8 ms·

Apple's operating systems mistreat or harm the user

75 points by lelf 7y ago

umvi 7y ago
Unfortunately, most non-techie users like having their freedom taken away in exchange for [security, ease of use, etc.]. There are a few things on the list universally hated, though, such as pervasive DRM (even non-techies hate lack of repairability and lack of compatibility with non-Apple branded peripherals). At any rate, I hated the feeling of being locked into a walled ecosystem that was hard to escape from, so I never bought another Apple product after the iPhone 4S.
- IOT_Apprentice 7y ago
  ...the feeling of being locked into a walled ecosystem... Out of curiosity what phone do you use now? And how do you feel about that ecosystem in terms of malware, tracking, advertising etc?
  - umvi 7y ago
    > Out of curiosity what phone do you use now? Pixel 3a > And how do you feel about that ecosystem in terms of malware, tracking, advertising etc? Out-of-sight, out-of-mind honestly. I like having all my media and everything in common formats I can download and move around as I wish. I have no loyalty to android and could easily switch to the next best thing that comes along. I lost a lot of music and videos when I switched to Android though because Apple makes it really hard to decouple the media you own from their ecosystem (iTunes at the time).
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  > Unfortunately, most non-techie users like having their freedom taken away in exchange for [security, ease of use, etc.]. Are you implying that people buy iPhones because Apple stops them from sideloading apps? Because I don't think that's true at all. A more accurate statement might be: Most non-techie users don't mind having their freedom taken away. If Apple allowed sideloading tomorrow a la Android, nothing would change for the 95%+ portion of iPhone users who prefer the App Store.
  - mantas 7y ago
    > Are you implying that people buy iPhones because Apple stops them from sideloading apps? Because I don't think that's true at all. I'm glad that this attack vector is not realistic for my iPhone. I'm also glad that my relatives won't accidentally(?) install a sideloaded malware too. That's why I kinda like app signature checks in MacOS too. I don't want to deal with calls asking me to help with their computer. When 1 hour in they remember they clicked on something in a suspicious website. I guess they kinda like their computers and phones working without interferences for years too. Makes family events better too :)
- abakker 7y ago
  I'm not a developer, but am pretty technical. I've written some code, some scripts, etc. I use apple stuff specifically because I want the tradeoff of usability instead of pure openness. To me, computers are just like any tool - sure, I can build a bench grinder with off the shelf parts and make only the tradeoffs I want to make, or I can go to home depot and buy a complete engineered package for 1/10 the cost, and take they tradeoffs that delta wanted to make. same with any machine. If you want to buy the tools and build software yourself, you sure can. but it has always been mysterious why software should somehow obey totally different laws. its all just tools.
  - umvi 7y ago
    Well in this case it would be like if you went to home depot and bought a new saw. But the saw needs to be connected to the internet all the time for it to work, and ToolCorp can remotely disable your saw if they detect you are using it to cut something other than wood, and ToolCorp will only let you buy ToolCorp brand blades, even though CompetitorCorp makes high quality cheaper blades that have the same shape. Furthermore, your new saw has a computer that can be used to program it to cut different patterns, but all patterns must be approved by ToolCorp and indeed they can remotely go in and delete unauthorized patterns if they want to (remember, your saw needs to be connected to the internet all the time). Also, you'll probably need a "ToolCorp Hardwood Premium" monthly subscription if you want to use hardwood cutting features. The complaint here isn't that Apple is making tools. It's that they are making tools that act in the interests of its creators more than in the interests of its users. You wouldn't buy a hammer from home depot that failed to work if your interests didn't align with HammerCorp's interests, would you?
