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I love the fact I don’t have to muck about with my iPhone to get it to work ... I have changes I want to make to my iPhone. Some of them would be as easy as ad

I love the fact I don’t have to muck about with my iPhone to get it to work ... I have changes I want to make to my iPhone. Some of them would be as easy as adding a trigger to an SQLite datbase that a stock "app" uses. I'm not "allowed" to. I don't think companies should be legally permitted to take away the rights of an owner to do what they please with their own property. Locked bootloaders, e-fuses, crypto keys buried inside hardware, etc, should all be able to be overridden by a physical interlock. (Like Google did with Chromebooks, for example.) Flip that switch and you lose the "walled garden". Okay. So be it. No running software that "trusts" my device (which is, arguably, misplaced trust anyway). No "app store" for me. I can live with that. It's my device and my choice to make. I get to make the call to give up "security" for freedom. It's morally wrong to take away the ability of the owner to do what they wish with their devices. It should be illegal too.

ravi-delia 6y ago
Believe me, in general I'm with you. But at the end of the day you just don't have to buy an iphone. Get an android device, flash it with Linux, buy a pinephone, do whatever you want! But Apple doesn't sell tinker's devices, they sell a walled garden. Why force them to spend even 10 seconds of effort on something that isn't their business, when there are plenty of other options? There's a reason I don't have any Apple device: they don't make anything that I want. It seems pretty pointless to mandate that all companies must sell products that I like.
- EvanAnderson 6y ago
  Why force them to spend even 10 seconds of effort on something that isn't their business... The law should make it "their business". I don't believe it should be possible to waive your right to legally do what you want with your property. (I have similar feelings about restrictive covenants in the conveyance of real property, for example.) Since we're editing here: It seems pretty pointless to mandate that all companies must sell products that I like. We mandate lots of consumer protections. This seems no different to me.
  - doteka 6y ago
    You have the right to do whatever you want to with your iPhone. Apple is not obligated to make it easy for you to do so, or honor their warranty if you choose to fiddle with it. The law getting involved here would be total overreach, and I say this as someone who’s politically left, a total commie by US standards.
    - EvanAnderson 6y ago
      The technical protections in a modern device are impossible, from a practical perspective, for an individual to defeat. For all practical purposes Apple has removed the rights of owners to do what they please with the devices they own. It's not that they didn't make it easy-- they made it completely impossible. I am not mature, informed, or articulate enough to argue about this objectively. I cannot conceive of how society benefits from taking away the rights of owners.
      - doteka 6y ago
        I’m sorry to say, but your first paragraph is blatantly false. The jailbreaking community has been active since the iPhone product line existed, up to this day. Feel free to look it up. They provide instructions that a high school script kiddie is able to follow. I know because I was one of them. If you were not motivated enough to research the options available to you, you cannot in good faith argue that Apple did anything wrong here.
        EvanAnderson 6y ago
        I'm well aware of jailbreaks. I've jailbroken a number of Apple devices and some consoles. In every "jailbreak" case, the manufacturer's intention was to make practically impossible owner control of devices. Jailbreaks are about exploiting bugs. The manufacturer's intention remains the same-- to remove owner control. Just because Apple made mistakes in their implementation of their architecture of control doesn't change their intention. re: impractical for individuals - Try un-blowing an e-fuse in a Nintendo Switch. That's practically impossible. That's the kind of protections I'm talking about.
- asdff 6y ago
  That's like saying you don't have to buy a car, or you don't have to get an air conditioner. Sure, you could tolerate a 2 hour bus ride and a summer with 90+ degree heat waves, but there is no reason to put yourself through that given the cost of the alternative luxury is not insurmountable even for working people in expensive places. We are in a similar place in the mobile world, where life is getting increasingly reliant on electronic luxuries. If you want to take advantage of the convenient electric scooter or rideshare, you need an app. If you want to cash a check without going to a bank or paying a fee with a third party like a grocery store, you need an app. If you want to get early warnings from the city and/or state about earthquakes of all things, you need an app (MyShake). And for all those apps, you can't build from source on your own hardware. There is rarely a mobile website alternative. You need to get them from one of two centralized and moderated marketplaces, where only sanctioned and licensed devices may participate. You could make a stand here with a dumb phone and yell at the clouds that the world is this way, and it really is bad that it is this way, but you'd realistically be living a decade in the past and miss out on all this useful functionality.
  - njharman 6y ago
    No it's not! The parent listed other phones as options, not "do without a phone". Following your weird examples the parent's comment is like saying you don't have to buy a *Ford* car, or a *Carrier* AC. There are many more car and AC options if you don't like Ford or Carrier.
    - InvertedRhodium 6y ago
