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> Users should be in control of their devices One data point on this whole debate around Apple walled garden. It's basically my own opinion, not a blank statem

> Users should be in control of their devices One data point on this whole debate around Apple walled garden. It's basically my own opinion, not a blank statement. It won't be very popular here but whatever. Here it goes: The reason why I'm personally sticking with the iPhone is exactly the walled garden. I had a 3G, the 5, and now the 8 for last 5 years (there goes the argument about buying a new phone every year). I bought all of them knowing very well what I'm getting into and I want it to remain that way. If I didn't want a walled garden, I'd get an Android phone.

xmprt 3y ago
Just curious. What benefits do you see yourself getting by having a walled garden?
- selectodude 3y ago
  Not having to worry about shit. There are dozens, if not hundreds of mobile devices I can buy where I can root and have full access to them. I just don’t trust myself to be able to secure them properly. I am happy, no, thrilled, for the opportunity to offload that risk to Apple.
  - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
    You are aware that iphone is a phone, that could be rooted just by visiting a website and clicking on a button?
    - showdeddd 3y ago
      How can clicking an HTML element root my iPhone?
      - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JailbreakMe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JailbreakMe https://www.pcworld.com/article/486995/jailbreakme_30_how_does_it_work.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/486995/jailbreakme_30_how_do...
        teolandon 3y ago
        When someone talks about unspecified iPhones in the year 2023, they are probably not talking about iPhone 4 or older.
        jkubicek 3y ago
        If those links are accurate, JailBreakMe hasn't been an issue for over a decade.
  - josephg 3y ago
    I see this as a weakness of the Unix security model, not a benefit of the walled garden. Personally I’d love a future where apps on my laptop are sandboxed just as thoroughly as iOS apps. I want to be able to install and run desktop software from the internet without worrying about it exfiltrating or cryptolockering my data. Running an application should be just as secure as visiting a website. And that capability seems orthogonal to the App Store. I don’t see any reason we need a monopolistic app store on our phones to get good security. You don’t need anyone’s permission to make a website. Why can’t applications work the same way?
- redundantly 3y ago
  Higher quality applications. Fewer privacy violations. Lower chance of identity theft. Better overall security. Longer life cycles for new features. Even longer cycles for critical/security updates. Reduced effort to maintain and keep secure. On top of that, but not because of the walled garden aspect: Better parental controls. Consistent user experience (although for this one it helps to have the walled garden). Better device interoperability across the ecosystem.
  - ApolloFortyNine 3y ago
    All of this has nothing to do with the walled garden. The walled garden is the fact that you can't sideload apps or alternative stores at all. Everything you've mentioned is simply app store requirements.
    - redundantly 3y ago
      I'm aware what walled garden means. All of the benefits I listed are a result of, or helped by, the walled garden. The app store requirements are part of that walled garden.
      - constantcrying 3y ago
        All of that is still irrelevant. You can not have a walled garden and the exact same requirements for the Appstore. Android is a walled garden too, up until you flip a switch and allow non-appstore apps, which most people do not do. If there were any benefits to the walled garden, they would be present on Android as well.
  - menus 3y ago
    > Lower chance of identity theft https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUYODQB_2wQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUYODQB_2wQ > Fewer privacy violations The only reason Apple booted Facebook tracking is to become the next Facebook in tracking with its ads. (1) (2) (1) https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/26/23425637/apple-pauses-gambling-ads-developer-outcry https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/26/23425637/apple-pauses-ga... (2) https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/08/21/apple-maps-could-serve-advertising-to-users-in-2023 https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/08/21/apple-maps-could-...
- redmerchant2 3y ago
  For me, “it just works.” The amount of time configuring a OSX vs Windows work computer was huge. For personal use cases it’s the same. Smartphones are so advanced that there’s not that much functionality I’d get. The benefit from customizability of an Android is less than the stability and ease of access of an iPhone. Maybe ad blocking is the only issue, YT on the phone is unusable, but I have a pi-hole for my home network so I don’t mind. I still have a rooted Android and a jail broken iPad to mess around with. But beyond some nerdy stuff or hacking a mobile game, it’s mostly a gimmick.
  - orangecat 3y ago
    The amount of time configuring a OSX vs Windows work computer was huge. Both of which can run any software of your choice, which demonstrates that walled gardens aren't necessary for usability.
  - teshigahara 3y ago
    I spent many hours configuring my Macbook for work (including installing 3rd party apps that let you do things the default options don't) and there are many aspects of it I wish I could change but can't (at least without a lot of effort), but I could happily use Windows with very few tweaks. It's mostly personal preference as to what "just works" in both of these systems, but it's certainly nicer to have the option to change things you don't like.
  - everfree 3y ago
    The existence of a company-sanctioned jailbreak process doesn't prevent your own non-jailbroken phone from "just working".
  - faeriechangling 3y ago
    It’s besides the point, but Windows has come a long long way to improve Windows client configuration (Intune, Winget, winget config files are in preview). MacOS is still reliant on third party tools like Brew or consumer oriented stuff like the App Store.
  - hnick 3y ago
    "It just works" is great until it just doesn't. Both our iPhones refuse to connect to iTunes via lightning cable. Nothing wrong with the file system, can view everything on the phone fine. I assume this is a software bug but the only option given is to factory reset the phones, which seems a little extreme. But we can't use a third party app on the PC (you can find plenty to install, but they all use the same underlying iTunes software), or on the phone (some WiFi media transfer apps exist but don't work well for years of bulk data), or even just browse the file system like Android. So our only option is apparently paying for iCloud to get our media off the phone now, resetting, and hopefully putting it back on - which I don't have high hopes for since we had an issue in the past where iTunes bricked a phone when restoring from backup [IIRC iTunes didn't do the right system call to stop the Windows PC from sleeping, so it slept mid-restore, and next time we plugged it in, it automatically backed up the broken partial restore wiping the good backup].
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  I don't want to manage the OS on my phone. I want it to work. Get up in the morning, make a call, read some websites, check weather, mail, maps, have music in the car. That's it. I don't want to manage sd cards, memory, processes, I don't need a text editor, shell, ssh, openssh, ..., on the phone. I rarely buy apps and games. I want a solid OS working for years. Frankly, everybody keeps saying that iPhones are e-waste. Well, without starting a flamewar. I have managed more Android e-waste for the family than Apple. Just my mother had 5 different Android phones in the last decade. 4 of them laying dead in the drawer next to me.
- robertoandred 3y ago
  Giving side eye whenever someone mentions installing an antivirus on their android
- cmdli 3y ago
  Something very specific to a walled garden is that app developers are forced to play by the garden’s rules. Facebook/Google/etc are forced by Apple to reduce their tracking, spam apps are less common, and generally apps are forced to support the latest APIs. I’m not saying Apple is some benevolent dictator, but it at least has helped curb certain abuses by other megacorps.
CharlesW 3y ago
> The reason why I'm personally sticking with the iPhone is exactly the walled garden. Exactly. I can and do buy plenty of general-purpose computing devices that I can install anything I want on. If I wanted to buy phones that I'd also needed to sysadmin, I could do that. But I don't want that, and I find it a bit silly that the author thinks governments should eliminate appliance-style devices as a choice.
- zozbot234 3y ago
  > If I wanted to buy phones that I'd also needed to sysadmin, I could do that. Is "sysadmin-ing" a phone really that big of a barrier? Ideally, you'd just install Mobian (i.e. Debian Mobile) on a device, security patches would install automatically via unattended-updates, and every two years you would be prompted to initiate a version upgrade. Proprietary apps would be available from Flatpak repos with strong sandboxing applied. That's essentially the same level of 'sysadmin-ing' any iOS/Android user has to do.
  - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
    Don't you see a problem with that? Sure, if I really wanted to have debian on the phone, I'd get a capable Android device and sideload something. Would my wife do it? Would your average John Doe do it? Why would an average user ever want to do it? One of the selling points of the original iPhone was exactly that: shit is taken care of. The phone will just work.
    - zozbot234 3y ago
      Plenty of 'John Doe' types are using feature phones these days, because they're uncomfortable with the proprietary 'app' ecosystem that Apple and Android devices come with. A fully supported Debian Mobile device would essentially be a highly reliable feature phone, with selected smartphone features added to it that actually work for the user and not against them.
      - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
zerr 3y ago
I hear there are plenty of trash on Apple App store nowadays, comparable to Play store.
- type0 3y ago
  There is, but the good ones are usually better on iOS (support, battery life). That's not because iOS is terribly good, rather because Android is unusually crappy and that attitude propagates into apps and the whole ecosystem.
jzb 3y ago
Is what you want a walled garden or just the iOS garden that happens to be walled? Android allows side loading, etc., but in practice it’s a walled garden too. Just slightly shorter walls and more lax caretakers. I prefer iOS to Android myself, but it’s in spite of the walled garden - not because of it.
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  I'm consciously choosing the walled garden. Look, I'm a power user. I write software for 20+ years and I like the freedom of choice on the desktop and the server. If Apple started doing some yanky stuff with macos, I'd switch to Linux, sure. But for my phone, I want that walled garden.
- kayodelycaon 3y ago
