15 ms·

Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

338 points by donttrack 8y ago

chdaniel 8y ago
Surprised Spotify's antitrust claims are not mentioned there Edit: All right so this website is meant to make a library of opposition against big corporations. I understand now
- throwaway8879 8y ago
  What do you mean by library of hate? Stallman may have his quirks, but he's a fantastic positive force for our freedoms, despite his rigid idealism.
  - chdaniel 8y ago
    Right, hate was not the best word, my bad. Changed it to "opposition" — what I meant was I understand now that the website is a library of what big big corporations abuse.
- JimmyAustin 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman Stallman has been the leading proponent of software freedom for many, many decades. He isn't inherently against big corps, he is against what a lot of big corps do.
  - robertAngst 8y ago
    Can anyone on HN explain why software freedom could ever be a bad thing? IE: I only see it as Apple having extreme upfront costs, keeping poor people away from developing.
    - mch82 8y ago
      I have two questions about licenses that require distribution of source code (like GPL & AGPL). 1. Do they limit the freedom of the developer to keep source code private? 2. Do they make it harder to sustain a living wage through the labor of writing software? I’m fully supportive of “attribution” licenses like MIT, BSD, Apache 2. But, I don’t think Stallman considers those “free software”.
      - anoncake 8y ago
        > But, I don’t think Stallman considers those “free software”. He does, though they arent copyleft.
      - kilburn 8y ago
        > 1. Do they limit the freedom of the developer to keep source code private? There's a clash between user's and developer's freedoms: if a developer is free to keep the source code private, then said software's users are not free to study, change it, and distribute those changes. The free software movement prioritizes user's freedoms (the 4 essential freedoms [1]) over developer's freedoms. You seem to do the opposite. > 2. Do they make it harder to sustain a living wage through the labor of writing software? Your wording makes it hard to answer the question. If you get paid purely to write software, it doesn't matter if said software is free software or not. If you sell software copies/licenses to pay for your development, then it is objectively harder to earn as much. [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html
      - jimktrains2 8y ago
        > 1. Do they limit the freedom of the developer to keep source code private? The (A)GPL aim is to retain the freedom of the user to view, modify, compile, and redistribute their changes. They explicitly limit the freedom of the developer to close their source would that the user has those freedoms. To use an extreme example that I'm not using as an example for moral equivalence, but as a procedural one: laws against any (e.g. theft, murder, trespassing, &c) limit the abilities of one party for the benefit of another. Licenses like the MIT and bsd license take the opposite approach: they give the developer the freedom to use the code as they want, including closing it from inspection and modification by the end user. Both allow someone to be constrained in some way. It's just a matter of who. > 2. Do they make it harder to sustain a living wage through the labor of writing software? I mean, RedHat seems to be doing OK? The recent kerfuffle about mongo and elastic search seem to be because they chose more permissive license at the start, and not a copyleft. So, who knows? Business is hard and no one factor makes or breaks your chances?
    - krapp 8y ago
      I don't see software freedom as a bad thing, I just disagree with the moralism of the free software philosophy. I don't believe there is an implicit moral dimension to software licensing, it's simply a matter of technical and financial tradeoffs.
    - valuearb 8y ago
      iOS development costs only $99 a year. Of course if Spotify is able to win its suit, iOS development will become far more costly, Apple won’t be able to distribute free apps at no charge anymore, like it does for Spotify.
- weavie 8y ago
  Not necessarily just big corporations. https://stallman.org/pay-toilets.html https://stallman.org/pay-toilets.html
  - badpun 8y ago
    Regarding his argument against paid toilets: can’t this be said about any other basic neccesity? I.e. don’t pay for food, because some people can’t afford it - so food should be free.
    - gowld 8y ago
      What's interesting about stallman is that he is zealous about his philosophy, but like all philosophies, his philosophy is inconsistent when you take it to its logical extremes. (See the paradox of closed source microwaves). Stallman's philosophy is a veneer over utilitarianism and assumption that the computer is a unique construct in society -- software should be libre because libre software provides the most value to the most people due to the 0 marginal cost of software, even if it's less profitable to the creators, and even this claim is not quite true due to the security benefits of closed platforms and the virtuous cycle of profit motive motivating people to work harder to produce more. It makes sense when you consider that Stallman formed his views when he was working at MIT, with his material support from donations from people who made their money not from free software, or who shared such donations with him. The economics of his philosophy are tainted by that foundational flaw.
      - tokyodude 8y ago
        I know of no security benefits to closed platforms. I know many people believe one platform that happens to be closed, iOS, is more secure than some other platforms but I've seen no evidence that it's more secure because it's closed. In fact, the platform that's generally considered the least secure, Windows, is also closed.
        throwawaymath 8y ago
        The general argument is that iOS is more secure because Apple strictly controls both the hardware and the software. The two are very tightly integrated in Apple products, which means proprietary software for e.g. segregating userland or interacting with the secure enclave is specialized and well-audited. The other (perhaps more compelling) argument is that Apple is only able to invest this level of security in its products because of its spectacular profits, which would likely be much lower if iOS were open source. That's basically the gist of it. EDIT: To whoeever downvoted this, I'm just relaying the argument.
- valuearb 8y ago
  All of Stallman cites are 5-10 years old.
why_only_15 8y ago
Apple doesn't really spy on users imo. Internally, the privacy team is quite powerful and forces lots of safeguards about how exactly data can be used.
- tokyodude 8y ago
  Same with Google. Google has privacy teams as well which are > quite powerful and forces lots of safeguards about how exactly data can be used. Apple recommends apps based on other apps I've downloaded. So does Google. Apple recommends music based on other music I've played. So does Google. Apple recommends books and movies as well based on similar data. So does Google. Apple keeps track of every placed your Apple devices have been. So does Google. Apple doesn't share this data. Neither does Google.
  - jeromegv 8y ago
    You seem to be simplifying things a bit too much. Apple doesn’t keep track of where your device has been. Your iPhone knows but it’s not being sent to Apple. Google has been shown to know this data even when you disable as many location services as you can.
    - robertAngst 8y ago
      Until one day you agree to an update....
    - tokyodude 8y ago
      Apple knows which is how they can display every devices location on icloud.com including "last known location" which means the location was previously sent to Apple.
      - xenadu02 8y ago
        That requires you to opt-in to the “Find My iPhone” or “Find My Friends” feature which are explicitly designed to locate the phone. If you don’t enable those things (which are not automatically enabled) then Apple does not know the location of your phone.
azangru 8y ago
Most of the reasons in that list are ideological, not technical. I mean, I like listening to RMS, but prefer my choice of technology to be governed by technical reasons, not by what a company does in China or in Russia. Incidentally, given a choice between an Apple machine and a well-functioning GNU/Linux machine I would pick the latter.
- robertAngst 8y ago
  >well-functioning GNU/Linux machine I would pick the latter. I love ubuntu server, but cannot do Linux desktop. Maybe you can provide some thoughts- >Mouse acceleration is not the same as Windows Mouse Acceleration. Too much starcraft... sure... but I could not get my perfect mouse settings. >Stuff doesnt work. From Netflix needing a weekend worth of googling to work, to other things that required additional commands, things take longer than Windows. >Things break. I used to say, an Ubuntu Desktop install has 9 lives. Everytime you reboot you spend one of them. Anyway, would love to go to Linux, but I found the Microsoft Desktop experience better. (and apparently worth 100$)
  - mark_l_watson 8y ago
    I bought a laptop from System76 last fall and love it. I have been using Linux since Slackware was first available for download, and I have to say that buying hardware with Linux installed and tuned is great.
- brownbat 8y ago
  Most. Unpatched security issues and erecting barriers to repair are legitimately annoying technical concerns. But you're right that's just a couple on a long list.
- johnchristopher 8y ago
  Technology carry its own intrinsic political and ethical weight. Choosing a tech over another tech for technical reasons and ignoring other aspects is a political choice.
  - 8y ago
rbrbr 8y ago
I would like to see the same details about google / android and microsoft / windows from the author of this comprehensive list. And his conclusion what to use as an OS considering all.
- unstatusthequo 8y ago
  He has more "what's bad about" various companies (and pay toilets). ;)
  - JdeBP 8y ago
    Indeed, there's a whole list of them right at the start of the headlined article.
- Un1corn 8y ago
  The author does have a page about Google[0] and Microsoft[1]. He doesn't draw a conclusion in those separate pages but you can see how he uses computers in another page[2]. [0] https://stallman.org/google.html https://stallman.org/google.html [1] https://stallman.org/microsoft.html https://stallman.org/microsoft.html [2] https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html
- ardfie 8y ago
  These are all linked at the top of his homepage https://stallman.org/ https://stallman.org/ e.g. https://stallman.org/microsoft.html https://stallman.org/microsoft.html
born2discover 8y ago
The case is strong with this one!
raverbashing 8y ago
Sorry, did Stallman started using a live web browser already? His positions are extremist and I don't know what's gained by divulging them
- johnisgood 8y ago
  Huh? I do not believe he is incorrect about this, but you do, so what is he incorrect about exactly?
  - hellofunk 8y ago
    A lot of the arguments in this list are very one-sided, and seem to ignore things Apple has done that are directly contrary to the point he’s trying to make.
robertAngst 8y ago
I consider it responsible Capitalism to not buy products from Apple, AT&T, BP, etc... Apple has not been pro consumer or pro developer in my lifetime. They do advertise a lot.
- hellofunk 8y ago
  It’s unclear what you mean by this, or what you are using as the criteria for being a pro consumer. Their stance on user privacy, especially with iPhone in comparison to android, is certainly a good example of very pro consumer attitudes.
  - robertAngst 8y ago
    >It’s unclear what you mean by this, (did you read the article?) Proprietary connectors, overpriced hardware, high cost barrier to entry, closed ecosystem.
    - valuearb 8y ago
      I much prefer lightning to USB, it’s cheap and easy to become a Mac or iOS developer, and also greatly prefer the security of a closed ecosystem. And when you use your computer 2,000 hours a year the extra cost of Macs per hour of work is trivial and the benefits are great.
