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The truth is somewhere in the middle, so while this article has some good points it is too colored by a strong dislike for all things Apple and borderline consp

The truth is somewhere in the middle, so while this article has some good points it is too colored by a strong dislike for all things Apple and borderline conspiratorial thinking. I don’t think there is anything that suggests Apple is going to stop people from installing Apps outside their App Store. Rather it is about making sure it is easy for regular users to get Apps in a safe manner without malware and Trojan horses. This isn’t just hype. We know for a fact that this is a much smaller problem on iOS than Android. I am happy that Android exists as a choice for users but let us not pretend there are no trade offs. It is a bit too conspiratorial to think Apple control is all about some dictatorship fetish. It is a choice Apple makes to improve user experience at the expense of flexibility.

romanoderoma 6y ago
> Rather it is about making sure it is easy for regular users to get Apps in a safe manner without malware and Trojan horses. I don't intend to sound dismissive, but this line of thinking has a name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism
- newsclues 6y ago
  Does that not apply to the State and government?
  - criley2 6y ago
    The difference between the State and the Private Company is that citizens vote for the State, and Legislators (the "paternalizers") are directly installed by the voters. The iPhone buyer does not get a say in the development staff or direction at Apple. My government intends to be "Of the people, for the people, by the people". Imagine if Apple every single year had elections at every level of their company! Vote for your local support representatives. Vote for your local b+m store management. Vote for executive staff. Etc etc. But until Apple does that, there is literally no fair comparison with paternalism in state and private industry.
    - prawn 6y ago
      Aren't you voting with your wallet when you voluntarily buy an Apple product?
      - criley2 6y ago
        I am familiar with the saying, however, in this case, voting for government officials and creating a "demand" datapoint in markets by completing a purchase are not synonymous. When we go to the polls, we are literally making decisions about what you call "paternalism". Who should write our laws? Who should manage our criminal justice system? Who should regulate our industries? These are pretty direct decisions to make. But when we go to Best Buy or Apple Store to buy an iDevice, almost all consumer are not making a decision about the "paternalistic" decisions of Apple, who they employ, etc. They are buying a shiny object that makes their brain give them the happy juice. I fear for our society if these two actions become one and the same.
        prawn 6y ago
        You need to step back one more level from "The iPhone buyer does not get a say" to "The phone buyer does get a say"; buy an iPhone or buy an Android device if you have an issue with their business arrangements. "They are buying a shiny object that makes their brain give them the happy juice." That doesn't sound unlike many voters of all sorts to me!
        criley2 6y ago
        I personally believe that it is naive to think that Apple cares what consumers think as they have enough money to take $0 from consumers for say 30 years straight and be fine. They are post-capitalist. I understand that in an ideal market, a business has to react to demand. That in many industries, if you don't do what the customer wants, the customer leaves. I do not think Apple operates in that world or by those rules. Apple doesn't care what you think and they don't care if you buy their products. Ironically, the only way you might get Apple to change isn't with your wallet, it's with your government. EU notching wins against Apple bad practices on behalf of Apple's European customers that their wallets never won them.
  - romanoderoma 6y ago
    Not really It was 6 centuries ago, when it was first invented, it has a much broader meaning now. Anyway Apple is State and Government in Apple ecosystem https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paternalism/#Intr https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paternalism/#Intr > The civil law does not allow the enforcement of certain kinds of contracts, e.g., for gambling debts. It requires minors to have blood transfusions even if their religious beliefs forbid it. Persons may be civilly committed if they are a danger to themselves. Doctors do not tell their patients the truth about their medical condition. A physician may tell the wife of a man whose car went off a bridge into the water and drowned that he died instantly when in fact he died a rather ghastly death. A husband may hide the sleeping pills from a depressed wife. A philosophy department may require a student to take logic courses. A teacher may be less than honest about telling a student that he has little philosophical ability. All of these rules, policies, and actions may be done for various reasons; may be justified by various considerations. When they are justified solely on the grounds that the person affected would be better off, or would be less harmed, as a result of the rule, policy, etc., and the person in question would prefer not to be treated this way, we have an instance of paternalism. As the examples indicate the question of paternalism is one that arises in many different areas of our personal and public life
  - vagrantJin 6y ago
    Yes, but governments are or should be accountable to the state, which imposes rules thereby verified and rattified by civil society and their representatives. Second point, though weaker on its own merit, is that the State's primary objective is to improve the commonwealth by acting as proxy to the collective effort, regulating compromise etc which are paternalistic without a doubt. Private corporations exist for entirely different reasons though this probably wasn't always the case. In our world, corporations can make massive losses, have no working product, or be of such marginal value and yet be valued for billions by speculators in the free market. Its all random and irrational. States cannot operate like that.
- czzr 6y ago
  It also has another name: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience
  - romanoderoma 6y ago
    UX can be paternalistic as well It can also be very bad or the very opposite of what Apple does and also be the best around and still let people free to explore all the options available. There is nothing specific in what Apple does that can be reduced to simply UX. Maybe ergonomics is more correct to define what Apple tries to do with their human interfaces, but the Apple store or the locked down platform have nothing to do with either UX or ergonomics. What Apple does is to remove electric plugs from the walls because someone could put a fork inside them and experience an electric shock. And I am not the one saying it, I was answering to "Apple removed trojan and viruses to help people who don't know better". That's paternalism.
