10 ms·

It's the same model that has been the mainstream for games consoles and mobile games platforms for decades. iOS devices are pretty well locked down pro/consumer

by simonh 5y ago

It's the same model that has been the mainstream for games consoles and mobile games platforms for decades. iOS devices are pretty well locked down pro/consumer products that come with a managed application distribution system. If that's not what you want, there are other options. It seems to me that if Apple had no more than 10% of the mobile market anywhere this just wouldn't be an issue. If that's what some people wanted, fine, they could get it. The reason it's a problem is, as it turns out, this model works really well for a lot of people and is fantastically popular.

praptak 5y ago
The problem is the false marketing around this.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
There are no options - there are no longer any mobile devices you actually own and control. The right to private property has been cancelled by, ironically, free market extremists.
- noduerme 5y ago
  That's a rather extremist viewpoint but it does have a nice rhyme to it.
- teekert 5y ago
  PinePhone?
- yholio 5y ago
  At least with Android, you have the option to install external APKs, as cumbersome as that is.
  - vbezhenar 5y ago
    Also you can install AOSP which is open source android operating system on some devices. And some other open source Android flavours. Yes, may be with few driver blobs, but that's not a restriction, you still can do anything with your device on every level.
  - contravariant 5y ago
    Well and at least some suppliers offer you the option to install your own OS on it. At which point any restrictions the phone has are at least technically self-imposed.
  - techrat 5y ago
    7 steps isn't cumbersome. -- 1) Open Chrome. -- 2) Find and Download APK. https://i.imgur.com/ZFZb1uE.png https://i.imgur.com/ZFZb1uE.png -- 3) Accept warning and Open APK. -- 4) Go to settings. (This only has to be done once) https://i.imgur.com/R8FzTzP.png https://i.imgur.com/R8FzTzP.png -- 5) Toggle Install Unknown Apps for Chrome. (This only has to be done once) https://i.imgur.com/K0ADO2q.png https://i.imgur.com/K0ADO2q.png -- 6) Click back (This only has to be done once) -- 7) Click install. https://i.imgur.com/xVSndex.png https://i.imgur.com/xVSndex.png -- Done. https://i.imgur.com/fyasTK9.png https://i.imgur.com/fyasTK9.png Once you do this for the first time, the process reduces down to 4 steps each time after: Open Chrome, Download APK, Open APK, Click Install. Done.
    - throw0101a 5y ago
      -- 8) Wait for a call from Aunt Susan after she installs some malware that told her it would boost her cell signal. :) * https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/infected-apkpure/39273/ https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/infected-apkpure/39273/
      - simion314 5y ago
        Is not like the Google and Apple stored are not filled with garbage, it was recently revealed that Apple refused to notify the users that got infected from their "safe" store. About Aunt Susan , you could have the device locked by default and have a more complex process to root the device, like some code/password that is in the box of the device, in that envelope Apple PR team could inform Aunt Susan that she should not do this unless she is tech competent or a communist.
      - 10000truths 5y ago
        God forbid we hold users responsible for exercising due diligence. No, we must assume everyone is too incompetent to distinguish between shady and legit software.
        throw0101a 5y ago
        > No, we must assume everyone is too incompetent to distinguish between shady and legit software. As someone who has worked retail in the past, and who currently works in IT: starting with this assumption generally minimizes headaches down the road. There are only so many hours in the day: people learn what they need to get their job done, and tend to move on. Some people are quite dim, but others don't have the time/energy/motivation/need to learn the details.
- simonh 5y ago
  I really don't consider myself a free market extremist. I fully support regulation for health and safety reasons, mandatory accurate and informative product descriptions, minimum quality requirements in many areas, consumer protection laws such as minimum warranty periods. There are many areas where it makes sense for us collectively, through our governments, to make sure we as consumers are not getting ripped off and get a fair deal. It's just balancing out the power disparity between vendors and individual customers. So I am open to arguments for regulating mobile phone platforms, if that proves to be necessary. I just don't think it is, none of the arguments Ive seen so far are compelling. They mostly seem to be sour grapes. "I want to buy X product with P, Q, R features and nobody is making one, we should force them to by law". No, that's not how that works.
  - beckman466 5y ago
