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Oh the horror, it must be so hard for Apple to cave to an open system for these people. What will they ever do without their unbelievable tax on app profits sim

Oh the horror, it must be so hard for Apple to cave to an open system for these people. What will they ever do without their unbelievable tax on app profits simply for existing on their nearly unlimited real estate, that is, the web?! I have no sympathy for their concerns. I can download apps on my MacBook machines all day from many different sources, and it harms no one. While I understand the associated risks, computers have been this way long enough that the free and fair use of software on my devices is far more valuable than the brittle safety a marketplace offers. Apple's greed knows no bounds, and while I'm no big fan of the EU, there are some regulations like these that ensure these big bears in the industry can't abuse their positions for profit, at such unreasonable expense to consumers (not always monetarily, but be it fair access, availability, and choice), and developers especially. If commercial real estate charged XX% cuts of all sales from a business, every business would crumble with enough time, and only the big hitters would succeed with great resentment towards their gracious corporate overlords.

endisneigh 3y ago
I’m very curious how you have this position yet have a MacBook. Why not support a better company like framework?
- xvector 3y ago
  Because MacBooks are just better. (Have owned both.) I have owned, and continue to own, all sorts of laptops and phones. I could rant about Apple all day long online, but in the end their product is simply superior.
  - philistine 3y ago
    Within the corporate monopolist called Apple, that is to say within the minds of all its collective employees, lies an old idea still warm and vibrant after decades of waning indifference. This idea is called Apple Computer, and it makes the best gosh-darn computers in the world: the Mac. It is such a powerful and self-evident idea that those computers are still above and beyond the best ones in the world, even with all those years of indifference.
    - xvector 3y ago
      It's obviously an opinion. I have plenty of computers running Windows and a variety of Linux distros at my home. Laptops, desktop, servers, and weird hybrids of the former. Same with mobile - I have tried Android, iOS, PureOS, GrapheneOS. Apple's UX is so far ahead for me. It's just better. But, you obviously disagree. No need to be disparaging.
      - rezonant 3y ago
        Consider stating opinions as opinions, and not as facts.
    - radley 3y ago
      Heh, Apple Computer also made the iPhone. Everything since launch has been incremental change, not innovative. Except Airpods. They're pretty sweet.
      - crossroadsguy 3y ago
        Until battery life starts deteriorating any that happens real soon and you can’t even know when it started and where it is currently unlike that of, say, an iPhone. Then it’s unusable — hurrah, buy a new pair. The Apple way! :)
        yurishimo 3y ago
        This is not unique to Apple. All headphones with tiny batteries in the drivers take the piss after a few years aging. That said, my MacBooks have the best laptop batteries of any computer I’ve owned. My wife went through multiple laptops in the time I kept one in college. Turns out some electronics just suck!
        evilduck 3y ago
        I have a pair of Pixel Buds, how do I see their current battery capacity and cycle counts?
        oarsinsync 3y ago
  - rezonant 3y ago
    And yet if your statement were true, it would not explain why others who also own "both" disagree with you. Absolutism does not serve you, there are few subjects in this world that lack nuance.
    - xvector 3y ago
      My statement is very clearly an opinion.
      - ranguna 3y ago
        > Because MacBooks are just better I'm not sure how that implicitly conveys an opinion. Saying "the sky is blue" is not an opinion when the sky is blue, it's a fact. Saying something is better is also not an opinion, it's a fact. Saying "in my opinion" or "I believe/think/feel like/etc" makes your statement an opinion, ommiting that is ambiguous and is left for interpretation.
- DanHulton 3y ago
  "You hate capitalism so much, _and yet you live under capitalism!_ How very hypocritical of you..." Don't get me wrong, Framework makes a lot of neat stuff, but you can't swap out a Macbook to _anything_ without consequences. It does not take a lot of imagination and empathy to see that for some people, those consequences aren't acceptable at all, or not simply not worth the utterly undetectable sting that a company such as Apple would feel by us not buying a single Macbook from them. If someone has to alter their entire work environment and process, while Apple doesn't even notice, is that truly worth the moral superiority they'll feel? For a whole lot of people, that answer is "no", and I can't blame them. And yet we live under capitalism...
  - gxs 3y ago
    What a false equivalency. No, you can’t avoid capitalism, you’re born in the country your born and you don’t have that choice. This is more like moving to a capitalist country and then complaining that you live in a capitalist country.
    - rezonant 3y ago
      The tech companies have boiled their frogs slowly and deliberately. Apple didn't start out the way it is today after all.
      - docmars 3y ago
        Good point -- With great power comes great inevitable irresponsibility and abuses. The human condition never fails to pollute and corrupt anything as untouchable as Apple. Too big to fail, by definition!
- crossroadsguy 3y ago
  Did you entertain the possibility that Framework might not be available at OP’s place. Because that’s very much likely to be the case, just like it’s not available to a lot of us :)
- Nevermark 3y ago
  I see this question a lot. People complain about the products that are best for them. Nobody (with the power to decide what they use) complains about a product long, unless it is still their best choice. And suppliers of products being complained about are not companies "not worth supporting". They are making the product that is the best fit for the complaining customer! They are not perfect. They can do better. So customers speak up.
  - chii 3y ago