      They also listed the Pinephone, which had no facility to do most of those things. It's either Apple or Android, and both of these are making it harder and harder over time to run your own software stack.
  - ravi-delia 6y ago
    But I mean, you can just buy a different type of car. Like, if you feel really strongly that every car ought to have a headphone jack because otherwise consumers are stripped of their right to play music through a headphone jack in their car, you can buy a car that has one. You aren't forever stuck on the bus, you just have to look at more than one whole car before you decide which one to buy. Same goes for Apple; I would never use an Apple device, because I like to have control over my technology. Somehow, despite my amazingly brave stand against tyranny and capitalism, I still have a phone, running a LineageOS install that took me 20 minutes and an online guide to get running years ago. On the other hand, if I wanted to give my grandma a device I was confident she couldn't somehow force into a bad state, I would like it to be legal to sell me one.
- InvertedRhodium 6y ago
  As someone who owns a Pinephone, don't buy a Pinephone if you're expecting a functional, usable device. It might get there in a year or more, but it's nowhere near there now.
- Silhouette 6y ago
  Believe me, in general I'm with you. But at the end of the day you just don't have to buy an iphone. Get an android device, flash it with Linux, buy a pinephone, do whatever you want! The problem with this argument is the same as any essential utility. At some point, it becomes impossible to live a normal life without access to a certain facility. If access is only available through a monopoly provider or a small enough number of providers that they tend to move the market in unison even if not actively collaborating, that can become a serious problem. This is why we have government regulation of essential markets. Regulators might impose pricing limits in violation of the "free market", to prevent exploitation of vulnerable customers (and in this context, remember that most or all customers might be in that category) where competition fails to do so effectively on its own. But laws and regulations can also impose other safeguards, such as requiring honest advertising, adequate privacy and security protections, or interoperability. I think it is no longer credible, at least in my country (the UK) and others like it, to argue that a modern smartphone is a luxury. People use their phones to access government services, shops and home delivery services, banks and financial services. They are by far the dominant communication device of our age, not just for calls but also texts, emails, numerous Internet-based communications channels. Some people no longer have any other reasonably convenient means to access those services and communications. Some of those services and channels are provided exclusively via mobile apps and simply aren't available to those who don't have a phone (which is in itself a problem, because obviously not everyone does, and this is making things very difficult for some demographics during the strange times we are living in). This being the case, it is reasonable to argue that people should not have to choose between two dominant ecosystems for their phone when both have serious problems in areas like privacy, security, reliability and data lock-in, some of which are a direct result of the interests of the providers of those two dominant platforms, without any realistic ability for most people to protect themselves from those risks or with any such ability relying essentially on luck (for example, the availability of jailbreaks and the continued operation of essential apps despite any jailbreak that has been applied).
  - ravi-delia 6y ago
    It may well be that internet access in general is an essential utility, though I'd disagree that any device in particular is. However, the fact that the 'two dominant platforms' continue existing is mostly due to people's personal preferences. Besides, saying that Android devices even approach the same level of locked-downness of Apple devices is absurd; I run an open source version of android on all my mobile devices, and not once was it particularly difficult to install. Even more, it doesn't seem to me that cell phone manufacturers are currently moving the market in particular unison. There are still more and less open devices, just as there are more or less expensive ones. Perhaps we're moving slowly towards that, but we're certainly a long way away as of now. My primary issue is the difference between ensuring that no one has to get screwed and ensuring that no one can get a product they want. So long as there are more open devices, no one is compelled to use an IPhone. Anyone who wants to be protected from big bad apple may simply refrain from paying them. A utility is generally regulated not because of its vitality, but because of inherent restrictions on consumer choice. Unless it becomes impossible to just not buy Apple's shitty locked down hardware, it doesn't make sense to constrict.
fiftyfifty 6y ago
This is exactly why Richard Stallman created GNU and the GPL. He might seem like an idealist or even an extremist but he's been warning us about this very thing for decades now.
- EvanAnderson 6y ago
  The Right to Read is coming closer each day. Almost nobody cares. It seems like an increasing number of technical people want that future to happen. It fills me with immeasurable sadness. I am having a really hard time coming to terms with the fact that computers aren't "for" me anymore.
  - jonathankoren 6y ago
    I think this is related to techies have given up selling things, and now sell subscriptions, or best of all remotely terminated licenses for “purchase”. If you have a general purpose device, you’ll find all those artificial limitations can just as easily be removed, thus destroying the rent.
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      All the anti-GPL techies have themselves to thank for.