    > They mostly seem to be sour grapes. "I want to buy X product with P, Q, R features and nobody is making one, we should force them to by law". No, that's not how that works. I think it’s closer to: I bought a 10% black box (90% open) widget in the 1990s, and now in 2020 that same widget (with a few more functions) is 80% closed. And: why can I no longer use a generic computer for what I want to use it for? We’ve forgotten that an open distributed learning web is possible, and how instead computer literacy (programming) is very low because most of us can no longer follow our curiosity and look inside technological systems; only ‘experts' are allowed to do that (someone wrote about that recently, that whenever he talked to older/earlier computer hobbyists, how most of them mention that they are pretty disappointed by today‘s black box world/web). And no they’re not ‘sour grapes‘, they’re just sensing the painful ways in which the commons has been plundered, and feeling frustrated by the way people such as yourself pretend that there are still many benefits to be found in locked down/black box platforms and devices, which there aren't. The completely ludicrous part is how normalized all this is today. How much our tools are now over-engineered, non-modular and non-repairable; how much black box shit we produce. Literal shit. Single use shit. Biological systems have no waste, yet our current production systems produce the most toxic, anti-life sludge the world has seen (see Baotou -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_UdqZdFr-w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_UdqZdFr-w). Today we produce coffee machines that have iPads sitting in a dock with virtual buttons to choose options. An iPad. What the fuck. What is that? Infinitely less complex technology was used to send people to the moon. What a complete and total waste of valuable resources and laborers' time! I'm talking about how we could have so many more open standards and decide to produce only high quality stuff. But no, our culture teaches us to discredit those who came before and to commoditize tiny incremental updates, slapping our own names on them (‘branding’) to please our neglected and alienated souls. I’m so tired of this false story of the need for competition. Humans are copying machine. It’s ok to copy! It’s how we learn and grow. Anyways, to get closer to a 'universal basic inheritance' - a commons that respects actual scarcity, and thus also the abundance of digital resources (scientific knowledge and technological blueprints), we need a new system for accounting. I believe http://valueflo.ws http://valueflo.ws can offer us a very possible way forward https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vymAHXGSM14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vymAHXGSM14: they are radically distributed supply chain systems using the Resource-Event-Agent ontology, built on fully distributed tech, e.g. holochain and activitypub. To see an exciting future that has been buried yet not forgotten (it's a new Cybersyn documentary): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJLA2_Ho7X0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJLA2_Ho7X0
- sbuttgereit 5y ago
  > The right to private property has been cancelled by, ironically, free market extremists. This line of argument is frankly incoherent. That many, not all, available mobile devices remain firmly under the control of their makers after purchase is not because some free marketeer (or cabal thereof) foisted these devices onto unwilling recipients. This situation came about because the majority of mobile device users saw the deal on offer and decided they were better off taking it that walking. The real source of the status quo is the average consumer... no matter their ideology. That buyers weigh promises of "Just Works", the status of owning the cool new device that's in fashion, and some guardian supposedly lurking in the background keeping them safe over your own (seemingly apparent) priorities is a matter of each individual choice. Private property rights haven't been cancelled at all or by anyone. There simply aren't enough people interested in owning devices that they fully control. Insofar as there are few alternatives to the status quo... blame the privacy activists and those clamoring for "full control" for not better convincing the masses that what they're giving up for iOS & Android is more than they're getting by buying these devices. As a free market extremist myself, I guarantee you: if people stop buying these devices because the deal is perceived as bad the situation will change. Finally, if I try to infer what you might be for (rather than what you're against), which I do because it's the only reason to call out "free market extremists", is that you want a small group of "our betters" to decide what exactly a mobile device should be, over and above all those that find the current deal sufficiently satisfactory. You would have your priorities made the only choice over the interests of the majority of consumers. Ironically, perhaps, you'd eliminate the broader spectrum of choices by forcing what choices were allowed... wanted and valued or not. Naturally, I'm reading a lot into your short comment... but what solution do you really see that isn't a free market extremist position that doesn't come close to what I think you're saying?
