17 ms·

Apple to Pull 'iDOS 2' DOS Emulator from App Store

152 points by l31g 5y ago

nicolas_t 5y ago
The mobile landscape presents a very difficult choice. Choose Android, get actual access to your device and install what you want but have your privacy completely trampled upon by Google Choose Apple, get marginally better privacy but no ownership of your phone and no possibility to install what you want. I wish we had a reasonable alternative, it's so frustrating to have to choose between two bad alternatives and the behavior of those companies that completely disrespect and tramples their customer right makes my blood boil. I just want both the right to use my phone fully and the right to my privacy.
- jhasse 5y ago
  You can use Android without Google, for example https://e.foundation/ https://e.foundation/
  - marcodiego 5y ago
    EOS is what runs my phone and I like it. I plan to buy a librem 5 or pinephone as soon as my will to spend enough money on them gets strong enough.
    - hsousa 5y ago
      Lineage OS here, works marveseouly.
- rusk 5y ago
  There really needs to be a third way … how are Linux smart phones looking? No hope of getting WhatsApp etc presumably but at the very least a fairly solid browser should be possible …
  - sammorrowdrums 5y ago
    Work on PinePhones and Librem 5 is going well. There are still issues of course but I’ve been blown away by the community efforts to iron out the issues. You can get Linux Signal and you’d still need to have it connected to an android or iOS device too, but that would at least give you messaging. The other caveat being that there are still many apps that are not designed for mobile form factor, and while there is strong work on libhandy and many apps use it for responsive GTK apps, there are many great apps were work hasn’t yet started for mobile sizing/touch input/virtual keyboard
    - randmeerkat 5y ago
      > I’ve been blown away by the community efforts to iron out the issues. What’s the best way to get involved?
      - sammorrowdrums 5y ago
        Well, contributing apps that do stuff you want a Linux phone to do, working on the existing apps you want to bring to the mobile form factor. Also submitting issues and spreading the word help. Mastodon is where many of the developers in open source world hang out so follow @linmob@fosstodon and Librem folks and you’ll find the community. Testing, sponsoring, buying the hardware all great options too.
  - rob74 5y ago
    I think a "de-Googled Android" like "/e/" is a more realistic alternative currently if you actually want to use the phone...
    - Haemm0r 5y ago
      or GrapheneOS
- donkarma 5y ago
  Do you need a phone?
  - realusername 5y ago
    When now you have banks & governement apps, I'd say that falls down under the definition of required / public infrastructure.
    - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
      Plus access to public places via QR codes verifying you have been vaccinated / recently tested negative.
      - upofadown 5y ago
        But you are the one providing the QR code in that case so you can normally just print it out or get a card sent to you. You don't need a phone just to display an image...
        Spivak 5y ago
        I've encountered a few apps where the QR codes are only valid for a few minutes and rotate. For your vaccine status it's probably not an issue but using QR codes to auth yourself for payments or access will probably be a no-go eventually.
    - megous 5y ago
      The only thing I wasn't able to do without so far is SMS 2nd factor. Dumbphone is enough for that. I don't mind if banks/govs require use of some protocol. But forcing use of specific apps goes against past achievements to make public institutions use open formats and protocols, so I reject that where possible, or complain. It should not be acceptable. I still remember times when people had to pirate MS office to be able to open some .doc from their gov, or use MS windows to run some proprietary form filling software. That's mostly a thing of the past, thankfully. "My-app or highway" attitude feels like a setback in that regard.
- chappi42 5y ago
  SailfishOS/Jolla is a great option. The problem is, that some important (e.g. banking) apps are missing and cannot be installed/run with the Android emulator. Another problem is, that Sailfish is available only in very few countries, e.g. not in the US.
  - Ndymium 5y ago
    With Sailfish you also have to give up all the security advancements in Android/iOS, in both good and bad. You can do what you want more freely, but also each app has equal access to all your data. Unless they've implemented some access control in the later versions, but I haven't heard about it.
    - chappi42 5y ago
      I believe the permissions are more granular now but I didn't look into it in detail. See: https://sailfishos.org/wiki/Android_Compatibility#Permissions https://sailfishos.org/wiki/Android_Compatibility#Permission..., https://sailfishos.org/ https://sailfishos.org/ (search for security) or https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/sailfish-apps-permission/5466 https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/sailfish-apps-permission/5466.
      - Ndymium 5y ago
        That's pretty cool. Looks like it's not active for 3rd party SFOS apps yet, though: https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/sailfish-community-news-17th-june/6984 https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/sailfish-community-news-17th-...
- vmception 5y ago
  Eh Apple users you can still download this app and it will stay on their phones after it is removed from the app store This post seems to mischaracterize what is going on and seems to be pre-prepared sentiment that has nothing to do with what actually is happening or going to happen Apple users can still file share dos games, if they download that app now. Not clear what level of device control you are reacting to, without agreeing or disagreeing with your sentiment.
  - curt15 5y ago
    Don't iOS apps check in with Apple periodically for permission to run?
    - vmception 5y ago
      A future OS update can break app compatibility if the app is not updated, apps not on the store won't be updated Restoring a device from cloud backup will download all your apps, except apps no longer on the store The device right now, with the OS right now, with the app right now will still be able to use this app and its file sharing feature in perpetuity which is an aspect that isn't different or worse than other kinds of devices or computers. Only the system restore embellishments being different or better or worse. People on other systems that pay for apps can still run into scenarios where their updated operating system is not compatible with an app they paid for. I'm not trying to be an apologist for things Apple or the mobile landscape could do better, only pointing out the standard people seem to be asking for without realizing it.
    - newscracker 5y ago
      My understanding is that if the developer certificate is revoked, then the app would fail to run. But otherwise, apps on the device should run even if they’re removed from the App Store (by Apple or by the developer).
  - newscracker 5y ago
    It will stay on the phone, but won’t be available for downloading again since it’s being removed by Apple. Once the phone dies and the user buys a new phone, there won’t be a way to get this app unless the user copied the app package through a third party application on a Mac (Apple removed the ability to sync/backup app packages to a Mac since iTunes 12.7).
- xerox13ster 5y ago
  We had a third option but developers very publicly refused to support it and Google worked tirelessly to hamstring it in every way they could. Now we're all crying for a third platform because Apple is too restrictive and Google, surprise (to no one least of all WP users), turned out to be evil and I feel absolutely no sympathy for the tech community, particularly developers who decry the current paradigm. We chose this.
  - toxik 5y ago
    It’s funny that we software developers have been so coddled into thinking that we don’t need unions because we get paid enough for our work. Yet we all know and see these oversteps by companies, taking away our very ability to work our trade as we see fit, piece by piece, inch by inch. I support the EFF, but that’s basically all I know how to do. Imagine if Google’s software developers went on strike every time they tried to pull another AMP on the open web?
    - durovo 5y ago
      I don't understand how unions would help here. Closed platforms are in the interest of developers. Devs make a good amount of money on closed platforms like iOS. Closed platforms are not in the interest of users.
      - arvinsim 5y ago
        Developers are also users.
        whatshisface 5y ago
        A consumer union is an interesting idea but not what people think of when you say "union." It is actually a really good idea if you think about it... if labor unions can counterbalance labor monopsonies maybe consumer unions can counterbalance monopolies.
        5y ago
- verytrivial 5y ago
  Re: Android, I tried to log out of YouTube on my phone yesterday. It said "Sure, as long as you don't mind logging out of GMail too." I was taken aback by this -- I didn't realise this was a hostage situation.
  - Ballas 5y ago
    If you cannot uninstall the youtube app, you should be able to freeze it (with adb). (then take a look at youtube vanced)
    - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
      + for Youtube Vanced. Basically, there is no reason to use Google's YT app these days.
    - Y_Y 5y ago
      NewPipe is an excellent YouTube client. (Though you should add their repo instead of using the outdated version that comes with fdroid.)
  - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
    Yes, Google is using Gmail specifically for this purpose. Once you use Gmail on an Android device, it installs a Google account with all its consequences like getting the list of all your contacts, tracking you in Google apps and so on. For that reason I tried several alternative apps that don't involve adding a Google account to my device, but they were less comfortable to use - specifically, the search function was subpar.
