4 ms·

Nobody would tolerate this kind of total platform control in OS X or windows. I disagree. I think, if the control were introduced slowly enough and with the ri

Nobody would tolerate this kind of total platform control in OS X or windows. I disagree. I think, if the control were introduced slowly enough and with the right justifications ("security" and "convenience" spring to mind) many users would welcome iOS level restrictions on their general purpose computing hardware. Indeed, we're already seeing Apple move in this direction with its increasingly strict restrictions on App Store purchases in OSX. I hate to be as alarmist as Stallman and co., but I do think the ship has sailed on this one. The only way to guarantee that your device is open is to run an open operating system on it. If this were an Android app instead of an iPad, then the developers could have asked users to install a different app. store (like Amazon's app store) or even offered the .apk for the users to install themselves. It would have been less convenient than installing from Google Play, but it wouldn't have been nearly as difficult as with iOS.

kumarm 14y ago
>>many users would welcome iOS level restrictions on their general purpose computing hardware If microsoft did that, There would have been no browser, No hacker news and you wouldn't have had opportunity to post that comment.
- quanticle 14y ago
  Not necessarily. There would have been one browser: Internet Explorer, and if Hacker News didn't work with it (or if Microsoft had decided to block HN) then I'd be out of luck. And guess what? That's exactly the road Microsoft was going down when the Justice Department intervened and said that their bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows was anti-competitive. Yes, Microsoft got away with a "slap on the wrist", but I do think that decision created space for alternative browsers (like Firefox and Opera, and later Chrome) on the Windows platform. So yes, I agree with you. If Microsoft had been allowed to proceed down that path, it's conceivable that Hacker News wouldn't be around, or would exist in a different form. Now Apple is going down the path that was trod earlier by Microsoft. Yet the Justice Department today is silent.

kumarm 14y ago

>>many users would welcome iOS level restrictions on their general purpose computing hardware If microsoft did that, There would have been no browser, No hacker news and you wouldn't have had opportunity to post that comment.

quanticle 14y ago
Not necessarily. There would have been one browser: Internet Explorer, and if Hacker News didn't work with it (or if Microsoft had decided to block HN) then I'd be out of luck. And guess what? That's exactly the road Microsoft was going down when the Justice Department intervened and said that their bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows was anti-competitive. Yes, Microsoft got away with a "slap on the wrist", but I do think that decision created space for alternative browsers (like Firefox and Opera, and later Chrome) on the Windows platform. So yes, I agree with you. If Microsoft had been allowed to proceed down that path, it's conceivable that Hacker News wouldn't be around, or would exist in a different form. Now Apple is going down the path that was trod earlier by Microsoft. Yet the Justice Department today is silent.