  I like the walled garden because it prevents apps like Facebook from vacuuming up all the data on my phone without my permission. If Apple didn’t have some barrier against bad actors, things would be pretty dire. And no sandboxing isn’t the solution here. Facebook will just find ways around it. They did some pretty egregious bullshit and had consumers side-loading privacy-violating apps via their corporate account. Apple very publicly revoked their certificate for it. Without the walled garden, Apple would have no leverage to stop bad actors like Facebook. And avoiding widely used social apps isn’t a good solution either. The network effects effectively removes me from communities that use it.
  - paulryanrogers 3y ago
    Recent Android releases are approaching parity and Play Store terms could likewise restrict PII. Incentives are also coalescing as Apple expands to services and Google tries to win over privacy conscious customers.
    - jjulius 3y ago
      >Incentives are also coalescing as Apple expands to services and Google tries to win over privacy conscious customers. It's a lot harder for Google to achieve this, given that breaching that privacy has always been a core aspect of Google's revenue, whereas for Apple it has not. Edit: Dunno why, but in this context I feel like I should mention I'm posting this from a Pixel device that's on a Fi plan.
mattmaroon 3y ago
Most Android devices are pretty much a walled garden too.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
gjsman-1000 3y ago
> The reason why I'm personally sticking with the iPhone is exactly the walled garden. I was thinking about this and video games lately. The Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PlayStation; they have some pretty mediocre games if you go looking. But it's still nothing compared to the biggest attempt at a fully open platform for games (OUYA; and long before them, Atari). That went well... and so, even the App Store, you can find bad apps and scams, but every time we have a store that has no enforcement it's amazing how quickly things get overrun. It's sometimes shocking how some developers can be such lowlifes, that they will take a game and do an asset swap fifty or a hundred times to make a buck by crowding the storefront. Or just release games shamelessly that are completely nonfunctional or have nothing to do with the advertising. It's just stuff you can hardly believe people who program games would ever make. Where's the sense of shame for releasing things that are objectively garbage by every criteria and charging $30 for it? (Again, just look at the OUYA when they tried. 90% of it made Superman 64 look like a masterpiece.)
- giobox 3y ago
  > But it's still nothing compared to the biggest attempt at a fully open platform for games (OUYA; and long before them, Atari). That went well... and so, even the App Store, you can find bad apps and scams, but every time we have a store that has no enforcement it's amazing how quickly things get overrun. I think its silly to suggest OUYA or Atari being the biggest "open" platforms - Steam dwarfs them and is a runaway success story across multiple OSes for decades.
- Panzer04 3y ago
  Er... Windows PC says hello? Arguably Microsoft isn't "fully" open but Windows PC gaming is as open as it gets, and for all the complaints it is glorious compared to almost all other alternatives, if we're honest.
  - eloisant 3y ago
    Considering how easily you can run Windows games on Linux, it makes the platform even more open.
dogma1138 3y ago
With an android phone you also primarily getting a walled garden unless you explicitly looking to pirate apps or are buying one of the few models with an open bootloader and an active development community which at that point it’s basically a project phone. The main difference is that the walled garden you get with Apple will be landscaped and taken care off for years and not arbitrarily abandoned and turned into a drug den.
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  > Apple will be landscaped and taken care off for years and not arbitrarily abandoned and turned into a drug den Exactly. And to anyone complaining about Apple fees. Get this in your head: running that ecosystem costs money. I get it that sometimes crap slips through, no system is bulletproof. But that's where the cut goes to. Yeah, we can discuss if it's 15 or 30 percent. But you at least get a human to communicate with on the other side.
  - dogma1138 3y ago
    It’s also important to add that whilst it does happen that Apple bans accounts from at least my anecdotal evidence is that it’s far more common with Google and then you’re pretty royally fucked.
  - JPws_Prntr_Fngr 3y ago
    Sorry, what? Are you talking about the iOS App Store that's been an unmitigated dumpster fire for like a decade? I don't even open the thing, ever. It's so filled with flaming garbage that I will only find and acquire an iOS app via reddit, HN, or AlternativeTo.
    - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
      I don't know what you are talking about. This isn't my experience and I valued human contact some years ago when I was doing iOS development myself. Not my experience. However, I appreciate that my experience may not reflect the experience of another iPhone user.
bottlepalm 3y ago
It kills me how powerful the iPhone is and I can't play Quake or emulated games on it.. really makes you feel like you're like a second class user. Also my iPhone could easily power a great desktop experience if the software wasn't so locked down. Very sad, 15 billion transistors in my pocket and I can barely use them to their potential. What kind of future is this?
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  But you knew about all of that when you bought it, and you still paid for it.
  - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
    Something can be a good choice and still have room for improvement. This is how we think about how things can be better.
    - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
      The original premise of an iPhone was that closed experience. It was an improvement over the mobile market that existed back then. I remember because I had my fair share of Philips, Alcatel, Nokia, and ipaqs. What I’m afraid of is that some actions and reactions of a—let’s be honest—insignificant number of power users who want to root their phone is going to break the experience for the majority of the regular users. Progress is welcomed but let’s not forget: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
      - kevinh 3y ago
        The original iPhone had no App Store and thus no way to get third-party native apps at all. I don't know that the original premise is at all relevant now.
      - wiseowise 3y ago
        > The original premise of an iPhone was that closed experience. Ah, I remember the pitch by Jobs, truly a visionary.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jrm4 3y ago
I strongly believe this is an entirely false dichotomy; and I think the Steam Deck will prove this, if it hasn't mostly already.
- acomjean 3y ago
  >false dichotomy Thats the best way to explain it. On the steam deck you have the option to leave the garden but you don't have too. On the Iphone (and I have one) you don't even get that option. I'd love to install an alternative OS on some of my older phones and an old ipad. Its great hardware, it would be fun, its not supported by apple anymore, but I'm not allowed to. I've poked around the linux thats installed on the steam deck, but frankly I just use my steam deck with steam.
TaylorAlexander 3y ago
The reason I have the iPhone is that they make better choices for a lot of things, not specifically that it is a walled garden. I still wish I could take a system with that design, then sideload, or root, at my own discretion, without every update being a risk that the root will be broken. It's a rather expensive computer and I wish I could use it as a more general purpose computer for certain things.
- garciasn 3y ago
  They have actively thwarted attempts by the likes of Facebook and Google to track me. Facebook got totally fucked by iOS14+ and I love it. While I don’t trust any of them, I’ve gone with the lesser of the two evils in this regard. YMMV.
  - totallywrong 3y ago
    If you use Facebook, you're asking to be tracked, it's on you. Do you really think Apple isn't tracking everything you do? And yet they're the good guys for blocking FB..
  - malwrar 3y ago
    Why is Apple the only entity capable of doing this in your mind? Why couldn’t we live in a world where Facebook can’t abuse you because you don’t want them to? Apple fucked Facebook because iPhones only allow Apple the power to fuck Facebook. Meanwhile software history is full of examples of abusive corporations being put in their place by casual side projects. I don’t think this dichotomy is real, I think we could both have control of our devices and prevent facebook from stalking us, maybe even more effectively than Apple.
    - joshgachnang 3y ago
      They're not the only one capable. But of the two mobile OS providers, they're the one that is.
    - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
ecefour 3y ago
My thoughts exactly. I like to tinker, but when it comes to my phone I just want it to work. I find that the iPhone works best.
- chrisco255 3y ago
  Cool why would you prohibit others from tinkering though? What drives that desire?
  - ecefour 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - ecefour 3y ago
    What are you taking about?? My mobile operating system preference is iOS. If you prefer android or whatever i don’t care. Competition is good, i’m not fighting for these the battle for these cooperations an neither should you. You could win gold with the mental gymnastics used to get to your conclusion.
    - chrisco255 3y ago
      Due to vendor lock-in, and a number of competitive issues with having one company wield so much control over the personal lives of tens of millions of people, I prefer $3 trillion monopolies not to be tolerated in democratic societies. Right to choose an alternative app store and right to side load is a bare minimum for antitrust compliance and consumer protection. Microsoft was taken to the cleaners in the 90s for far less. Many others including Ma Bell in earlier decades as well. https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-fact https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-f...
giobox 3y ago
This is a false choice - there's no reason the iPhone can't be both a walled garden-type device and support alternative OSes/software, just like a computer. We know because this exact strategy works just fine on Apple's other computer platform, the Mac. Personally, I hate that our phones, which increasingly are our personal computer, are often no longer just a general purpose compute device to use how I want, if i want. The walled garden also relies enormously on Apple - a publicly traded for profit enterprise - being a benign benefactor, which to date has been (relatively) true. The future on a long timescale may not be so nice. Were this to change, you don't easily have a say in alternative software. Why shouldn't you be able to install a linux distro and turn your old iPhone or iPad into a really power-efficient home server-type appliance, if you want to? My old MacBook is doing exactly this.
- threeseed 3y ago
  Many of us don't want a computer in our pocket. We want a simplistic, managed, fuss-free device that isn't another source of malware, viruses, dark patterns e.g. unsubscribing and where basic things like uninstalling requires a Terminal. If you want a computer then there are plenty of companies that satisfy your requirements. So why not encourage and support them instead of trying to turn the iPhone into something a lot of people don't want.
  - devmor 3y ago
    If Apple allowed us to run the apps created for the iPhone outside of iOS I'm sure we wouldn't be having this discussion. Many of us are in the ecosystem not out of personal choice, but out of necessity (be it professional or social).