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    Its so ironic to see 'freedom people' defend a system that would make Stalin green with envy. "saw the deal on offer and decided they were better off taking it that walking" The same reasoning applies to loan sharks, drug dealers and mafia. 'Unlimited' free market always degrades into oligopoly or Mafia rule. "you want a small group of "our betters" to decide what exactly a mobile device should be" You want that, and you have that- a small group of powerfull men decide to do with your device. Tomorrow your device uodates and startps reporting you to police for speeding, and there is fuck all you can do. I am not asking for a communist mobile pgone comitee, I am asking for the word ownership to mean something. It's not a difficult concept.
spideymans 5y ago
This situation leaves me so conflicted on the whole antitrust, “just force iOS open” thing. On one hand, the locked down iOS clearly hurts a lot of businesses and broader market competition. On the other hand, Apple has been open and honest (and rather boastful) of the locked down nature of iOS since Day 1. Consumers have very clearly voted with their wallet time and time again that this system (and it’s tradeoffs) is the one they prefer. To force iOS open is to undo the choices that consumers have made. But to leave iOS restricted is to harm broader business competitiveness. You’re right that if Apple had marginal market share, this behaviour would not be problematic. Broadly speaking, I’m not all that sympathetic to the plight of the big-name developers like Facebook and Match Group. They’ve collectively made users so cynical about privacy, security and the general trustworthiness of software that it’s prompted users to take refuge behind these hardened walled gardens. I just hate to see good independent developers have to be harmed as a consequence of that as well.
- spyder 5y ago
  Just because you buy something for some of the features, it doesn't mean you want all the features it has.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- Joeri 5y ago
  Isn’t it rather reductionist to say that the closed nature of iOS is why people buy it? I chose iphone because a string of bugs left a sour taste in my mouth with android, and inertia locked me in. I definitely don’t want this level of locking it down, and I doubt a majority of iphone buyers want this.
  - spideymans 5y ago
    Security, privacy, reliability and “it just works” was always a major selling point of the iPhone. The various software restrictions were a major part of delivering that assurance that some third party software wouldn’t mess with your device. It might not have been a motivating factor for you, but it certainly was for a lot of consumers. And regardless, Apple has never hidden the nature of iOS. These consumers have clearly decided that the tradeoffs of the walled garden were acceptable, despite there being plenty of more open alternatives on the market in the early days of the iPhone.
throw0101a 5y ago
> The reason it's a problem is, as it turns out, this model works really well for a lot of people and is fantastically popular. Turns out a lot of people don't want to deal with the responsibilities of completely owning a device (updates, anti-malware, app origin), and are willing to give up some control/ownership in exchange for convenience and being able to get on with life. (Certainly not everyone of course.) Whether this view of convenience is short-sighted and will be regretted long-term remains to be seen.
- nixpulvis 5y ago
  There is absolutely no reason we can't have our cake and eat it too.
  - api 5y ago
    That would require solving hard security problems instead of punting on them by whitelisting. Apple’s policies are guided in part by profit motive but also by security nihilism.
    - skohan 5y ago
      There’s no reason these security measures couldn’t be opt-out
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- simonh 5y ago
  If we regret it long term, people will start buying different products with the features they want.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    They won't, if those products aren't available on the market. Which they won't be, because currently the "managed" approach yields more revenue. "Voting with your wallet" doesn't work on most technology markets, where products and services are not commodities, and where the barriers to entry are insanely high. Yes - insanely high. Sure, you can get a $100 computer and a $10/month Internet connection and start writing software for millions, except it won't do you much good - software is the easy part. To compete with Facebook, you need to bootstrap a whole social network. To compete with Apple and Google on the phone market, you'll need to bootstrap your own hardware manufacturing, because all the smartphone vendors are into the same user-hostile crap these days. Projects like PinePhone are probably as far as you can reasonably get on the "smartphone, except not user hostile" front. It's worth looking into why they don't succeed. It's not as simple as "people must not truly want it because they aren't paying the premium to get it".

