11 ms·

Apple, its control over the iPhone, and the internet

94 points by allenleee 5y ago

tims33 5y ago
I love the App Store on the iPhone. I realize it comes with Apple's oversight and values, but I generally feel pretty safe with what I get there. I don't feel the same way about Google Play Store. Maybe my views are irrational, but my experience has been incredibly positive.
- rektide 5y ago
  you're allowed whatever your preference. but let's not pretending: you're expressing preference for a system which happens to not inconvenience you but which constraints many folks's choices & desires. i for one think there would be zero real tradeoff permitting others a little of their own preference too. the bigger view is that this is horrific. it's ghastly. it's a prison of thought/control imposed on most people.
  - tims33 5y ago
    Just join the Android ecosystem then. Everyone has a choice. There is nothing ghastly.
    - rektide 5y ago
      i don't see why we would be so eager or ok with excluding any Apple interested folk in having a platform that works for them. > Just join the Android ecosystem then just stop being intollerant to other options. Apple: stop putting your way of the high way as the only acceptable choice on Apple. this is a machiavellian demand, to constrain a general purpose computer's internet connectivity so.
      - tims33 5y ago
        Apple has already made it clear that there is only one user base they are interested in supporting. They've made a huge business out of supporting only the Apple way. It can certainly be frustrating in some cases, but that is the choice you make joining their ecosystem.
      - uncomputation 5y ago
        It’s a bit of a question what you mean then by “Apple interested folk.” By large, Apple customers value the company’s emphasis on privacy, data control, and quality control of their ecosystem. I suppose you might mean the physical quality of the hardware which is also quite nice, but I think to be an Apple “fan” means also being a fan of the software too. Not every last decision mind you, but the control of the App Store and the Apple platform is pretty central to the brand identity.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - babypuncher 5y ago
    I would have much stronger opinions about this if Android wasn't such a strong competitor. As it stands, it is very easy for people with those "choices and desires" to stick with Android and sideload to their heart's content. The bigger issue with Apple is their 30% cut on nearly all transactions that happen on apps acquired through the App Store.
    - egotripper 5y ago
      Is it really always 30%?
      - babypuncher 5y ago
        I said "nearly", because there are exceptions. I really don't think it's fair that Spotify or Disney+ has to sacrifice 30% of their subscription revenue coming from iOS users considering Apple shoulders almost none of the burdern of hosting that content. I think a fair compromise might be 30% on the first month of a new subscription, followed by 2.5% on subsequent months. That way Apple gets their initial cut for providing the ecosystem and app store exposure, followed by a very small cut on top of the usual payment processing fees.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - fumar 5y ago
    Won’t mention my employer but we track malicious activity across the app ecosystem. Android has a higher rate of fraud and malevolent actors - specific to ads and app inventory.
  - denkmoon 5y ago
    > it's a prison of thought/control imposed on most people Having just moved from android to iphone, what a load of horse shit. I willingly choose to be in Apple's ecosystem. That control is not imposed, it is given (and can be taken away at any moment by me simply turning off my iphone and not using it again). I have thoughts about the restricted nature of the hardware, but that's a different discussion to the openness of the software ecosystem.
    - rektide 5y ago
      > what a load of horse shit. no, this is horseshit. don't call me horseshit. > I willingly choose to be in Apple's ecosystem. apple is the only "general purpose computing" system on the planet that allows apps but only their approved apps, approve connectivity. this this is, as you say, a load of horse shit. i reassert: > it's a prison of thought/control imposed on most people as I said I think freedom costs nothing. what you say offers no counter, no reposte, no reply to this. you can defend the jailers but I'm not sure why you would? why benefit do you see in keeping such immense gates? why raise the drawbridge so high? why the desire to tell people to buzz off, get the frag out if they don't like it? i don't get any of this attitude, this corporate-punk anti-individual spirit. why must this be zero-sum, you and apple teaming up versus choice, freedom, & capability? you're not the only one- there's an active, hating, negative crowd, booing & downvoting capability & choice. in this one circumstance. it's a wild call, such a call to prevent. unfathomable to me. everything about this yearn to control & reduce & assert authority feels like manufacturing consent. for control. for fascism. it's hard to figure out what genuine earnest positive intent it could have.
