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I really don't understand how people can simultaneously say that Apple is anti-consumer and then ignore moves like this that not only show that Apple is committ

I really don't understand how people can simultaneously say that Apple is anti-consumer and then ignore moves like this that not only show that Apple is committed to consumers. It would be so easy for them to gather all this info and sell it to advertisers and third-parties and yet they refuse to. On top of that, I think it's strangely telling that most of the anti-Apple stories when it comes to the "right to repair" movement all have to misrepresent what Apple is doing or why they're taking the action they are in order to make the story interesting and fit the anti-consumer narrative. We live in a really strange time.

snek 7y ago
Apple can both make choices and improve user security and make choices that hurt user's ability to repair their devices. They should obviously be commended for things like this app tracking, but that doesn't mean they don't do bad things.
ikeyany 7y ago
I've heard plenty of arguments that don't misrepresent Apple. For example, the iPhone has never had replaceable batteries. Also, they were proven to slow down old phones without telling users why, until it became an ordeal [1]. [1] - https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/10/26/the-new-iphone-comes-out-today-is-apple-slowing-down-your-old-device-to-make-you-buy-the-new-one/ https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/10/26/the-new-iphone-come...
- saagarjha 7y ago
  > they were proven to degrade old software to strong-arm users to update They never did this.
  - ikeyany 7y ago
    Looks like they didn't. Slashdot did a story on it [1] that was disproven later [2]. [1] - https://slashdot.org/story/347559 https://slashdot.org/story/347559 [2] - https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/10/26/the-new-iphone-comes-out-today-is-apple-slowing-down-your-old-device-to-make-you-buy-the-new-one/ https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/10/26/the-new-iphone-come...
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      Yeah, no. That source is a complete misrepresentation: Apple didn’t intentionally slow down devices so you could buy a new one: they throttled devices with weak batteries so they wouldn’t shut down randomly. The issue was that Apple communicated this to users somewhat poorly.
      - ikeyany 7y ago
        I found a source that came out afterwards and made the appropriate edit. I am surprised slashdot did not provide a redaction in the original link.
- gumby 7y ago
  > I've heard plenty of arguments that don't misrepresent Apple'l. For example, Apple has never had replaceable batteries. Not only have many apple devices had replaceable batteries, I actually own an apple battery charger (model MC500LL/A)
  - ikeyany 7y ago
    I was referring to iPhones if it wasn't clear before. I don't remember users being able to replace the battery in those.
- sitharus 7y ago
  > they were proven to degrade old software to strong-arm users to update I don't recall this being proven. I recall Apple stating the power consumption was limited to prevent the devices over drawing power from the battery and self-resetting. They subsequently added a battery status overview so users could judge if they could simply replace the battery. I won't argue that they couldn't have done this sooner or handled it better, but it's quite different from software degrading old devices.
- Twisell 7y ago
  I think that telling you that my 2002 PPC iBook actually had remplaçables batteries, as well as all Apple laptop of that era, is pretty much proving misrepresentation... They were very practical (especially when video playback autonomy was limited to 2h and word processing to around 5h) but clunky. We could discuss for ages if, now a common choice across multiple manufacturers, moving for internal non-moving battery was clever or odious. But the verifiable facts remains that Apple once sold replaceable batteries out there.
  - ikeyany 7y ago
    I should clarify, I was referring to iPhones. Edited.
    - Twisell 7y ago
      That’s also making the point if you need to edit your message because you stand corrected, while very nice and very honest of you, it was misrepresentation at first shot. Beside you can also imagine than two decade experience with replaceable batteries might also have come to play when they decided that they’re phones will never have one because of constraint on this form factor...
- askafriend 7y ago
  Please don't spread misinformation. It causes real damage. Your statement is verifiable misinformation. I am a customer who was actually experiencing unexpected shutdowns due to voltage spikes on a naturally degraded Li-Ion battery on my iPhone 6s. This is something that happens to all Li-Ion batteries. I had experienced this on my previous Android phones too when they got old. The change Apple made was throttling the voltage from spiking to a point that it can shut down a degraded battery when your phone estimates that it has 50% charge left. Yes, this means older phones with degraded battery health (due to normal wear/tear) would run a bit slower. This is the right thing to do because otherwise it means customers would have phones shutting down unexpectedly when they needed them the most (e.g. calling an Uber, or some other critical function). It's a serious issue that absolutely needed addressing, and I'm glad Apple addressed it (and I hope other manufacturers do too). The mistake Apple made was not communicating this change more widely or explaining in more detail from the start. But they did communicate it in the change notes of the original update they delivered. They weren't trying to intentionally hide it like you're trying to imply.
  - ikeyany 7y ago
