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The reason I think users don't mind Apple's control of their devices is that the reality is that users don't control devices, programmers do. Also, security req

The reason I think users don't mind Apple's control of their devices is that the reality is that users don't control devices, programmers do. Also, security requires constant updates and updates cost money, so it's not realistic to use a device for a decade, because you won't have security updates from any company at that point. Apple has better updates over time, which is reflected in it's higher resale values. So on my iPhone, I feel that Apple protects us from bad programmers for the most part, because if you look at Android and the lower quality of many of their apps and the way large tech companies run over the users by installing spyware on their devices, but Apple to some extent is protecting us from Facebook and Google and keeping us more in control of our devices, by limiting which applications can be run on them.

thfuran 3y ago
>Also, security requires constant updates and updates cost money, so it's not realistic to use a device for a decade, because you won't have security updates from any company at that point Why can't someone exchange money for a service they find valuable? As I understand it, that has long been a common practice.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Why can't someone exchange money for a service they find valuable? As I understand it, that has long been a common practice. [lifts hand up] Uh-uh, me, pick me: because most consumers have been trained and conditioned by corporations that they only pay for the HW, the thing that they can feel and resell, and that the SW running on it should come for free and always be free despite SW updates being a continuous effort that costs money. Most consumers can't put a value on SW ownership, unless that SW is a video-game on a disc in their hand. Thanks to Google, Youtube, etc, we've grown to expect that everything digital of value should be free even though it's not. So ads it is.
  - brandensilva 3y ago
    Yup the software side has been built into the pricing of the hardware. They weren't the first to do this either since this business model has been around for quite awhile since we got away from buying software as a box. It's also more convenient for the consumer to have a one and done payment. The only thing I wish is if there was a monthly maintenance package when my devices get older so I can keep getting updates that keep my device running fast, secure, and can maintain some form compatibility with most apps.
  - WirelessGigabit 3y ago
    Which is kinda weird. We used to have to pay for a new version of Windows or Mac OS (or however it was capitalized back then). Then it became free. When you got a computer with Windows 8 you would get 8.1 and 10 for free. 11 if you have the right TPM / chip (doubtful). Same with Windows 10 to Windows 11, provided you meet the specs. Same with Mac OS (not versed enough to list the versions). I believe Apple started this yearly iOS update (and with that a more rapid deprecation). I don't think people would want to spend $1,200 on a phone knowing they have to pay each year for a software upgrade. They also would not spend $1,200 on a phone knowing that next year you have to BUY a new one to get the latest software. And in Apples mind all of this is fine. iOS has the highest adoption of the last iOS version. So in terms of non-security bugfixes they can focus on the last version. Only security fixes might warrant an update for an n-1 version of iOS.
    - WWLink 3y ago
      The problem with this is that you need to make those updates something people want to buy. And at some point, you have a game of diminishing returns. Even the hardware is starting to feel that way. Yet, security updates aren't "free". I'd guess that keeping an OS secure is probably more expensive than developing new features. That part gets tricky. Also, supporting 5+ year old hardware gets harder since that hardware stops getting made and the new stuff gets more and more different.
- bigboy12 3y ago
  If people are complaining then just don’t buy the phone!! Problem solved.
- daft_pink 3y ago
  If the market were there for it, it might happen, but the reality is that someone using a 10 year old phone is extremely cost conscious and not likely to shell out the engineering money required for updates.
CivBase 3y ago
> Also, security requires constant updates and updates cost money, so it's not realistic to use a device for a decade, because you won't have security updates from any company at that point. Apple has better updates over time, which is reflected in it's higher resale values. I'm absolutely still using PCs from over a decade ago and I'm still getting security updates.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  You're getting updates for PCs over 10 years old because thanks to the way IBM PC clones work, the OS kernel can be independently updated from the drivers of the peripherals, not tied to them as it is in the ARM ecosystem with obscure FW blobs that are tied to the interfaces of a particular Android/Linux version. On Widows at least, drivers from the Windows Vista days still work just fine on Windows 11 as the ABI hasn't changed that much since then. Good luck with that on Android.
