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You don't have to agree with apple, but they clearly think the halo effect of having just one reasonably fair app store on their platform increases their platfo

You don't have to agree with apple, but they clearly think the halo effect of having just one reasonably fair app store on their platform increases their platform brand power and profits both. I think they are right. Can I ask a question. When your elderly parents or kids ask for a phone (assuming they are not developers), does it give you no comfort that if its an apple from end to end including app store things will be a bit more reasonable? And you do realize if things are unbundled, then EVERY phone company will dump their crap onto every users phone except for the folks who know enough to go uninstall / use the lockout thing you are talking about. And you don't think that will damage the overall apple brand?

gpm 6y ago
> You don't have to agree with apple, but they clearly think the halo effect of having just one reasonably fair app store on their platform increases their platform brand power and profits both. I think they are right. I agree, but "it makes us more money and gives us more power" has never been a defense against anti-trust law. Indeed if this was not true I imagine that anti-trust law would never have been necessary in the first place. > Can I ask a question. When your elderly parents or kids ask for a phone (assuming they are not developers), does it give you no comfort that if its an apple from end to end including app store things will be a bit more reasonable? First I have to point out that the unbundling solution solves this problem entirely. I just install the "lock this to the apple ecosystem" software before I give them the phone and I get all the current benefits as it pertains to children and elderly tech-dependents with none of the anti-trust issues. I have to admit that I can only answer this question in theory. I have no kids (and don't plan on future kids) and my parents are more technically competent than average. The extent that I manage their technology is "this is good value for the price" and installing ublock origin everywhere. The honest theoretical answer though is I don't think it would. There are a number of reasons for this. - I really don't trust the app store to stop abusive behaviors in the first place. - I could lock probably lock down an Android to the extent that I'm as happy as I would be with an apple (not very). - I would (and do) worry a hell of a lot more about the internet than I would (do) about apps. - I worry about the internet a hell of a lot more on IPhones than I do on androids, because I can't install a proper adblocker, because of Apples anti-competitive policies regarding browsers (the ad blocking api's in safari are gimped compared to firefox). - At the point where I don't trust someone with a phone, I also wouldn't trust them with a credit card in general... at which point none of the payment stuff is problematic (But I acknowledge that the social reality w.r.t. the elderly and credit cards makes this a hard problem). > And you do realize if things are unbundled, then EVERY phone company will dump their crap onto every users phone except for the folks who know enough to go uninstall / use the lockout thing you are talking about. And you don't think that will damage the overall apple brand? This can be solved with apple only providing phones to sellers who agree not to do that easily enough. While I know epic has some issues with this strategy (as it pertains to Google and pre-installing fortnite) I do not.
- bad_user 6y ago
  On the ad-blocking side, Android fans are blowing this out of proportion. First of all, Safari’s content blockers, while far less capable than uBO, are pretty adequate for the time being. In my experience, iOS Safari + Wipr is fine. Also, and this point is underrated, content blockers work in most app web views. For example Twitter’s or Gmail’s. Not all web views of course. Facebook for example chooses to use a web view, for opening links, that doesn’t have support for ad blockers. Moreover, alternative browsers, such as Firefox, or Edge, or Brave, or Vivaldi, could still implement ad blocking. Not via an extension, but built in. And they in fact do. Microsoft’s Edge included. Firefox on iOS is a little weak of course. They are only blocking domains meant for tracking, and they use the Disconnect list. Which is rather short. But they do take care of common ad exchanges, when in strict mode. Also, Safari itself blocks third party tracking by default. It doesn’t block the requests themselves, but it does block the cookies they set. So it doesn’t block a request to Google Analytics, but it does block its cookie. New in iOS 14 is that this capability became available to all web views. So including Firefox on iOS. Users have to opt-out if they don’t want it. Also iOS 14 has disabled the advertising ID, by default. Users have to opt-in explicitly, screwing the plans of Facebook, whose SDK is used by a lot of apps to gather metrics. I would love to have full Firefox on iOS, but truth is, this is a false narrative. Given Firefox’s popularity on Android, I can tell you that iOS users are in fact more protected from trackers and ads, out of the box. And it’s not just about Firefox’s popularity btw, I’m a huge Firefox supporter, but on Android it sucked in terms of performance, behavior, and compatibility with the web. From simple things, like pinching to zoom, with the fonts getting all blurry. As a technical user, you might live with that, but you wouldn’t subject your parents to it. You make it seem like on Android you have choices. Well, not really. Most people use Chrome, or Samsung’s browser. On iOS, did you know that the only browser without ad blocking capabilities is Chrome? Not to mention that you can also do DNS-level blocking, via NextDNS, or Pi-hole. And there’s another aspect. My son has an Android and a majority of games are ads-driven. Imagine a drawing app that forces kids to click for more ads in order to receive clues/rewards, without which they can’t advance in the game. Quite brilliant if you ask me. It also forces them to disable any ad blocking that their parents installed ;-) Well, on iOS people actually spend money on apps. And Apple has a new subscription even, called Apple Arcade, which gives people access to a collection of games without any ads, or in-app purchases. Just pay a subscription, and the games can’t play tricks on you. This is what curation does. Unfortunately my son wanted an Android for now. So I’ll have to wait about 2 years, until his Android tables becomes unsupported and obsolete. And in the meantime my iPad Pro from 2015 will still be upgradable to the latest iOS. If you’re saying that you can’t trust iOS’s ecosystem more than Android, for you children, then you’re seriously unfamiliar with it, sorry.

