16 ms·

Saying goodbye to an old friend

225 points by lladnar 5y ago

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
Hilarious how in late 2021 people are still blaming Trump's Justice Department for something evil that Apple does. Didn't you guys vote him out of the office? And if you did, but Apple still continues with their evil sinister plan, maybe it's not on Trump's Justice Department, after all?
User23 5y ago
Once again RMS is being proved correct. If you use non-free software, then don't expect your autonomy to be respected. I'm confident that within our lifetimes the absolute worst case you can imagine for this technology will look fair and reasonable compared to what will be coming.
reidjs 5y ago
What makes it really challenging to leave Apple is all the integrations it has with its own products. If a friend of mine has an iPhone, I can share my wifi password with them from my iPad. If I want to send them a photo from my MacBook, I don’t have to ask for their email. If they’re nearby, I just airdrop it directly onto their phone. You can’t escape from their ecosystem without seriously limiting your ability to interact with friends. The only way out I can see is If someone makes a phone that can interop seamlessly with all these features. That seems like a really hard technical challenge with a very small market.
- samplatt 5y ago
  The market would be ALL android phones. Apple would never allow seamless interop. It's not in their interest, let alone opening themselves up for more exploit possibilities.
  - reidjs 5y ago
    that’s a good point maybe there would be a large market for it. Even just the ability to use iMessage from android would be huge. There is definitely some in group/out group dynamics going on, some iphone users call android people “Green bubbles”
    - randomperson_24 5y ago
      Why can't iPhone people just use Whatsapp / Signal / etc.?
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        They can, and do. I do lots of messaging in WhatsApp on iOS. There does seem to be an in group / our group thing for teenagers and people in their 20s though. The biggest feature benefit of group imessaging is sharing images/video at original quality. But I feel like that is also a benefit for WhatsApp, in that its compression results in quick messages.
    - cglong 5y ago
      Android has similar social features when you're interacting with other Android users (e.g. RCS and Nearby Share). RCS in particular is an open source iMessage competitor and Apple seems to be stubbornly refusing to support it, leading to this "green bubble" phenomenon.
- nightfly 5y ago
  > You can’t escape from their ecosystem without seriously limiting your ability to interact with friends I've lived 34 years with this _never_ being an issue. Ever.
  - kaladin-jasnah 5y ago
    Teenagers will socially reject you if you do not use iMessage. I suspect even as they get older they will continue this practise as it as been ingrained in them from a young age.
    - yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
      People still use iMessage? At least in my relatively multicultural social circle, everyone is either communicating via Instagram DMs or Telegram.
      - skinnymuch 5y ago
        Telegram? Where are you? Telegram is pretty specific for diverse groups of people to all be using. I didn’t know telegram is that popular anywhere just generally pretty popular. And then very popular within some niches like crypto.
      - kaladin-jasnah 5y ago
        In the USA, iMessage is _extremely_ popular.
        8bitsrule 5y ago
        So are opioids.
        lifthrasiir 5y ago
        In the other words, iMessage is not that extremely popular in other countries. The strong presence of Apple is strictly domestic to the US and a few more countries, so your statement (and the GP's original statement) can only make sense in those countries. Given other countries don't seem to have the stated problems, there is no technical problem per se, there is only a social problem where people are just not willing to accept a small amount of annoyance for others.
- xmprt 5y ago
  I have an Android phone. All my friends have iPhones. I have never had issues dealing with them. Wifi passwords can be shared through QR codes. Messaging can be done through apps like Signal if you can't use iMessage.
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    Yeah I don’t think it’s a big deal. There are some ways exclusions happen but that would be happening no matter what for group stuff except for group texting. Otherwise you’re always on some platform.
- calvano915 5y ago
  Latest versions of Android OS have all the features you've mentioned.
- lifthrasiir 5y ago
  I have used MacBook Air and macOS (OS X back then) for more than a decade and I never had this issue; I haven't used iPhone at all. True, the Apple-only ecosystem might be slightly easier to use, but not too much compared to the mixed Apple-Android-whatever ecosystem.
- saghm 5y ago
  > What makes it really challenging to leave Apple is all the integrations it has with its own products. If a friend of mine has an iPhone, I can share my wifi password with them from my iPad. If I want to send them a photo from my MacBook, I don’t have to ask for their email. If they’re nearby, I just airdrop it directly onto their phone. It's interesting that you feel this way; I don't feel like either of those things are hard for me to do with friends without using any Apple devices or services, but obviously these sorts of things are very subjective. On my Android phone, I can either manually show them the password or read it out to them or even show them a QR code to scan to add the network from my phone's wifi settings. It's a bit more work than automatically adding it, but I feel like it comes up so rarely that having it take ten seconds instead of one really doesn't matter. For photos, I don't really ever email my friends; I generally have their info on any number of potential messaging apps which deliver faster than email and don't have nearly as small a limit on the attachment size. It's kind of surprising to me that there's nothing more significant than that stopping you from migrating to a new ecosystem.