    and they're not "supporting" a company by merely buying their product. They are deciding that said product is the best fit for price on their individual criteria. To "support" would require you to make sacrifices - aka, buy an inferior/worse-fit product from a company you want to support, instead of from the company that actually offers the best-fit for yourself.
    - docmars 3y ago
      When I bought my MacBook Pro M1 Pro (ugh, stupid names, c'mon Apple!), it was probably the most confident I felt about a technology purchase in years, at least since Apple finally ditched the ridiculous touch bar and gave us back the Escape key and function row. Aside from me throwing too much at it (should've sprung for 32GB), it's the single best notebook I've ever owned, and the most reliable. To say it was the best fit for me is an understatement! It's truly great!
  - fennecbutt 3y ago
    Yeah that seems to be a common theme with Apple peeps, being fine with "Well if you don't like what Apple gives you, go somewhere else!" But like...if someone really does like the product but knows that product could be even better, wouldn't they naturally speak up about it?
    - docmars 3y ago
      Your last point is exactly where I'm coming from here. People complaining about a product is usually a sign of its wide, and possibly avid, use. After trying UI design tools and web development on Windows and Linux machines and finding the experience very sub-par for my needs, I've found macOS, and by extension, Apple's hardware quality, choice of keyboard layout, ease of use, etc. to be superior for my needs. I have almost no complaints about the Mac platform with the ways I've been able to customize it, and its nag-free experience. As they say, it just works™. ;) It feels made for UI design & development, with minimal to no configuration, no late nights fixing file permissions or access issues, fixing Linux subsystems, fiddling with very limited terminals, and suffering from buggy piecemeal UI shell packages that prioritize fancy, laggy animations over functionality. On the contrary, I've found not only doing these tasks and multitasking to be very frustrating when getting serious work done on other machines, primarily frequent interruptions (Windows) and major inconsistencies with global keyboard shortcuts. For what it's worth, I'm also a staunch Android user, never owned an iPhone, occasionally use an iPad for reading and other content creation, absolutely love my Windows PC for gaming and surfing on my TV, and work exclusively on my MacBook. I'm very particular about using the most suitable machines for the tasks at hand, but well-rounded enough not to be completely captured by Apple.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  Potentially because Macbooks represent a more sustainable model for software distribution and don't prevent people from downloading apps directly from websites.
  - docmars 3y ago
    Precisely! That's the key difference between iOS and macOS devices, essentially. I've never owned an iPhone primarily because its environment is so constrained, and the possibility of losing access to important apps due to failure of approval or other frivolous issues Apple hysterically deems unfit for publishing, is a huge single point of failure not worth risking. In reality, it's safer to assume that most or all major apps don't have problems with this, so I'm being a little facetious here. Regardless, after nearly 20 years on Android, nobody could possibly pry my muscle memory and features I've come to expect from my cold dead hands. :D
    - walteweiss 3y ago
      ‘Nearly 20 years’ got me. I thought ‘no way, the very first iPhone was released a little bit more than 10 years ago and Android was released a year after’. Then I realised we’re closer to 20 years than we’re to 10 years. It was almost 17 years ago, the very first iPhone!
      - docmars 3y ago
        Daunting to think about, right??
- gxs 3y ago
  Because people are incredibly entitled and want to have their cake and eat it too. So you bought an iPhone knowing you can’t download apps and then go cry because you can’t download apps? Then your argument is that well, all my friends have iPhones or there are some other good features, or whatever else you make up? So you obviously find value in the product, it’s missing a feature, but you will consciously buy it anyway, it doesn’t make any sense. Does the standard simply change when a company is big enough? Imagine ordering a steak salad even though the restaurant doesn’t allow modifications to the ingredients, then throwing a temper tantrum when you get it because it has steak. It’s unbelievable.
  - post_break 3y ago
    Imagine there are only two restaurants in the world and they both only serve steak, yet when you want a salad people say go to the other restaurant.
    - endisneigh 3y ago
      This is a great metaphor because if we accept it then the salad is the web, yet no one wants that.
      - docmars 3y ago
        I think there is a great desire for web-like application distribution to work well on smartphones, but with none of the drawbacks like poor rendering performance and lack of native features. Of course, native apps that wrap web-based apps is almost the reverse of that, and we still often get laggy, sub-par experiences as a result of broader platform support for lower maintenance costs. PWAs fill the opposite gap where you get native-like apps at the expense of low performance, distributed any way you like. What we really need is for high-performance native applications to be distributable via the open web, and that's exactly what the EU is enforcing here, in a way. What would be better is for WebAssembly to take off and offer native performance in apps that can be visited at URLs, just like we're used to.
    - gxs 3y ago
- fennecbutt 3y ago
  Because Apple is a company that does actually make great hardware, just marred by their idiot suit and tie MBA best schools social ties 1% tax dodging executive team that wants to foster the cultish attitude of their consumers and... well they succeeded in a way.
- docmars 3y ago