    - andrewl-hn 5y ago
      If you use 3rd part clients for Google services - YT, Gmail, Calendar, etc. and run non-Chrome browser (Firefox is very good on Android, and supports many extensions) you can largely avoid Google. However, Play and Location sharing are much harder to block.
      - 5y ago
- newscracker 5y ago
  I agree with most of your points. > Choose Apple, get marginally better privacy I disagree with the word “marginally” here. Compared to Android, it’s far better and keeps staying ahead (while Android may try to catch up for certain features and controls).
  - swiley 5y ago
    Almost all iOS apps are sending telemetry to data brokers like Facebook and the platform makes open source stuff extremely hard. It really is marginal when you look closer.
    - everdrive 5y ago
      Yes, but only if you're foolish enough to install the apps. With Android, an individual app may or may not be a worse actor than it would be on an iOS device. But, it hardly matters since Google is primarily doing all the invasive tracking on an Android device, and you have zero control over this.
      - swiley 5y ago
        >Yes, but only if you're foolish enough to install the apps If you won't install any apps why bother with a smartphone then?
        eesmith 5y ago
        It's hard to even find a good feature phone these days. At least I'm looking for one now because my Nokia E5-03 died yesterday so now I have to figure out what to get. I want something small, that I can stick in my pocket and not worry about the screen, with days of standby battery life, and where I don't have to read and "agree" to pages of legalese. In the heyday of feature phones, I could pick one up for $20. Nowadays, those phones are designed for old people, and are more expensive than a cheap smart phone.
        5y ago
- swiley 5y ago
  >wish we had a reasonable alternative There's the PinePhone. I'm posting from one right now. It's still not super easy to use and non-voip calls/mms are still a bit of a mess.
- wintermutestwin 5y ago
  >the behavior of those companies that completely disrespect and tramples their customer right Here is a "radical" idea: what if we had an Apple users union? What if Apple had to justify their app censorship to that union? What if the union could vote that censorship out? Our current capitalistic model assumes that competition is the solution for the consumer, but the Apple/Google stranglehold is essentially indisruptable. Of course, the only way we could really get this union model would be to have it forced by the same government which has repeatedly and increasingly failed to protect the consumer from these bloated monopolistic corporations. I guess we'll have to settle for some optimistic SciFi porn. Paging Cory Doctorow: https://pluralistic.net/ https://pluralistic.net/
  - xerox13ster 5y ago
    Something like an agency to protect consumers?
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      The problem with consumer protection agencies is that they're subject to regulatory capture. Politicians take Apple's money, or are subject to threats to remove thousands of jobs from their jurisdiction. What you really want is a third party app store which is operated as a co-op, supports multiple platforms (making it easier for users to switch and keep their apps), and has enough users to have bargaining power.
  - Brian_K_White 5y ago
    I love it but the main power a union wields is the collective action of the members to strike. When the union says "Ok, Apple isn't cooperating, so everyone... " ...actually, what would you have the members do? Turn off icloud? Stop buying new airpods? You will never get all the "users union" members to give up one atom of convenience.
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      If the union members are willing to strike, i.e. go without pay for an arbitrarily long period of time, why wouldn't users be temporarily willing to go without anything, when they know there is a good self-interested reason for doing so? Saying "people won't do that" is just a self-fulfilling prophecy. Convince them that it's in their interest and they will.
- Darvon 5y ago
  GrapheneOS - android access with better than iphone security
- kiririn 5y ago
  The tables turn if you consider ownership of your app settings and internal data On Android it is locked down in an inaccessible /data partition, unless rooted. (Ignoring /sdcard and the iOS equivalent Files app) On iOS you can access almost the entire filesystem via extracting iTunes backups. You can freely dig into app internal database, files, message history, etc. You can even edit these backups and restore them, allowing full write access
- TroisM 5y ago
  > Choose Android, get actual access to your device lol, not sure which android you are talking about... probably the one where you need to find an exploit to be able to root it (I guess even HN forgot that you are supposed to be administrator on your own computer)
- Teknoman117 5y ago
  I really wish there was a large enough player to get non-Android (Linux) drivers for the flagship mobile phone processors. The fastest of the open source phones right now has the same processor as the Pixel 2. IIRC it might even be another libhybris implementation (glibc/mesa/gbm userspace on an Android kernel and driver stack).
- colordrops 5y ago
  If you are talking about the marketplace, yes, but if you as an individual want google out of your life, there are multiple android distributions without Google included by default.
  - badkitty99 5y ago
    Google is impossible to get out of your life. Big brother will never take his eyes off of you, there is nothing you can do. A different operating system or hardware change is laughably not going to do much
  - thayne 5y ago
    It's possible, but not very practical for most people.
- lilboiluvr69 5y ago
  I am very happy with my current setup after flashing my new One Plus 9 Pro with LineageOS for microG (https://lineage.microg.org/ https://lineage.microg.org/). It's LineageOS with application spoofing and comes pre-baked with microG. I'm able to use all the standard apps (Uber, games, etc) without a Google account. I use Aurora instead of the Google Play Store, local maps as my GPS back-end, and my phone only contains the apps I actually used instead of pre-baked vendor bullshit. It's all super smooth and completely stable. I really can't say enough nice things about it. If you're looking for the third option, I would really give aftermarket android roms a try.
  - bpye 5y ago
    I’ve tried that path before but SafetyNet makes it hard. I can’t use my banking app for example, and for better or for worse, I wouldn’t be able to access my work email either.
    - EvanDotPro 5y ago
      I haven't looked in a while, but last time I checked, Magisk had a SafetyNet bypass. It's a cat and mouse game of course, but when I was using it, Magisk stayed ahead of Google 90%+ of the time.
      - boring_twenties 5y ago
        So about that... the developer of Magisk has been employed by Google since about 2 months ago: https://www.xda-developers.com/magisk-developer-topjohnwu-leaves-apple-joins-google/ https://www.xda-developers.com/magisk-developer-topjohnwu-le...
    - neurostimulant 5y ago
      Did you try skipping the root step when flashing your custom rom? I never had any problem with safetynet as long as I don't root the phone.
    - rchaud 5y ago
      I remember being able to do mobile banking on a website on my BlackBerry. It must have been 2010 or '11, before banks began rolling out native apps. I don't understand why that's not possible now. Responsive websites are basically 1:1 in functionality w/ desktop, there is no need to have separate, gimped "m.bank.com" sites anymore. End result of this is that I stopped doing banking on my phone, and 90% of my use cases are now served by F-Droid or by apps not on the Play store.
- ksec 5y ago
  >I wish we had a reasonable alternative You know... since 2017 when I started getting wary of Apple due to Qualcomm, IMG and Services Strategy. I sometimes wish Microsoft are still in the Mobile race. Trying find some synergy between Desktop PC gaming, Xbox and Mobile. Surface Phone. Porting some of their work from Xbox. But unlike Microsoft and Google. Apple has no inherent weakness in their business and strategy. They also have an extremely strong cult following both online and offline. So unless government managed to do something about it ( which I seriously doubt ), the future will be as frustrating as it is now.
  - spicybright 5y ago
    I wish they made a Zune HD phone. The visual design of the UI was seriously gorgeous.
    - bobberkarl 5y ago
      The original Zune windows app is still head and shoulders above spotify. They had: - great song management - better than YouTube song discovery (looking into playlists with the same song) - incredible ui (skins) - small memory footprint I wonder who worked on that team and what they are up to today. And/or if Microsoft could open source it.
    - iNate2000 5y ago
      I still think Windows Phone was good. Perhaps they should have marketed it as a Zune phone.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- stalfosknight 5y ago
  Apple's privacy and security practices are much more than just "marginally" better.
- Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
  >I wish we had a reasonable alternative, it's so frustrating to have to choose between two bad alternatives It's highly likely that even if there's an commercial alternative which gains significant market share to compete with duopoly in the future, they will have to do so by either compromising privacy or ownership of the device. Solution right now is to make difficult lifestyle choice by using passion or idealistic projects. LineageOS + Fdroid can get things done for those who use their smartphone as an tool and ready to sacrifice a bit of social conformity(which can be a privilege at current times). There are more extreme alternatives like Linux phones which I hope becomes less extreme in years to come.