      - robertAngst 8y ago
        >I much prefer lightning to USB Cool anecodete >it’s cheap and easy to become a Mac or iOS developer, Its the most expensive system to develop for. So you literally lied.
- 8bitsrule 8y ago
  In Apple's case you can go back to the time before the logo changed from a rainbow to a chrome shield. The Apple II manuals were a model of readability, clarity, and personable communication. http://www.classiccmp.org/cini/pdf/Apple/Apple%20II%20Reference%20Manual%20-%20Woz.pdf http://www.classiccmp.org/cini/pdf/Apple/Apple%20II%20Refere... The change when the Mac manuals came out was day-to-night.
mch82 8y ago
I disagree with the bullets about banning/censoring apps. There are ways to install and run software on iOS without using the AppStore. If developers share source code, people are free to compile and install it using Xcode. It’s also possible to run Python programs using Pythonista. Finally, programs can be run as JavaScript in Safari. Apple definitely controls the AppStore. That makes it less convenient to install programs than on GNU/Linux, but the freedom is still there. And maybe the added steps mean the people who choose to run code via Xcode, Pythonista, or JavaScript are more likely to understand the risks of running that code. Edit: Posted incomplete comment on the first try. Also wanted to add that I look up to Stallman as a role model and advocate for open source & contributing back to open source.
- simion314 8y ago
  Are you aware of the limitations of the methods you describe? If yes it is very dishonest to not mention them, if not you should get the details right(find out how can you share an iOS native app you made with your friends)
  - mch82 8y ago
    Does Apple prohibit sending them the source code so that they can compile and load it through Xcode? I realize that requires a MacOS computer, which costs money, but the “free” in free software principles is about the freedom to share the code, not the price of the code. Free software is allowed to be sold. Increasingly, it is also possible to run Swift code on Linux without Xcode or MacOS (recognizing the GUI would need to be rewritten).
    - simion314 8y ago
      Are you serious? Does Sony prevent me emailing my friends my game source code? They "JUST" need developer system with expensive proprietary software and developer accounts, certificates and agree to a few EULAs and ToSs but I am not prevented to send them source code.
      - 8y ago
jpdus 8y ago
Wow - regardless of whether one agrees with RMS, alone the fact that this submission has been heavily flagged already (and will thus drop from the frontpage soon) tells you a lot about the power of Apple and their fans here. HN urgently needs to address the flagging problems, this has been the case for many important but controversial topics recently and leads to a degraded quality of frontpage submissions in my view.
- hellofunk 8y ago
  I have not flagged this article, partly because I’m curious to see the debate here. But I’m sure those who have flagged it did so because this article is not objective, this is a very extremist position with a lot of cherry picked arguments that are obviously from a personal bias he has against Apple. Many of the points he is specifically isolating for Apple are quite true of most of the big tech firms.
  - jpdus 8y ago
    Yep, definitely true (but his points for other firms like google are directly linked above the article, this I would deny that there is a clear bias). I have no side in this game (no affiliations to either Google or Apple) but this points about Apple are both true and relevant and thus imo no reason to flag. You can still just ignore the topic. Flagging just kills the discussion and during recent times this often happened to legit but controversial topics (e.g. OpenAI for-profit announcement was heavily flagged and buried as well).
  - kilburn 8y ago
    RMS is an extremist, openly and unashamedly. He doesn't try to hide it, he tries to argue that his extremist position is the morally correct and long-term best for society though. > from a personal bias he has against Apple. Many of the points he is specifically isolating for Apple are quite true of most of the big tech firms. He bashes all big techs for most of those points too. See the links at the top where he complains about Airbnb, Amazon, Amtrak, Ancestry, Apple, Discord, Ebooks, Eventbrite, Evernote, Facebook, Google, Intel, LinkedIn, Lyft, Meetup, Microsoft, Netflix, Patreon, Pay Toilets, Skype, Slack, Spotify, Twitter, Uber and Wendy's. If there are missing companies there it is probably because he didn't have the time, not because he does't want to complain about something regarding that specific company ;)
hellofunk 8y ago
> Apple practices tax avoidance using loopholes and lobbying. He’s cherry picking things here that really don’t have anything to do specifically with Apple. Amazon paid zero taxes last year and they had more income than nearly any company in the world. Google is also quite famous for the loopholes it finds. I’m not sure it’s fair to single out Apple specifically for this.
- Hello71 8y ago
  I believe Stallman is well known for calling Amazon's Kindle the "Swindle". I assume he has some other derogatory name for Google.
- viraptor 8y ago
  This is called whataboutism. This article is not about Amazon or Google. He likely has a similar opinion about those companies. But this is about Apple and the tax avoidance point is valid. (At least according to https://itep.org/fact-sheet-apple-and-tax-avoidance/ https://itep.org/fact-sheet-apple-and-tax-avoidance/ )
  - twmiller 8y ago
    I see a lot of people defending the page this way, but to me the problem is that a webpage about ‘what’s wrong with Apple’ implies a list of issues specific to Apple. Most of the issues brought up here belong on a ‘what’s wrong with modern tech companies’ page, since they are issues found throughout the industry.
- simion314 8y ago
  >I’m not sure it’s fair to single out Apple specifically for this. This article was about Apple, go on the top of the page and you can navigate to other companies complains.
- schwartzworld 8y ago
  I don't know for a fact, but I'd be willing to bet that Richard Stallman doesn't think you should give Amazon your money either.
flyinglizard 8y ago
1. Apple takes privacy and data safety seriously. It invests a significant amount of engineering effort into keeping user data safe. It doesn't comply with government requests unless forced, after deploying its vast legal means to hold them back. 2. Other consumer electronics devices aren't built in factories that are any different or better than those of Foxconn. While it doesn't absolve Apple from taking some responsibility, RMS should have called for avoiding mobile devices altogether if he's so worried about personnel abuse. 3. Fortunately or not, digital platforms aren't exempt from real world rules and laws. If something is prohibited in some territory, we can't seriously expect foreign companies who do business there to ignore local laws and regulations. Would you be so lenient towards a Chinese company which operates in USA disregarding all intellectual property laws? About a Japanese media company operating in Europe that markets material that would constitute underaged pornography? 4. We need to respect sovereignty and local customs. If there's a lesson to be learnt from the Arab Spring uprisings and their incredibly bloody outcomes is that freedom of information requires a certain societal foundation, and can't be thought of as an absolute universal value. Even the Western world is in a disarray following the information propagation offered by online platforms; to expect a society with much weaker civil institution and foundations to face the same challenges is wrong. Therefore, when Apple is asked to block content in China by the local authorities and complies, it's not any more than respecting the rule of the land. The alternative to that is that the Chinese would create their own Apple (which they of course do), and that's worse for everyone at the end. It leads to a bisected global economy in the style of the Iron Curtain. I'd much rather have Apple operating in China and constantly pushing against government regulation than see the Chinese setting up their own Apple run by government cronies which would pipe user data right into the agencies of Beijing. 5. That aside, some of Apple's behavior (as illustrated by Spotify lately) is downright predatory, intended to lock Apple users to inferior alternatives. I don't like that one bit. On the balance though, I support Apple's discretion with my dollars, because I feel they are selling to me rather than selling me, and because their devices are great.
- dmitriid 8y ago
  > Other consumer electronics devices aren't built in factories that are any different or better than those of Foxconn. While it doesn't absolve Apple from taking some responsibility, RMS should have called for avoiding mobile devices altogether if he's so worried about personnel abuse. And Apple seems to be the only company to be quite open about this and taking active steps to improve working conditions throughout the entire supply chain.
JdeBP 8y ago
> If you carry a cell phone, it tells Big Brother where you are. It's worth remembering that if one carries a mobile telephone, and it is not fully powered off, TPC always knows where you are, and the powers that be do not need to go to Apple for that information. A mobile telephone broadcasts to let the world know where it is, and the mobile telephony system only works in the first place if the system knows how to route incoming calls and SMS messages to a person's telephone. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19215636 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19215636
- pbalau 8y ago
  > the mobile telephony system only works in the first place if the system knows how to route incoming calls and SMS messages to a person's telephone Like every other messaging system. Because you know, in order to send a message you need to know where...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - jstanley 8y ago
    Not quite. Ricochet IM[0] is a messaging system based around Tor hidden services. The entire purpose of Tor is the ability to route messages to people without finding out where they are. [0] https://ricochet.im/ https://ricochet.im/
    - ex3ndr 8y ago
      Tor is power hungry and can’t scale for billions of users.
- chimneypool 8y ago
