3 ms·

They should just allow installing other operating systems instead. If you want out of their platform, install Linux OS on your phone and have whatever you want

They should just allow installing other operating systems instead. If you want out of their platform, install Linux OS on your phone and have whatever you want there. Wouldn't that make everybody happy - Apple, EU and customers?

Kwpolska 4y ago
Nobody wants Linux on an iPhone. People want both the Apple ecosystem, but also apps that do not want to participate in it or apps that Apple does not like.
- mirekrusin 4y ago
  People would also want to bring their own wine to every restaurant and some would love to bring their own eggs and ask kitchen to make it for them at a discount - isn't it better to just put few benches as picnic area outside to make everybody happy? You can't meet all demands of everybody at the same time because what they think they're entitled to is mutually exclusive. Let's not kid ourselves - Apple won't give full, unrestricted access for sideloaded code ever. It's going to run in some kind of highly isolated enclave at best, with grayed out icons, warning sign overlay, scary long list of permissions given when installing, untrusted code popups when launching, permission re-confirmations when running, without access to ie. background code execution, limited apis etc. - they must be brainstorming any loopholes left by snail speed EU bureaucracy as we speak to make it as user unfriendly and limited as possible. All that wasted energy could be channeled into something that actually is good for people, gives them freedom while preserving Apple's deserved profit participation in the market they've created themselves out of thin air.
wiseowise 4y ago
That should be the next step, yes.
- mirekrusin 4y ago
  My argument is that it should be the only step that is fair for both sides, efficient to implement, collapses bureaucratic policy to single sentence, doesn't create "issue created here - must be solved somewhere else" problems, nourishes progress, gives true freedom to purchased item owners, preserves good capitalistic incentives and many more. Sideloading will be full of complicated very important details sucking out live from all parties involved. I think we all agree that it should not be possible to unintentionally click or autoload link that downloads some settings app that looks like ie. iOS settings app but is developed by some shady party that has access to ie. your biometric security primitives, can look like/impersonate any built-in app/OS behavior etc.
jeroenhd 4y ago
I would love that option, but even with Ahasi for iPhones you'll still need to deal with the horrific kludge that is the modern modem. Open source networking stacks exist but they're still extremely limited. Just look at how long it took for the Pinephone to receive calls, and they interface with the modem over a standard protocol like USB. The ability to install your own OS would be a nice end goal, but at this pace it'll take at least another 10 years of government regulation before Apple would even consider allowing that.
- mirekrusin 4y ago
  It would create incentives to explore and benefit from those efforts creating healthy non-monopoly ecosystem. It would likely create second market for their devices that Apple doesn't care about (because they don't release new iOS updates for old devices), it would create incentive for vendors to support open source through legacy hardware reuse (what is your hardware legacy reuse score as opposed to destroy-recycle-as-minerals score kind of thing). We live in times where shoes have longer life span than many billions transistor devices which is mad, non eco friendly status quo where government should be stepping in instead of some cherry picked nonsense that will take endless decades to iron out and at the end of the day will make all parties simply unhappy.
zgk7iqea 4y ago
Linux on mobile is a major step back both in terms of security and usability. Modern smartphone App Sandboxes are immensely better than desktop paradigms. Sideloading should be allowed, tho.
- mirekrusin 4y ago
  Security and usability are not the only dimensions that matter. There are people who would like to use devices they own in alternative ways ie. to develop, experiment or simply not to throw perfectly functioning, un-updatable, just few years old hardware to the trash bin. Apple doesn't want their platform to be polluted with privileged, unsigned code. They don't want next security breach news headline to include their name in it if it originated from code they haven't verified/signed/created - because they put a lot of effort into securing their platform and profit out of it. Allowing running alternative OSes would make both sides happy, no?
  - zgk7iqea 4y ago
    I'm all in for allowing alternate OSes, don't get me wrong :). I'm just saying that for most people it's a bad idea, especially regarding Linux. Linux's security is abysmal because the desktop security model is fundamentally flawed. Take Flatpak for example. While it is a big step forward in terms of portability, ease of use and security, it is still allows applications to pick their permissions themselves. Even dangerous ones like X11 display server access, full file system access or camera access. However, there already is a number of secure open source alternative mobile OSes based on Android, GrapheneOS for example. Also, driver blobs for modems are often out-of-date and insecure. Making the phone drivers fully open source will probably not happen. If you know what you’re doing, installing a different OS onto can be liberating and good for the environment – most of the time the hardware is perfectly fine, just the software becomes more bloated and slower as the device ages. It’s just - in my opinion - more risky.

