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I'm an iPhone user currently, have been for some time. However all of the points you mentioned are still true. There is no open source in iOS and the entire p

I'm an iPhone user currently, have been for some time. However all of the points you mentioned are still true. There is no open source in iOS and the entire platform has an anti open source culture. Android has a lot of open source apps available, including an app store meant just for open source (https://www.f-droid.org/ https://www.f-droid.org/). If you don't like Google Play, at the very least you can distribute your app independently without jailbreaking the phone. It might take the users fiddling with their settings, but at least the option is legit. Also on Android you can have actual Firefox (not allowed on iOS), with ads-blocking extensions and everything, as the default browser. And apps don't necessarily insist on opening up their own freaking web view, or if they do, most of the time there's an option for opting out. And yes, you can find really good Android phones for cheap. Like the ones from Huawei. Which I stay away from, but for other reasons. Apple's phones age well and I like to be environmental friendly, so I'll keep this iPhone 8+ I have until it breaks. But my next phone is not going to be an iPhone, sorry.

ninedays 7y ago
> There is no open source in iOS and the entire platform has an anti open source culture. People really have short memory and unfortunately have too much biais to even make a simple Google Search to get some informations. Trying to define this as "one is better than the others related to X" is childish at best. https://developer.apple.com/opensource/ https://developer.apple.com/opensource/ Warm vibes,
- bad_user 7y ago
  WebKit, you mean the source code that was forked from KHTML and because it was GPL, Apple would then do incomprehensible code dumps to comply with the law? WebKit that was forked by Google because they couldn't collaborate with Apple? I'm glad that they ended up releasing it, but to show that as an example of open source from Apple ... indeed shows that people have short memories ;-)
  - ninedays 7y ago
    > WebKit that was forked by Google because they couldn't collaborate with Apple? You say "they couldn't collaborate" I say "Google really wanted to compete". Remember that it was Google who decided to perform a fork because they had a different approach than Apple for how "multi-process" should be implemented. Google had an implementation that they didn't want to integrate into the Webkit branch - hence the Blink fork.[1] Also Apple would have been happy if they could use the Google's implementation instead of using their own - they said that repeatedly [2] You can also find more details of the story here. It looks more and more obvious that the decision to create a WebKit fork was more political than technical : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5490242 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5490242 [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/apr/05/blink-google-rendering-browser https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/apr/05/blink-goo... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5490661 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5490661
    - bad_user 7y ago
      I am not defending Google. Google is really shitty in terms of open source collaboration. Many of Google's OSS efforts are OSS just in license, but not in spirit. All I'm saying is that Apple's WebKit is not a good example of OSS and if that's what you have to show for iOS, then it's a really sad state of affairs.
xvector 7y ago
> at the very least you can distribute your app independently without jailbreaking the phone. The discussion in the article is about developers. If you’re kicked off of Play by a robot, there’s nothing you can do. > with ads-blocking extensions and everything, as the default browser. Ad-blocking is easy and well-supported in Safari. Safari’s tracking prevention extends far beyond anything Firefox has even with the best extensions.
- lol768 7y ago
  >Ad-blocking is easy and well-supported in Safari. Safari’s tracking prevention extends far beyond anything Firefox has even with the best extensions. Do you have any links so I can read further on this? I'd like to compare it to both Firefox's built-in tracking protection (and fingerprinting resistance) and the functionality provided by e.g. uBlock Origin.
  - xvector 7y ago
    Not any links on hand, but try it yourself. Load up Firefox with the best tracking prevention tools you can find. Go to https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/. See how many bits of entropy you have. Do the same in Safari.
    - ajscanlan 7y ago
      I did some testing. Android - Firefox - Ghostery + uBlock: "Strong protection against Web tracking" 17.59 bits of identifying information iOS - Safari - Stock: "Some protection against Web tracking" 17.59 bits of identifying information iOS - Safari - AdBlockPlus: "Some protection against Web tracking" 17.59 bits of identifying information (Exact same as Stock? Blocks ads though) Mac - Safari - Stock: "Some protection against Web tracking" 16.59 bits of identifying information. Mac - Chrome - Ghostery + uBlock: "Strong protection against Web tracking" Doesn't seem to finish the fingerprinting stage. Mac - Chrome - Stock: "No. You are not protected against tracking on the Web" 16.01 bits of identifying information.
      - 7y ago
lloeki 7y ago
> anti open source culture I feel like it's more like anti-GPL (because of some specific licensing terms conflicts), and there's nothing intrinsically anti-FOSS in there.

