5 ms·

My philosophy is that Apple can do whatever they want (as long as legal and ethical). They made a thing, and you bought it. Why would anyone with a bent on fr

by gretch 4y ago

My philosophy is that Apple can do whatever they want (as long as legal and ethical). They made a thing, and you bought it. Why would anyone with a bent on free computing walk into what they know to be a closed ecosystem. Just buy an Android phone. It’s like flying to a foreign country and expecting everyone to English to you imo…

smoldesu 4y ago
Apple can absolutely do whatever they want, until regulators block them off from the market for anticompetitive or anticonsumer practices. Then their profit motivation kicks in again, and they have to lick boots until they're on the government's good side again. If you want an adversarial narrative between Apple and the people, you'll find no greater supporter than me. Europe seems to disagree with Apple's philosophy though, so maybe it's time they reassess their opinions.
rektide 4y ago
The excuse that freedom exists because one other market player is not a tyrant skates extremely thin ice. If Android went dark side too, where would we be? This excuse is exhausting, lacks any principles whatsoever; these are general purpose devices, browsing the web & allowing arbitrary apps to be developed & squeezed into the world, if they pass through the tyrant's gauntlet. That one company offers some modicum of un-tyranny is a poor defense for locking down & excluding general purpose computing, for withdrawing the systems we have in our pockets from our own ownership & ability to control. Citizens should have some options. The implications that the market is free to do whatever & citizens are free to pick from what's available seems presently somewhat tennable, but if we step back just a little bit here & look at the picture, it's horrifying. The inability to root most Android phones shows that actual freedom, real general purpose computing, is an extremely fine & narrowing little sliver, of the most important & most used general computing world.
- brewdad 4y ago
  The market has no interest in your individual freedom. If the citizens don't demand it,there is zero incentive to provide it. Don't try to convince Apple or Google or Microsoft or whomever to not be evil. Convince your fellow persons of the need to demand open devices. Good luck.
  - rektide 4y ago
    Getting society to embrace sustainable, stable, non-tyrannical systems is hard. We dont really notice the slips & depravations as we fall away from Natural Science & observable world & into the infernal realms of legal, technocapitalistic, or other dominion, into man-maintained falseity. Trying to sell people on a future where we have options to see what happens, options to learn about the universe, where not all decisions made are fixed & immutable, where mistakes can be ammended - where possibility hasnt just fallen off & rotted away - is a hard sell; weirdly the biggest existential threat, the whole category of of stasis & inflexibility setting us on fixed courses, is one of the hardest freedoms to sell. It should be an absolute no brainer to protect the species, to not close the book on possibility forever, to not let the species be limited & cajoled by impersonal & vast techno-captial-ocratic enterprises, that will hedge us in. But the short term wins arent super clear. "What is the use case?" "We dont know yet." We might have to enable possibility, act on principle, to find out. The threat of living in a post science world, where the universe around us is illegibile because we made it that way, where we cannot learn or see or work some of the most important & connective matter around us, seems like it's worth all the cards, is a no brainer to go all-in to defend against. The war against general purpose computing is a slow & creeping infernal damnation. Asking each person to individually be aware of & demanding of what humanity needs feels like a lot. The game is long & plays out in decades, and a lifetime of vigilance seems like a lot for the free market narrative to ask us all. It makes me think perhaps humankind needs representative bodies that can look out for & enable the future to remain open, that can steer us away from the irrevocable ever-narrowing paths, away from an incomprehensible state of being, away from the traps.