by simonh 5y ago

praptak 5y ago

The problem is the false marketing around this.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

There are no options - there are no longer any mobile devices you actually own and control. The right to private property has been cancelled by, ironically, free market extremists.

noduerme 5y ago
That's a rather extremist viewpoint but it does have a nice rhyme to it.
teekert 5y ago
PinePhone?
yholio 5y ago
At least with Android, you have the option to install external APKs, as cumbersome as that is.
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  Also you can install AOSP which is open source android operating system on some devices. And some other open source Android flavours. Yes, may be with few driver blobs, but that's not a restriction, you still can do anything with your device on every level.
- contravariant 5y ago
  Well and at least some suppliers offer you the option to install your own OS on it. At which point any restrictions the phone has are at least technically self-imposed.
- techrat 5y ago
  7 steps isn't cumbersome. -- 1) Open Chrome. -- 2) Find and Download APK. https://i.imgur.com/ZFZb1uE.png https://i.imgur.com/ZFZb1uE.png -- 3) Accept warning and Open APK. -- 4) Go to settings. (This only has to be done once) https://i.imgur.com/R8FzTzP.png https://i.imgur.com/R8FzTzP.png -- 5) Toggle Install Unknown Apps for Chrome. (This only has to be done once) https://i.imgur.com/K0ADO2q.png https://i.imgur.com/K0ADO2q.png -- 6) Click back (This only has to be done once) -- 7) Click install. https://i.imgur.com/xVSndex.png https://i.imgur.com/xVSndex.png -- Done. https://i.imgur.com/fyasTK9.png https://i.imgur.com/fyasTK9.png Once you do this for the first time, the process reduces down to 4 steps each time after: Open Chrome, Download APK, Open APK, Click Install. Done.
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    -- 8) Wait for a call from Aunt Susan after she installs some malware that told her it would boost her cell signal. :) * https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/infected-apkpure/39273/ https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/infected-apkpure/39273/
    - simion314 5y ago
      Is not like the Google and Apple stored are not filled with garbage, it was recently revealed that Apple refused to notify the users that got infected from their "safe" store. About Aunt Susan , you could have the device locked by default and have a more complex process to root the device, like some code/password that is in the box of the device, in that envelope Apple PR team could inform Aunt Susan that she should not do this unless she is tech competent or a communist.
    - 10000truths 5y ago
      God forbid we hold users responsible for exercising due diligence. No, we must assume everyone is too incompetent to distinguish between shady and legit software.
      - throw0101a 5y ago
        > No, we must assume everyone is too incompetent to distinguish between shady and legit software. As someone who has worked retail in the past, and who currently works in IT: starting with this assumption generally minimizes headaches down the road. There are only so many hours in the day: people learn what they need to get their job done, and tend to move on. Some people are quite dim, but others don't have the time/energy/motivation/need to learn the details.
simonh 5y ago
I really don't consider myself a free market extremist. I fully support regulation for health and safety reasons, mandatory accurate and informative product descriptions, minimum quality requirements in many areas, consumer protection laws such as minimum warranty periods. There are many areas where it makes sense for us collectively, through our governments, to make sure we as consumers are not getting ripped off and get a fair deal. It's just balancing out the power disparity between vendors and individual customers. So I am open to arguments for regulating mobile phone platforms, if that proves to be necessary. I just don't think it is, none of the arguments Ive seen so far are compelling. They mostly seem to be sour grapes. "I want to buy X product with P, Q, R features and nobody is making one, we should force them to by law". No, that's not how that works.
- beckman466 5y ago
  > They mostly seem to be sour grapes. "I want to buy X product with P, Q, R features and nobody is making one, we should force them to by law". No, that's not how that works. I think it’s closer to: I bought a 10% black box (90% open) widget in the 1990s, and now in 2020 that same widget (with a few more functions) is 80% closed. And: why can I no longer use a generic computer for what I want to use it for? We’ve forgotten that an open distributed learning web is possible, and how instead computer literacy (programming) is very low because most of us can no longer follow our curiosity and look inside technological systems; only ‘experts' are allowed to do that (someone wrote about that recently, that whenever he talked to older/earlier computer hobbyists, how most of them mention that they are pretty disappointed by today‘s black box world/web). And no they’re not ‘sour grapes‘, they’re just sensing the painful ways in which the commons has