  - howinteresting 3y ago
    What phone platform is both open and lets you communicate over iMessage without absurd workarounds? To get a blue bubble you must give up control over your mobile life to Apple.
    - __d 3y ago
pknomad 3y ago
Same here. I like the walled garden. I like the curated experience. As far as I am aware, me liking these things for my phone and subsequently voting with my wallet doesn't prevent someone else enjoying another ecosystem that doesn't have these things (i.e. Android). People forget how awful the Android experience could be. https://threatpost.com/google-booted-700000-bad-apps-from-its-marketplace-in-2017/129717/ https://threatpost.com/google-booted-700000-bad-apps-from-it... I already manage computers for work; I don't want to do it on my free time too.
- chrisco255 3y ago
  That's nice, you can just choose to use Apple's app store then, without imposing your Stockholm syndrome on the rest of us and defending antitrust behavior from a 3 trillion dollar monopoly.
  - pknomad 3y ago
    > you can just choose to use Apple's app store then, without imposing your Stockholm syndrome on the rest of us and defending antitrust behavior from a 3 trillion dollar monopoly. I have chosen to use Apple's app store without imposing anything. You have your choice of using Apple or something else.
    - wiseowise 3y ago
      Me having sideloading doesn’t impose anything on you either.
bluescrn 3y ago
With phones I've stopped caring. I don't do serious work or serious play on a phone, it doesn't have a big enough screen or suitable input devices. The iPad (especially the Pro), on the other hand, would be a far better device if it wasn't so locked down. The hardware is wasted on such limited 'apps'. Ideally, the iPad Pro would run a full MacOS and be able to quickly switch between desktop mode (when you have a pencil and/or keyboard) and an iOS compatible mode when it's being operated by fat fingers on the touchscreen.
- hnick 3y ago
  This is my general opinion. My iPhone is not a productive device, even sending an email is a hassle. I'm either at home, or will wait, unless it's urgent. It's basically for social media, maps, music, and keeping in touch via messages. Occasionally phone calls. A walled garden is generally OK for that (my only gripe as in my other comment here is that they make it too hard to access media files directly).
collsni 3y ago
Have fun living in your walled garden. Hopefully you aren't this way with your news! :)
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  Thank you for your concern. I hope you understand that all mainstream news is controlled by a very limited number of corporations and alternatives are full of people with their own agendas and tinfoil hats.
bubblethink 3y ago
>If I didn't want a walled garden, I'd get an Android phone. I've never used an iphone, but Apple presumably does walled garden much better than Android. I recently tried to install google messages from play store (which I haven't used in a while), and if you search for messages, the top 5 results will all be different messaging apps that have a blue icon, with the top one being adware. Embarrassingly, I fell for it thinking that this is google messages. Play store makes it very hard to see the vendor of an app. Much like search, this has been SEO'd to death, and google will put some ad before their own messaging app. Then they'll cry about Apple not supporting RCS.
- chrisco255 3y ago
  Just tried this experiment by typing "Messaging" in the play store. The top 3 were marked as Ads, and number 4 was "Messages by Google", with Google clearly listed as the creator on line 2.
  - bubblethink 3y ago
    Yes, you will see it if you are paying attention. If you are on auto-pilot mode and assume that the top result with the blue icon on the play store will be google messages, you will get duped. The name of the vendor for these ads is also designed to confuse and obfuscate. The top ad's vendor is "Text Messaging". A few days ago when I did this, the name of the vendor was "Top Rated App". Play store doesn't say "Vendor: Top Rated App", the text "Top Rated App" or "Text Messaging" will just appear along with a bunch of other useless information.
Vanclief 3y ago
I strongly relate to this. I built my desktop computer and I run arch as my daily driver. For my phone: I just want a device that works out of the box. I don't want to think about it, or need to configure anything from it. Thats the only reason I keep buying iPhones.
- waboremo 3y ago
  Macbooks also work OOB and are not a walled garden.
- chrisco255 3y ago
  I know the feeling, my Nokia 3360 still works 25 years later. Also doubles as a blunt weapon. No config necessary. Cool, you can just use your iPhone in the stock config. The proposal to enable people to root their own devices, or bring their own app stores doesn't mean you have to partake. It just means a 3 trillion dollar monopoly has a tiny bit less control over a huge chunk of the mobile phone market. And meanwhile it means the rest of us who do want that freedom can have it.
- wiseowise 3y ago
  Because your phone is a binary state. You know, it’s either works out of box, or suddenly turns into Arch the moment there appears a toggle to allow installing apps.
whyenot 3y ago
Yes, and this is also why my "super senior" mother owns an iPhone. Sometimes a walled garden is a good thing. If you want a more open system, there are other options. Please don't destroy something that is actually useful to a lot of people just because it doesn't coincide with your own desires or needs.
- grogenaut 3y ago
  My mom who now has dementia couldn't figure out how to use her iPhone but could totally use a Mac. The Mac doesn't really have a walled garden and I'm pretty sure you're using correlation not causation. I'm very sure that a Walt garden doesn't make a thing actually easier to use. It's just what you're familiar with and willing to teach your mom to use.
  - throwaway290 3y ago
    My mom can use an iphone easily, mac not so much but that's because of her history with windows. I think her mac almost certainly has malware. it's an older one and it probably doesn't support the latest OS anyway sadly.
- howinteresting 3y ago
  This is a non-sequitur. Apple can easily add a "super senior" mode to an iPhone while still keeping the rest of the platform open.
  - zuminator 3y ago
    Or to flip that around, they could keep the walled garden but allow the user to spin up a virtualized environment completely walled off from the main OS, and run compilers and other software without risk to the phone side. Then the author could install a Jornada emulator or a full Linux distro.
  - Gigachad 3y ago
    Problem is that the tech support scammer walks grandma through the process of turning off senior mode and installing malware.
m3kw9 3y ago
Walled garden isn’t much different from living in a country having laws and stuff, border, contraband controls, import tax and stuff. Sound funny right?
- zuminator 3y ago
  True, but by that analogy Applelandia would be a dictatorship.
  - orlandrescu 3y ago
    An enlighted dictatorship, if I may.
m3kw9 3y ago
This is in fact very popular opinion, but the part that isn’t popular is that it is actually the silent majority.
boringuser2 3y ago
[flagged]
- xcv123 3y ago
  > Apple makes absurd devices that have little benefit over alternatives beyond the performative, with lots of negative baggage to boot. Such an oddball company to have developed a fandom amongst the very people who should reject it (the technically-minded). Apple makes quite standard laptops and phones, much the same as any other manufacturers. If Apple is absurd then so is Dell, IBM, Lenovo, Samsung, etc. Everything is absurd. I'm technically minded (developing for 20 years) but couldn't care less about iOS or Android being locked down as I depend on the phone to be a reliable appliance and would hate developing on any phone. I spend all my working days programming on a Linux desktop or Mac laptop and just need the damn phone to work for emails, texts, phone, and maps, without having to deal with any unnecessary technical bullshit. My free time is limited.
  - boringuser2 3y ago
    I disagree, respectfully (kind of, I'm on notice). Apple doesn't make standard devices. They make atypical devices that have quirks that only seem to serve the "walled-garden" discussed earlier (I loathe buzzwords). See: Apple ARM chips, lightning cables, right to repair infringements, etc. You don't need to take my word for it; Apple has lost countless lawsuits on this very topic. Also, regarding "technical bullshit", I'm a developer. I use Ubuntu. I am not a Unix expert, and I've never had any trouble with Ubuntu being "unnecessarily technical". That all being said, I have recently actually experienced a kind of personal renaissance doing Linux-related tasks using GPT. This is a domain to which it is suited and is able to perform highly complex tasks trivially without a GUI. The standardness of Linux makes it superior. Also, it's free and doesn't kneecap you with proprietary nonsense. I don't care about open-source.
    - xcv123 3y ago
      > Apple ARM chips There are many other ARM devices. Surface and Chromebooks are some examples. Apple was late to this market. ARM Linux runs perfectly in a VM on MacOS, as ARM support in Linux has been around for years prior to M1. This is nothing new. > I am not a Unix expert, and I've never had any trouble with Ubuntu being "unnecessarily technical". I used Gentoo fulltime for several years as my primary OS. I don't care about compiling or configuring technical shit on my phone. I just need it to work like an actual phone, as an appliance, and have free time for doing important/interesting technical things on my laptop or desktop. > The standardness of Linux makes it superior. Yes and so I can install Linux on my Macbook, if I choose to. On my old Intel Mac I could install Linux or Windows. My M1 Mac now has the option to install Linux. Really not much different to Dell/Lenovo/etc. Same shit different brand.
winstonprivacy 3y ago
Hope you don't forget your password. That's a fun experience.
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  I recommend a password manager.
joe_the_user 3y ago
"I bought all of them knowing very well what I'm getting into..." No you didn't. I mean, languaging is important here. You didn't know what exactly Apple would be doing with their walled garden. You essentially went in with faith that Apple deciding things would be better than whatever Android is (and I'm not sure Android isn't just a more haphazard walled garden but still).
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  Okay. The first 3G I didn’t. The 5 and the 8 I did.
binkHN 3y ago
> If I didn't want a walled garden, I'd get an Android phone. Fair. This is the exact reason why I have an Android phone. As a matter of fact, it's the reason why I started dabbling in Kotlin a few years ago; so that I can make my own personal apps.
- eddieroger 3y ago
  I did the same with Objective-C. I'm in the boat as OP of this thread. I had an HTC Hero, an Evo, and a Nexus S. I believe in Android. But what I wasn't expecting was that I was never happy, and thrashed my phone many times in pursuit of happiness. So many ROMs to try, so many SMS clients, or automation platforms, or browsers. Choice all over the place. But with that choice was analysis paralysis - what was I missing out on? Wiping and installing ROMs lost me data more than once (despite Titanium Backup and a huge SD card). I couldn't rest, and it drove me nuts. But on iOS, there's just iMessage. There are browsers, but Safari is fine, and they're all basically Safari wrappers. There is iOS itself, and that's it. There is peace in my garden.