- Sargos 4y ago
  >If Android went dark side too, where would we be? Android went dark long ago too. All of the open source apps are abandoned and unmaintained replaced by closed source versions. The Play Store takes a 30% cut of things like Apple. Google decides what kind of apps are available on the app store and it closely matches Apple. Not arguing but rather expanding: You may be thinking "He just ignored sideloading get real" but tell me, are there any porn apps? No there aren't. They have no distribution channel and are banned on 100% of the computing devices people run their lives with which is their phone. "But porn works just fine in the browser" well so does pretty much anything else even on an iPhone so why are we even chatting in this thread? To end users Android sideloading does not exist. Apple and Google control what types of software humanity gets to use and there are no viable alternatives. Apple has fully embraced 1984 as these recurring threads keep pointing out but Google follows Apple in lock step on nearly every decision. There is no third choice except the increasingly crippled web.
  - fennecfoxy 4y ago
    Yeah there are porn apps. For example Wolf's Stash (yes, I am a trashy furry). In terms of mainstream stuff, I think that's less of a "Apple & Google don't want you to have them" and more "society doesn't want you to have them, won't somebody please think of the childreeeeen". Parents ignoring the fact, of course, that the 3 year old they gave a fucking tablet to with unlimited access can still end up on any of those sites via the browser.
brewdad 4y ago
I finally bought an iPhone because I grew tired of all the tinkering I either had to do (or oftentimes just could do) to customize and secure my Android phone. Also, it seemed like no matter how much I spent on one, it would lose support within 2 years. My phone is an appliance. I need it to provide 2 way communications and access to the information on the internet. Apple will provide security updates for the foreseeable future. That's all I want as I enter curmudgeonly old man age. But yeah, I know I bought a locked down device and I'm ok with that. BMW is charging a subscription for heated seats. I'm not ok with that, so won't be buying one. Obviously, they expect some people still will. I agree with them.
- asjkaehauisa 4y ago
  What do you mean by securing phone? Latest Android are secure as iPhone. You don't have to constumize Android use default. You can choose Google pixel if you want long support
User23 4y ago
> They made a thing, and you bought it. That's the key point: I bought it. It's mine now and I have the moral the moral right to do anything I please with it that isn't immoral. Granted, there can be laws that trample that moral right or artificial technical barriers that attempt to restrict it, but both are unjust. Attempted word magic spells such as "by using this product that you just bought you agree that you didn't actually buy this product" are ridiculous, dishonest, incoherent, and not morally binding.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > I bought it. It's mine now and I have the moral the moral right to do anything I please with it that isn't immoral. And ... you do? Is there some reason you can't do whatever you want with the device? This is like complaining that you can't use your xbox or television as a general purpose computing device. You can legally hack your own iphone. Go for it. You own the device.
  - orangecat 4y ago
    You can legally hack your own iphone. This is true, but only due to DMCA exemptions that Apple strongly opposed: https://www.wired.com/2010/07/feds-ok-iphone-jailbreaking/ https://www.wired.com/2010/07/feds-ok-iphone-jailbreaking/
adql 4y ago
All it takes for Apple to be open is for consumers to put the money where their mouth is and be loud about it. Which didn't happen, so it isn't. Give it a year of lower than usual profits and some twitter complaints and they will backpedal at mach 10
Tijdreiziger 4y ago
"Why would anyone with a bent on privacy walk into what they know to be spyware? Just buy an iPhone." Oh, wait...