- kingcharles 5y ago
  I had to force-quit Apple because I couldn't afford them any longer. I have the shittiest Android you can get. My gf has iPhone 12. There is no problem with us communicating. She never texts anyone. She uses Snapchat and Insta with her friends as far as I can tell. We talk over Skype, Insta and TikTok. I have texted her exactly once. Just so she had my actual phone number.
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    Macs are where the pricing becomes much worse! iPhones have high resale value and there’s usually deals in the US. so phone cost is negligible. Or maybe it’s the combo of it all. I have a cheaper iPad too. Cool to know how both of you chat. Are you in your earlier 20s? I’m respectfully asking :). I ask because Snap’s demographics skew pretty young? I run a virtual free coworking camaraderie community. The only people there who have brought up Snap have been 2-3 people under 25. This is a small sample size though.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
internet2000 5y ago
Is this about a content blocker? The post never says.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- MobiusHorizons 5y ago
  This is about the on device child p*rn scanner apple released to iOS devices a few months ago. This was seen as a breech of trust given Apple’s stance on privacy. The two main concerns (as I remember) were false positives, and how easily it could be adapted to spy on citizens of more repressive countries like china.
  - notreallyserio 5y ago
    It also seems to be about Apple not changing their email address or company name or something.
  - dTal 5y ago
    What is the purpose of replacing the vowel with an asterisk in the word "porn"? I've never seen anyone do that before.
    - exodust 5y ago
      I think it comes from the old days when using "porn" on a forum was considered an unwanted magnet for people searching the web for porn. The other version is "pr0n".
pm90 5y ago
I don’t want Apple to do client side scanning. But if they do it, I wouldn’t be getting off their ecosystem. At this point, its a total fiction of choice as a consumer...all my devices are Apple devices. I have a equitable choice for cellphone network providers. I don’t really for device ecosystems. It sucks but I also think that leaving Apple has a very high cost as a consumer; that the right solution may be through regulations.
- bitexploder 5y ago
  I know this sounds crazy, but even 10 years ago humans happily existed in a world where we didn’t have ubiquitous cloud providers that ruled our lives. Why does it matter? I took plenty of pictures. I still have all of them. In fact there are some physical logistics, but they will probably still be around in 30-40 years. Who knows about my Dropbox account. Every so often I do ship an encrypted hard drive down to my parents house. It is a backup of everything. What is it about modern phones we actually can’t live without? Or modern cloud? The answer is not much. They are recent inventions. Not required for a convenient or fulfilled life. I do use an Apple phone, I’m typing this on one. But I’m ready for when or whenever I feel like ditching them. I recommend everyone with the means be likewise prepared. Also backblaze is a nice place to warehouse data for now. They will get bought. Another independent broker will come along. Anyhow. Don’t be a slave.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    I heartily agree. I hate that Apple is effectively negating their promise of E2EE with client-side scanning, which may be the most invasive of all options. But if you aren't a slave to Apple's cloud, then no worries. Maybe I'd feel differently if I used their mobile devices - as it is, I'm Android+MacOS. Any old remote volume is fine for backups - even S3 - if your backups are encrypted client-side and your keys are somewhere physically safe. There was some real screaming when people realized Apple was doing an end-run around firewalls like Little Snitch. I don't expect that to happen again. I block every single Apple app that attempts to call home, and hosts-file-out every one of their domains I come across, and my Mac runs great. Ultimately I think Apple's trying its best to be in compliance without screwing their users. Fair warning, there is no platform you don't build yourself that you can trust. People who don't protect their own privacy may arguably deserve their privacy being violated. People in the free world need to learn this lesson the hard way, apparently, before they stop voting for clowns who want to gut encryption.
duxup 5y ago
I don’t really see anywhere to go. Google? I just left them tired of their rando product decisions, privacy issues and etc. Some hacky devices?
- bitexploder 5y ago
  What exactly do you need them for? Start planning your post Google life now. I had a digital life pre FAANG and I will have one post them too. It’s easier than ever to be independent of them for everything but transiting which is very ephemeral and solvable.
- mikewarot 5y ago
  >I don’t really see anywhere to go. Why do you need Apple or Google to make phone calls, or send SMS messages? You don't. You've gotten used to a lifestyle with subsidized services in "the cloud" aka Someone else's computer. It's going to be an adjustment, but you're going to have to either give up your freedom completely to own your data, or actually pay for your own infrastructure. It would suck if google and the rest went away in a flash, with no notice... but we'd all recover, likely in a few months, a year tops. Remember how things changed when remote work became a fact of life, and now nobody wants to go back? It would be the same if the tech giants disappeared, and forced the decision.
  - duxup 5y ago
    I appreciate your post but I’m still left with nowhere to go.
    - mikewarot 5y ago
      I'm one of the people with dumb phones and laptops. It is a much simpler life.
- the_arun 5y ago
  Would web3 going to solve this problem? I mean decentralized protected world? Or there is no such thing?
mgarfias 5y ago