cpr 7y ago
Click bait: Why not just say "we don't approve of proprietary operating systems" and leave it at that?
- majewsky 7y ago
  Because that would not get to the HN front page.
- Crinus 7y ago
  Wouldn't that followed by a "Why?"
_verandaguy 7y ago
It's a bit weird to me that an org that's been around for as long as GNU has such a black-and-white view of the software security/privacy/ownership landscape, when real life is a fair bit more nuanced. Yeah, Apple and their ecosystem aren't saints, and their position on right-to-repair policies is reprehensible, but neither is Android, which runs on a Linux kernel, and from a privacy perspective, reasonable people could argue that Apple's doing a better job than Google is with Android. GNU unfortunately doesn't see the other dimension here -- usability. There's basically nothing that's come out of GNU in recent memory that's been competitive in terms of usability and mass-market appeal (discounting coreutils, which are the de-facto usability standard for loads of command-line UIs, but their mass market are developers, sysadmins, and power users). As long as GNU keeps preaching this kind of absolutist position where the downsides of corporate-owned software ecosystems exist in a vacuum, they'll come off as doomsayers to many observers. Having said all that, DRM does suck and I believe their position there is fully justified.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jordigh 7y ago
  Not that it makes too much of a difference, but GNU has no love for Android either. They certainly aren't saying anything nice about macOS just because its kernel is also free.
- rhinoceraptor 7y ago
  The FSF really needs better marketing and prioritization. Imagine how much time and attention they spent just fighting the Linux vs GNU/Linux debate, something that essentially no one cares about.
  - fao_ 7y ago
    > The FSF really needs better marketing and prioritization. Imagine how much time and attention they spent just fighting the Linux vs GNU/Linux debate, something that essentially no one cares about. And yet almost everyone I know in tech knows about it, even my non-tech friends that use mastodon and pleroma have heard jokes about it. So given the exposure it's got them, it was pretty good for marketing.
jordigh 7y ago
I fear the inflammatory headline is going to put most people on the defensive instead of listening to the very valid points that most of these lists are.
- _verandaguy 7y ago
  Fully agree. They're valid points, but the editorial/tabloid writing style makes it sound less like a constructive, educated discussion and more like name calling à la Westboro Baptist Church (at the risk of sounding reductionist).
elagost 7y ago
The second sentence is "This does not include accidental errors" but then an accidental error and a bunch of third-party program are cited as primary examples. Things are cited multiple times - the recent "battery DRM" news, App Store censorship, and remote wiping. How is it Apple's fault if someone writes and distributes malware for their system outside the App Store? I agree with the premise, but this article is a little bit of a mess. Things like this don't help convince people. Were it shorter and more cleaned up, and devoid of things like "cr...app store" it might actually help people realize the importance of Free Software.
- rhinoceraptor 7y ago
  This is after all, the same people who still insist on "GNU/Linux".
- kgwxd 7y ago
  I'm pretty much 100% on board with GNU, FSF, etc, but I absolutely despise the "crapp store" stuff. Once in a while, fine, but almost every talk, article and software title has some kind of jab like that. "GNU" itself is an example. It's very childish and I think it's RMSs fault for setting the precedence from the beginning and doing it so much since. I wish he'd stop doing it and start actively discouraging it.
amelius 7y ago
What's next? Android is spyware?
- jordigh 7y ago
  Indeed: https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-google.html https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-google.html
rgovostes 7y ago
