4 ms·

The issue is most users would be better served with a black box. If there's a way in, malice will get there, regardless of user and developer intent.

noasaservice 4y ago
And this arrogant "we know better than you, plebes" is why I don't buy apple shit. My money, my hardware, my control. Not negotiable. (Edit: this applies to all their offerings. Iphone is already anti-user and effectively a rented device. Mac laptops are heading that way. Do not want.)
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  You can turn off most of the stuff that's keeping it out of "your control". I write "most" only to hedge—I'm not aware of any that you can't (though there may be some).
- gffrd 4y ago
  … and that's your choice! In their defense—both Apple's, and the public's—the general populace is, like, 99.99% OK with outsourcing those choices to a company that's way more interested/invested/capable in knowing better than they would be on their own. Is it arrogant if the public continues to reward/reaffirm it?
  - mhh__ 4y ago
    I agree it's mostly between the customer and apple but just remember that most people don't know anything about computers at all. Even people who have heard of Linux for example's opinions will have mostly been set by people shilling for Windows and so on
  - noasaservice 4y ago
    - kriops 4y ago
      Is it, though? Or is it evidence that Apple's products wins out on usability for the majority of use cases that are relevant to their customers? That is compared to Linux, where you have to make an active effort to acheive the same level of usability.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      So you’re saying that you know better what most people want in a phone than they do? I bet if you told 100 random people on the street what they could do with an Android phone that they couldn’t do with an iPhone, 99 of them would shrug and not care.
      - BLKNSLVR 4y ago
        The flipside to that is: do you outsource all of your opinions to "the actions of the majority"? Ignorance is the default state and probably shouldn't be relied upon for, or even asked it's opinion on, guiding the path forward.
        scarface74 4y ago
        No the flip side is that I choose the product on the market that best meets my needs as do most people. I started programming in assembly in 6th grade in 1986 and by the time I graduated from college in 1996, I had dabbled in assembly for four different processors (65C02, 68K, PPC, x86) and I have been a professional hands on keyboard developer since then [1]. I think I have a good grasp on how this computer stuff works. I still prefer the Apple ecosystem. Have you thought that most people don’t care about the ability to run a Linux shell on their phone? I certainly don’t. [1] before I get called out, I’ve mentioned before that my official title now is “cloud architect specialized in application modernization consulting”. But that just means that I’m still just an “full stack enterprise developer” who also writes a shit ton of yaml/HCL/PowerPoint slides, “one pagers” and PrFAQs.
  - oarsinsync 4y ago
    > In their defense—both Apple's, and the public's—the general populace is, like, 99.99% OK Majority of customers purchase one of two options in a duopoly isn’t really an endorsement of the options, but rather a critique on the lack of options.
    - KerrAvon 4y ago
      Nonsense. At various points during iPhone's lifetime, customers had the ability to choose Windows Phone, Nokia, Symbian, Blackberry. People who wanted cheap or hackable phones went with Android, everyone else bought iPhones. Just like today! Other operating systems were available in the past, and you can release a RISC-V Lisp OS phone incompatible with everything else tomorrow if you want. Just like in the past.
    - gffrd 4y ago