- 015a 5y ago
  The strongest argument really isn't that the App Store isn't good for consumers. There are examples where it very clearly isn't (cloud game streaming is a great one), but by and large it is positive for consumers. The issue is for developers. The duopoly means developers who demand a first-class mobile presence are forced to abide by Apple's rules. Would Spotify exist today if Apple disallowed its presence in the App Store? That's 60%+ of US mobile subscribers only reachable via the "open web"; a poor experience for a mobile music player. Its likely they would not exist; but Apple Music would. This may sound like a theoretical argument; a problem that isn't a problem because obviously Apple allows Spotify. But consider cloud game streaming services; these compete directly with Apple's mobile gaming revenue. Apple won't allow them on the store. When you get right down to it, their only sin is that, unlike Netflix, Spotify, and Kindle; cloud game streaming apps do not pre-date the App Store. That's the only reason these other cloud media streaming apps are allowed; consumers adopted the iPhone with expectations concerning the nature of their existence. Apple got there first on gaming, then shut the door. Thus, the greatest sin of the iPhone is its behavior toward destroying true innovation. Not a slightly better note-taker or a prettier weather forecast; the App Store is great at distributing that. But, rather, applications Apple hasn't foreseen, now hampered by both the App Store's distribution rules, financial rules, and more fundamentally, the intentionally limited operating system. This is not a situation where these innovations can't exist on the iPhone, but will flourish elsewhere; Apple's stranglehold on the consumer US smartphone market, the primary means of computing for many, many people, means these innovations may never exist at all. Possibly because they can't find a market. Or, more disturbingly; because they would have been invented by our next generation's Steve Wozniak or John Carmack, but instead of growing up with a computing environment which (safely!) nurtures creation, they grew up with the iPhone. And maybe an iPad.
  - jonny_eh 5y ago
    Apple also doesn't allow competing browsers, at least none with their own renderer or JS engine. What innovations in that space are we missing out on?
    - barelysapient 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- radmuzom 5y ago
  No one cares about how you feel. I want to be able to have the freedom to install whatever I want on a device I have paid for. As this does not infringe on your freedom in any way, I expect my government to legislate on my behalf to force Apple to do what I want.
- friedman23 5y ago
  And you can continue using the app store if you like even if side loading is allowed?
- highwind 5y ago
  I once wanted to download a calculator app on an iPad. (After being dumbfounded that there wasn't one included.) But I couldn't find a single quality calculator app and got really frustrated. This was more than 4 years ago though.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
If iPhone adoption approaches 90% in the US it would be prudent to force Apple to allow other software to run on the device if the user so desires. Otherwise we have systemic risk associated with a digital monoculture. E.g. Imagine how fast a zero day zero click iOS worm could brick every device and cause a huge disruption to daily life.
- gruez 5y ago
  >it would be prudent to force Apple to allow other software to run on the device if the user so desires. >[...] >E.g. Imagine how fast a zero day zero click iOS worm could brick every device and cause a huge disruption to daily life. how would a 0click iOS worm be mitigated by allowing users to run whatever apps they want? You can run whatever apps on windows, but that didn't stop eternalblue from ravaging corporate networks. edit: it seems like I misinterpreted what "other software" meant. my reply to swiley takes this into account.
  - swiley 5y ago
    They wouldn't be, just like they aren't on Linux, Windows 7, and older OSX.
    - gruez 5y ago