See also Steve Job's essay on iTunes DRM from 2007, "Thoughts on Music": https://web.archive.org/web/20080107121341/http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/ https://web.archive.org/web/20080107121341/http://www.apple....
- saagarjha 7y ago
  FWIW, iTunes now sells DRM free music. It seems like the third option that Jobs suggested prevailed.
thefounder 7y ago
Following the same thinking we can say that browsers are malware as well due the DRM. The user has no idea what data is shared with the DRM vendor nor any control to filter it out.
tropicalia 7y ago
TL;DR basically any software not from the GNU project is malware, in case you haven't heard already.
- 153791098c 7y ago
  Replicant is endorsed by the FSF. It has no GNU software in it whatsoever and almost all code comes from google. Try again.
  - tropicalia 7y ago
    The point is that the original text was such an over-the-top and just plain logically off-base rant so as to not be worth reading past a line or two. So whether it's about software coming from GNU or FSF (or something endorsed by Google) doesn't really matter, in this context.
cryptonector 7y ago
This was flagged for a while. How strange.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  As it should have been, I'd argue. This is a low-quality flamebait submission that I feel has no place on Hacker News.
vernie 7y ago
Strange, I never feel more abused than when I have to use GNU.
rgovostes 7y ago
It's from the FSF, so I expect my eyeballs to start rolling involuntarily. They do have a few good points that are consistent with their principles, but they dilute their message with disprovable claims. Like this one: > In MacOS and iOS, the procedure for converting images from the Photos format to a free format is so tedious and time-consuming that users just give up if they have a lot of them. First, there is no "Photos" format. The Photos apps are just catalog viewers. On macOS, the original files are easily accessible on disk organized inside the .photoslibrary file. There are a few proprietary aspects: - As of iOS 11, iPhones will store photos using the patent-encumbered HEVC codec. This can be disabled. - Live Photos are undocumented but nothing special: a still frame bundled with a short video. (The video likely uses proprietary codecs.) - Adjustments to images are nondestructive and stored separately from the file, in an opaque way. Exporting a photo to a free format is trivial. The system usually does it automatically whenever you share the photo. Otherwise, it's literally just File > Export or even dragging to another app. --- This is also rich, coming from the FSF: > “Dark patterns” are user interfaces designed to mislead users, or make option settings hard to find. This allows a company such as Apple to say, “We allow users to turn this off” while ensuring that few will understand how to actually turn it off. Yes, because open source software is widely celebrated for the ease with which the everyday user can figure out how to change settings or modify source code. (I agree Apple buried the ad tracking setting in a counter-intuitive place. But it's now in the top-level Privacy settings, where it belongs.)
- badwolf 7y ago
  Re: the "Dark patterns" part - I think Apple has actually managed finding settings quite well with the search bar in settings. It's almost always my go-to way to get to a specific setting rather than trying to remember which branches of which tree to get to it. Just start typing and see the settings that match it. Tap it and you're there. Done.
- jaynetics 7y ago
  I think this isn't meant to be about ease of use but about controls that are actually misleading. E.g. the thing that turning off the WiFi in the control center in recent version of iOS does not really turn off the WiFi, it just disconnects it (because users might forget to turn it back on).
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
drivingmenuts 7y ago
When was this published? Bit behind the times since we’re on IOS 12 with 13 coming out soon. Not saying they’re wrong exactly, but the argument would be stronger if they kept up with the times.
jbverschoor 7y ago
GNU’s Not Unbiased
- saagarjha 7y ago
  I don't think they've ever claimed to be. They're clearly biased towards systems build using free software.
joshstrange 7y ago