      … however, the market decided years ago it didn't want to support a multitude of choices, when all other viable options went belly-up, or currently fail to get traction … or, to be fair, can't compete with the giant marketing machines of the remaining parties. It's just that most people don't care that much.
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    72% of statistics are fabricated
  - userbinator 4y ago
    the general populace is, like, 99.99% OK with outsourcing those choices Because they were deliberately made to feel helpless. to a company that's way more interested/invested/capable in knowing better than they would be on their own. The company is "way more interested" in continuing to squeeze the $$$ out of you, and would rather you not know anything but be subservient to it, because then you cannot object.
- _gabe_ 4y ago
  Same here. I just finished reading Raymond Chen's The Old New Thing, and it was really reassuring to read about the choices the Windows developers would make to always give the user the final choice over the programs. Hopefully Microsoft still has devs like these working their on the OS now.
  - KerrAvon 4y ago
    Have you ever used Windows programs, though? Doesn't really work that well in the end.
- rosnd 4y ago
  - BLKNSLVR 4y ago
    - rosnd 4y ago
      There's also the option of doing better things with your life and not worrying about what software your phone runs, in reality your life has to be really fucking boring for it to make any difference whatsoever.
      - BLKNSLVR 4y ago
        A few years ago there was an advertising campaign run by Australia's massively dominant telco, Telstra. It went along the lines of a new business struggling to get their various comms setup via a number of smaller players, different ones per communications medium: Internet, landline, mobile. This faded to the advertising tagline of "Let's just get Telstra to do it": one-stop-shop for all your comms needs. Having been responsible for WAN connectivity for a company with branches spread around Australia, I'm aware that the attitude of (added the first two words and comma for appropriate dramatic effect) "Fuck it, Let's just get Telstra to do it" will end up adding a good 30-40% of costs over and above alternate providers. Moral of the story: The cost is worth it to some people, probably a majority of people because they just don't want to think about it, don't want to go to the extra effort, and probably won't realise the cost difference. I'm not one of those people. I feel as if I'm quite "aware" of the nature of the world, and I react as per how I feel is appropriate. If that's "really fucking boring" to some internet rando, then, well, maybe I'd better re-think my entire life! Maybe I'll get Telstra to do it...
    - pram 4y ago
      Yes the only choices in life are: running a rooted Android phone, or being a mindless drooling sheeple drone
- _ph_ 4y ago
  They give you pretty much all control of the hardware. The ultimate sign of that is, that you can install Linux on the ARM macs now. Apple even made some steps to make this reasonable. You do have full control of the hardware. On the other side, a booted macOS has certain limitations in place. Not even root is able to write to certain partitions and such stuff. This is not because "we know better", but because these limits provide some fundamental security. A partition which cannot be written to, cannot be modified by malware. You can boot into a mode where this protection does not exist, but for productive usage, it is a good idea to have that protection in place.
- scarface74 4y ago
  It’s anti- noasaservice - most users are better served by appliance like devices. Apple sells phones that are on average twice as expensive as the competition, but yet they still manage to have a 60%+ market share in the US. Maybe they know what appeals to most users?
- jononomo 4y ago
  I wish guys like you would only use operating systems that you wrote yourselves.
- Angostura 4y ago
  > Iphone is already … effectively a rented device. Explain?

