectly. It is not a case of one or the other. It is like high art. Lots of people rarely look at modern art, but it doesn't mean it doesn't influence the design and pop-art they do see regularly, indirectly. You are wrong to present behaving like Stallman and what Apple is doing as things that are competing alternatives, with things being in one camp or the other. Stallman's work influences the mainstream, so mainstream, less extreme, changes and what he does are not unconnected.

newscracker 9y ago

I have seen no one doing as much as Apple for privacy along with a good user experience (though it might look restrictive to those coming from Android or desktop PC backgrounds). I'm willing to trade off a little bit of convenience for better privacy preservation. Many security researchers have stated that the desktop philosophy of letting any program run, access any resource it wants, etc., is outdated and harmful to users in the mobile era. That's one of the areas Apple's start with a restricted system that slowly expands to fulfill needs in a better way comes from. If the users "could have done it themselves", we should have proof that someone did it in a way most people could use it. Where's such a system? Which mass market usable mobile OS does not put users in a prison? If the choices are between one that puts the user in a prison but protects the user better vs. another that doesn't, the decision for those who value this and can afford such a device is quite clear.

kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
> I have seen no one doing as much as Apple for privacy along with a good user experience Uh... Mozilla.
- newscracker 9y ago
  Sorry, I missed stating the context of my comment explicitly, which was around smartphones. Mozilla, of course, is a great organization on this front. I've said that in comments here in the past, and am an unofficial Firefox evangelist.

csomar 9y ago

Can you care to point where Apple was user hostile from a privacy point of view? It can be arguable why Apple limited the user iPhone wise. Actually, limiting the user not only affected performance but also privacy since Apps are jailed and can't easily "hack" your phone/data. It be great to differentiate between two guys: 1. Who cares about freedom and performance and 2. Who cares about freedom only. I'd like to think that Apple is number 1. They care about freedom as long as it doesn't affect the performance vector.

yalogin 9y ago

You are conflating two concepts here. From what ever we see Apple has been really clear and focused on user privacy and security. They back up their words with actions and improve on them over time. Also if a free system lets users do it themselves why are we talking about Apple being a better option for security and privacy over google?

482794793792894 9y ago

And that fact would have any relevance at all, if there was a viable, free alternative to iOS and Android. For what is the Status Quo in the mobile market, Apple is doing well. Even Custom Android ROMs have inherent design flaws, because it's been ultimately designed by Google and certain things just can't be changed without Google playing along (or breaking compatibility with the app ecosystem).

eridius 9y ago

> Apple has traditionally been very user hostile What Apple are you talking about? The one I know has always held customer satisfaction as sacred. They've been fairly developer-hostile, but extremely user-friendly. They're literally famous for being user-friendly.