7 ms·

The iPhone is unbelievably fragile, before you look at the high price. Apple bends over backwards to deny the existence of design flaws, to the point of blaming

r3bl 9y ago
I couldn't agree more. The only reason I would consider getting an iPhone too is Apple's privacy stance. They seem like the only company in the big five (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft) that don't seem to be that interested in my data. They just want to sell me the product, and that product is, in essence, a piece of hardware.
- rSi 9y ago
  I don't get why people believe that Apple is so much better than any of the other big ones.. http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-iphone-app-secret-access-sensitive-apple-features-2017-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-iphone-app-secret-access... Apple always refuses to comment on bugs, security holes and basically anything they can not use for marketing. You WANT to believe that Apple is better.
  - skrowl 9y ago
    I clicked on this to see why too. My understanding is that they were just as anti-privacy as Google or Samsung. They signed on to PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) , they happily work with the government over user privacy in articles all the time, and those are just the things we know about. I'm sure there are more PRISM-like back room government deals that we haven't heard of out there, and I haven't seen anything that would make me believe that Apple wouldn't sign on to them.
    - m-p-3 9y ago
      IMO it's just a PR stance to make them stand out from the rest.
    - tcfunk 9y ago
      Is this related to Purism announcing that they had successfully disabled the Intel Management Engine on their laptops? Or is that unrelated? Sorry, this is all new info to me.
      - wolfgke 9y ago
        > Is this related to Purism announcing that they had successfully disabled the Intel Management Engine on their laptops? Or is that unrelated? It is completely unrelated. Intel ME is about a remote servicing interface that exists on all current Intel processors. While it has some usages for managing computers in a corporate setting or managing servers (keyword to look for: Intel Active Management Technology (Intel AMT), which needs Intel vPro), it exists on nearly all current Intel processors (except, I think, Intel, Quark; but this processor is built for completely different purposes). Thus there are rumors that it is a backdoor for, say, 3-letter agencies. I don't want to spread any rumors here, but just say: Because Intel ME is very large and complicated (according to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iffTJ1vPCSo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iffTJ1vPCSo 5 MB in size) it is a real concern that lots of security gaps will be found (and some have been found in the past), which, because of Intel ME's structure (according to https://schd.ws/hosted_files/osseu17/84/Replace%20UEFI%20with%20Linux.pdf https://schd.ws/hosted_files/osseu17/84/Replace%20UEFI%20wit... it runs on ring -3) can easily lead to really dangerous security holes. Just for this reason alone any responsible admin should try to disable Intel ME so that this security liability does not have to stay open. PRISM is a surveillance program by the NSA.
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    how hard would it be for a bunch of semiconductor / cpu designers / cs students to team up and release a nice open hardware so that we can forget about PRISM and the likes ?
    - tonysdg 9y ago
      That's the whole idea behind the RISC-V platform [1]. It's well-funded, well-designed, has amazing pedigree (David Patterson literally wrote the book on computer architecture). It's even licensed such that companies can use it in proprietary designs. And yet, making the actual switch is a tremendously difficult task. On the software side alone, it requires recompiling every application you want to run on your platform. That doesn't even touch the cost of rolling the actual hardware. There are more than a few examples of this: Intel's Itanium, Oracle's SPARC, Berkeley's MIPS, Transmeta's Crusoe, etc. Sure, these all had niches (embedded systems, research hardware, a few high-end servers) -- but breaking out into the mainstream (a.k.a. like x86-64 and ARM/ARM64) is damn near impossible. [1] https://riscv.org/ https://riscv.org/
      - agumonkey 9y ago
        I heard that so far riscv chips (a few were taped IIRC) were just too slow. I deeply believe that with simple and open silicon (cpu, gpu) you'd get a huge amount of visible benefits for end users that don't require Apple A10 levels of performance. - Less bugs - Potentially better applications since the lower layers are stable and don't require you to fight it (as an example, pre vulkan drivers were hell, linux software has to circle around that)
      - terlisimo 9y ago
        This would be a bit different. Itanium, Sparc, Crusoe, ARM... all these CPUs were offering is the promise of better performance in some aspect. Nobody expects RISC-V to beat i7 or Ryzen in any benchmarks. IMO its purpose is to be the in hardware what GNU/Linux was in software. edit: GNU/Linux, not just Linux :)
        wolfgke 9y ago
  - fhood 9y ago
    No, from a security stand point I can feel pretty confidant that Apple is better so long as iOS 0days are still selling for 10x that of their counterparts.
mcphage 9y ago
> Despite this I am seriously considering an iPhone, their stance on privacy is the only reason. That's definitely a great reason to get one. A nice bonus you'll find, once you do, is that they're nowhere near as fragile as you fear.
- seba_dos1 9y ago
  Nor as private as you wish.
  - 0xJRS 9y ago
    As someone who does own an iPhone i'm genuinely curious what your largest concerns are about its privacy