I have zero idea what he's on about, and why it would be affected by apple's decisions. Can someone let me/us know?
- donohoe 5y ago
  Same. I read it and have no idea what he’s talking about. I can to the comments hoping someone has context. Otherwise it’s just a rant, and not a very lucid one at that.
  - vanusa 5y ago
    It was a rant, sure. But I found it perfectly straightforward, and it was pretty clear at the very top what the main concern was, actually.
    - annadane 5y ago
      For every legitimate article that gets posted on HN you can guarantee someone comes along and says "I don't understand what this is all about". Come on, read.
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    It is very straightforward in that he has been using Apple for a while and made concessions on his idea of software freedom to use the "convenience of Apple products". however, with Apple's recent attempt to slip in on device scanning and reporting to police agencies and setting a precedent that this is acceptable it has pushed him over the edge. Even though apple backed off, they did just add the scan for nekkid pictures on your imessage if you're a kid and report it to your parents. He assume this is just step 0.1 of a multistep process to reinstate the scan all the things on your phone and report back to 3rd parties. He may be right, and it certainly wasn't hard to follow if you read it rather than scan it.
  - WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
    I've heard HN was big on this concept called "empathy". A dude's project died of a thousand paper cuts. The dude's observations about Apple made him notice an emergent pattern of Apple being all but openly hostile towards any independent efforts of assuring one's privacy in a way the person themselves sees fit, as opposed to privacy as Apple sees fit, and all but openly hostile toward small developers in general. Think for a moment how lucid would you yourself be after a couple years or more of those things grating on your nerves. Read the thing again through this lens.
NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
Fellow humans, there are alternatives to Apple and Google! Your neck need not be under FAANG's boot! You don't even need to give up any functionality: CalyxOS: https://calyxos.org/ https://calyxos.org/ Privacy-respecting Android distribution that replaces Google spyware with MicroG, so you can have your cake and eat it too. Most everything will work as you're used to, but it does still talk to Google to make that happen. GrapheneOS: https://grapheneos.org/ https://grapheneos.org/ Very much like Calyx, but extra-hardened and with no MicroG. No involvement with Google at all. LineageOS: https://lineageos.org/ https://lineageos.org/ The successor to CyanogenMod, will work with many different phones. More privacy and control than stock Android. There are also many others: Sailfish, Replicant, e Hardware-wise: CalyxOS and GrapheneOS run best on Pixel 3, 3a, 3XL, 4, 4a, 4XL, 5, 6, 6a. The path of least resistance is to get one of these phones and run CalyxOS (if there is an app you need to use that needs Google services like Firebase Cloud Messaging...note that many that can use FCM will run fine without), otherwise run GrapheneOS. You can also buy a Librem 5 https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ If privacy and security and hacking are really important to you. Or a pinephone: https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/
- rootsudo 5y ago
  Or Microsoft if you don't want to be under a FAANG's boot. ;)
- boudin 5y ago
  There is also https://e.foundation/ https://e.foundation/ that is a degooglized Android with micro-g + a cloud offering based of Nextcloud. They provide roms but also sell phones with the OS pre-installed
- sprkwd 5y ago
  Is that Pixel as in made-by-Google Pixel?
  - NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
    Marketed by them anyway, yes. At present the people most serious about secure Android think they're the best hardware for it, so...yeah, a bit of an awkward situation :-D
chmaynard 5y ago
Wow, great rant! Rants are fun to read but beware, they contain more heat than light.
- colordrops 5y ago
  What an easy way to dismiss an article and inject bias without saying anything substantive yourself. There are several interesting bits about specific acts by apple, as well as an introduction to the Small Technology Foundation, which seems like a worthwhile effort to counteract the subject of this "rant".
  - chmaynard 5y ago
    Okay, I'll tell you what I really think. The author is a whiner. In fact, he is a sniveling whiner, the worst kind. His diatribe is full of lies, mostly lies of omission. The only thing worse than this would be an ad hominem attack on Apple management.
low_tech_love 5y ago
First they came for the small companies...
FullyFunctional 5y ago
I didn't know that Apple killed offline web apps. That sucks (I've used that a lot in the past). Pine64 Pro will get a 2nd look.
bullen 5y ago
Raspberry 4 is also a good option until RISC-V with OpenGL ES 3 gets cheaper.
simonebrunozzi 5y ago
So, the "old friend" is an Apple that the author originally considered an acceptable compromise. I have to confess that in this particular case, and maybe at this particular time, I was "hoping" that this was about a real human being, and the process of saying goodbye to him/her. I guess I was looking for a peek into the feelings of someone else, who cared deeply about another person.
elzbardico 5y ago
Isn't the client side scanning done only on stuff that is about to be uploaded to the cloud, and thus stuff that would be scanned server-side anyway as it has been the case for most cloud stuff for years? In that case, yeah, a bit sneaky to offload their electricity usage to me and save on hardware by using mine. but it is not "The End of Privacy as We Know It".
- throwawaymanbot 5y ago
mark_l_watson 5y ago
I liked the article because I have some of the same occasional but recurring desire to use my System 76 Linux laptop more, give up my smooth and efficient digital work flow based around iPad, Apple Watch, and iPhone. My problem is that there is so much to do in my life that giving up Apple devices would slow me down too much.
