3 ms·

>It's not like there are 5-year old Android tablets running the latest operating systems from Google either. Yah, you have a point with the hardware being old

>It's not like there are 5-year old Android tablets running the latest operating systems from Google either. Yah, you have a point with the hardware being old and 32bit, I am not an Apple guy by nature, so I have older hardware. My issue is not with the OS, it's that I am blocked from installing specific software on that OS. Imagine if Windows didn't allow Chrome to be installed, everyone would be up in arms. Why is Apple getting a pass in their regard?

alwillis 9y ago
>Imagine if Windows didn't allow Chrome to be installed, everyone would be up in arms. No pun intended, but this isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison—you can’t compare a desktop operating system to one that runs on phones and tablets. I’m a web developer—I have the release, beta and canary (nightly) of Chrome and Firefox in addition to Safari and Safari Tech Preview on my iMac, which is no big deal on macOS or any other desktop operating system. It’s very different on phones and tablets, which are closer to embedded operating systems. This also enables Apple and others to lockdown security in ways which would be unacceptable for a desktop operating system. Given the unrelenting hacking from the kid down the street to nation states—China, N. Korea, Russia, Iran—more security isn’t a bad thing. Apple isn’t getting a pass—at least not from normals. It’s the supposedly aggrieved and paranoid libertarian techies’ narrative that Apple is getting away with something and their rights are being impinged upon.
- RobertRoberts 9y ago
  Sure, I can accept that generally speaking there is a difference between phone/tablet and desktop. But how about Android vs iOS. I can install Firefox on Android, but not on iOS. (It "looks" like FF, but it's Safari with a skin, same with Chrome.) Can you offer a valid explanation on why it's technically not possible for a real Firefox browser to work in iOS, but works fine on Android?
  - alwillis 9y ago
    Short answer: Google and Apple have different priorities when it comes to security, privacy, performance and power consumption. Same thing with Mozilla but to a lesser degree. It’s also not accurate to say Firefox and Chrome are just “skins” over Safari. Sure, they have to use WebKit via various system APIs but they also add their own features, some of which Safari doesn’t have like support for Google Assistant and a built-in QR code scanner for starters. Heck, Google Chrome on iOS supports the Payment Request API while Safari doesn’t, which means there are web platform features Google implemented that WebKit doesn’t have. Why are you complaining again? ;-) Same for Brave, which does lots of things Safari doesn’t. Remember, Chrome and WebKit share a common ancestral codebase; the vast majority of a site’s HTML and CSS renders exactly the same anyway, so it’s not like Google or users like you are actually missing out on anything of substance other than some misplaced sense of being restricted from shooting yourselves in the foot because you can’t use a browser engine that’s slower and consumes more power than what Apple ships—ditto for Mozilla. For the overwhelming majority of the browsing anyone does, it makes no difference. It’s just a manufactured grevence of a vocal minority of Apple critics.
    - RobertRoberts 9y ago
      I think you are dodging the central claim against Apple, they prohibit competition on their platform. If Microsoft or Google did this, they'd be accused of anticompetitive behavoir, or being a monopoloy. In fact, MS actually did this with IE vs Netscape. Maybe you are too young to know or remember this. It's just astonishing that anyone could ignore the parralels. Also, I asked if there was any "technical reasons" Apple couldn't allow real Firefox in iOS, and you ignored that. I suspect because you know the answer is "no". So, then it's purely for marketing reasons. Please explain how it's better for end users to have only one choice of browser? If you want to say they already do, then you do not understand how browsers work. And if you want, I can do some googling for you to show you why FF and Chrome on iOS are _not_ any different at the core level than mobile Safari.
      - alwillis 9y ago
        In fact, MS actually did this with IE vs Netscape. Maybe you are too young to know or remember this. It's just astonishing that anyone could ignore the parralels. I was doing IT at MIT when the Microsoft/Netscape thing went down—I’m not new to any of this.

alwillis 9y ago

>Imagine if Windows didn't allow Chrome to be installed, everyone would be up in arms. No pun intended, but this isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison—you can’t compare a desktop operating system to one that runs on phones and tablets. I’m a web developer—I have the release, beta and canary (nightly) of Chrome and Firefox in addition to Safari and Safari Tech Preview on my iMac, which is no big deal on macOS or any other desktop operating system. It’s very different on phones and tablets, which are closer to embedded operating systems. This also enables Apple and others to lockdown security in ways which would be unacceptable for a desktop operating system. Given the unrelenting hacking from the kid down the street to nation states—China, N. Korea, Russia, Iran—more security isn’t a bad thing. Apple isn’t getting a pass—at least not from normals. It’s the supposedly aggrieved and paranoid libertarian techies’ narrative that Apple is getting away with something and their rights are being impinged upon.

RobertRoberts 9y ago
Sure, I can accept that generally speaking there is a difference between phone/tablet and desktop. But how about Android vs iOS. I can install Firefox on Android, but not on iOS. (It "looks" like FF, but it's Safari with a skin, same with Chrome.) Can you offer a valid explanation on why it's technically not possible for a real Firefox browser to work in iOS, but works fine on Android?
- alwillis 9y ago
  Short answer: Google and Apple have different priorities when it comes to security, privacy, performance and power consumption. Same thing with Mozilla but to a lesser degree. It’s also not accurate to say Firefox and Chrome are just “skins” over Safari. Sure, they have to use WebKit via various system APIs but they also add their own features, some of which Safari doesn’t have like support for Google Assistant and a built-in QR code scanner for starters. Heck, Google Chrome on iOS supports the Payment Request API while Safari doesn’t, which means there are web platform features Google implemented that WebKit doesn’t have. Why are you complaining again? ;-) Same for Brave, which does lots of things Safari doesn’t. Remember, Chrome and WebKit share a common ancestral codebase; the vast majority of a site’s HTML and CSS renders exactly the same anyway, so it’s not like Google or users like you are actually missing out on anything of substance other than some misplaced sense of being restricted from shooting yourselves in the foot because you can’t use a browser engine that’s slower and consumes more power than what Apple ships—ditto for Mozilla. For the overwhelming majority of the browsing anyone does, it makes no difference. It’s just a manufactured grevence of a vocal minority of Apple critics.
  - RobertRoberts 9y ago
    I think you are dodging the central claim against Apple, they prohibit competition on their platform. If Microsoft or Google did this, they'd be accused of anticompetitive behavoir, or being a monopoloy. In fact, MS actually did this with IE vs Netscape. Maybe you are too young to know or remember this. It's just astonishing that anyone could ignore the parralels. Also, I asked if there was any "technical reasons" Apple couldn't allow real Firefox in iOS, and you ignored that. I suspect because you know the answer is "no". So, then it's purely for marketing reasons. Please explain how it's better for end users to have only one choice of browser? If you want to say they already do, then you do not understand how browsers work. And if you want, I can do some googling for you to show you why FF and Chrome on iOS are _not_ any different at the core level than mobile Safari.
    - alwillis 9y ago
      In fact, MS actually did this with IE vs Netscape. Maybe you are too young to know or remember this. It's just astonishing that anyone could ignore the parralels. I was doing IT at MIT when the Microsoft/Netscape thing went down—I’m not new to any of this.