been plundered, and feeling frustrated by the way people such as yourself pretend that there are still many benefits to be found in locked down/black box platforms and devices, which there aren't. The completely ludicrous part is how normalized all this is today. How much our tools are now over-engineered, non-modular and non-repairable; how much black box shit we produce. Literal shit. Single use shit. Biological systems have no waste, yet our current production systems produce the most toxic, anti-life sludge the world has seen (see Baotou -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_UdqZdFr-w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_UdqZdFr-w). Today we produce coffee machines that have iPads sitting in a dock with virtual buttons to choose options. An iPad. What the fuck. What is that? Infinitely less complex technology was used to send people to the moon. What a complete and total waste of valuable resources and laborers' time! I'm talking about how we could have so many more open standards and decide to produce only high quality stuff. But no, our culture teaches us to discredit those who came before and to commoditize tiny incremental updates, slapping our own names on them (‘branding’) to please our neglected and alienated souls. I’m so tired of this false story of the need for competition. Humans are copying machine. It’s ok to copy! It’s how we learn and grow. Anyways, to get closer to a 'universal basic inheritance' - a commons that respects actual scarcity, and thus also the abundance of digital resources (scientific knowledge and technological blueprints), we need a new system for accounting. I believe http://valueflo.ws http://valueflo.ws can offer us a very possible way forward https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vymAHXGSM14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vymAHXGSM14: they are radically distributed supply chain systems using the Resource-Event-Agent ontology, built on fully distributed tech, e.g. holochain and activitypub. To see an exciting future that has been buried yet not forgotten (it's a new Cybersyn documentary): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJLA2_Ho7X0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJLA2_Ho7X0
sbuttgereit 5y ago
> The right to private property has been cancelled by, ironically, free market extremists. This line of argument is frankly incoherent. That many, not all, available mobile devices remain firmly under the control of their makers after purchase is not because some free marketeer (or cabal thereof) foisted these devices onto unwilling recipients. This situation came about because the majority of mobile device users saw the deal on offer and decided they were better off taking it that walking. The real source of the status quo is the average consumer... no matter their ideology. That buyers weigh promises of "Just Works", the status of owning the cool new device that's in fashion, and some guardian supposedly lurking in the background keeping them safe over your own (seemingly apparent) priorities is a matter of each individual choice. Private property rights haven't been cancelled at all or by anyone. There simply aren't enough people interested in owning devices that they fully control. Insofar as there are few alternatives to the status quo... blame the privacy activists and those clamoring for "full control" for not better convincing the masses that what they're giving up for iOS & Android is more than they're getting by buying these devices. As a free market extremist myself, I guarantee you: if people stop buying these devices because the deal is perceived as bad the situation will change. Finally, if I try to infer what you might be for (rather than what you're against), which I do because it's the only reason to call out "free market extremists", is that you want a small group of "our betters" to decide what exactly a mobile device should be, over and above all those that find the current deal sufficiently satisfactory. You would have your priorities made the only choice over the interests of the majority of consumers. Ironically, perhaps, you'd eliminate the broader spectrum of choices by forcing what choices were allowed... wanted and valued or not. Naturally, I'm reading a lot into your short comment... but what solution do you really see that isn't a free market extremist position that doesn't come close to what I think you're saying?
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Its so ironic to see 'freedom people' defend a system that would make Stalin green with envy. "saw the deal on offer and decided they were better off taking it that walking" The same reasoning applies to loan sharks, drug dealers and mafia. 'Unlimited' free market always degrades into oligopoly or Mafia rule. "you want a small group of "our betters" to decide what exactly a mobile device should be" You want that, and you have that- a small group of powerfull men decide to do with your device. Tomorrow your device uodates and startps reporting you to police for speeding, and there is fuck all you can do. I am not asking for a communist mobile pgone comitee, I am asking for the word ownership to mean something. It's not a difficult concept.

