7 ms·

Nice to see that Apple isn't so big that it doesn't think it has to listen to reasonable/rational public feedback that it is making poor decisions. Now, if the

by mrkstu 6y ago

Nice to see that Apple isn't so big that it doesn't think it has to listen to reasonable/rational public feedback that it is making poor decisions. Now, if they could empower lower levels to make these decisions before the issues blow up in the wider world context, all the better.

eyelidlessness 6y ago
This happened so quickly I suspect there was never a decision for or against. Pretty likely a boneheaded engineer did what us boneheaded engineers do and cut corners, likely with all of the fun boneheaded management and deadlines that come along for the ride. Why, you might ask, would this be a matter of cutting corners? Well, fault tolerance is hard. What happens when the OS can’t reach external services it depends on for security features? Well, Apple found out recently in quite an embarrassing way. Given the almost immutable yearly release cycle, I would be astonished if they didn’t just duct tape some whitelist in because a more resilient solution wasn’t ready.
- _qulr 6y ago
  The imagined timeline of this comment doesn't seem to align with reality. The exclusion list was already present in the first WWDC builds in summer 2020, as the Little Snitch developers noticed: https://blog.obdev.at/a-hole-in-the-wall/ https://blog.obdev.at/a-hole-in-the-wall/ The Mac "OSCP appocalypse" occurred in November on the day that Big Sur was released to the public, with the exclusion list still present, and a number of firewall developers were already aware of the exclusion list and had reported bugs to Apple.
  - wilg 6y ago
    I don't think the comment you're replying to made specific claims about this timeline.
    - eyelidlessness 6y ago
      You’re right, I didn’t. Thank you for saying so with much more clarity than I probably would have.
      - _qulr 6y ago
        > This happened so quickly This was your claim. What is the justification for the claim? The comment seemed to imply that it was the OCSP problem. Otherwise, no other explanation was offered by the comment.
        eyelidlessness 6y ago
        It happened quickly on the heels of the public release. The problem I cited was about how embarrassing a half assed solution could be, not about prompting a different response. Good engineers who boneheadedly cut corners are already tracking their omissions and FIXMEs. The fact that they shipped and quickly turned around a better solution reads to me like engineers doing their dang job. Edit: I just realized who I responded to and even if we don’t see it the same way I just want to say I appreciate your work and even your particular cynicism.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
userbinator 6y ago
Given how they have been always marketing on the privacy aspect, and this exception they made for themselves has been found out and shown to be bad for privacy, I'm not surprised.
threeseed 6y ago
Having worked at Apple and other big companies it's almost always Engineers and PMs making these decisions. It's not like Tim Cook or Craig Federighi is running around demanding people add Apple apps to a firewall exclusion list. They have much bigger things to worry about. It's just that as an engineer you are often in a bubble and can't foresee every implication of your decision. That's why Apple has the Developer and Public Beta releases for iOS/OSX so that external users can provide feedback. And on this occasion just like on many other they will take action if necessary.
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
  > Having worked at Apple and other big companies it's almost always Engineers and PMs making these decisions. It's not like Tim Cook or Craig Federighi is running around demanding people add Apple apps to a firewall exclusion list. They have much bigger things to worry about. This more or less confirms my hunch. Thanks for inside perspective on it. That’s how literally every other org works but I know Apple got this reputation for having a very executive-micromanaged culture under both Jobs eras, it’s good to have a reminder that at the end of the day it’s not the borg.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    > it’s good to have a reminder that at the end of the day it’s not the borg. The impression I always got was more like a mid-to-late USSR than the Borg (in structure rather than efficacy, the USSR didn't work, apple does). Everyone in the Borg is (supposed to be) identical, whereas Apple seems like a structure of lots of groups of often brilliant people working in seperate-but-equal subtrees, working under a (especially under Jobs) ideologically-inspired dictator from the top down. The way Apple are fairly reticent to document what they make partly informs the comparison.
    - eyelidlessness 6y ago
      I think their reticence to document is more a function of how long they’ve been able to get away with not doing it. Almost every engineering culture that finds that balance unfortunately embraces it.
abellerose 6y ago
Curious why you phrased Apple listening to their customers in such a negative way. Maybe from pessimism bias? I observe a lot of HN commenters don't vibe with how Apple controls & develops their ecosystem. Yet, instead of go elsewhere, complaining and acting like being oh so very special enough to know how things should be done is preferred; while expecting a major company to just cater to their personal whims. I'm unsure if it's entitlement I'm witnessing or just people that feel like they have no faith in Apple's competition at making anything better than Apple currently has.
- mrkstu 6y ago
  Well, I've had a Mac continuously since the original 128k Mac, so I'm pretty well situated as an observer of all things Apple and more knowledgeable about their history and their machines/software then the vast majority of their employees, some of whom are close friends. I want them to listen, since the decisions they make affect the ecosystem I've adopted for my extended family (for whom I'm the main technical point of contact,) and poor ones will affect me and them disproportionately. So to me, it doesn't feel at all like entitlement, rather, the wishes of a longtime, loyal customer hoping they continue down the path of listening to those of us who have promoted their products and helped make them successful.
- IncRnd 6y ago
  There is no call to invent reasons of entitlement or faithlessness in engineering prowess when the desire is simply to control your own device.
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
  To be honest I think having a pessimism bias towards large corporations is healthy. Sure, they might in the end do a good thing (or a less harmful thing than they could have), but they have a huge amount of power and very little oversight. I like Apple products, but I try to avoid any illusion that they’re good guys on a corporate scale. They’ve proven they’re not in a lot of ways (see many recent articles about their labor practices). That doesn’t mean every thing they do should be equally scrutinized with a pessimistic predisposition. But I really don’t fault anyone for assuming a large for profit organization will prioritize their own priorities over everything else. The thing I try to moderate that with is understanding their actual priorities and not just falling into blind cynicism.
NoPicklez 6y ago
I think your second point is next to impossible, businesses make mistakes no matter how much they try to stop them and what makes them who they are is how they respond. In this case Apple responded well and that's great. We don't know how many of these decisions are already being squashed each day through appropriate governance.