  - CivBase 3y ago
    Sounds to me like a design problem, not a justification for letting companies maintain control over the goods purchased from them.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      Sure, but since time immemoriam this has been left to the "free market" to sort itself out, and the "free market" has let us to this point. Should some government regulatory body like the EU intervene to force their hand? Maybe. But do remember that in the "old-days" of dumbphones and featurephones you were getting no SW updates at all ever and replacing your phone every 2-3 years was the norm back then. It's only now that we're thinking about this as we start to think about phones more as general purpose computers in our pocket and less as phone dialing and messaging devices, like in the old days. One thing's for sure, it's that the free market will never self regulate itself on this matter, same how it has not self regulated itself in the auto industry were it not for the EPA and EU, we'd still be buying ICE cars that turn our cities into smog if we were to leve emissions to the auto manufacturers.
JumpinJack_Cash 3y ago
> > I feel that Apple protects us from bad programmers for the most part Oh poor thing. They protect themselves and software houses from torrent-esque and crack-esque like solutions which can be easily found for everything that runs on Windows, including Office, not to mention the Windows OS itself and everything Android. That's also the reason why Apple dominates the US market whereas Android has the majority of devices elsewhere in the world. Americans will fight between each other with hordes of lawyers at the cost of thousands of dollars for the stupidest things, but won't spend 30 seconds torrenting in order fuck Hollywood,Amazon, Netflix and Microsoft in the ass. When you ask the reason why, their reply is : 'convenience' When you ask why they fight for the stupidest things against fellow citizens using hordes of lawyers at the cost of thousands of dollars the reply is: 'To prove a point' Bizzarre
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  > They protect themselves and software houses from torrent-esque and crack-esque like solutions which can be easily found for everything that runs on Windows, including Office, not to mention the Windows OS itself and everything Android. It's extremely easy to find pirated software for macOS, too. Let's not pretend that Windows is Skid Row and macOS is a pristine gated community.
  - JumpinJack_Cash 3y ago
    macOS is not how Apple makes money, they make money with iOS as per the article
- gamblor956 3y ago
  Americans actually like to pay people for the work they do...it may be bizarre, but it's part of why America has the world's strongest economy. Huh. How about that. A country of people who don't just think they're entitled to the labor of others.
gigel82 3y ago
> but Apple is ... keeping us more in control of our devices, by limiting which applications can be run on them Holy Stockholm syndrome level of cognitive dissonance batman!
- brandensilva 3y ago
  Lol major distopian vibes. "The government keeps me safe by preventing me from doing anything against the law (that they decide at their own free will). I love my brain chip."
  - paulmd 3y ago
    Why wouldn’t anyone love their brain chip? You’d obviously be programmed to.
- jstarfish 3y ago
  Haha. It's worded very poorly ("safe from" != "in control of") but they are not wrong. The whitelist approach to security has its merits.
- missingrib 3y ago
  It's true though. Not us in particular, but 99% of smartphone users
badpun 3y ago
> security requires constant updates and updates cost money Security doesn't require constant updates if the software they shipped didn't have bugs in the first place. These updates are just fixing faults in software that I've already paid for. Similarly, if I buy a car that made have the airbags explode for no reason, the car is recalled and the airbags are replaced for free.
- more_corn 3y ago
  Sorry but security updates are required. They just don’t have to be expensive.
lovelyviking 3y ago
>Apple to some extent is protecting us from Facebook and Google and keeping us more in control of our devices, by limiting which applications can be run on them. Right, Including protecting me from me unless I find extra pleasure in ‘calling big fruit boss every few days’ for running my own soft on my (supposedly) own phone. To avoid this ‘pleasure’ I have to pay developer fee yearly. If someone is looking for definition of ‘idiocy’ one should look no further. Yet there is always someone trying to justify even that. ‘It is more secure ‘ - they usually say forgetting to mention that security starts with control and ends without it. The obvious question to ask usually would be: So who would protect you from Apple itself? More entertaining question could be: Who is going to protect you from you? But then we recall about AI and we can guess the answer which spoils the whole entertaining aspect of the question. So the only question left is: What people would not justify when some big company does it?