by gretch 4y ago

smoldesu 4y ago

Apple can absolutely do whatever they want, until regulators block them off from the market for anticompetitive or anticonsumer practices. Then their profit motivation kicks in again, and they have to lick boots until they're on the government's good side again. If you want an adversarial narrative between Apple and the people, you'll find no greater supporter than me. Europe seems to disagree with Apple's philosophy though, so maybe it's time they reassess their opinions.

rektide 4y ago

The excuse that freedom exists because one other market player is not a tyrant skates extremely thin ice. If Android went dark side too, where would we be? This excuse is exhausting, lacks any principles whatsoever; these are general purpose devices, browsing the web & allowing arbitrary apps to be developed & squeezed into the world, if they pass through the tyrant's gauntlet. That one company offers some modicum of un-tyranny is a poor defense for locking down & excluding general purpose computing, for withdrawing the systems we have in our pockets from our own ownership & ability to control. Citizens should have some options. The implications that the market is free to do whatever & citizens are free to pick from what's available seems presently somewhat tennable, but if we step back just a little bit here & look at the picture, it's horrifying. The inability to root most Android phones shows that actual freedom, real general purpose computing, is an extremely fine & narrowing little sliver, of the most important & most used general computing world.

brewdad 4y ago
The market has no interest in your individual freedom. If the citizens don't demand it,there is zero incentive to provide it. Don't try to convince Apple or Google or Microsoft or whomever to not be evil. Convince your fellow persons of the need to demand open devices. Good luck.
- rektide 4y ago
  Getting society to embrace sustainable, stable, non-tyrannical systems is hard. We dont really notice the slips & depravations as we fall away from Natural Science & observable world & into the infernal realms of legal, technocapitalistic, or other dominion, into man-maintained falseity. Trying to sell people on a future where we have options to see what happens, options to learn about the universe, where not all decisions made are fixed & immutable, where mistakes can be ammended - where possibility hasnt just fallen off & rotted away - is a hard sell; weirdly the biggest existential threat, the whole category of of stasis & inflexibility setting us on fixed courses, is one of the hardest freedoms to sell. It should be an absolute no brainer to protect the species, to not close the book on possibility forever, to not let the species be limited & cajoled by impersonal & vast techno-captial-ocratic enterprises, that will hedge us in. But the short term wins arent super clear. "What is the use case?" "We dont know yet." We might have to enable possibility, act on principle, to find out. The threat of living in a post science world, where the universe around us is illegibile because we made it that way, where we cannot learn or see or work some of the most important & connective matter around us, seems like it's worth all the cards, is a no brainer to go all-in to defend against. The war against general purpose computing is a slow & creeping infernal damnation. Asking each person to individually be aware of & demanding of what humanity needs feels like a lot. The game is long & plays out in decades, and a lifetime of vigilance seems like a lot for the free market narrative to ask us all. It makes me think perhaps humankind needs representative bodies that can look out for & enable the future to remain open, that can steer us away from the irrevocable ever-narrowing paths, away from an incomprehensible state of being, away from the traps.
Sargos 4y ago
>If Android went dark side too, where would we be? Android went dark long ago too. All of the open source apps are abandoned and unmaintained replaced by closed source versions. The Play Store takes a 30% cut of things like Apple. Google decides what kind of apps are available on the app store and it closely matches Apple. Not arguing but rather expanding: You may be thinking "He just ignored sideloading get real" but tell me, are there any porn apps? No there aren't. They have no distribution channel and are banned on 100% of the computing devices people run their lives with which is their phone. "But porn works just fine in the browser" well so does pretty much anything else even on an iPhone so why are we even chatting in this thread? To end users Android sideloading does not exist. Apple and Google control what types of software humanity gets to use and there are no viable alternatives. Apple has fully embraced 1984 as these recurring threads keep pointing out but Google follows Apple in lock step on nearly every decision. There is no third choice except the increasingly crippled web.
- fennecfoxy 4y ago
  Yeah there are porn apps. For example Wolf's Stash (yes, I am a trashy furry). In terms of mainstream stuff, I think that's less of a "Apple & Google don't want you to have them" and more "society doesn't want you to have them, won't somebody please think of the childreeeeen". Parents ignoring the fact, of course, that the 3 year old they gave a fucking tablet to with unlimited access can still end up on any of those sites via the browser.

brewdad 4y ago

I finally bought an iPhone because I grew tired of all the tinkering I either had to do (or oftentimes just could do) to customize and secure my Android phone. Also, it seemed like no matter how much I spent on one, it would lose support within 2 years. My phone is an appliance. I need it to provide 2 way communications and access to the information on the internet. Apple will provide security updates for the foreseeable future. That's all I want as I enter curmudgeonly old man age. But yeah, I know I bought a locked down device and I'm ok with that. BMW is charging a subscription for heated seats. I'm not ok with that, so won't be buying one. Obviously, they expect some people still will. I agree with them.

asjkaehauisa 4y ago
What do you mean by securing phone? Latest Android are secure as iPhone. You don't have to constumize Android use default. You can choose Google pixel if you want long support

User23 4y ago

> They made a thing, and you bought it. That's the key point: I bought it. It's mine now and I have the moral the moral right to do anything I please with it that isn't immoral. Granted, there can be laws that trample that moral right or artificial technical barriers that attempt to restrict it, but both are unjust. Attempted word magic spells such as "by using this product that you just bought you agree that you didn't actually buy this product" are ridiculous, dishonest, incoherent, and not morally binding.

rootusrootus 4y ago
> I bought it. It's mine now and I have the moral the moral right to do anything I please with it that isn't immoral. And ... you do? Is there some reason you can't do whatever you want with the device? This is like complaining that you can't use your xbox or television as a general purpose computing device. You can legally hack your own iphone. Go for it. You own the device.
- orangecat 4y ago
  You can legally hack your own iphone. This is true, but only due to DMCA exemptions that Apple strongly opposed: https://www.wired.com/2010/07/feds-ok-iphone-jailbreaking/ https://www.wired.com/2010/07/feds-ok-iphone-jailbreaking/

adql 4y ago

All it takes for Apple to be open is for consumers to put the money where their mouth is and be loud about it. Which didn't happen, so it isn't. Give it a year of lower than usual profits and some twitter complaints and they will backpedal at mach 10

Tijdreiziger 4y ago

"Why would anyone with a bent on privacy walk into what they know to be spyware? Just buy an iPhone." Oh, wait...