  - mixedCase 6y ago
    UX can guide the user toward what it thinks to be the best option, or it can forbid the user from choosing anything else. The former helps grandma get her tasks done and lets the power user go the extra mile. The latter helps grandma get her tasks done, tells the power user he's not worth supporting and blames grandma for it.
- matwood 6y ago
  Or pragmatism. At some point it's better and easier for users to offload some of these decisions to someone else. I don't want to test every piece of food I buy at the grocery store for poison, the same way I don't want to have to deep dive into every app. And yes, I know the system is not perfect, but I'm talking about the general system here.
  - romanoderoma 6y ago
    > don't want to test every piece of food I buy at the grocery store for poison I consider myself a pragmatic and I think that the only way to actually be sure there is no poison in your food is to literally produce it yourself. Someone who's not even telling me the recipe is not a trusted source of premium food. There is also no poison waiting outside of Apple ecosystem. There is no offloading decision to someone else involved, you simply have the option or you don't, it doesn't mean you have to go full in one way or the other You don't have to deep dive every app either, it's a straw man IMO The argument is the same for picking mushrooms in the woods: you don't pick all of them, put them in the same basket, and then test them for venom one by one, you only pick those that you already know as safe, and you're absolutely sure about it. Nobody in their right mind would do otherwise. I'm ok with people trusting Apple more than their parents, what I find disturbing is the idea that if I trust my parents to use the same 3 apps that everybody else in the World uses (WhatsApp, FB and Google Maps) and are certified good, I'm putting them in danger. It is not true. It's a false premise. Also the idea that people will go and install every app they see it's false. They see a warning, they usually stop right there. My father used to turn off the phone when he saw the red alert of a missing call, thinking of a malfunction. There's no risk he's gonna install something by chance. Also, if iOS is on 25% of the devices in Europe, while Android is on 3/4 of them does it mean that 75% of the 700 million European citizens are not pragmatic?
jackpeterfletch 6y ago
The fact that Apple stopped requiring dev licenses to sideload code onto iOS devices makes me think that their effort to ensure that "typical users" install signed apps on macOS, really is about security and experience. I think its funny that most people here wouldent trust a website with no certificate, but for applications the idea seems to be considered abhorrent.
- jrochkind1 6y ago
  Most people don't put much stock in "EV" certificates though, which to me would be the equivalent of the signed app, sort of, as it demonstrates that the person you are talking to is a specific known legal entity, sort of like demonstrating the app you are installing came from a specific known legal entity. The "ordinary" certificates we use just are meant to prove the website you are talking to is the authorized owner of the domain you mean to be talking to... I'm not sure if there's really an analogy with installing apps, that kind of cert is I think maybe meant to protect against a kind of attack only relevant to network communications, not app installs.
- gameswithgo 6y ago
  Requiring apps to be signed is what most of us complainers WANT instead of having a store lockdown and rules about what programs we can run on our computers.
- watermelon0 6y ago
  Apple still requires paid dev license for some entitlements, and manual approval for a few of those, such as CarPlay.
holstvoogd 6y ago
It always seems like some sort of deflection tactic. Shouting how bad apple is, while using a device practically owned by google.
- Hamuko 6y ago
  Google allows third-party app stores and most of the source code for Android is out there in the open. I don't know how Google "practically owns" your device considering Apple asserts a much more complete control over your device.
  - w0utert 6y ago
    >> Google allows third-party app stores and most of the source code for Android is out there in the open. Is that true though? I though pretty much all of the Google services and vendor-specific skins and OS modifications are just as closed as iOS? Last time I heard vanilla AOSP is pretty much unusable because besides the core OS functions everything is grossly outdated? Is anyone using Android phones without any of the Google services?
    - d3nj4l 6y ago
      I'll play the part and mention microG, an alternative which supplies many of the Google services that are required by a ton of apps these days. Fair warning, though. Installing microG on a lot of popular phones is non-trivial.
    - dingaling 6y ago
      > Is anyone using Android phones without any of the Google services? Yes I have a couple of phones running LineageOS without GApps. The apps are installed through FDroid or direct from the vendor ( e.g. WhatsApp.apk from their website, which also manages its own updates ).
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    > most of the source code for Android Except for everything related to the Play Store, correct? And that is a critical part of Android at this point. Google is progressively closing Android.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
I'm pretty neutral about it myself; on the one hand, you give up a bit of control and freedom over your hardware. But on the other, 99% of users have no need for, or cannot be trusted with that freedom. I mean I've worked with Windows for multiple generations of the operating system, and once the internet became a thing it was just complete shit. I had a side job fixing computers for people, and it was always adware, viruses, etc messing things up. That was caused by an insecure operating system on the one hand - which can and has been fixed by core operating system mechanics - but a big factor was both freedom and lack of expertise from users. They're easily tempted by e.g. "install this browser bar for dank discounts" without understanding the consequences. They may not even really register what's going on because so much is going on. 99% of users need to be protected from themselves. And developers need to work with that. Apple has already proven how a closed ecosystem is ultimately beneficial for the consumer - how many security incidents has the iphone had, ever? I can't think of ANY to be honest, outside of the odd scummy app slipping through that is a bit too liberal with user's data. But they have never compromised a user's system. Mobile banking apps became a thing while I was an app developer, and that would never have flown on an unconstrained system. Pretty sure they had a lot more trouble with the Android version as well in that regard. Tl;dr, 99% of users will never know any better and will not care, they just want to hit install and for things to Just Work.