ravi-delia 6y ago

Believe me, in general I'm with you. But at the end of the day you just don't have to buy an iphone. Get an android device, flash it with Linux, buy a pinephone, do whatever you want! But Apple doesn't sell tinker's devices, they sell a walled garden. Why force them to spend even 10 seconds of effort on something that isn't their business, when there are plenty of other options? There's a reason I don't have any Apple device: they don't make anything that I want. It seems pretty pointless to mandate that all companies must sell products that I like.

EvanAnderson 6y ago
Why force them to spend even 10 seconds of effort on something that isn't their business... The law should make it "their business". I don't believe it should be possible to waive your right to legally do what you want with your property. (I have similar feelings about restrictive covenants in the conveyance of real property, for example.) Since we're editing here: It seems pretty pointless to mandate that all companies must sell products that I like. We mandate lots of consumer protections. This seems no different to me.
- doteka 6y ago
  You have the right to do whatever you want to with your iPhone. Apple is not obligated to make it easy for you to do so, or honor their warranty if you choose to fiddle with it. The law getting involved here would be total overreach, and I say this as someone who’s politically left, a total commie by US standards.
  - EvanAnderson 6y ago
    The technical protections in a modern device are impossible, from a practical perspective, for an individual to defeat. For all practical purposes Apple has removed the rights of owners to do what they please with the devices they own. It's not that they didn't make it easy-- they made it completely impossible. I am not mature, informed, or articulate enough to argue about this objectively. I cannot conceive of how society benefits from taking away the rights of owners.
    - doteka 6y ago
      I’m sorry to say, but your first paragraph is blatantly false. The jailbreaking community has been active since the iPhone product line existed, up to this day. Feel free to look it up. They provide instructions that a high school script kiddie is able to follow. I know because I was one of them. If you were not motivated enough to research the options available to you, you cannot in good faith argue that Apple did anything wrong here.
      - EvanAnderson 6y ago
        I'm well aware of jailbreaks. I've jailbroken a number of Apple devices and some consoles. In every "jailbreak" case, the manufacturer's intention was to make practically impossible owner control of devices. Jailbreaks are about exploiting bugs. The manufacturer's intention remains the same-- to remove owner control. Just because Apple made mistakes in their implementation of their architecture of control doesn't change their intention. re: impractical for individuals - Try un-blowing an e-fuse in a Nintendo Switch. That's practically impossible. That's the kind of protections I'm talking about.
asdff 6y ago
That's like saying you don't have to buy a car, or you don't have to get an air conditioner. Sure, you could tolerate a 2 hour bus ride and a summer with 90+ degree heat waves, but there is no reason to put yourself through that given the cost of the alternative luxury is not insurmountable even for working people in expensive places. We are in a similar place in the mobile world, where life is getting increasingly reliant on electronic luxuries. If you want to take advantage of the convenient electric scooter or rideshare, you need an app. If you want to cash a check without going to a bank or paying a fee with a third party like a grocery store, you need an app. If you want to get early warnings from the city and/or state about earthquakes of all things, you need an app (MyShake). And for all those apps, you can't build from source on your own hardware. There is rarely a mobile website alternative. You need to get them from one of two centralized and moderated marketplaces, where only sanctioned and licensed devices may participate. You could make a stand here with a dumb phone and yell at the clouds that the world is this way, and it really is bad that it is this way, but you'd realistically be living a decade in the past and miss out on all this useful functionality.
- njharman 6y ago
  No it's not! The parent listed other phones as options, not "do without a phone". Following your weird examples the parent's comment is like saying you don't have to buy a *Ford* car, or a *Carrier* AC. There are many more car and AC options if you don't like Ford or Carrier.
  - InvertedRhodium 6y ago
    They also listed the Pinephone, which had no facility to do most of those things. It's either Apple or Android, and both of these are making it harder and harder over time to run your own software stack.
- ravi-delia 6y ago
  But I mean, you can just buy a different type of car. Like, if you feel really strongly that every car ought to have a headphone jack because otherwise consumers are stripped of their right to play music through a headphone jack in their car, you can buy a car that has one. You aren't forever stuck on the bus, you just have to look at more than one whole car before you decide which one to buy. Same goes for Apple; I would never use an Apple device, because I like to have control over my technology. Somehow, despite my amazingly brave stand against tyranny and capitalism, I still have a phone, running a LineageOS install that took me 20 minutes and an online guide to get running years ago. On the other hand, if I wanted to give my grandma a device I was confident she couldn't somehow force into a bad state, I would like it to be legal to sell me one.