spideymans 5y ago

This situation leaves me so conflicted on the whole antitrust, “just force iOS open” thing. On one hand, the locked down iOS clearly hurts a lot of businesses and broader market competition. On the other hand, Apple has been open and honest (and rather boastful) of the locked down nature of iOS since Day 1. Consumers have very clearly voted with their wallet time and time again that this system (and it’s tradeoffs) is the one they prefer. To force iOS open is to undo the choices that consumers have made. But to leave iOS restricted is to harm broader business competitiveness. You’re right that if Apple had marginal market share, this behaviour would not be problematic. Broadly speaking, I’m not all that sympathetic to the plight of the big-name developers like Facebook and Match Group. They’ve collectively made users so cynical about privacy, security and the general trustworthiness of software that it’s prompted users to take refuge behind these hardened walled gardens. I just hate to see good independent developers have to be harmed as a consequence of that as well.

spyder 5y ago
Just because you buy something for some of the features, it doesn't mean you want all the features it has.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Joeri 5y ago
Isn’t it rather reductionist to say that the closed nature of iOS is why people buy it? I chose iphone because a string of bugs left a sour taste in my mouth with android, and inertia locked me in. I definitely don’t want this level of locking it down, and I doubt a majority of iphone buyers want this.
- spideymans 5y ago
  Security, privacy, reliability and “it just works” was always a major selling point of the iPhone. The various software restrictions were a major part of delivering that assurance that some third party software wouldn’t mess with your device. It might not have been a motivating factor for you, but it certainly was for a lot of consumers. And regardless, Apple has never hidden the nature of iOS. These consumers have clearly decided that the tradeoffs of the walled garden were acceptable, despite there being plenty of more open alternatives on the market in the early days of the iPhone.

throw0101a 5y ago

> The reason it's a problem is, as it turns out, this model works really well for a lot of people and is fantastically popular. Turns out a lot of people don't want to deal with the responsibilities of completely owning a device (updates, anti-malware, app origin), and are willing to give up some control/ownership in exchange for convenience and being able to get on with life. (Certainly not everyone of course.) Whether this view of convenience is short-sighted and will be regretted long-term remains to be seen.

nixpulvis 5y ago
There is absolutely no reason we can't have our cake and eat it too.
- api 5y ago
  That would require solving hard security problems instead of punting on them by whitelisting. Apple’s policies are guided in part by profit motive but also by security nihilism.
  - skohan 5y ago
    There’s no reason these security measures couldn’t be opt-out
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
simonh 5y ago
If we regret it long term, people will start buying different products with the features they want.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  They won't, if those products aren't available on the market. Which they won't be, because currently the "managed" approach yields more revenue. "Voting with your wallet" doesn't work on most technology markets, where products and services are not commodities, and where the barriers to entry are insanely high. Yes - insanely high. Sure, you can get a $100 computer and a $10/month Internet connection and start writing software for millions, except it won't do you much good - software is the easy part. To compete with Facebook, you need to bootstrap a whole social network. To compete with Apple and Google on the phone market, you'll need to bootstrap your own hardware manufacturing, because all the smartphone vendors are into the same user-hostile crap these days. Projects like PinePhone are probably as far as you can reasonably get on the "smartphone, except not user hostile" front. It's worth looking into why they don't succeed. It's not as simple as "people must not truly want it because they aren't paying the premium to get it".