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iOS & iPadOS devices would be so awesome if they could just run arbitrary software. The new iPad Pro is more powerful than my Lenovo T-Series laptop, and I woul

iOS & iPadOS devices would be so awesome if they could just run arbitrary software. The new iPad Pro is more powerful than my Lenovo T-Series laptop, and I would totally buy one if I could actually run e.g. Linux on it. But unfortunately Apple deliberately cripples these devices. Really hope the EU will overthrow these hardware-facilitated software monopolies soon. The truth is Apple already makes quite sizeable profits with the hardware alone, so I think at least power users should be able to install arbitrary software on them. This whole "the hardware can only run software approved by us" is so ridiculous, really makes you wonder how companies doing this (not only Apple) can still get away with it. Imaging Tesla would restrict which roads you can drive your car on, because just using arbitrary roads that haven't been thoroughly reviewed by them for security and safety would be a risk to you. That's essentially what Apple is doing with hardware that's perfectly capable of running general-purpose software.

judge2020 5y ago
They're able to 'get away with it' since their profit models isn’t just the profit from the initial sale. If Apple didn't have their 30% cut of apps and in-app purchases, they would have to increase their margins on the product to make up for the years of income they otherwise would've gotten - I wouldn't be surprised if that meant a $500 increase since they're losing out on multiple years of income. It's the same for consoles - PS5 and Xbox Series consoles are quite literally sold at a lost or at-cost, and that miniscule amount they make off the consoles doesn't pay for the servers, software, or the margin they actually would want for engineering the hardware if they didn't lock purchases to their own stores and take 30% of those sales. The only difference between iOS devices and these is that you can see an upfront profit on the purchase for iOS devices, even if that doesn't include the margin Apple actually expects over the lifetime of the device. https://www.gamesradar.com/ps5-is-being-sold-at-a-loss-but-has-generated-record-gaming-revenue-for-sony/ https://www.gamesradar.com/ps5-is-being-sold-at-a-loss-but-h...
- austhrow743 5y ago
  Apple doesn't target a particular level of profit that they refuse to exceed.
- qwytw 5y ago
  Nonsense, Apple prices the iPhone at a level they think the market would bear. Unless it's clients valued the ability to freely install any software at $500 (which I think is highly doubtful) there is no way they could increase their prices by that much without losing a lots of sales. And in any case Apple's profit margins on their hardware are considerably higher any other smartphone manufacturer's.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    That's exactly my point - their current profit margins include post-sale app store driven revenue. Removing that means they no longer make the same money that they did before, so if they want to maintain that margin they'll have to increases upfront costs to offset the lost revenue. One more example is the Oculus Quest 2 - it's $300 (64gb ssd) or $400 (256gb) for a truly outstanding headset, but it probably costs Facebook $400-$600 to make each unit of hardware. If you don't want to see ads[0] or log in with Facebook, that price becomes $800[1]. All i'm saying is that people will always pick the product that's cheaper but equivalent and are usually fine with post-purchase rent seeking via ads or a service fee that is (invisibly) tacked onto future purchases. 0: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57526135 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57526135 1: https://i.judge.sh/lone/Derpy/HcfjI7YBPF.png https://i.judge.sh/lone/Derpy/HcfjI7YBPF.png ( https://business.oculus.com/products/ https://business.oculus.com/products/ )
    - Y_Y 5y ago
      I think you misunderstand. A company will just charge whatever price maximises profit, there's no reason to "maintain margin" or anything like that. If they thought they could increase the price today and get a net gain after demand fell then they'd absolutely do it.
      - judge2020 5y ago
        Sure, but more people are happy paying after the fact (in the case of oculus, via ads and 30% of sales going to FB) that I’m highly doubtful that they would make the same overall profit if they did sell it for the actual price they want without getting any money on the backend, especially if that backend money never stops even 10 years after the initial purchase.
- ThePhysicist 5y ago
  Are you serious about this? They charge 400 USD for a plastic keyboard. I have a hard time believing these are subsidized prices, Apple has some of the highest profit margins in tech, some say only the drug cartels generate more profit per dollar of revenue.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    You could say the same for the Maserati Ghibi which is inferior to BMW 5 series cars in nearly every way but costs tens of thousands more. If you think the profit margins are too large you can just not buy that product.
    - austhrow743 5y ago
      >You could say the same for the Maserati Ghibi which is inferior to BMW 5 series cars in nearly every way but costs tens of thousands more. Yeah so it would be ridiculous to say that Maserati would have to increase car prices if they couldn't profit as much off of after sale services. >If you think the profit margins are too large you can just not buy that product. Sure. Entirely irrelevant though.
      - judge2020 5y ago