jsnell 5y ago
Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27924207 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27924207
- dang 2y ago
  Comments moved thither. Thanks!
LucidLynx 5y ago
How funny it is to remove this app because it "loads executable" as they released Swift Playground years ago... Plus the new feature of creating and packaging your iOS / iPadOS app + uploading it, directly on the iPad. Apple seems to contradict its own rules since a few years now.
- codetrotter 5y ago
  There's no contradiction here. The App Store rules apply to everyone else wanting to publish something on the App Store. Obviously Apple has its own internal rules for what their own software can do.
  - gsich 5y ago
    Some are more equal than others.
  - LucidLynx 5y ago
    Swift Playground is listed in the App Store... So no, Apple apps listed in the App Store must follow their rules. I checked quickly in the guide and no mention of "Me, Apple, can do whatever I want in my store."
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Here is an exercise, when a police patrol car gets parked in 2nd lane, and the officier happens to buying some stuff on a nearby shop, go there and tell them nicely that 2nd lane parking is against the traffic laws and they should fine themselves. Broken analogy? Apple is the police of Apple store.
      - LucidLynx 5y ago
        Broken (and terrible) analogy as police does not have the right to do that... I don't know what you wanted to demonstrate but, sorry, you failed :/
user3939382 5y ago
I guess we need a congressional bill that lets people sideload apps on their phone. It seems ridiculous to have to get to that level but apparently that’s the only way. We have some progress now on right to repair. Next up, right to use.
- ericmay 5y ago
  If you want to do whatever to your phone there are already lots of options. I’m not sure what a law is going to do here that you can’t already do today.
  - Renaud 5y ago
    People are stuck in their ecosystem. The monetary coat of changing platform is quite high if you’re already invested in that ecosystem. Everyone is paying a lot of money for a system they basically own nothing about. You keep paying, for apps, for hardware, that’s forever tied up to the whims of that platform’s owner (not you). Not in favour of more laws, but forcing the hands of these platforms so they provide more control to their customers is not a bad thing. At the moment none of them have any incentive to do it.
    - ericmay 5y ago
      > People are stuck in their ecosystem. The monetary coat of changing platform is quite high if you’re already invested in that ecosystem. What are the costs? I can buy an iPhone or an Android phone and switch pretty easily can’t I? > Not in favour of more laws, but forcing the hands of these platforms so they provide more control to their customers is not a bad thing. Maybe more control isn’t a good thing? But even so aren’t there phones in the market they cater to those who want more control.
      - pschastain 5y ago
        > What are the costs? I can buy an iPhone or an Android phone and switch pretty easily can’t I? Software would need to be repurchased if it's even available on the other platform. Maybe you could but I know I couldn't easily or cheaply switch.
freakynit 5y ago
That's fcking my mobile. I paid for it. I own it. If I want to install something on my owned device, who the f is Apple to stop it? Think about it this way: A chair supplier telling Apple to only allow it's employees to sit a certain way. Or architects telling it to only build their HQ's a certain way. Not as an advice, but, enforced. How ridiculous is that!
- pibechorro 5y ago
  Apple has always been like this. Better hope they dont decide to throttle down your current hardware when they release a thinner one next year and deem yours obsolete.
  - thebruce87m 5y ago
    They have no history of throttling phone hardware to drive sales of new devices. What makes you think they would start doing it now?
  - flohofwoe 5y ago
    This only started with the iPhone. Apple has been around much longer and was a regular computer company before which treated their users like adults.
    - whywhywhywhy 5y ago
      Imagine for a moment you're an Apple exec who gets to see real usage numbers and revenue numbers per platform and is on board with the current company belief system. You see MacOS devices completely dwarfed in both users and profit per user by iOS devices. As that executive, who keep in mind probably doesn't share your opinions on open technology or they would never have got into that position. What decisions would you be making on the direction of their platforms. I can't help but think we're only going one way and it's not towards something more open.
      - orangecat 5y ago
roody15 5y ago
Sad… I played Kings Quest VI on an ipad with this emulator and it workers great. Why does Apple even care if a few people play some old abandonware on an ipad?
- Synaesthesia 5y ago
  Well ... Exactly! I don't understand the rules or ehy it had to be removed. What about Pythonista and apps that let me code on my iPad? Don't they also "execute code"?
  - steveonbass 5y ago
    Please don't summon the dragon by uttering the name of the "P" app. I dread the day the Cupertino gang recognizes what can be done with it and makes it go away.
- flohofwoe 5y ago
  Because it's "against the rules" :/
- kwdc 5y ago
  No ability to get a cut of those gaming dollars. Games were specifically listed in the app review email from Apple. A side aspect is running afoul of copyright and that is likely the other significant money spinner / target.
  - roody15 5y ago
    I own Kings Quest VI
    - arvinsim 5y ago
      Doesn't matter. They don't get a cut.
    - TchoBeer 5y ago
      Owning a game doesn't make it legal to pirate it
ThePhysicist 5y ago
It's quite bizarre that Apple just released an iPad Pro with a CPU that is more powerful than the desktop CPU in my workstation, but then cripples the device by severely restricting what kind of software you can run on it. I mainly use Linux but was looking for a secondary laptop/tablet hybrid for my office needs. I considered getting an iPad but ultimately went for a Surface Pro, which was the right choice I think. The device and UI (just Windows 10) is not nearly as polished as iPadOS, but at least I can just install normal FOSS software like KeepassXC instead of downloading some proprietary app from the store, hoping it won't exfiltrate my data. I can even play the occasional round of SimCity 2000 in DOSBox. iOS & iPadOS devices are great for media consumption, but I would never consider them for any type of "serious" office work.
- bluedino 5y ago
  I can't run whatever I want on a Tesla's FSD unit.
  - ThePhysicist 5y ago
    Yeah but a Tesla isn't marketed as a computing device for "pros", while an iPad arguably is.
    - wil421 5y ago
      Pro hasn’t meant Pro for like 10 years. Not sure it ever meant what HN considers a Pro, meaning a development machine. Pro also meant Professional as in Artists, Photographers, Musicians, and content creators. They have sweet hardware so us developers always wanted then. We always were the last use case; everyone machines, content creators, and then developers.
    - Spivak 5y ago
      I feel like our definition of "pro" is different from Apple's. Apple has always marketed to professional creatives who need specialized software for content production. Developers are a completely different user-story. The ideal machine for a programer looks absolutely nothing like the ideal machine for a digital artist.
fab1an 5y ago
I feel that Apple solve the problem of freedom vs security quite well on Mac: you can download and run whatever software you want, but there's a sort of "Captcha" involved (where you need to right-click + open to run software from non-registered devs). This prevents mom and dad from installing a bunch of Spyware, but let's me run obscure and cool apps by indie developers as I please.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  It's a step in the right direction, but I found it pretty frustrating in comparison to the way Linux/Windows handle things. It's not as draconian as iOS, but I probably spent 50-60% of my setup time trying to get Gatekeeper to treat me like the administrator of my own computer.
- rchaud 5y ago
  They wouldn't ever do that on iOS because it would 'add friction'. Apple makes money off the App Store. They want users to head to the App Store for everything. Developers also want you using their apps, because they can track you better than they could on a website with content and tracking blockers. It's not the same on MacOS because users aren't going around looking for new apps to install. People install their core programs (e.g. Office, maybe some games), and they get everything else on the web.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    > Apple makes money off the App Store. Yes. That's part of their profit margin. Just as how the PS5 literally sells for less than it costs to make the console[0], Apple doesn't realize all of their profits from iPhone sales until after purchase where they expect a certain dollar figure from their customers to be spend on either their subscription services or via the 30% app store cut. This is also happening in VR, by the way - the Valve Index is still the top but the Oculus Quest 2 is insanely close to matching the Index in experience, and that's all thanks to how Facebook literally sells that at a loss of $400, since they want $800 for a version without (1) Ads and (2) their cut from Oculus store sales[1]. > It's not the same on MacOS Exactly, and I think the pricing difference of these devices reflects that (despite the main cost centers, being manufacturing tooling and labor, having largely similar costs for both). If the iOS landscape turned into the MacOS landscape overnight, we'd see a similar jump in cost for the phone thanks to the lost post-sale revenue. 0: 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... 1: https://i.judge.sh/imperturbable/Mint/TuPfZ65njJ.png https://i.judge.sh/imperturbable/Mint/TuPfZ65njJ.png ( https://business.oculus.com/products/#:~:text=Oculus%20for%20Business%20SKU https://business.oculus.com/products/#:~:text=Oculus%20for%2... )