- nickjj 6y ago
  > I mean I've worked with Windows for multiple generations of the operating system, and once the internet became a thing it was just complete shit. I had a side job fixing computers for people, and it was always adware, viruses, etc messing things up. Windows 10 isn't perfect but it's a much different time than multiple generations ago with Windows 95 / 98, XP or even 7. Back then you could visit a site and end up needing to format because of a virus, even if you were very much into tech. Nowadays even if you disable Windows Defender and any active AV tool, it's pretty unlikely you'll get yourself to the point where you need to format due to a virus or some adware. This is speaking from the perspective of someone who has been using Windows since the mid 1990s.
matwood 6y ago
Agreed. Apple could be lying, but they (top executives) have stated multiple times that the mac is not an iDevice. They have also stated they have no plans to only allow installs from app store, and they understand the value of tools like brew etc...They are what makes the mac popular with developers. This could all change, but until it does articles like this feel a lot like FUD. Additionally, completely dismissing the M1 as a 'marginal improvement' shows a level of anti-Apple that is clearly clouding the authors judgement.
- mfer 6y ago
  If Apple changed on this the press and customer sentiment would be terrible. Oh so terrible. I'm sure they are aware of that. Word of mouth is the best form of advertising. If you're most vocal work of mouth folks turn than this would be bad for sales.
  - addicted 6y ago
    Apple is aware that they constantly change their story mid steam and the majority of the media simply buys it.
    - neura 6y ago
      Sure, but the main point here is switching the MacOS platform to "app store only", which they could have already done. Using their own hardware vs Intel hasn't prevented that. Do you think there's something else that has prevented them, related to their hardware? If they limited it a year ago, people would have the option to just use their macbook for Windows or Linux? Now they won't? I'm just genuinely confused as to why people seem to think that [a] Apple is planning to switch to a locked down ecosystem on their notebooks and [b] Apple has been somehow limited in doing this until they had their own "silicon".
- oarsinsync 6y ago
  Apple have a history of denying anything until it's ready, and then they flip the script. While the article is clearly biased, it would be foolish to believe that Apple is a company that doesn't change course, going as far as total U-turns on public statements, as long as it's in their interests to do so. > They are what makes the mac popular with developers Developers believe that they're Apple's priority when it comes to hardware, especially the Mac, in large part due to the perfect intersect that was the MBP for many years. That tide already turned in 2016 with the new keyboard, followed by the touch bar. Like the joke that the 'S' in IoT stands for security (the joke being there is no S, and there is no security), there is no 'D' for developer in MBP. Apple have been consistently clear that 'professional developers' are not the primary target of their 'Pro' lineup across the board. Someone else made a comment on this forum that got my attention recently, that we're all so used to being courted as customers by (mostly free) services that we've forgotten that we're not always the target customer. Similarly, developers are only welcome in Apple's ecosystem if they play by Apple's rules. Like we've seen with the App Store, Apple will frequently alter the terms of the deal. All you can do is pray they do not alter them any further. None of this should diminish the extraordinary results that can be delivered by the M1. That is amazing.
gameswithgo 6y ago
>I don’t think there is anything that suggests Apple is going to stop people from installing Apps outside their App Store Of course there are things that suggest this, such as, that is how iphones and ipads work, and its become increasingly difficult over time to do it on a mac.
- moepstar 6y ago
  As in what, having to RMB -> Open ? In what way was it made "more difficult" than that? What exactly suggests it is "becoming (even?) more difficult"?
  - MrRiddle 6y ago
    I had to enable it in settings, I was prevented from opening an app that was not signed by apple. And I was prevented from opening even signed apps when their servers were down the other day.
  - Hamuko 6y ago
    You used to be able to open any application directly. Simple and easy. Then they introduced Gatekeeper, but you had the option to disable the Gatekeeper check for all applications. Then they removed the option to disable the check for all applications. You now only have the options "App Store" and "App Store and identified developers". They have definitely made the whole thing harder and harder during these past 10 years. Now if you don't want to pay Apple for a developer license, or you're just otherwise ousted by Apple (like Epic Games), you need to teach your users on how they can circumvent Apple's restrictions.
    - zepto 6y ago
      Epic wasn’t ‘just ousted’. They lied to Apple, and broke their contract, in full awareness of the consequences. The courts have agreed that the reason their apps are not in the store is of their own doing, which is why they have not granted an injunction. Whatever the outcome of their case, they are not an example of some general trend of Apple ‘ousting’ developers.
jsgo 6y ago
Hope so, but Apple implemented the wholesale Metal Only (not Metal Only unless you run a command in terminal) update which killed off using Nvidia cards for those of us who bought MBPs for eGPUing Nvidia cards. Considering Apple hardware doesn’t have a Nvidia option and people like me are probably niche to bring their own GPU (even though CUDA exists), it’d be highly unrealistic to think that Nvidia would rewrite their drivers for Metal because the affected users has to be quite small. I hope you’re right, but personally, I don’t trust Apple to allow me to do what I wish anymore.
- dhruvmittal 6y ago
  Possibly naive question but does anyone know if CUDA is supported on the new M1 macs? I think I heard on a podcast last week that eGPUs would no longer be supported, but I can't find a reference.
  - jsgo 6y ago
    Well, Nvidia (outside of some really, really old hardware) isn’t supported on Mac so I’d imagine effectively M1 doesn’t support CUDA. I would hope they didn’t kill off eGPUing Radeon cards, but I haven’t kept track of the new hardware other than M1 being really good.
    - rfoo 6y ago