        Well, if they had to provide the same service guarantees without charging people for it, then you can bet it’d be factored into the initial price - I’m sure warranties heavily increase the price of cars since they have to do more engineering validation and testing.
- mthoms 5y ago
  I don’t have the calculations handy but at one point I was able to figure that the average iPhone user in the US spends (very roughly) $30-$40 per year in the App Store. Even at a 30% cut over the 3-4 year lifespan of the phone it’s not anywhere near $500. Besides, the hardware itself is already very profitable. The argument that the phone is subsidized by the additional revenue Apple gets is not very good. Apple aren’t entitled to make a certain level of profit. They should have to earn it. Every step of the way.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    I’m just saying - where does it stop? Would Sony or MS need to allow other app stores if they made a hardware profit of $1? $100? $600[0]? 0: Tony Chen suggests that their anti piracy measures only need to account for attacks that would be cheaper than purchasing 10 games https://youtu.be/U7VwtOrwceo https://youtu.be/U7VwtOrwceo
    - hnra 5y ago
      Why would it affect Sony or MS at all? Gaming is thriving market, not an unregulated duopoly. When market power becomes so great it negatively affects consumers we step in with anti trust regulation.
Izmaki 5y ago
You have the choice to purchase something else, though. Why is it a problem that Apple sells a product which comes with restrictions and intentions? Silly argument.
- grishka 5y ago
  As a developer, you don't have this choice. You have to support the devices that people already have. Which, for iOS, means inevitably playing by Apple's stupid rules.
  - op00to 5y ago
    No one is forcing you to be an app developer. Why not consider a nice career in mainframe software development?
  - Izmaki 5y ago
    As a developer, a DevOps engineer and a cybersecurity professional I very much indeed have this choice.
  - codetrotter 5y ago
    You’d still need to support iOS even if running other operating systems was possible on these devices. I don’t get what you mean.
    - grishka 5y ago
      There's nothing wrong with supporting iOS. What is wrong, however, is Apple's insistence on approving every single instruction iOS devices run, and this policy being realized in hardware. You bought the device. You gave Apple money, they gave you an iPhone. It's yours now, and it's no longer theirs. So why do they still retain any kind of control whatsoever over it? A new iPhone literally won't let you do anything before it gets an okay from the mothership. It should be illegal for hardware manufacturers to hardcode public keys and hostnames into devices such that the end user can't change them.
grishka 5y ago
To those who would say "but people would be manipulated into installing malware". Firstly, Apple could make the unlocking process purposely hard. Many Android phones come with unlockable bootloaders, but the average person has no idea because you need a computer with the SDK to run that specific command to unlock it. Secondly, people do get scammed on iOS devices anyway. Both through the web, and through poorly reviewed apps that slip to the app store every now and then. Moreover, Apple has a vested interest in not policing these thoroughly because they get to keep the 30% cut from the scammers' earnings.
- turtlebits 5y ago
  What happens when you buy a new or used Android phone with malware baked into the OS image and a reset done through the UI doesn’t remove it?
  - mdtusz 5y ago
    What happens when you buy a used laptop? There's inherent risk in buying a device from a third party that you may not fully trust, but that risk is in the hands of the buyer to assess, and to mitigate as appropriate. When the average person buys a used laptop from Craigslist, I doubt they're doing a full disk wipe and reinstalling the OS, and they're definitely not verifying the bios or other motherboard-level code. There shouldn't need to be some special case applied for tablets or laptops either. They're all just computers.
  - jaynetics 5y ago
    Most will show a warning on boot, something like "the bootloader has been unlocked [...] Only store crucial data on this device if you know what you're doing". Yes, it might be possible to remove this warning with sufficient effort, but it is not like there is no way to compromise an iPhone.
bengale 5y ago
I really don’t like the idea of the government dictating what a company does with it’s software, so the idea of forced side loading or other app stores doesn’t sit well with me. However as far as installing your own OS on the hardware, that seems like something we could require without a downside. I don’t think the companies should be forced to provide anything, other than the specifications of the hardware, they just shouldn’t be allowed to stop it. If someone wants to write drivers and get an OS running on an iPad then they should be able to. If it’s a security issue then the preloaded OS could disable sensitive thing, perhaps Apple Pay and stuff stops working, but your in your own OS anyway so why would it matter. I think it should go for any hardware. You could do it in a tesla, the insurance companies could decide not to cover cars that have custom software on them, but someone racing them could run their own OS if they wanted. I think allowing something like this could go a long way to stop the people that seem to want the government intervening with everything these days.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  In my opinion, a large portion of the benefit I get from iOS is due to the fact it’s a secure, locked down platform. If there were a way to run unsigned code on iOS, people would build exploits around it and malicious apps would just tell you to enable whatever “advanced mode” or be able to install a bootloader that transparently loads the OS but with a malware layer between the bootloader and the kernel. By disallowing unsigned code, these less-technical exploits become impossible, which also limits the blast radius of any exploits that are found. If I want general purpose computing, I have other devices that allow more freedom (like a laptop or cloud server). I don’t need to be able to do everything with one device.
