4 ms·

I agree. The whole article left me feeling a resounding "well, duhhhhhh". The author has simply chosen one of the least hackable compute platforms for his ha

I agree. The whole article left me feeling a resounding "well, duhhhhhh". The author has simply chosen one of the least hackable compute platforms for his hacking hobby and is then complaining about it (I mean "hacking" in the original sense, not implying anything about illegal activities). If he were a farmer writing angry blog posts about how VW has made it damned-near impossible to plough a field with a VW beetle, it wouldn't be any more absurd. The simple truth of the matter is that Linux and other open source OSes are the only compute platforms that can still meaningfully be thought of as providing "general purpose computing". ...maybe the JVM does, too, but that's more like a general purpose computing sandbox within appliances that's under heavy guard and for some reason tolerated by appliance makers.

_trackno5 4y ago
Why shouldn’t he complain about it though? If nobody complains there’s no chance things will change. Sure people could vote with their feet, but not everyone is willing to do that. They should still be allowed to ask for improvements.
- PedroBatista 4y ago
  I agree he has the right to complain, I call Apple "bad names" most of the time I log into App Store Connect! But.. We also need to have some perspective. They will not change unless the incentive is there and even then they fight it with all their strengths ( ex: other payment services used to sell in-app stuff ) And frankly why are "we" so invested in changing Apple? They suck? they don't threat you well? Then fuck them.
- stakhanov 4y ago
  But his unwillingness to vote with his feet is the actual message here. He's basically saying: Here are the horrible things that Apple is doing to me and yet I'm still giving them my money and investing myself in their developer ecosystem. That's how much I love them, for some reason that remains unstated in the article. That's what the parent commenter alluded to: There's some really weird psychology happening here, and that's the piece that's actually interesting.
  - dns_snek 4y ago
    I don't think that's fair assessment, it's equivalent to saying "You complain about the medical system and yet you still go to the hospital". It's not much of a choice - and yes - Android exists, but in a duopoly of 2 shitty choices, Android is arguably the shittier one. Yes, you can install arbitrary apps there, but then you lose much more of your privacy, security, and long term support. Voting with your feet doesn't work when every company in the segment is equally bad or very likely to become equally bad in short order.
  - threeseed 4y ago
    I think people here need to stop questioning people's psychology. It's offensive and unnecessary. You can be critical of Apple's App Store policies and still want to take advantage of the unique features of the platform.
  - rnk 4y ago
    There's no reason that Apple people can't move to Android, it's stubborn resistance. Just like Android people don't want to move to Apple for "reasons". But they love what they have. I use android but I want to figure out how to block Google from spying better.
    - _trackno5 4y ago
      Of course there are plenty of reasons not to move to android. If you're used to Apple's ecosystem (laptop, tablet), your family also uses apple devices, etc it is not convenient to move to a platform that doesn't have all of the same conveniences. Sure you may be able to get the same things done, but it's not convenient. doesn't mean people can't complain and want something better. People are allowed to just plain not like android. You don't give shit to people because they don't like to dress the same way you do.
  - rchaud 4y ago
    > There's some really weird psychology happening here Sunk cost mentality. They have invested time and resources into learning a whole platform, only to find that it is not suitable for use, and they have to start all over again somewhere else.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ubermonkey 4y ago
It's entirely hackable for free if you don't want to use the Apple SDK, though. His complaint is pretty narrow.
- stakhanov 4y ago
  But things are certainly moving in this direction, i.e. all forms of unsigned code, sideloading, and so forth being fully banned and devices flat-out refusing to run programs that didn't come from the store and where developers don't have commercial-grade relationships with Apple, with the commensurate amount of money and power being handed over. Microsoft has been moving in that direction too, leaving the Microsoft store basically a ghost town. -- Maybe games are an exception to this, but even here, Microsoft is a distant second to Steam, who are putting as much of their weight as they practicably can behind Linux. That's the power of the developer ecosystem. It wasn't users who did this to Microsoft, it was developers. But, for some reason, developers seem to be unwilling to do to Apple and Google what they did to Microsoft, and I don't get that.
  - ubermonkey 4y ago
    It isn’t, though. People love to SAY this, but I see no evidence that it’s actually true. To make the case that this is an “Apple” thing, you conflate the two very different platforms. iOS is and always has been a walled garden. That’s fine. You either like that (I do) or you don’t (you probably don’t). MacOS isn’t. It never has been, and there is no evidence that it’s going to become one. Yes, the default setting is to require signed code. This is a good default! Most people who buy computers should probably leave that option turned on — but turning it off is very, very simple. It’s just a system preference. This is not evidence of Apple wanting to lock down the Mac. It’s evidence of an increasingly complex world of code, and the rise of malware.
rchaud 4y ago
> The simple truth of the matter is that Linux and other open source OSes... ...have zero presence on mobile ...don't spend a cent on marketing to developers, so the awareness isn't there

_trackno5 4y ago

Why shouldn’t he complain about it though? If nobody complains there’s no chance things will change. Sure people could vote with their feet, but not everyone is willing to do that. They should still be allowed to ask for improvements.

