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A few random thoughts: • There's a place for closed platforms if open ones are a reasonable choice. A closed platform must not be the only choice available to

A few random thoughts: • There's a place for closed platforms if open ones are a reasonable choice. A closed platform must not be the only choice available to the customer, but it should be allowed to exist given a healthy market. It's hard to argue that iOS is a monopoly, and if so, than a browser engine and JS interpreter with access to the open web is a very powerful thing that the owner of the platform may deem too powerful for its own good. • Chrome's dominance of the Web is very scary. Not as scary as IE's, since it's open source, but still, it's such a huge beast that it's almost proprietary through complexity. I don't know if there's an easy solution out of this. • The time it takes Apple to patch security flaws is not the main issue here and should not be the core argument. What if Apple steps up its game and gets really good at this? The issue is the strategic decision Apple is making and the discussion should be if a company that powerful should be allowed to make such decisions and impose them to the user. • Apple could avoid this discussion by giving the user a one time only toggle switch to sideload any binary. It should be buried under many menus and preceded by lots of scary dialog boxes. It could even void battery warranty or something. Maybe keep a constant orange menu bar as a reminder that you are on your own and can't blame Apple for anything.

hinkley 4y ago
Apple gets the battery performance they do by being very opinionated about who gets to chew on the CPU. Safari is equally opinionated, but third party browsers aren't. I don't like that Firefox on iOS is a shadow of what it is on other platforms, but at least academically I understand why it is the way it is.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  If Safari is truly objectively better than other browsers, then it should have no problem competing with the likes of Chrome and Firefox. They can even keep pre-installing it too, as long as they give people the choice of other browsers then I'm happy.
  - hinkley 4y ago
    I don't know what logical leap you're trying to make but I'm not following it. Safari makes the iPhone a better device. They don't sell Safari. They sell devices. If you have a way to effectively and efficiently blame the bad behavior of your ecosystem on a third party, then there are whole industries waiting for you to sell them consulting services. If the king of Reality Distortion Fields couldn't figure it out, probably nobody here has either. Nobody is going to notice that Chrome is eating their battery. They barely notice on desktop. The tools are even less grandma friendly on mobile.
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      > Nobody is going to notice that Chrome is eating their battery. I don't know what logical leap you're trying to make, but if people don't notice the impact of Chrome on their battery then what makes it worse than Safari?
      - dwaite 4y ago
        I believe the parent's point was that they won't know it is _Chrome_ that is destroying their battery, just that their phone can't make it through half the day without a charge.
        depressedpanda 4y ago
        Android provides users with an easy way to check which apps and services are draining battery life. Doesn't iOS have similar functionality?
        dwaite 4y ago
        There is indeed a way for technical users to troubleshoot battery usage, although this does not necessarily help even technical users when the app turns out to be important. iOS tends to make it significantly harder for applications to justify background processing, so I myself tend to find battery statistics less useful - you have apps which have a more voracious appetite than others, but typically only when you are actively gaining value from them.
Jcowell 4y ago
> It could even void battery warranty or something This is illegal in a variety of places. They need to prove that these actions caused damage to the battery.
- tambourine_man 4y ago
  Maybe they can prove what can be done by running arbitrary code and argue that they can’t provide warranty against that use case.
  - Jcowell 4y ago
    As irc Apple would need to explicitly prove that the arbitrary code broke the battery.
    - tambourine_man 4y ago
      That’s my point. And it shouldn’t be hard. A stress loop should heat and require constant recharge, enough to significantly reduce battery life. A few years worth of regular use in a few weeks of stress testing should be pretty easy do.
ocdtrekkie 4y ago
Clarification: Chrome is NOT open source. Chromium is, but it has a nonexistent market share. Google loves this model: Android isn't open source either, and it forces a bunch of proprietary apps as requirements for it's distribution, but they claim they're open source because they throw basically nonfunctional AOSP code over the wall.
Cannabat 4y ago
> Chrome's dominance of the Web is very scary. Not as scary as IE's, since it's open source, but still, it's such a huge beast that it's almost proprietary through complexity. I don't know if there's an easy solution out of this. I'd say that Chrome's dominance is much scarier than IE's. One reason has to do with user data. When IE was dominant, user data was not nearly as valuable. Today, user data is how Google makes money, so they are strongly incentivised to harvest it. While I understand Chrome isn't exactly the source of the harvesting, it reinforces reliance on Google services for the vast majority of users.
- hinkley 4y ago
  Definitely a case where the thing that looks the scariest is probably not the thing that you should be most afraid of.
EMIRELADERO 4y ago
Don't you believe that the physical owner of a device should be entitled to complete control of the code that is executed in it? This goes beyond business models.
- dwaite 4y ago
  Are you advocating a mode to remove iOS and boot another arbitrary system in its stead?
- tambourine_man 4y ago
  It’s the last in my bullet point
  - EMIRELADERO 4y ago
    That wouldn't achieve the same level of control over the device as Apple. You would still have a locked bootloader and an unaccesible Secure Enclave.
    - tambourine_man 4y ago
      Secure Enclave should remain inaccessible, even to Apple. Bootloader should be doable once you can run unprivileged arbitrary code, but some support could be offered as well, like they do with the M series Macs
- irae 4y ago
  So you will be satisfied if Apple provides you with the option to replace iOS by whatever OS you can put there? Apple bundles the three levels (hardware, OS and Apps) and sells you the hardware. But Safari is tied to iOS and not to the hardware itself. So would you argue about an option to replace iOS instead of installing other browsers on iOS itself?
  - EMIRELADERO 4y ago
    Yes, if I could have the ability to exert the same level of control over the hardware as Apple (including things such as the Secure Enclave) then it would be the ideal way.
dwaite 4y ago
> Chrome's dominance of the Web is very scary. Not as scary as IE's, since it's open source, but still, it's such a huge beast that it's almost proprietary through complexity. I don't know if there's an easy solution out of this. Both Chrome and Android are open-source bases for proprietary platforms. Google very consciously blurs the line between functionality available across all Android devices or across all web browsers, and the functionality which you only get with their products (e.g. licensed Android with Play services, or Google Chrome). Would it really have made a difference if Internet Explorer 6 was open source? Most of the features in Internet Explorer were copyable by other browsers, just as most of the Chrome-only API are copyable today. There's other reasons why Firefox and Netscape on Windows didn't support ActiveX controls and XML Data Islands, such as both those features being lousy ideas.