  - ThePhysicist 5y ago
    It's fine if you want to run iOS or iPadOS on your device, that shouldn't exclude other people from installing an OS of their own choosing though.
    - judge2020 5y ago
Terretta 5y ago
The “user journey” you talk about, the road traveled to a destination, is not the software, it’s the job to be done with the combination of software and hardware. There may be roads less traveled or places off road, but Apple has no obligation to release some kind of universal automobile fit for highway comfort as well as every terrain. Apple doesn’t owe you a computing device without a user experience any more than Mercedes owes you an engine without a carriage. They are designed together, and sold together. The old school insistence on an arbitrary division between hardware and software is like the 1900s division between carriages and bolt on engines before Ford and others realized designing them together made a better car. In modern computing, this false division forces a constraining snapshot of where that line happens to be drawn on this model, instead of recognizing the line is moving all the time as hardware is virtualized and software becomes firmware, all in pursuit of a better journey to the user’s destination, the job to be done. With the majority of firms and devices selling badly matched hardware and software you can readily strip apart, Apple is making a user experience choice rather unique in the industry and their market success because of this thesis should not be resented or begrudged. If you believe in general purpose hardware for arbitrary software, if you think Linux has done fantastically with, say, touchpads, touch input, and pen devices relative to Apple with the Magic trackpad, multi-touch screens, and Pencil with the hardware+drivers+OS+apps ecosystem to manifest user intent, invest in that. Buy that, code for that, advocate for that. If you believe in a customer centric emphasis on “job to be done” and giving less technical end users frictionless tools that get out of their way, appliances for accomplishing their goals, advocate for Apple and the like. Or don’t advocate, but at least don’t try to tear it down.
- xwolfi 5y ago
  Compelling argument. I think it would be fine if Apple hardware didn't look and feel so good in itself, without the software. It's just a shame we can't use them with anything else we might prefer - I really dislike macOS and Windows and I wish these devices could run Linux simply. But as you say I buy Asus or Lenovo and they work very well too, and they're starting to look and feel good too nowadays, so like you I won't care for long. Apple can try to solve specific problems with hardware-assisted software, and I can do my work on an Asus.
- 5y ago
tyingq 5y ago
>Imaging Tesla would restrict which roads you can drive your car on, because just using arbitrary roads that haven't been thoroughly reviewed by them for security and safety would be a risk to you Tesla has used their power to remotely dictate some odd policy. See https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-autopilot-disabled-remotely-used-car-update https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-aut...
deleted 5y ago
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spideymans 5y ago
I really don't like product design through antitrust. Consumers had a choice in more than half a dozen smartphone operating systems, and iOS (alongside Android) won, with its locked down (Apple would say safe and secure) nature being a cornerstone feature of the platform. That said, I think this hack is really cool. I don't think an Apple sanctioned sideloading method would be the worst thing in the world, so long as its cumbersome enough to prevent companies like Facebook from circumventing the App Store to avoid Apple's pesky rules.
- hnra 5y ago
  > ... with its locked down (Apple would say safe and secure) nature being a cornerstone feature of the platform. It has only been a corner stone feature since Apple realized they could combine marketing themselves with demphasizing their biggest competitor. Unregulated duopolies suck.
FearlessNebula 5y ago
My concern here is that Facebook will require their app to be sideloaded so that they can continue abusing their users. Now I don’t use Facebook, but at least I know my family members are somewhat protected from Facebook by Apples rules. If their Facebook app were sideloaded it would be open season for Facebook.
- FreakyT 5y ago
  On Android, there's nothing stopping Facebook from doing that right now. Why haven't they?
  - thekyle 5y ago
    I'm guessing it's because Google Play is more lenient than the App Store when it comes to privacy.
  - FearlessNebula 5y ago
    Because Google isn’t preventing them from doing tracking and other nefarious things. In fact, Google themselves are doing it.
- 8note 5y ago
  I imagine Facebook is big enough to get a deal with apple that has alternative rules
  - dragonsky67 5y ago
    I think there was some fairly tight integration ios/facebook in an earlier version of iOS. Seems to have been removed. I don't think Apple would want to get into bed with Facebook now, their reputation as a supporter of privacy would be damaged.
teekert 5y ago