      They didn't. But there are no driver available for Radeon cards on M1, so for now it is effectively dead.
  - valuearb 6y ago
    EGPUs aren’t supported for the M1, but Big Sur still identifies and connects to them, implying Apple may restore this feature in the future.
    - robotnikman 6y ago
      I think eGPUs require a thunderbolt connection, which IIRC is only supported by Intel processors
rsynnott 6y ago
And in any case there's no reason they couldn't do that on Intel if they wanted to. IIRC there was some Windows variant back in the day that did this on Intel. Windows 10S, possibly?
- perryizgr8 6y ago
  They couldn't do that on intel because if they made it too draconian people would just install windows. Now people are locked in tight.
  - spijdar 6y ago
    Intel Macs have never had typical BIOSes or standards compliant UEFI, to say nothing of their device drivers. Without Apple providing a HAL FLL for the windows executive and device drivers along with a special bootloader shim (the marketing guys call this package "Bootcamp"), Windows would not work on Intel Macs. Microsoft or some third party would have to reverse engineer the device drivers, and they're definitely not making that investment. Not to mention more basically that Apple has to sign the NT kernel for it to load on Macs without disabling the equivalent of SecureBoot.
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    People can just install Linux here, via self-signed kernel, it appears. Apple could, obviously, prevent people from installing Windows on Intel Macs if it wanted to.
josefresco 6y ago
> I don’t think there is anything that suggests Apple is going to stop people from installing Apps outside their App Store. Rather it is about making sure it is easy for regular users to get Apps in a safe manner without malware and Trojan horses. Sorry but I had to LOL (combined with grey-haired head shaking). I've been a "technologist" for over 25 years. Every time some corporate entity or government body adds similar "security" they trot out this same cliche line. "Oh no no no it's not so we can CONTROL you, is so we can PROTECT you". Yeah, sure buddy.
0goel0 6y ago
> We know for a fact that this is a much smaller problem on iOS than Android. I am happy that Android exists as a choice for users but let us not pretend there are no trade offs. Android is not a choice for iOS users, it's not a seamless switch. The solution as I see it is that apple could still very well protect users from "trojans" but have an opt-in for 3p app installation. A button that says "I want to install apps from anywhere, I know the risks". If I pay for the hardware, as a customer, I should be able to do whatever I want with it. With the iPhone, it feels like I'm renting rather than owning. I worry that's the direction apple is taking Macs in with the M1.
- evgen 6y ago
  The problem with this 'I know the risks' approach is that it is often put out there by people who do know the risks but these people are massively outnumbered by the huge mass of people who have no idea about the risks but will gladly install from Bob's FlyByNight App Emporium if it means they will get a "can't lose" video poker app or a chance to win a free Fortnite skin and please be sure to click OK to all of those security warnings thanks so much for your bank details... If you want a different ecosystem there are choices available to you. Why exactly are you complaining when it is clear no one is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to use Apple products?
  - sneak 6y ago
    I think the answer to this is painfully clear: because no one makes hardware anywhere near close to the quality of mac and iphone hardware in those verticals. We'd like to use the best available software, running on the best available hardware. Criticizing Apple's software censorship choices is thus the natural logical target. Otherwise, we have to use things like the PinePhone for the next 10-15 years until someone makes something comparable to an iPhone 6 that can run whatever software the owner wants.
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      Alternatively one could contribute to making the competing hardware just as good.
drieddust 6y ago
My wife was an apple fan until she bought an iPhone and got locked out when she forget the password. Apple support refused to cooperate despite repeated cries of help. M1 feels like a stepping stone in the same direction on laptops. Personally it feels wrong to pay for a device someone can lock you out of and then refuse to unlock. It's like paying ransom without getting kidnapped.
- valuearb 6y ago
  Why did she put a passcode on it if she didn’t want it to be secure? You can use an iPhone with no passcode at all. Blaming Apple for “locking you out” when you were the one who locked the door and lost the key is silly.
  - drieddust 6y ago
    If I lose the keys to my home, I can break the lock or if required break the door and get into my house so why I can't reset and reconfigure my iPhone?
    - valuearb 6y ago
      Because you can reset your iPhone if you forget your passcode? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204306 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204306
- chillaxtian 6y ago
  Apple Support cannot do anything if you forget the device passcode, there is no back door. Best advice I can think of is, is ask her to restore an iCloud backup, after erasing the phone.
- bromonkey 6y ago
  I mean that sucks for your wife, but what prevents literally anyone else from impersonating someone and unlocking a device? There are very good reasons that Apple does not "cooperate" in theses situations. Passwords are not supposed to be bypassed by third parties.
haolez 6y ago
It's a trillion-dollar market. Of course the incentive is there to monopolize and monetize app installations.
gchamonlive 6y ago
I would expect Apple to support third party repair and right to repair itself if what they had in mind was to improve user experience. Maybe those are two things separate, hardware post-purchase support and software user experience, but I can't as a consumer separate those two.
throwaway129013 6y ago
> too colored by a strong dislike for all things Apple and borderline conspiratorial thinking > It is a bit too conspiratorial to think Apple control is all about some dictatorship fetish So much for "Hacker" News.
iSnow 6y ago
The knowledge that the switch to closing the system is there has a decidedly chilling effect, Apple doesn't even need to flick it. But if you buy a ARM-Mac, you should know that it could be turned into a sealed iDevice any time. That said, the M1 is one damned good chip. And the Macbooks are hands down the laptops with the best feel and build quality.
sneak 6y ago
> I don’t think there is anything that suggests Apple is going to stop people from installing Apps outside their App Store. It is already exceptionally difficult to distribute apps produced outside of their developer program.