qalmakka 5y ago
I hope Apple will be punished for their behaviour. I could ideally understand them reserving the power to decide what gets uploaded and what doesn't on their stores, but then they must allow sideloading. People paid good money for their phones, and so they must be free to use them as they see fit. To me this sounds like buying a car that's restricted from entering Germany or buying a fruit processor that forbids you to blend fruit, which would universally be considered as an abuse of power from the manufacturer. Apple can't just impose to user what basically boils down to a fee to use your own hardware as you want, while at the same time preventing their competitors from competing at par with their services. Their draconian policies have been getting harsher and more drastic over time, it almost feels like they are really trying to get the EU Commission to punish them somehow.
- ubermonkey 5y ago
  I very much hope not. If you don't like the way Apple does business, feel free to buy from someone else. They are a minority player in the marketplace by a significant margin; getting all upset about how they manage their platform is a weird, weird look.
  - qalmakka 5y ago
    That's the very reason I've been buying from "someone else" for almost a decade. Still, in certain markets they are not a "minor" player, and even then that still doesn't give them an excuse to abuse the position. Yes, they are a minor player compared to the WHOLE market, but if you compare only the segments they actually put the effor to compete in, they have quite a large slice and they rake in more profit than anyone else from it. You can't reasonably use under-$200 phones to justify the fact Apple doesn't have a monopoly when they refuse to enter that segment. You may even argue that if that's a valid argument they would never want to sell cheap phones in the first place, and that market share isn't a good metric for anything. I don't see why the option to sideload stuff onto the iPhone you've bought would make the platform less secure, especially if it is disabled by default and requires explicit user consent to be turned on. Also, their focus on "security" has always felt very phony to me, as much as their focus on "standards" always basically meant they only evangelized for interoperability when it suited their interests. What they have been doing with iMessage in the USA is the epitome of abusing your market position, but I guess the FTC doesn't really care about that.
newscracker 5y ago
I’m hoping and waiting for some kind of side loading, which isn’t very easy to do, to be forced on iOS through regulation. It could open the platform up for a lot more possibilities and also keep Apple on its toes in building more useful features into iOS (like what jailbreaking and Cydia did for a long time).
wayneftw 5y ago
Microsoft in the late 90s/2000s: Tells OEMs that they can't sell their own PCs with alternative operating systems. Gets forced by the government to stop. Hackers everywhere cheer. Apple since 2008: Tells people that they can't install programs on their own devices. Any mention of asking the government to force them to stop this is met by Hacker News users vehemently defending their right to let Apple (and only Apple, at all times, with no off switch) decide everything. I don't buy it. Something stinks here. This is nothing short of a digital new world order and obviously the current status quo is very, very valuable to the companies who run these platforms but I believe it's also very valuable to the entire power matrix that holds us all in check.
- varispeed 5y ago
  Many of Hacker News users are young and they believe that one day they'll run a company like Apple and they wouldn't like regulation to dictate how they can make their profits (which then quickly get disguised to avoid taxes). Some also think that such regulation will hit their future small business - which is like being scared of going out because a bus may hit you.
yupyup54133 5y ago
Obligatory "there is always https://altstore.io/ https://altstore.io/" comment.
endisneigh 5y ago
Build web apps and free yourself from the tyranny of closed ecosystems. It's Closed vs. Open. Only the web is open. 99% of apps on both the Play Store and App Store could be implemented as web apps with no loss in functionality - in fact a very large chunk of them are web apps, simply wrapped in a web view.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  The web is a thin client, to an approximation. How does this solve the problem of letting customers run a fat app without forking over for the corresponding server horsepower to run it? I know that JS is high performance when written well, but it takes time and money to do it right.
- loloquwowndueo 5y ago
  Users want a local app for no real reason, as evidenced by the thousands of apps that are nothing but a wrapper around a web application.
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    At minimum, it provides a convenient bookmark on the home screen.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    If the users want native notifications, which most do, then developers have no choice but to release a native app because Apple purposely doesn't implement web standards on iOS that make web apps and PWAs usable.
- smolyeet 5y ago
  Or just switch to a platform that allows third party apps
- smoldesu 5y ago
  If the platforms are equivalent in functionality, then why can't Apple let people freely sideload native apps?
temac 5y ago
Part of the rationale of Apple for disallowing emulators is really concerning: > allows for downloading of content without licensing.
makecheck 5y ago
If they put half as much effort into eliminating real scams as they do in eliminating proven useful software, what a different platform it would be.
- munificent 5y ago
  There is a sort of numeric tragedy of perception that happens with app stores and other environments where a curator is filtering fraud but also sometimes nuking some good apps in the process. As users, we only have any visibility into three numbers: A. The number of good apps that make it through the filter. (True positives.) B. The number of good apps that are caught by it. (False positives.) C. The number of fraudulent apps that make it through the filter. (False negatives.) B may be larger than C, leading to the perception that the filter does more harm than ngood. But we are getting caught in a base rate fallacy. To really understand the filter, we need one more number: D. The number of fraudulent apps caught by the filter. (True negatives.) My impression is that average people have no idea what a huge sea of garbage, fraud, and bad actors is swirling out there on the Internet. The number of bad people is relatively small, but the volume of malicious hot garbage they are able to spew out is incredibly large. I wouldn't be surprised if every false positive (a good app like the one here getting caught) was balanced by a thousand true negatives (bad apps being filtered out). With rates like that, the filter is clearly vital. But we don't see the full picture, so we never really know. One piece of anecdata we do have is what unfiltered ecosystems look like. And they seem to universally descend into roiling cesspits of porn, hate speech, warez, etc. So while it's very important to continue being critical of gatekeepers because they wield disproportionate social power, it's also good to be mindful that they aren't all bad. Notice how these days hacking always seems to be about phishing or email attachments? Everyone seems to have forgotten the days when worms in executables downloaded from the web were a major attack vector. That dwindled because the major OSes put these filters in place. As usual, when something is working like it's supposed to, people incorrectly think it's doing nothing at all.
  - makecheck 5y ago
    This isn’t really a filtering issue though; this decision was arbitrary. It is an App Store New Rule of the Week issue. Stores and platforms can and should keep all their sophisticated fraud-detection tools, hardened runtime environment, etc. and continue to guard against untold numbers of awful apps. The human review is supposed to take over where the mechanics fail. Yet we know (from Epic trial, etc.) that Apple has a comically small number of people assigned to this, relative to the millions of apps in existence. We can extrapolate how little time must be spent on each human review. We also know that people outside of Apple were able to dig up scams pretty easily, without even having access to all the tools/data that Apple must have. Apple clearly could have invested more in this, and did not. So we know (1) the Apple review team is limited, (2) serious problems can still be found with relatively little effort, and (3) they nonetheless choose to spend their limited resources chasing minor violations of App Store Rule of the Week. We also know from the Epic trial that, despite what they say, Apple certainly will give some developers special treatment. This means leniency or rule-bending was an option for them here, and who better to work with than a developer like this, who has spent years writing software for Apple platforms, clearly increasing the value of Apple devices in the process? Apple looked at that years-long relationship and said: “get out of our store”.
tlogan 5y ago
It is ok that phones and tablets are “consume-only” devices. Like for games, watch video, etc. This just opens opportunity for “makers” devices (you can do something uniq) and companies. Ie some cheap phones with OS targeting market in Africa. This also means a new type of VCs / ycombinators.
bori5 5y ago
This sucks. I have an old program called Jazz Guitarist I bought from PG Music, the makers of BIAB back in the 90’s, and its a treat to see it run on my iPad/iPhone. Even the QBASIC example programs for different sort algorithms is so cool.
threesmegiste 5y ago
Microsoft someone calling you