    I made the appropriate edit in my original comment. edit - Apple did not communicate this information to users from the start...that is not misinformation. When I replied to your comment, your comment originally consisted of just your first sentence.
    - dpkonofa 7y ago
      Yes, they did. It's in the changelog for the version of iOS that introduced the battery performance changes.
    - askafriend 7y ago
      Here's a link to the change-log of iOS 10.2.1 (scroll down a bit) where the throttling feature for degraded batteries was first introduced: https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1893?locale=en_US https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1893?locale=en_US Every single person that upgraded their phone saw this change-log. There's a line there that clearly says: "It also improves power management during peak workloads to avoid unexpected shutdowns on iPhone." If your argument is that it's lacking detail, then fine. But that's an entirely different implication. A much less interesting one.
ssivark 7y ago
Refer what other comments says about un-repairability of Apple hardware, or software slowdowns, or the inability to replace the battery on phones/tablets. The answer seems to be that Apple doesn't have a monolithic pro/anti consumer opinion, but just whatever is better for their business profits. - Do whatever they can to push people to buy more devices and more expensive ones. - Do whatever they can to make their iOS devices seem preferable to Android. Apple is not a special snowflake, as far as large corporations go.
- dpkonofa 7y ago
  Except that people are misrepresenting all 3 of those situations to make their point. Apple didn't slow down people's phones in order to get them to buy newer models. They actually slowed them down to extend their lifespans when the battery started to fail. While I do think that they could have communicated that better and that their current solution is pretty decent, it's a huge leap to say that this was an intentional move on their part to screw their customers over. And the repairability and replacement are also 2 things that I understand because it forces users to ensure that they're using genuine Apple components that won't detract from the device or the experience of using it. When so much of your business stems from the reputation of having quality products, third-party repairability seems like a terrible trade-off if there's no quality control.
  - 43920 7y ago
    As I understand it, Apple increased the peak power usage of the 6S (as a result of making the processor faster), but chose to use the same battery (in order to avoid making the phone thicker). As a result, unexpected shutdowns became much more common - while this did happen on older models, it seems to have been much less frequent. Strictly compared to the alternative of letting people's phone shut off, throttling seems like the right decision, but I would also argue that Apple produced a defective product, where the battery wore out much quicker than consumers expected (because even if it had sufficient capacity, it couldn't provide the peak power necessary). As a result, Apple's decision seems more like a way to cover up their design flaws, rather than to actually be helpful to consumers.
  - 7y ago
saagarjha 7y ago
Not being able to repair your device is anti-consumer–in a vacuum. In the real world, there are trade offs: making devices repairable makes them thicker, more complicated, etc. Those that understand this and feel that Apple is compromising in the wrong direction have a reasonable opinion. However, there is quite a bit of misrepresentation as you mention: often “right to repair” people forget that this compromise exists. In particularly egregious examples (YouTubers in particular) they willfully neglect to discuss this. Off the top of my head, Louis Rossmann has literally lied to people to stir up controversy: see the media outrage about “Apple confiscating batteries”, which was completely orchestrated.
- techslave 7y ago
  there’s quite a bit of proper criticism also. parts and schematics should be available for DIY or 3rd party repair. it’s not all “apple is misunderstood “ as you are framing it.
  - dpkonofa 7y ago
    Why should they be available for 3rd party repair? If ifixit wants to do a teardown of the devices and document them then that's fine. I think it's completely reasonable for Apple to require a certification in order to get manuals, parts, and schematics. When something like a cheap, third-party screen replacement inevitably ends in an "iPhones suck, mine misses my taps and shuts off randomly", it's Apple that looks bad, not the 3rd party kiosk that uses shit components.
    - tty2300 7y ago
      The solution to this is simple, the device could cryptographically verify the parts in it and if it detects a 3rd party part then on boot it shows a message saying "An unofficial touchscreen is installed" then the user knows if the touchscreen is working shit its probably because of that and if you sell the device the buyer knows what they are getting.
      - 7y ago
addicted 7y ago
It’s not unimaginable that Apple could be pro consumer in terms of privacy (at least relative to their competitors) and anti-consumer in terms of repairability and replacability (relative to their competitors).
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
drdaeman 7y ago
App Store as the single source of apps is, debatably, anti-consumer. You can't have an app that doesn't fit Apple's policies, at all. Safari as the only browser choice for handling web links, too. Even Microsoft in their days always allowed users change the defaults.
c3534l 7y ago
Apple's recent forays into privacy rights has really lightened my opinion of them.
- peteretep 7y ago
  One benefit to having a gay guy from Alabama in charge is a company that understands you don't want everyone else knowing your business.