I just switched from Android to iOS, after a period of adjusting I only miss f-droid and the gems it brings (like GadgetBridge, OsmAnd full, a good Bitcoin wallet and my dear Firefox). Ok, maybe I also miss that the auto correct does not correct things AFTER I press send ;) Other than that I’m pretty happy, most of my foss/self-hosted needs are taken care of (Home Assistant, Nextcloud, WireGuard)
spoonjim 5y ago
If Apple allows arbitrary OSes to be installed I would want a hardware indicator that that has happened. Perhaps a tiny LED on the back that is permanently on as long as the phone hasn’t been tampered with. I wouldn’t want to buy a secondhand phone to find that it’s a fake malware OS.
abuzzooz 5y ago
I never understood this argument. Many products in the past have failed because they were too restrictive. Apple’s current suite of products are doing very well, so they must be doing right. If you don’t like Apple’s approach or products, then don’t buy them and let the market decide. No company is under obligation to do business according to what you or I think is correct. If you think the market for a good phone with open hardware is there, then by all means go ahead and build such a product. There is plenty of VC money these days.
- CharlesW 5y ago
  On HN, success is merit-based unless you're Apple.
  - dragonsky67 5y ago
    merit as measured by market share?
MuffinFlavored 5y ago
> I would totally buy one if I could actually run e.g. Linux on it. I would totally buy one if I could actually run Mac OS X on it. But I'd also have a wireless mouse and a keyboard of some sort so... at that point, is it really a tablet anymore? lol
hda111 5y ago
You can use the app iSH to run an Alpine Linux in an x86 emulator. However it’s tedious to use because most keyboard shortcuts are not working. I agree to you and would love to use Linux on the iPad similar to how it works on chrome OS where you can use LXD containers in a highly secured KVM VM.
Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
I'm hoping that AMD/Intel would be able to build a competing CPU (Single threaded) for Apple's M series SoC otherwise their laptop manufacturers are going to loose their bottom-line to Mac books at least starting with the mid-high end. I'm hoping that there's enough pressure from Microsoft for that to happen since their surface line-up is not where it needs to be for them to take walled-garden approach like Apple 'yet'. Although, I personally want better performing laptop CPUs to run only Linux.
shahar2k 5y ago
I mean the whole restriction on which roads tesla can drive on kind of exists in the form of chrysler's autopilot which uses only specific roads for its own self driving ... imagine a future when the data about certain roads is somehow restricted by intellectual property and certain car companies refuse to license whatever source contains that data.... this isnt entirely unthinkable on the other point you make as someone who uses their ipad for actual professional work (3d artist, film industry) there is absolutely no reason to update from my 2018 ipad pro that I bought second hand, because there's nothing the M1 does that adds anything significant to my life. worse than that, the ipad is really only useful because of its apps and power, while the OS itself feels like it actively hinders anything I really want to do with the device and in many ways feels mildly broken!
- an_opabinia 5y ago
  > the ipad is really only useful because of its apps and power, while the OS itself feels like it actively hinders anything I really want to do with the device and in many ways feels mildly broken! It's weird for sure. The underlying problem is the latency of the pen, which is very hard to manage in 3d sculpting software.
  - shahar2k 5y ago
    I highly recommend you give something like Nomad Sculpt a try if you have a chance on an ipad pro (or android with a pen like the samsung tab series) It's easily just as if not more responsive than zbrush and the features as well as performance is more than plenty to create some amazing sculpts (which I have recently done on several commercial projects!)
tshaddox 5y ago
> Imaging Tesla would restrict which roads you can drive your car on Isn’t a much better analogy a car that doesn’t (easily) let you install arbitrary software on it?
0x0nyandesu 5y ago
The worst part is all these people wanting to restrict my freedom to run what I want on my hardware just because of some dubious claims about security.
jeofken 5y ago
Tesla too would be cool to program - if only even the navigation and entertainment systems.
dylan604 5y ago
>Imaging Tesla That's not even the same thing. That's like saying imagine Apple won't let you peel fruit with an iPad. It would be much closer to imagine Tesla not letting you install whatever custom OS onto the computer so that you can enable all features, bypass any safety features builtin to the stock system.
- kaba0 5y ago
  Except one is a goddamn car and the other is a portable general-purpose computer.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    is an iPad a general-purpose computer?
    - kaba0 5y ago
      Yes? In what way would it not live up to that title? It has plenty strong CPU and enough memory to put a lower-middle-end laptop to shame. Hell, before tablets, PDAs were also computers - they just only became much better. Also, for a significant percentage of people, their mobile phone is the only computer they own.
anshumankmr 5y ago
I have the iPad 8th gen and this one is also super smooth, I wish I could make it my default personal laptop as it is pretty damn good but I can’t. The apps are still very limited compared to their desktop counter parts.
jmrm 5y ago
Talking with "hardcore" Apple products users you find that they are the first ones who doesn't want it, arguing that this could make their products less safe, so I don't think Apple would change that in a near future.

