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So take five minutes to set up the parental controls on your children's devices. The idea that we should eliminate the ability to run arbitrary software "for th

So take five minutes to set up the parental controls on your children's devices. The idea that we should eliminate the ability to run arbitrary software "for the children" is completely ridiculous.

simondotau 3y ago
Then don’t buy an iPhone. I think it’s ridiculous that we are asking the government to save us from our own choices. As much as you and I don’t like it, what Apple is doing is perfectly legal. And as much as you or I might support a change in the law, you’re not going to get my support if the legislation is truly universal and not just a narrow-band targeting of a single company for developing an ecosystem which resonated with a large number of people. Write some legislation which applies to ALL platforms which run software and maybe I’ll take it seriously.
- rhn_mk1 3y ago
  Sometimes our choices lead us to results that no one wanted. For a classical example, check out "tragedy of the commons". In those cases, you do want someone to enforce cooperation from outside, and this is what's happening to Apple now. > what Apple is doing is perfectly legal Not in the EU starting this summer! Although I agree with the second point: game consoles being general purpose computers should be treated the same.
- wiseowise 3y ago
  > Then don’t buy an iPhone. I think it’s ridiculous that we are asking the government to save us from our own choices. That's a great argument. I have even a better one: Don't dictate what and how people use their devices that they paid for with their hard-earned money.
  - simondotau 3y ago
    Yes it's your device, but it's not your software. You don't own the software. And it's the software which is stopping you from doing what you want. All software effectively "dictates" how a device works, whether you're talking about an OS or an app. If you buy an app, you don't get to decide how it works. You don't like it? Don't buy it. I don't see a big push for people crying to the government to stop Activision from dictating how to play Call of Duty. Apple doesn't dictate what software runs on your iPhone, any more than a toaster manufacturer dictates whether you can use it as a space heater, or Toyota dictating whether your car can function as a boat, or Epic Games dictating whether Fortnite can be used to prepare your taxes. It's true that Apple doesn't make the process of running your own software easy, but you are legally entitled to break whatever barriers you like and replace the OS with a Linux distro. Have at it. It's great. I support it. And if you want legislation that requires hardware manufacturers to provide documented paths for installing alternative operating system software, I'd support that legislation eight days a week.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  > Then don't buy an iPhone Then don't enable side loading. And what Apple is doing is actually not perfectly legal. That's the entire reason they're changing their policies. It's not like they enjoy having to compete with app stores that offer other payment providers or allow things like emulators.
  - simondotau 3y ago
    I know how to not enable side-loading. There are a dozen friends and family members who I provide tech support to and I don't trust any of them to never follow the clearly written instructions which Epic will provide showing how to sideload Fortnite onto their phone. Sure, maybe Epic can be trusted. But perhaps Meta decides that the latest/most desirable versions of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp have to be side-loaded. Now it's commonplace. Now everyone's phone has sideloaded apps installed. Sure, maybe Meta can be trusted. But perhaps some new future TikTok-esque craze besets the mainstream, and it's in the form of a sideloaded app, made easy because sideloaded apps aren't unusual, and the company who makes this viral app is dodgy as f***. But sure, it's always the user's choice.
- malermeister 3y ago
  It's not "the government saving us from our own choices". It's us asking our democratically elected government to stop a giant corporation from telling us what to do with our own devices.