- foogazi 3y ago
  > So who would protect you from Apple itself? Pick your poison, right ? Someone is in control of the machine and it’s not me since I didn’t make it I don’t know who you are so I don’t trust you Thus I pay to live inside the walled garden Is it total freedom ? No, but it’s reasonable enough for me and my family
  - lovelyviking 3y ago
    Pick your poison, right ? Right as long as you know what poison you choose. At least control someone who controls your machine, including the building process. >Thus I pay to live inside the walled garden At the moment it’s more like you pay for garden with imaginable walls while in reality there are no walls and frankly it doesn’t look like garden at all. The only real wall you face is when you are trying avoid living in this fantasy. There is more precise definition for such ‘garden’ - starts with prison. Is it total freedom ? no, but it seems it’s reasonable for …. I barely see something reasonable about it. It’s more like a luck of wish to stand for own dignity thinking that such stand is possible to avoid. When people (some people) thought sharing some data is not a big deal in current conditions. Did they think about another situation when current form of AI is around? Did you think about changes of the environment when you wrote ‘ it’s reasonable enough’? You didn’t even add ‘for now’ suggesting of course you know everything that ‘now’ is happening. And you even ready to expand this vision to whole family? I wish to be that sure about the future. I am not trying to attack you personally, I think it is very common ‘logic’ these days except I cannot see it as logic at all.
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
Also, the people mostly burnt by this are thieves who can only sell stolen iPhones for spare parts. To people who actually by their phones, this is a feature, not a bug.
NemoNobody 3y ago
Apple is protecting their users data from Facebook and Google to use for their own means. User data is like their IP
twelve40 3y ago
> I feel that Apple protects us from bad programmers for the most part, because if you look at Android and the lower quality of many of their apps been using Android for over a decade now, not once did I feel a particular need to be extra-protected by the Big Brother. I'm all for competition, enjoy your devices, Android is far from perfect, but I will not let Jobs or anyone else living or dead dictate what I can or can't install on my expensive-ass phone. I know, data point of one, but so is this "i feel" comment.
- daft_pink 3y ago
  Exactly. You're an Android user. You're okay with Google's business model of giving away their code so they can make it back with advertising revenue. It's totally fine. If you are happy with that then more power to you. I'm just echoing how Apple users feel about the product that we buy in large numbers and are also very happy with. The reality is that we are forced to install apps in modern life. Want to go to a concert then you have to install our app. Want to board a plane then you have to install our app. Want to talk to your friends on whatsapp, then you have to install our app. Why do we have to give all this private information to McDonald's to buy a hamburger? We like having someone put limits on the programs running on our phones, because we often have little choice but to install the programs.
sonicanatidae 3y ago
I'm a SysAdmin. I get handed phones all the time to look at an issue. A decade ago I started cycling between iPhones and Androids every 18 months or so, to stay current on both. This is my take on the ecosystems. YMMV. In simplest terms, Apple keeps users away from control. They make decisions for the user and often, it's reasonable. In some cases, Apples control makes useful features no-gos. Tasker is an example. It's either not present or crippled. In summary, iPhones are great choices for people that just want a smartphone. They don't plan on getting fancy with it, they just need a daily driver. Android is more of a swiss-army knife, imo. It has more flexibility, at the cost of ease-of-use, to get that. The UI overlays, for the most part, are tragedies. AOSP is the gold standard for me, but Pixel hardware has been a shitshow, so good luck with that. Android is a more developed (wide-reaching) OS, being used in numerous IOT and other devices. In summary, its also a daily driver, but mostly for those that like to tinker or have an all-in-one device. The overlays can be a PITA, but you get what you get and some folks like them. I'm a career SysAdmin. I've done seem edits on flip phones, I've rooted and rommed Androids, I've jailbroke my iPhones in the past. Now? It's just a phone. I use better tools for things I need to do, rather than try to bend 1 device to be everything. Again, YMMV.
hulitu 3y ago
> So on my iPhone, I feel that Apple protects us from bad programmers for the most part, because if you look at Android and the lower quality of many of their apps NGO group would like a word with you. /s I got an Iphone for work. Although i was excited to see how good it is, my excitement died when it said that it can connect to Wifi or data anytime, even when Wifi or data is turned off.