judge2020 5y ago

They're able to 'get away with it' since their profit models isn’t just the profit from the initial sale. If Apple didn't have their 30% cut of apps and in-app purchases, they would have to increase their margins on the product to make up for the years of income they otherwise would've gotten - I wouldn't be surprised if that meant a $500 increase since they're losing out on multiple years of income. It's the same for consoles - PS5 and Xbox Series consoles are quite literally sold at a lost or at-cost, and that miniscule amount they make off the consoles doesn't pay for the servers, software, or the margin they actually would want for engineering the hardware if they didn't lock purchases to their own stores and take 30% of those sales. The only difference between iOS devices and these is that you can see an upfront profit on the purchase for iOS devices, even if that doesn't include the margin Apple actually expects over the lifetime of the device. https://www.gamesradar.com/ps5-is-being-sold-at-a-loss-but-has-generated-record-gaming-revenue-for-sony/ https://www.gamesradar.com/ps5-is-being-sold-at-a-loss-but-h...

austhrow743 5y ago
Apple doesn't target a particular level of profit that they refuse to exceed.
qwytw 5y ago
Nonsense, Apple prices the iPhone at a level they think the market would bear. Unless it's clients valued the ability to freely install any software at $500 (which I think is highly doubtful) there is no way they could increase their prices by that much without losing a lots of sales. And in any case Apple's profit margins on their hardware are considerably higher any other smartphone manufacturer's.
- judge2020 5y ago
  That's exactly my point - their current profit margins include post-sale app store driven revenue. Removing that means they no longer make the same money that they did before, so if they want to maintain that margin they'll have to increases upfront costs to offset the lost revenue. One more example is the Oculus Quest 2 - it's $300 (64gb ssd) or $400 (256gb) for a truly outstanding headset, but it probably costs Facebook $400-$600 to make each unit of hardware. If you don't want to see ads[0] or log in with Facebook, that price becomes $800[1]. All i'm saying is that people will always pick the product that's cheaper but equivalent and are usually fine with post-purchase rent seeking via ads or a service fee that is (invisibly) tacked onto future purchases. 0: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57526135 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57526135 1: https://i.judge.sh/lone/Derpy/HcfjI7YBPF.png https://i.judge.sh/lone/Derpy/HcfjI7YBPF.png ( https://business.oculus.com/products/ https://business.oculus.com/products/ )
  - Y_Y 5y ago
    I think you misunderstand. A company will just charge whatever price maximises profit, there's no reason to "maintain margin" or anything like that. If they thought they could increase the price today and get a net gain after demand fell then they'd absolutely do it.
    - judge2020 5y ago
      Sure, but more people are happy paying after the fact (in the case of oculus, via ads and 30% of sales going to FB) that I’m highly doubtful that they would make the same overall profit if they did sell it for the actual price they want without getting any money on the backend, especially if that backend money never stops even 10 years after the initial purchase.
ThePhysicist 5y ago
Are you serious about this? They charge 400 USD for a plastic keyboard. I have a hard time believing these are subsidized prices, Apple has some of the highest profit margins in tech, some say only the drug cartels generate more profit per dollar of revenue.
- judge2020 5y ago
  You could say the same for the Maserati Ghibi which is inferior to BMW 5 series cars in nearly every way but costs tens of thousands more. If you think the profit margins are too large you can just not buy that product.
  - austhrow743 5y ago
    >You could say the same for the Maserati Ghibi which is inferior to BMW 5 series cars in nearly every way but costs tens of thousands more. Yeah so it would be ridiculous to say that Maserati would have to increase car prices if they couldn't profit as much off of after sale services. >If you think the profit margins are too large you can just not buy that product. Sure. Entirely irrelevant though.
    - judge2020 5y ago
      Well, if they had to provide the same service guarantees without charging people for it, then you can bet it’d be factored into the initial price - I’m sure warranties heavily increase the price of cars since they have to do more engineering validation and testing.
mthoms 5y ago
I don’t have the calculations handy but at one point I was able to figure that the average iPhone user in the US spends (very roughly) $30-$40 per year in the App Store. Even at a 30% cut over the 3-4 year lifespan of the phone it’s not anywhere near $500. Besides, the hardware itself is already very profitable. The argument that the phone is subsidized by the additional revenue Apple gets is not very good. Apple aren’t entitled to make a certain level of profit. They should have to earn it. Every step of the way.
- judge2020 5y ago
  I’m just saying - where does it stop? Would Sony or MS need to allow other app stores if they made a hardware profit of $1? $100? $600[0]? 0: Tony Chen suggests that their anti piracy measures only need to account for attacks that would be cheaper than purchasing 10 games https://youtu.be/U7VwtOrwceo https://youtu.be/U7VwtOrwceo
  - hnra 5y ago
    Why would it affect Sony or MS at all? Gaming is thriving market, not an unregulated duopoly. When market power becomes so great it negatively affects consumers we step in with anti trust regulation.