  To answer directly, I actually really love the Framework conceptually. What they're doing is immensely important for notebooks, and I'd love to see Apple follow suit one day (but I doubt that'll ever happen). I just can't stand Linux. I've tried several distros and after using macOS since 2009 and Windows since 1995, I just can't be bothered by all the things Linux distros lack, if muscle memory for the other two aren't already the biggest obstacle for me. I am insanely efficient on macOS, and I almost never have to think about global hotkeys, global search & calculations, managing apps & settings, and seeing nearly zero interruptions while I work -- including popups, notifications, performance dips (if I'm being reasonable with my usage), OS UI bugs, etc. These all do occasionally happen, but never to the extent I see in popular Linux distros and even Windows. It's just a fact, after nearly 30 years of first-hand usage and comparison. I also use macOS because it is as extensible and open as I need it to be for downloading and installing packages, and customizing the OS to suit my needs -- which is something iPhones can't do without jailbreaking and such. I've never owned an iPhone, and seldom use my iPad. I'm an Android guy, and being able to sideload apps in rare, but important, moments is important to me. The openness of Android has been important as well, namely the fact that Firefox has always been allowed to use its own browser engine since the start, enabling the same freedoms I have using it on desktop platforms, as a primary example.
  - ranguna 3y ago
    Valid points. Out of curiosity, which distros have you tried?
    - docmars 3y ago
      PopOS most recently, and I ran into significant UI lag, jank, bugs all over the place with the correct NVidia drivers installed and everything. I tried it on two machines, and had pretty much the same experience. After troubleshooting and seeking resources/answers, I eventually gave up and told myself, "maybe in another 5-10 years", as we all say. That was a few years ago. Anything older I've forgotten honestly at this point. It's been a long time, and I'm certain things are probably better these days, but I have absolutely no reason to switch. My muscle memory and setups on my current machines are too good to let go of. I have a Steam Deck -- but their experience is so tailored that I'm not sure it counts. I'm not actively using the desktop environment unless I need to use a different game platform. I wouldn't be using this machine for work at all though.
throwaway2037 3y ago
Overall -- a great post. This part: > If commercial real estate charged XX% cuts of all sales from a business As I understand, for luxury fashion brands, this type of contract is sometimes used.
- zakki 3y ago
  What is the luxury of an app/software?
- noapologies 3y ago
  True, though the situation isn't exactly equivalent. Using another real estate analogy - Imagine you bought a house from Fruit Builders company. The house came with a pool. Now unlike every other pool in existence, this is a very special pool that just really cares about your privacy and security a lot. It won't let you use any random pool toy (it has lasers), no it must be a well-behaved toy that is rigorously tested and officially notarized by Fruit company themselves (= non-employee contractors taking one look to make sure Fruit's cut is not being circumvented). So you go to the supermarket, purchase a marked-up toy, the toy company reports its earning to Fruit, and Fruit takes their cut. All for your safety of course.
  - monocularvision 3y ago
    Except in the real world, toys generally can’t do things like steal your private data and send confidential data to third parties. If you’re going to come up with analogies, at least do something that is remotely applicable.
    - noapologies 3y ago
      Why not? You are presumably less-clothed in a pool, it could take pictures. Or record private conversations. Or both. But sure, here's another - You can run any company's software on a MBP, downloaded from the internet, without paying a dime to Apple. Similar situation applies to Windows / Microsoft. The iOS model is advocating for rent-seeking in MacOs and Windows binaries.
nwbort 3y ago
Look up 'turnover rent'...
anomaly_ 3y ago
[flagged]
- boringg 3y ago
  Supporting families downloading bad software is in itself a job. Im always torn if i should get them a password manager or just stick with the handwritten notebook. I feel like the book approach is safest
  - sircastor 3y ago
    Password manager. Please, do it. It is a substantially better solution than a notebook. - It's always up to date - Previous values are kept (but hidden) - It encourages stronger passwords - Its automation makes it harder for people to put passwords into the wrong/phishing sites. - You can share passwords across a group - Remote administration - Distributed possession: You have them on your phone out and about, you have them at your desk. Really, a password manager is a really great tool. I don't know your family but I strongly recommend using and supporting one.
    - docmars 3y ago
      Unfortunately for many senior folks, using them is just too complicated. I've badgered my parents into using theirs, which is already setup, and it confuses them every time, so they prefer to memorize or write their passwords on a sheet of paper they never lose in their apartment. It's just easier than fiddling with a buggy mess of auto-fill prompts that only work half the time, and when they do show up, they fail to fill in the password, so then you have to open the app, hunt down the entry, copy it to the clipboard, and go back to the app or site you were signing into. Multi-tasking on phones is already very difficult for my parents, and they're well aware of it being a feature. Eventually all of these frustrations add up, and the path of least resistance is writing passwords down, as much as it kills me.
  - Sander_Marechal 3y ago
    It depends on how tech-savvy they are. My dad used a password manager. My mom and grandparents keep a handwritten notebook. Just bookmark https://www.random.org/passwords/?num=1&len=12&format=plain&rnd=new https://www.random.org/passwords/?num=1&len=12&format=plain&... for them to generate a password.
lobochrome 3y ago
Not to disagree with your main argument - but high end real estate often works that way. The developer is often cut into the topline of the stores.
- quartesixte 3y ago
  Not just high end real estate. Your local mom & pop in a strip mall somewhere (at least in the US) has a high chance of paying % of gross receipts to the landlord + rent. This may vary by location and landlord but it absolutely is a thing. And a guarantee for any high-end, high-traffic location.
  - kuschku 3y ago