  the Dystopian Orwellian Nightmare is even worse than what Stallman is saying here. First of all, one of the most critical top secrets (ab)used by NSA against us in the Snowden cache has been kept secret from us. in the Wiretap Act of 1968 (Title III), it explicitly defined what is a wiretap and who is authorized to perform them and what the legal procedure is. if you read the Wiretap act in the most literal fashion, you will conclude that Title III applies to any communication device which is connected to a network via a physical wire, such as a landline telephone. https://it.ojp.gov/PrivacyLiberty/authorities/statutes/1284 https://it.ojp.gov/PrivacyLiberty/authorities/statutes/1284 would you like to know what NSA's interpretation is of the Title III? well, you can't, because it's Secret Law. but I'll give you a hint: cell phones don't connect via wires, therefore, Title III does not apply, therefore NSA can just "read the air" any damn way it pleases, and it doesn't have to tell you, nor tell a Judge, nor tell anybody. NSA just does it. NSA records the entire radio spectrum going over the air. technically, it's not a "wire" tap, since there is no wire. the closest i recall this little legal loophole fib almost coming out during the peak of the Snowden leaks was when (traitor neocon) Sentator Wyden was challenging the NSA in open hearings by giving hints that the NSA was spying on the GPS locations of all cell phones in the US. but nothing ever came of it, Wyden never followed through with leaking any documents nor holding a public hearing. if you have any doubts, just read the NSA AURORAGOLD slide deck: https://search.edwardsnowden.com/docs/AURORAGOLDWorkingGroup2014-12-04_nsadocs_snowden_doc https://search.edwardsnowden.com/docs/AURORAGOLDWorkingGroup... i don't even know what "IR.21" is, some kind of telco protocol thingy like SS7, but NSA targets it and surveils it on every "Mobile Network Operator" (MNO) on the planet. Slide 10: "We Monitor the Industry." NSA spies on the GSM Association in Switzerland. NSA spies on the entire technical staffs of every "MNO" on Earth. scroll towards the end of the slides where there is a map "network coverage." the whole fucking world of cell phones is "covered" by NSA surveillance. notice anything funny about the map? the US and most FVEYs countries are orange, meaning 1%-20% wireless "coverage." but Africa, inner Asia, and desolate countries are green, which means over 80%. gee, that's funny. why would NSA's "wireless collection" be so much higher in countries who are marginal American allies and all of whom are rapidly developing economies which went from pre-industrial agrarian, to skipping over industrial, which means they never built a national phone network of wires, and skipped straight to national wireless networks. it means NSA basically data rapes wireless. it is infinitely easier for NSA to spy on wireless than wired. but wait! it gets worse. you may ask yourself "okay, fine, NSA steals the air, but i'm a hacker and by flying spaghetti monster i can come up with a technical counter measure. i will develop my own decentralized system to defeat NSA as the global passive adversary." a few days or weeks later, after you study Mixnets and Meshnets and Delay Tolerant Networks (DTN) and RFC 5050 and after you start prototyping your own off-grid Internet, you come across this slide from the Snowden leaks: Moving Data Through Disconnected Networks https://search.edwardsnowden.com/docs/MovingDataThroughDisconnectedNetworks2015-01-17_nsadocs_snowden_doc https://search.edwardsnowden.com/docs/MovingDataThroughDisco... you slap yourself in the forehead. shit. NSA has already covered new forms of sneakernets too. of course they have. undetecable decentralized sneakernets are the perfect method of exfiltrating all of the data which NSA is stealing from everyone else in the world, and doing it using their own private off-grid network is ideal because nobody will notice exabytes of your data being siphoned through your fleet of "smart" e-lighbulbs used as a hop point back to Bluffdale. those NSA slides about DTNs are from around 2011, and it clearly shows NSA had several DTNs operational. they even had a partner program with NRO to develop "CubeSat" nanosatellites to act as nodes in their global exfiltration DTN. and if we know one thing about NSA it's when they're 10 years ahead of everyone else in inventing new defensive tactics, they also invent the offensive tactics to attack that defense, in order to cripple anyone else who might use the same weapons. so of course NSA already has ways to destroy DTNs, in order to prevent anyone else from gaining an advantage over NSA. remember "NOBUS"? Nobody But Us.
auslander 8y ago
None of the points make sense. Checked 'email spying' turned out to be plain spam filter. Apple is most ethical of them all. Aging is not without effects on brain, sigh.
- dang 8y ago
  Please keep personal attacks off this site. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
mark_l_watson 8y ago
+1 Richard Sure, he is cherry picking examples, but there are a lot of examples to choose from. I used mostly Linux at home for about 15 years, then switched to a decade of MacOS. My new laptop is a Linux laptop and I think I will go back to Linux as my main driver. I am really conflicted about cellphones. I was unhappy with the crap ware preloaded on my Verizon Android phones. I am happier with a Verizon iPhone, as far as not having a lot of junk preinstalled. I am reading Cal Newport’s new book Digital Minimalism that is making me realize that I need to be more focused in how I spend any screen time. I really like the iWatch and if/when it becomes possible to use one independently of an iPhone (now my iWatch with a data plan needs the phone for app installation and configuration) I would like to either ditch the phone or mostly keep it turned off. Still, I differ from Richards opinions in that I think that Apple and Google do have some good privacy policies in place. I feel fairly OK using a personal G Suite account and Apple has a fairly good track record for privacy.
- snazz 8y ago
  If your Android phone is compatible[0], you might enjoy the result from installing LineageOS on it. If you wish, you can continue to use the Google Play Services package (which is where Google does all the tracking, and is also the only way to get the Play Store). I chose not to and use F-Droid and directly downloaded APKs, which saves me from running any proprietary code that I haven’t vetted carefully. It also solves the planned obsolescence issue, because my Galaxy S4 is screaming-fast on a version of Android from three years after its last manufacturer update. [0]: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/ https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
  - 0815test 8y ago
    LineageOS is pretty nice, but it's a bandaid and they dropped a huge amount of older devices from support when they left the CM brand. Hopefully postmarketOS will become more usable in the future, and we'll be able to use that on existing hardware, perhaps in combination with something like Halium when needed to make the proprietary driver blobs usable with a custom, non-AOSP userspace.
Kye 8y ago
The last update to Telegram on iOS was two weeks ago. Is the rest of it worth reading if point #1 is wrong? edit: This last page update was 2018 according to the copyright. The OP didn't put (2018) in the title.
- snazz 8y ago
  The list is updated continuously. The last element in the censorship section is from December of last year, which is pretty recent.
talkingtab 8y ago
The #1 reason not to use Apple is their arrogance toward their users. I don't want them to lie to me about my battery, nor make me choose their music over spotify and engage in other customer-hostile policies to make money. If it were only that simple, sigh. Google is much worse. Apple at least lip sync's privacy, I suspect when it is to their advantage. I believe Apple just has no clue as to how to create products any more. How much money are they sitting on and and this is the best they can do?
- saagarjha 8y ago
  Apple does neither of these things.
- kbf 8y ago
  >I don't want them to lie to me about my battery You say that, but you most likely do. Even if you absolutely don’t, the vast majority of users still do, even if they don’t know it. The whole point of software is to at least partly obfuscate what the hardware does, to the benefit of users. Making things easier to use and understand and hiding unnecessary complications is not arrogance towards users, it’s acting in their interest.
  - talkingtab 8y ago
    I meant the thing about throttling the performance because the battery was old.
    - mamon 8y ago
      Throthled performance might midly annoy some of the users, some of the time. Battery lasting less than 8 hours would enrage everyone very quickly.
- valuearb 8y ago
  Fortunately you can choose Spotify, in fact Apple has distributed thousands of terabytes of Spotify to iOS users for free. And Apple did not lie about your battery, it kept your phone from spontaneously restarting when your battery declined to a pout where it couldn’t generate adequate voltage for the system. Apple just did a poor job of communicating what iOS was doing to prevent this.
dana321 8y ago
Recent examples of why not to use apple: 1. Their new keyboards are terrible, and are buggy. 2. Lack of headphone jack on phones. 3. Vast price increases for relatively little new features. 4. Constant upgrading of the OS which breaks half of the software you use.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  These aren’t really the kind of complaints that Stallman has, though.
- hellofunk 8y ago
  And a few good reasons to choose Apple: My new iPhone XR needs to be charged only once or twice per week. For development, I get a certified UNIX machine with an excellent user interface, best of both worlds for the vast majority of tasks we need using computers. Apple makes money off me because I buy their products. I am myself not the product, their hardware is. This has so many natural side effects that benefit users, that it scares me to go in the direction of android. The iPad is truly a revolutionary best in class device, I’ve not seen anything else that comes anywhere close to its quality for what it does.
  - wayneftw 8y ago
    > My new iPhone XR needs to be charged only once or twice per week. It's not the only phone that does that and it's not a new feature. Even with older phones, you can simply get a battery case. > with an excellent user interface The user interface is terrible and all the core features are extremely limited with no extensibility whatsoever. Just about every other desktop OS has a better user interface. > Apple makes money off me because I buy their products. I am myself not the product, their hardware is. Actually, their iProducts are not even yours after you buy them. If you want to build an app for your own device you have to give Apple $100 every year just to be able to install it. So that puts them into a malignant category of their own. > The iPad is truly a revolutionary best in class device... ...but only if you think iOS is any good or you don't value your own freedom.
    - 8y ago
dwighttk 8y ago
A lot of these really only make sense if you have bought into the libre software ideology.
lucidguppy 8y ago
I tried using linux on the desktop but plugging in monitors to my laptop just failed.
- justtopost 8y ago
  Odd, works just fine for me. What laptop and distro?
zenexer 8y ago
Let’s not water down the major issues with a long list of grievances. Apple’s anticompetitive practices are hugely problematic, and it’s the one area in which Apple refuses to budge. That’s where we need to focus, starting with the App Store.
coldtea 8y ago
I could not care less with Apple abiding by national laws of each country (to provide or not provide some app). Wanna do business somewhere, play by their laws, not impose your clout (which for some companies is bigger than some states, hence the "Banana Republic" notion) to have the laws of your preference enforced. (Most Americans are OK with it, because it's usually their companies doing the enforcing. But consider the opposite, you being forced to accept the terms of some other country). But I dislike their enforced prudery. Unless something is considered illegal (e.g. CP), it should be up to the users to decide. At worse, implement age restrictions when shopping.
datumy 8y ago
+1 The truth hurts, but helps.
saagarjha 8y ago
The problem I have with Stallman is that he’s usually right, but he is remarkably horrible at coming across as someone with valid opinions. It is disingenuous to come to the table with clearly cherry-picked evidence, and calling companies and their products with stupid names is just childish. There are a lot of problems with companies, and Stallman is very good at recognizing them, but he’s just pretty bad at getting people to not consider him as somewhat crazy :/
- deogeo 8y ago
  How is giving examples of misbehavior 'cherry-picking'?
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    They're random news articles that seem like they were the result of searching for "Apple is bad" on your favorite AGPLv3 search engine. They don't actually provide evidence for the real issues (merely hinting at them from a bunch of different angles), and they're don't appear to be very well researched or even necessarily provide details about the issue. In short, it's just spewing random "transgressions" without a coherent argument behind it, when there is totally one that could be made if he put in a bit of effort.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  Agreed. It's like when he writes about Facebook and calls people "useds" instead of "users." Many of his opinions could be (or are) compelling and well-defended, but many of them are tangled up with his hostile (and sometimes childish) style of argumentation. I wish he would tone it down sometimes, for lack of a better phrase. He doesn't have to compromise on his ideology to polish up his essays with less polarizing style. His arguments are already controversial, and he doesn't convince anyone who doesn't already agree with him by insisting on writing this way. EDIT: Well apparently this is a controversial comment...the score just keeps going up and down.