      So not whatever apps you want, but rather whatever operating systems you want? That makes more sense, but I'm skeptical that'd materialize to everything. On android phones with unlocked bootloaders (ie. "allow other software to run on the device if the user so desires"), and the only "other software" that's available are... AOSP forks. There are forks with better mitigations (eg. grapheneos), but they're still by and large, android.
      - judge2020 5y ago
        This is mostly because making a different OS is insanely hard, at least if you want to support the many different pieces of hardware your OS might run on. Project Sandcastle is different and making progress[0], likely because Apple mobile hardware uses vastly similar components and suppliers. 0: https://projectsandcastle.org/status#:~:text=WHAT%E2%80%99S%20CURRENTLY%20SUPPORTED https://projectsandcastle.org/status#:~:text=WHAT%E2%80%99S%...
musicale 5y ago
TL;DR: We are very unhappy that Apple treats their handheld game system like a handheld game system. That being said, I could imagine Apple classifying apps into game and non-game apps. For game apps, they could have terms similar to the Nintendo eShop, and for non-game apps they could have terms similar to the Mac App store.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- rvz 5y ago
  > TL;DR: We are very unhappy that Apple treats their handheld game system like a handheld game system. Exactly and this post can be summed up as such. Developers chose the App Store to distribute their apps there. Don't like it? There is always PWAs and the user can pin their app on the screen and there you go. Job done.
  - aspenmayer 5y ago
    Mobile Safari doesn’t support Web Push notifications, which is a key stumbling block in the way of PWA usage and adoption on iOS.
  - kevingadd 5y ago
    "There is always PWAs" isn't an especially good answer when PWAs and webapps in general are aggressively hobbled in iOS Safari
  - makeitdouble 5y ago
    > Developers chose the App Store to distribute their apps there. Devs chose to address the iOS market. Every other choice from there is Apple's, and it's their way or the highway. No, PWAs don't work in most cases, as it doesn't benefit Apple as much.
- jiveturkey 5y ago
  which category do crypto apps fall under? <g>
sergiotapia 5y ago
I've spent a few hours today looking at ways to block ads on youtube. I'm sick of ads on my tv and my iphone. Found a few interesting apps but I have no chance of installing them on my iphone. Meanwhile in Android it seems I can install any .apk I wish by just downloading the .apk file. I'm selling my iphone and getting an android this black friday. What phone is the most "open" and functional?
- phillypham 5y ago
  Those few hours you spent are probably worth at least 2 years of YouTube Premium if you're a SWE. And you'd be supporting creators.
- musicale 5y ago
  Have you tried Brave?
- windowsrookie 5y ago
  You can subscribe to YouTube premium for $12/month and be ad free and still support the YouTubers you are watching.
  - userbinator 5y ago
    Hell no. They are effectively taking away our freedom to ignore and selling it back to us. Just donate to the creators directly.
    - babypuncher 5y ago
      Something has to pay for that insane amount of storage and bandwidth. I'm not sure where people get the idea that YouTube should be a charity. $12 just to remove ads is way too steep though. There are premium streaming services with big budget movies and TV shows that cost less than that.
      - jazzyjackson 5y ago
shmerl 5y ago
This should have been fixed with anti-trust laws, if they would have worked as intended. Apple shouldn't be allowed to use anti-competitive practices like not allowing other stores on their system, or stuff like banning competing browser engines and such. All this has a significant negative effect on progress and competition. Combined with their sick lock-in mentality especially, Apple's influence on the market and industry is very damaging. TL;DR: Apple should be blasted with competition laws to reduce the damage they are causing. So I hope all these anti-trust cases against them succeed.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  Why do we apply this to Apple if we allow even more restrictive game consoles to be sold?
  - shmerl 5y ago
    Console market is very anti-competitive, I agree. It's even worse than mobile. Competition law became toothless, that's why I suppose.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