  - binkHN 3y ago
    I tend to stick with mostly what's in the stock build, but then replace things here and there as desired. I've yet to replace the OS, but I guess I'll get to it one day.
jasmer 3y ago
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downWidOutaFite 3y ago
> If I didn't want a walled garden, I'd get an Android phone. If only, Google's been trying to emulate apple locking android down as much as possible.
duxup 3y ago
Hardware quality, longevity, quality generally. Happy to trade that for a walled garden. My days of futzing with Android rims and etc are over, it was fun, but not sure I got much more out of it than that.
camhart 3y ago
What is the perceived "value" the walled garden is giving you? I've always owned an android, and not once had to worry about security or malicious apps. Apple seems to have sold everyone on this idea that Android is super insecure. It's not.
TulliusCicero 3y ago
How would the ability to install alternate app stores hurt you? Android allows this, and while there's other parts of Android that are weaker than iOS, it's hard to think of ways in which this specific feature is problematic to the user experience.
chaostheory 3y ago
Same here. I just want it to work which is why I’m with Apple for specific devices. If I wanted to experiment, I have Android and several PCs with different form factors. Apple’s walled garden also helps me with tech support for my immediate and extended family. What a lot of people don’t seem to understand is that when you get freedom to tinker, you’ll lose stability and lessen security; all while increasing complexity
zmmmmm 3y ago
> If I didn't want a walled garden, I'd get an Android phone. Out of curiosity, if Android didn't exist, or was just as locked down as iOS would you feel differently about this?
jordanmorgan10 3y ago
The dreaded walled garden is probably my favorite part of owning an iPhone. There can be other reasons for walled gardens outside of capitalism.
hparadiz 3y ago
It's clear you haven't actually used an Android phone in 10 years.
- predictabl3 3y ago
  These comments are freaking unreal, and ignoring the ignorance of modern Android, vastly overstate the privacy protection afforded by iOS. Bravo to Apple marketing.
AnonHP 3y ago
> If I didn't want a walled garden, I'd get an Android phone. Not just any Android phone to use out of the box though, right? You may need to tweak or even install a different distribution/flavor like GrapheneOS. In other words, different Androids have their own versions of walled gardens.
- aembleton 3y ago
  Can't you just download and install an APK on Android? You have to toggle a setting to allow it but you don't need to replace the ROM.
syvolt 3y ago
Hacker News, where hackers beg a trillion dollar company to keep not allowing them to create apps on their own hardware without having to go through a bureaucratic process of uploading it to a store. You know, as hackers do.
- adamparsons 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - abathur 3y ago
    But were these boots made for licking?
predictabl3 3y ago
Lol what. Are you implying your iphone is safer than my Android that allows me to sideload but only if I opt-in and even then on a per-app basis? Iphone users really like showing they know nothing about Android, or the state of privacy and security on modern Android. Some of these replies are wildly ignorant. Straight up made-up stuff to self-justify not being able to run an emulator on your phone. Good stuff. Here, imagine I handed you my locked Pixel 6a, or it unlocked with side-loading disabled. What exactly is the "lack of walled garden" going to allow you to do to it? Be specific.
noSyncCloud 3y ago
I knew without reading the article that 100% of the replies would be incredulous, offended Apple fanboys xd. HN is so predictable lol What's actually incredible is how behind the times this website is - amazingly reactionary people who think they're unbelievably smart. It's literally like reading internet comments from 30 years ago
SllX 3y ago
This opinion isn't as unpopular as you think. About the only place where I think Apple's walled garden approach genuinely holds a platform back is the iPad which should have a much more Mac-like model (honestly it should just straight up have the Mac's flexibility, and the Vision Pro too whenever that ships). My phone is different. My phone absolutely must always work. About the most I want is as much much easier way less onerous way of sideloading Emacs on it, and that's primarily because I find org-mode apps without the Emacs environment to come up just a little bit insufficient. I have other computers to do other computer stuff, but I don't care at all about doing any of that on my phone.
deleted 3y ago
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SanderNL 3y ago
It’s interesting to look up the etymology of “paradise”. Hint: walled garden.
realusername 3y ago
> If I didn't want a walled garden, I'd get an Android phone. You also have a walled garden on Android, maybe with slighly lower walls but it's still pretty far from a truly open platform. And that's there we see that the "it's the user choice" argument isn't working very well. The open platforms are either very outdated devices (this HP, the N900...) or niche Android forks for tech people on a very limited amount of devices. Users never really had a choice in the first place.
Tainnor 3y ago
This choice doesn't really exist with Android either, unfortunately, for those who would like to have this freedom. I mean you are kind of free to do whatever you want on your device, but then you just get locked out of basically everything. Banking apps, Netflix, reportedly even the McDonald's app will refuse to work on a device with an unlocked bootloader. This is kind of ridiculous considering people with incredibly bug ridden computers can access the whole web but when it's mobile phones, apparently you don't get to decide.
- raxxorraxor 3y ago
  > the McDonald's app will refuse to work on a device with an unlocked bootloader. This is exactly what I expect would happen if secure boot would be established on PC. And it seems to indeed be the case with the McDonalds app, so locked bootloaders are unhealthy for you in multiple way.
hinkley 3y ago
The iPhone is a tool, not a toy. Most of my woodworking tools are not user serviceable either. Only the simplest are, and you can take classes to learn to care for them properly. They seem utterly simple but proper care is subtle. I grew up in the era where people stopped trying to do their own car repairs. Nobody talks about that anymore. They very much did at the time, and we call the people who did “grandpa” now. If you want to tinker, I suggest mini ITX or SBCs.
- wiseowise 3y ago
  Imagine buying a tool and every time you want to use it for something else that manufacturer imagined a ghost of Jobs appeared and smacked it out of your hands.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    Imagine going through life with massive control issues and expecting everyone else to be sympathetic to them at all times. Go outside, touch a tree.
throwaway290 3y ago
I wish Apple made a product like that for competent professionals but keep existing devices safe for general public, but it's never going to happen because how can you tell a competent enough professional who is not going to fire guns at own feet? Most people will just be buying such phones to pirate stuff and get their identities pwned along the way.
RektBoy 3y ago
Walled garden is great, if you make a living from finding exploits and selling them on grey market. Bro, I bought a house for two iOS 0days. Thank to you walled garden.
h0nd 3y ago
Android phone usually come with a walled garden, too.
cttet 3y ago
I think people just don't understand that end user API design is a user preference thing, not a universal thing... And exposing what kind of level on a hardware is just the same as API design... And some people just keep having the ideas of "I'd like API to be like A, so there wouldn't be possible any people liking another API B..."
eloisant 3y ago
Unfortunately these days Android as pretty close to the iPhone as a walled garden. There are some open source phone OS based on a more traditional Linux approach (with the usual userspace you find on a Linux Desktop) but so many important apps are only available on the iOS/Play Store duopoly.
ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
> The reason why I'm personally sticking with the iPhone is exactly the walled garden...If I didn't want a walled garden, I'd get an Android phone. Same here. I like Apple, for the same reason that many geeks hate them. I get a lot of enjoyment out of wresting a great user experience from a highly-restricted environment. That's part of the challenge, for me.
illwrks 3y ago
I was an avid apple user, then switched to android about 5 years ago thinking I'd do more with a more open device. I've not really done much with it, I'll likely switch back to apple again and at that point move to apple TV devices and home speakers too. My wife is an iPhone user. She's not in anyway technical and I think a walled garden is perfect for her and others of a similar technical ability. Tech is a breeze if you understand it, if not it's a liability.
lawn 3y ago
You choose the iPhone despite the walled garden, not because if it.
raxxorraxor 3y ago
What are the benefits to you? Would you install software or run programs you don't want accidentally? What would you miss if there would be some form of safe mode to be toggled on or off? To me this argument doesn't make sense at all. I think iPhones are decent phones and Android devices are just as walled in. So all smartphone platforms are more or less suboptimal. Sure, Android can be modified, but only to a degree heavily depending on the hardware...
nbidforn 3y ago
Nope. They made you think you've stayed in the same garden. Actually you're dragged on ground by the walls each time they moved, expanded or shrink the inside area. And BTW you are the luck one who survived from that.
BirAdam 3y ago
So, I agree with you. But here's the thing, you have property rights. I am no lawyer, but I am a human who can think morally and ethically, and I would say this: a company cannot sell a thing and then restrict the usage of said thing. An iPhone is sold to you. iOS, otoh, is licensed to you. It is my opinion that Apple either needs to make it possible for the purchaser to replace iOS or Apple needs to make it possible to run arbitrary code on iOS. Anything else restricts the rights of the owner of the phone, and essentially violates his/her ownership. In this case, Apple should be able to be taken to court for theft and/or fraud.
parentheses 3y ago
I don't know if the walls are what you desire. I'm in it for the garden being more beautiful and better curated. Does that mean I have less choice? Yes, but it's a sacrifice I choose to have a better total experience. Apple's walled garden allows higher quality apps and features that wouldn't be shipped as quickly in an "open" model (whatever that may mean). I agree that running arbitrary shell commands/apps/etc is "cool", but it's rarely useful to me on a mobile computing device. If the use-case exists and is legitimate, there's usually an app for it. In fact the few times I've felt the pinch of "I'd like to run such-and-such from my phone" is limited by the fact that my employer wouldn't allow me to - not that my phone disallows it. I still could do it since there are SSH apps that will connect to my home computer if need be. OP's take on this IMO is one of wanting full control over their devices and while it's a great ideal, it doesn't translate into real usable improvements for me.