- Hamuko 8y ago
  Does this mean that talking about non-harmful voluntary pedophilia is somehow a bad way to market yourself and your ideas? And that people are less receptive to your ideas when you present them like a raving vegan in a sketch?
Geee 8y ago
I think Apple takes privacy more seriously than anyone. They don't need to spy on people to make money, unlike many tech companies. Content control is different from political censorship. Every company has the right to policy their content and choose their customers. It sucks, but it isn't evil. Those are pretty old arguments, because Apple does allow Bitcoin related apps now, and has been for many years.
Topolomancer 8y ago
This is only one item of a larger list. As someone whose university buys Apple products (and uses quite some services on the Stallman's list): does HN have any advice for advocating for making the switch? Let's take Slack as an example: what strategies are there to convince people to make the switch to an alternative product? From the perspective of users (who may not always care about the things RMS cares about), a switch just involves a lot of time and effort. Any suggestions or hints how to approach this?
- fghtr 8y ago
  > does HN have any advice for advocating for making the switch? Maybe not precisely that, but https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/university.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/university.html
supernova87a 8y ago
You can call out a multitude of things to be mad at Apple for. The question is, what alternatives currently available would do any better on the whole, for what you need? You demand a phone that has all these services and qualities to it. Or websites or apps that you like. What system have you come up with that provides a viable alternative to what exists? All these social media companies thought they could create a self-policing, open, free place for discussion. Surprise, turns out every country/government wants to put restrictions on these capabilities, in a different flavor. Or people want to be paid for things, while others want them for free. Almost every one of the things on his list is a result of people, users like you and me, doing things that weren't intended to be done. And they had to come up with rules to take care of. Or are what's needed to reach this many people. Not saying there aren't things on there that couldn't be changed. (and by the way, some of his examples are 10 years irrelevant) But you're mad at Apple because it reaches more people, and does so while ignoring these (let's face it, minor) concerns that most people don't care -- at all -- about. Ask any of your friends to identify / name even 2 of these issues? So go invent something different. See how long it is before you come under similar constraints and start having to make rules that someone, somewhere disagrees with. The actors in a system are servants of the things we want (or can't resist wanting) them to do.
- fghtr 8y ago
  > The question is, what alternatives currently available would do any better on the whole, for what you need? https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ (only for preorder, but the devkit already exists and looks fine)
- 8bitsrule 8y ago
  "The question is, what alternatives currently available would do any better on the whole...." That's been our problem, and remarkably, there's been little concentrated and little continuous discussion, let alone successful remediation, in all of these years. And so I've had to avoid all of the alternatives ... far from ideal!! I'd sure choose to use a service with much less sophistication, many fewer options, much less 'slick' presentation, but was forthright, dependable, and adequate. Shouldn't that much easier to create, fund, and maintain? And yet ... no show. WHY? HOW did these terrible practices become thinkable, let alone acceptable? With all the spirit, spunk, and can-do sophistication of the pioneers in our community ... WHY?
sexyflanders 8y ago
I’d be interested to hear valid alternatives or solutions to the listed problems. For the most part they aren’t unique to Apple.
Viral_Execution 8y ago
So google then? Haha well let us not forget Apple denied the FBI a backdoor and to unlock an iPhone. Hmm wonder how that would have turned out if it was any other company. Sorry but that spoke massive volumes to me. And when those FBI text leaks came out they were going to harass Tim Apple lmao. But I see a lot of errors & more personal opinions that lacks evidence but ok. But by all mean please if you have more to show please do we all need to know. This Has nothing to do with fanboy either I use both and the comparisons is night & day. Also I'm only interested in censorship in places it shouldn't be. In China that's how it is. Although we disagree that's there way of life and it's just the same as if you were to fly into there country and stay for a few days you'd obey there laws right? Or go in with your country's laws? Pointless to add that imo. So if that is a problem for you. I suggest taking it up with China the ones who call the shots not Apple. Its annoying for that to pushed on someone or something that absolutely has no power over a country. Dumb,Just sayin. I'd prefer that business not to be conducted there. But kinda to late for that when everything says made in China. How bout that prism 5 privacy phone? Hope it's successful and provides the needs which we all grown accustomed to with all these apps. Over all even tho I dislike there practices and absurd prices. And just putting out there I know my way around the phone then the average because both views are different, I'd rather stick with Apple a hardware company than a software company like google 2 different agendas. And to just be flat out real & honest where can you go? Everything is doing F*ckery everyone decided to wait to damn long to say anything when I know majority of us here knew about it all way back but the sheep heard didn't budge till recently to damn late they grew to powerful and google no longer needs you to have there device or any on you to track you. Plus everyone just welcomes all there products into there home already. If they are gonna farm my data I at least expect it to be handled like it's gold. And they could offer a paid version that we can choose to use that will keep our data off limits since we are paying for it. They still get there money. I personally think if we are paying outta pocket our data is off limits. The isp sells our data so why do we still pay for cable? Sometimes I think a solar flare would be nice and reset everything but I doubt people will learn.
wayneftw 8y ago
This list sounds like it was written by someone who wants to use Apple but needs some justifications not to. I only ever needed one reason to not use Apple products unless I was forced to: They're mostly not good products. The parts that are good are completely obstructed by the bad parts. For instance, macOS is a stable, supported Unix on slick hardware. That's great! But only at the cost of all the core desktop functionality being complete fucking garbage. The global menu is colossally stupid and it sucks, the Window management sucks, the Finder sucks and the Dock sucks. Everybody knows this except for the people who have made their computing hardware and software choices part of their identity. That last one was also infamous internally for sucking at the time it came out except in one respect: It marketed well. Oh and that slick hardware that you're being forced to buy is probably outdated before it left the store. Also, you were probably steered directly to the most expensive version of that hardware due to the skimpy lineup that you have to choose from and the lack of upgrade-ability. Same thing with iOS - you get some great stuff like long battery life and stability, but only at the cost of this little thing we call "freedom" to do what the fuck I want without having to ask my Apple parent. Seriously - Fuck Apple. They've always been a smug bunch of assholes. If you have to use their products (since they have just enough market share to be annoying) - just buy it used from a non-Apple source. Don't give these assholes your money.
jijojv 8y ago
Well Stallman also hates the internet: 4th line on that page is What's bad about: Airbnb | Amazon | Amtrak | Ancestry | Apple | Discord | Ebooks | Eventbrite | Evernote | Facebook | Google | Intel | LinkedIn | Lyft | Meetup | Microsoft | Netflix | Patreon | Pay Toilets | Skype | Slack | Spotify | Twitter | Uber | Wendy's |
- montroser 8y ago
  The Internet is incredibly vast. The idea that these sites comprise the Internet is exactly the sentiment Stallman is intending to combat.
- Nicksil 8y ago
  Airbnb, Amazon, Amtrak, Ancestry, Apple, Discord, Ebooks, Eventbrite, Evernote, Facebook, Google, Intel, LinkedIn, Lyft, Meetup, Microsoft, Netflix, Patreon, Pay Toilets, Skype, Slack, Spotify, Twitter, Uber, Wendy's ...is not the Internet
kpU8efre7r 8y ago
I don't think I'd be where I am today if I lived how Stallman lived. He is once again technically correct but I also think he has immense privilege others do not have. It's almost like he can't change his principles either, because at this point his livelihood depends on it.
leepowers 8y ago
Found at least one error on the list. This claim: > Apple's mail service silently censors the mail people send. Is based on this article: https://www.cultofmac.com/103703/apple-may-be-invisibly-filtering-your-outgoing-mobileme-email-exclusive/103703/ https://www.cultofmac.com/103703/apple-may-be-invisibly-filt... Where one user was unable to send one email via the MobileMe web interface because of an outgoing spam filter. The Mail app worked btw, and was not "censored". From this Stallman extrapolates censorship of all users who use Apple email. Give me a break.
conscells 8y ago
I was going through RMS' site and found the daily notes section. Here[1], on the 14th March entry (Kamala Harris staffing), he links to an article from the onion. Is it intentional? Does he not know onion is a satirical publication? [1] https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-jan-apr.html#14_March_2019_(Kamala_Harris_staffing) https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-jan-apr.html#14_March...
anta40 8y ago
As a mobile app developer, does the article mean I have to ditch Macs and iPhones? Hmmm...
newscracker 8y ago
It's highly admirable to see a person who's so strong on his convictions and philosophy. And the entire world is better for it even if most people think he's too radical. Some of the terms he uses (as alternative to the real names) may sound silly, but his heart is in the right place. The problem that I see is (inputs welcome from others on this) there are no mass produced goods (hardware and software) that are also easy to use and secure and private that conform to his requirements (leave alone cheap or being friendly to the environment, to workers, against censorship, and many other factors). It would take quite a bit of effort (to set things up) even for technical people to live as he does.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
pyman 8y ago
Apple treats developers with respect. And respect is everything for a developer.
- rochak 8y ago
  Just yesterday, I decided to contribute to an FOSS project that required the use of Apple Music API. Sadly, Apple requires an yearly $100 to create an Apple Developer account. Privacy is all fine, but this is just pure greed.
  - pyman 8y ago
    It's a closed platform. There's nothing wrong with closed platforms, and nothing greedy with comercial products or money making businesses. Unless you live in a communist country, of course.