152 points by l31g 5y ago

The mobile landscape presents a very difficult choice. Choose Android, get actual access to your device and install what you want but have your privacy completely trampled upon by Google Choose Apple, get marginally better privacy but no ownership of your phone and no possibility to install what you want. I wish we had a reasonable alternative, it's so frustrating to have to choose between two bad alternatives and the behavior of those companies that completely disrespect and tramples their customer right makes my blood boil. I just want both the right to use my phone fully and the right to my privacy.

jhasse 5y ago
You can use Android without Google, for example https://e.foundation/ https://e.foundation/
- marcodiego 5y ago
  EOS is what runs my phone and I like it. I plan to buy a librem 5 or pinephone as soon as my will to spend enough money on them gets strong enough.
  - hsousa 5y ago
    Lineage OS here, works marveseouly.
rusk 5y ago
There really needs to be a third way … how are Linux smart phones looking? No hope of getting WhatsApp etc presumably but at the very least a fairly solid browser should be possible …
- sammorrowdrums 5y ago
  Work on PinePhones and Librem 5 is going well. There are still issues of course but I’ve been blown away by the community efforts to iron out the issues. You can get Linux Signal and you’d still need to have it connected to an android or iOS device too, but that would at least give you messaging. The other caveat being that there are still many apps that are not designed for mobile form factor, and while there is strong work on libhandy and many apps use it for responsive GTK apps, there are many great apps were work hasn’t yet started for mobile sizing/touch input/virtual keyboard
  - randmeerkat 5y ago
    > I’ve been blown away by the community efforts to iron out the issues. What’s the best way to get involved?
    - sammorrowdrums 5y ago
      Well, contributing apps that do stuff you want a Linux phone to do, working on the existing apps you want to bring to the mobile form factor. Also submitting issues and spreading the word help. Mastodon is where many of the developers in open source world hang out so follow @linmob@fosstodon and Librem folks and you’ll find the community. Testing, sponsoring, buying the hardware all great options too.
- rob74 5y ago
  I think a "de-Googled Android" like "/e/" is a more realistic alternative currently if you actually want to use the phone...
  - Haemm0r 5y ago
    or GrapheneOS
donkarma 5y ago
Do you need a phone?
- realusername 5y ago
  When now you have banks & governement apps, I'd say that falls down under the definition of required / public infrastructure.
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    Plus access to public places via QR codes verifying you have been vaccinated / recently tested negative.
    - upofadown 5y ago
      But you are the one providing the QR code in that case so you can normally just print it out or get a card sent to you. You don't need a phone just to display an image...
      - Spivak 5y ago
        I've encountered a few apps where the QR codes are only valid for a few minutes and rotate. For your vaccine status it's probably not an issue but using QR codes to auth yourself for payments or access will probably be a no-go eventually.
  - megous 5y ago
    The only thing I wasn't able to do without so far is SMS 2nd factor. Dumbphone is enough for that. I don't mind if banks/govs require use of some protocol. But forcing use of specific apps goes against past achievements to make public institutions use open formats and protocols, so I reject that where possible, or complain. It should not be acceptable. I still remember times when people had to pirate MS office to be able to open some .doc from their gov, or use MS windows to run some proprietary form filling software. That's mostly a thing of the past, thankfully. "My-app or highway" attitude feels like a setback in that regard.
chappi42 5y ago
SailfishOS/Jolla is a great option. The problem is, that some important (e.g. banking) apps are missing and cannot be installed/run with the Android emulator. Another problem is, that Sailfish is available only in very few countries, e.g. not in the US.
- Ndymium 5y ago
  With Sailfish you also have to give up all the security advancements in Android/iOS, in both good and bad. You can do what you want more freely, but also each app has equal access to all your data. Unless they've implemented some access control in the later versions, but I haven't heard about it.
  - chappi42 5y ago
    I believe the permissions are more granular now but I didn't look into it in detail. See: https://sailfishos.org/wiki/Android_Compatibility#Permissions https://sailfishos.org/wiki/Android_Compatibility#Permission..., https://sailfishos.org/ https://sailfishos.org/ (search for security) or https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/sailfish-apps-permission/5466 https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/sailfish-apps-permission/5466.
    - Ndymium 5y ago
      That's pretty cool. Looks like it's not active for 3rd party SFOS apps yet, though: https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/sailfish-community-news-17th-june/6984 https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/sailfish-community-news-17th-...
vmception 5y ago
Eh Apple users you can still download this app and it will stay on their phones after it is removed from the app store This post seems to mischaracterize what is going on and seems to be pre-prepared sentiment that has nothing to do with what actually is happening or going to happen Apple users can still file share dos games, if they download that app now. Not clear what level of device control you are reacting to, without agreeing or disagreeing with your sentiment.
- curt15 5y ago
  Don't iOS apps check in with Apple periodically for permission to run?
  - vmception 5y ago
    A future OS update can break app compatibility if the app is not updated, apps not on the store won't be updated Restoring a device from cloud backup will download all your apps, except apps no longer on the store The device right now, with the OS right now, with the app right now will still be able to use this app and its file sharing feature in perpetuity which is an aspect that isn't different or worse than other kinds of devices or computers. Only the system restore embellishments being different or better or worse. People on other systems that pay for apps can still run into scenarios where their updated operating system is not compatible with an app they paid for. I'm not trying to be an apologist for things Apple or the mobile landscape could do better, only pointing out the standard people seem to be asking for without realizing it.
  - newscracker 5y ago
    My understanding is that if the developer certificate is revoked, then the app would fail to run. But otherwise, apps on the device should run even if they’re removed from the App Store (by Apple or by the developer).
- newscracker 5y ago
  It will stay on the phone, but won’t be available for downloading again since it’s being removed by Apple. Once the phone dies and the user buys a new phone, there won’t be a way to get this app unless the user copied the app package through a third party application on a Mac (Apple removed the ability to sync/backup app packages to a Mac since iTunes 12.7).
xerox13ster 5y ago
We had a third option but developers very publicly refused to support it and Google worked tirelessly to hamstring it in every way they could. Now we're all crying for a third platform because Apple is too restrictive and Google, surprise (to no one least of all WP users), turned out to be evil and I feel absolutely no sympathy for the tech community, particularly developers who decry the current paradigm. We chose this.
- toxik 5y ago
  It’s funny that we software developers have been so coddled into thinking that we don’t need unions because we get paid enough for our work. Yet we all know and see these oversteps by companies, taking away our very ability to work our trade as we see fit, piece by piece, inch by inch. I support the EFF, but that’s basically all I know how to do. Imagine if Google’s software developers went on strike every time they tried to pull another AMP on the open web?
  - durovo 5y ago
    I don't understand how unions would help here. Closed platforms are in the interest of developers. Devs make a good amount of money on closed platforms like iOS. Closed platforms are not in the interest of users.
    - arvinsim 5y ago
      Developers are also users.
      - whatshisface 5y ago
        A consumer union is an interesting idea but not what people think of when you say "union." It is actually a really good idea if you think about it... if labor unions can counterbalance labor monopsonies maybe consumer unions can counterbalance monopolies.
        5y ago
verytrivial 5y ago
Re: Android, I tried to log out of YouTube on my phone yesterday. It said "Sure, as long as you don't mind logging out of GMail too." I was taken aback by this -- I didn't realise this was a hostage situation.
- Ballas 5y ago
  If you cannot uninstall the youtube app, you should be able to freeze it (with adb). (then take a look at youtube vanced)
  - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
    + for Youtube Vanced. Basically, there is no reason to use Google's YT app these days.
  - Y_Y 5y ago
    NewPipe is an excellent YouTube client. (Though you should add their repo instead of using the outdated version that comes with fdroid.)
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  Yes, Google is using Gmail specifically for this purpose. Once you use Gmail on an Android device, it installs a Google account with all its consequences like getting the list of all your contacts, tracking you in Google apps and so on. For that reason I tried several alternative apps that don't involve adding a Google account to my device, but they were less comfortable to use - specifically, the search function was subpar.