  - simondotau 3y ago
    I like how you say that as though I hadn't already considered that point. Would it be too much to ask to perhaps give me the benefit of the doubt that I'm already aware of all of the major arguments for why Apple should allow sideloading? Yes it's your device, but it's not your software. You don't own the software. And it's the software which is stopping you from doing what you want. Really though I'm just saying that I resent arguments that fail to provide anything resembling a modicum of consistency around this. As far as I'm concerned, as long as Sony is allowed to keep the PlayStation locked down, Apple should have equal right to keep the iPhone locked down. And if you, the consumer, doesn't like it, don't buy a PlayStation. I realise this comes across as a trite, throwaway thing to say, but I absolutely mean it. It is, in my opinion, a slam dunk argument.
    - malermeister 3y ago
      I think if you own the device, you do own the software, or framed the opposite way, if you don't own the software, you don't own the device What you're proposing is not really ownership of the device in any meaningful way, but just a license to use it on somebody else's terms. I don't want a world in which I don't own the device I pay for, so neither Sony nor Apple should be able to dictate what I do with them. It's like selling you a screwdriver and then saying you can only use it with one specific brand of screw.
      - simondotau 3y ago
        It's really nothing like your terrible analogy. Bad analogies are bad. Ownership of software is clear-cut under the law: unless you hold the copyright, it's not yours. You have been granted permission to use the software under the restricted terms of a license. In practice though, the legal perspective isn't a useful one. It's another bad analogy, useful only because it's the one backed by law. What actually matters is what you can do. It doesn't matter who "owns" it, you don't have the code needed to recompile the OS from source. Much less than sideloading apps, there are thousands of nominally trivial aspects of the OS which you cannot change without source code and a working build environment. Without this you don't have any ownership over the software in any useful sense. You do own your piece of physical iPhone hardware, and it's yours to muck about with as much as you wish. But don't expect schematics or the ability to manufacture your own parts, or the ability to sideload more processing cores into the A14 chip, or replace the camera with a different module.
- mrighele 3y ago
  > As much as you and I don’t like it, what Apple is doing is perfectly legal. Well, not in EU now
- flohofwoe 3y ago
  > I think it’s ridiculous that we are asking the government to save us from our own choices. So you think it's better asking companies to save us from our own choices? And that doesn't strike you as even more ridiculous?
  - simondotau 3y ago
    I think it's ridiculous that you think it sounds ridiculous. If people actually cared about this stuff, there would be a massive market opportunity for a competitor to make a product that satisfied people's demands. But they don't, so there isn't. Most of the noise in the community is from people who just enjoy seeing Apple squirm and probably aren't even an Apple customer anyway. Meanwhile the entities spending real money to lobby governments on this issue actually only care about getting around Apple's increasingly consumer-protecting app review process — they tolerated the 30% fee right up until the very same month that Apple started forcing developers to inform users if they were tracking users between apps. They want side-loading so they can track you, not so they can extract more money from you. Because they know they won't. Yes, entities like Epic might be able to sell apps with a lower marginal cost (not a lot lower, as they'll be handling stuff like fraud and refunds themselves, and Apple is still entitled to a software license fee) but the simple act of requiring consumers to enter their credit card number into an app is going to reduce transaction completion rates. I'd be willing to bet by at least 30%.