    - hellcow 9y ago
      Apple's documented history of working with the NSA to undermine the privacy of its users: PRISM. Tim Cook struck that deal with the NSA and remains CEO today.
      - astral303 9y ago
        It is not true that Tim Cook struck a deal with the NSA. Nor is it true that Apple has worked with the NSA for PRISM. NSA likely exploited the SSL vulnerability in iOS 6.0 (released Sept 2012, NSA added Apple Oct 2012) and got access to snoop on Apple's data. After pulling the phrase "participate knowingly" out of thin air, Washington Post was forced to walk back that statement: "Hours after the news broke, and every company bar PalTalk and AOL denied any knowledge of the program and allegations of their involvement, the Post has changed its stance. The phrase “participate knowingly” has been removed from the article, a new passage suggests the firms were unaware of PRISM" https://thenextweb.com/us/2013/06/07/wapost-backtracks-on-claim-tech-companies-participate-knowingly-in-prism-data-collection/ https://thenextweb.com/us/2013/06/07/wapost-backtracks-on-cl...
        9y ago
CaptSpify 9y ago
The only real reason I haven't switched is because they won't give me control of my phone. At least with Android I can root it, install custom roms, and mess with pretty much any non-google software that I have on there. Android is far from perfect, and I still hate it, but at least I can still control most of it.
- nyolfen 9y ago
  > At least with Android I can root it, and not just you :P
- GeekyBear 9y ago
  The iOS equivalent of rooting your device is called a jailbreak. >Jailbreaking permits root access to iOS, allowing the downloading and installation of additional applications, extensions, and themes that are unavailable through the official Apple App Store. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ios_jailbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ios_jailbreak
spike021 9y ago
The iPhone is unbelievably fragile, before you look at the high price. Apple bends over backwards to deny the existence of design flaws, to the point of blaming users for doing it wrong. I'd say I _mostly_ disagree. Many times over the years there have been "major" problems (i.e. antenna-gate and bendgate to name a couple). I've never experienced those issues, and I'm sure neither have many others. The iPhones through the years have been mostly solid for me in terms of hardware without significant design flaws. Now, I don't try to claim iPhones are perfect, but I think this is an over-reaction.
- andreareina 9y ago
  Anecdotally (but with n = many), I see many more scratched/broken iPhone screens than premium Android. Similar prices, same peer group. There are probably other sources of selection bias I'm not seeing, but it's a large enough effect that I'm cautiously positive of my determination absent an actual survey. It took two years for Apple to acknowledge[1] that #staingate was a real issue. I do think their hardware is generally high quality, but there are holes, and they are magnified by their positioning as a premium brand and certain high-profile denials of said holes. Which for a brand that lives and dies on its reputation seems less than smart. Adding to the weirdness is that I've alternately received excellent support in cases of hardware issues, and next to none. My guess is that the frontline has a whitelist of issues that they can okay, and have no little latitude beyond that. [1]: https://www.macrumors.com/2017/02/24/apple-extended-anti-reflective-repair-program/ https://www.macrumors.com/2017/02/24/apple-extended-anti-ref...
  - rconti 9y ago
    Anecdotally, I just never see cracked screens on phones anymore. Only data I could find, but very, very old (only covers to iphone 4(!!) https://www.squaretrade.com/cell-phone-comparison-study-nov-10 https://www.squaretrade.com/cell-phone-comparison-study-nov-...
rconti 9y ago
They're certainly fragile, but I don't believe they're any more fragile than other major flagship phones.
- andreareina 9y ago
  I'll quote my reply[1] to 'spike021 > Anecdotally (but with n = many), I see many more scratched/broken iPhone screens than premium Android. Similar prices, same peer group. There are probably other sources of selection bias I'm not seeing, but it's a large enough effect that I'm cautiously positive of my determination absent an actual survey. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15607637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15607637
fermienrico 9y ago
> The iPhone is unbelievable fragile. This is such a handwavy statement. Fragile, compared to the competition? Can you point out any objective measure that supports "Unbelievably" fragile? All modern phones are fragile. Some slightly more than others.
- CaptSpify 9y ago
  Just because a lot of other people on the market make fragile phones doesn't change the fact the that the iPhone is also fragile.
- andreareina 9y ago
  I'll quote my reply[1] to 'spike021 > Anecdotally (but with n = many), I see many more scratched/broken iPhone screens than premium Android. Similar prices, same peer group. There are probably other sources of selection bias I'm not seeing, but it's a large enough effect that I'm cautiously positive of my determination absent an actual survey. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15607637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15607637

r3bl 9y ago

I couldn't agree more. The only reason I would consider getting an iPhone too is Apple's privacy stance. They seem like the only company in the big five (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft) that don't seem to be that interested in my data. They just want to sell me the product, and that product is, in essence, a piece of hardware.