  - andrewl-hn 5y ago
    If you use 3rd part clients for Google services - YT, Gmail, Calendar, etc. and run non-Chrome browser (Firefox is very good on Android, and supports many extensions) you can largely avoid Google. However, Play and Location sharing are much harder to block.
    - 5y ago
newscracker 5y ago
I agree with most of your points. > Choose Apple, get marginally better privacy I disagree with the word “marginally” here. Compared to Android, it’s far better and keeps staying ahead (while Android may try to catch up for certain features and controls).
- swiley 5y ago
  Almost all iOS apps are sending telemetry to data brokers like Facebook and the platform makes open source stuff extremely hard. It really is marginal when you look closer.
  - everdrive 5y ago
    Yes, but only if you're foolish enough to install the apps. With Android, an individual app may or may not be a worse actor than it would be on an iOS device. But, it hardly matters since Google is primarily doing all the invasive tracking on an Android device, and you have zero control over this.
    - swiley 5y ago
      >Yes, but only if you're foolish enough to install the apps If you won't install any apps why bother with a smartphone then?
      - eesmith 5y ago
        It's hard to even find a good feature phone these days. At least I'm looking for one now because my Nokia E5-03 died yesterday so now I have to figure out what to get. I want something small, that I can stick in my pocket and not worry about the screen, with days of standby battery life, and where I don't have to read and "agree" to pages of legalese. In the heyday of feature phones, I could pick one up for $20. Nowadays, those phones are designed for old people, and are more expensive than a cheap smart phone.
        5y ago
swiley 5y ago
>wish we had a reasonable alternative There's the PinePhone. I'm posting from one right now. It's still not super easy to use and non-voip calls/mms are still a bit of a mess.
wintermutestwin 5y ago
>the behavior of those companies that completely disrespect and tramples their customer right Here is a "radical" idea: what if we had an Apple users union? What if Apple had to justify their app censorship to that union? What if the union could vote that censorship out? Our current capitalistic model assumes that competition is the solution for the consumer, but the Apple/Google stranglehold is essentially indisruptable. Of course, the only way we could really get this union model would be to have it forced by the same government which has repeatedly and increasingly failed to protect the consumer from these bloated monopolistic corporations. I guess we'll have to settle for some optimistic SciFi porn. Paging Cory Doctorow: https://pluralistic.net/ https://pluralistic.net/
- xerox13ster 5y ago
  Something like an agency to protect consumers?
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    The problem with consumer protection agencies is that they're subject to regulatory capture. Politicians take Apple's money, or are subject to threats to remove thousands of jobs from their jurisdiction. What you really want is a third party app store which is operated as a co-op, supports multiple platforms (making it easier for users to switch and keep their apps), and has enough users to have bargaining power.
- Brian_K_White 5y ago
  I love it but the main power a union wields is the collective action of the members to strike. When the union says "Ok, Apple isn't cooperating, so everyone... " ...actually, what would you have the members do? Turn off icloud? Stop buying new airpods? You will never get all the "users union" members to give up one atom of convenience.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    If the union members are willing to strike, i.e. go without pay for an arbitrarily long period of time, why wouldn't users be temporarily willing to go without anything, when they know there is a good self-interested reason for doing so? Saying "people won't do that" is just a self-fulfilling prophecy. Convince them that it's in their interest and they will.
Darvon 5y ago
GrapheneOS - android access with better than iphone security
kiririn 5y ago
The tables turn if you consider ownership of your app settings and internal data On Android it is locked down in an inaccessible /data partition, unless rooted. (Ignoring /sdcard and the iOS equivalent Files app) On iOS you can access almost the entire filesystem via extracting iTunes backups. You can freely dig into app internal database, files, message history, etc. You can even edit these backups and restore them, allowing full write access
TroisM 5y ago
> Choose Android, get actual access to your device lol, not sure which android you are talking about... probably the one where you need to find an exploit to be able to root it (I guess even HN forgot that you are supposed to be administrator on your own computer)
Teknoman117 5y ago
I really wish there was a large enough player to get non-Android (Linux) drivers for the flagship mobile phone processors. The fastest of the open source phones right now has the same processor as the Pixel 2. IIRC it might even be another libhybris implementation (glibc/mesa/gbm userspace on an Android kernel and driver stack).
colordrops 5y ago
If you are talking about the marketplace, yes, but if you as an individual want google out of your life, there are multiple android distributions without Google included by default.
- badkitty99 5y ago
  Google is impossible to get out of your life. Big brother will never take his eyes off of you, there is nothing you can do. A different operating system or hardware change is laughably not going to do much
- thayne 5y ago
  It's possible, but not very practical for most people.
lilboiluvr69 5y ago
I am very happy with my current setup after flashing my new One Plus 9 Pro with LineageOS for microG (https://lineage.microg.org/ https://lineage.microg.org/). It's LineageOS with application spoofing and comes pre-baked with microG. I'm able to use all the standard apps (Uber, games, etc) without a Google account. I use Aurora instead of the Google Play Store, local maps as my GPS back-end, and my phone only contains the apps I actually used instead of pre-baked vendor bullshit. It's all super smooth and completely stable. I really can't say enough nice things about it. If you're looking for the third option, I would really give aftermarket android roms a try.
- bpye 5y ago
  I’ve tried that path before but SafetyNet makes it hard. I can’t use my banking app for example, and for better or for worse, I wouldn’t be able to access my work email either.
  - EvanDotPro 5y ago
    I haven't looked in a while, but last time I checked, Magisk had a SafetyNet bypass. It's a cat and mouse game of course, but when I was using it, Magisk stayed ahead of Google 90%+ of the time.
    - boring_twenties 5y ago
      So about that... the developer of Magisk has been employed by Google since about 2 months ago: https://www.xda-developers.com/magisk-developer-topjohnwu-leaves-apple-joins-google/ https://www.xda-developers.com/magisk-developer-topjohnwu-le...
  - neurostimulant 5y ago
    Did you try skipping the root step when flashing your custom rom? I never had any problem with safetynet as long as I don't root the phone.
  - rchaud 5y ago
    I remember being able to do mobile banking on a website on my BlackBerry. It must have been 2010 or '11, before banks began rolling out native apps. I don't understand why that's not possible now. Responsive websites are basically 1:1 in functionality w/ desktop, there is no need to have separate, gimped "m.bank.com" sites anymore. End result of this is that I stopped doing banking on my phone, and 90% of my use cases are now served by F-Droid or by apps not on the Play store.
ksec 5y ago
>I wish we had a reasonable alternative You know... since 2017 when I started getting wary of Apple due to Qualcomm, IMG and Services Strategy. I sometimes wish Microsoft are still in the Mobile race. Trying find some synergy between Desktop PC gaming, Xbox and Mobile. Surface Phone. Porting some of their work from Xbox. But unlike Microsoft and Google. Apple has no inherent weakness in their business and strategy. They also have an extremely strong cult following both online and offline. So unless government managed to do something about it ( which I seriously doubt ), the future will be as frustrating as it is now.
- spicybright 5y ago
  I wish they made a Zune HD phone. The visual design of the UI was seriously gorgeous.
  - bobberkarl 5y ago
    The original Zune windows app is still head and shoulders above spotify. They had: - great song management - better than YouTube song discovery (looking into playlists with the same song) - incredible ui (skins) - small memory footprint I wonder who worked on that team and what they are up to today. And/or if Microsoft could open source it.
  - iNate2000 5y ago
    I still think Windows Phone was good. Perhaps they should have marketed it as a Zune phone.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
stalfosknight 5y ago
Apple's privacy and security practices are much more than just "marginally" better.
Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
>I wish we had a reasonable alternative, it's so frustrating to have to choose between two bad alternatives It's highly likely that even if there's an commercial alternative which gains significant market share to compete with duopoly in the future, they will have to do so by either compromising privacy or ownership of the device. Solution right now is to make difficult lifestyle choice by using passion or idealistic projects. LineageOS + Fdroid can get things done for those who use their smartphone as an tool and ready to sacrifice a bit of social conformity(which can be a privilege at current times). There are more extreme alternatives like Linux phones which I hope becomes less extreme in years to come.