- amelius 5y ago
  > My problem is that there is so much to do in my life that giving up Apple devices would slow me down too much. Apple's crazy App Store regulations are slowing me down ... It's funny how large corporations tend to become like bureaucratic government institutions given enough time. Well, it's not funny really.
- davidw 5y ago
  I had to give up my efficient workflow on Linux and use a Mac for work, and it's been quite frustrating.
  - jeremyjh 5y ago
    I'd prefer to go back to a Linux laptop (mostly because homebrew is a garbage fire) but it really is nice having the integration with iOS... in particular I can send texts and take calls through my laptop. It may sound trivial but when I think about switching again that is largely what holds me back.
    - deadbunny 5y ago
      Check out KDE Connect. It brings some of that integration (and isn't limited to KDE)
    - davidw 5y ago
      I use Android devices, so I can send texts via a browser page. Those, and calls, used to be integrated right in Gmail, but Google wrecked all of that - which is another story for another time. I vastly prefer using a keyboard for writing texts though, and that's still possible.
alexfromapex 5y ago
Can't say it enough, we need "framework" -type devices for all hardware. Then we won't need the iPad because we can use the fPad and create our own OS or apps without having to be bent over a barrel by the government or corporations. The next thing they'll try to "lock down" will be Internet infrastructure. We need some sort of cheap wireless decentralized networking for Internet 2.0. Curious what thoughts are from others around that?
flaxton 5y ago
I’m not sure why he is singling out Apple. All the services scan cloud content for child porn, like Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc. Apple is not looking at images, it makes a hash of the images and then looks to see if they match known child porn. Only it there is an excessive amount (30 images is what I read previously) do they do anything. There is a lot of evil in this world, including child porn, and up to this point not a whole lot is being done about it. I think this is a good step. Do I want them look for anything further, no, of course not. But as I said, Apple isn’t alone in this. Google is reported to censor user documents in the Google Cloud. That to me is far, far worse than what Apple is doing. You’re safest on an Apple device, far more than Windows or Android, but people single out Apple. I just don’t get it.
- another_story 5y ago
  You really can't see the problem with collecting data on the images stored on your personal devices? Google doesn't plan to scan your personal files on your own device and then call law enforcement if it finds something suspicious.
  - tinus_hn 5y ago
    Neither does Apple, this is about files you are sending through their services. Google can do the check on their servers because they can see the contents of your files. Apple has to do the check on your device because they can’t. But they are not checking nor have they announced plans to check random files on your device.
  - kjagiello 5y ago
    Isn’t Apply going to only scan the images that are about to be uploaded to iCloud? If so, I have a difficult time seeing how it differs from what Google is doing. Google scans what you’ve uploaded, Apple scans what you are about to upload.
    - angulardragon03 5y ago
      Yes. People give Apple a lot of flak for the fact that Apple holds encryption keys for iCloud Photos (because obviously they do CSAM scanning server-side), but now that Apple is taking steps to ensure that they doesn’t hold these keys, they take flak again. If you don’t use iCloud photos, this change doesn’t affect you. If you use iCloud photos already, nothing changes for you except where in the process the scanning takes place. Your phone already scans all your photos while your phone is asleep and charging to classify them, so this isn’t really much more than it already does.
jonathantf2 5y ago
Second link under "A long time coming" points to localhost.
dangus 5y ago
I want to point out that people who use iPhones don't have any obligation to use Apple's iCloud services. As the technical summary [1] explains, this scanning process only affects data that is being uploaded to iCloud – which, by the way, never offered end-to-end encryption of photos in the first place. Apple is fully within reason to prevent CSAM content from reaching their servers, and if you read the technical paper they seem to have implemented the technique in a way that goes out of its way to avoid collecting data about you. Instead of using iCloud, you can have your photos automatically upload to any other cloud photo service including self-hosted solutions like Nextcloud Photos. At no point does iPhone ownership require that you use Apple's services beyond the App Store. You can completely back up and restore your phone and sync a variety of content entirely with local storage via a cable or WiFi just like it was an iPod. Or, you can use a wide variety of non-Apple apps for storing and accessing content. You can enable/disable each iCloud service individually. I know the author really has some decent points here, and certainly Apple and Google's smartphone duopoly needs more customer protections, but the article as a whole feels ruined by a bunch of whining about a single customer-specific issue (Something about migrating a developer account? I have no idea what he's talking about.), no more useful to the rest of us than a blog post complaining about a restaurant server who forgot to bring him a side of BBQ sauce. [1] https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/CSAM_Detection_Technical_Summary.pdf https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/CSAM_Detection_Techni...
- Isamu 5y ago
  > prevent CSAM content from reaching their servers This is an approach to avoid having some law enforcement agency using CSAM as an excuse to be granted access to paw through those servers. Otherwise it’s hard to deflect such requests.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