rSi 9y ago
I don't get why people believe that Apple is so much better than any of the other big ones.. http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-iphone-app-secret-access-sensitive-apple-features-2017-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-iphone-app-secret-access... Apple always refuses to comment on bugs, security holes and basically anything they can not use for marketing. You WANT to believe that Apple is better.
- skrowl 9y ago
  I clicked on this to see why too. My understanding is that they were just as anti-privacy as Google or Samsung. They signed on to PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) , they happily work with the government over user privacy in articles all the time, and those are just the things we know about. I'm sure there are more PRISM-like back room government deals that we haven't heard of out there, and I haven't seen anything that would make me believe that Apple wouldn't sign on to them.
  - m-p-3 9y ago
    IMO it's just a PR stance to make them stand out from the rest.
  - tcfunk 9y ago
    Is this related to Purism announcing that they had successfully disabled the Intel Management Engine on their laptops? Or is that unrelated? Sorry, this is all new info to me.
    - wolfgke 9y ago
      > Is this related to Purism announcing that they had successfully disabled the Intel Management Engine on their laptops? Or is that unrelated? It is completely unrelated. Intel ME is about a remote servicing interface that exists on all current Intel processors. While it has some usages for managing computers in a corporate setting or managing servers (keyword to look for: Intel Active Management Technology (Intel AMT), which needs Intel vPro), it exists on nearly all current Intel processors (except, I think, Intel, Quark; but this processor is built for completely different purposes). Thus there are rumors that it is a backdoor for, say, 3-letter agencies. I don't want to spread any rumors here, but just say: Because Intel ME is very large and complicated (according to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iffTJ1vPCSo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iffTJ1vPCSo 5 MB in size) it is a real concern that lots of security gaps will be found (and some have been found in the past), which, because of Intel ME's structure (according to https://schd.ws/hosted_files/osseu17/84/Replace%20UEFI%20with%20Linux.pdf https://schd.ws/hosted_files/osseu17/84/Replace%20UEFI%20wit... it runs on ring -3) can easily lead to really dangerous security holes. Just for this reason alone any responsible admin should try to disable Intel ME so that this security liability does not have to stay open. PRISM is a surveillance program by the NSA.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  how hard would it be for a bunch of semiconductor / cpu designers / cs students to team up and release a nice open hardware so that we can forget about PRISM and the likes ?
  - tonysdg 9y ago
    That's the whole idea behind the RISC-V platform [1]. It's well-funded, well-designed, has amazing pedigree (David Patterson literally wrote the book on computer architecture). It's even licensed such that companies can use it in proprietary designs. And yet, making the actual switch is a tremendously difficult task. On the software side alone, it requires recompiling every application you want to run on your platform. That doesn't even touch the cost of rolling the actual hardware. There are more than a few examples of this: Intel's Itanium, Oracle's SPARC, Berkeley's MIPS, Transmeta's Crusoe, etc. Sure, these all had niches (embedded systems, research hardware, a few high-end servers) -- but breaking out into the mainstream (a.k.a. like x86-64 and ARM/ARM64) is damn near impossible. [1] https://riscv.org/ https://riscv.org/
    - agumonkey 9y ago
      I heard that so far riscv chips (a few were taped IIRC) were just too slow. I deeply believe that with simple and open silicon (cpu, gpu) you'd get a huge amount of visible benefits for end users that don't require Apple A10 levels of performance. - Less bugs - Potentially better applications since the lower layers are stable and don't require you to fight it (as an example, pre vulkan drivers were hell, linux software has to circle around that)
    - terlisimo 9y ago
      This would be a bit different. Itanium, Sparc, Crusoe, ARM... all these CPUs were offering is the promise of better performance in some aspect. Nobody expects RISC-V to beat i7 or Ryzen in any benchmarks. IMO its purpose is to be the in hardware what GNU/Linux was in software. edit: GNU/Linux, not just Linux :)
      - wolfgke 9y ago
- fhood 9y ago
  No, from a security stand point I can feel pretty confidant that Apple is better so long as iOS 0days are still selling for 10x that of their counterparts.

mcphage 9y ago

> Despite this I am seriously considering an iPhone, their stance on privacy is the only reason. That's definitely a great reason to get one. A nice bonus you'll find, once you do, is that they're nowhere near as fragile as you fear.