    Luckily that's a rare thing and the vast majority if commercial real estate has no such rules whatsoever, even on main street.
  - nojvek 3y ago
    Demand and supply. As long as there is a marketplace and people have a choice, the market will balance. I have friends in strip mall businesses and they have moved locations for better landlords.
    - illiac786 3y ago
      Sometimes there's something else at play though, because there are situations which cannot be explained by offer and demand. For example, developers are paid less in average than for example some consultant jobs while in my view (and I'm a consultant) both the skills required for a developer are higher while additionally the available workforce (supply) is lower for developers as well. I mean, consultants, they grow on trees and I know what I'm talking about, I sometines interview new hires as part of my job. Developers, less so. I don't have an explanation for this, it's a strange effect. But it's just an example, I have observed multiple times this unexpected deviation from the law of supply and demand. My point is, this law is not a sure fire way to explain any price.
xwolfi 3y ago
Why are you no big fan of the EU ?
- docmars 3y ago
  In general I lean libertarian, and governing bodies like the EU have enormous capacity for overreach at the expense of participating countries and their citizens. I won't pretend to know exactly how their processes work in detail, as I'm an American citizen, so the EU's concerns generally don't interest me much, but if the U.S. Federal gov't versus State governments can be used an analogy, I have similar feelings, in principle.
- xgl5k 3y ago
  This is a geopolitical ploy to thwart America's dominance in Tech, as a cope for not being able to produce any homegrown rivals to America's tech giants.
bimguy 3y ago
You are not a big fan of the EU after this? They seem to care more about privacy and rights of the people within the majority of the countries that make up the EU then any other outside country that I could name. Then again, I'm not American so I can easily see the influence your country has on most other countries, so to say the "EU have enormous capacity for overreach at the expense of participating countries and their citizens" is completely ignorant and oblivious.
- pg_1234 3y ago
  The EU should make a public service announcement. Something along the lines of: "We urge all EU citizens with Apple devices to have an alternate means of accessing critical internet services like banking, to protect themselves in the event we are forced to block all Apple services EU-wide for legal non-compliance." ... then watch AAPL stock drop below NVDA ... ... and Apple come crawling back, suitably obedient.
  - capr 3y ago
    "forced" to block... seems like the only ones who can use force is them
  - zuppy 3y ago
    no, they shouldn't, this will affect customers who already purchased the product and have no fault in this silly war that apple wants to start. no matter what they do, it should only apply to new devices.
    - simondotau 3y ago
      Excuse me, Apple started it? That's absurd. Apple have been running their little fiefdom mostly unchanged for almost fifteen years and it's only in the past few years that the EU has chosen to intervene in their marketplace. The EU started this fight; Apple is just doing whatever they can to resist change.
      - 3y ago
Jasp3r 3y ago
It is not even a tax on app profits, it's a cut of all sales
carlosjobim 3y ago
> If commercial real estate charged XX% cuts of all sales from a business, every business would crumble with enough time, and only the big hitters would succeed with great resentment towards their gracious corporate overlords. That's more or less what happens in real life. If you are having any success with your physical business, you can bet your ass that your landlord will increase rents. They keep a keen eye on this. Sometimes they'll even state that it's not more than fair that they should get more in rent, since your business is doing so well.
JKCalhoun 3y ago
I'll go further in one regard: the App Store in fact hurts Apple because it has caused a kind of filtering of apps down to those that are the sleaziest. I used to enjoy exploring the App Store — I resent it now. I'll download half a dozen apps only to delete them within minutes of launching them because of their rent-ware attitude or just plain shitty functionality.
- tmiku 3y ago
  Can you elaborate on that filtering? I agree with you that the App Store is full of chaff, but I don't understand why there'd be a causal relationship between a highly centralized App Store and sleazy apps.
  - simondotau 3y ago
    Indeed. Put another way, how would lifting Apple's restrictions result in an improved wheat-to-chaff ratio? I can't see how it would increase the amount of wheat, nor can I see how it would reduce the amount of chaff.
    - kuschku 3y ago
      Different stores can have different rules and moderation. I'm not going to argue about the signal to noise ratio between e.g. fdroid vs Google Play, but it should be obvious that while the signal looks the same for both, the noise is very different, with fdroid having outdated, "developer UI" apps as noise and Google Play having fraudulent scams and malware as noise.
    - docmars 3y ago
      Logically this makes sense, but I can't imagine how many decent apps Apple may have rejected for other petty reasons, only to accept the ones that are lambasting people with rentware and other issues the OP mentioned.
      - simondotau 3y ago
        Absolutely. But while we know there are a number of kinda dodgy apps in the App Store, one could only imagine how many more they would be without Apple’s oversight/gatekeeping. Not to mention how much better camouflaged the scam apps could be.
HumanReadable 3y ago
have you considered not buying apple products?
trappistpunk 3y ago
> If commercial real estate charged XX% cuts of all sales from a business, every business would crumble with enough time FWIW, at least in the US, this is actually how a lot of commercial/retail real estate works. Every mall or shopping center you visit charges rent based on sales revenue.
- sham1 3y ago
  It must then be a question of perspective and what people are used to, because this specific ruling about the EU and not about the US. It's of course good to bring up the analogy, but it just means that Apple shouldn't be using American business tactics in the EU, actually.

