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There is an obvious trend on HN turning against Apple since the image hash stuff. Search 'Apple' in the last month and you'll see stories about Apple screwing o

by rjh29 5y ago

There is an obvious trend on HN turning against Apple since the image hash stuff. Search 'Apple' in the last month and you'll see stories about Apple screwing over blind people, copying other people's ideas, screwing over employees, removing apps from the app store, disabling FaceID if you try to change the screen etc. From my POV (a non-Apple user) they have not changed, they have always been pretty anti-consumer. But even I can see that most of these stories have a clear agenda and are exaggerated to capture the current anti-Apple outrage sentiment. That kind of discussion doesn't do anyone any favours.

MerelyMortal 5y ago
It's helping show people that "they have always been pretty anti-consumer".
- SilverRed 5y ago
  Almost all of the digs at Apple have been things that apply industry wide and it is an interesting observation. There was one recently worded something like "EU to require Apple to update phones for 7 years" but if you look at the actual proposal, it applies to all phone makers and Apple is the only one anywhere close to compliant to this proposal. Other scandals like Samsung disabling the cameras when unlocking the boot loader go practically unnoticed. Almost everything said about Apple is true and I don't dispute that, but people seem to believe that Apple is the only one using questionable labor, gluing in batteries, or applying software restrictions when it's basically industry standard right now.
  - kgarten 5y ago
    I don't know I feel Apple really got worse than the competition. It started with "You are holding it wrong.", horrible keyboards, "you need to use USB-C for everything, except our iphones come with lighting + old USB cables", to charge your mouse you need to plugin the cable on the bottom etc. That's kind of standard. Yet, the recent moves: Snitch Software that works against the user with a worldwide localization network + no care about security at all. I mean after Pegasus hit the news, Apple announced their picture scanning initiative. They didn't acknowledge or try to fix their horrible bounty program (compared to Microsoft and Google) and waited for a non-profit (awesome Citizen Lab) to find and fix their bug ... (a 0 click in iMessage) That's not industry standard for me.
    - SilverRed 5y ago
      This is sort of more of the same as what I was saying. Android phones have horrible hardware flaws and they don't gain much attention. At the same time as "You are holding it wrong" Nexus 5x phones where bricking due to bad NAND chips. Nexus 6P phones where crashing due to battery issues similar to the iphone but they did not throttle the phone and left it to crash. Samsung had phones that would explode in to fireballs. Samsung's flip phones crack at the fold and are extremely expensive to fix. Google Photos has been doing the exact same image scanning for the whole lifetime of the product and no one noticed or cared. All OEMs have had hardware issues or scandals but they are all quickly forgotten while any fault on an iPhone becomes memorialized forever. They were all real faults but they weren't ever any worse than the rest, only more news worthy. There are an endless
      - smoldesu 5y ago
        Apple should have fixed these things with their iron grip on their production line. They shouldn't have had malfunctioning GPUs or CPU's shorting because they're too close to the display's power line, and they certainly shouldn't have dragged out the USB-C transition on iPhone so long. But they have, and it's always the same bullshit excuses that nobody wants to hear from the most powerful company in the world. These devices start to lose their 'magic' once you understand how the sausage is made (and at what cost), so I think criticism of them is perfectly warranted. Imagine how silly you'd look 15 years ago if you tried arguing that Microsoft didn't have a browser monopoly, or even today if you tried defending Facebook for 'trying their hardest'. It's all lip-service when your company is thousands of people large.