snek 7y ago

Apple can both make choices and improve user security and make choices that hurt user's ability to repair their devices. They should obviously be commended for things like this app tracking, but that doesn't mean they don't do bad things.

ikeyany 7y ago

I've heard plenty of arguments that don't misrepresent Apple. For example, the iPhone has never had replaceable batteries. Also, they were proven to slow down old phones without telling users why, until it became an ordeal [1]. [1] - https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/10/26/the-new-iphone-comes-out-today-is-apple-slowing-down-your-old-device-to-make-you-buy-the-new-one/ https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/10/26/the-new-iphone-come...

saagarjha 7y ago
> they were proven to degrade old software to strong-arm users to update They never did this.
- ikeyany 7y ago
  Looks like they didn't. Slashdot did a story on it [1] that was disproven later [2]. [1] - https://slashdot.org/story/347559 https://slashdot.org/story/347559 [2] - https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/10/26/the-new-iphone-comes-out-today-is-apple-slowing-down-your-old-device-to-make-you-buy-the-new-one/ https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/10/26/the-new-iphone-come...
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Yeah, no. That source is a complete misrepresentation: Apple didn’t intentionally slow down devices so you could buy a new one: they throttled devices with weak batteries so they wouldn’t shut down randomly. The issue was that Apple communicated this to users somewhat poorly.
    - ikeyany 7y ago
      I found a source that came out afterwards and made the appropriate edit. I am surprised slashdot did not provide a redaction in the original link.
gumby 7y ago
> I've heard plenty of arguments that don't misrepresent Apple'l. For example, Apple has never had replaceable batteries. Not only have many apple devices had replaceable batteries, I actually own an apple battery charger (model MC500LL/A)
- ikeyany 7y ago
  I was referring to iPhones if it wasn't clear before. I don't remember users being able to replace the battery in those.
sitharus 7y ago
> they were proven to degrade old software to strong-arm users to update I don't recall this being proven. I recall Apple stating the power consumption was limited to prevent the devices over drawing power from the battery and self-resetting. They subsequently added a battery status overview so users could judge if they could simply replace the battery. I won't argue that they couldn't have done this sooner or handled it better, but it's quite different from software degrading old devices.
Twisell 7y ago
I think that telling you that my 2002 PPC iBook actually had remplaçables batteries, as well as all Apple laptop of that era, is pretty much proving misrepresentation... They were very practical (especially when video playback autonomy was limited to 2h and word processing to around 5h) but clunky. We could discuss for ages if, now a common choice across multiple manufacturers, moving for internal non-moving battery was clever or odious. But the verifiable facts remains that Apple once sold replaceable batteries out there.
- ikeyany 7y ago
  I should clarify, I was referring to iPhones. Edited.
  - Twisell 7y ago
    That’s also making the point if you need to edit your message because you stand corrected, while very nice and very honest of you, it was misrepresentation at first shot. Beside you can also imagine than two decade experience with replaceable batteries might also have come to play when they decided that they’re phones will never have one because of constraint on this form factor...
askafriend 7y ago
Please don't spread misinformation. It causes real damage. Your statement is verifiable misinformation. I am a customer who was actually experiencing unexpected shutdowns due to voltage spikes on a naturally degraded Li-Ion battery on my iPhone 6s. This is something that happens to all Li-Ion batteries. I had experienced this on my previous Android phones too when they got old. The change Apple made was throttling the voltage from spiking to a point that it can shut down a degraded battery when your phone estimates that it has 50% charge left. Yes, this means older phones with degraded battery health (due to normal wear/tear) would run a bit slower. This is the right thing to do because otherwise it means customers would have phones shutting down unexpectedly when they needed them the most (e.g. calling an Uber, or some other critical function). It's a serious issue that absolutely needed addressing, and I'm glad Apple addressed it (and I hope other manufacturers do too). The mistake Apple made was not communicating this change more widely or explaining in more detail from the start. But they did communicate it in the change notes of the original update they delivered. They weren't trying to intentionally hide it like you're trying to imply.
- ikeyany 7y ago
  I made the appropriate edit in my original comment. edit - Apple did not communicate this information to users from the start...that is not misinformation. When I replied to your comment, your comment originally consisted of just your first sentence.
  - dpkonofa 7y ago
    Yes, they did. It's in the changelog for the version of iOS that introduced the battery performance changes.
  - askafriend 7y ago
    Here's a link to the change-log of iOS 10.2.1 (scroll down a bit) where the throttling feature for degraded batteries was first introduced: https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1893?locale=en_US https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1893?locale=en_US Every single person that upgraded their phone saw this change-log. There's a line there that clearly says: "It also improves power management during peak workloads to avoid unexpected shutdowns on iPhone." If your argument is that it's lacking detail, then fine. But that's an entirely different implication. A much less interesting one.