endisneigh 3y ago

I’m very curious how you have this position yet have a MacBook. Why not support a better company like framework?

xvector 3y ago
Because MacBooks are just better. (Have owned both.) I have owned, and continue to own, all sorts of laptops and phones. I could rant about Apple all day long online, but in the end their product is simply superior.
- philistine 3y ago
  Within the corporate monopolist called Apple, that is to say within the minds of all its collective employees, lies an old idea still warm and vibrant after decades of waning indifference. This idea is called Apple Computer, and it makes the best gosh-darn computers in the world: the Mac. It is such a powerful and self-evident idea that those computers are still above and beyond the best ones in the world, even with all those years of indifference.
  - xvector 3y ago
    It's obviously an opinion. I have plenty of computers running Windows and a variety of Linux distros at my home. Laptops, desktop, servers, and weird hybrids of the former. Same with mobile - I have tried Android, iOS, PureOS, GrapheneOS. Apple's UX is so far ahead for me. It's just better. But, you obviously disagree. No need to be disparaging.
    - rezonant 3y ago
      Consider stating opinions as opinions, and not as facts.
  - radley 3y ago
    Heh, Apple Computer also made the iPhone. Everything since launch has been incremental change, not innovative. Except Airpods. They're pretty sweet.
    - crossroadsguy 3y ago
      Until battery life starts deteriorating any that happens real soon and you can’t even know when it started and where it is currently unlike that of, say, an iPhone. Then it’s unusable — hurrah, buy a new pair. The Apple way! :)
      - yurishimo 3y ago
        This is not unique to Apple. All headphones with tiny batteries in the drivers take the piss after a few years aging. That said, my MacBooks have the best laptop batteries of any computer I’ve owned. My wife went through multiple laptops in the time I kept one in college. Turns out some electronics just suck!
      - evilduck 3y ago
        I have a pair of Pixel Buds, how do I see their current battery capacity and cycle counts?
      - oarsinsync 3y ago
- rezonant 3y ago
  And yet if your statement were true, it would not explain why others who also own "both" disagree with you. Absolutism does not serve you, there are few subjects in this world that lack nuance.
  - xvector 3y ago
    My statement is very clearly an opinion.
    - ranguna 3y ago
      > Because MacBooks are just better I'm not sure how that implicitly conveys an opinion. Saying "the sky is blue" is not an opinion when the sky is blue, it's a fact. Saying something is better is also not an opinion, it's a fact. Saying "in my opinion" or "I believe/think/feel like/etc" makes your statement an opinion, ommiting that is ambiguous and is left for interpretation.
DanHulton 3y ago
"You hate capitalism so much, _and yet you live under capitalism!_ How very hypocritical of you..." Don't get me wrong, Framework makes a lot of neat stuff, but you can't swap out a Macbook to _anything_ without consequences. It does not take a lot of imagination and empathy to see that for some people, those consequences aren't acceptable at all, or not simply not worth the utterly undetectable sting that a company such as Apple would feel by us not buying a single Macbook from them. If someone has to alter their entire work environment and process, while Apple doesn't even notice, is that truly worth the moral superiority they'll feel? For a whole lot of people, that answer is "no", and I can't blame them. And yet we live under capitalism...
- gxs 3y ago
  What a false equivalency. No, you can’t avoid capitalism, you’re born in the country your born and you don’t have that choice. This is more like moving to a capitalist country and then complaining that you live in a capitalist country.
  - rezonant 3y ago
    The tech companies have boiled their frogs slowly and deliberately. Apple didn't start out the way it is today after all.
    - docmars 3y ago
      Good point -- With great power comes great inevitable irresponsibility and abuses. The human condition never fails to pollute and corrupt anything as untouchable as Apple. Too big to fail, by definition!
crossroadsguy 3y ago
Did you entertain the possibility that Framework might not be available at OP’s place. Because that’s very much likely to be the case, just like it’s not available to a lot of us :)
Nevermark 3y ago
I see this question a lot. People complain about the products that are best for them. Nobody (with the power to decide what they use) complains about a product long, unless it is still their best choice. And suppliers of products being complained about are not companies "not worth supporting". They are making the product that is the best fit for the complaining customer! They are not perfect. They can do better. So customers speak up.
- chii 3y ago
  and they're not "supporting" a company by merely buying their product. They are deciding that said product is the best fit for price on their individual criteria. To "support" would require you to make sacrifices - aka, buy an inferior/worse-fit product from a company you want to support, instead of from the company that actually offers the best-fit for yourself.
  - docmars 3y ago
    When I bought my MacBook Pro M1 Pro (ugh, stupid names, c'mon Apple!), it was probably the most confident I felt about a technology purchase in years, at least since Apple finally ditched the ridiculous touch bar and gave us back the Escape key and function row. Aside from me throwing too much at it (should've sprung for 32GB), it's the single best notebook I've ever owned, and the most reliable. To say it was the best fit for me is an understatement! It's truly great!
- fennecbutt 3y ago
  Yeah that seems to be a common theme with Apple peeps, being fine with "Well if you don't like what Apple gives you, go somewhere else!" But like...if someone really does like the product but knows that product could be even better, wouldn't they naturally speak up about it?
  - docmars 3y ago