225 points by lladnar 5y ago

Hilarious how in late 2021 people are still blaming Trump's Justice Department for something evil that Apple does. Didn't you guys vote him out of the office? And if you did, but Apple still continues with their evil sinister plan, maybe it's not on Trump's Justice Department, after all?

User23 5y ago

Once again RMS is being proved correct. If you use non-free software, then don't expect your autonomy to be respected. I'm confident that within our lifetimes the absolute worst case you can imagine for this technology will look fair and reasonable compared to what will be coming.

reidjs 5y ago

What makes it really challenging to leave Apple is all the integrations it has with its own products. If a friend of mine has an iPhone, I can share my wifi password with them from my iPad. If I want to send them a photo from my MacBook, I don’t have to ask for their email. If they’re nearby, I just airdrop it directly onto their phone. You can’t escape from their ecosystem without seriously limiting your ability to interact with friends. The only way out I can see is If someone makes a phone that can interop seamlessly with all these features. That seems like a really hard technical challenge with a very small market.

samplatt 5y ago
The market would be ALL android phones. Apple would never allow seamless interop. It's not in their interest, let alone opening themselves up for more exploit possibilities.
- reidjs 5y ago
  that’s a good point maybe there would be a large market for it. Even just the ability to use iMessage from android would be huge. There is definitely some in group/out group dynamics going on, some iphone users call android people “Green bubbles”
  - randomperson_24 5y ago
    Why can't iPhone people just use Whatsapp / Signal / etc.?
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      They can, and do. I do lots of messaging in WhatsApp on iOS. There does seem to be an in group / our group thing for teenagers and people in their 20s though. The biggest feature benefit of group imessaging is sharing images/video at original quality. But I feel like that is also a benefit for WhatsApp, in that its compression results in quick messages.
  - cglong 5y ago
    Android has similar social features when you're interacting with other Android users (e.g. RCS and Nearby Share). RCS in particular is an open source iMessage competitor and Apple seems to be stubbornly refusing to support it, leading to this "green bubble" phenomenon.
nightfly 5y ago
> You can’t escape from their ecosystem without seriously limiting your ability to interact with friends I've lived 34 years with this _never_ being an issue. Ever.
- kaladin-jasnah 5y ago
  Teenagers will socially reject you if you do not use iMessage. I suspect even as they get older they will continue this practise as it as been ingrained in them from a young age.
  - yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
    People still use iMessage? At least in my relatively multicultural social circle, everyone is either communicating via Instagram DMs or Telegram.
    - skinnymuch 5y ago
      Telegram? Where are you? Telegram is pretty specific for diverse groups of people to all be using. I didn’t know telegram is that popular anywhere just generally pretty popular. And then very popular within some niches like crypto.
    - kaladin-jasnah 5y ago
      In the USA, iMessage is _extremely_ popular.
      - 8bitsrule 5y ago
        So are opioids.
      - lifthrasiir 5y ago
        In the other words, iMessage is not that extremely popular in other countries. The strong presence of Apple is strictly domestic to the US and a few more countries, so your statement (and the GP's original statement) can only make sense in those countries. Given other countries don't seem to have the stated problems, there is no technical problem per se, there is only a social problem where people are just not willing to accept a small amount of annoyance for others.
xmprt 5y ago
I have an Android phone. All my friends have iPhones. I have never had issues dealing with them. Wifi passwords can be shared through QR codes. Messaging can be done through apps like Signal if you can't use iMessage.
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  Yeah I don’t think it’s a big deal. There are some ways exclusions happen but that would be happening no matter what for group stuff except for group texting. Otherwise you’re always on some platform.
calvano915 5y ago
Latest versions of Android OS have all the features you've mentioned.
lifthrasiir 5y ago
I have used MacBook Air and macOS (OS X back then) for more than a decade and I never had this issue; I haven't used iPhone at all. True, the Apple-only ecosystem might be slightly easier to use, but not too much compared to the mixed Apple-Android-whatever ecosystem.
saghm 5y ago
> What makes it really challenging to leave Apple is all the integrations it has with its own products. If a friend of mine has an iPhone, I can share my wifi password with them from my iPad. If I want to send them a photo from my MacBook, I don’t have to ask for their email. If they’re nearby, I just airdrop it directly onto their phone. It's interesting that you feel this way; I don't feel like either of those things are hard for me to do with friends without using any Apple devices or services, but obviously these sorts of things are very subjective. On my Android phone, I can either manually show them the password or read it out to them or even show them a QR code to scan to add the network from my phone's wifi settings. It's a bit more work than automatically adding it, but I feel like it comes up so rarely that having it take ten seconds instead of one really doesn't matter. For photos, I don't really ever email my friends; I generally have their info on any number of potential messaging apps which deliver faster than email and don't have nearly as small a limit on the attachment size. It's kind of surprising to me that there's nothing more significant than that stopping you from migrating to a new ecosystem.
kingcharles 5y ago
I had to force-quit Apple because I couldn't afford them any longer. I have the shittiest Android you can get. My gf has iPhone 12. There is no problem with us communicating. She never texts anyone. She uses Snapchat and Insta with her friends as far as I can tell. We talk over Skype, Insta and TikTok. I have texted her exactly once. Just so she had my actual phone number.
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  Macs are where the pricing becomes much worse! iPhones have high resale value and there’s usually deals in the US. so phone cost is negligible. Or maybe it’s the combo of it all. I have a cheaper iPad too. Cool to know how both of you chat. Are you in your earlier 20s? I’m respectfully asking :). I ask because Snap’s demographics skew pretty young? I run a virtual free coworking camaraderie community. The only people there who have brought up Snap have been 2-3 people under 25. This is a small sample size though.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