xmprt 3y ago

Just curious. What benefits do you see yourself getting by having a walled garden?

selectodude 3y ago
Not having to worry about shit. There are dozens, if not hundreds of mobile devices I can buy where I can root and have full access to them. I just don’t trust myself to be able to secure them properly. I am happy, no, thrilled, for the opportunity to offload that risk to Apple.
- ajsnigrutin 3y ago
  You are aware that iphone is a phone, that could be rooted just by visiting a website and clicking on a button?
  - showdeddd 3y ago
    How can clicking an HTML element root my iPhone?
    - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JailbreakMe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JailbreakMe https://www.pcworld.com/article/486995/jailbreakme_30_how_does_it_work.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/486995/jailbreakme_30_how_do...
      - teolandon 3y ago
        When someone talks about unspecified iPhones in the year 2023, they are probably not talking about iPhone 4 or older.
      - jkubicek 3y ago
        If those links are accurate, JailBreakMe hasn't been an issue for over a decade.
- josephg 3y ago
  I see this as a weakness of the Unix security model, not a benefit of the walled garden. Personally I’d love a future where apps on my laptop are sandboxed just as thoroughly as iOS apps. I want to be able to install and run desktop software from the internet without worrying about it exfiltrating or cryptolockering my data. Running an application should be just as secure as visiting a website. And that capability seems orthogonal to the App Store. I don’t see any reason we need a monopolistic app store on our phones to get good security. You don’t need anyone’s permission to make a website. Why can’t applications work the same way?
redundantly 3y ago
Higher quality applications. Fewer privacy violations. Lower chance of identity theft. Better overall security. Longer life cycles for new features. Even longer cycles for critical/security updates. Reduced effort to maintain and keep secure. On top of that, but not because of the walled garden aspect: Better parental controls. Consistent user experience (although for this one it helps to have the walled garden). Better device interoperability across the ecosystem.
- ApolloFortyNine 3y ago
  All of this has nothing to do with the walled garden. The walled garden is the fact that you can't sideload apps or alternative stores at all. Everything you've mentioned is simply app store requirements.
  - redundantly 3y ago
    I'm aware what walled garden means. All of the benefits I listed are a result of, or helped by, the walled garden. The app store requirements are part of that walled garden.
    - constantcrying 3y ago
      All of that is still irrelevant. You can not have a walled garden and the exact same requirements for the Appstore. Android is a walled garden too, up until you flip a switch and allow non-appstore apps, which most people do not do. If there were any benefits to the walled garden, they would be present on Android as well.
- menus 3y ago
  > Lower chance of identity theft https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUYODQB_2wQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUYODQB_2wQ > Fewer privacy violations The only reason Apple booted Facebook tracking is to become the next Facebook in tracking with its ads. (1) (2) (1) https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/26/23425637/apple-pauses-gambling-ads-developer-outcry https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/26/23425637/apple-pauses-ga... (2) https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/08/21/apple-maps-could-serve-advertising-to-users-in-2023 https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/08/21/apple-maps-could-...
redmerchant2 3y ago
For me, “it just works.” The amount of time configuring a OSX vs Windows work computer was huge. For personal use cases it’s the same. Smartphones are so advanced that there’s not that much functionality I’d get. The benefit from customizability of an Android is less than the stability and ease of access of an iPhone. Maybe ad blocking is the only issue, YT on the phone is unusable, but I have a pi-hole for my home network so I don’t mind. I still have a rooted Android and a jail broken iPad to mess around with. But beyond some nerdy stuff or hacking a mobile game, it’s mostly a gimmick.
- orangecat 3y ago
  The amount of time configuring a OSX vs Windows work computer was huge. Both of which can run any software of your choice, which demonstrates that walled gardens aren't necessary for usability.
- teshigahara 3y ago
  I spent many hours configuring my Macbook for work (including installing 3rd party apps that let you do things the default options don't) and there are many aspects of it I wish I could change but can't (at least without a lot of effort), but I could happily use Windows with very few tweaks. It's mostly personal preference as to what "just works" in both of these systems, but it's certainly nicer to have the option to change things you don't like.
- everfree 3y ago
  The existence of a company-sanctioned jailbreak process doesn't prevent your own non-jailbroken phone from "just working".
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  It’s besides the point, but Windows has come a long long way to improve Windows client configuration (Intune, Winget, winget config files are in preview). MacOS is still reliant on third party tools like Brew or consumer oriented stuff like the App Store.
- hnick 3y ago
  "It just works" is great until it just doesn't. Both our iPhones refuse to connect to iTunes via lightning cable. Nothing wrong with the file system, can view everything on the phone fine. I assume this is a software bug but the only option given is to factory reset the phones, which seems a little extreme. But we can't use a third party app on the PC (you can find plenty to install, but they all use the same underlying iTunes software), or on the phone (some WiFi media transfer apps exist but don't work well for years of bulk data), or even just browse the file system like Android. So our only option is apparently paying for iCloud to get our media off the phone now, resetting, and hopefully putting it back on - which I don't have high hopes for since we had an issue in the past where iTunes bricked a phone when restoring from backup [IIRC iTunes didn't do the right system call to stop the Windows PC from sleeping, so it slept mid-restore, and next time we plugged it in, it automatically backed up the broken partial restore wiping the good backup].
rad_gruchalski 3y ago
I don't want to manage the OS on my phone. I want it to work. Get up in the morning, make a call, read some websites, check weather, mail, maps, have music in the car. That's it. I don't want to manage sd cards, memory, processes, I don't need a text editor, shell, ssh, openssh, ..., on the phone. I rarely buy apps and games. I want a solid OS working for years. Frankly, everybody keeps saying that iPhones are e-waste. Well, without starting a flamewar. I have managed more Android e-waste for the family than Apple. Just my mother had 5 different Android phones in the last decade. 4 of them laying dead in the drawer next to me.
robertoandred 3y ago
Giving side eye whenever someone mentions installing an antivirus on their android
cmdli 3y ago
Something very specific to a walled garden is that app developers are forced to play by the garden’s rules. Facebook/Google/etc are forced by Apple to reduce their tracking, spam apps are less common, and generally apps are forced to support the latest APIs. I’m not saying Apple is some benevolent dictator, but it at least has helped curb certain abuses by other megacorps.

CharlesW 3y ago

> The reason why I'm personally sticking with the iPhone is exactly the walled garden. Exactly. I can and do buy plenty of general-purpose computing devices that I can install anything I want on. If I wanted to buy phones that I'd also needed to sysadmin, I could do that. But I don't want that, and I find it a bit silly that the author thinks governments should eliminate appliance-style devices as a choice.

zozbot234 3y ago
> If I wanted to buy phones that I'd also needed to sysadmin, I could do that. Is "sysadmin-ing" a phone really that big of a barrier? Ideally, you'd just install Mobian (i.e. Debian Mobile) on a device, security patches would install automatically via unattended-updates, and every two years you would be prompted to initiate a version upgrade. Proprietary apps would be available from Flatpak repos with strong sandboxing applied. That's essentially the same level of 'sysadmin-ing' any iOS/Android user has to do.
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  Don't you see a problem with that? Sure, if I really wanted to have debian on the phone, I'd get a capable Android device and sideload something. Would my wife do it? Would your average John Doe do it? Why would an average user ever want to do it? One of the selling points of the original iPhone was exactly that: shit is taken care of. The phone will just work.
  - zozbot234 3y ago
    Plenty of 'John Doe' types are using feature phones these days, because they're uncomfortable with the proprietary 'app' ecosystem that Apple and Android devices come with. A fully supported Debian Mobile device would essentially be a highly reliable feature phone, with selected smartphone features added to it that actually work for the user and not against them.
    - rad_gruchalski 3y ago

zerr 3y ago

I hear there are plenty of trash on Apple App store nowadays, comparable to Play store.

type0 3y ago
There is, but the good ones are usually better on iOS (support, battery life). That's not because iOS is terribly good, rather because Android is unusually crappy and that attitude propagates into apps and the whole ecosystem.

jzb 3y ago

Is what you want a walled garden or just the iOS garden that happens to be walled? Android allows side loading, etc., but in practice it’s a walled garden too. Just slightly shorter walls and more lax caretakers. I prefer iOS to Android myself, but it’s in spite of the walled garden - not because of it.

rad_gruchalski 3y ago
I'm consciously choosing the walled garden. Look, I'm a power user. I write software for 20+ years and I like the freedom of choice on the desktop and the server. If Apple started doing some yanky stuff with macos, I'd switch to Linux, sure. But for my phone, I want that walled garden.
kayodelycaon 3y ago
I like the walled garden because it prevents apps like Facebook from vacuuming up all the data on my phone without my permission. If Apple didn’t have some barrier against bad actors, things would be pretty dire. And no sandboxing isn’t the solution here. Facebook will just find ways around it. They did some pretty egregious bullshit and had consumers side-loading privacy-violating apps via their corporate account. Apple very publicly revoked their certificate for it. Without the walled garden, Apple would have no leverage to stop bad actors like Facebook. And avoiding widely used social apps isn’t a good solution either. The network effects effectively removes me from communities that use it.
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  Recent Android releases are approaching parity and Play Store terms could likewise restrict PII. Incentives are also coalescing as Apple expands to services and Google tries to win over privacy conscious customers.
  - jjulius 3y ago
    >Incentives are also coalescing as Apple expands to services and Google tries to win over privacy conscious customers. It's a lot harder for Google to achieve this, given that breaching that privacy has always been a core aspect of Google's revenue, whereas for Apple it has not. Edit: Dunno why, but in this context I feel like I should mention I'm posting this from a Pixel device that's on a Fi plan.