thfuran 3y ago

>Also, security requires constant updates and updates cost money, so it's not realistic to use a device for a decade, because you won't have security updates from any company at that point Why can't someone exchange money for a service they find valuable? As I understand it, that has long been a common practice.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>Why can't someone exchange money for a service they find valuable? As I understand it, that has long been a common practice. [lifts hand up] Uh-uh, me, pick me: because most consumers have been trained and conditioned by corporations that they only pay for the HW, the thing that they can feel and resell, and that the SW running on it should come for free and always be free despite SW updates being a continuous effort that costs money. Most consumers can't put a value on SW ownership, unless that SW is a video-game on a disc in their hand. Thanks to Google, Youtube, etc, we've grown to expect that everything digital of value should be free even though it's not. So ads it is.
- brandensilva 3y ago
  Yup the software side has been built into the pricing of the hardware. They weren't the first to do this either since this business model has been around for quite awhile since we got away from buying software as a box. It's also more convenient for the consumer to have a one and done payment. The only thing I wish is if there was a monthly maintenance package when my devices get older so I can keep getting updates that keep my device running fast, secure, and can maintain some form compatibility with most apps.
- WirelessGigabit 3y ago
  Which is kinda weird. We used to have to pay for a new version of Windows or Mac OS (or however it was capitalized back then). Then it became free. When you got a computer with Windows 8 you would get 8.1 and 10 for free. 11 if you have the right TPM / chip (doubtful). Same with Windows 10 to Windows 11, provided you meet the specs. Same with Mac OS (not versed enough to list the versions). I believe Apple started this yearly iOS update (and with that a more rapid deprecation). I don't think people would want to spend $1,200 on a phone knowing they have to pay each year for a software upgrade. They also would not spend $1,200 on a phone knowing that next year you have to BUY a new one to get the latest software. And in Apples mind all of this is fine. iOS has the highest adoption of the last iOS version. So in terms of non-security bugfixes they can focus on the last version. Only security fixes might warrant an update for an n-1 version of iOS.
  - WWLink 3y ago
    The problem with this is that you need to make those updates something people want to buy. And at some point, you have a game of diminishing returns. Even the hardware is starting to feel that way. Yet, security updates aren't "free". I'd guess that keeping an OS secure is probably more expensive than developing new features. That part gets tricky. Also, supporting 5+ year old hardware gets harder since that hardware stops getting made and the new stuff gets more and more different.
bigboy12 3y ago
If people are complaining then just don’t buy the phone!! Problem solved.
daft_pink 3y ago
If the market were there for it, it might happen, but the reality is that someone using a 10 year old phone is extremely cost conscious and not likely to shell out the engineering money required for updates.

CivBase 3y ago

> Also, security requires constant updates and updates cost money, so it's not realistic to use a device for a decade, because you won't have security updates from any company at that point. Apple has better updates over time, which is reflected in it's higher resale values. I'm absolutely still using PCs from over a decade ago and I'm still getting security updates.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
You're getting updates for PCs over 10 years old because thanks to the way IBM PC clones work, the OS kernel can be independently updated from the drivers of the peripherals, not tied to them as it is in the ARM ecosystem with obscure FW blobs that are tied to the interfaces of a particular Android/Linux version. On Widows at least, drivers from the Windows Vista days still work just fine on Windows 11 as the ABI hasn't changed that much since then. Good luck with that on Android.
- CivBase 3y ago
  Sounds to me like a design problem, not a justification for letting companies maintain control over the goods purchased from them.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Sure, but since time immemoriam this has been left to the "free market" to sort itself out, and the "free market" has let us to this point. Should some government regulatory body like the EU intervene to force their hand? Maybe. But do remember that in the "old-days" of dumbphones and featurephones you were getting no SW updates at all ever and replacing your phone every 2-3 years was the norm back then. It's only now that we're thinking about this as we start to think about phones more as general purpose computers in our pocket and less as phone dialing and messaging devices, like in the old days. One thing's for sure, it's that the free market will never self regulate itself on this matter, same how it has not self regulated itself in the auto industry were it not for the EPA and EU, we'd still be buying ICE cars that turn our cities into smog if we were to leve emissions to the auto manufacturers.