    Your last point is exactly where I'm coming from here. People complaining about a product is usually a sign of its wide, and possibly avid, use. After trying UI design tools and web development on Windows and Linux machines and finding the experience very sub-par for my needs, I've found macOS, and by extension, Apple's hardware quality, choice of keyboard layout, ease of use, etc. to be superior for my needs. I have almost no complaints about the Mac platform with the ways I've been able to customize it, and its nag-free experience. As they say, it just works™. ;) It feels made for UI design & development, with minimal to no configuration, no late nights fixing file permissions or access issues, fixing Linux subsystems, fiddling with very limited terminals, and suffering from buggy piecemeal UI shell packages that prioritize fancy, laggy animations over functionality. On the contrary, I've found not only doing these tasks and multitasking to be very frustrating when getting serious work done on other machines, primarily frequent interruptions (Windows) and major inconsistencies with global keyboard shortcuts. For what it's worth, I'm also a staunch Android user, never owned an iPhone, occasionally use an iPad for reading and other content creation, absolutely love my Windows PC for gaming and surfing on my TV, and work exclusively on my MacBook. I'm very particular about using the most suitable machines for the tasks at hand, but well-rounded enough not to be completely captured by Apple.
smoldesu 3y ago
Potentially because Macbooks represent a more sustainable model for software distribution and don't prevent people from downloading apps directly from websites.
- docmars 3y ago
  Precisely! That's the key difference between iOS and macOS devices, essentially. I've never owned an iPhone primarily because its environment is so constrained, and the possibility of losing access to important apps due to failure of approval or other frivolous issues Apple hysterically deems unfit for publishing, is a huge single point of failure not worth risking. In reality, it's safer to assume that most or all major apps don't have problems with this, so I'm being a little facetious here. Regardless, after nearly 20 years on Android, nobody could possibly pry my muscle memory and features I've come to expect from my cold dead hands. :D
  - walteweiss 3y ago
    ‘Nearly 20 years’ got me. I thought ‘no way, the very first iPhone was released a little bit more than 10 years ago and Android was released a year after’. Then I realised we’re closer to 20 years than we’re to 10 years. It was almost 17 years ago, the very first iPhone!
    - docmars 3y ago
      Daunting to think about, right??
gxs 3y ago
Because people are incredibly entitled and want to have their cake and eat it too. So you bought an iPhone knowing you can’t download apps and then go cry because you can’t download apps? Then your argument is that well, all my friends have iPhones or there are some other good features, or whatever else you make up? So you obviously find value in the product, it’s missing a feature, but you will consciously buy it anyway, it doesn’t make any sense. Does the standard simply change when a company is big enough? Imagine ordering a steak salad even though the restaurant doesn’t allow modifications to the ingredients, then throwing a temper tantrum when you get it because it has steak. It’s unbelievable.
- post_break 3y ago
  Imagine there are only two restaurants in the world and they both only serve steak, yet when you want a salad people say go to the other restaurant.
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    This is a great metaphor because if we accept it then the salad is the web, yet no one wants that.
    - docmars 3y ago
      I think there is a great desire for web-like application distribution to work well on smartphones, but with none of the drawbacks like poor rendering performance and lack of native features. Of course, native apps that wrap web-based apps is almost the reverse of that, and we still often get laggy, sub-par experiences as a result of broader platform support for lower maintenance costs. PWAs fill the opposite gap where you get native-like apps at the expense of low performance, distributed any way you like. What we really need is for high-performance native applications to be distributable via the open web, and that's exactly what the EU is enforcing here, in a way. What would be better is for WebAssembly to take off and offer native performance in apps that can be visited at URLs, just like we're used to.
  - gxs 3y ago
fennecbutt 3y ago
Because Apple is a company that does actually make great hardware, just marred by their idiot suit and tie MBA best schools social ties 1% tax dodging executive team that wants to foster the cultish attitude of their consumers and... well they succeeded in a way.
docmars 3y ago
To answer directly, I actually really love the Framework conceptually. What they're doing is immensely important for notebooks, and I'd love to see Apple follow suit one day (but I doubt that'll ever happen). I just can't stand Linux. I've tried several distros and after using macOS since 2009 and Windows since 1995, I just can't be bothered by all the things Linux distros lack, if muscle memory for the other two aren't already the biggest obstacle for me. I am insanely efficient on macOS, and I almost never have to think about global hotkeys, global search & calculations, managing apps & settings, and seeing nearly zero interruptions while I work -- including popups, notifications, performance dips (if I'm being reasonable with my usage), OS UI bugs, etc. These all do occasionally happen, but never to the extent I see in popular Linux distros and even Windows. It's just a fact, after nearly 30 years of first-hand usage and comparison. I also use macOS because it is as extensible and open as I need it to be for downloading and installing packages, and customizing the OS to suit my needs -- which is something iPhones can't do without jailbreaking and such. I've never owned an iPhone, and seldom use my iPad. I'm an Android guy, and being able to sideload apps in rare, but important, moments is important to me. The openness of Android has been important as well, namely the fact that Firefox has always been allowed to use its own browser engine since the start, enabling the same freedoms I have using it on desktop platforms, as a primary example.
- ranguna 3y ago
  Valid points. Out of curiosity, which distros have you tried?
  - docmars 3y ago
    PopOS most recently, and I ran into significant UI lag, jank, bugs all over the place with the correct NVidia drivers installed and everything. I tried it on two machines, and had pretty much the same experience. After troubleshooting and seeking resources/answers, I eventually gave up and told myself, "maybe in another 5-10 years", as we all say. That was a few years ago. Anything older I've forgotten honestly at this point. It's been a long time, and I'm certain things are probably better these days, but I have absolutely no reason to switch. My muscle memory and setups on my current machines are too good to let go of. I have a Steam Deck -- but their experience is so tailored that I'm not sure it counts. I'm not actively using the desktop environment unless I need to use a different game platform. I wouldn't be using this machine for work at all though.