romanoderoma 6y ago

> Rather it is about making sure it is easy for regular users to get Apps in a safe manner without malware and Trojan horses. I don't intend to sound dismissive, but this line of thinking has a name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism

newsclues 6y ago
Does that not apply to the State and government?
- criley2 6y ago
  The difference between the State and the Private Company is that citizens vote for the State, and Legislators (the "paternalizers") are directly installed by the voters. The iPhone buyer does not get a say in the development staff or direction at Apple. My government intends to be "Of the people, for the people, by the people". Imagine if Apple every single year had elections at every level of their company! Vote for your local support representatives. Vote for your local b+m store management. Vote for executive staff. Etc etc. But until Apple does that, there is literally no fair comparison with paternalism in state and private industry.
  - prawn 6y ago
    Aren't you voting with your wallet when you voluntarily buy an Apple product?
    - criley2 6y ago
      I am familiar with the saying, however, in this case, voting for government officials and creating a "demand" datapoint in markets by completing a purchase are not synonymous. When we go to the polls, we are literally making decisions about what you call "paternalism". Who should write our laws? Who should manage our criminal justice system? Who should regulate our industries? These are pretty direct decisions to make. But when we go to Best Buy or Apple Store to buy an iDevice, almost all consumer are not making a decision about the "paternalistic" decisions of Apple, who they employ, etc. They are buying a shiny object that makes their brain give them the happy juice. I fear for our society if these two actions become one and the same.
      - prawn 6y ago
        You need to step back one more level from "The iPhone buyer does not get a say" to "The phone buyer does get a say"; buy an iPhone or buy an Android device if you have an issue with their business arrangements. "They are buying a shiny object that makes their brain give them the happy juice." That doesn't sound unlike many voters of all sorts to me!
        criley2 6y ago
        I personally believe that it is naive to think that Apple cares what consumers think as they have enough money to take $0 from consumers for say 30 years straight and be fine. They are post-capitalist. I understand that in an ideal market, a business has to react to demand. That in many industries, if you don't do what the customer wants, the customer leaves. I do not think Apple operates in that world or by those rules. Apple doesn't care what you think and they don't care if you buy their products. Ironically, the only way you might get Apple to change isn't with your wallet, it's with your government. EU notching wins against Apple bad practices on behalf of Apple's European customers that their wallets never won them.
- romanoderoma 6y ago
  Not really It was 6 centuries ago, when it was first invented, it has a much broader meaning now. Anyway Apple is State and Government in Apple ecosystem https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paternalism/#Intr https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paternalism/#Intr > The civil law does not allow the enforcement of certain kinds of contracts, e.g., for gambling debts. It requires minors to have blood transfusions even if their religious beliefs forbid it. Persons may be civilly committed if they are a danger to themselves. Doctors do not tell their patients the truth about their medical condition. A physician may tell the wife of a man whose car went off a bridge into the water and drowned that he died instantly when in fact he died a rather ghastly death. A husband may hide the sleeping pills from a depressed wife. A philosophy department may require a student to take logic courses. A teacher may be less than honest about telling a student that he has little philosophical ability. All of these rules, policies, and actions may be done for various reasons; may be justified by various considerations. When they are justified solely on the grounds that the person affected would be better off, or would be less harmed, as a result of the rule, policy, etc., and the person in question would prefer not to be treated this way, we have an instance of paternalism. As the examples indicate the question of paternalism is one that arises in many different areas of our personal and public life
- vagrantJin 6y ago
  Yes, but governments are or should be accountable to the state, which imposes rules thereby verified and rattified by civil society and their representatives. Second point, though weaker on its own merit, is that the State's primary objective is to improve the commonwealth by acting as proxy to the collective effort, regulating compromise etc which are paternalistic without a doubt. Private corporations exist for entirely different reasons though this probably wasn't always the case. In our world, corporations can make massive losses, have no working product, or be of such marginal value and yet be valued for billions by speculators in the free market. Its all random and irrational. States cannot operate like that.
czzr 6y ago
It also has another name: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience
- romanoderoma 6y ago
  UX can be paternalistic as well It can also be very bad or the very opposite of what Apple does and also be the best around and still let people free to explore all the options available. There is nothing specific in what Apple does that can be reduced to simply UX. Maybe ergonomics is more correct to define what Apple tries to do with their human interfaces, but the Apple store or the locked down platform have nothing to do with either UX or ergonomics. What Apple does is to remove electric plugs from the walls because someone could put a fork inside them and experience an electric shock. And I am not the one saying it, I was answering to "Apple removed trojan and viruses to help people who don't know better". That's paternalism.
- mixedCase 6y ago
  UX can guide the user toward what it thinks to be the best option, or it can forbid the user from choosing anything else. The former helps grandma get her tasks done and lets the power user go the extra mile. The latter helps grandma get her tasks done, tells the power user he's not worth supporting and blames grandma for it.
matwood 6y ago
Or pragmatism. At some point it's better and easier for users to offload some of these decisions to someone else. I don't want to test every piece of food I buy at the grocery store for poison, the same way I don't want to have to deep dive into every app. And yes, I know the system is not perfect, but I'm talking about the general system here.
- romanoderoma 6y ago
  > don't want to test every piece of food I buy at the grocery store for poison I consider myself a pragmatic and I think that the only way to actually be sure there is no poison in your food is to literally produce it yourself. Someone who's not even telling me the recipe is not a trusted source of premium food. There is also no poison waiting outside of Apple ecosystem. There is no offloading decision to someone else involved, you simply have the option or you don't, it doesn't mean you have to go full in one way or the other You don't have to deep dive every app either, it's a straw man IMO The argument is the same for picking mushrooms in the woods: you don't pick all of them, put them in the same basket, and then test them for venom one by one, you only pick those that you already know as safe, and you're absolutely sure about it. Nobody in their right mind would do otherwise. I'm ok with people trusting Apple more than their parents, what I find disturbing is the idea that if I trust my parents to use the same 3 apps that everybody else in the World uses (WhatsApp, FB and Google Maps) and are certified good, I'm putting them in danger. It is not true. It's a false premise. Also the idea that people will go and install every app they see it's false. They see a warning, they usually stop right there. My father used to turn off the phone when he saw the red alert of a missing call, thinking of a malfunction. There's no risk he's gonna install something by chance. Also, if iOS is on 25% of the devices in Europe, while Android is on 3/4 of them does it mean that 75% of the 700 million European citizens are not pragmatic?