So take five minutes to set up the parental controls on your children's devices. The idea that we should eliminate the ability to run arbitrary software "for the children" is completely ridiculous.

simondotau 3y ago

Then don’t buy an iPhone. I think it’s ridiculous that we are asking the government to save us from our own choices. As much as you and I don’t like it, what Apple is doing is perfectly legal. And as much as you or I might support a change in the law, you’re not going to get my support if the legislation is truly universal and not just a narrow-band targeting of a single company for developing an ecosystem which resonated with a large number of people. Write some legislation which applies to ALL platforms which run software and maybe I’ll take it seriously.

rhn_mk1 3y ago
Sometimes our choices lead us to results that no one wanted. For a classical example, check out "tragedy of the commons". In those cases, you do want someone to enforce cooperation from outside, and this is what's happening to Apple now. > what Apple is doing is perfectly legal Not in the EU starting this summer! Although I agree with the second point: game consoles being general purpose computers should be treated the same.
wiseowise 3y ago
> Then don’t buy an iPhone. I think it’s ridiculous that we are asking the government to save us from our own choices. That's a great argument. I have even a better one: Don't dictate what and how people use their devices that they paid for with their hard-earned money.
- simondotau 3y ago
  Yes it's your device, but it's not your software. You don't own the software. And it's the software which is stopping you from doing what you want. All software effectively "dictates" how a device works, whether you're talking about an OS or an app. If you buy an app, you don't get to decide how it works. You don't like it? Don't buy it. I don't see a big push for people crying to the government to stop Activision from dictating how to play Call of Duty. Apple doesn't dictate what software runs on your iPhone, any more than a toaster manufacturer dictates whether you can use it as a space heater, or Toyota dictating whether your car can function as a boat, or Epic Games dictating whether Fortnite can be used to prepare your taxes. It's true that Apple doesn't make the process of running your own software easy, but you are legally entitled to break whatever barriers you like and replace the OS with a Linux distro. Have at it. It's great. I support it. And if you want legislation that requires hardware manufacturers to provide documented paths for installing alternative operating system software, I'd support that legislation eight days a week.
jeroenhd 3y ago
> Then don't buy an iPhone Then don't enable side loading. And what Apple is doing is actually not perfectly legal. That's the entire reason they're changing their policies. It's not like they enjoy having to compete with app stores that offer other payment providers or allow things like emulators.
- simondotau 3y ago
  I know how to not enable side-loading. There are a dozen friends and family members who I provide tech support to and I don't trust any of them to never follow the clearly written instructions which Epic will provide showing how to sideload Fortnite onto their phone. Sure, maybe Epic can be trusted. But perhaps Meta decides that the latest/most desirable versions of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp have to be side-loaded. Now it's commonplace. Now everyone's phone has sideloaded apps installed. Sure, maybe Meta can be trusted. But perhaps some new future TikTok-esque craze besets the mainstream, and it's in the form of a sideloaded app, made easy because sideloaded apps aren't unusual, and the company who makes this viral app is dodgy as f***. But sure, it's always the user's choice.
malermeister 3y ago
It's not "the government saving us from our own choices". It's us asking our democratically elected government to stop a giant corporation from telling us what to do with our own devices.
- simondotau 3y ago
  I like how you say that as though I hadn't already considered that point. Would it be too much to ask to perhaps give me the benefit of the doubt that I'm already aware of all of the major arguments for why Apple should allow sideloading? Yes it's your device, but it's not your software. You don't own the software. And it's the software which is stopping you from doing what you want. Really though I'm just saying that I resent arguments that fail to provide anything resembling a modicum of consistency around this. As far as I'm concerned, as long as Sony is allowed to keep the PlayStation locked down, Apple should have equal right to keep the iPhone locked down. And if you, the consumer, doesn't like it, don't buy a PlayStation. I realise this comes across as a trite, throwaway thing to say, but I absolutely mean it. It is, in my opinion, a slam dunk argument.
  - malermeister 3y ago
    I think if you own the device, you do own the software, or framed the opposite way, if you don't own the software, you don't own the device What you're proposing is not really ownership of the device in any meaningful way, but just a license to use it on somebody else's terms. I don't want a world in which I don't own the device I pay for, so neither Sony nor Apple should be able to dictate what I do with them. It's like selling you a screwdriver and then saying you can only use it with one specific brand of screw.
    - simondotau 3y ago
      It's really nothing like your terrible analogy. Bad analogies are bad. Ownership of software is clear-cut under the law: unless you hold the copyright, it's not yours. You have been granted permission to use the software under the restricted terms of a license. In practice though, the legal perspective isn't a useful one. It's another bad analogy, useful only because it's the one backed by law. What actually matters is what you can do. It doesn't matter who "owns" it, you don't have the code needed to recompile the OS from source. Much less than sideloading apps, there are thousands of nominally trivial aspects of the OS which you cannot change without source code and a working build environment. Without this you don't have any ownership over the software in any useful sense. You do own your piece of physical iPhone hardware, and it's yours to muck about with as much as you wish. But don't expect schematics or the ability to manufacture your own parts, or the ability to sideload more processing cores into the A14 chip, or replace the camera with a different module.
mrighele 3y ago
> As much as you and I don’t like it, what Apple is doing is perfectly legal. Well, not in EU now
flohofwoe 3y ago
> I think it’s ridiculous that we are asking the government to save us from our own choices. So you think it's better asking companies to save us from our own choices? And that doesn't strike you as even more ridiculous?
- simondotau 3y ago
  I think it's ridiculous that you think it sounds ridiculous. If people actually cared about this stuff, there would be a massive market opportunity for a competitor to make a product that satisfied people's demands. But they don't, so there isn't. Most of the noise in the community is from people who just enjoy seeing Apple squirm and probably aren't even an Apple customer anyway. Meanwhile the entities spending real money to lobby governments on this issue actually only care about getting around Apple's increasingly consumer-protecting app review process — they tolerated the 30% fee right up until the very same month that Apple started forcing developers to inform users if they were tracking users between apps. They want side-loading so they can track you, not so they can extract more money from you. Because they know they won't. Yes, entities like Epic might be able to sell apps with a lower marginal cost (not a lot lower, as they'll be handling stuff like fraud and refunds themselves, and Apple is still entitled to a software license fee) but the simple act of requiring consumers to enter their credit card number into an app is going to reduce transaction completion rates. I'd be willing to bet by at least 30%.