mattmaroon 3y ago

Most Android devices are pretty much a walled garden too.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

gjsman-1000 3y ago

> The reason why I'm personally sticking with the iPhone is exactly the walled garden. I was thinking about this and video games lately. The Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PlayStation; they have some pretty mediocre games if you go looking. But it's still nothing compared to the biggest attempt at a fully open platform for games (OUYA; and long before them, Atari). That went well... and so, even the App Store, you can find bad apps and scams, but every time we have a store that has no enforcement it's amazing how quickly things get overrun. It's sometimes shocking how some developers can be such lowlifes, that they will take a game and do an asset swap fifty or a hundred times to make a buck by crowding the storefront. Or just release games shamelessly that are completely nonfunctional or have nothing to do with the advertising. It's just stuff you can hardly believe people who program games would ever make. Where's the sense of shame for releasing things that are objectively garbage by every criteria and charging $30 for it? (Again, just look at the OUYA when they tried. 90% of it made Superman 64 look like a masterpiece.)

giobox 3y ago
> But it's still nothing compared to the biggest attempt at a fully open platform for games (OUYA; and long before them, Atari). That went well... and so, even the App Store, you can find bad apps and scams, but every time we have a store that has no enforcement it's amazing how quickly things get overrun. I think its silly to suggest OUYA or Atari being the biggest "open" platforms - Steam dwarfs them and is a runaway success story across multiple OSes for decades.
Panzer04 3y ago
Er... Windows PC says hello? Arguably Microsoft isn't "fully" open but Windows PC gaming is as open as it gets, and for all the complaints it is glorious compared to almost all other alternatives, if we're honest.
- eloisant 3y ago
  Considering how easily you can run Windows games on Linux, it makes the platform even more open.

dogma1138 3y ago

With an android phone you also primarily getting a walled garden unless you explicitly looking to pirate apps or are buying one of the few models with an open bootloader and an active development community which at that point it’s basically a project phone. The main difference is that the walled garden you get with Apple will be landscaped and taken care off for years and not arbitrarily abandoned and turned into a drug den.

rad_gruchalski 3y ago
> Apple will be landscaped and taken care off for years and not arbitrarily abandoned and turned into a drug den Exactly. And to anyone complaining about Apple fees. Get this in your head: running that ecosystem costs money. I get it that sometimes crap slips through, no system is bulletproof. But that's where the cut goes to. Yeah, we can discuss if it's 15 or 30 percent. But you at least get a human to communicate with on the other side.
- dogma1138 3y ago
  It’s also important to add that whilst it does happen that Apple bans accounts from at least my anecdotal evidence is that it’s far more common with Google and then you’re pretty royally fucked.
- JPws_Prntr_Fngr 3y ago
  Sorry, what? Are you talking about the iOS App Store that's been an unmitigated dumpster fire for like a decade? I don't even open the thing, ever. It's so filled with flaming garbage that I will only find and acquire an iOS app via reddit, HN, or AlternativeTo.
  - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
    I don't know what you are talking about. This isn't my experience and I valued human contact some years ago when I was doing iOS development myself. Not my experience. However, I appreciate that my experience may not reflect the experience of another iPhone user.

bottlepalm 3y ago

It kills me how powerful the iPhone is and I can't play Quake or emulated games on it.. really makes you feel like you're like a second class user. Also my iPhone could easily power a great desktop experience if the software wasn't so locked down. Very sad, 15 billion transistors in my pocket and I can barely use them to their potential. What kind of future is this?

rad_gruchalski 3y ago
But you knew about all of that when you bought it, and you still paid for it.
- TaylorAlexander 3y ago
  Something can be a good choice and still have room for improvement. This is how we think about how things can be better.
  - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
    The original premise of an iPhone was that closed experience. It was an improvement over the mobile market that existed back then. I remember because I had my fair share of Philips, Alcatel, Nokia, and ipaqs. What I’m afraid of is that some actions and reactions of a—let’s be honest—insignificant number of power users who want to root their phone is going to break the experience for the majority of the regular users. Progress is welcomed but let’s not forget: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
    - kevinh 3y ago
      The original iPhone had no App Store and thus no way to get third-party native apps at all. I don't know that the original premise is at all relevant now.
    - wiseowise 3y ago
      > The original premise of an iPhone was that closed experience. Ah, I remember the pitch by Jobs, truly a visionary.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jrm4 3y ago

I strongly believe this is an entirely false dichotomy; and I think the Steam Deck will prove this, if it hasn't mostly already.

acomjean 3y ago
>false dichotomy Thats the best way to explain it. On the steam deck you have the option to leave the garden but you don't have too. On the Iphone (and I have one) you don't even get that option. I'd love to install an alternative OS on some of my older phones and an old ipad. Its great hardware, it would be fun, its not supported by apple anymore, but I'm not allowed to. I've poked around the linux thats installed on the steam deck, but frankly I just use my steam deck with steam.

TaylorAlexander 3y ago

The reason I have the iPhone is that they make better choices for a lot of things, not specifically that it is a walled garden. I still wish I could take a system with that design, then sideload, or root, at my own discretion, without every update being a risk that the root will be broken. It's a rather expensive computer and I wish I could use it as a more general purpose computer for certain things.

garciasn 3y ago
They have actively thwarted attempts by the likes of Facebook and Google to track me. Facebook got totally fucked by iOS14+ and I love it. While I don’t trust any of them, I’ve gone with the lesser of the two evils in this regard. YMMV.
- totallywrong 3y ago
  If you use Facebook, you're asking to be tracked, it's on you. Do you really think Apple isn't tracking everything you do? And yet they're the good guys for blocking FB..
- malwrar 3y ago
  Why is Apple the only entity capable of doing this in your mind? Why couldn’t we live in a world where Facebook can’t abuse you because you don’t want them to? Apple fucked Facebook because iPhones only allow Apple the power to fuck Facebook. Meanwhile software history is full of examples of abusive corporations being put in their place by casual side projects. I don’t think this dichotomy is real, I think we could both have control of our devices and prevent facebook from stalking us, maybe even more effectively than Apple.
  - joshgachnang 3y ago
    They're not the only one capable. But of the two mobile OS providers, they're the one that is.
  - rad_gruchalski 3y ago

ecefour 3y ago

My thoughts exactly. I like to tinker, but when it comes to my phone I just want it to work. I find that the iPhone works best.

chrisco255 3y ago
Cool why would you prohibit others from tinkering though? What drives that desire?
- ecefour 3y ago
  [flagged]
- ecefour 3y ago
  What are you taking about?? My mobile operating system preference is iOS. If you prefer android or whatever i don’t care. Competition is good, i’m not fighting for these the battle for these cooperations an neither should you. You could win gold with the mental gymnastics used to get to your conclusion.
  - chrisco255 3y ago
    Due to vendor lock-in, and a number of competitive issues with having one company wield so much control over the personal lives of tens of millions of people, I prefer $3 trillion monopolies not to be tolerated in democratic societies. Right to choose an alternative app store and right to side load is a bare minimum for antitrust compliance and consumer protection. Microsoft was taken to the cleaners in the 90s for far less. Many others including Ma Bell in earlier decades as well. https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-fact https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-f...

giobox 3y ago

This is a false choice - there's no reason the iPhone can't be both a walled garden-type device and support alternative OSes/software, just like a computer. We know because this exact strategy works just fine on Apple's other computer platform, the Mac. Personally, I hate that our phones, which increasingly are our personal computer, are often no longer just a general purpose compute device to use how I want, if i want. The walled garden also relies enormously on Apple - a publicly traded for profit enterprise - being a benign benefactor, which to date has been (relatively) true. The future on a long timescale may not be so nice. Were this to change, you don't easily have a say in alternative software. Why shouldn't you be able to install a linux distro and turn your old iPhone or iPad into a really power-efficient home server-type appliance, if you want to? My old MacBook is doing exactly this.

threeseed 3y ago
Many of us don't want a computer in our pocket. We want a simplistic, managed, fuss-free device that isn't another source of malware, viruses, dark patterns e.g. unsubscribing and where basic things like uninstalling requires a Terminal. If you want a computer then there are plenty of companies that satisfy your requirements. So why not encourage and support them instead of trying to turn the iPhone into something a lot of people don't want.
- devmor 3y ago
  If Apple allowed us to run the apps created for the iPhone outside of iOS I'm sure we wouldn't be having this discussion. Many of us are in the ecosystem not out of personal choice, but out of necessity (be it professional or social).
- howinteresting 3y ago
  What phone platform is both open and lets you communicate over iMessage without absurd workarounds? To get a blue bubble you must give up control over your mobile life to Apple.
  - __d 3y ago

pknomad 3y ago

Same here. I like the walled garden. I like the curated experience. As far as I am aware, me liking these things for my phone and subsequently voting with my wallet doesn't prevent someone else enjoying another ecosystem that doesn't have these things (i.e. Android). People forget how awful the Android experience could be. https://threatpost.com/google-booted-700000-bad-apps-from-its-marketplace-in-2017/129717/ https://threatpost.com/google-booted-700000-bad-apps-from-it... I already manage computers for work; I don't want to do it on my free time too.