gpm 6y ago

> You don't have to agree with apple, but they clearly think the halo effect of having just one reasonably fair app store on their platform increases their platform brand power and profits both. I think they are right. I agree, but "it makes us more money and gives us more power" has never been a defense against anti-trust law. Indeed if this was not true I imagine that anti-trust law would never have been necessary in the first place. > Can I ask a question. When your elderly parents or kids ask for a phone (assuming they are not developers), does it give you no comfort that if its an apple from end to end including app store things will be a bit more reasonable? First I have to point out that the unbundling solution solves this problem entirely. I just install the "lock this to the apple ecosystem" software before I give them the phone and I get all the current benefits as it pertains to children and elderly tech-dependents with none of the anti-trust issues. I have to admit that I can only answer this question in theory. I have no kids (and don't plan on future kids) and my parents are more technically competent than average. The extent that I manage their technology is "this is good value for the price" and installing ublock origin everywhere. The honest theoretical answer though is I don't think it would. There are a number of reasons for this. - I really don't trust the app store to stop abusive behaviors in the first place. - I could lock probably lock down an Android to the extent that I'm as happy as I would be with an apple (not very). - I would (and do) worry a hell of a lot more about the internet than I would (do) about apps. - I worry about the internet a hell of a lot more on IPhones than I do on androids, because I can't install a proper adblocker, because of Apples anti-competitive policies regarding browsers (the ad blocking api's in safari are gimped compared to firefox). - At the point where I don't trust someone with a phone, I also wouldn't trust them with a credit card in general... at which point none of the payment stuff is problematic (But I acknowledge that the social reality w.r.t. the elderly and credit cards makes this a hard problem). > And you do realize if things are unbundled, then EVERY phone company will dump their crap onto every users phone except for the folks who know enough to go uninstall / use the lockout thing you are talking about. And you don't think that will damage the overall apple brand? This can be solved with apple only providing phones to sellers who agree not to do that easily enough. While I know epic has some issues with this strategy (as it pertains to Google and pre-installing fortnite) I do not.

bad_user 6y ago
On the ad-blocking side, Android fans are blowing this out of proportion. First of all, Safari’s content blockers, while far less capable than uBO, are pretty adequate for the time being. In my experience, iOS Safari + Wipr is fine. Also, and this point is underrated, content blockers work in most app web views. For example Twitter’s or Gmail’s. Not all web views of course. Facebook for example chooses to use a web view, for opening links, that doesn’t have support for ad blockers. Moreover, alternative browsers, such as Firefox, or Edge, or Brave, or Vivaldi, could still implement ad blocking. Not via an extension, but built in. And they in fact do. Microsoft’s Edge included. Firefox on iOS is a little weak of course. They are only blocking domains meant for tracking, and they use the Disconnect list. Which is rather short. But they do take care of common ad exchanges, when in strict mode. Also, Safari itself blocks third party tracking by default. It doesn’t block the requests themselves, but it does block the cookies they set. So it doesn’t block a request to Google Analytics, but it does block its cookie. New in iOS 14 is that this capability became available to all web views. So including Firefox on iOS. Users have to opt-out if they don’t want it. Also iOS 14 has disabled the advertising ID, by default. Users have to opt-in explicitly, screwing the plans of Facebook, whose SDK is used by a lot of apps to gather metrics. I would love to have full Firefox on iOS, but truth is, this is a false narrative. Given Firefox’s popularity on Android, I can tell you that iOS users are in fact more protected from trackers and ads, out of the box. And it’s not just about Firefox’s popularity btw, I’m a huge Firefox supporter, but on Android it sucked in terms of performance, behavior, and compatibility with the web. From simple things, like pinching to zoom, with the fonts getting all blurry. As a technical user, you might live with that, but you wouldn’t subject your parents to it. You make it seem like on Android you have choices. Well, not really. Most people use Chrome, or Samsung’s browser. On iOS, did you know that the only browser without ad blocking capabilities is Chrome? Not to mention that you can also do DNS-level blocking, via NextDNS, or Pi-hole. And there’s another aspect. My son has an Android and a majority of games are ads-driven. Imagine a drawing app that forces kids to click for more ads in order to receive clues/rewards, without which they can’t advance in the game. Quite brilliant if you ask me. It also forces them to disable any ad blocking that their parents installed ;-) Well, on iOS people actually spend money on apps. And Apple has a new subscription even, called Apple Arcade, which gives people access to a collection of games without any ads, or in-app purchases. Just pay a subscription, and the games can’t play tricks on you. This is what curation does. Unfortunately my son wanted an Android for now. So I’ll have to wait about 2 years, until his Android tables becomes unsupported and obsolete. And in the meantime my iPad Pro from 2015 will still be upgradable to the latest iOS. If you’re saying that you can’t trust iOS’s ecosystem more than Android, for you children, then you’re seriously unfamiliar with it, sorry.