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Because lots of people still think that if you own a piece of hardware, you should be able to run whatever code you want on it.
by blhack 8y ago
Because lots of people still think that if you own a piece of hardware, you should be able to run whatever code you want on it.
- seba_dos1 8y agoThat's right. That's why you shouldn't buy iOS devices. If you do, you agree to Apple's terms. (also, what Apple allows you to run on your own device is actually a different story, not related to this news)
- mjw1007 8y agoAccording to the story, Apple have stopped Google employees running Google's "Gbus app for transportation". So yes, it's about what Apple allows people to run on their own devices.
- curt15 8y agoSince Gbus is presumably developed internally, what prevents the employees from installing the program via Xcode?
- q3k 8y agoNot everyone at Google has a Mac? Nobody wants to reinstall GBus every 3 days?
- briandear 8y agoWhy would you have to reinstall it every 3 days?
- spurcell93 8y agoIIRC dev certs expire quickly, by design
- saagarjha 8y agoSeven days.
- dougdonohoe 8y ago60,000+ employees makes this unrealistic.
- cbhl 8y agoProbably something like this: XX% of Google employees are non-technical XX% of Google employees don't use Mac as their laptop platform XX% of Google employees have a locked-down Mac that isn't allowed to run XCode or locally-compiled binaries because their job role isn't in Engineering
- morpheuskafka 8y agoThe employees would each have to spend $100 on a developer membership (sharing them is a good way to get more revokes).
- kngspook 8y agoNo, that's not necessarily for loading an app on to your device. It's only necessary for broader distribution.
- morpheuskafka 8y agoYou can only sideload up to a certain number of apps (3 IIRC), only for seven days at a time, and only using certain APIs (cannot for example use notifications), all of which would pose serious limitations.
- kngspook 8y agoFrom what I understand, it actually is a public app: https://www.tripshot.com/ https://www.tripshot.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tripshot/id1007192056?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tripshot/id1007192056?mt=8
- seba_dos1 8y agoThey can still run that app by signing it themselves with a developer account, although that's not a very convenient option. And no, this is still about what Google allows its employers to run on their corporate devices (and Apple now taking this right away from them), as users wouldn't be able to sign that app with enterprise certificate by themselves.
- threeseed 8y agoGoogle can make that app public. Or stop abusing the terms of the enterprise certificates.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- simonh 8y ago>If you do, you agree to Apple’s terms. And know that Apple has your back when it comes to holding developers of the apps you use to their commitments. There’s a clear benefit to the reputation of a vendor being on the line for the security and quality of their product and the services offered on it.
- bunderbunder 8y agoMore than a couple of us know Apple's terms and agree to them quite enthusiastically. The perennial mansplaining around this issue mildly baffles me. Apple acting as a gatekeeper for iOS has been a well-known thing for a decade now. Coming to a place like this and preaching as if people don't understand Apple's terms is frankly insulting.
- gjs278 8y agohow is this possibly mansplaining
- Ensorceled 8y agoMaybe you’re replying to a woman?
- wutbrodo 8y agoIt's as central an example of mansplaining as I've ever seen; Mansplaining just means "I'm too stupid to understand your point, so I'm going to throw in a non sequitur gendered insult".
- bunderbunder 8y agoAt least as I understand it, it more means explaining things to the person you're talking to as if they don't know anything about the conversation topic, even though you have no particular reason to do so. It doesn't necessarily have to be done by a man or directed at a woman. That's just how it tends to go. And obvs is a bit more fraught when it is going that way.
- wutbrodo 8y agoLeaving aside whether that's something to reasonably get upset about (how are people supposed to know exactly which facts are known to every single reader of their comment?), the way you're describing it seems pretty identical to the now-mostly-anachronistic expression of being "jewed" out of some money. The fact that the target of the slur doesn't have to be Jewish doesn't make it better; in fact, it kind of makes it worse. Hell, at least my example has its roots in a time when casual racism/sexism were accepted _pro forma_, and the term is slowly dying out. It seems to me your example is even less excusable.