chrisco255 3y ago
That's nice, you can just choose to use Apple's app store then, without imposing your Stockholm syndrome on the rest of us and defending antitrust behavior from a 3 trillion dollar monopoly.
- pknomad 3y ago
  > you can just choose to use Apple's app store then, without imposing your Stockholm syndrome on the rest of us and defending antitrust behavior from a 3 trillion dollar monopoly. I have chosen to use Apple's app store without imposing anything. You have your choice of using Apple or something else.
  - wiseowise 3y ago
    Me having sideloading doesn’t impose anything on you either.

bluescrn 3y ago

With phones I've stopped caring. I don't do serious work or serious play on a phone, it doesn't have a big enough screen or suitable input devices. The iPad (especially the Pro), on the other hand, would be a far better device if it wasn't so locked down. The hardware is wasted on such limited 'apps'. Ideally, the iPad Pro would run a full MacOS and be able to quickly switch between desktop mode (when you have a pencil and/or keyboard) and an iOS compatible mode when it's being operated by fat fingers on the touchscreen.

hnick 3y ago
This is my general opinion. My iPhone is not a productive device, even sending an email is a hassle. I'm either at home, or will wait, unless it's urgent. It's basically for social media, maps, music, and keeping in touch via messages. Occasionally phone calls. A walled garden is generally OK for that (my only gripe as in my other comment here is that they make it too hard to access media files directly).

collsni 3y ago

Have fun living in your walled garden. Hopefully you aren't this way with your news! :)

rad_gruchalski 3y ago
Thank you for your concern. I hope you understand that all mainstream news is controlled by a very limited number of corporations and alternatives are full of people with their own agendas and tinfoil hats.

bubblethink 3y ago

>If I didn't want a walled garden, I'd get an Android phone. I've never used an iphone, but Apple presumably does walled garden much better than Android. I recently tried to install google messages from play store (which I haven't used in a while), and if you search for messages, the top 5 results will all be different messaging apps that have a blue icon, with the top one being adware. Embarrassingly, I fell for it thinking that this is google messages. Play store makes it very hard to see the vendor of an app. Much like search, this has been SEO'd to death, and google will put some ad before their own messaging app. Then they'll cry about Apple not supporting RCS.

chrisco255 3y ago
Just tried this experiment by typing "Messaging" in the play store. The top 3 were marked as Ads, and number 4 was "Messages by Google", with Google clearly listed as the creator on line 2.
- bubblethink 3y ago
  Yes, you will see it if you are paying attention. If you are on auto-pilot mode and assume that the top result with the blue icon on the play store will be google messages, you will get duped. The name of the vendor for these ads is also designed to confuse and obfuscate. The top ad's vendor is "Text Messaging". A few days ago when I did this, the name of the vendor was "Top Rated App". Play store doesn't say "Vendor: Top Rated App", the text "Top Rated App" or "Text Messaging" will just appear along with a bunch of other useless information.

Vanclief 3y ago

I strongly relate to this. I built my desktop computer and I run arch as my daily driver. For my phone: I just want a device that works out of the box. I don't want to think about it, or need to configure anything from it. Thats the only reason I keep buying iPhones.

waboremo 3y ago
Macbooks also work OOB and are not a walled garden.
chrisco255 3y ago
I know the feeling, my Nokia 3360 still works 25 years later. Also doubles as a blunt weapon. No config necessary. Cool, you can just use your iPhone in the stock config. The proposal to enable people to root their own devices, or bring their own app stores doesn't mean you have to partake. It just means a 3 trillion dollar monopoly has a tiny bit less control over a huge chunk of the mobile phone market. And meanwhile it means the rest of us who do want that freedom can have it.
wiseowise 3y ago
Because your phone is a binary state. You know, it’s either works out of box, or suddenly turns into Arch the moment there appears a toggle to allow installing apps.

whyenot 3y ago

Yes, and this is also why my "super senior" mother owns an iPhone. Sometimes a walled garden is a good thing. If you want a more open system, there are other options. Please don't destroy something that is actually useful to a lot of people just because it doesn't coincide with your own desires or needs.

grogenaut 3y ago
My mom who now has dementia couldn't figure out how to use her iPhone but could totally use a Mac. The Mac doesn't really have a walled garden and I'm pretty sure you're using correlation not causation. I'm very sure that a Walt garden doesn't make a thing actually easier to use. It's just what you're familiar with and willing to teach your mom to use.
- throwaway290 3y ago
  My mom can use an iphone easily, mac not so much but that's because of her history with windows. I think her mac almost certainly has malware. it's an older one and it probably doesn't support the latest OS anyway sadly.
howinteresting 3y ago
This is a non-sequitur. Apple can easily add a "super senior" mode to an iPhone while still keeping the rest of the platform open.
- zuminator 3y ago
  Or to flip that around, they could keep the walled garden but allow the user to spin up a virtualized environment completely walled off from the main OS, and run compilers and other software without risk to the phone side. Then the author could install a Jornada emulator or a full Linux distro.
- Gigachad 3y ago
  Problem is that the tech support scammer walks grandma through the process of turning off senior mode and installing malware.

m3kw9 3y ago

Walled garden isn’t much different from living in a country having laws and stuff, border, contraband controls, import tax and stuff. Sound funny right?

zuminator 3y ago
True, but by that analogy Applelandia would be a dictatorship.
- orlandrescu 3y ago
  An enlighted dictatorship, if I may.

m3kw9 3y ago

This is in fact very popular opinion, but the part that isn’t popular is that it is actually the silent majority.

boringuser2 3y ago

[flagged]

xcv123 3y ago
> Apple makes absurd devices that have little benefit over alternatives beyond the performative, with lots of negative baggage to boot. Such an oddball company to have developed a fandom amongst the very people who should reject it (the technically-minded). Apple makes quite standard laptops and phones, much the same as any other manufacturers. If Apple is absurd then so is Dell, IBM, Lenovo, Samsung, etc. Everything is absurd. I'm technically minded (developing for 20 years) but couldn't care less about iOS or Android being locked down as I depend on the phone to be a reliable appliance and would hate developing on any phone. I spend all my working days programming on a Linux desktop or Mac laptop and just need the damn phone to work for emails, texts, phone, and maps, without having to deal with any unnecessary technical bullshit. My free time is limited.
- boringuser2 3y ago
  I disagree, respectfully (kind of, I'm on notice). Apple doesn't make standard devices. They make atypical devices that have quirks that only seem to serve the "walled-garden" discussed earlier (I loathe buzzwords). See: Apple ARM chips, lightning cables, right to repair infringements, etc. You don't need to take my word for it; Apple has lost countless lawsuits on this very topic. Also, regarding "technical bullshit", I'm a developer. I use Ubuntu. I am not a Unix expert, and I've never had any trouble with Ubuntu being "unnecessarily technical". That all being said, I have recently actually experienced a kind of personal renaissance doing Linux-related tasks using GPT. This is a domain to which it is suited and is able to perform highly complex tasks trivially without a GUI. The standardness of Linux makes it superior. Also, it's free and doesn't kneecap you with proprietary nonsense. I don't care about open-source.
  - xcv123 3y ago
    > Apple ARM chips There are many other ARM devices. Surface and Chromebooks are some examples. Apple was late to this market. ARM Linux runs perfectly in a VM on MacOS, as ARM support in Linux has been around for years prior to M1. This is nothing new. > I am not a Unix expert, and I've never had any trouble with Ubuntu being "unnecessarily technical". I used Gentoo fulltime for several years as my primary OS. I don't care about compiling or configuring technical shit on my phone. I just need it to work like an actual phone, as an appliance, and have free time for doing important/interesting technical things on my laptop or desktop. > The standardness of Linux makes it superior. Yes and so I can install Linux on my Macbook, if I choose to. On my old Intel Mac I could install Linux or Windows. My M1 Mac now has the option to install Linux. Really not much different to Dell/Lenovo/etc. Same shit different brand.

winstonprivacy 3y ago

Hope you don't forget your password. That's a fun experience.

rad_gruchalski 3y ago
I recommend a password manager.

joe_the_user 3y ago

"I bought all of them knowing very well what I'm getting into..." No you didn't. I mean, languaging is important here. You didn't know what exactly Apple would be doing with their walled garden. You essentially went in with faith that Apple deciding things would be better than whatever Android is (and I'm not sure Android isn't just a more haphazard walled garden but still).

rad_gruchalski 3y ago
Okay. The first 3G I didn’t. The 5 and the 8 I did.

binkHN 3y ago

> If I didn't want a walled garden, I'd get an Android phone. Fair. This is the exact reason why I have an Android phone. As a matter of fact, it's the reason why I started dabbling in Kotlin a few years ago; so that I can make my own personal apps.

eddieroger 3y ago
I did the same with Objective-C. I'm in the boat as OP of this thread. I had an HTC Hero, an Evo, and a Nexus S. I believe in Android. But what I wasn't expecting was that I was never happy, and thrashed my phone many times in pursuit of happiness. So many ROMs to try, so many SMS clients, or automation platforms, or browsers. Choice all over the place. But with that choice was analysis paralysis - what was I missing out on? Wiping and installing ROMs lost me data more than once (despite Titanium Backup and a huge SD card). I couldn't rest, and it drove me nuts. But on iOS, there's just iMessage. There are browsers, but Safari is fine, and they're all basically Safari wrappers. There is iOS itself, and that's it. There is peace in my garden.
- binkHN 3y ago
  I tend to stick with mostly what's in the stock build, but then replace things here and there as desired. I've yet to replace the OS, but I guess I'll get to it one day.

jasmer 3y ago

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downWidOutaFite 3y ago

> If I didn't want a walled garden, I'd get an Android phone. If only, Google's been trying to emulate apple locking android down as much as possible.

duxup 3y ago

Hardware quality, longevity, quality generally. Happy to trade that for a walled garden. My days of futzing with Android rims and etc are over, it was fun, but not sure I got much more out of it than that.

camhart 3y ago

What is the perceived "value" the walled garden is giving you? I've always owned an android, and not once had to worry about security or malicious apps. Apple seems to have sold everyone on this idea that Android is super insecure. It's not.