hinkley 4y ago

Apple gets the battery performance they do by being very opinionated about who gets to chew on the CPU. Safari is equally opinionated, but third party browsers aren't. I don't like that Firefox on iOS is a shadow of what it is on other platforms, but at least academically I understand why it is the way it is.

smoldesu 4y ago
If Safari is truly objectively better than other browsers, then it should have no problem competing with the likes of Chrome and Firefox. They can even keep pre-installing it too, as long as they give people the choice of other browsers then I'm happy.
- hinkley 4y ago
  I don't know what logical leap you're trying to make but I'm not following it. Safari makes the iPhone a better device. They don't sell Safari. They sell devices. If you have a way to effectively and efficiently blame the bad behavior of your ecosystem on a third party, then there are whole industries waiting for you to sell them consulting services. If the king of Reality Distortion Fields couldn't figure it out, probably nobody here has either. Nobody is going to notice that Chrome is eating their battery. They barely notice on desktop. The tools are even less grandma friendly on mobile.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    > Nobody is going to notice that Chrome is eating their battery. I don't know what logical leap you're trying to make, but if people don't notice the impact of Chrome on their battery then what makes it worse than Safari?
    - dwaite 4y ago
      I believe the parent's point was that they won't know it is _Chrome_ that is destroying their battery, just that their phone can't make it through half the day without a charge.
      - depressedpanda 4y ago
        Android provides users with an easy way to check which apps and services are draining battery life. Doesn't iOS have similar functionality?
        dwaite 4y ago
        There is indeed a way for technical users to troubleshoot battery usage, although this does not necessarily help even technical users when the app turns out to be important. iOS tends to make it significantly harder for applications to justify background processing, so I myself tend to find battery statistics less useful - you have apps which have a more voracious appetite than others, but typically only when you are actively gaining value from them.