      - kgarten 5y ago
        yes, aggree with you on the hardware. yet, what's new for me is the combination of not caring about security, scanning on your phone (not in the cloud) and implementing a world wide localization network. the road to hell is plastered with good intentions ...
        SilverRed 5y ago
        >scanning on your phone (not in the cloud) The scanning only touches photos which are stored on iCloud. Yes it does it on your phone but the reality is the same on iCloud or Google Photos. Both Apple and Google can push out changes live to every phone without warning, so what they may do in the future doesn't really matter. Only what they claim to be doing now. This is actually a more privacy friendly approach because it would be compatible with encrypted cloud storage.
  - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
    That’s because you pay more attention to news relating to Apple. As someone with little general interest in the smartphone market, the digs seem to be pretty widespread nowadays. Samsung did indeed take flack for disabling the camera. Complains about the Play Store and Google anticompetitive behaviors are common and Apple is often in the press due to their high profile legal battle with Epic.
hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
This. I could get infinity upvotes by constantly shitting on googles lack of support and ban bots. HN is starting to feel like an eco chaimber
- rtkaratekid 5y ago
  Starting? On certain topics it’s been an echo chamber for a while. I personally stick around because sometimes there are incredible comments and articles that I never would’ve found otherwise. But I’d say a lot of HN in the past few years especially have been echo chambers.
wutbrodo 5y ago
Agreed, I'm getting whiplash from how quickly I've found myself on the "actually this isn't that terrible" side of every Apple thread.
- darknavi 5y ago
  Apple is just the latest fun punching bag. Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, etc. People love to hop on the pitchfork bandwagon. Except* for Comcast. FUCK Comcast. * And also EA.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fastball 5y ago
Saying that the company with consumer products that consumers love is "anti-consumer" reduces the meaning of "anti" to be pretty much useless. They might be anti-you as a consumer, but I for one very much like this feature and feel that Apple was more transparent than they needed to be in this case, so they are certainly not anti-consumer to me (a consumer).
- rjh29 5y ago
  Sure, I'm talking about their practices of using proprietary cables and not allowing parts to be replaced, forcing all apps to use Safari, not allowing scripting in their apps, making in-app payments difficult etc. But I fully accept that for many consumers these things are non-issues. So 'anti-_me_ as a consumer' might be a better phrasing.
simion314 5y ago
There is a normal trend that Apple users want to deny reality and downvote or flag facts articles about zero days, or articles about bad developer relations or articles about bad relations with security researchers. Then you had Apple vs Epic that also released some dirt on Apple so is normal that the number of Articles on Apple is larger this year(I did not checked) and add on that the CSAM failed launch and I can see some Apple power users getting frustrated) We always have an article about Facebook and Google when something bad or interesting is happening and I thionk this article qualifies because from the comments it is clear that the majority of people if asked "if the iPhone is powerd off if it really off? " would have said Yes, because we are used to power off to mean off and sleep like state to be labeled different.