I think termux is the most exciting "app" I have seen yet for a "smartphone". Is there anything similar for iPhone. I finally have a server with a monitor that fits in the palm of my hand running a C compiler. Enough storage space to store all the zone files for the entire www. This is more like the future I envisioned than what Apple has been working on. Note the word "like". The future I envision has palmtop servers with monitors that boot UNIX-like OS written by computer enthusiast volunteers, not staff at a trillion dollar advertising company. Virtual machines, subsystems, Cygwin/MSYS, or whatever, are no substitute for the real thing. We are getting there, slowly.
- koeng 5y ago
  iSH is great on the iphone. Full alpine linux virtualized with x86 (and still somehow fast). Highly recommend
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
    You just copy over x86 Linux programs and they run with no problems?
    - judge2020 5y ago
      It's emulated, not virtualized, so there might be situations where the programs you copy over encounter issues[0]. It's also focused on console applications, so no GUI app support anytime soon. 0: https://github.com/ish-app/ish/issues https://github.com/ish-app/ish/issues
- rusticpenn 5y ago
  That reminds me of my old Nokia N900.
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  Jailbreak and iOS becomes a fully featured pocket Unix system. https://getutm.app https://getutm.app. Android is already there. Very happy with it as a full Unix device, even have shell integration and have all the usual command line tools. https://chariz.com/get/newterm https://chariz.com/get/newterm here’s a repo of some of those tools https://www.ios-repo-updates.com/repository/procursus/ https://www.ios-repo-updates.com/repository/procursus/ it includes tmux.
diebeforei485 5y ago
In my opinion, the main issues are- (1) "Competing with the house" - Apple should remove all iAP requirements for apps it competes with. Spotify, Fastmail (because iCloud+ Mail supports custom domains), Kindle/Audible, etc. (2) Supra-competitive take rates - Google Play Store has moved to 15% across the board. Apple should do the same. (3) Unnecessary restrictions that are not related to device performance or user safety, and solely related to Apple's revenue streams -- for example, cloud gaming.
- grishka 5y ago
  The main issue is the lack of sideloading, and stemming from it is how Apple tries very hard to convince everyone that it owns all the relationships between app developers and their users. As macOS shows, when the use of the app store is optional, most developers would rather pretend it doesn't exist.
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    > Apple tries very hard to convince everyone that it owns all the relationships between app developers and their users That's the critical issue. Why should Apple be able to own users? It's such an offensive idea. If I buy an iPhone then I'm actually a product that gets sold to software developers. Imagine paying to be the product. At least other companies give out stuff for free when they do that.
    - grishka 5y ago
      Thing is, Apple would deserve at least some of that if people installed apps thanks to the app store influence alone. But that's not the case. Most developers do their own marketing, with Apple forcibly inserting itself in between. Many would distribute their apps from their own websites given the option. Apple and its infamous app review process is just an additional annoyance to deal with because that's your only way to get your app to your users.
    - mullingitover 5y ago
      As a buyer of software, it's not that Apple 'owns' the relationship, it's that Apple protects me from unscrupulous sellers. Take NYT subscriptions as an example: prior to the app store it was notoriously difficult to cancel. That's a common dark pattern that Apple wiped out, and as a user I appreciate some adult supervision over those types of practices. If developers don't like it they can make their sideloading Android app and see how that works out for them.
ksec 5y ago
The conversion often centres around money, but very little about power. And also quoting Steve from 2011. I mean iPhone was in an existential threat in 2011 and could repeat the same mistake with Mac in the 80/90s. I dont blame Steve for his ecosystem lock in thinking. But we are in 2021, the tides have turned. Google is no longer a threat. As a matter of fact there are no threat from market competitors. iPhone user are growing in every single operating countries. Mac has performance, quality and soon even BOM cost advantage. Arguably the same on Smartphone as well. Judging from the fanfare I wont be surprised if Mac user jump to 200M user within this decade. The only threat is regulatory and government. And it is kind of sad Apple is now in this place. But there are few signs Tim Cook's Apple is changing. At least Tim Cook's PR response is changing for whatever reason.