jackpeterfletch 6y ago

The fact that Apple stopped requiring dev licenses to sideload code onto iOS devices makes me think that their effort to ensure that "typical users" install signed apps on macOS, really is about security and experience. I think its funny that most people here wouldent trust a website with no certificate, but for applications the idea seems to be considered abhorrent.

jrochkind1 6y ago
Most people don't put much stock in "EV" certificates though, which to me would be the equivalent of the signed app, sort of, as it demonstrates that the person you are talking to is a specific known legal entity, sort of like demonstrating the app you are installing came from a specific known legal entity. The "ordinary" certificates we use just are meant to prove the website you are talking to is the authorized owner of the domain you mean to be talking to... I'm not sure if there's really an analogy with installing apps, that kind of cert is I think maybe meant to protect against a kind of attack only relevant to network communications, not app installs.
gameswithgo 6y ago
Requiring apps to be signed is what most of us complainers WANT instead of having a store lockdown and rules about what programs we can run on our computers.
watermelon0 6y ago
Apple still requires paid dev license for some entitlements, and manual approval for a few of those, such as CarPlay.

holstvoogd 6y ago

It always seems like some sort of deflection tactic. Shouting how bad apple is, while using a device practically owned by google.

Hamuko 6y ago
Google allows third-party app stores and most of the source code for Android is out there in the open. I don't know how Google "practically owns" your device considering Apple asserts a much more complete control over your device.
- w0utert 6y ago
  >> Google allows third-party app stores and most of the source code for Android is out there in the open. Is that true though? I though pretty much all of the Google services and vendor-specific skins and OS modifications are just as closed as iOS? Last time I heard vanilla AOSP is pretty much unusable because besides the core OS functions everything is grossly outdated? Is anyone using Android phones without any of the Google services?
  - d3nj4l 6y ago
    I'll play the part and mention microG, an alternative which supplies many of the Google services that are required by a ton of apps these days. Fair warning, though. Installing microG on a lot of popular phones is non-trivial.
  - dingaling 6y ago
    > Is anyone using Android phones without any of the Google services? Yes I have a couple of phones running LineageOS without GApps. The apps are installed through FDroid or direct from the vendor ( e.g. WhatsApp.apk from their website, which also manages its own updates ).
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  > most of the source code for Android Except for everything related to the Play Store, correct? And that is a critical part of Android at this point. Google is progressively closing Android.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

I'm pretty neutral about it myself; on the one hand, you give up a bit of control and freedom over your hardware. But on the other, 99% of users have no need for, or cannot be trusted with that freedom. I mean I've worked with Windows for multiple generations of the operating system, and once the internet became a thing it was just complete shit. I had a side job fixing computers for people, and it was always adware, viruses, etc messing things up. That was caused by an insecure operating system on the one hand - which can and has been fixed by core operating system mechanics - but a big factor was both freedom and lack of expertise from users. They're easily tempted by e.g. "install this browser bar for dank discounts" without understanding the consequences. They may not even really register what's going on because so much is going on. 99% of users need to be protected from themselves. And developers need to work with that. Apple has already proven how a closed ecosystem is ultimately beneficial for the consumer - how many security incidents has the iphone had, ever? I can't think of ANY to be honest, outside of the odd scummy app slipping through that is a bit too liberal with user's data. But they have never compromised a user's system. Mobile banking apps became a thing while I was an app developer, and that would never have flown on an unconstrained system. Pretty sure they had a lot more trouble with the Android version as well in that regard. Tl;dr, 99% of users will never know any better and will not care, they just want to hit install and for things to Just Work.

nickjj 6y ago
> I mean I've worked with Windows for multiple generations of the operating system, and once the internet became a thing it was just complete shit. I had a side job fixing computers for people, and it was always adware, viruses, etc messing things up. Windows 10 isn't perfect but it's a much different time than multiple generations ago with Windows 95 / 98, XP or even 7. Back then you could visit a site and end up needing to format because of a virus, even if you were very much into tech. Nowadays even if you disable Windows Defender and any active AV tool, it's pretty unlikely you'll get yourself to the point where you need to format due to a virus or some adware. This is speaking from the perspective of someone who has been using Windows since the mid 1990s.