Izmaki 5y ago

You have the choice to purchase something else, though. Why is it a problem that Apple sells a product which comes with restrictions and intentions? Silly argument.

grishka 5y ago
As a developer, you don't have this choice. You have to support the devices that people already have. Which, for iOS, means inevitably playing by Apple's stupid rules.
- op00to 5y ago
  No one is forcing you to be an app developer. Why not consider a nice career in mainframe software development?
- Izmaki 5y ago
  As a developer, a DevOps engineer and a cybersecurity professional I very much indeed have this choice.
- codetrotter 5y ago
  You’d still need to support iOS even if running other operating systems was possible on these devices. I don’t get what you mean.
  - grishka 5y ago
    There's nothing wrong with supporting iOS. What is wrong, however, is Apple's insistence on approving every single instruction iOS devices run, and this policy being realized in hardware. You bought the device. You gave Apple money, they gave you an iPhone. It's yours now, and it's no longer theirs. So why do they still retain any kind of control whatsoever over it? A new iPhone literally won't let you do anything before it gets an okay from the mothership. It should be illegal for hardware manufacturers to hardcode public keys and hostnames into devices such that the end user can't change them.

grishka 5y ago

To those who would say "but people would be manipulated into installing malware". Firstly, Apple could make the unlocking process purposely hard. Many Android phones come with unlockable bootloaders, but the average person has no idea because you need a computer with the SDK to run that specific command to unlock it. Secondly, people do get scammed on iOS devices anyway. Both through the web, and through poorly reviewed apps that slip to the app store every now and then. Moreover, Apple has a vested interest in not policing these thoroughly because they get to keep the 30% cut from the scammers' earnings.

turtlebits 5y ago
What happens when you buy a new or used Android phone with malware baked into the OS image and a reset done through the UI doesn’t remove it?
- mdtusz 5y ago
  What happens when you buy a used laptop? There's inherent risk in buying a device from a third party that you may not fully trust, but that risk is in the hands of the buyer to assess, and to mitigate as appropriate. When the average person buys a used laptop from Craigslist, I doubt they're doing a full disk wipe and reinstalling the OS, and they're definitely not verifying the bios or other motherboard-level code. There shouldn't need to be some special case applied for tablets or laptops either. They're all just computers.
- jaynetics 5y ago
  Most will show a warning on boot, something like "the bootloader has been unlocked [...] Only store crucial data on this device if you know what you're doing". Yes, it might be possible to remove this warning with sufficient effort, but it is not like there is no way to compromise an iPhone.

bengale 5y ago

I really don’t like the idea of the government dictating what a company does with it’s software, so the idea of forced side loading or other app stores doesn’t sit well with me. However as far as installing your own OS on the hardware, that seems like something we could require without a downside. I don’t think the companies should be forced to provide anything, other than the specifications of the hardware, they just shouldn’t be allowed to stop it. If someone wants to write drivers and get an OS running on an iPad then they should be able to. If it’s a security issue then the preloaded OS could disable sensitive thing, perhaps Apple Pay and stuff stops working, but your in your own OS anyway so why would it matter. I think it should go for any hardware. You could do it in a tesla, the insurance companies could decide not to cover cars that have custom software on them, but someone racing them could run their own OS if they wanted. I think allowing something like this could go a long way to stop the people that seem to want the government intervening with everything these days.

wayoutthere 5y ago
In my opinion, a large portion of the benefit I get from iOS is due to the fact it’s a secure, locked down platform. If there were a way to run unsigned code on iOS, people would build exploits around it and malicious apps would just tell you to enable whatever “advanced mode” or be able to install a bootloader that transparently loads the OS but with a malware layer between the bootloader and the kernel. By disallowing unsigned code, these less-technical exploits become impossible, which also limits the blast radius of any exploits that are found. If I want general purpose computing, I have other devices that allow more freedom (like a laptop or cloud server). I don’t need to be able to do everything with one device.
- ThePhysicist 5y ago
  It's fine if you want to run iOS or iPadOS on your device, that shouldn't exclude other people from installing an OS of their own choosing though.
  - judge2020 5y ago