Kwpolska 4y ago

Nobody wants Linux on an iPhone. People want both the Apple ecosystem, but also apps that do not want to participate in it or apps that Apple does not like.

mirekrusin 4y ago
People would also want to bring their own wine to every restaurant and some would love to bring their own eggs and ask kitchen to make it for them at a discount - isn't it better to just put few benches as picnic area outside to make everybody happy? You can't meet all demands of everybody at the same time because what they think they're entitled to is mutually exclusive. Let's not kid ourselves - Apple won't give full, unrestricted access for sideloaded code ever. It's going to run in some kind of highly isolated enclave at best, with grayed out icons, warning sign overlay, scary long list of permissions given when installing, untrusted code popups when launching, permission re-confirmations when running, without access to ie. background code execution, limited apis etc. - they must be brainstorming any loopholes left by snail speed EU bureaucracy as we speak to make it as user unfriendly and limited as possible. All that wasted energy could be channeled into something that actually is good for people, gives them freedom while preserving Apple's deserved profit participation in the market they've created themselves out of thin air.

wiseowise 4y ago

That should be the next step, yes.

mirekrusin 4y ago
My argument is that it should be the only step that is fair for both sides, efficient to implement, collapses bureaucratic policy to single sentence, doesn't create "issue created here - must be solved somewhere else" problems, nourishes progress, gives true freedom to purchased item owners, preserves good capitalistic incentives and many more. Sideloading will be full of complicated very important details sucking out live from all parties involved. I think we all agree that it should not be possible to unintentionally click or autoload link that downloads some settings app that looks like ie. iOS settings app but is developed by some shady party that has access to ie. your biometric security primitives, can look like/impersonate any built-in app/OS behavior etc.

jeroenhd 4y ago

I would love that option, but even with Ahasi for iPhones you'll still need to deal with the horrific kludge that is the modern modem. Open source networking stacks exist but they're still extremely limited. Just look at how long it took for the Pinephone to receive calls, and they interface with the modem over a standard protocol like USB. The ability to install your own OS would be a nice end goal, but at this pace it'll take at least another 10 years of government regulation before Apple would even consider allowing that.

mirekrusin 4y ago
It would create incentives to explore and benefit from those efforts creating healthy non-monopoly ecosystem. It would likely create second market for their devices that Apple doesn't care about (because they don't release new iOS updates for old devices), it would create incentive for vendors to support open source through legacy hardware reuse (what is your hardware legacy reuse score as opposed to destroy-recycle-as-minerals score kind of thing). We live in times where shoes have longer life span than many billions transistor devices which is mad, non eco friendly status quo where government should be stepping in instead of some cherry picked nonsense that will take endless decades to iron out and at the end of the day will make all parties simply unhappy.

zgk7iqea 4y ago

Linux on mobile is a major step back both in terms of security and usability. Modern smartphone App Sandboxes are immensely better than desktop paradigms. Sideloading should be allowed, tho.

mirekrusin 4y ago
Security and usability are not the only dimensions that matter. There are people who would like to use devices they own in alternative ways ie. to develop, experiment or simply not to throw perfectly functioning, un-updatable, just few years old hardware to the trash bin. Apple doesn't want their platform to be polluted with privileged, unsigned code. They don't want next security breach news headline to include their name in it if it originated from code they haven't verified/signed/created - because they put a lot of effort into securing their platform and profit out of it. Allowing running alternative OSes would make both sides happy, no?
- zgk7iqea 4y ago
  I'm all in for allowing alternate OSes, don't get me wrong :). I'm just saying that for most people it's a bad idea, especially regarding Linux. Linux's security is abysmal because the desktop security model is fundamentally flawed. Take Flatpak for example. While it is a big step forward in terms of portability, ease of use and security, it is still allows applications to pick their permissions themselves. Even dangerous ones like X11 display server access, full file system access or camera access. However, there already is a number of secure open source alternative mobile OSes based on Android, GrapheneOS for example. Also, driver blobs for modems are often out-of-date and insecure. Making the phone drivers fully open source will probably not happen. If you know what you’re doing, installing a different OS onto can be liberating and good for the environment – most of the time the hardware is perfectly fine, just the software becomes more bloated and slower as the device ages. It’s just - in my opinion - more risky.