JumpinJack_Cash 3y ago

> > I feel that Apple protects us from bad programmers for the most part Oh poor thing. They protect themselves and software houses from torrent-esque and crack-esque like solutions which can be easily found for everything that runs on Windows, including Office, not to mention the Windows OS itself and everything Android. That's also the reason why Apple dominates the US market whereas Android has the majority of devices elsewhere in the world. Americans will fight between each other with hordes of lawyers at the cost of thousands of dollars for the stupidest things, but won't spend 30 seconds torrenting in order fuck Hollywood,Amazon, Netflix and Microsoft in the ass. When you ask the reason why, their reply is : 'convenience' When you ask why they fight for the stupidest things against fellow citizens using hordes of lawyers at the cost of thousands of dollars the reply is: 'To prove a point' Bizzarre

FireBeyond 3y ago
> They protect themselves and software houses from torrent-esque and crack-esque like solutions which can be easily found for everything that runs on Windows, including Office, not to mention the Windows OS itself and everything Android. It's extremely easy to find pirated software for macOS, too. Let's not pretend that Windows is Skid Row and macOS is a pristine gated community.
- JumpinJack_Cash 3y ago
  macOS is not how Apple makes money, they make money with iOS as per the article
gamblor956 3y ago
Americans actually like to pay people for the work they do...it may be bizarre, but it's part of why America has the world's strongest economy. Huh. How about that. A country of people who don't just think they're entitled to the labor of others.

gigel82 3y ago

> but Apple is ... keeping us more in control of our devices, by limiting which applications can be run on them Holy Stockholm syndrome level of cognitive dissonance batman!

brandensilva 3y ago
Lol major distopian vibes. "The government keeps me safe by preventing me from doing anything against the law (that they decide at their own free will). I love my brain chip."
- paulmd 3y ago
  Why wouldn’t anyone love their brain chip? You’d obviously be programmed to.
jstarfish 3y ago
Haha. It's worded very poorly ("safe from" != "in control of") but they are not wrong. The whitelist approach to security has its merits.
missingrib 3y ago
It's true though. Not us in particular, but 99% of smartphone users

badpun 3y ago

> security requires constant updates and updates cost money Security doesn't require constant updates if the software they shipped didn't have bugs in the first place. These updates are just fixing faults in software that I've already paid for. Similarly, if I buy a car that made have the airbags explode for no reason, the car is recalled and the airbags are replaced for free.

more_corn 3y ago
Sorry but security updates are required. They just don’t have to be expensive.

lovelyviking 3y ago

>Apple to some extent is protecting us from Facebook and Google and keeping us more in control of our devices, by limiting which applications can be run on them. Right, Including protecting me from me unless I find extra pleasure in ‘calling big fruit boss every few days’ for running my own soft on my (supposedly) own phone. To avoid this ‘pleasure’ I have to pay developer fee yearly. If someone is looking for definition of ‘idiocy’ one should look no further. Yet there is always someone trying to justify even that. ‘It is more secure ‘ - they usually say forgetting to mention that security starts with control and ends without it. The obvious question to ask usually would be: So who would protect you from Apple itself? More entertaining question could be: Who is going to protect you from you? But then we recall about AI and we can guess the answer which spoils the whole entertaining aspect of the question. So the only question left is: What people would not justify when some big company does it?