jsnell 5y ago

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27924207 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27924207

dang 2y ago
Comments moved thither. Thanks!

LucidLynx 5y ago

How funny it is to remove this app because it "loads executable" as they released Swift Playground years ago... Plus the new feature of creating and packaging your iOS / iPadOS app + uploading it, directly on the iPad. Apple seems to contradict its own rules since a few years now.

codetrotter 5y ago
There's no contradiction here. The App Store rules apply to everyone else wanting to publish something on the App Store. Obviously Apple has its own internal rules for what their own software can do.
- gsich 5y ago
  Some are more equal than others.
- LucidLynx 5y ago
  Swift Playground is listed in the App Store... So no, Apple apps listed in the App Store must follow their rules. I checked quickly in the guide and no mention of "Me, Apple, can do whatever I want in my store."
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Here is an exercise, when a police patrol car gets parked in 2nd lane, and the officier happens to buying some stuff on a nearby shop, go there and tell them nicely that 2nd lane parking is against the traffic laws and they should fine themselves. Broken analogy? Apple is the police of Apple store.
    - LucidLynx 5y ago
      Broken (and terrible) analogy as police does not have the right to do that... I don't know what you wanted to demonstrate but, sorry, you failed :/

user3939382 5y ago

I guess we need a congressional bill that lets people sideload apps on their phone. It seems ridiculous to have to get to that level but apparently that’s the only way. We have some progress now on right to repair. Next up, right to use.

ericmay 5y ago
If you want to do whatever to your phone there are already lots of options. I’m not sure what a law is going to do here that you can’t already do today.
- Renaud 5y ago
  People are stuck in their ecosystem. The monetary coat of changing platform is quite high if you’re already invested in that ecosystem. Everyone is paying a lot of money for a system they basically own nothing about. You keep paying, for apps, for hardware, that’s forever tied up to the whims of that platform’s owner (not you). Not in favour of more laws, but forcing the hands of these platforms so they provide more control to their customers is not a bad thing. At the moment none of them have any incentive to do it.
  - ericmay 5y ago
    > People are stuck in their ecosystem. The monetary coat of changing platform is quite high if you’re already invested in that ecosystem. What are the costs? I can buy an iPhone or an Android phone and switch pretty easily can’t I? > Not in favour of more laws, but forcing the hands of these platforms so they provide more control to their customers is not a bad thing. Maybe more control isn’t a good thing? But even so aren’t there phones in the market they cater to those who want more control.
    - pschastain 5y ago
      > What are the costs? I can buy an iPhone or an Android phone and switch pretty easily can’t I? Software would need to be repurchased if it's even available on the other platform. Maybe you could but I know I couldn't easily or cheaply switch.

freakynit 5y ago

That's fcking my mobile. I paid for it. I own it. If I want to install something on my owned device, who the f is Apple to stop it? Think about it this way: A chair supplier telling Apple to only allow it's employees to sit a certain way. Or architects telling it to only build their HQ's a certain way. Not as an advice, but, enforced. How ridiculous is that!

pibechorro 5y ago
Apple has always been like this. Better hope they dont decide to throttle down your current hardware when they release a thinner one next year and deem yours obsolete.
- thebruce87m 5y ago
  They have no history of throttling phone hardware to drive sales of new devices. What makes you think they would start doing it now?
- flohofwoe 5y ago
  This only started with the iPhone. Apple has been around much longer and was a regular computer company before which treated their users like adults.
  - whywhywhywhy 5y ago
    Imagine for a moment you're an Apple exec who gets to see real usage numbers and revenue numbers per platform and is on board with the current company belief system. You see MacOS devices completely dwarfed in both users and profit per user by iOS devices. As that executive, who keep in mind probably doesn't share your opinions on open technology or they would never have got into that position. What decisions would you be making on the direction of their platforms. I can't help but think we're only going one way and it's not towards something more open.
    - orangecat 5y ago

roody15 5y ago

Sad… I played Kings Quest VI on an ipad with this emulator and it workers great. Why does Apple even care if a few people play some old abandonware on an ipad?

Synaesthesia 5y ago
Well ... Exactly! I don't understand the rules or ehy it had to be removed. What about Pythonista and apps that let me code on my iPad? Don't they also "execute code"?
- steveonbass 5y ago
  Please don't summon the dragon by uttering the name of the "P" app. I dread the day the Cupertino gang recognizes what can be done with it and makes it go away.
flohofwoe 5y ago
Because it's "against the rules" :/
kwdc 5y ago
No ability to get a cut of those gaming dollars. Games were specifically listed in the app review email from Apple. A side aspect is running afoul of copyright and that is likely the other significant money spinner / target.
- roody15 5y ago
  I own Kings Quest VI
  - arvinsim 5y ago
    Doesn't matter. They don't get a cut.
  - TchoBeer 5y ago
    Owning a game doesn't make it legal to pirate it

ThePhysicist 5y ago

It's quite bizarre that Apple just released an iPad Pro with a CPU that is more powerful than the desktop CPU in my workstation, but then cripples the device by severely restricting what kind of software you can run on it. I mainly use Linux but was looking for a secondary laptop/tablet hybrid for my office needs. I considered getting an iPad but ultimately went for a Surface Pro, which was the right choice I think. The device and UI (just Windows 10) is not nearly as polished as iPadOS, but at least I can just install normal FOSS software like KeepassXC instead of downloading some proprietary app from the store, hoping it won't exfiltrate my data. I can even play the occasional round of SimCity 2000 in DOSBox. iOS & iPadOS devices are great for media consumption, but I would never consider them for any type of "serious" office work.

bluedino 5y ago
I can't run whatever I want on a Tesla's FSD unit.
- ThePhysicist 5y ago
  Yeah but a Tesla isn't marketed as a computing device for "pros", while an iPad arguably is.
  - wil421 5y ago
    Pro hasn’t meant Pro for like 10 years. Not sure it ever meant what HN considers a Pro, meaning a development machine. Pro also meant Professional as in Artists, Photographers, Musicians, and content creators. They have sweet hardware so us developers always wanted then. We always were the last use case; everyone machines, content creators, and then developers.
  - Spivak 5y ago
    I feel like our definition of "pro" is different from Apple's. Apple has always marketed to professional creatives who need specialized software for content production. Developers are a completely different user-story. The ideal machine for a programer looks absolutely nothing like the ideal machine for a digital artist.

fab1an 5y ago

I feel that Apple solve the problem of freedom vs security quite well on Mac: you can download and run whatever software you want, but there's a sort of "Captcha" involved (where you need to right-click + open to run software from non-registered devs). This prevents mom and dad from installing a bunch of Spyware, but let's me run obscure and cool apps by indie developers as I please.

smoldesu 5y ago
It's a step in the right direction, but I found it pretty frustrating in comparison to the way Linux/Windows handle things. It's not as draconian as iOS, but I probably spent 50-60% of my setup time trying to get Gatekeeper to treat me like the administrator of my own computer.
rchaud 5y ago
They wouldn't ever do that on iOS because it would 'add friction'. Apple makes money off the App Store. They want users to head to the App Store for everything. Developers also want you using their apps, because they can track you better than they could on a website with content and tracking blockers. It's not the same on MacOS because users aren't going around looking for new apps to install. People install their core programs (e.g. Office, maybe some games), and they get everything else on the web.
- judge2020 5y ago
  > Apple makes money off the App Store. Yes. That's part of their profit margin. Just as how the PS5 literally sells for less than it costs to make the console[0], Apple doesn't realize all of their profits from iPhone sales until after purchase where they expect a certain dollar figure from their customers to be spend on either their subscription services or via the 30% app store cut. This is also happening in VR, by the way - the Valve Index is still the top but the Oculus Quest 2 is insanely close to matching the Index in experience, and that's all thanks to how Facebook literally sells that at a loss of $400, since they want $800 for a version without (1) Ads and (2) their cut from Oculus store sales[1]. > It's not the same on MacOS Exactly, and I think the pricing difference of these devices reflects that (despite the main cost centers, being manufacturing tooling and labor, having largely similar costs for both). If the iOS landscape turned into the MacOS landscape overnight, we'd see a similar jump in cost for the phone thanks to the lost post-sale revenue. 0: 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... 1: https://i.judge.sh/imperturbable/Mint/TuPfZ65njJ.png https://i.judge.sh/imperturbable/Mint/TuPfZ65njJ.png ( https://business.oculus.com/products/#:~:text=Oculus%20for%20Business%20SKU https://business.oculus.com/products/#:~:text=Oculus%20for%2... )

qalmakka 5y ago

I hope Apple will be punished for their behaviour. I could ideally understand them reserving the power to decide what gets uploaded and what doesn't on their stores, but then they must allow sideloading. People paid good money for their phones, and so they must be free to use them as they see fit. To me this sounds like buying a car that's restricted from entering Germany or buying a fruit processor that forbids you to blend fruit, which would universally be considered as an abuse of power from the manufacturer. Apple can't just impose to user what basically boils down to a fee to use your own hardware as you want, while at the same time preventing their competitors from competing at par with their services. Their draconian policies have been getting harsher and more drastic over time, it almost feels like they are really trying to get the EU Commission to punish them somehow.