throwaway2037 3y ago

Overall -- a great post. This part: > If commercial real estate charged XX% cuts of all sales from a business As I understand, for luxury fashion brands, this type of contract is sometimes used.

zakki 3y ago
What is the luxury of an app/software?
noapologies 3y ago
True, though the situation isn't exactly equivalent. Using another real estate analogy - Imagine you bought a house from Fruit Builders company. The house came with a pool. Now unlike every other pool in existence, this is a very special pool that just really cares about your privacy and security a lot. It won't let you use any random pool toy (it has lasers), no it must be a well-behaved toy that is rigorously tested and officially notarized by Fruit company themselves (= non-employee contractors taking one look to make sure Fruit's cut is not being circumvented). So you go to the supermarket, purchase a marked-up toy, the toy company reports its earning to Fruit, and Fruit takes their cut. All for your safety of course.
- monocularvision 3y ago
  Except in the real world, toys generally can’t do things like steal your private data and send confidential data to third parties. If you’re going to come up with analogies, at least do something that is remotely applicable.
  - noapologies 3y ago
    Why not? You are presumably less-clothed in a pool, it could take pictures. Or record private conversations. Or both. But sure, here's another - You can run any company's software on a MBP, downloaded from the internet, without paying a dime to Apple. Similar situation applies to Windows / Microsoft. The iOS model is advocating for rent-seeking in MacOs and Windows binaries.

nwbort 3y ago

Look up 'turnover rent'...

anomaly_ 3y ago

[flagged]

boringg 3y ago
Supporting families downloading bad software is in itself a job. Im always torn if i should get them a password manager or just stick with the handwritten notebook. I feel like the book approach is safest
- sircastor 3y ago
  Password manager. Please, do it. It is a substantially better solution than a notebook. - It's always up to date - Previous values are kept (but hidden) - It encourages stronger passwords - Its automation makes it harder for people to put passwords into the wrong/phishing sites. - You can share passwords across a group - Remote administration - Distributed possession: You have them on your phone out and about, you have them at your desk. Really, a password manager is a really great tool. I don't know your family but I strongly recommend using and supporting one.
  - docmars 3y ago
    Unfortunately for many senior folks, using them is just too complicated. I've badgered my parents into using theirs, which is already setup, and it confuses them every time, so they prefer to memorize or write their passwords on a sheet of paper they never lose in their apartment. It's just easier than fiddling with a buggy mess of auto-fill prompts that only work half the time, and when they do show up, they fail to fill in the password, so then you have to open the app, hunt down the entry, copy it to the clipboard, and go back to the app or site you were signing into. Multi-tasking on phones is already very difficult for my parents, and they're well aware of it being a feature. Eventually all of these frustrations add up, and the path of least resistance is writing passwords down, as much as it kills me.
- Sander_Marechal 3y ago
  It depends on how tech-savvy they are. My dad used a password manager. My mom and grandparents keep a handwritten notebook. Just bookmark https://www.random.org/passwords/?num=1&len=12&format=plain&rnd=new https://www.random.org/passwords/?num=1&len=12&format=plain&... for them to generate a password.

lobochrome 3y ago

Not to disagree with your main argument - but high end real estate often works that way. The developer is often cut into the topline of the stores.