foogazi 3y ago
> So who would protect you from Apple itself? Pick your poison, right ? Someone is in control of the machine and it’s not me since I didn’t make it I don’t know who you are so I don’t trust you Thus I pay to live inside the walled garden Is it total freedom ? No, but it’s reasonable enough for me and my family
- lovelyviking 3y ago
  Pick your poison, right ? Right as long as you know what poison you choose. At least control someone who controls your machine, including the building process. >Thus I pay to live inside the walled garden At the moment it’s more like you pay for garden with imaginable walls while in reality there are no walls and frankly it doesn’t look like garden at all. The only real wall you face is when you are trying avoid living in this fantasy. There is more precise definition for such ‘garden’ - starts with prison. Is it total freedom ? no, but it seems it’s reasonable for …. I barely see something reasonable about it. It’s more like a luck of wish to stand for own dignity thinking that such stand is possible to avoid. When people (some people) thought sharing some data is not a big deal in current conditions. Did they think about another situation when current form of AI is around? Did you think about changes of the environment when you wrote ‘ it’s reasonable enough’? You didn’t even add ‘for now’ suggesting of course you know everything that ‘now’ is happening. And you even ready to expand this vision to whole family? I wish to be that sure about the future. I am not trying to attack you personally, I think it is very common ‘logic’ these days except I cannot see it as logic at all.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

Also, the people mostly burnt by this are thieves who can only sell stolen iPhones for spare parts. To people who actually by their phones, this is a feature, not a bug.

NemoNobody 3y ago

Apple is protecting their users data from Facebook and Google to use for their own means. User data is like their IP

twelve40 3y ago

> I feel that Apple protects us from bad programmers for the most part, because if you look at Android and the lower quality of many of their apps been using Android for over a decade now, not once did I feel a particular need to be extra-protected by the Big Brother. I'm all for competition, enjoy your devices, Android is far from perfect, but I will not let Jobs or anyone else living or dead dictate what I can or can't install on my expensive-ass phone. I know, data point of one, but so is this "i feel" comment.

daft_pink 3y ago
Exactly. You're an Android user. You're okay with Google's business model of giving away their code so they can make it back with advertising revenue. It's totally fine. If you are happy with that then more power to you. I'm just echoing how Apple users feel about the product that we buy in large numbers and are also very happy with. The reality is that we are forced to install apps in modern life. Want to go to a concert then you have to install our app. Want to board a plane then you have to install our app. Want to talk to your friends on whatsapp, then you have to install our app. Why do we have to give all this private information to McDonald's to buy a hamburger? We like having someone put limits on the programs running on our phones, because we often have little choice but to install the programs.

sonicanatidae 3y ago

I'm a SysAdmin. I get handed phones all the time to look at an issue. A decade ago I started cycling between iPhones and Androids every 18 months or so, to stay current on both. This is my take on the ecosystems. YMMV. In simplest terms, Apple keeps users away from control. They make decisions for the user and often, it's reasonable. In some cases, Apples control makes useful features no-gos. Tasker is an example. It's either not present or crippled. In summary, iPhones are great choices for people that just want a smartphone. They don't plan on getting fancy with it, they just need a daily driver. Android is more of a swiss-army knife, imo. It has more flexibility, at the cost of ease-of-use, to get that. The UI overlays, for the most part, are tragedies. AOSP is the gold standard for me, but Pixel hardware has been a shitshow, so good luck with that. Android is a more developed (wide-reaching) OS, being used in numerous IOT and other devices. In summary, its also a daily driver, but mostly for those that like to tinker or have an all-in-one device. The overlays can be a PITA, but you get what you get and some folks like them. I'm a career SysAdmin. I've done seem edits on flip phones, I've rooted and rommed Androids, I've jailbroke my iPhones in the past. Now? It's just a phone. I use better tools for things I need to do, rather than try to bend 1 device to be everything. Again, YMMV.

hulitu 3y ago

> So on my iPhone, I feel that Apple protects us from bad programmers for the most part, because if you look at Android and the lower quality of many of their apps NGO group would like a word with you. /s I got an Iphone for work. Although i was excited to see how good it is, my excitement died when it said that it can connect to Wifi or data anytime, even when Wifi or data is turned off.