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> Tumblr still remains heavily moderated and heavily censored. Why? Because Apple kept kicking Tumblr out of the App Store on the basis that it contained sexual

> Tumblr still remains heavily moderated and heavily censored. Why? Because Apple kept kicking Tumblr out of the App Store on the basis that it contained sexual material, and without Apple users, Tumblr was dead in the water > Apple claims this is merely a matter of "editorial standards," no different from a bookstore deciding not to shelve pornography. The difference is that in this case, Apple can block you from patronizing another bookstore, by forcing you to forfeit the $1,000 you spent on your device and potentially many thousands more in media and data and other switching costs. The question at the heart of this issue is simple; do we own our devices, or not? When I pay $1,400 for a computer, do I own it? If yes, then why does Apple get to decide what I get to watch or not? And why does Apple prevent me from deciding what speech I get to engage with my device or not? The app store is, at its heart, an enabler of totalitarianism. The first link of the chain is forged from the freedom to own your computer for marginal profits, but the rest are forged from your human rights. Do you want Hong Kong to be a democracy? Too bad. Apple removed the application protestors were using to protect themselves from a totalitarian police state, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/technology/apple-hong-kong-app.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/technology/apple-hong-kon... https://www.npr.org/2019/10/10/768841864/after-china-objects-apple-removes-app-used-by-hong-kong-protesters https://www.npr.org/2019/10/10/768841864/after-china-objects... Oh are you gay or queer? Too bad. Apple removes apps made for and by LGBTQ+ people in 78% of countries. Everything from niche forums to dating apps. https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2021-06-14-apple-is-enabling-censorship-of-lgbtq-apps-in-152/ https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2021-06-14-apple-is-e... Do we own our devices, or do we not?