- ajross 8y agoThat's a misstatement of the principle here. I bought a thing. It's my thing, not someone else's thing. Things don't have "terms". I signed no contract. Let me use my thing. I mean, yes, we shouldn't buy iOS devices. But we should accept that things have ad hoc vendor-controlled "rules" just because someone baked them into the things, either. > what Apple allows you to run on your own device is actually a different story, not related to this news How so? It's not like Facebook and Google were hacking their way in here. They asked users "please run this software" and users had the option to do so. Seriously how is that any different than "please run my great jailbreak environment" or "here's a new OS for your iPhone"? It was the behavior and marketing of these spyware things that we shouldn't like, not their mechanism.
- briandear 8y ago> Things don't have "terms". Technically correct. But software running on "things" has terms. It's called a license. When you buy a movie, you don't own the film. You own the right to use that film in accordance with the license.
- ajross 8y agoYou're conflating things. Your example is about copyright, not licenses. Copyright doesn't constrain use, it constrains distribution (though there's a parallel argument there about DRM and things like DVD region codes, etc...). The question you're sidestepping is whether a license can say "you can't run your own software on your own thing". Obviously it can be implemented to do so given the way computers work, but it's not at all clear why that should be so.
- seba_dos1 8y agoCopyright can constrain use (although the actual extent varies a lot between jurisdictions). Most licenses (which are basically a way to manage copyrights) don't make use that, but some do (like a license that Apple uses for their SDKs, which disallows running it on non-Apple hardware). BTW. I ignore that and even many large, respectable companies ignore that, but it's there ;)
- hart_russell 8y agoYou are still able to sideload apps, just not at an enterprise level.
- dangerbird2 8y agoYou need a mac with Xcode to sideload apps for iOS (unless you want to deal with jailbreaking)
- saagarjha 8y agoNot necessarily, though it can get rather annoying depending on which one you drop.
- morpheuskafka 8y agoIf the IPA is already built you just need the cross-platform Cydia Impactor. Jailbreak not required, but standard Developer Account for full features applies.
- ce4 8y agoTo downvoters: That point is valid. It's the golden cage that allowed them to do of course good things this time. This argument is the old one against a walled garden and it still stands.
- ken 8y agoThe point may be valid, but it's not what this discussion is about. Apple didn't cut off a user for running unauthorized software on their iPhone. They cut off Google for using a paid enterprise service to distribute their software in violation of its TOS.
- joshuamorton 8y agoThat loses a bit of the nuance. Apple cut off Google distributing software within apple's TOS after Google had already stopped breaking the TOS.
- jakebellacera 8y agoBut Google already broke Apple's TOS, so it seems like Apple still has grounds to revoke their license.
- joshuamorton 8y agoRight, I'm not saying this isn't warranted necessarily, just that it's punitive not preventative.
- jyrkesh 8y agoNo, they still needed to revoke the cert because the app was still hanging out on users' devices. The only way to ensure that those apps are dead, from Apple's perspective, is to revoke the cert
- chii 8y ago> paid enterprise service to distribute their software that's the problem - why should this service exist in the first place? It's extortion to have to pay to distribute apps to people who want them, on devices they own themselves.
- driverdan 8y agoOf course you should. It's my device, I should be able to do what I want with it. The default should be protected but root should be available.
- SubuSS 8y agoI don't understand: Do you expect to be able to run any programs you want on the micro-controller on your washing machine? That's what Apple is doing here. Pushing iPhone as a commodity, not a replacement for your macbook. This way they get the benefits of controlling the experience as much as they want. (I am not saying it is right or wrong, just that many people are fine with commodity phones and don't care for the loss of configurability).
- RandomBK 8y agoIf the washing machine was internet connected, then yes. If not, I'd still like the JTAG interface intact. Now, _will_ I do that? Probably not, but my opinion is that as the owner of the device, I should have the ability to do so if I so choose.