by mrkstu 6y ago

eyelidlessness 6y ago

This happened so quickly I suspect there was never a decision for or against. Pretty likely a boneheaded engineer did what us boneheaded engineers do and cut corners, likely with all of the fun boneheaded management and deadlines that come along for the ride. Why, you might ask, would this be a matter of cutting corners? Well, fault tolerance is hard. What happens when the OS can’t reach external services it depends on for security features? Well, Apple found out recently in quite an embarrassing way. Given the almost immutable yearly release cycle, I would be astonished if they didn’t just duct tape some whitelist in because a more resilient solution wasn’t ready.

_qulr 6y ago
The imagined timeline of this comment doesn't seem to align with reality. The exclusion list was already present in the first WWDC builds in summer 2020, as the Little Snitch developers noticed: https://blog.obdev.at/a-hole-in-the-wall/ https://blog.obdev.at/a-hole-in-the-wall/ The Mac "OSCP appocalypse" occurred in November on the day that Big Sur was released to the public, with the exclusion list still present, and a number of firewall developers were already aware of the exclusion list and had reported bugs to Apple.
- wilg 6y ago
  I don't think the comment you're replying to made specific claims about this timeline.
  - eyelidlessness 6y ago
    You’re right, I didn’t. Thank you for saying so with much more clarity than I probably would have.
    - _qulr 6y ago
      > This happened so quickly This was your claim. What is the justification for the claim? The comment seemed to imply that it was the OCSP problem. Otherwise, no other explanation was offered by the comment.
      - eyelidlessness 6y ago
        It happened quickly on the heels of the public release. The problem I cited was about how embarrassing a half assed solution could be, not about prompting a different response. Good engineers who boneheadedly cut corners are already tracking their omissions and FIXMEs. The fact that they shipped and quickly turned around a better solution reads to me like engineers doing their dang job. Edit: I just realized who I responded to and even if we don’t see it the same way I just want to say I appreciate your work and even your particular cynicism.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]

userbinator 6y ago

Given how they have been always marketing on the privacy aspect, and this exception they made for themselves has been found out and shown to be bad for privacy, I'm not surprised.