Jcowell 4y ago

> It could even void battery warranty or something This is illegal in a variety of places. They need to prove that these actions caused damage to the battery.

tambourine_man 4y ago
Maybe they can prove what can be done by running arbitrary code and argue that they can’t provide warranty against that use case.
- Jcowell 4y ago
  As irc Apple would need to explicitly prove that the arbitrary code broke the battery.
  - tambourine_man 4y ago
    That’s my point. And it shouldn’t be hard. A stress loop should heat and require constant recharge, enough to significantly reduce battery life. A few years worth of regular use in a few weeks of stress testing should be pretty easy do.

ocdtrekkie 4y ago

Clarification: Chrome is NOT open source. Chromium is, but it has a nonexistent market share. Google loves this model: Android isn't open source either, and it forces a bunch of proprietary apps as requirements for it's distribution, but they claim they're open source because they throw basically nonfunctional AOSP code over the wall.

Cannabat 4y ago

> Chrome's dominance of the Web is very scary. Not as scary as IE's, since it's open source, but still, it's such a huge beast that it's almost proprietary through complexity. I don't know if there's an easy solution out of this. I'd say that Chrome's dominance is much scarier than IE's. One reason has to do with user data. When IE was dominant, user data was not nearly as valuable. Today, user data is how Google makes money, so they are strongly incentivised to harvest it. While I understand Chrome isn't exactly the source of the harvesting, it reinforces reliance on Google services for the vast majority of users.

hinkley 4y ago
Definitely a case where the thing that looks the scariest is probably not the thing that you should be most afraid of.

EMIRELADERO 4y ago

Don't you believe that the physical owner of a device should be entitled to complete control of the code that is executed in it? This goes beyond business models.

dwaite 4y ago
Are you advocating a mode to remove iOS and boot another arbitrary system in its stead?
tambourine_man 4y ago
It’s the last in my bullet point
- EMIRELADERO 4y ago
  That wouldn't achieve the same level of control over the device as Apple. You would still have a locked bootloader and an unaccesible Secure Enclave.
  - tambourine_man 4y ago
    Secure Enclave should remain inaccessible, even to Apple. Bootloader should be doable once you can run unprivileged arbitrary code, but some support could be offered as well, like they do with the M series Macs
irae 4y ago
So you will be satisfied if Apple provides you with the option to replace iOS by whatever OS you can put there? Apple bundles the three levels (hardware, OS and Apps) and sells you the hardware. But Safari is tied to iOS and not to the hardware itself. So would you argue about an option to replace iOS instead of installing other browsers on iOS itself?
- EMIRELADERO 4y ago
  Yes, if I could have the ability to exert the same level of control over the hardware as Apple (including things such as the Secure Enclave) then it would be the ideal way.

dwaite 4y ago

> Chrome's dominance of the Web is very scary. Not as scary as IE's, since it's open source, but still, it's such a huge beast that it's almost proprietary through complexity. I don't know if there's an easy solution out of this. Both Chrome and Android are open-source bases for proprietary platforms. Google very consciously blurs the line between functionality available across all Android devices or across all web browsers, and the functionality which you only get with their products (e.g. licensed Android with Play services, or Google Chrome). Would it really have made a difference if Internet Explorer 6 was open source? Most of the features in Internet Explorer were copyable by other browsers, just as most of the Chrome-only API are copyable today. There's other reasons why Firefox and Netscape on Windows didn't support ActiveX controls and XML Data Islands, such as both those features being lousy ideas.