seba_dos1 9y ago
Nor as private as you wish.
- 0xJRS 9y ago
  As someone who does own an iPhone i'm genuinely curious what your largest concerns are about its privacy
  - hellcow 9y ago
    Apple's documented history of working with the NSA to undermine the privacy of its users: PRISM. Tim Cook struck that deal with the NSA and remains CEO today.
    - astral303 9y ago
      It is not true that Tim Cook struck a deal with the NSA. Nor is it true that Apple has worked with the NSA for PRISM. NSA likely exploited the SSL vulnerability in iOS 6.0 (released Sept 2012, NSA added Apple Oct 2012) and got access to snoop on Apple's data. After pulling the phrase "participate knowingly" out of thin air, Washington Post was forced to walk back that statement: "Hours after the news broke, and every company bar PalTalk and AOL denied any knowledge of the program and allegations of their involvement, the Post has changed its stance. The phrase “participate knowingly” has been removed from the article, a new passage suggests the firms were unaware of PRISM" https://thenextweb.com/us/2013/06/07/wapost-backtracks-on-claim-tech-companies-participate-knowingly-in-prism-data-collection/ https://thenextweb.com/us/2013/06/07/wapost-backtracks-on-cl...
      - 9y ago

CaptSpify 9y ago

The only real reason I haven't switched is because they won't give me control of my phone. At least with Android I can root it, install custom roms, and mess with pretty much any non-google software that I have on there. Android is far from perfect, and I still hate it, but at least I can still control most of it.

nyolfen 9y ago
> At least with Android I can root it, and not just you :P
GeekyBear 9y ago
The iOS equivalent of rooting your device is called a jailbreak. >Jailbreaking permits root access to iOS, allowing the downloading and installation of additional applications, extensions, and themes that are unavailable through the official Apple App Store. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ios_jailbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ios_jailbreak

spike021 9y ago

The iPhone is unbelievably fragile, before you look at the high price. Apple bends over backwards to deny the existence of design flaws, to the point of blaming users for doing it wrong. I'd say I _mostly_ disagree. Many times over the years there have been "major" problems (i.e. antenna-gate and bendgate to name a couple). I've never experienced those issues, and I'm sure neither have many others. The iPhones through the years have been mostly solid for me in terms of hardware without significant design flaws. Now, I don't try to claim iPhones are perfect, but I think this is an over-reaction.

andreareina 9y ago
Anecdotally (but with n = many), I see many more scratched/broken iPhone screens than premium Android. Similar prices, same peer group. There are probably other sources of selection bias I'm not seeing, but it's a large enough effect that I'm cautiously positive of my determination absent an actual survey. It took two years for Apple to acknowledge[1] that #staingate was a real issue. I do think their hardware is generally high quality, but there are holes, and they are magnified by their positioning as a premium brand and certain high-profile denials of said holes. Which for a brand that lives and dies on its reputation seems less than smart. Adding to the weirdness is that I've alternately received excellent support in cases of hardware issues, and next to none. My guess is that the frontline has a whitelist of issues that they can okay, and have no little latitude beyond that. [1]: https://www.macrumors.com/2017/02/24/apple-extended-anti-reflective-repair-program/ https://www.macrumors.com/2017/02/24/apple-extended-anti-ref...
- rconti 9y ago
  Anecdotally, I just never see cracked screens on phones anymore. Only data I could find, but very, very old (only covers to iphone 4(!!) https://www.squaretrade.com/cell-phone-comparison-study-nov-10 https://www.squaretrade.com/cell-phone-comparison-study-nov-...

rconti 9y ago

They're certainly fragile, but I don't believe they're any more fragile than other major flagship phones.

andreareina 9y ago
I'll quote my reply[1] to 'spike021 > Anecdotally (but with n = many), I see many more scratched/broken iPhone screens than premium Android. Similar prices, same peer group. There are probably other sources of selection bias I'm not seeing, but it's a large enough effect that I'm cautiously positive of my determination absent an actual survey. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15607637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15607637

fermienrico 9y ago

> The iPhone is unbelievable fragile. This is such a handwavy statement. Fragile, compared to the competition? Can you point out any objective measure that supports "Unbelievably" fragile? All modern phones are fragile. Some slightly more than others.

CaptSpify 9y ago
Just because a lot of other people on the market make fragile phones doesn't change the fact the that the iPhone is also fragile.
andreareina 9y ago
I'll quote my reply[1] to 'spike021 > Anecdotally (but with n = many), I see many more scratched/broken iPhone screens than premium Android. Similar prices, same peer group. There are probably other sources of selection bias I'm not seeing, but it's a large enough effect that I'm cautiously positive of my determination absent an actual survey. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15607637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15607637