- SubuSS 8y agohow does connectivity matter in relation to ability to custom program?
- RandomBK 8y agoOn second thought, it doesn't. I just wanted a easy way to distinguish complex IoT devices from simpler ones.
- xvector 8y ago> I should have the ability to do so if I so choose. And what about the manufacturer? Why should it be their legal responsibility to satisfy your whims for programmable interfaces? Not to mention what you're mentioning that what you're suggesting will make the iPhone incredibly insecure.
- empath75 8y agoIf you want to sell your privacy, buy an Android I guess.
- 51lver 8y agoYou're not wrong, you're just in the wrong place. Apple is the sysadmin and the phone holders are the users. They WANT apple looking out for them. Anyone who says otherwise stupidly wasted $1000 when they could have bought any number of unlockable devices for that money. I say this with an unlocked and de-googled android phone next to me, and several hacked arm devices at home. I OWN THEM, with no doubt, so I agree with you in a different world.
- damgoodpoint 8y agoNever made this connection — genius
- wutbrodo 8y agoIs this true of people who voluntarily signed up to be paid for data collection? It's like saying that Nielsen panelists need to be protected from Nielsen by Vizio. (Insert standard caveat about the degree to which kids' autonomy is in the hands of their parents).
- Legogris 8y agoAn important difference that Nielsen doesn't have an agreement with Vizio that they broke and the "protection" being Vizio terminating their end of that agreement as a response.
- wutbrodo 8y agoAs much as I dislike Apple, its amorality, its attitude towards it users, its effect on the markets it's in, etc, I don't have any disagreements with Apple's actions here: Facebook/Google violated their license, so Apple revoked them. But the terms of this license are by no means "protecting" users who voluntarily chose to install these apps for payment. A license can have multiple legitimate purposes, including protecting the business interests of the licenser. There's no need to pretend that Apple is protecting users in order to defend their actions here.
- 8y ago
- twtw 8y agoDoes sideload still work? I recall they enabled the ability for anybody to load apps via Xcode around iOS 7, but haven't kept up to date with latest versions. Did this stop working on newer iOS versions? I sideload stuff on my phone quite frequently.
- saagarjha 8y ago> I recall they enabled the ability for anybody to load apps via Xcode around iOS 7 Xcode 7 and iOS 9, and yes, you can still do this.
- robertAngst 8y agoThis is Apple, where people pay more to have LESS features. They are anti consumer and anti developer, buying from them is bad capitalism.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- buildbot 8y agoWell in this case, wouldn't most people be using Google owned phones? Or if they bring their own device, have explicitly allowed Google/FB to manage their device through an enterprise system. That enterprise system for some reason shared a cert with an application _not_ used for enterprise, so the cert is banned.
- philwelch 8y agoSo jailbreak it. Meanwhile, Apple should be able to ship whatever operating system it thinks its users want, and those users should be able to keep it if they want.
- _jal 8y agoCorrect. Unfortunately for this argument, Google also disagrees with those people, so there's a certain degree of difficulty inherent to it.
- aout 8y agoThe thing is: my mother bought an Apple device not to think about data, security, backups and all these "InternetS" things. She doesn't even know what hardware is. If she did, she might have bought an Android phone or something else :)
- hesarenu 8y agoWith focus on privacy Apple successfully reducing users wanting freedom. The marketing now seems to indicate that if you want freedom then you loose privacy.
- kngspook 8y agoYes. Because it is technically almost impossible, if not completely impossible, to build a system that gives your code absolute freedom while not giving other code running on the system absolute freedom as well. There will always be the possibility that some company will ask users to their absolute freedom ability to give them absolute freedom. Which is basically exactly what happened in this case. The only difference is, in this case, Apple built in a mechanism where they can stop individual actors. And, to protect their users, they used it.
- hesarenu 8y agoProtecting the users is marketing speech. The users had given consent. This was Apple using its control over app distribution.