338 points by donttrack 8y ago

Surprised Spotify's antitrust claims are not mentioned there Edit: All right so this website is meant to make a library of opposition against big corporations. I understand now

throwaway8879 8y ago
What do you mean by library of hate? Stallman may have his quirks, but he's a fantastic positive force for our freedoms, despite his rigid idealism.
- chdaniel 8y ago
  Right, hate was not the best word, my bad. Changed it to "opposition" — what I meant was I understand now that the website is a library of what big big corporations abuse.
JimmyAustin 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman Stallman has been the leading proponent of software freedom for many, many decades. He isn't inherently against big corps, he is against what a lot of big corps do.
- robertAngst 8y ago
  Can anyone on HN explain why software freedom could ever be a bad thing? IE: I only see it as Apple having extreme upfront costs, keeping poor people away from developing.
  - mch82 8y ago
    I have two questions about licenses that require distribution of source code (like GPL & AGPL). 1. Do they limit the freedom of the developer to keep source code private? 2. Do they make it harder to sustain a living wage through the labor of writing software? I’m fully supportive of “attribution” licenses like MIT, BSD, Apache 2. But, I don’t think Stallman considers those “free software”.
    - anoncake 8y ago
      > But, I don’t think Stallman considers those “free software”. He does, though they arent copyleft.
    - kilburn 8y ago
      > 1. Do they limit the freedom of the developer to keep source code private? There's a clash between user's and developer's freedoms: if a developer is free to keep the source code private, then said software's users are not free to study, change it, and distribute those changes. The free software movement prioritizes user's freedoms (the 4 essential freedoms [1]) over developer's freedoms. You seem to do the opposite. > 2. Do they make it harder to sustain a living wage through the labor of writing software? Your wording makes it hard to answer the question. If you get paid purely to write software, it doesn't matter if said software is free software or not. If you sell software copies/licenses to pay for your development, then it is objectively harder to earn as much. [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html
    - jimktrains2 8y ago
      > 1. Do they limit the freedom of the developer to keep source code private? The (A)GPL aim is to retain the freedom of the user to view, modify, compile, and redistribute their changes. They explicitly limit the freedom of the developer to close their source would that the user has those freedoms. To use an extreme example that I'm not using as an example for moral equivalence, but as a procedural one: laws against any (e.g. theft, murder, trespassing, &c) limit the abilities of one party for the benefit of another. Licenses like the MIT and bsd license take the opposite approach: they give the developer the freedom to use the code as they want, including closing it from inspection and modification by the end user. Both allow someone to be constrained in some way. It's just a matter of who. > 2. Do they make it harder to sustain a living wage through the labor of writing software? I mean, RedHat seems to be doing OK? The recent kerfuffle about mongo and elastic search seem to be because they chose more permissive license at the start, and not a copyleft. So, who knows? Business is hard and no one factor makes or breaks your chances?
  - krapp 8y ago
    I don't see software freedom as a bad thing, I just disagree with the moralism of the free software philosophy. I don't believe there is an implicit moral dimension to software licensing, it's simply a matter of technical and financial tradeoffs.
  - valuearb 8y ago
    iOS development costs only $99 a year. Of course if Spotify is able to win its suit, iOS development will become far more costly, Apple won’t be able to distribute free apps at no charge anymore, like it does for Spotify.
weavie 8y ago
Not necessarily just big corporations. https://stallman.org/pay-toilets.html https://stallman.org/pay-toilets.html
- badpun 8y ago
  Regarding his argument against paid toilets: can’t this be said about any other basic neccesity? I.e. don’t pay for food, because some people can’t afford it - so food should be free.
  - gowld 8y ago
    What's interesting about stallman is that he is zealous about his philosophy, but like all philosophies, his philosophy is inconsistent when you take it to its logical extremes. (See the paradox of closed source microwaves). Stallman's philosophy is a veneer over utilitarianism and assumption that the computer is a unique construct in society -- software should be libre because libre software provides the most value to the most people due to the 0 marginal cost of software, even if it's less profitable to the creators, and even this claim is not quite true due to the security benefits of closed platforms and the virtuous cycle of profit motive motivating people to work harder to produce more. It makes sense when you consider that Stallman formed his views when he was working at MIT, with his material support from donations from people who made their money not from free software, or who shared such donations with him. The economics of his philosophy are tainted by that foundational flaw.
    - tokyodude 8y ago
      I know of no security benefits to closed platforms. I know many people believe one platform that happens to be closed, iOS, is more secure than some other platforms but I've seen no evidence that it's more secure because it's closed. In fact, the platform that's generally considered the least secure, Windows, is also closed.
      - throwawaymath 8y ago
        The general argument is that iOS is more secure because Apple strictly controls both the hardware and the software. The two are very tightly integrated in Apple products, which means proprietary software for e.g. segregating userland or interacting with the secure enclave is specialized and well-audited. The other (perhaps more compelling) argument is that Apple is only able to invest this level of security in its products because of its spectacular profits, which would likely be much lower if iOS were open source. That's basically the gist of it. EDIT: To whoeever downvoted this, I'm just relaying the argument.
valuearb 8y ago
All of Stallman cites are 5-10 years old.

why_only_15 8y ago

Apple doesn't really spy on users imo. Internally, the privacy team is quite powerful and forces lots of safeguards about how exactly data can be used.

tokyodude 8y ago
Same with Google. Google has privacy teams as well which are > quite powerful and forces lots of safeguards about how exactly data can be used. Apple recommends apps based on other apps I've downloaded. So does Google. Apple recommends music based on other music I've played. So does Google. Apple recommends books and movies as well based on similar data. So does Google. Apple keeps track of every placed your Apple devices have been. So does Google. Apple doesn't share this data. Neither does Google.
- jeromegv 8y ago
  You seem to be simplifying things a bit too much. Apple doesn’t keep track of where your device has been. Your iPhone knows but it’s not being sent to Apple. Google has been shown to know this data even when you disable as many location services as you can.
  - robertAngst 8y ago
    Until one day you agree to an update....
  - tokyodude 8y ago
    Apple knows which is how they can display every devices location on icloud.com including "last known location" which means the location was previously sent to Apple.
    - xenadu02 8y ago
      That requires you to opt-in to the “Find My iPhone” or “Find My Friends” feature which are explicitly designed to locate the phone. If you don’t enable those things (which are not automatically enabled) then Apple does not know the location of your phone.

azangru 8y ago

Most of the reasons in that list are ideological, not technical. I mean, I like listening to RMS, but prefer my choice of technology to be governed by technical reasons, not by what a company does in China or in Russia. Incidentally, given a choice between an Apple machine and a well-functioning GNU/Linux machine I would pick the latter.

robertAngst 8y ago
>well-functioning GNU/Linux machine I would pick the latter. I love ubuntu server, but cannot do Linux desktop. Maybe you can provide some thoughts- >Mouse acceleration is not the same as Windows Mouse Acceleration. Too much starcraft... sure... but I could not get my perfect mouse settings. >Stuff doesnt work. From Netflix needing a weekend worth of googling to work, to other things that required additional commands, things take longer than Windows. >Things break. I used to say, an Ubuntu Desktop install has 9 lives. Everytime you reboot you spend one of them. Anyway, would love to go to Linux, but I found the Microsoft Desktop experience better. (and apparently worth 100$)
- mark_l_watson 8y ago
  I bought a laptop from System76 last fall and love it. I have been using Linux since Slackware was first available for download, and I have to say that buying hardware with Linux installed and tuned is great.
brownbat 8y ago
Most. Unpatched security issues and erecting barriers to repair are legitimately annoying technical concerns. But you're right that's just a couple on a long list.
johnchristopher 8y ago
Technology carry its own intrinsic political and ethical weight. Choosing a tech over another tech for technical reasons and ignoring other aspects is a political choice.
- 8y ago

rbrbr 8y ago

I would like to see the same details about google / android and microsoft / windows from the author of this comprehensive list. And his conclusion what to use as an OS considering all.

unstatusthequo 8y ago
He has more "what's bad about" various companies (and pay toilets). ;)
- JdeBP 8y ago
  Indeed, there's a whole list of them right at the start of the headlined article.
Un1corn 8y ago
The author does have a page about Google[0] and Microsoft[1]. He doesn't draw a conclusion in those separate pages but you can see how he uses computers in another page[2]. [0] https://stallman.org/google.html https://stallman.org/google.html [1] https://stallman.org/microsoft.html https://stallman.org/microsoft.html [2] https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html
ardfie 8y ago
These are all linked at the top of his homepage https://stallman.org/ https://stallman.org/ e.g. https://stallman.org/microsoft.html https://stallman.org/microsoft.html

born2discover 8y ago

The case is strong with this one!

raverbashing 8y ago

Sorry, did Stallman started using a live web browser already? His positions are extremist and I don't know what's gained by divulging them

johnisgood 8y ago
Huh? I do not believe he is incorrect about this, but you do, so what is he incorrect about exactly?
- hellofunk 8y ago
  A lot of the arguments in this list are very one-sided, and seem to ignore things Apple has done that are directly contrary to the point he’s trying to make.

robertAngst 8y ago

I consider it responsible Capitalism to not buy products from Apple, AT&T, BP, etc... Apple has not been pro consumer or pro developer in my lifetime. They do advertise a lot.