Editorial title much? "Apple's Operating Systems Are Malware" is the actual (click-bait BS) title. Very similar to the other BS GNU article: "Google's Software is Malware" [0]. Interesting OP only submitted the Apple one with a different title... [0] https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-google.html https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-google.html
Fnoord 7y ago
> MacOS High Sierra forcibly reformats SSD boot drives, and changes the file system from HFS+ to APFS, which cannot be accessed from GNU/Linux, Windows or even older versions of MacOS. It is important to be accurate. You can access APFS from Windows or Linux at at least Paragon APFS for Windows, and Paragon APFS for Linux. There is also an experimental AFFS FUSE driver. This can actually be important in case of forensics. [1] https://www.paragon-software.com/home/apfs-windows/# https://www.paragon-software.com/home/apfs-windows/#
- kirb 7y ago
  Worth noting the hfsplus driver in Linux can only mount as read-only, unless you manually mount it with the flag to force it to ignore the journal... which is a silly idea when journaling is what makes modern filesystems so resilient. apfs-fuse is actually in a more promising position than hfsplus, as it supports mounting any volume in the APFS partition, FileVault encrypted volumes, and Fusion Drive volumes. Granted no distro is shipping apfs-fuse that I know of. They probably could at this point as it is read-only. https://github.com/sgan81/apfs-fuse https://github.com/sgan81/apfs-fuse
  - Fnoord 7y ago
    Paragon also sell a proprietary HFS+ driver for Linux which AFAIK r/w. For forensics, r/o is enough though.
saagarjha 7y ago
I really hate this list. Not because I hate GNU (I don't), per se, but because it's childish, mostly misleading, and at times outright dishonest or factually incorrect. I'm not in the mood to go through this one, but if I've done a line-by-line comparison of a similar list: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18515395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18515395. The GNU should be ashamed to have this on their website and replace it with a coherent argument against Apple, which is really not that hard to write if you put a little bit of effort into it.
undoware 7y ago
After nearly two decades of FOSS advocacy I've come to the conclusion that most consumers (a) already know about their gardens' walls, and (b) actually prefer it that way. The view that freedom is always preferable over, say, the sense of security that folks get from having an avuncular corporation ensure that the tools in their lives have a limited range of use -- that someone is literally managing the possibilities of their personal devices, pruning them of (supposedly) dangerous apps and ensuring that they are within certain expectations, is a great comfort to people who are already used to their lives being managed in precisely this way by any number of powerful actors. Stuff like this from the FSF makes me think they just don't understand the user. The user is typically is not an engineer. The customer is not interested in the responsibility that comes with that kind of power, and would pay good money to trade it off for predictability. And the success of nerfed, general-computing-incapable devices is market validation of this hypothesis. I'm uncomfortable with this facet of human nature too, and it runs contrary to the prevailing narrative of our industry and even of the Enlightenment itself, but until we accept that many folks just want to be taken care of, we will keep being surprised. Customer obsession means appreciating all the data, not just the data that is comfortable to behold.
jtbayly 7y ago
Why is Apple being dinged as writing Malware for something Dropbox wrote?
- pwinnski 7y ago
  Dropbox exploited mechanisms Apple created for accessibility, so would it be fair to say GNU is failing Apple for making their operating system accessible? That seems to be what GNU is doing by including this bullet, but I think they might object to that characterization.
tzs 7y ago
> In MacOS and iOS, the procedure for converting images from the Photos format to a free format is so tedious and time-consuming that users just give up if they have a lot of them. I select one or more photos in the Photos application on my Mac, and drag them to a folder window in Finder. That exports them as JPEGs.