threeseed 6y ago

Having worked at Apple and other big companies it's almost always Engineers and PMs making these decisions. It's not like Tim Cook or Craig Federighi is running around demanding people add Apple apps to a firewall exclusion list. They have much bigger things to worry about. It's just that as an engineer you are often in a bubble and can't foresee every implication of your decision. That's why Apple has the Developer and Public Beta releases for iOS/OSX so that external users can provide feedback. And on this occasion just like on many other they will take action if necessary.

eyelidlessness 6y ago
> Having worked at Apple and other big companies it's almost always Engineers and PMs making these decisions. It's not like Tim Cook or Craig Federighi is running around demanding people add Apple apps to a firewall exclusion list. They have much bigger things to worry about. This more or less confirms my hunch. Thanks for inside perspective on it. That’s how literally every other org works but I know Apple got this reputation for having a very executive-micromanaged culture under both Jobs eras, it’s good to have a reminder that at the end of the day it’s not the borg.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  > it’s good to have a reminder that at the end of the day it’s not the borg. The impression I always got was more like a mid-to-late USSR than the Borg (in structure rather than efficacy, the USSR didn't work, apple does). Everyone in the Borg is (supposed to be) identical, whereas Apple seems like a structure of lots of groups of often brilliant people working in seperate-but-equal subtrees, working under a (especially under Jobs) ideologically-inspired dictator from the top down. The way Apple are fairly reticent to document what they make partly informs the comparison.
  - eyelidlessness 6y ago
    I think their reticence to document is more a function of how long they’ve been able to get away with not doing it. Almost every engineering culture that finds that balance unfortunately embraces it.

abellerose 6y ago

Curious why you phrased Apple listening to their customers in such a negative way. Maybe from pessimism bias? I observe a lot of HN commenters don't vibe with how Apple controls & develops their ecosystem. Yet, instead of go elsewhere, complaining and acting like being oh so very special enough to know how things should be done is preferred; while expecting a major company to just cater to their personal whims. I'm unsure if it's entitlement I'm witnessing or just people that feel like they have no faith in Apple's competition at making anything better than Apple currently has.

mrkstu 6y ago
Well, I've had a Mac continuously since the original 128k Mac, so I'm pretty well situated as an observer of all things Apple and more knowledgeable about their history and their machines/software then the vast majority of their employees, some of whom are close friends. I want them to listen, since the decisions they make affect the ecosystem I've adopted for my extended family (for whom I'm the main technical point of contact,) and poor ones will affect me and them disproportionately. So to me, it doesn't feel at all like entitlement, rather, the wishes of a longtime, loyal customer hoping they continue down the path of listening to those of us who have promoted their products and helped make them successful.
IncRnd 6y ago
There is no call to invent reasons of entitlement or faithlessness in engineering prowess when the desire is simply to control your own device.
eyelidlessness 6y ago
To be honest I think having a pessimism bias towards large corporations is healthy. Sure, they might in the end do a good thing (or a less harmful thing than they could have), but they have a huge amount of power and very little oversight. I like Apple products, but I try to avoid any illusion that they’re good guys on a corporate scale. They’ve proven they’re not in a lot of ways (see many recent articles about their labor practices). That doesn’t mean every thing they do should be equally scrutinized with a pessimistic predisposition. But I really don’t fault anyone for assuming a large for profit organization will prioritize their own priorities over everything else. The thing I try to moderate that with is understanding their actual priorities and not just falling into blind cynicism.

NoPicklez 6y ago

I think your second point is next to impossible, businesses make mistakes no matter how much they try to stop them and what makes them who they are is how they respond. In this case Apple responded well and that's great. We don't know how many of these decisions are already being squashed each day through appropriate governance.