hellofunk 8y ago
It’s unclear what you mean by this, or what you are using as the criteria for being a pro consumer. Their stance on user privacy, especially with iPhone in comparison to android, is certainly a good example of very pro consumer attitudes.
- robertAngst 8y ago
  >It’s unclear what you mean by this, (did you read the article?) Proprietary connectors, overpriced hardware, high cost barrier to entry, closed ecosystem.
  - valuearb 8y ago
    I much prefer lightning to USB, it’s cheap and easy to become a Mac or iOS developer, and also greatly prefer the security of a closed ecosystem. And when you use your computer 2,000 hours a year the extra cost of Macs per hour of work is trivial and the benefits are great.
    - robertAngst 8y ago
      >I much prefer lightning to USB Cool anecodete >it’s cheap and easy to become a Mac or iOS developer, Its the most expensive system to develop for. So you literally lied.
8bitsrule 8y ago
In Apple's case you can go back to the time before the logo changed from a rainbow to a chrome shield. The Apple II manuals were a model of readability, clarity, and personable communication. http://www.classiccmp.org/cini/pdf/Apple/Apple%20II%20Reference%20Manual%20-%20Woz.pdf http://www.classiccmp.org/cini/pdf/Apple/Apple%20II%20Refere... The change when the Mac manuals came out was day-to-night.

mch82 8y ago

I disagree with the bullets about banning/censoring apps. There are ways to install and run software on iOS without using the AppStore. If developers share source code, people are free to compile and install it using Xcode. It’s also possible to run Python programs using Pythonista. Finally, programs can be run as JavaScript in Safari. Apple definitely controls the AppStore. That makes it less convenient to install programs than on GNU/Linux, but the freedom is still there. And maybe the added steps mean the people who choose to run code via Xcode, Pythonista, or JavaScript are more likely to understand the risks of running that code. Edit: Posted incomplete comment on the first try. Also wanted to add that I look up to Stallman as a role model and advocate for open source & contributing back to open source.

simion314 8y ago
Are you aware of the limitations of the methods you describe? If yes it is very dishonest to not mention them, if not you should get the details right(find out how can you share an iOS native app you made with your friends)
- mch82 8y ago
  Does Apple prohibit sending them the source code so that they can compile and load it through Xcode? I realize that requires a MacOS computer, which costs money, but the “free” in free software principles is about the freedom to share the code, not the price of the code. Free software is allowed to be sold. Increasingly, it is also possible to run Swift code on Linux without Xcode or MacOS (recognizing the GUI would need to be rewritten).
  - simion314 8y ago
    Are you serious? Does Sony prevent me emailing my friends my game source code? They "JUST" need developer system with expensive proprietary software and developer accounts, certificates and agree to a few EULAs and ToSs but I am not prevented to send them source code.
    - 8y ago

jpdus 8y ago

Wow - regardless of whether one agrees with RMS, alone the fact that this submission has been heavily flagged already (and will thus drop from the frontpage soon) tells you a lot about the power of Apple and their fans here. HN urgently needs to address the flagging problems, this has been the case for many important but controversial topics recently and leads to a degraded quality of frontpage submissions in my view.

hellofunk 8y ago
I have not flagged this article, partly because I’m curious to see the debate here. But I’m sure those who have flagged it did so because this article is not objective, this is a very extremist position with a lot of cherry picked arguments that are obviously from a personal bias he has against Apple. Many of the points he is specifically isolating for Apple are quite true of most of the big tech firms.
- jpdus 8y ago
  Yep, definitely true (but his points for other firms like google are directly linked above the article, this I would deny that there is a clear bias). I have no side in this game (no affiliations to either Google or Apple) but this points about Apple are both true and relevant and thus imo no reason to flag. You can still just ignore the topic. Flagging just kills the discussion and during recent times this often happened to legit but controversial topics (e.g. OpenAI for-profit announcement was heavily flagged and buried as well).
- kilburn 8y ago
  RMS is an extremist, openly and unashamedly. He doesn't try to hide it, he tries to argue that his extremist position is the morally correct and long-term best for society though. > from a personal bias he has against Apple. Many of the points he is specifically isolating for Apple are quite true of most of the big tech firms. He bashes all big techs for most of those points too. See the links at the top where he complains about Airbnb, Amazon, Amtrak, Ancestry, Apple, Discord, Ebooks, Eventbrite, Evernote, Facebook, Google, Intel, LinkedIn, Lyft, Meetup, Microsoft, Netflix, Patreon, Pay Toilets, Skype, Slack, Spotify, Twitter, Uber and Wendy's. If there are missing companies there it is probably because he didn't have the time, not because he does't want to complain about something regarding that specific company ;)

hellofunk 8y ago

> Apple practices tax avoidance using loopholes and lobbying. He’s cherry picking things here that really don’t have anything to do specifically with Apple. Amazon paid zero taxes last year and they had more income than nearly any company in the world. Google is also quite famous for the loopholes it finds. I’m not sure it’s fair to single out Apple specifically for this.

Hello71 8y ago
I believe Stallman is well known for calling Amazon's Kindle the "Swindle". I assume he has some other derogatory name for Google.
viraptor 8y ago
This is called whataboutism. This article is not about Amazon or Google. He likely has a similar opinion about those companies. But this is about Apple and the tax avoidance point is valid. (At least according to https://itep.org/fact-sheet-apple-and-tax-avoidance/ https://itep.org/fact-sheet-apple-and-tax-avoidance/ )
- twmiller 8y ago
  I see a lot of people defending the page this way, but to me the problem is that a webpage about ‘what’s wrong with Apple’ implies a list of issues specific to Apple. Most of the issues brought up here belong on a ‘what’s wrong with modern tech companies’ page, since they are issues found throughout the industry.
simion314 8y ago
>I’m not sure it’s fair to single out Apple specifically for this. This article was about Apple, go on the top of the page and you can navigate to other companies complains.
schwartzworld 8y ago
I don't know for a fact, but I'd be willing to bet that Richard Stallman doesn't think you should give Amazon your money either.

flyinglizard 8y ago

1. Apple takes privacy and data safety seriously. It invests a significant amount of engineering effort into keeping user data safe. It doesn't comply with government requests unless forced, after deploying its vast legal means to hold them back. 2. Other consumer electronics devices aren't built in factories that are any different or better than those of Foxconn. While it doesn't absolve Apple from taking some responsibility, RMS should have called for avoiding mobile devices altogether if he's so worried about personnel abuse. 3. Fortunately or not, digital platforms aren't exempt from real world rules and laws. If something is prohibited in some territory, we can't seriously expect foreign companies who do business there to ignore local laws and regulations. Would you be so lenient towards a Chinese company which operates in USA disregarding all intellectual property laws? About a Japanese media company operating in Europe that markets material that would constitute underaged pornography? 4. We need to respect sovereignty and local customs. If there's a lesson to be learnt from the Arab Spring uprisings and their incredibly bloody outcomes is that freedom of information requires a certain societal foundation, and can't be thought of as an absolute universal value. Even the Western world is in a disarray following the information propagation offered by online platforms; to expect a society with much weaker civil institution and foundations to face the same challenges is wrong. Therefore, when Apple is asked to block content in China by the local authorities and complies, it's not any more than respecting the rule of the land. The alternative to that is that the Chinese would create their own Apple (which they of course do), and that's worse for everyone at the end. It leads to a bisected global economy in the style of the Iron Curtain. I'd much rather have Apple operating in China and constantly pushing against government regulation than see the Chinese setting up their own Apple run by government cronies which would pipe user data right into the agencies of Beijing. 5. That aside, some of Apple's behavior (as illustrated by Spotify lately) is downright predatory, intended to lock Apple users to inferior alternatives. I don't like that one bit. On the balance though, I support Apple's discretion with my dollars, because I feel they are selling to me rather than selling me, and because their devices are great.

dmitriid 8y ago
> Other consumer electronics devices aren't built in factories that are any different or better than those of Foxconn. While it doesn't absolve Apple from taking some responsibility, RMS should have called for avoiding mobile devices altogether if he's so worried about personnel abuse. And Apple seems to be the only company to be quite open about this and taking active steps to improve working conditions throughout the entire supply chain.

JdeBP 8y ago

> If you carry a cell phone, it tells Big Brother where you are. It's worth remembering that if one carries a mobile telephone, and it is not fully powered off, TPC always knows where you are, and the powers that be do not need to go to Apple for that information. A mobile telephone broadcasts to let the world know where it is, and the mobile telephony system only works in the first place if the system knows how to route incoming calls and SMS messages to a person's telephone. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19215636 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19215636