ssivark 7y ago

Refer what other comments says about un-repairability of Apple hardware, or software slowdowns, or the inability to replace the battery on phones/tablets. The answer seems to be that Apple doesn't have a monolithic pro/anti consumer opinion, but just whatever is better for their business profits. - Do whatever they can to push people to buy more devices and more expensive ones. - Do whatever they can to make their iOS devices seem preferable to Android. Apple is not a special snowflake, as far as large corporations go.

dpkonofa 7y ago
Except that people are misrepresenting all 3 of those situations to make their point. Apple didn't slow down people's phones in order to get them to buy newer models. They actually slowed them down to extend their lifespans when the battery started to fail. While I do think that they could have communicated that better and that their current solution is pretty decent, it's a huge leap to say that this was an intentional move on their part to screw their customers over. And the repairability and replacement are also 2 things that I understand because it forces users to ensure that they're using genuine Apple components that won't detract from the device or the experience of using it. When so much of your business stems from the reputation of having quality products, third-party repairability seems like a terrible trade-off if there's no quality control.
- 43920 7y ago
  As I understand it, Apple increased the peak power usage of the 6S (as a result of making the processor faster), but chose to use the same battery (in order to avoid making the phone thicker). As a result, unexpected shutdowns became much more common - while this did happen on older models, it seems to have been much less frequent. Strictly compared to the alternative of letting people's phone shut off, throttling seems like the right decision, but I would also argue that Apple produced a defective product, where the battery wore out much quicker than consumers expected (because even if it had sufficient capacity, it couldn't provide the peak power necessary). As a result, Apple's decision seems more like a way to cover up their design flaws, rather than to actually be helpful to consumers.
- 7y ago

saagarjha 7y ago

Not being able to repair your device is anti-consumer–in a vacuum. In the real world, there are trade offs: making devices repairable makes them thicker, more complicated, etc. Those that understand this and feel that Apple is compromising in the wrong direction have a reasonable opinion. However, there is quite a bit of misrepresentation as you mention: often “right to repair” people forget that this compromise exists. In particularly egregious examples (YouTubers in particular) they willfully neglect to discuss this. Off the top of my head, Louis Rossmann has literally lied to people to stir up controversy: see the media outrage about “Apple confiscating batteries”, which was completely orchestrated.

techslave 7y ago
there’s quite a bit of proper criticism also. parts and schematics should be available for DIY or 3rd party repair. it’s not all “apple is misunderstood “ as you are framing it.
- dpkonofa 7y ago
  Why should they be available for 3rd party repair? If ifixit wants to do a teardown of the devices and document them then that's fine. I think it's completely reasonable for Apple to require a certification in order to get manuals, parts, and schematics. When something like a cheap, third-party screen replacement inevitably ends in an "iPhones suck, mine misses my taps and shuts off randomly", it's Apple that looks bad, not the 3rd party kiosk that uses shit components.
  - tty2300 7y ago
    The solution to this is simple, the device could cryptographically verify the parts in it and if it detects a 3rd party part then on boot it shows a message saying "An unofficial touchscreen is installed" then the user knows if the touchscreen is working shit its probably because of that and if you sell the device the buyer knows what they are getting.
    - 7y ago

addicted 7y ago

It’s not unimaginable that Apple could be pro consumer in terms of privacy (at least relative to their competitors) and anti-consumer in terms of repairability and replacability (relative to their competitors).

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

drdaeman 7y ago

App Store as the single source of apps is, debatably, anti-consumer. You can't have an app that doesn't fit Apple's policies, at all. Safari as the only browser choice for handling web links, too. Even Microsoft in their days always allowed users change the defaults.

c3534l 7y ago

Apple's recent forays into privacy rights has really lightened my opinion of them.

peteretep 7y ago
One benefit to having a gay guy from Alabama in charge is a company that understands you don't want everyone else knowing your business.