InvertedRhodium 6y ago
As someone who owns a Pinephone, don't buy a Pinephone if you're expecting a functional, usable device. It might get there in a year or more, but it's nowhere near there now.
Silhouette 6y ago
Believe me, in general I'm with you. But at the end of the day you just don't have to buy an iphone. Get an android device, flash it with Linux, buy a pinephone, do whatever you want! The problem with this argument is the same as any essential utility. At some point, it becomes impossible to live a normal life without access to a certain facility. If access is only available through a monopoly provider or a small enough number of providers that they tend to move the market in unison even if not actively collaborating, that can become a serious problem. This is why we have government regulation of essential markets. Regulators might impose pricing limits in violation of the "free market", to prevent exploitation of vulnerable customers (and in this context, remember that most or all customers might be in that category) where competition fails to do so effectively on its own. But laws and regulations can also impose other safeguards, such as requiring honest advertising, adequate privacy and security protections, or interoperability. I think it is no longer credible, at least in my country (the UK) and others like it, to argue that a modern smartphone is a luxury. People use their phones to access government services, shops and home delivery services, banks and financial services. They are by far the dominant communication device of our age, not just for calls but also texts, emails, numerous Internet-based communications channels. Some people no longer have any other reasonably convenient means to access those services and communications. Some of those services and channels are provided exclusively via mobile apps and simply aren't available to those who don't have a phone (which is in itself a problem, because obviously not everyone does, and this is making things very difficult for some demographics during the strange times we are living in). This being the case, it is reasonable to argue that people should not have to choose between two dominant ecosystems for their phone when both have serious problems in areas like privacy, security, reliability and data lock-in, some of which are a direct result of the interests of the providers of those two dominant platforms, without any realistic ability for most people to protect themselves from those risks or with any such ability relying essentially on luck (for example, the availability of jailbreaks and the continued operation of essential apps despite any jailbreak that has been applied).
- ravi-delia 6y ago
  It may well be that internet access in general is an essential utility, though I'd disagree that any device in particular is. However, the fact that the 'two dominant platforms' continue existing is mostly due to people's personal preferences. Besides, saying that Android devices even approach the same level of locked-downness of Apple devices is absurd; I run an open source version of android on all my mobile devices, and not once was it particularly difficult to install. Even more, it doesn't seem to me that cell phone manufacturers are currently moving the market in particular unison. There are still more and less open devices, just as there are more or less expensive ones. Perhaps we're moving slowly towards that, but we're certainly a long way away as of now. My primary issue is the difference between ensuring that no one has to get screwed and ensuring that no one can get a product they want. So long as there are more open devices, no one is compelled to use an IPhone. Anyone who wants to be protected from big bad apple may simply refrain from paying them. A utility is generally regulated not because of its vitality, but because of inherent restrictions on consumer choice. Unless it becomes impossible to just not buy Apple's shitty locked down hardware, it doesn't make sense to constrict.

fiftyfifty 6y ago

This is exactly why Richard Stallman created GNU and the GPL. He might seem like an idealist or even an extremist but he's been warning us about this very thing for decades now.

EvanAnderson 6y ago
The Right to Read is coming closer each day. Almost nobody cares. It seems like an increasing number of technical people want that future to happen. It fills me with immeasurable sadness. I am having a really hard time coming to terms with the fact that computers aren't "for" me anymore.
- jonathankoren 6y ago
  I think this is related to techies have given up selling things, and now sell subscriptions, or best of all remotely terminated licenses for “purchase”. If you have a general purpose device, you’ll find all those artificial limitations can just as easily be removed, thus destroying the rent.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    All the anti-GPL techies have themselves to thank for.