ubermonkey 5y ago
I very much hope not. If you don't like the way Apple does business, feel free to buy from someone else. They are a minority player in the marketplace by a significant margin; getting all upset about how they manage their platform is a weird, weird look.
- qalmakka 5y ago
  That's the very reason I've been buying from "someone else" for almost a decade. Still, in certain markets they are not a "minor" player, and even then that still doesn't give them an excuse to abuse the position. Yes, they are a minor player compared to the WHOLE market, but if you compare only the segments they actually put the effor to compete in, they have quite a large slice and they rake in more profit than anyone else from it. You can't reasonably use under-$200 phones to justify the fact Apple doesn't have a monopoly when they refuse to enter that segment. You may even argue that if that's a valid argument they would never want to sell cheap phones in the first place, and that market share isn't a good metric for anything. I don't see why the option to sideload stuff onto the iPhone you've bought would make the platform less secure, especially if it is disabled by default and requires explicit user consent to be turned on. Also, their focus on "security" has always felt very phony to me, as much as their focus on "standards" always basically meant they only evangelized for interoperability when it suited their interests. What they have been doing with iMessage in the USA is the epitome of abusing your market position, but I guess the FTC doesn't really care about that.

newscracker 5y ago

I’m hoping and waiting for some kind of side loading, which isn’t very easy to do, to be forced on iOS through regulation. It could open the platform up for a lot more possibilities and also keep Apple on its toes in building more useful features into iOS (like what jailbreaking and Cydia did for a long time).

wayneftw 5y ago

Microsoft in the late 90s/2000s: Tells OEMs that they can't sell their own PCs with alternative operating systems. Gets forced by the government to stop. Hackers everywhere cheer. Apple since 2008: Tells people that they can't install programs on their own devices. Any mention of asking the government to force them to stop this is met by Hacker News users vehemently defending their right to let Apple (and only Apple, at all times, with no off switch) decide everything. I don't buy it. Something stinks here. This is nothing short of a digital new world order and obviously the current status quo is very, very valuable to the companies who run these platforms but I believe it's also very valuable to the entire power matrix that holds us all in check.

varispeed 5y ago
Many of Hacker News users are young and they believe that one day they'll run a company like Apple and they wouldn't like regulation to dictate how they can make their profits (which then quickly get disguised to avoid taxes). Some also think that such regulation will hit their future small business - which is like being scared of going out because a bus may hit you.

yupyup54133 5y ago

Obligatory "there is always https://altstore.io/ https://altstore.io/" comment.

endisneigh 5y ago

Build web apps and free yourself from the tyranny of closed ecosystems. It's Closed vs. Open. Only the web is open. 99% of apps on both the Play Store and App Store could be implemented as web apps with no loss in functionality - in fact a very large chunk of them are web apps, simply wrapped in a web view.

selfhoster11 5y ago
The web is a thin client, to an approximation. How does this solve the problem of letting customers run a fat app without forking over for the corresponding server horsepower to run it? I know that JS is high performance when written well, but it takes time and money to do it right.
loloquwowndueo 5y ago
Users want a local app for no real reason, as evidenced by the thousands of apps that are nothing but a wrapper around a web application.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  At minimum, it provides a convenient bookmark on the home screen.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  If the users want native notifications, which most do, then developers have no choice but to release a native app because Apple purposely doesn't implement web standards on iOS that make web apps and PWAs usable.
smolyeet 5y ago
Or just switch to a platform that allows third party apps
smoldesu 5y ago
If the platforms are equivalent in functionality, then why can't Apple let people freely sideload native apps?

temac 5y ago

Part of the rationale of Apple for disallowing emulators is really concerning: > allows for downloading of content without licensing.

makecheck 5y ago

If they put half as much effort into eliminating real scams as they do in eliminating proven useful software, what a different platform it would be.

munificent 5y ago
There is a sort of numeric tragedy of perception that happens with app stores and other environments where a curator is filtering fraud but also sometimes nuking some good apps in the process. As users, we only have any visibility into three numbers: A. The number of good apps that make it through the filter. (True positives.) B. The number of good apps that are caught by it. (False positives.) C. The number of fraudulent apps that make it through the filter. (False negatives.) B may be larger than C, leading to the perception that the filter does more harm than ngood. But we are getting caught in a base rate fallacy. To really understand the filter, we need one more number: D. The number of fraudulent apps caught by the filter. (True negatives.) My impression is that average people have no idea what a huge sea of garbage, fraud, and bad actors is swirling out there on the Internet. The number of bad people is relatively small, but the volume of malicious hot garbage they are able to spew out is incredibly large. I wouldn't be surprised if every false positive (a good app like the one here getting caught) was balanced by a thousand true negatives (bad apps being filtered out). With rates like that, the filter is clearly vital. But we don't see the full picture, so we never really know. One piece of anecdata we do have is what unfiltered ecosystems look like. And they seem to universally descend into roiling cesspits of porn, hate speech, warez, etc. So while it's very important to continue being critical of gatekeepers because they wield disproportionate social power, it's also good to be mindful that they aren't all bad. Notice how these days hacking always seems to be about phishing or email attachments? Everyone seems to have forgotten the days when worms in executables downloaded from the web were a major attack vector. That dwindled because the major OSes put these filters in place. As usual, when something is working like it's supposed to, people incorrectly think it's doing nothing at all.
- makecheck 5y ago
  This isn’t really a filtering issue though; this decision was arbitrary. It is an App Store New Rule of the Week issue. Stores and platforms can and should keep all their sophisticated fraud-detection tools, hardened runtime environment, etc. and continue to guard against untold numbers of awful apps. The human review is supposed to take over where the mechanics fail. Yet we know (from Epic trial, etc.) that Apple has a comically small number of people assigned to this, relative to the millions of apps in existence. We can extrapolate how little time must be spent on each human review. We also know that people outside of Apple were able to dig up scams pretty easily, without even having access to all the tools/data that Apple must have. Apple clearly could have invested more in this, and did not. So we know (1) the Apple review team is limited, (2) serious problems can still be found with relatively little effort, and (3) they nonetheless choose to spend their limited resources chasing minor violations of App Store Rule of the Week. We also know from the Epic trial that, despite what they say, Apple certainly will give some developers special treatment. This means leniency or rule-bending was an option for them here, and who better to work with than a developer like this, who has spent years writing software for Apple platforms, clearly increasing the value of Apple devices in the process? Apple looked at that years-long relationship and said: “get out of our store”.

tlogan 5y ago

It is ok that phones and tablets are “consume-only” devices. Like for games, watch video, etc. This just opens opportunity for “makers” devices (you can do something uniq) and companies. Ie some cheap phones with OS targeting market in Africa. This also means a new type of VCs / ycombinators.

bori5 5y ago

This sucks. I have an old program called Jazz Guitarist I bought from PG Music, the makers of BIAB back in the 90’s, and its a treat to see it run on my iPad/iPhone. Even the QBASIC example programs for different sort algorithms is so cool.

threesmegiste 5y ago

Microsoft someone calling you