quartesixte 3y ago
Not just high end real estate. Your local mom & pop in a strip mall somewhere (at least in the US) has a high chance of paying % of gross receipts to the landlord + rent. This may vary by location and landlord but it absolutely is a thing. And a guarantee for any high-end, high-traffic location.
- kuschku 3y ago
  Luckily that's a rare thing and the vast majority if commercial real estate has no such rules whatsoever, even on main street.
- nojvek 3y ago
  Demand and supply. As long as there is a marketplace and people have a choice, the market will balance. I have friends in strip mall businesses and they have moved locations for better landlords.
  - illiac786 3y ago
    Sometimes there's something else at play though, because there are situations which cannot be explained by offer and demand. For example, developers are paid less in average than for example some consultant jobs while in my view (and I'm a consultant) both the skills required for a developer are higher while additionally the available workforce (supply) is lower for developers as well. I mean, consultants, they grow on trees and I know what I'm talking about, I sometines interview new hires as part of my job. Developers, less so. I don't have an explanation for this, it's a strange effect. But it's just an example, I have observed multiple times this unexpected deviation from the law of supply and demand. My point is, this law is not a sure fire way to explain any price.

xwolfi 3y ago

Why are you no big fan of the EU ?

docmars 3y ago
In general I lean libertarian, and governing bodies like the EU have enormous capacity for overreach at the expense of participating countries and their citizens. I won't pretend to know exactly how their processes work in detail, as I'm an American citizen, so the EU's concerns generally don't interest me much, but if the U.S. Federal gov't versus State governments can be used an analogy, I have similar feelings, in principle.
xgl5k 3y ago
This is a geopolitical ploy to thwart America's dominance in Tech, as a cope for not being able to produce any homegrown rivals to America's tech giants.

bimguy 3y ago

You are not a big fan of the EU after this? They seem to care more about privacy and rights of the people within the majority of the countries that make up the EU then any other outside country that I could name. Then again, I'm not American so I can easily see the influence your country has on most other countries, so to say the "EU have enormous capacity for overreach at the expense of participating countries and their citizens" is completely ignorant and oblivious.

pg_1234 3y ago
The EU should make a public service announcement. Something along the lines of: "We urge all EU citizens with Apple devices to have an alternate means of accessing critical internet services like banking, to protect themselves in the event we are forced to block all Apple services EU-wide for legal non-compliance." ... then watch AAPL stock drop below NVDA ... ... and Apple come crawling back, suitably obedient.
- capr 3y ago
  "forced" to block... seems like the only ones who can use force is them
- zuppy 3y ago
  no, they shouldn't, this will affect customers who already purchased the product and have no fault in this silly war that apple wants to start. no matter what they do, it should only apply to new devices.
  - simondotau 3y ago
    Excuse me, Apple started it? That's absurd. Apple have been running their little fiefdom mostly unchanged for almost fifteen years and it's only in the past few years that the EU has chosen to intervene in their marketplace. The EU started this fight; Apple is just doing whatever they can to resist change.
    - 3y ago

Jasp3r 3y ago

It is not even a tax on app profits, it's a cut of all sales

carlosjobim 3y ago

> If commercial real estate charged XX% cuts of all sales from a business, every business would crumble with enough time, and only the big hitters would succeed with great resentment towards their gracious corporate overlords. That's more or less what happens in real life. If you are having any success with your physical business, you can bet your ass that your landlord will increase rents. They keep a keen eye on this. Sometimes they'll even state that it's not more than fair that they should get more in rent, since your business is doing so well.

JKCalhoun 3y ago

I'll go further in one regard: the App Store in fact hurts Apple because it has caused a kind of filtering of apps down to those that are the sleaziest. I used to enjoy exploring the App Store — I resent it now. I'll download half a dozen apps only to delete them within minutes of launching them because of their rent-ware attitude or just plain shitty functionality.

tmiku 3y ago
Can you elaborate on that filtering? I agree with you that the App Store is full of chaff, but I don't understand why there'd be a causal relationship between a highly centralized App Store and sleazy apps.
- simondotau 3y ago
  Indeed. Put another way, how would lifting Apple's restrictions result in an improved wheat-to-chaff ratio? I can't see how it would increase the amount of wheat, nor can I see how it would reduce the amount of chaff.
  - kuschku 3y ago
    Different stores can have different rules and moderation. I'm not going to argue about the signal to noise ratio between e.g. fdroid vs Google Play, but it should be obvious that while the signal looks the same for both, the noise is very different, with fdroid having outdated, "developer UI" apps as noise and Google Play having fraudulent scams and malware as noise.
  - docmars 3y ago
    Logically this makes sense, but I can't imagine how many decent apps Apple may have rejected for other petty reasons, only to accept the ones that are lambasting people with rentware and other issues the OP mentioned.
    - simondotau 3y ago
      Absolutely. But while we know there are a number of kinda dodgy apps in the App Store, one could only imagine how many more they would be without Apple’s oversight/gatekeeping. Not to mention how much better camouflaged the scam apps could be.

HumanReadable 3y ago

have you considered not buying apple products?

trappistpunk 3y ago

> If commercial real estate charged XX% cuts of all sales from a business, every business would crumble with enough time FWIW, at least in the US, this is actually how a lot of commercial/retail real estate works. Every mall or shopping center you visit charges rent based on sales revenue.

sham1 3y ago
It must then be a question of perspective and what people are used to, because this specific ruling about the EU and not about the US. It's of course good to bring up the analogy, but it just means that Apple shouldn't be using American business tactics in the EU, actually.