75 points by lelf 7y ago

umvi 7y ago

Unfortunately, most non-techie users like having their freedom taken away in exchange for [security, ease of use, etc.]. There are a few things on the list universally hated, though, such as pervasive DRM (even non-techies hate lack of repairability and lack of compatibility with non-Apple branded peripherals). At any rate, I hated the feeling of being locked into a walled ecosystem that was hard to escape from, so I never bought another Apple product after the iPhone 4S.

IOT_Apprentice 7y ago
...the feeling of being locked into a walled ecosystem... Out of curiosity what phone do you use now? And how do you feel about that ecosystem in terms of malware, tracking, advertising etc?
- umvi 7y ago
  > Out of curiosity what phone do you use now? Pixel 3a > And how do you feel about that ecosystem in terms of malware, tracking, advertising etc? Out-of-sight, out-of-mind honestly. I like having all my media and everything in common formats I can download and move around as I wish. I have no loyalty to android and could easily switch to the next best thing that comes along. I lost a lot of music and videos when I switched to Android though because Apple makes it really hard to decouple the media you own from their ecosystem (iTunes at the time).
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
> Unfortunately, most non-techie users like having their freedom taken away in exchange for [security, ease of use, etc.]. Are you implying that people buy iPhones because Apple stops them from sideloading apps? Because I don't think that's true at all. A more accurate statement might be: Most non-techie users don't mind having their freedom taken away. If Apple allowed sideloading tomorrow a la Android, nothing would change for the 95%+ portion of iPhone users who prefer the App Store.
- mantas 7y ago
  > Are you implying that people buy iPhones because Apple stops them from sideloading apps? Because I don't think that's true at all. I'm glad that this attack vector is not realistic for my iPhone. I'm also glad that my relatives won't accidentally(?) install a sideloaded malware too. That's why I kinda like app signature checks in MacOS too. I don't want to deal with calls asking me to help with their computer. When 1 hour in they remember they clicked on something in a suspicious website. I guess they kinda like their computers and phones working without interferences for years too. Makes family events better too :)
abakker 7y ago
I'm not a developer, but am pretty technical. I've written some code, some scripts, etc. I use apple stuff specifically because I want the tradeoff of usability instead of pure openness. To me, computers are just like any tool - sure, I can build a bench grinder with off the shelf parts and make only the tradeoffs I want to make, or I can go to home depot and buy a complete engineered package for 1/10 the cost, and take they tradeoffs that delta wanted to make. same with any machine. If you want to buy the tools and build software yourself, you sure can. but it has always been mysterious why software should somehow obey totally different laws. its all just tools.
- umvi 7y ago
  Well in this case it would be like if you went to home depot and bought a new saw. But the saw needs to be connected to the internet all the time for it to work, and ToolCorp can remotely disable your saw if they detect you are using it to cut something other than wood, and ToolCorp will only let you buy ToolCorp brand blades, even though CompetitorCorp makes high quality cheaper blades that have the same shape. Furthermore, your new saw has a computer that can be used to program it to cut different patterns, but all patterns must be approved by ToolCorp and indeed they can remotely go in and delete unauthorized patterns if they want to (remember, your saw needs to be connected to the internet all the time). Also, you'll probably need a "ToolCorp Hardwood Premium" monthly subscription if you want to use hardwood cutting features. The complaint here isn't that Apple is making tools. It's that they are making tools that act in the interests of its creators more than in the interests of its users. You wouldn't buy a hammer from home depot that failed to work if your interests didn't align with HammerCorp's interests, would you?

cpr 7y ago

Click bait: Why not just say "we don't approve of proprietary operating systems" and leave it at that?

majewsky 7y ago
Because that would not get to the HN front page.
Crinus 7y ago
Wouldn't that followed by a "Why?"

_verandaguy 7y ago

It's a bit weird to me that an org that's been around for as long as GNU has such a black-and-white view of the software security/privacy/ownership landscape, when real life is a fair bit more nuanced. Yeah, Apple and their ecosystem aren't saints, and their position on right-to-repair policies is reprehensible, but neither is Android, which runs on a Linux kernel, and from a privacy perspective, reasonable people could argue that Apple's doing a better job than Google is with Android. GNU unfortunately doesn't see the other dimension here -- usability. There's basically nothing that's come out of GNU in recent memory that's been competitive in terms of usability and mass-market appeal (discounting coreutils, which are the de-facto usability standard for loads of command-line UIs, but their mass market are developers, sysadmins, and power users). As long as GNU keeps preaching this kind of absolutist position where the downsides of corporate-owned software ecosystems exist in a vacuum, they'll come off as doomsayers to many observers. Having said all that, DRM does suck and I believe their position there is fully justified.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jordigh 7y ago
Not that it makes too much of a difference, but GNU has no love for Android either. They certainly aren't saying anything nice about macOS just because its kernel is also free.
rhinoceraptor 7y ago
The FSF really needs better marketing and prioritization. Imagine how much time and attention they spent just fighting the Linux vs GNU/Linux debate, something that essentially no one cares about.
- fao_ 7y ago
  > The FSF really needs better marketing and prioritization. Imagine how much time and attention they spent just fighting the Linux vs GNU/Linux debate, something that essentially no one cares about. And yet almost everyone I know in tech knows about it, even my non-tech friends that use mastodon and pleroma have heard jokes about it. So given the exposure it's got them, it was pretty good for marketing.

jordigh 7y ago

I fear the inflammatory headline is going to put most people on the defensive instead of listening to the very valid points that most of these lists are.