94 points by allenleee 5y ago

I love the App Store on the iPhone. I realize it comes with Apple's oversight and values, but I generally feel pretty safe with what I get there. I don't feel the same way about Google Play Store. Maybe my views are irrational, but my experience has been incredibly positive.

rektide 5y ago
you're allowed whatever your preference. but let's not pretending: you're expressing preference for a system which happens to not inconvenience you but which constraints many folks's choices & desires. i for one think there would be zero real tradeoff permitting others a little of their own preference too. the bigger view is that this is horrific. it's ghastly. it's a prison of thought/control imposed on most people.
- tims33 5y ago
  Just join the Android ecosystem then. Everyone has a choice. There is nothing ghastly.
  - rektide 5y ago
    i don't see why we would be so eager or ok with excluding any Apple interested folk in having a platform that works for them. > Just join the Android ecosystem then just stop being intollerant to other options. Apple: stop putting your way of the high way as the only acceptable choice on Apple. this is a machiavellian demand, to constrain a general purpose computer's internet connectivity so.
    - tims33 5y ago
      Apple has already made it clear that there is only one user base they are interested in supporting. They've made a huge business out of supporting only the Apple way. It can certainly be frustrating in some cases, but that is the choice you make joining their ecosystem.
    - uncomputation 5y ago
      It’s a bit of a question what you mean then by “Apple interested folk.” By large, Apple customers value the company’s emphasis on privacy, data control, and quality control of their ecosystem. I suppose you might mean the physical quality of the hardware which is also quite nice, but I think to be an Apple “fan” means also being a fan of the software too. Not every last decision mind you, but the control of the App Store and the Apple platform is pretty central to the brand identity.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- babypuncher 5y ago
  I would have much stronger opinions about this if Android wasn't such a strong competitor. As it stands, it is very easy for people with those "choices and desires" to stick with Android and sideload to their heart's content. The bigger issue with Apple is their 30% cut on nearly all transactions that happen on apps acquired through the App Store.
  - egotripper 5y ago
    Is it really always 30%?
    - babypuncher 5y ago
      I said "nearly", because there are exceptions. I really don't think it's fair that Spotify or Disney+ has to sacrifice 30% of their subscription revenue coming from iOS users considering Apple shoulders almost none of the burdern of hosting that content. I think a fair compromise might be 30% on the first month of a new subscription, followed by 2.5% on subsequent months. That way Apple gets their initial cut for providing the ecosystem and app store exposure, followed by a very small cut on top of the usual payment processing fees.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- fumar 5y ago
  Won’t mention my employer but we track malicious activity across the app ecosystem. Android has a higher rate of fraud and malevolent actors - specific to ads and app inventory.
- denkmoon 5y ago
  > it's a prison of thought/control imposed on most people Having just moved from android to iphone, what a load of horse shit. I willingly choose to be in Apple's ecosystem. That control is not imposed, it is given (and can be taken away at any moment by me simply turning off my iphone and not using it again). I have thoughts about the restricted nature of the hardware, but that's a different discussion to the openness of the software ecosystem.
  - rektide 5y ago
    > what a load of horse shit. no, this is horseshit. don't call me horseshit. > I willingly choose to be in Apple's ecosystem. apple is the only "general purpose computing" system on the planet that allows apps but only their approved apps, approve connectivity. this this is, as you say, a load of horse shit. i reassert: > it's a prison of thought/control imposed on most people as I said I think freedom costs nothing. what you say offers no counter, no reposte, no reply to this. you can defend the jailers but I'm not sure why you would? why benefit do you see in keeping such immense gates? why raise the drawbridge so high? why the desire to tell people to buzz off, get the frag out if they don't like it? i don't get any of this attitude, this corporate-punk anti-individual spirit. why must this be zero-sum, you and apple teaming up versus choice, freedom, & capability? you're not the only one- there's an active, hating, negative crowd, booing & downvoting capability & choice. in this one circumstance. it's a wild call, such a call to prevent. unfathomable to me. everything about this yearn to control & reduce & assert authority feels like manufacturing consent. for control. for fascism. it's hard to figure out what genuine earnest positive intent it could have.
015a 5y ago
The strongest argument really isn't that the App Store isn't good for consumers. There are examples where it very clearly isn't (cloud game streaming is a great one), but by and large it is positive for consumers. The issue is for developers. The duopoly means developers who demand a first-class mobile presence are forced to abide by Apple's rules. Would Spotify exist today if Apple disallowed its presence in the App Store? That's 60%+ of US mobile subscribers only reachable via the "open web"; a poor experience for a mobile music player. Its likely they would not exist; but Apple Music would. This may sound like a theoretical argument; a problem that isn't a problem because obviously Apple allows Spotify. But consider cloud game streaming services; these compete directly with Apple's mobile gaming revenue. Apple won't allow them on the store. When you get right down to it, their only sin is that, unlike Netflix, Spotify, and Kindle; cloud game streaming apps do not pre-date the App Store. That's the only reason these other cloud media streaming apps are allowed; consumers adopted the iPhone with expectations concerning the nature of their existence. Apple got there first on gaming, then shut the door. Thus, the greatest sin of the iPhone is its behavior toward destroying true innovation. Not a slightly better note-taker or a prettier weather forecast; the App Store is great at distributing that. But, rather, applications Apple hasn't foreseen, now hampered by both the App Store's distribution rules, financial rules, and more fundamentally, the intentionally limited operating system. This is not a situation where these innovations can't exist on the iPhone, but will flourish elsewhere; Apple's stranglehold on the consumer US smartphone market, the primary means of computing for many, many people, means these innovations may never exist at all. Possibly because they can't find a market. Or, more disturbingly; because they would have been invented by our next generation's Steve Wozniak or John Carmack, but instead of growing up with a computing environment which (safely!) nurtures creation, they grew up with the iPhone. And maybe an iPad.
- jonny_eh 5y ago
  Apple also doesn't allow competing browsers, at least none with their own renderer or JS engine. What innovations in that space are we missing out on?
  - barelysapient 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
radmuzom 5y ago
No one cares about how you feel. I want to be able to have the freedom to install whatever I want on a device I have paid for. As this does not infringe on your freedom in any way, I expect my government to legislate on my behalf to force Apple to do what I want.
friedman23 5y ago
And you can continue using the app store if you like even if side loading is allowed?
highwind 5y ago
I once wanted to download a calculator app on an iPad. (After being dumbfounded that there wasn't one included.) But I couldn't find a single quality calculator app and got really frustrated. This was more than 4 years ago though.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