internet2000 5y ago

Is this about a content blocker? The post never says.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
MobiusHorizons 5y ago
This is about the on device child p*rn scanner apple released to iOS devices a few months ago. This was seen as a breech of trust given Apple’s stance on privacy. The two main concerns (as I remember) were false positives, and how easily it could be adapted to spy on citizens of more repressive countries like china.
- notreallyserio 5y ago
  It also seems to be about Apple not changing their email address or company name or something.
- dTal 5y ago
  What is the purpose of replacing the vowel with an asterisk in the word "porn"? I've never seen anyone do that before.
  - exodust 5y ago
    I think it comes from the old days when using "porn" on a forum was considered an unwanted magnet for people searching the web for porn. The other version is "pr0n".

pm90 5y ago

I don’t want Apple to do client side scanning. But if they do it, I wouldn’t be getting off their ecosystem. At this point, its a total fiction of choice as a consumer...all my devices are Apple devices. I have a equitable choice for cellphone network providers. I don’t really for device ecosystems. It sucks but I also think that leaving Apple has a very high cost as a consumer; that the right solution may be through regulations.

bitexploder 5y ago
I know this sounds crazy, but even 10 years ago humans happily existed in a world where we didn’t have ubiquitous cloud providers that ruled our lives. Why does it matter? I took plenty of pictures. I still have all of them. In fact there are some physical logistics, but they will probably still be around in 30-40 years. Who knows about my Dropbox account. Every so often I do ship an encrypted hard drive down to my parents house. It is a backup of everything. What is it about modern phones we actually can’t live without? Or modern cloud? The answer is not much. They are recent inventions. Not required for a convenient or fulfilled life. I do use an Apple phone, I’m typing this on one. But I’m ready for when or whenever I feel like ditching them. I recommend everyone with the means be likewise prepared. Also backblaze is a nice place to warehouse data for now. They will get bought. Another independent broker will come along. Anyhow. Don’t be a slave.
- noduerme 5y ago
  I heartily agree. I hate that Apple is effectively negating their promise of E2EE with client-side scanning, which may be the most invasive of all options. But if you aren't a slave to Apple's cloud, then no worries. Maybe I'd feel differently if I used their mobile devices - as it is, I'm Android+MacOS. Any old remote volume is fine for backups - even S3 - if your backups are encrypted client-side and your keys are somewhere physically safe. There was some real screaming when people realized Apple was doing an end-run around firewalls like Little Snitch. I don't expect that to happen again. I block every single Apple app that attempts to call home, and hosts-file-out every one of their domains I come across, and my Mac runs great. Ultimately I think Apple's trying its best to be in compliance without screwing their users. Fair warning, there is no platform you don't build yourself that you can trust. People who don't protect their own privacy may arguably deserve their privacy being violated. People in the free world need to learn this lesson the hard way, apparently, before they stop voting for clowns who want to gut encryption.

duxup 5y ago

I don’t really see anywhere to go. Google? I just left them tired of their rando product decisions, privacy issues and etc. Some hacky devices?

bitexploder 5y ago
What exactly do you need them for? Start planning your post Google life now. I had a digital life pre FAANG and I will have one post them too. It’s easier than ever to be independent of them for everything but transiting which is very ephemeral and solvable.
mikewarot 5y ago
>I don’t really see anywhere to go. Why do you need Apple or Google to make phone calls, or send SMS messages? You don't. You've gotten used to a lifestyle with subsidized services in "the cloud" aka Someone else's computer. It's going to be an adjustment, but you're going to have to either give up your freedom completely to own your data, or actually pay for your own infrastructure. It would suck if google and the rest went away in a flash, with no notice... but we'd all recover, likely in a few months, a year tops. Remember how things changed when remote work became a fact of life, and now nobody wants to go back? It would be the same if the tech giants disappeared, and forced the decision.
- duxup 5y ago
  I appreciate your post but I’m still left with nowhere to go.
  - mikewarot 5y ago
    I'm one of the people with dumb phones and laptops. It is a much simpler life.
the_arun 5y ago
Would web3 going to solve this problem? I mean decentralized protected world? Or there is no such thing?

mgarfias 5y ago

I have zero idea what he's on about, and why it would be affected by apple's decisions. Can someone let me/us know?