KolmogorovComp 2y ago
Aren’t you free to load any OS you like? Not trying to justify anticompetitive behavior from Apple here, but tired to see people saying ‘do you own it?’ when they really mean ‘does the manufacturer help installing third parties apps on its default OS’.
- talldayo 2y ago
  > Aren’t you free to load any OS you like? Not while the bootloader is locked.
  - WillAdams 2y ago
    The thing is, there aren't many hardware examples which allow installing an arbitrary OS, esp. if one has specific hardware requirements. I prefer machines with a Wacom EMR stylus, and it's simply not possible to find a device which: - supports the same Wacom EMR technology as my Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ and Kindle Scribe - has a high-resolution display - decent battery life - tablet form-factor I currently compromised on a Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 (because I simply couldn't find a direct replacement for my Samsung Galaxy Book 12), but the only OS option there is Windows 11 --- I've been considering a Raspberry Pi 5 and Wacom One 13 2nd Gen w/ Touch or Movink 13, but the display is only 1920x1080 and arranging for a battery is rather hackish...
    - talldayo 2y ago
      I used to use a Surface Pro 3 on Linux just fine, I really don't think the hardware requirements are an issue. And circumstantially, Linux has upstream Wacom device drivers that still supports hardware from 2003 (at least my CTE 430).
      - WillAdams 2y ago
        Surface Pro 3 is NTrig, not Wacom EMR. I'd be glad of a guide to installing Linux on a Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- katzinsky 2y ago
  Not on an iPhone. I'd probably buy one today if that were allowed.
incrudible 2y ago
Apple does not control which websites you visit. Your ownership argument could also be leveled against game consoles, which do not even have web browsers these days. Phones are certainly more important, but the idea that manufacturers must not be able to curate what runs on their platforms strikes me as overreach. Put a tax on it, maybe.
- NekkoDroid 2y ago
  Nobody is saying anything about what they offer on their stores, people are complaining about when they wanna not use their stores and want to install something else that would be entirely possible but is artifically limited, to force the user to use their stores. That is overreach from the manufacturers. And yes, IMO it should also apply to consoles. But those aren't marketed and used as general purpose computing devices.
rchaud 2y ago
While the examples are all valid, the restrictions don't apply on mobile Safari. Why do corporations and devs continue to accept a share cropper role by paying Apple to host native apps? FirefoxOS had the right idea, make the browser the principal gateway for applications. It was a decade ahead of its time, but the mobile web is now at a level where native apps aren't needed for the most part.
- tazu 2y ago
  > Why do corporations and devs continue to accept a share cropper role by paying Apple to host native apps? Push notifications. That's it, and presumably why Apple waited 8 years[1] before allowing them on iOS PWAs. [1]: https://developer.chrome.com/blog/push-notifications-on-the-open-web https://developer.chrome.com/blog/push-notifications-on-the-...
  - fundad 2y ago
    I remember companies pushing their own listening apps so they could collect more of your behavior than from podcast apps. Patreon will not pay the fee if they pull all payments from their app. It can be a player/browser app with all the instrumentation they want.
    - talldayo 2y ago
      Oh hey, that's kinda like how Apple designed a proprietary undocumented Push Notification system so they can harvest your personal information as a secret accessory to the NSA and international surveillance organizations: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-secretly-giving-governments-push-notification-data/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-... Skinner: "Am I so out of touch? No, it's the third-parties that are wrong."
  - rchaud 2y ago
    I can understand engagement/spam-hungry apps like Uber nd Facebook needing notifications for business reasons. For all other apps, notifications are either a lot less important, or can be sent via email.
adamtaylor_13 2y ago
You do not. This has been established for quite some time. You’re not forced to purchase Apple. If you like Apple, you know you’re getting the ecosystem that comes with it. Honestly the App Store is already garbage with the heavy amount of moderation it has. I can’t imagine what a cesspool it would be without that oversight. Admittedly, I’m a fan of this approach. I like it. If I didn’t, I just wouldn’t buy Apple products. I’m not sure why that’s so hard for people.
- donmcronald 2y ago
  Wouldn’t App Store competition allow someone to build a better, more strictly moderated App Store? I think Apple knows that and it’s part of the reason they forbid competition.
- dartos 2y ago
  It’d be the mid 2010s google play store
- lbwtaylor 2y ago
  >I like it. If I didn’t, I just wouldn’t buy Apple products. I’m not sure why that’s so hard for people. Because Apple is so aggressive about lock-in that it excludes reasonable interaction between people with Apple and people without. The texting situation with pictures and videos is the most glaring example. You are not forced to purchase Apple products, except that you are.
  - dhosek 2y ago
    Pictures text just fine to non-Apple users. Videos don’t go through, but that’s because of a limitation of the text protocol (and Apple is finally providing support for the extended text format that allows videos to be sent via text)¹. Claiming that iMessage should be opened up is kind of like saying that you should be forced to allow people to park their cars on your front lawn. iMessage is a non-zero-cost service that Apple provides to add value to their products. You might as well insist that Apple allow people to install iOS on a non-Apple phone. ⸻ 1. I will criticize Apple for bad UI design in that if you text a video to a non-iMessage user, it silently fails rather than alerting the sender that the video can’t be sent.
ulfw 2y ago
"X" is 99% either nazi stuff or porn. Unfiltered hardcore porn. How come that's still in the appstore then?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
gruez 2y ago
>The app store is, at its heart, an enabler of totalitarianism. The first link of the chain is forged from the freedom to own your computer for marginal profits, but the rest are forged from your human rights. 1. Practically speaking, those restrictions are trivially bypassed by changing the region on your apple account, or using an alt account for app store. Yes, this presents a hurdle, but given that any serious totalitarian regime would probably also be implementing network-level blocks for such services and you'd need VPNs to bypass those, I don't think this materially changes availability of those apps. 2. Apple is doing those things because they have to comply with local laws. Would you rather have multinationals flout local laws? Or only when it suits your politics? What makes one country's laws more legitimate than another? Some of the hate speech/defamation laws in European countries are arguably pretty draconian as well. Should Apple, being an American company, push American notions of free speech to European countries?
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> do we own our devices, or not? Ownership is a bundle of rights that takes colloquial meaning based on context [1]. (Owning a cat, ornament, painting, apartment and freehold plot are functionally distinct.) The words this discussion demands are possession and control, the machine codes of ownership. You possess your device on purchase. You do not control it. Even if you controlled the OS, the carriers wouldn’t let you control the chipset connecting to their network. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ownership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ownership

KolmogorovComp 2y ago

Aren’t you free to load any OS you like? Not trying to justify anticompetitive behavior from Apple here, but tired to see people saying ‘do you own it?’ when they really mean ‘does the manufacturer help installing third parties apps on its default OS’.

talldayo 2y ago
> Aren’t you free to load any OS you like? Not while the bootloader is locked.
- WillAdams 2y ago
  The thing is, there aren't many hardware examples which allow installing an arbitrary OS, esp. if one has specific hardware requirements. I prefer machines with a Wacom EMR stylus, and it's simply not possible to find a device which: - supports the same Wacom EMR technology as my Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ and Kindle Scribe - has a high-resolution display - decent battery life - tablet form-factor I currently compromised on a Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 (because I simply couldn't find a direct replacement for my Samsung Galaxy Book 12), but the only OS option there is Windows 11 --- I've been considering a Raspberry Pi 5 and Wacom One 13 2nd Gen w/ Touch or Movink 13, but the display is only 1920x1080 and arranging for a battery is rather hackish...
  - talldayo 2y ago
    I used to use a Surface Pro 3 on Linux just fine, I really don't think the hardware requirements are an issue. And circumstantially, Linux has upstream Wacom device drivers that still supports hardware from 2003 (at least my CTE 430).
    - WillAdams 2y ago
      Surface Pro 3 is NTrig, not Wacom EMR. I'd be glad of a guide to installing Linux on a Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
katzinsky 2y ago
Not on an iPhone. I'd probably buy one today if that were allowed.

incrudible 2y ago

Apple does not control which websites you visit. Your ownership argument could also be leveled against game consoles, which do not even have web browsers these days. Phones are certainly more important, but the idea that manufacturers must not be able to curate what runs on their platforms strikes me as overreach. Put a tax on it, maybe.