If iPhone adoption approaches 90% in the US it would be prudent to force Apple to allow other software to run on the device if the user so desires. Otherwise we have systemic risk associated with a digital monoculture. E.g. Imagine how fast a zero day zero click iOS worm could brick every device and cause a huge disruption to daily life.

gruez 5y ago
>it would be prudent to force Apple to allow other software to run on the device if the user so desires. >[...] >E.g. Imagine how fast a zero day zero click iOS worm could brick every device and cause a huge disruption to daily life. how would a 0click iOS worm be mitigated by allowing users to run whatever apps they want? You can run whatever apps on windows, but that didn't stop eternalblue from ravaging corporate networks. edit: it seems like I misinterpreted what "other software" meant. my reply to swiley takes this into account.
- swiley 5y ago
  They wouldn't be, just like they aren't on Linux, Windows 7, and older OSX.
  - gruez 5y ago
    So not whatever apps you want, but rather whatever operating systems you want? That makes more sense, but I'm skeptical that'd materialize to everything. On android phones with unlocked bootloaders (ie. "allow other software to run on the device if the user so desires"), and the only "other software" that's available are... AOSP forks. There are forks with better mitigations (eg. grapheneos), but they're still by and large, android.
    - judge2020 5y ago
      This is mostly because making a different OS is insanely hard, at least if you want to support the many different pieces of hardware your OS might run on. Project Sandcastle is different and making progress[0], likely because Apple mobile hardware uses vastly similar components and suppliers. 0: https://projectsandcastle.org/status#:~:text=WHAT%E2%80%99S%20CURRENTLY%20SUPPORTED https://projectsandcastle.org/status#:~:text=WHAT%E2%80%99S%...

musicale 5y ago

TL;DR: We are very unhappy that Apple treats their handheld game system like a handheld game system. That being said, I could imagine Apple classifying apps into game and non-game apps. For game apps, they could have terms similar to the Nintendo eShop, and for non-game apps they could have terms similar to the Mac App store.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
rvz 5y ago
> TL;DR: We are very unhappy that Apple treats their handheld game system like a handheld game system. Exactly and this post can be summed up as such. Developers chose the App Store to distribute their apps there. Don't like it? There is always PWAs and the user can pin their app on the screen and there you go. Job done.
- aspenmayer 5y ago
  Mobile Safari doesn’t support Web Push notifications, which is a key stumbling block in the way of PWA usage and adoption on iOS.
- kevingadd 5y ago
  "There is always PWAs" isn't an especially good answer when PWAs and webapps in general are aggressively hobbled in iOS Safari
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  > Developers chose the App Store to distribute their apps there. Devs chose to address the iOS market. Every other choice from there is Apple's, and it's their way or the highway. No, PWAs don't work in most cases, as it doesn't benefit Apple as much.
jiveturkey 5y ago
which category do crypto apps fall under? <g>

sergiotapia 5y ago

I've spent a few hours today looking at ways to block ads on youtube. I'm sick of ads on my tv and my iphone. Found a few interesting apps but I have no chance of installing them on my iphone. Meanwhile in Android it seems I can install any .apk I wish by just downloading the .apk file. I'm selling my iphone and getting an android this black friday. What phone is the most "open" and functional?

phillypham 5y ago
Those few hours you spent are probably worth at least 2 years of YouTube Premium if you're a SWE. And you'd be supporting creators.
musicale 5y ago
Have you tried Brave?
windowsrookie 5y ago
You can subscribe to YouTube premium for $12/month and be ad free and still support the YouTubers you are watching.
- userbinator 5y ago
  Hell no. They are effectively taking away our freedom to ignore and selling it back to us. Just donate to the creators directly.
  - babypuncher 5y ago
    Something has to pay for that insane amount of storage and bandwidth. I'm not sure where people get the idea that YouTube should be a charity. $12 just to remove ads is way too steep though. There are premium streaming services with big budget movies and TV shows that cost less than that.
    - jazzyjackson 5y ago

shmerl 5y ago

This should have been fixed with anti-trust laws, if they would have worked as intended. Apple shouldn't be allowed to use anti-competitive practices like not allowing other stores on their system, or stuff like banning competing browser engines and such. All this has a significant negative effect on progress and competition. Combined with their sick lock-in mentality especially, Apple's influence on the market and industry is very damaging. TL;DR: Apple should be blasted with competition laws to reduce the damage they are causing. So I hope all these anti-trust cases against them succeed.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
GhettoComputers 5y ago
Why do we apply this to Apple if we allow even more restrictive game consoles to be sold?
- shmerl 5y ago
  Console market is very anti-competitive, I agree. It's even worse than mobile. Competition law became toothless, that's why I suppose.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