matwood 6y ago

Agreed. Apple could be lying, but they (top executives) have stated multiple times that the mac is not an iDevice. They have also stated they have no plans to only allow installs from app store, and they understand the value of tools like brew etc...They are what makes the mac popular with developers. This could all change, but until it does articles like this feel a lot like FUD. Additionally, completely dismissing the M1 as a 'marginal improvement' shows a level of anti-Apple that is clearly clouding the authors judgement.

mfer 6y ago
If Apple changed on this the press and customer sentiment would be terrible. Oh so terrible. I'm sure they are aware of that. Word of mouth is the best form of advertising. If you're most vocal work of mouth folks turn than this would be bad for sales.
- addicted 6y ago
  Apple is aware that they constantly change their story mid steam and the majority of the media simply buys it.
  - neura 6y ago
    Sure, but the main point here is switching the MacOS platform to "app store only", which they could have already done. Using their own hardware vs Intel hasn't prevented that. Do you think there's something else that has prevented them, related to their hardware? If they limited it a year ago, people would have the option to just use their macbook for Windows or Linux? Now they won't? I'm just genuinely confused as to why people seem to think that [a] Apple is planning to switch to a locked down ecosystem on their notebooks and [b] Apple has been somehow limited in doing this until they had their own "silicon".
oarsinsync 6y ago
Apple have a history of denying anything until it's ready, and then they flip the script. While the article is clearly biased, it would be foolish to believe that Apple is a company that doesn't change course, going as far as total U-turns on public statements, as long as it's in their interests to do so. > They are what makes the mac popular with developers Developers believe that they're Apple's priority when it comes to hardware, especially the Mac, in large part due to the perfect intersect that was the MBP for many years. That tide already turned in 2016 with the new keyboard, followed by the touch bar. Like the joke that the 'S' in IoT stands for security (the joke being there is no S, and there is no security), there is no 'D' for developer in MBP. Apple have been consistently clear that 'professional developers' are not the primary target of their 'Pro' lineup across the board. Someone else made a comment on this forum that got my attention recently, that we're all so used to being courted as customers by (mostly free) services that we've forgotten that we're not always the target customer. Similarly, developers are only welcome in Apple's ecosystem if they play by Apple's rules. Like we've seen with the App Store, Apple will frequently alter the terms of the deal. All you can do is pray they do not alter them any further. None of this should diminish the extraordinary results that can be delivered by the M1. That is amazing.

gameswithgo 6y ago

>I don’t think there is anything that suggests Apple is going to stop people from installing Apps outside their App Store Of course there are things that suggest this, such as, that is how iphones and ipads work, and its become increasingly difficult over time to do it on a mac.

moepstar 6y ago
As in what, having to RMB -> Open ? In what way was it made "more difficult" than that? What exactly suggests it is "becoming (even?) more difficult"?
- MrRiddle 6y ago
  I had to enable it in settings, I was prevented from opening an app that was not signed by apple. And I was prevented from opening even signed apps when their servers were down the other day.
- Hamuko 6y ago
  You used to be able to open any application directly. Simple and easy. Then they introduced Gatekeeper, but you had the option to disable the Gatekeeper check for all applications. Then they removed the option to disable the check for all applications. You now only have the options "App Store" and "App Store and identified developers". They have definitely made the whole thing harder and harder during these past 10 years. Now if you don't want to pay Apple for a developer license, or you're just otherwise ousted by Apple (like Epic Games), you need to teach your users on how they can circumvent Apple's restrictions.
  - zepto 6y ago
    Epic wasn’t ‘just ousted’. They lied to Apple, and broke their contract, in full awareness of the consequences. The courts have agreed that the reason their apps are not in the store is of their own doing, which is why they have not granted an injunction. Whatever the outcome of their case, they are not an example of some general trend of Apple ‘ousting’ developers.

jsgo 6y ago

Hope so, but Apple implemented the wholesale Metal Only (not Metal Only unless you run a command in terminal) update which killed off using Nvidia cards for those of us who bought MBPs for eGPUing Nvidia cards. Considering Apple hardware doesn’t have a Nvidia option and people like me are probably niche to bring their own GPU (even though CUDA exists), it’d be highly unrealistic to think that Nvidia would rewrite their drivers for Metal because the affected users has to be quite small. I hope you’re right, but personally, I don’t trust Apple to allow me to do what I wish anymore.

dhruvmittal 6y ago
Possibly naive question but does anyone know if CUDA is supported on the new M1 macs? I think I heard on a podcast last week that eGPUs would no longer be supported, but I can't find a reference.
- jsgo 6y ago
  Well, Nvidia (outside of some really, really old hardware) isn’t supported on Mac so I’d imagine effectively M1 doesn’t support CUDA. I would hope they didn’t kill off eGPUing Radeon cards, but I haven’t kept track of the new hardware other than M1 being really good.
  - rfoo 6y ago
    They didn't. But there are no driver available for Radeon cards on M1, so for now it is effectively dead.
- valuearb 6y ago
  EGPUs aren’t supported for the M1, but Big Sur still identifies and connects to them, implying Apple may restore this feature in the future.
  - robotnikman 6y ago
    I think eGPUs require a thunderbolt connection, which IIRC is only supported by Intel processors

rsynnott 6y ago

And in any case there's no reason they couldn't do that on Intel if they wanted to. IIRC there was some Windows variant back in the day that did this on Intel. Windows 10S, possibly?