PedroBatista 4y ago
I agree he has the right to complain, I call Apple "bad names" most of the time I log into App Store Connect! But.. We also need to have some perspective. They will not change unless the incentive is there and even then they fight it with all their strengths ( ex: other payment services used to sell in-app stuff ) And frankly why are "we" so invested in changing Apple? They suck? they don't threat you well? Then fuck them.
stakhanov 4y ago
But his unwillingness to vote with his feet is the actual message here. He's basically saying: Here are the horrible things that Apple is doing to me and yet I'm still giving them my money and investing myself in their developer ecosystem. That's how much I love them, for some reason that remains unstated in the article. That's what the parent commenter alluded to: There's some really weird psychology happening here, and that's the piece that's actually interesting.
- dns_snek 4y ago
  I don't think that's fair assessment, it's equivalent to saying "You complain about the medical system and yet you still go to the hospital". It's not much of a choice - and yes - Android exists, but in a duopoly of 2 shitty choices, Android is arguably the shittier one. Yes, you can install arbitrary apps there, but then you lose much more of your privacy, security, and long term support. Voting with your feet doesn't work when every company in the segment is equally bad or very likely to become equally bad in short order.
- threeseed 4y ago
  I think people here need to stop questioning people's psychology. It's offensive and unnecessary. You can be critical of Apple's App Store policies and still want to take advantage of the unique features of the platform.
- rnk 4y ago
  There's no reason that Apple people can't move to Android, it's stubborn resistance. Just like Android people don't want to move to Apple for "reasons". But they love what they have. I use android but I want to figure out how to block Google from spying better.
  - _trackno5 4y ago
    Of course there are plenty of reasons not to move to android. If you're used to Apple's ecosystem (laptop, tablet), your family also uses apple devices, etc it is not convenient to move to a platform that doesn't have all of the same conveniences. Sure you may be able to get the same things done, but it's not convenient. doesn't mean people can't complain and want something better. People are allowed to just plain not like android. You don't give shit to people because they don't like to dress the same way you do.
- rchaud 4y ago
  > There's some really weird psychology happening here Sunk cost mentality. They have invested time and resources into learning a whole platform, only to find that it is not suitable for use, and they have to start all over again somewhere else.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

ubermonkey 4y ago

It's entirely hackable for free if you don't want to use the Apple SDK, though. His complaint is pretty narrow.

stakhanov 4y ago
But things are certainly moving in this direction, i.e. all forms of unsigned code, sideloading, and so forth being fully banned and devices flat-out refusing to run programs that didn't come from the store and where developers don't have commercial-grade relationships with Apple, with the commensurate amount of money and power being handed over. Microsoft has been moving in that direction too, leaving the Microsoft store basically a ghost town. -- Maybe games are an exception to this, but even here, Microsoft is a distant second to Steam, who are putting as much of their weight as they practicably can behind Linux. That's the power of the developer ecosystem. It wasn't users who did this to Microsoft, it was developers. But, for some reason, developers seem to be unwilling to do to Apple and Google what they did to Microsoft, and I don't get that.
- ubermonkey 4y ago
  It isn’t, though. People love to SAY this, but I see no evidence that it’s actually true. To make the case that this is an “Apple” thing, you conflate the two very different platforms. iOS is and always has been a walled garden. That’s fine. You either like that (I do) or you don’t (you probably don’t). MacOS isn’t. It never has been, and there is no evidence that it’s going to become one. Yes, the default setting is to require signed code. This is a good default! Most people who buy computers should probably leave that option turned on — but turning it off is very, very simple. It’s just a system preference. This is not evidence of Apple wanting to lock down the Mac. It’s evidence of an increasingly complex world of code, and the rise of malware.

rchaud 4y ago

> The simple truth of the matter is that Linux and other open source OSes... ...have zero presence on mobile ...don't spend a cent on marketing to developers, so the awareness isn't there