_verandaguy 7y ago
Fully agree. They're valid points, but the editorial/tabloid writing style makes it sound less like a constructive, educated discussion and more like name calling à la Westboro Baptist Church (at the risk of sounding reductionist).

elagost 7y ago

The second sentence is "This does not include accidental errors" but then an accidental error and a bunch of third-party program are cited as primary examples. Things are cited multiple times - the recent "battery DRM" news, App Store censorship, and remote wiping. How is it Apple's fault if someone writes and distributes malware for their system outside the App Store? I agree with the premise, but this article is a little bit of a mess. Things like this don't help convince people. Were it shorter and more cleaned up, and devoid of things like "cr...app store" it might actually help people realize the importance of Free Software.

rhinoceraptor 7y ago
This is after all, the same people who still insist on "GNU/Linux".
kgwxd 7y ago
I'm pretty much 100% on board with GNU, FSF, etc, but I absolutely despise the "crapp store" stuff. Once in a while, fine, but almost every talk, article and software title has some kind of jab like that. "GNU" itself is an example. It's very childish and I think it's RMSs fault for setting the precedence from the beginning and doing it so much since. I wish he'd stop doing it and start actively discouraging it.

amelius 7y ago

What's next? Android is spyware?

jordigh 7y ago
Indeed: https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-google.html https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-google.html

rgovostes 7y ago

See also Steve Job's essay on iTunes DRM from 2007, "Thoughts on Music": https://web.archive.org/web/20080107121341/http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/ https://web.archive.org/web/20080107121341/http://www.apple....

saagarjha 7y ago
FWIW, iTunes now sells DRM free music. It seems like the third option that Jobs suggested prevailed.

thefounder 7y ago

Following the same thinking we can say that browsers are malware as well due the DRM. The user has no idea what data is shared with the DRM vendor nor any control to filter it out.

tropicalia 7y ago

TL;DR basically any software not from the GNU project is malware, in case you haven't heard already.

153791098c 7y ago
Replicant is endorsed by the FSF. It has no GNU software in it whatsoever and almost all code comes from google. Try again.
- tropicalia 7y ago
  The point is that the original text was such an over-the-top and just plain logically off-base rant so as to not be worth reading past a line or two. So whether it's about software coming from GNU or FSF (or something endorsed by Google) doesn't really matter, in this context.

cryptonector 7y ago

This was flagged for a while. How strange.

saagarjha 7y ago
As it should have been, I'd argue. This is a low-quality flamebait submission that I feel has no place on Hacker News.

vernie 7y ago

Strange, I never feel more abused than when I have to use GNU.

rgovostes 7y ago

It's from the FSF, so I expect my eyeballs to start rolling involuntarily. They do have a few good points that are consistent with their principles, but they dilute their message with disprovable claims. Like this one: > In MacOS and iOS, the procedure for converting images from the Photos format to a free format is so tedious and time-consuming that users just give up if they have a lot of them. First, there is no "Photos" format. The Photos apps are just catalog viewers. On macOS, the original files are easily accessible on disk organized inside the .photoslibrary file. There are a few proprietary aspects: - As of iOS 11, iPhones will store photos using the patent-encumbered HEVC codec. This can be disabled. - Live Photos are undocumented but nothing special: a still frame bundled with a short video. (The video likely uses proprietary codecs.) - Adjustments to images are nondestructive and stored separately from the file, in an opaque way. Exporting a photo to a free format is trivial. The system usually does it automatically whenever you share the photo. Otherwise, it's literally just File > Export or even dragging to another app. --- This is also rich, coming from the FSF: > “Dark patterns” are user interfaces designed to mislead users, or make option settings hard to find. This allows a company such as Apple to say, “We allow users to turn this off” while ensuring that few will understand how to actually turn it off. Yes, because open source software is widely celebrated for the ease with which the everyday user can figure out how to change settings or modify source code. (I agree Apple buried the ad tracking setting in a counter-intuitive place. But it's now in the top-level Privacy settings, where it belongs.)

badwolf 7y ago
Re: the "Dark patterns" part - I think Apple has actually managed finding settings quite well with the search bar in settings. It's almost always my go-to way to get to a specific setting rather than trying to remember which branches of which tree to get to it. Just start typing and see the settings that match it. Tap it and you're there. Done.
jaynetics 7y ago
I think this isn't meant to be about ease of use but about controls that are actually misleading. E.g. the thing that turning off the WiFi in the control center in recent version of iOS does not really turn off the WiFi, it just disconnects it (because users might forget to turn it back on).