by rjh29 5y ago

MerelyMortal 5y ago

It's helping show people that "they have always been pretty anti-consumer".

SilverRed 5y ago
Almost all of the digs at Apple have been things that apply industry wide and it is an interesting observation. There was one recently worded something like "EU to require Apple to update phones for 7 years" but if you look at the actual proposal, it applies to all phone makers and Apple is the only one anywhere close to compliant to this proposal. Other scandals like Samsung disabling the cameras when unlocking the boot loader go practically unnoticed. Almost everything said about Apple is true and I don't dispute that, but people seem to believe that Apple is the only one using questionable labor, gluing in batteries, or applying software restrictions when it's basically industry standard right now.
- kgarten 5y ago
  I don't know I feel Apple really got worse than the competition. It started with "You are holding it wrong.", horrible keyboards, "you need to use USB-C for everything, except our iphones come with lighting + old USB cables", to charge your mouse you need to plugin the cable on the bottom etc. That's kind of standard. Yet, the recent moves: Snitch Software that works against the user with a worldwide localization network + no care about security at all. I mean after Pegasus hit the news, Apple announced their picture scanning initiative. They didn't acknowledge or try to fix their horrible bounty program (compared to Microsoft and Google) and waited for a non-profit (awesome Citizen Lab) to find and fix their bug ... (a 0 click in iMessage) That's not industry standard for me.
  - SilverRed 5y ago
    This is sort of more of the same as what I was saying. Android phones have horrible hardware flaws and they don't gain much attention. At the same time as "You are holding it wrong" Nexus 5x phones where bricking due to bad NAND chips. Nexus 6P phones where crashing due to battery issues similar to the iphone but they did not throttle the phone and left it to crash. Samsung had phones that would explode in to fireballs. Samsung's flip phones crack at the fold and are extremely expensive to fix. Google Photos has been doing the exact same image scanning for the whole lifetime of the product and no one noticed or cared. All OEMs have had hardware issues or scandals but they are all quickly forgotten while any fault on an iPhone becomes memorialized forever. They were all real faults but they weren't ever any worse than the rest, only more news worthy. There are an endless
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      Apple should have fixed these things with their iron grip on their production line. They shouldn't have had malfunctioning GPUs or CPU's shorting because they're too close to the display's power line, and they certainly shouldn't have dragged out the USB-C transition on iPhone so long. But they have, and it's always the same bullshit excuses that nobody wants to hear from the most powerful company in the world. These devices start to lose their 'magic' once you understand how the sausage is made (and at what cost), so I think criticism of them is perfectly warranted. Imagine how silly you'd look 15 years ago if you tried arguing that Microsoft didn't have a browser monopoly, or even today if you tried defending Facebook for 'trying their hardest'. It's all lip-service when your company is thousands of people large.
    - kgarten 5y ago
      yes, aggree with you on the hardware. yet, what's new for me is the combination of not caring about security, scanning on your phone (not in the cloud) and implementing a world wide localization network. the road to hell is plastered with good intentions ...
      - SilverRed 5y ago
        >scanning on your phone (not in the cloud) The scanning only touches photos which are stored on iCloud. Yes it does it on your phone but the reality is the same on iCloud or Google Photos. Both Apple and Google can push out changes live to every phone without warning, so what they may do in the future doesn't really matter. Only what they claim to be doing now. This is actually a more privacy friendly approach because it would be compatible with encrypted cloud storage.
- WastingMyTime89 5y ago
  That’s because you pay more attention to news relating to Apple. As someone with little general interest in the smartphone market, the digs seem to be pretty widespread nowadays. Samsung did indeed take flack for disabling the camera. Complains about the Play Store and Google anticompetitive behaviors are common and Apple is often in the press due to their high profile legal battle with Epic.

hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago

This. I could get infinity upvotes by constantly shitting on googles lack of support and ban bots. HN is starting to feel like an eco chaimber

rtkaratekid 5y ago
Starting? On certain topics it’s been an echo chamber for a while. I personally stick around because sometimes there are incredible comments and articles that I never would’ve found otherwise. But I’d say a lot of HN in the past few years especially have been echo chambers.

wutbrodo 5y ago

Agreed, I'm getting whiplash from how quickly I've found myself on the "actually this isn't that terrible" side of every Apple thread.

darknavi 5y ago
Apple is just the latest fun punching bag. Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, etc. People love to hop on the pitchfork bandwagon. Except* for Comcast. FUCK Comcast. * And also EA.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

fastball 5y ago

Saying that the company with consumer products that consumers love is "anti-consumer" reduces the meaning of "anti" to be pretty much useless. They might be anti-you as a consumer, but I for one very much like this feature and feel that Apple was more transparent than they needed to be in this case, so they are certainly not anti-consumer to me (a consumer).

rjh29 5y ago
Sure, I'm talking about their practices of using proprietary cables and not allowing parts to be replaced, forcing all apps to use Safari, not allowing scripting in their apps, making in-app payments difficult etc. But I fully accept that for many consumers these things are non-issues. So 'anti-_me_ as a consumer' might be a better phrasing.

simion314 5y ago

There is a normal trend that Apple users want to deny reality and downvote or flag facts articles about zero days, or articles about bad developer relations or articles about bad relations with security researchers. Then you had Apple vs Epic that also released some dirt on Apple so is normal that the number of Articles on Apple is larger this year(I did not checked) and add on that the CSAM failed launch and I can see some Apple power users getting frustrated) We always have an article about Facebook and Google when something bad or interesting is happening and I thionk this article qualifies because from the comments it is clear that the majority of people if asked "if the iPhone is powerd off if it really off? " would have said Yes, because we are used to power off to mean off and sleep like state to be labeled different.