pbalau 8y ago
> the mobile telephony system only works in the first place if the system knows how to route incoming calls and SMS messages to a person's telephone Like every other messaging system. Because you know, in order to send a message you need to know where...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jstanley 8y ago
  Not quite. Ricochet IM[0] is a messaging system based around Tor hidden services. The entire purpose of Tor is the ability to route messages to people without finding out where they are. [0] https://ricochet.im/ https://ricochet.im/
  - ex3ndr 8y ago
    Tor is power hungry and can’t scale for billions of users.
chimneypool 8y ago
the Dystopian Orwellian Nightmare is even worse than what Stallman is saying here. First of all, one of the most critical top secrets (ab)used by NSA against us in the Snowden cache has been kept secret from us. in the Wiretap Act of 1968 (Title III), it explicitly defined what is a wiretap and who is authorized to perform them and what the legal procedure is. if you read the Wiretap act in the most literal fashion, you will conclude that Title III applies to any communication device which is connected to a network via a physical wire, such as a landline telephone. https://it.ojp.gov/PrivacyLiberty/authorities/statutes/1284 https://it.ojp.gov/PrivacyLiberty/authorities/statutes/1284 would you like to know what NSA's interpretation is of the Title III? well, you can't, because it's Secret Law. but I'll give you a hint: cell phones don't connect via wires, therefore, Title III does not apply, therefore NSA can just "read the air" any damn way it pleases, and it doesn't have to tell you, nor tell a Judge, nor tell anybody. NSA just does it. NSA records the entire radio spectrum going over the air. technically, it's not a "wire" tap, since there is no wire. the closest i recall this little legal loophole fib almost coming out during the peak of the Snowden leaks was when (traitor neocon) Sentator Wyden was challenging the NSA in open hearings by giving hints that the NSA was spying on the GPS locations of all cell phones in the US. but nothing ever came of it, Wyden never followed through with leaking any documents nor holding a public hearing. if you have any doubts, just read the NSA AURORAGOLD slide deck: https://search.edwardsnowden.com/docs/AURORAGOLDWorkingGroup2014-12-04_nsadocs_snowden_doc https://search.edwardsnowden.com/docs/AURORAGOLDWorkingGroup... i don't even know what "IR.21" is, some kind of telco protocol thingy like SS7, but NSA targets it and surveils it on every "Mobile Network Operator" (MNO) on the planet. Slide 10: "We Monitor the Industry." NSA spies on the GSM Association in Switzerland. NSA spies on the entire technical staffs of every "MNO" on Earth. scroll towards the end of the slides where there is a map "network coverage." the whole fucking world of cell phones is "covered" by NSA surveillance. notice anything funny about the map? the US and most FVEYs countries are orange, meaning 1%-20% wireless "coverage." but Africa, inner Asia, and desolate countries are green, which means over 80%. gee, that's funny. why would NSA's "wireless collection" be so much higher in countries who are marginal American allies and all of whom are rapidly developing economies which went from pre-industrial agrarian, to skipping over industrial, which means they never built a national phone network of wires, and skipped straight to national wireless networks. it means NSA basically data rapes wireless. it is infinitely easier for NSA to spy on wireless than wired. but wait! it gets worse. you may ask yourself "okay, fine, NSA steals the air, but i'm a hacker and by flying spaghetti monster i can come up with a technical counter measure. i will develop my own decentralized system to defeat NSA as the global passive adversary." a few days or weeks later, after you study Mixnets and Meshnets and Delay Tolerant Networks (DTN) and RFC 5050 and after you start prototyping your own off-grid Internet, you come across this slide from the Snowden leaks: Moving Data Through Disconnected Networks https://search.edwardsnowden.com/docs/MovingDataThroughDisconnectedNetworks2015-01-17_nsadocs_snowden_doc https://search.edwardsnowden.com/docs/MovingDataThroughDisco... you slap yourself in the forehead. shit. NSA has already covered new forms of sneakernets too. of course they have. undetecable decentralized sneakernets are the perfect method of exfiltrating all of the data which NSA is stealing from everyone else in the world, and doing it using their own private off-grid network is ideal because nobody will notice exabytes of your data being siphoned through your fleet of "smart" e-lighbulbs used as a hop point back to Bluffdale. those NSA slides about DTNs are from around 2011, and it clearly shows NSA had several DTNs operational. they even had a partner program with NRO to develop "CubeSat" nanosatellites to act as nodes in their global exfiltration DTN. and if we know one thing about NSA it's when they're 10 years ahead of everyone else in inventing new defensive tactics, they also invent the offensive tactics to attack that defense, in order to cripple anyone else who might use the same weapons. so of course NSA already has ways to destroy DTNs, in order to prevent anyone else from gaining an advantage over NSA. remember "NOBUS"? Nobody But Us.

auslander 8y ago

None of the points make sense. Checked 'email spying' turned out to be plain spam filter. Apple is most ethical of them all. Aging is not without effects on brain, sigh.

dang 8y ago
Please keep personal attacks off this site. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

mark_l_watson 8y ago

+1 Richard Sure, he is cherry picking examples, but there are a lot of examples to choose from. I used mostly Linux at home for about 15 years, then switched to a decade of MacOS. My new laptop is a Linux laptop and I think I will go back to Linux as my main driver. I am really conflicted about cellphones. I was unhappy with the crap ware preloaded on my Verizon Android phones. I am happier with a Verizon iPhone, as far as not having a lot of junk preinstalled. I am reading Cal Newport’s new book Digital Minimalism that is making me realize that I need to be more focused in how I spend any screen time. I really like the iWatch and if/when it becomes possible to use one independently of an iPhone (now my iWatch with a data plan needs the phone for app installation and configuration) I would like to either ditch the phone or mostly keep it turned off. Still, I differ from Richards opinions in that I think that Apple and Google do have some good privacy policies in place. I feel fairly OK using a personal G Suite account and Apple has a fairly good track record for privacy.

snazz 8y ago
If your Android phone is compatible[0], you might enjoy the result from installing LineageOS on it. If you wish, you can continue to use the Google Play Services package (which is where Google does all the tracking, and is also the only way to get the Play Store). I chose not to and use F-Droid and directly downloaded APKs, which saves me from running any proprietary code that I haven’t vetted carefully. It also solves the planned obsolescence issue, because my Galaxy S4 is screaming-fast on a version of Android from three years after its last manufacturer update. [0]: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/ https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
- 0815test 8y ago
  LineageOS is pretty nice, but it's a bandaid and they dropped a huge amount of older devices from support when they left the CM brand. Hopefully postmarketOS will become more usable in the future, and we'll be able to use that on existing hardware, perhaps in combination with something like Halium when needed to make the proprietary driver blobs usable with a custom, non-AOSP userspace.

Kye 8y ago

The last update to Telegram on iOS was two weeks ago. Is the rest of it worth reading if point #1 is wrong? edit: This last page update was 2018 according to the copyright. The OP didn't put (2018) in the title.

snazz 8y ago
The list is updated continuously. The last element in the censorship section is from December of last year, which is pretty recent.

talkingtab 8y ago

The #1 reason not to use Apple is their arrogance toward their users. I don't want them to lie to me about my battery, nor make me choose their music over spotify and engage in other customer-hostile policies to make money. If it were only that simple, sigh. Google is much worse. Apple at least lip sync's privacy, I suspect when it is to their advantage. I believe Apple just has no clue as to how to create products any more. How much money are they sitting on and and this is the best they can do?

saagarjha 8y ago
Apple does neither of these things.
kbf 8y ago
>I don't want them to lie to me about my battery You say that, but you most likely do. Even if you absolutely don’t, the vast majority of users still do, even if they don’t know it. The whole point of software is to at least partly obfuscate what the hardware does, to the benefit of users. Making things easier to use and understand and hiding unnecessary complications is not arrogance towards users, it’s acting in their interest.
- talkingtab 8y ago
  I meant the thing about throttling the performance because the battery was old.
  - mamon 8y ago
    Throthled performance might midly annoy some of the users, some of the time. Battery lasting less than 8 hours would enrage everyone very quickly.
valuearb 8y ago
Fortunately you can choose Spotify, in fact Apple has distributed thousands of terabytes of Spotify to iOS users for free. And Apple did not lie about your battery, it kept your phone from spontaneously restarting when your battery declined to a pout where it couldn’t generate adequate voltage for the system. Apple just did a poor job of communicating what iOS was doing to prevent this.

dana321 8y ago

Recent examples of why not to use apple: 1. Their new keyboards are terrible, and are buggy. 2. Lack of headphone jack on phones. 3. Vast price increases for relatively little new features. 4. Constant upgrading of the OS which breaks half of the software you use.

saagarjha 8y ago
These aren’t really the kind of complaints that Stallman has, though.
hellofunk 8y ago
And a few good reasons to choose Apple: My new iPhone XR needs to be charged only once or twice per week. For development, I get a certified UNIX machine with an excellent user interface, best of both worlds for the vast majority of tasks we need using computers. Apple makes money off me because I buy their products. I am myself not the product, their hardware is. This has so many natural side effects that benefit users, that it scares me to go in the direction of android. The iPad is truly a revolutionary best in class device, I’ve not seen anything else that comes anywhere close to its quality for what it does.
- wayneftw 8y ago
  > My new iPhone XR needs to be charged only once or twice per week. It's not the only phone that does that and it's not a new feature. Even with older phones, you can simply get a battery case. > with an excellent user interface The user interface is terrible and all the core features are extremely limited with no extensibility whatsoever. Just about every other desktop OS has a better user interface. > Apple makes money off me because I buy their products. I am myself not the product, their hardware is. Actually, their iProducts are not even yours after you buy them. If you want to build an app for your own device you have to give Apple $100 every year just to be able to install it. So that puts them into a malignant category of their own. > The iPad is truly a revolutionary best in class device... ...but only if you think iOS is any good or you don't value your own freedom.
  - 8y ago

dwighttk 8y ago

A lot of these really only make sense if you have bought into the libre software ideology.

lucidguppy 8y ago

I tried using linux on the desktop but plugging in monitors to my laptop just failed.

justtopost 8y ago
Odd, works just fine for me. What laptop and distro?

zenexer 8y ago

Let’s not water down the major issues with a long list of grievances. Apple’s anticompetitive practices are hugely problematic, and it’s the one area in which Apple refuses to budge. That’s where we need to focus, starting with the App Store.

coldtea 8y ago

I could not care less with Apple abiding by national laws of each country (to provide or not provide some app). Wanna do business somewhere, play by their laws, not impose your clout (which for some companies is bigger than some states, hence the "Banana Republic" notion) to have the laws of your preference enforced. (Most Americans are OK with it, because it's usually their companies doing the enforcing. But consider the opposite, you being forced to accept the terms of some other country). But I dislike their enforced prudery. Unless something is considered illegal (e.g. CP), it should be up to the users to decide. At worse, implement age restrictions when shopping.

datumy 8y ago

+1 The truth hurts, but helps.

saagarjha 8y ago

The problem I have with Stallman is that he’s usually right, but he is remarkably horrible at coming across as someone with valid opinions. It is disingenuous to come to the table with clearly cherry-picked evidence, and calling companies and their products with stupid names is just childish. There are a lot of problems with companies, and Stallman is very good at recognizing them, but he’s just pretty bad at getting people to not consider him as somewhat crazy :/

deogeo 8y ago
How is giving examples of misbehavior 'cherry-picking'?
- saagarjha 8y ago
  They're random news articles that seem like they were the result of searching for "Apple is bad" on your favorite AGPLv3 search engine. They don't actually provide evidence for the real issues (merely hinting at them from a bunch of different angles), and they're don't appear to be very well researched or even necessarily provide details about the issue. In short, it's just spewing random "transgressions" without a coherent argument behind it, when there is totally one that could be made if he put in a bit of effort.
throwawaymath 8y ago
Agreed. It's like when he writes about Facebook and calls people "useds" instead of "users." Many of his opinions could be (or are) compelling and well-defended, but many of them are tangled up with his hostile (and sometimes childish) style of argumentation. I wish he would tone it down sometimes, for lack of a better phrase. He doesn't have to compromise on his ideology to polish up his essays with less polarizing style. His arguments are already controversial, and he doesn't convince anyone who doesn't already agree with him by insisting on writing this way. EDIT: Well apparently this is a controversial comment...the score just keeps going up and down.
Hamuko 8y ago
Does this mean that talking about non-harmful voluntary pedophilia is somehow a bad way to market yourself and your ideas? And that people are less receptive to your ideas when you present them like a raving vegan in a sketch?