TulliusCicero 3y ago

How would the ability to install alternate app stores hurt you? Android allows this, and while there's other parts of Android that are weaker than iOS, it's hard to think of ways in which this specific feature is problematic to the user experience.

chaostheory 3y ago

Same here. I just want it to work which is why I’m with Apple for specific devices. If I wanted to experiment, I have Android and several PCs with different form factors. Apple’s walled garden also helps me with tech support for my immediate and extended family. What a lot of people don’t seem to understand is that when you get freedom to tinker, you’ll lose stability and lessen security; all while increasing complexity

zmmmmm 3y ago

> If I didn't want a walled garden, I'd get an Android phone. Out of curiosity, if Android didn't exist, or was just as locked down as iOS would you feel differently about this?

jordanmorgan10 3y ago

The dreaded walled garden is probably my favorite part of owning an iPhone. There can be other reasons for walled gardens outside of capitalism.

hparadiz 3y ago

It's clear you haven't actually used an Android phone in 10 years.

predictabl3 3y ago
These comments are freaking unreal, and ignoring the ignorance of modern Android, vastly overstate the privacy protection afforded by iOS. Bravo to Apple marketing.

AnonHP 3y ago

> If I didn't want a walled garden, I'd get an Android phone. Not just any Android phone to use out of the box though, right? You may need to tweak or even install a different distribution/flavor like GrapheneOS. In other words, different Androids have their own versions of walled gardens.

aembleton 3y ago
Can't you just download and install an APK on Android? You have to toggle a setting to allow it but you don't need to replace the ROM.

syvolt 3y ago

Hacker News, where hackers beg a trillion dollar company to keep not allowing them to create apps on their own hardware without having to go through a bureaucratic process of uploading it to a store. You know, as hackers do.

adamparsons 3y ago
[flagged]
- abathur 3y ago
  But were these boots made for licking?

predictabl3 3y ago

Lol what. Are you implying your iphone is safer than my Android that allows me to sideload but only if I opt-in and even then on a per-app basis? Iphone users really like showing they know nothing about Android, or the state of privacy and security on modern Android. Some of these replies are wildly ignorant. Straight up made-up stuff to self-justify not being able to run an emulator on your phone. Good stuff. Here, imagine I handed you my locked Pixel 6a, or it unlocked with side-loading disabled. What exactly is the "lack of walled garden" going to allow you to do to it? Be specific.

noSyncCloud 3y ago

I knew without reading the article that 100% of the replies would be incredulous, offended Apple fanboys xd. HN is so predictable lol What's actually incredible is how behind the times this website is - amazingly reactionary people who think they're unbelievably smart. It's literally like reading internet comments from 30 years ago

SllX 3y ago

This opinion isn't as unpopular as you think. About the only place where I think Apple's walled garden approach genuinely holds a platform back is the iPad which should have a much more Mac-like model (honestly it should just straight up have the Mac's flexibility, and the Vision Pro too whenever that ships). My phone is different. My phone absolutely must always work. About the most I want is as much much easier way less onerous way of sideloading Emacs on it, and that's primarily because I find org-mode apps without the Emacs environment to come up just a little bit insufficient. I have other computers to do other computer stuff, but I don't care at all about doing any of that on my phone.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

SanderNL 3y ago

It’s interesting to look up the etymology of “paradise”. Hint: walled garden.

realusername 3y ago

> If I didn't want a walled garden, I'd get an Android phone. You also have a walled garden on Android, maybe with slighly lower walls but it's still pretty far from a truly open platform. And that's there we see that the "it's the user choice" argument isn't working very well. The open platforms are either very outdated devices (this HP, the N900...) or niche Android forks for tech people on a very limited amount of devices. Users never really had a choice in the first place.

Tainnor 3y ago

This choice doesn't really exist with Android either, unfortunately, for those who would like to have this freedom. I mean you are kind of free to do whatever you want on your device, but then you just get locked out of basically everything. Banking apps, Netflix, reportedly even the McDonald's app will refuse to work on a device with an unlocked bootloader. This is kind of ridiculous considering people with incredibly bug ridden computers can access the whole web but when it's mobile phones, apparently you don't get to decide.

raxxorraxor 3y ago
> the McDonald's app will refuse to work on a device with an unlocked bootloader. This is exactly what I expect would happen if secure boot would be established on PC. And it seems to indeed be the case with the McDonalds app, so locked bootloaders are unhealthy for you in multiple way.

hinkley 3y ago

The iPhone is a tool, not a toy. Most of my woodworking tools are not user serviceable either. Only the simplest are, and you can take classes to learn to care for them properly. They seem utterly simple but proper care is subtle. I grew up in the era where people stopped trying to do their own car repairs. Nobody talks about that anymore. They very much did at the time, and we call the people who did “grandpa” now. If you want to tinker, I suggest mini ITX or SBCs.

wiseowise 3y ago
Imagine buying a tool and every time you want to use it for something else that manufacturer imagined a ghost of Jobs appeared and smacked it out of your hands.
- hinkley 3y ago
  Imagine going through life with massive control issues and expecting everyone else to be sympathetic to them at all times. Go outside, touch a tree.

throwaway290 3y ago

I wish Apple made a product like that for competent professionals but keep existing devices safe for general public, but it's never going to happen because how can you tell a competent enough professional who is not going to fire guns at own feet? Most people will just be buying such phones to pirate stuff and get their identities pwned along the way.

RektBoy 3y ago

Walled garden is great, if you make a living from finding exploits and selling them on grey market. Bro, I bought a house for two iOS 0days. Thank to you walled garden.

h0nd 3y ago

Android phone usually come with a walled garden, too.

cttet 3y ago

I think people just don't understand that end user API design is a user preference thing, not a universal thing... And exposing what kind of level on a hardware is just the same as API design... And some people just keep having the ideas of "I'd like API to be like A, so there wouldn't be possible any people liking another API B..."

eloisant 3y ago

Unfortunately these days Android as pretty close to the iPhone as a walled garden. There are some open source phone OS based on a more traditional Linux approach (with the usual userspace you find on a Linux Desktop) but so many important apps are only available on the iOS/Play Store duopoly.

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

> The reason why I'm personally sticking with the iPhone is exactly the walled garden...If I didn't want a walled garden, I'd get an Android phone. Same here. I like Apple, for the same reason that many geeks hate them. I get a lot of enjoyment out of wresting a great user experience from a highly-restricted environment. That's part of the challenge, for me.

illwrks 3y ago

I was an avid apple user, then switched to android about 5 years ago thinking I'd do more with a more open device. I've not really done much with it, I'll likely switch back to apple again and at that point move to apple TV devices and home speakers too. My wife is an iPhone user. She's not in anyway technical and I think a walled garden is perfect for her and others of a similar technical ability. Tech is a breeze if you understand it, if not it's a liability.

lawn 3y ago

You choose the iPhone despite the walled garden, not because if it.

raxxorraxor 3y ago

What are the benefits to you? Would you install software or run programs you don't want accidentally? What would you miss if there would be some form of safe mode to be toggled on or off? To me this argument doesn't make sense at all. I think iPhones are decent phones and Android devices are just as walled in. So all smartphone platforms are more or less suboptimal. Sure, Android can be modified, but only to a degree heavily depending on the hardware...

nbidforn 3y ago

Nope. They made you think you've stayed in the same garden. Actually you're dragged on ground by the walls each time they moved, expanded or shrink the inside area. And BTW you are the luck one who survived from that.

BirAdam 3y ago

So, I agree with you. But here's the thing, you have property rights. I am no lawyer, but I am a human who can think morally and ethically, and I would say this: a company cannot sell a thing and then restrict the usage of said thing. An iPhone is sold to you. iOS, otoh, is licensed to you. It is my opinion that Apple either needs to make it possible for the purchaser to replace iOS or Apple needs to make it possible to run arbitrary code on iOS. Anything else restricts the rights of the owner of the phone, and essentially violates his/her ownership. In this case, Apple should be able to be taken to court for theft and/or fraud.

parentheses 3y ago

I don't know if the walls are what you desire. I'm in it for the garden being more beautiful and better curated. Does that mean I have less choice? Yes, but it's a sacrifice I choose to have a better total experience. Apple's walled garden allows higher quality apps and features that wouldn't be shipped as quickly in an "open" model (whatever that may mean). I agree that running arbitrary shell commands/apps/etc is "cool", but it's rarely useful to me on a mobile computing device. If the use-case exists and is legitimate, there's usually an app for it. In fact the few times I've felt the pinch of "I'd like to run such-and-such from my phone" is limited by the fact that my employer wouldn't allow me to - not that my phone disallows it. I still could do it since there are SSH apps that will connect to my home computer if need be. OP's take on this IMO is one of wanting full control over their devices and while it's a great ideal, it doesn't translate into real usable improvements for me.