noasaservice 4y ago

And this arrogant "we know better than you, plebes" is why I don't buy apple shit. My money, my hardware, my control. Not negotiable. (Edit: this applies to all their offerings. Iphone is already anti-user and effectively a rented device. Mac laptops are heading that way. Do not want.)

yamtaddle 4y ago
You can turn off most of the stuff that's keeping it out of "your control". I write "most" only to hedge—I'm not aware of any that you can't (though there may be some).
gffrd 4y ago
… and that's your choice! In their defense—both Apple's, and the public's—the general populace is, like, 99.99% OK with outsourcing those choices to a company that's way more interested/invested/capable in knowing better than they would be on their own. Is it arrogant if the public continues to reward/reaffirm it?
- mhh__ 4y ago
  I agree it's mostly between the customer and apple but just remember that most people don't know anything about computers at all. Even people who have heard of Linux for example's opinions will have mostly been set by people shilling for Windows and so on
- noasaservice 4y ago
  - kriops 4y ago
    Is it, though? Or is it evidence that Apple's products wins out on usability for the majority of use cases that are relevant to their customers? That is compared to Linux, where you have to make an active effort to acheive the same level of usability.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    So you’re saying that you know better what most people want in a phone than they do? I bet if you told 100 random people on the street what they could do with an Android phone that they couldn’t do with an iPhone, 99 of them would shrug and not care.
    - BLKNSLVR 4y ago
      The flipside to that is: do you outsource all of your opinions to "the actions of the majority"? Ignorance is the default state and probably shouldn't be relied upon for, or even asked it's opinion on, guiding the path forward.
      - scarface74 4y ago
        No the flip side is that I choose the product on the market that best meets my needs as do most people. I started programming in assembly in 6th grade in 1986 and by the time I graduated from college in 1996, I had dabbled in assembly for four different processors (65C02, 68K, PPC, x86) and I have been a professional hands on keyboard developer since then [1]. I think I have a good grasp on how this computer stuff works. I still prefer the Apple ecosystem. Have you thought that most people don’t care about the ability to run a Linux shell on their phone? I certainly don’t. [1] before I get called out, I’ve mentioned before that my official title now is “cloud architect specialized in application modernization consulting”. But that just means that I’m still just an “full stack enterprise developer” who also writes a shit ton of yaml/HCL/PowerPoint slides, “one pagers” and PrFAQs.
- oarsinsync 4y ago
  > In their defense—both Apple's, and the public's—the general populace is, like, 99.99% OK Majority of customers purchase one of two options in a duopoly isn’t really an endorsement of the options, but rather a critique on the lack of options.
  - KerrAvon 4y ago
    Nonsense. At various points during iPhone's lifetime, customers had the ability to choose Windows Phone, Nokia, Symbian, Blackberry. People who wanted cheap or hackable phones went with Android, everyone else bought iPhones. Just like today! Other operating systems were available in the past, and you can release a RISC-V Lisp OS phone incompatible with everything else tomorrow if you want. Just like in the past.
  - gffrd 4y ago
    … however, the market decided years ago it didn't want to support a multitude of choices, when all other viable options went belly-up, or currently fail to get traction … or, to be fair, can't compete with the giant marketing machines of the remaining parties. It's just that most people don't care that much.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  72% of statistics are fabricated
- userbinator 4y ago
  the general populace is, like, 99.99% OK with outsourcing those choices Because they were deliberately made to feel helpless. to a company that's way more interested/invested/capable in knowing better than they would be on their own. The company is "way more interested" in continuing to squeeze the $$$ out of you, and would rather you not know anything but be subservient to it, because then you cannot object.
_gabe_ 4y ago
Same here. I just finished reading Raymond Chen's The Old New Thing, and it was really reassuring to read about the choices the Windows developers would make to always give the user the final choice over the programs. Hopefully Microsoft still has devs like these working their on the OS now.
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  Have you ever used Windows programs, though? Doesn't really work that well in the end.
rosnd 4y ago
- BLKNSLVR 4y ago
  - rosnd 4y ago
    There's also the option of doing better things with your life and not worrying about what software your phone runs, in reality your life has to be really fucking boring for it to make any difference whatsoever.
    - BLKNSLVR 4y ago
      A few years ago there was an advertising campaign run by Australia's massively dominant telco, Telstra. It went along the lines of a new business struggling to get their various comms setup via a number of smaller players, different ones per communications medium: Internet, landline, mobile. This faded to the advertising tagline of "Let's just get Telstra to do it": one-stop-shop for all your comms needs. Having been responsible for WAN connectivity for a company with branches spread around Australia, I'm aware that the attitude of (added the first two words and comma for appropriate dramatic effect) "Fuck it, Let's just get Telstra to do it" will end up adding a good 30-40% of costs over and above alternate providers. Moral of the story: The cost is worth it to some people, probably a majority of people because they just don't want to think about it, don't want to go to the extra effort, and probably won't realise the cost difference. I'm not one of those people. I feel as if I'm quite "aware" of the nature of the world, and I react as per how I feel is appropriate. If that's "really fucking boring" to some internet rando, then, well, maybe I'd better re-think my entire life! Maybe I'll get Telstra to do it...
  - pram 4y ago
    Yes the only choices in life are: running a rooted Android phone, or being a mindless drooling sheeple drone
_ph_ 4y ago
They give you pretty much all control of the hardware. The ultimate sign of that is, that you can install Linux on the ARM macs now. Apple even made some steps to make this reasonable. You do have full control of the hardware. On the other side, a booted macOS has certain limitations in place. Not even root is able to write to certain partitions and such stuff. This is not because "we know better", but because these limits provide some fundamental security. A partition which cannot be written to, cannot be modified by malware. You can boot into a mode where this protection does not exist, but for productive usage, it is a good idea to have that protection in place.
scarface74 4y ago
It’s anti- noasaservice - most users are better served by appliance like devices. Apple sells phones that are on average twice as expensive as the competition, but yet they still manage to have a 60%+ market share in the US. Maybe they know what appeals to most users?
jononomo 4y ago
I wish guys like you would only use operating systems that you wrote yourselves.
Angostura 4y ago
> Iphone is already … effectively a rented device. Explain?