Terretta 5y ago

The “user journey” you talk about, the road traveled to a destination, is not the software, it’s the job to be done with the combination of software and hardware. There may be roads less traveled or places off road, but Apple has no obligation to release some kind of universal automobile fit for highway comfort as well as every terrain. Apple doesn’t owe you a computing device without a user experience any more than Mercedes owes you an engine without a carriage. They are designed together, and sold together. The old school insistence on an arbitrary division between hardware and software is like the 1900s division between carriages and bolt on engines before Ford and others realized designing them together made a better car. In modern computing, this false division forces a constraining snapshot of where that line happens to be drawn on this model, instead of recognizing the line is moving all the time as hardware is virtualized and software becomes firmware, all in pursuit of a better journey to the user’s destination, the job to be done. With the majority of firms and devices selling badly matched hardware and software you can readily strip apart, Apple is making a user experience choice rather unique in the industry and their market success because of this thesis should not be resented or begrudged. If you believe in general purpose hardware for arbitrary software, if you think Linux has done fantastically with, say, touchpads, touch input, and pen devices relative to Apple with the Magic trackpad, multi-touch screens, and Pencil with the hardware+drivers+OS+apps ecosystem to manifest user intent, invest in that. Buy that, code for that, advocate for that. If you believe in a customer centric emphasis on “job to be done” and giving less technical end users frictionless tools that get out of their way, appliances for accomplishing their goals, advocate for Apple and the like. Or don’t advocate, but at least don’t try to tear it down.

xwolfi 5y ago
Compelling argument. I think it would be fine if Apple hardware didn't look and feel so good in itself, without the software. It's just a shame we can't use them with anything else we might prefer - I really dislike macOS and Windows and I wish these devices could run Linux simply. But as you say I buy Asus or Lenovo and they work very well too, and they're starting to look and feel good too nowadays, so like you I won't care for long. Apple can try to solve specific problems with hardware-assisted software, and I can do my work on an Asus.
5y ago

tyingq 5y ago

>Imaging Tesla would restrict which roads you can drive your car on, because just using arbitrary roads that haven't been thoroughly reviewed by them for security and safety would be a risk to you Tesla has used their power to remotely dictate some odd policy. See https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-autopilot-disabled-remotely-used-car-update https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-aut...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

spideymans 5y ago

I really don't like product design through antitrust. Consumers had a choice in more than half a dozen smartphone operating systems, and iOS (alongside Android) won, with its locked down (Apple would say safe and secure) nature being a cornerstone feature of the platform. That said, I think this hack is really cool. I don't think an Apple sanctioned sideloading method would be the worst thing in the world, so long as its cumbersome enough to prevent companies like Facebook from circumventing the App Store to avoid Apple's pesky rules.

hnra 5y ago
> ... with its locked down (Apple would say safe and secure) nature being a cornerstone feature of the platform. It has only been a corner stone feature since Apple realized they could combine marketing themselves with demphasizing their biggest competitor. Unregulated duopolies suck.

FearlessNebula 5y ago

My concern here is that Facebook will require their app to be sideloaded so that they can continue abusing their users. Now I don’t use Facebook, but at least I know my family members are somewhat protected from Facebook by Apples rules. If their Facebook app were sideloaded it would be open season for Facebook.

FreakyT 5y ago
On Android, there's nothing stopping Facebook from doing that right now. Why haven't they?
- thekyle 5y ago
  I'm guessing it's because Google Play is more lenient than the App Store when it comes to privacy.
- FearlessNebula 5y ago
  Because Google isn’t preventing them from doing tracking and other nefarious things. In fact, Google themselves are doing it.
8note 5y ago
I imagine Facebook is big enough to get a deal with apple that has alternative rules
- dragonsky67 5y ago
  I think there was some fairly tight integration ios/facebook in an earlier version of iOS. Seems to have been removed. I don't think Apple would want to get into bed with Facebook now, their reputation as a supporter of privacy would be damaged.

teekert 5y ago

I just switched from Android to iOS, after a period of adjusting I only miss f-droid and the gems it brings (like GadgetBridge, OsmAnd full, a good Bitcoin wallet and my dear Firefox). Ok, maybe I also miss that the auto correct does not correct things AFTER I press send ;) Other than that I’m pretty happy, most of my foss/self-hosted needs are taken care of (Home Assistant, Nextcloud, WireGuard)

spoonjim 5y ago

If Apple allows arbitrary OSes to be installed I would want a hardware indicator that that has happened. Perhaps a tiny LED on the back that is permanently on as long as the phone hasn’t been tampered with. I wouldn’t want to buy a secondhand phone to find that it’s a fake malware OS.

abuzzooz 5y ago

I never understood this argument. Many products in the past have failed because they were too restrictive. Apple’s current suite of products are doing very well, so they must be doing right. If you don’t like Apple’s approach or products, then don’t buy them and let the market decide. No company is under obligation to do business according to what you or I think is correct. If you think the market for a good phone with open hardware is there, then by all means go ahead and build such a product. There is plenty of VC money these days.