ninedays 7y ago

> There is no open source in iOS and the entire platform has an anti open source culture. People really have short memory and unfortunately have too much biais to even make a simple Google Search to get some informations. Trying to define this as "one is better than the others related to X" is childish at best. https://developer.apple.com/opensource/ https://developer.apple.com/opensource/ Warm vibes,

bad_user 7y ago
WebKit, you mean the source code that was forked from KHTML and because it was GPL, Apple would then do incomprehensible code dumps to comply with the law? WebKit that was forked by Google because they couldn't collaborate with Apple? I'm glad that they ended up releasing it, but to show that as an example of open source from Apple ... indeed shows that people have short memories ;-)
- ninedays 7y ago
  > WebKit that was forked by Google because they couldn't collaborate with Apple? You say "they couldn't collaborate" I say "Google really wanted to compete". Remember that it was Google who decided to perform a fork because they had a different approach than Apple for how "multi-process" should be implemented. Google had an implementation that they didn't want to integrate into the Webkit branch - hence the Blink fork.[1] Also Apple would have been happy if they could use the Google's implementation instead of using their own - they said that repeatedly [2] You can also find more details of the story here. It looks more and more obvious that the decision to create a WebKit fork was more political than technical : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5490242 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5490242 [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/apr/05/blink-google-rendering-browser https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/apr/05/blink-goo... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5490661 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5490661
  - bad_user 7y ago
    I am not defending Google. Google is really shitty in terms of open source collaboration. Many of Google's OSS efforts are OSS just in license, but not in spirit. All I'm saying is that Apple's WebKit is not a good example of OSS and if that's what you have to show for iOS, then it's a really sad state of affairs.

xvector 7y ago

> at the very least you can distribute your app independently without jailbreaking the phone. The discussion in the article is about developers. If you’re kicked off of Play by a robot, there’s nothing you can do. > with ads-blocking extensions and everything, as the default browser. Ad-blocking is easy and well-supported in Safari. Safari’s tracking prevention extends far beyond anything Firefox has even with the best extensions.

lol768 7y ago
>Ad-blocking is easy and well-supported in Safari. Safari’s tracking prevention extends far beyond anything Firefox has even with the best extensions. Do you have any links so I can read further on this? I'd like to compare it to both Firefox's built-in tracking protection (and fingerprinting resistance) and the functionality provided by e.g. uBlock Origin.
- xvector 7y ago
  Not any links on hand, but try it yourself. Load up Firefox with the best tracking prevention tools you can find. Go to https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/. See how many bits of entropy you have. Do the same in Safari.
  - ajscanlan 7y ago
    I did some testing. Android - Firefox - Ghostery + uBlock: "Strong protection against Web tracking" 17.59 bits of identifying information iOS - Safari - Stock: "Some protection against Web tracking" 17.59 bits of identifying information iOS - Safari - AdBlockPlus: "Some protection against Web tracking" 17.59 bits of identifying information (Exact same as Stock? Blocks ads though) Mac - Safari - Stock: "Some protection against Web tracking" 16.59 bits of identifying information. Mac - Chrome - Ghostery + uBlock: "Strong protection against Web tracking" Doesn't seem to finish the fingerprinting stage. Mac - Chrome - Stock: "No. You are not protected against tracking on the Web" 16.01 bits of identifying information.
    - 7y ago

lloeki 7y ago

> anti open source culture I feel like it's more like anti-GPL (because of some specific licensing terms conflicts), and there's nothing intrinsically anti-FOSS in there.