Geee 8y ago

I think Apple takes privacy more seriously than anyone. They don't need to spy on people to make money, unlike many tech companies. Content control is different from political censorship. Every company has the right to policy their content and choose their customers. It sucks, but it isn't evil. Those are pretty old arguments, because Apple does allow Bitcoin related apps now, and has been for many years.

Topolomancer 8y ago

This is only one item of a larger list. As someone whose university buys Apple products (and uses quite some services on the Stallman's list): does HN have any advice for advocating for making the switch? Let's take Slack as an example: what strategies are there to convince people to make the switch to an alternative product? From the perspective of users (who may not always care about the things RMS cares about), a switch just involves a lot of time and effort. Any suggestions or hints how to approach this?

fghtr 8y ago
> does HN have any advice for advocating for making the switch? Maybe not precisely that, but https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/university.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/university.html

supernova87a 8y ago

You can call out a multitude of things to be mad at Apple for. The question is, what alternatives currently available would do any better on the whole, for what you need? You demand a phone that has all these services and qualities to it. Or websites or apps that you like. What system have you come up with that provides a viable alternative to what exists? All these social media companies thought they could create a self-policing, open, free place for discussion. Surprise, turns out every country/government wants to put restrictions on these capabilities, in a different flavor. Or people want to be paid for things, while others want them for free. Almost every one of the things on his list is a result of people, users like you and me, doing things that weren't intended to be done. And they had to come up with rules to take care of. Or are what's needed to reach this many people. Not saying there aren't things on there that couldn't be changed. (and by the way, some of his examples are 10 years irrelevant) But you're mad at Apple because it reaches more people, and does so while ignoring these (let's face it, minor) concerns that most people don't care -- at all -- about. Ask any of your friends to identify / name even 2 of these issues? So go invent something different. See how long it is before you come under similar constraints and start having to make rules that someone, somewhere disagrees with. The actors in a system are servants of the things we want (or can't resist wanting) them to do.

fghtr 8y ago
> The question is, what alternatives currently available would do any better on the whole, for what you need? https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ (only for preorder, but the devkit already exists and looks fine)
8bitsrule 8y ago
"The question is, what alternatives currently available would do any better on the whole...." That's been our problem, and remarkably, there's been little concentrated and little continuous discussion, let alone successful remediation, in all of these years. And so I've had to avoid all of the alternatives ... far from ideal!! I'd sure choose to use a service with much less sophistication, many fewer options, much less 'slick' presentation, but was forthright, dependable, and adequate. Shouldn't that much easier to create, fund, and maintain? And yet ... no show. WHY? HOW did these terrible practices become thinkable, let alone acceptable? With all the spirit, spunk, and can-do sophistication of the pioneers in our community ... WHY?

sexyflanders 8y ago

I’d be interested to hear valid alternatives or solutions to the listed problems. For the most part they aren’t unique to Apple.

Viral_Execution 8y ago

So google then? Haha well let us not forget Apple denied the FBI a backdoor and to unlock an iPhone. Hmm wonder how that would have turned out if it was any other company. Sorry but that spoke massive volumes to me. And when those FBI text leaks came out they were going to harass Tim Apple lmao. But I see a lot of errors & more personal opinions that lacks evidence but ok. But by all mean please if you have more to show please do we all need to know. This Has nothing to do with fanboy either I use both and the comparisons is night & day. Also I'm only interested in censorship in places it shouldn't be. In China that's how it is. Although we disagree that's there way of life and it's just the same as if you were to fly into there country and stay for a few days you'd obey there laws right? Or go in with your country's laws? Pointless to add that imo. So if that is a problem for you. I suggest taking it up with China the ones who call the shots not Apple. Its annoying for that to pushed on someone or something that absolutely has no power over a country. Dumb,Just sayin. I'd prefer that business not to be conducted there. But kinda to late for that when everything says made in China. How bout that prism 5 privacy phone? Hope it's successful and provides the needs which we all grown accustomed to with all these apps. Over all even tho I dislike there practices and absurd prices. And just putting out there I know my way around the phone then the average because both views are different, I'd rather stick with Apple a hardware company than a software company like google 2 different agendas. And to just be flat out real & honest where can you go? Everything is doing F*ckery everyone decided to wait to damn long to say anything when I know majority of us here knew about it all way back but the sheep heard didn't budge till recently to damn late they grew to powerful and google no longer needs you to have there device or any on you to track you. Plus everyone just welcomes all there products into there home already. If they are gonna farm my data I at least expect it to be handled like it's gold. And they could offer a paid version that we can choose to use that will keep our data off limits since we are paying for it. They still get there money. I personally think if we are paying outta pocket our data is off limits. The isp sells our data so why do we still pay for cable? Sometimes I think a solar flare would be nice and reset everything but I doubt people will learn.

wayneftw 8y ago

This list sounds like it was written by someone who wants to use Apple but needs some justifications not to. I only ever needed one reason to not use Apple products unless I was forced to: They're mostly not good products. The parts that are good are completely obstructed by the bad parts. For instance, macOS is a stable, supported Unix on slick hardware. That's great! But only at the cost of all the core desktop functionality being complete fucking garbage. The global menu is colossally stupid and it sucks, the Window management sucks, the Finder sucks and the Dock sucks. Everybody knows this except for the people who have made their computing hardware and software choices part of their identity. That last one was also infamous internally for sucking at the time it came out except in one respect: It marketed well. Oh and that slick hardware that you're being forced to buy is probably outdated before it left the store. Also, you were probably steered directly to the most expensive version of that hardware due to the skimpy lineup that you have to choose from and the lack of upgrade-ability. Same thing with iOS - you get some great stuff like long battery life and stability, but only at the cost of this little thing we call "freedom" to do what the fuck I want without having to ask my Apple parent. Seriously - Fuck Apple. They've always been a smug bunch of assholes. If you have to use their products (since they have just enough market share to be annoying) - just buy it used from a non-Apple source. Don't give these assholes your money.

jijojv 8y ago

montroser 8y ago
The Internet is incredibly vast. The idea that these sites comprise the Internet is exactly the sentiment Stallman is intending to combat.
Nicksil 8y ago
Airbnb, Amazon, Amtrak, Ancestry, Apple, Discord, Ebooks, Eventbrite, Evernote, Facebook, Google, Intel, LinkedIn, Lyft, Meetup, Microsoft, Netflix, Patreon, Pay Toilets, Skype, Slack, Spotify, Twitter, Uber, Wendy's ...is not the Internet

kpU8efre7r 8y ago

I don't think I'd be where I am today if I lived how Stallman lived. He is once again technically correct but I also think he has immense privilege others do not have. It's almost like he can't change his principles either, because at this point his livelihood depends on it.

leepowers 8y ago

Found at least one error on the list. This claim: > Apple's mail service silently censors the mail people send. Is based on this article: https://www.cultofmac.com/103703/apple-may-be-invisibly-filtering-your-outgoing-mobileme-email-exclusive/103703/ https://www.cultofmac.com/103703/apple-may-be-invisibly-filt... Where one user was unable to send one email via the MobileMe web interface because of an outgoing spam filter. The Mail app worked btw, and was not "censored". From this Stallman extrapolates censorship of all users who use Apple email. Give me a break.

conscells 8y ago

I was going through RMS' site and found the daily notes section. Here[1], on the 14th March entry (Kamala Harris staffing), he links to an article from the onion. Is it intentional? Does he not know onion is a satirical publication? [1] https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-jan-apr.html#14_March_2019_(Kamala_Harris_staffing) https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-jan-apr.html#14_March...

anta40 8y ago

As a mobile app developer, does the article mean I have to ditch Macs and iPhones? Hmmm...

newscracker 8y ago

It's highly admirable to see a person who's so strong on his convictions and philosophy. And the entire world is better for it even if most people think he's too radical. Some of the terms he uses (as alternative to the real names) may sound silly, but his heart is in the right place. The problem that I see is (inputs welcome from others on this) there are no mass produced goods (hardware and software) that are also easy to use and secure and private that conform to his requirements (leave alone cheap or being friendly to the environment, to workers, against censorship, and many other factors). It would take quite a bit of effort (to set things up) even for technical people to live as he does.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

pyman 8y ago

Apple treats developers with respect. And respect is everything for a developer.

rochak 8y ago
Just yesterday, I decided to contribute to an FOSS project that required the use of Apple Music API. Sadly, Apple requires an yearly $100 to create an Apple Developer account. Privacy is all fine, but this is just pure greed.
- pyman 8y ago
  It's a closed platform. There's nothing wrong with closed platforms, and nothing greedy with comercial products or money making businesses. Unless you live in a communist country, of course.