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

drivingmenuts 7y ago

When was this published? Bit behind the times since we’re on IOS 12 with 13 coming out soon. Not saying they’re wrong exactly, but the argument would be stronger if they kept up with the times.

jbverschoor 7y ago

GNU’s Not Unbiased

saagarjha 7y ago
I don't think they've ever claimed to be. They're clearly biased towards systems build using free software.

joshstrange 7y ago

Editorial title much? "Apple's Operating Systems Are Malware" is the actual (click-bait BS) title. Very similar to the other BS GNU article: "Google's Software is Malware" [0]. Interesting OP only submitted the Apple one with a different title... [0] https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-google.html https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-google.html

Fnoord 7y ago

> MacOS High Sierra forcibly reformats SSD boot drives, and changes the file system from HFS+ to APFS, which cannot be accessed from GNU/Linux, Windows or even older versions of MacOS. It is important to be accurate. You can access APFS from Windows or Linux at at least Paragon APFS for Windows, and Paragon APFS for Linux. There is also an experimental AFFS FUSE driver. This can actually be important in case of forensics. [1] https://www.paragon-software.com/home/apfs-windows/# https://www.paragon-software.com/home/apfs-windows/#

kirb 7y ago
Worth noting the hfsplus driver in Linux can only mount as read-only, unless you manually mount it with the flag to force it to ignore the journal... which is a silly idea when journaling is what makes modern filesystems so resilient. apfs-fuse is actually in a more promising position than hfsplus, as it supports mounting any volume in the APFS partition, FileVault encrypted volumes, and Fusion Drive volumes. Granted no distro is shipping apfs-fuse that I know of. They probably could at this point as it is read-only. https://github.com/sgan81/apfs-fuse https://github.com/sgan81/apfs-fuse
- Fnoord 7y ago
  Paragon also sell a proprietary HFS+ driver for Linux which AFAIK r/w. For forensics, r/o is enough though.

saagarjha 7y ago

I really hate this list. Not because I hate GNU (I don't), per se, but because it's childish, mostly misleading, and at times outright dishonest or factually incorrect. I'm not in the mood to go through this one, but if I've done a line-by-line comparison of a similar list: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18515395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18515395. The GNU should be ashamed to have this on their website and replace it with a coherent argument against Apple, which is really not that hard to write if you put a little bit of effort into it.

undoware 7y ago

After nearly two decades of FOSS advocacy I've come to the conclusion that most consumers (a) already know about their gardens' walls, and (b) actually prefer it that way. The view that freedom is always preferable over, say, the sense of security that folks get from having an avuncular corporation ensure that the tools in their lives have a limited range of use -- that someone is literally managing the possibilities of their personal devices, pruning them of (supposedly) dangerous apps and ensuring that they are within certain expectations, is a great comfort to people who are already used to their lives being managed in precisely this way by any number of powerful actors. Stuff like this from the FSF makes me think they just don't understand the user. The user is typically is not an engineer. The customer is not interested in the responsibility that comes with that kind of power, and would pay good money to trade it off for predictability. And the success of nerfed, general-computing-incapable devices is market validation of this hypothesis. I'm uncomfortable with this facet of human nature too, and it runs contrary to the prevailing narrative of our industry and even of the Enlightenment itself, but until we accept that many folks just want to be taken care of, we will keep being surprised. Customer obsession means appreciating all the data, not just the data that is comfortable to behold.

jtbayly 7y ago

Why is Apple being dinged as writing Malware for something Dropbox wrote?

pwinnski 7y ago
Dropbox exploited mechanisms Apple created for accessibility, so would it be fair to say GNU is failing Apple for making their operating system accessible? That seems to be what GNU is doing by including this bullet, but I think they might object to that characterization.

tzs 7y ago

> In MacOS and iOS, the procedure for converting images from the Photos format to a free format is so tedious and time-consuming that users just give up if they have a lot of them. I select one or more photos in the Photos application on my Mac, and drag them to a folder window in Finder. That exports them as JPEGs.