perryizgr8 6y ago
They couldn't do that on intel because if they made it too draconian people would just install windows. Now people are locked in tight.
- spijdar 6y ago
  Intel Macs have never had typical BIOSes or standards compliant UEFI, to say nothing of their device drivers. Without Apple providing a HAL FLL for the windows executive and device drivers along with a special bootloader shim (the marketing guys call this package "Bootcamp"), Windows would not work on Intel Macs. Microsoft or some third party would have to reverse engineer the device drivers, and they're definitely not making that investment. Not to mention more basically that Apple has to sign the NT kernel for it to load on Macs without disabling the equivalent of SecureBoot.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  People can just install Linux here, via self-signed kernel, it appears. Apple could, obviously, prevent people from installing Windows on Intel Macs if it wanted to.

josefresco 6y ago

> I don’t think there is anything that suggests Apple is going to stop people from installing Apps outside their App Store. Rather it is about making sure it is easy for regular users to get Apps in a safe manner without malware and Trojan horses. Sorry but I had to LOL (combined with grey-haired head shaking). I've been a "technologist" for over 25 years. Every time some corporate entity or government body adds similar "security" they trot out this same cliche line. "Oh no no no it's not so we can CONTROL you, is so we can PROTECT you". Yeah, sure buddy.

0goel0 6y ago

> We know for a fact that this is a much smaller problem on iOS than Android. I am happy that Android exists as a choice for users but let us not pretend there are no trade offs. Android is not a choice for iOS users, it's not a seamless switch. The solution as I see it is that apple could still very well protect users from "trojans" but have an opt-in for 3p app installation. A button that says "I want to install apps from anywhere, I know the risks". If I pay for the hardware, as a customer, I should be able to do whatever I want with it. With the iPhone, it feels like I'm renting rather than owning. I worry that's the direction apple is taking Macs in with the M1.

evgen 6y ago
The problem with this 'I know the risks' approach is that it is often put out there by people who do know the risks but these people are massively outnumbered by the huge mass of people who have no idea about the risks but will gladly install from Bob's FlyByNight App Emporium if it means they will get a "can't lose" video poker app or a chance to win a free Fortnite skin and please be sure to click OK to all of those security warnings thanks so much for your bank details... If you want a different ecosystem there are choices available to you. Why exactly are you complaining when it is clear no one is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to use Apple products?
- sneak 6y ago
  I think the answer to this is painfully clear: because no one makes hardware anywhere near close to the quality of mac and iphone hardware in those verticals. We'd like to use the best available software, running on the best available hardware. Criticizing Apple's software censorship choices is thus the natural logical target. Otherwise, we have to use things like the PinePhone for the next 10-15 years until someone makes something comparable to an iPhone 6 that can run whatever software the owner wants.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Alternatively one could contribute to making the competing hardware just as good.

drieddust 6y ago

My wife was an apple fan until she bought an iPhone and got locked out when she forget the password. Apple support refused to cooperate despite repeated cries of help. M1 feels like a stepping stone in the same direction on laptops. Personally it feels wrong to pay for a device someone can lock you out of and then refuse to unlock. It's like paying ransom without getting kidnapped.

valuearb 6y ago
Why did she put a passcode on it if she didn’t want it to be secure? You can use an iPhone with no passcode at all. Blaming Apple for “locking you out” when you were the one who locked the door and lost the key is silly.
- drieddust 6y ago
  If I lose the keys to my home, I can break the lock or if required break the door and get into my house so why I can't reset and reconfigure my iPhone?
  - valuearb 6y ago
    Because you can reset your iPhone if you forget your passcode? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204306 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204306
chillaxtian 6y ago
Apple Support cannot do anything if you forget the device passcode, there is no back door. Best advice I can think of is, is ask her to restore an iCloud backup, after erasing the phone.
bromonkey 6y ago
I mean that sucks for your wife, but what prevents literally anyone else from impersonating someone and unlocking a device? There are very good reasons that Apple does not "cooperate" in theses situations. Passwords are not supposed to be bypassed by third parties.

haolez 6y ago

It's a trillion-dollar market. Of course the incentive is there to monopolize and monetize app installations.

gchamonlive 6y ago

I would expect Apple to support third party repair and right to repair itself if what they had in mind was to improve user experience. Maybe those are two things separate, hardware post-purchase support and software user experience, but I can't as a consumer separate those two.

throwaway129013 6y ago

> too colored by a strong dislike for all things Apple and borderline conspiratorial thinking > It is a bit too conspiratorial to think Apple control is all about some dictatorship fetish So much for "Hacker" News.

iSnow 6y ago

The knowledge that the switch to closing the system is there has a decidedly chilling effect, Apple doesn't even need to flick it. But if you buy a ARM-Mac, you should know that it could be turned into a sealed iDevice any time. That said, the M1 is one damned good chip. And the Macbooks are hands down the laptops with the best feel and build quality.

sneak 6y ago

> I don’t think there is anything that suggests Apple is going to stop people from installing Apps outside their App Store. It is already exceptionally difficult to distribute apps produced outside of their developer program.