donohoe 5y ago
Same. I read it and have no idea what he’s talking about. I can to the comments hoping someone has context. Otherwise it’s just a rant, and not a very lucid one at that.
- vanusa 5y ago
  It was a rant, sure. But I found it perfectly straightforward, and it was pretty clear at the very top what the main concern was, actually.
  - annadane 5y ago
    For every legitimate article that gets posted on HN you can guarantee someone comes along and says "I don't understand what this is all about". Come on, read.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  It is very straightforward in that he has been using Apple for a while and made concessions on his idea of software freedom to use the "convenience of Apple products". however, with Apple's recent attempt to slip in on device scanning and reporting to police agencies and setting a precedent that this is acceptable it has pushed him over the edge. Even though apple backed off, they did just add the scan for nekkid pictures on your imessage if you're a kid and report it to your parents. He assume this is just step 0.1 of a multistep process to reinstate the scan all the things on your phone and report back to 3rd parties. He may be right, and it certainly wasn't hard to follow if you read it rather than scan it.
- WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
  I've heard HN was big on this concept called "empathy". A dude's project died of a thousand paper cuts. The dude's observations about Apple made him notice an emergent pattern of Apple being all but openly hostile towards any independent efforts of assuring one's privacy in a way the person themselves sees fit, as opposed to privacy as Apple sees fit, and all but openly hostile toward small developers in general. Think for a moment how lucid would you yourself be after a couple years or more of those things grating on your nerves. Read the thing again through this lens.

NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago

Fellow humans, there are alternatives to Apple and Google! Your neck need not be under FAANG's boot! You don't even need to give up any functionality: CalyxOS: https://calyxos.org/ https://calyxos.org/ Privacy-respecting Android distribution that replaces Google spyware with MicroG, so you can have your cake and eat it too. Most everything will work as you're used to, but it does still talk to Google to make that happen. GrapheneOS: https://grapheneos.org/ https://grapheneos.org/ Very much like Calyx, but extra-hardened and with no MicroG. No involvement with Google at all. LineageOS: https://lineageos.org/ https://lineageos.org/ The successor to CyanogenMod, will work with many different phones. More privacy and control than stock Android. There are also many others: Sailfish, Replicant, e Hardware-wise: CalyxOS and GrapheneOS run best on Pixel 3, 3a, 3XL, 4, 4a, 4XL, 5, 6, 6a. The path of least resistance is to get one of these phones and run CalyxOS (if there is an app you need to use that needs Google services like Firebase Cloud Messaging...note that many that can use FCM will run fine without), otherwise run GrapheneOS. You can also buy a Librem 5 https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ If privacy and security and hacking are really important to you. Or a pinephone: https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/

rootsudo 5y ago
Or Microsoft if you don't want to be under a FAANG's boot. ;)
boudin 5y ago
There is also https://e.foundation/ https://e.foundation/ that is a degooglized Android with micro-g + a cloud offering based of Nextcloud. They provide roms but also sell phones with the OS pre-installed
sprkwd 5y ago
Is that Pixel as in made-by-Google Pixel?
- NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
  Marketed by them anyway, yes. At present the people most serious about secure Android think they're the best hardware for it, so...yeah, a bit of an awkward situation :-D

chmaynard 5y ago

Wow, great rant! Rants are fun to read but beware, they contain more heat than light.

colordrops 5y ago
What an easy way to dismiss an article and inject bias without saying anything substantive yourself. There are several interesting bits about specific acts by apple, as well as an introduction to the Small Technology Foundation, which seems like a worthwhile effort to counteract the subject of this "rant".
- chmaynard 5y ago
  Okay, I'll tell you what I really think. The author is a whiner. In fact, he is a sniveling whiner, the worst kind. His diatribe is full of lies, mostly lies of omission. The only thing worse than this would be an ad hominem attack on Apple management.

low_tech_love 5y ago

First they came for the small companies...

FullyFunctional 5y ago

I didn't know that Apple killed offline web apps. That sucks (I've used that a lot in the past). Pine64 Pro will get a 2nd look.

bullen 5y ago

Raspberry 4 is also a good option until RISC-V with OpenGL ES 3 gets cheaper.

simonebrunozzi 5y ago

So, the "old friend" is an Apple that the author originally considered an acceptable compromise. I have to confess that in this particular case, and maybe at this particular time, I was "hoping" that this was about a real human being, and the process of saying goodbye to him/her. I guess I was looking for a peek into the feelings of someone else, who cared deeply about another person.

elzbardico 5y ago

Isn't the client side scanning done only on stuff that is about to be uploaded to the cloud, and thus stuff that would be scanned server-side anyway as it has been the case for most cloud stuff for years? In that case, yeah, a bit sneaky to offload their electricity usage to me and save on hardware by using mine. but it is not "The End of Privacy as We Know It".