CharlesW 5y ago
On HN, success is merit-based unless you're Apple.
- dragonsky67 5y ago
  merit as measured by market share?

MuffinFlavored 5y ago

> I would totally buy one if I could actually run e.g. Linux on it. I would totally buy one if I could actually run Mac OS X on it. But I'd also have a wireless mouse and a keyboard of some sort so... at that point, is it really a tablet anymore? lol

hda111 5y ago

You can use the app iSH to run an Alpine Linux in an x86 emulator. However it’s tedious to use because most keyboard shortcuts are not working. I agree to you and would love to use Linux on the iPad similar to how it works on chrome OS where you can use LXD containers in a highly secured KVM VM.

Abishek_Muthian 5y ago

I'm hoping that AMD/Intel would be able to build a competing CPU (Single threaded) for Apple's M series SoC otherwise their laptop manufacturers are going to loose their bottom-line to Mac books at least starting with the mid-high end. I'm hoping that there's enough pressure from Microsoft for that to happen since their surface line-up is not where it needs to be for them to take walled-garden approach like Apple 'yet'. Although, I personally want better performing laptop CPUs to run only Linux.

shahar2k 5y ago

I mean the whole restriction on which roads tesla can drive on kind of exists in the form of chrysler's autopilot which uses only specific roads for its own self driving ... imagine a future when the data about certain roads is somehow restricted by intellectual property and certain car companies refuse to license whatever source contains that data.... this isnt entirely unthinkable on the other point you make as someone who uses their ipad for actual professional work (3d artist, film industry) there is absolutely no reason to update from my 2018 ipad pro that I bought second hand, because there's nothing the M1 does that adds anything significant to my life. worse than that, the ipad is really only useful because of its apps and power, while the OS itself feels like it actively hinders anything I really want to do with the device and in many ways feels mildly broken!

an_opabinia 5y ago
> the ipad is really only useful because of its apps and power, while the OS itself feels like it actively hinders anything I really want to do with the device and in many ways feels mildly broken! It's weird for sure. The underlying problem is the latency of the pen, which is very hard to manage in 3d sculpting software.
- shahar2k 5y ago
  I highly recommend you give something like Nomad Sculpt a try if you have a chance on an ipad pro (or android with a pen like the samsung tab series) It's easily just as if not more responsive than zbrush and the features as well as performance is more than plenty to create some amazing sculpts (which I have recently done on several commercial projects!)

tshaddox 5y ago

> Imaging Tesla would restrict which roads you can drive your car on Isn’t a much better analogy a car that doesn’t (easily) let you install arbitrary software on it?

0x0nyandesu 5y ago

The worst part is all these people wanting to restrict my freedom to run what I want on my hardware just because of some dubious claims about security.

jeofken 5y ago

Tesla too would be cool to program - if only even the navigation and entertainment systems.

dylan604 5y ago

>Imaging Tesla That's not even the same thing. That's like saying imagine Apple won't let you peel fruit with an iPad. It would be much closer to imagine Tesla not letting you install whatever custom OS onto the computer so that you can enable all features, bypass any safety features builtin to the stock system.

kaba0 5y ago
Except one is a goddamn car and the other is a portable general-purpose computer.
- dylan604 5y ago
  is an iPad a general-purpose computer?
  - kaba0 5y ago
    Yes? In what way would it not live up to that title? It has plenty strong CPU and enough memory to put a lower-middle-end laptop to shame. Hell, before tablets, PDAs were also computers - they just only became much better. Also, for a significant percentage of people, their mobile phone is the only computer they own.

anshumankmr 5y ago

I have the iPad 8th gen and this one is also super smooth, I wish I could make it my default personal laptop as it is pretty damn good but I can’t. The apps are still very limited compared to their desktop counter parts.

jmrm 5y ago

Talking with "hardcore" Apple products users you find that they are the first ones who doesn't want it, arguing that this could make their products less safe, so I don't think Apple would change that in a near future.