I think termux is the most exciting "app" I have seen yet for a "smartphone". Is there anything similar for iPhone. I finally have a server with a monitor that fits in the palm of my hand running a C compiler. Enough storage space to store all the zone files for the entire www. This is more like the future I envisioned than what Apple has been working on. Note the word "like". The future I envision has palmtop servers with monitors that boot UNIX-like OS written by computer enthusiast volunteers, not staff at a trillion dollar advertising company. Virtual machines, subsystems, Cygwin/MSYS, or whatever, are no substitute for the real thing. We are getting there, slowly.

koeng 5y ago
iSH is great on the iphone. Full alpine linux virtualized with x86 (and still somehow fast). Highly recommend
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  You just copy over x86 Linux programs and they run with no problems?
  - judge2020 5y ago
    It's emulated, not virtualized, so there might be situations where the programs you copy over encounter issues[0]. It's also focused on console applications, so no GUI app support anytime soon. 0: https://github.com/ish-app/ish/issues https://github.com/ish-app/ish/issues
rusticpenn 5y ago
That reminds me of my old Nokia N900.
GhettoComputers 5y ago
Jailbreak and iOS becomes a fully featured pocket Unix system. https://getutm.app https://getutm.app. Android is already there. Very happy with it as a full Unix device, even have shell integration and have all the usual command line tools. https://chariz.com/get/newterm https://chariz.com/get/newterm here’s a repo of some of those tools https://www.ios-repo-updates.com/repository/procursus/ https://www.ios-repo-updates.com/repository/procursus/ it includes tmux.

diebeforei485 5y ago

In my opinion, the main issues are- (1) "Competing with the house" - Apple should remove all iAP requirements for apps it competes with. Spotify, Fastmail (because iCloud+ Mail supports custom domains), Kindle/Audible, etc. (2) Supra-competitive take rates - Google Play Store has moved to 15% across the board. Apple should do the same. (3) Unnecessary restrictions that are not related to device performance or user safety, and solely related to Apple's revenue streams -- for example, cloud gaming.

grishka 5y ago
The main issue is the lack of sideloading, and stemming from it is how Apple tries very hard to convince everyone that it owns all the relationships between app developers and their users. As macOS shows, when the use of the app store is optional, most developers would rather pretend it doesn't exist.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  > Apple tries very hard to convince everyone that it owns all the relationships between app developers and their users That's the critical issue. Why should Apple be able to own users? It's such an offensive idea. If I buy an iPhone then I'm actually a product that gets sold to software developers. Imagine paying to be the product. At least other companies give out stuff for free when they do that.
  - grishka 5y ago
    Thing is, Apple would deserve at least some of that if people installed apps thanks to the app store influence alone. But that's not the case. Most developers do their own marketing, with Apple forcibly inserting itself in between. Many would distribute their apps from their own websites given the option. Apple and its infamous app review process is just an additional annoyance to deal with because that's your only way to get your app to your users.
  - mullingitover 5y ago
    As a buyer of software, it's not that Apple 'owns' the relationship, it's that Apple protects me from unscrupulous sellers. Take NYT subscriptions as an example: prior to the app store it was notoriously difficult to cancel. That's a common dark pattern that Apple wiped out, and as a user I appreciate some adult supervision over those types of practices. If developers don't like it they can make their sideloading Android app and see how that works out for them.

ksec 5y ago

The conversion often centres around money, but very little about power. And also quoting Steve from 2011. I mean iPhone was in an existential threat in 2011 and could repeat the same mistake with Mac in the 80/90s. I dont blame Steve for his ecosystem lock in thinking. But we are in 2021, the tides have turned. Google is no longer a threat. As a matter of fact there are no threat from market competitors. iPhone user are growing in every single operating countries. Mac has performance, quality and soon even BOM cost advantage. Arguably the same on Smartphone as well. Judging from the fanfare I wont be surprised if Mac user jump to 200M user within this decade. The only threat is regulatory and government. And it is kind of sad Apple is now in this place. But there are few signs Tim Cook's Apple is changing. At least Tim Cook's PR response is changing for whatever reason.