throwawaymanbot 5y ago

mark_l_watson 5y ago

I liked the article because I have some of the same occasional but recurring desire to use my System 76 Linux laptop more, give up my smooth and efficient digital work flow based around iPad, Apple Watch, and iPhone. My problem is that there is so much to do in my life that giving up Apple devices would slow me down too much.

amelius 5y ago
> My problem is that there is so much to do in my life that giving up Apple devices would slow me down too much. Apple's crazy App Store regulations are slowing me down ... It's funny how large corporations tend to become like bureaucratic government institutions given enough time. Well, it's not funny really.
davidw 5y ago
I had to give up my efficient workflow on Linux and use a Mac for work, and it's been quite frustrating.
- jeremyjh 5y ago
  I'd prefer to go back to a Linux laptop (mostly because homebrew is a garbage fire) but it really is nice having the integration with iOS... in particular I can send texts and take calls through my laptop. It may sound trivial but when I think about switching again that is largely what holds me back.
  - deadbunny 5y ago
    Check out KDE Connect. It brings some of that integration (and isn't limited to KDE)
  - davidw 5y ago
    I use Android devices, so I can send texts via a browser page. Those, and calls, used to be integrated right in Gmail, but Google wrecked all of that - which is another story for another time. I vastly prefer using a keyboard for writing texts though, and that's still possible.

alexfromapex 5y ago

Can't say it enough, we need "framework" -type devices for all hardware. Then we won't need the iPad because we can use the fPad and create our own OS or apps without having to be bent over a barrel by the government or corporations. The next thing they'll try to "lock down" will be Internet infrastructure. We need some sort of cheap wireless decentralized networking for Internet 2.0. Curious what thoughts are from others around that?

flaxton 5y ago

I’m not sure why he is singling out Apple. All the services scan cloud content for child porn, like Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc. Apple is not looking at images, it makes a hash of the images and then looks to see if they match known child porn. Only it there is an excessive amount (30 images is what I read previously) do they do anything. There is a lot of evil in this world, including child porn, and up to this point not a whole lot is being done about it. I think this is a good step. Do I want them look for anything further, no, of course not. But as I said, Apple isn’t alone in this. Google is reported to censor user documents in the Google Cloud. That to me is far, far worse than what Apple is doing. You’re safest on an Apple device, far more than Windows or Android, but people single out Apple. I just don’t get it.

another_story 5y ago
You really can't see the problem with collecting data on the images stored on your personal devices? Google doesn't plan to scan your personal files on your own device and then call law enforcement if it finds something suspicious.
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  Neither does Apple, this is about files you are sending through their services. Google can do the check on their servers because they can see the contents of your files. Apple has to do the check on your device because they can’t. But they are not checking nor have they announced plans to check random files on your device.
- kjagiello 5y ago
  Isn’t Apply going to only scan the images that are about to be uploaded to iCloud? If so, I have a difficult time seeing how it differs from what Google is doing. Google scans what you’ve uploaded, Apple scans what you are about to upload.
  - angulardragon03 5y ago
    Yes. People give Apple a lot of flak for the fact that Apple holds encryption keys for iCloud Photos (because obviously they do CSAM scanning server-side), but now that Apple is taking steps to ensure that they doesn’t hold these keys, they take flak again. If you don’t use iCloud photos, this change doesn’t affect you. If you use iCloud photos already, nothing changes for you except where in the process the scanning takes place. Your phone already scans all your photos while your phone is asleep and charging to classify them, so this isn’t really much more than it already does.

jonathantf2 5y ago

Second link under "A long time coming" points to localhost.

dangus 5y ago

I want to point out that people who use iPhones don't have any obligation to use Apple's iCloud services. As the technical summary [1] explains, this scanning process only affects data that is being uploaded to iCloud – which, by the way, never offered end-to-end encryption of photos in the first place. Apple is fully within reason to prevent CSAM content from reaching their servers, and if you read the technical paper they seem to have implemented the technique in a way that goes out of its way to avoid collecting data about you. Instead of using iCloud, you can have your photos automatically upload to any other cloud photo service including self-hosted solutions like Nextcloud Photos. At no point does iPhone ownership require that you use Apple's services beyond the App Store. You can completely back up and restore your phone and sync a variety of content entirely with local storage via a cable or WiFi just like it was an iPod. Or, you can use a wide variety of non-Apple apps for storing and accessing content. You can enable/disable each iCloud service individually. I know the author really has some decent points here, and certainly Apple and Google's smartphone duopoly needs more customer protections, but the article as a whole feels ruined by a bunch of whining about a single customer-specific issue (Something about migrating a developer account? I have no idea what he's talking about.), no more useful to the rest of us than a blog post complaining about a restaurant server who forgot to bring him a side of BBQ sauce. [1] https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/CSAM_Detection_Technical_Summary.pdf https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/CSAM_Detection_Techni...

Isamu 5y ago
> prevent CSAM content from reaching their servers This is an approach to avoid having some law enforcement agency using CSAM as an excuse to be granted access to paw through those servers. Otherwise it’s hard to deflect such requests.
- deleted 5y ago
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