NekkoDroid 2y ago
Nobody is saying anything about what they offer on their stores, people are complaining about when they wanna not use their stores and want to install something else that would be entirely possible but is artifically limited, to force the user to use their stores. That is overreach from the manufacturers. And yes, IMO it should also apply to consoles. But those aren't marketed and used as general purpose computing devices.

rchaud 2y ago

While the examples are all valid, the restrictions don't apply on mobile Safari. Why do corporations and devs continue to accept a share cropper role by paying Apple to host native apps? FirefoxOS had the right idea, make the browser the principal gateway for applications. It was a decade ahead of its time, but the mobile web is now at a level where native apps aren't needed for the most part.

tazu 2y ago
> Why do corporations and devs continue to accept a share cropper role by paying Apple to host native apps? Push notifications. That's it, and presumably why Apple waited 8 years[1] before allowing them on iOS PWAs. [1]: https://developer.chrome.com/blog/push-notifications-on-the-open-web https://developer.chrome.com/blog/push-notifications-on-the-...
- fundad 2y ago
  I remember companies pushing their own listening apps so they could collect more of your behavior than from podcast apps. Patreon will not pay the fee if they pull all payments from their app. It can be a player/browser app with all the instrumentation they want.
  - talldayo 2y ago
    Oh hey, that's kinda like how Apple designed a proprietary undocumented Push Notification system so they can harvest your personal information as a secret accessory to the NSA and international surveillance organizations: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-secretly-giving-governments-push-notification-data/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-... Skinner: "Am I so out of touch? No, it's the third-parties that are wrong."
- rchaud 2y ago
  I can understand engagement/spam-hungry apps like Uber nd Facebook needing notifications for business reasons. For all other apps, notifications are either a lot less important, or can be sent via email.

adamtaylor_13 2y ago

You do not. This has been established for quite some time. You’re not forced to purchase Apple. If you like Apple, you know you’re getting the ecosystem that comes with it. Honestly the App Store is already garbage with the heavy amount of moderation it has. I can’t imagine what a cesspool it would be without that oversight. Admittedly, I’m a fan of this approach. I like it. If I didn’t, I just wouldn’t buy Apple products. I’m not sure why that’s so hard for people.

donmcronald 2y ago
Wouldn’t App Store competition allow someone to build a better, more strictly moderated App Store? I think Apple knows that and it’s part of the reason they forbid competition.
dartos 2y ago
It’d be the mid 2010s google play store
lbwtaylor 2y ago
>I like it. If I didn’t, I just wouldn’t buy Apple products. I’m not sure why that’s so hard for people. Because Apple is so aggressive about lock-in that it excludes reasonable interaction between people with Apple and people without. The texting situation with pictures and videos is the most glaring example. You are not forced to purchase Apple products, except that you are.
- dhosek 2y ago
  Pictures text just fine to non-Apple users. Videos don’t go through, but that’s because of a limitation of the text protocol (and Apple is finally providing support for the extended text format that allows videos to be sent via text)¹. Claiming that iMessage should be opened up is kind of like saying that you should be forced to allow people to park their cars on your front lawn. iMessage is a non-zero-cost service that Apple provides to add value to their products. You might as well insist that Apple allow people to install iOS on a non-Apple phone. ⸻ 1. I will criticize Apple for bad UI design in that if you text a video to a non-iMessage user, it silently fails rather than alerting the sender that the video can’t be sent.

ulfw 2y ago

"X" is 99% either nazi stuff or porn. Unfiltered hardcore porn. How come that's still in the appstore then?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

gruez 2y ago

>The app store is, at its heart, an enabler of totalitarianism. The first link of the chain is forged from the freedom to own your computer for marginal profits, but the rest are forged from your human rights. 1. Practically speaking, those restrictions are trivially bypassed by changing the region on your apple account, or using an alt account for app store. Yes, this presents a hurdle, but given that any serious totalitarian regime would probably also be implementing network-level blocks for such services and you'd need VPNs to bypass those, I don't think this materially changes availability of those apps. 2. Apple is doing those things because they have to comply with local laws. Would you rather have multinationals flout local laws? Or only when it suits your politics? What makes one country's laws more legitimate than another? Some of the hate speech/defamation laws in European countries are arguably pretty draconian as well. Should Apple, being an American company, push American notions of free speech to European countries?

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> do we own our devices, or not? Ownership is a bundle of rights that takes colloquial meaning based on context [1]. (Owning a cat, ornament, painting, apartment and freehold plot are functionally distinct.) The words this discussion demands are possession and control, the machine codes of ownership. You possess your device on purchase. You do not control it. Even if you controlled the OS, the carriers wouldn’t let you control the chipset connecting to their network. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ownership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ownership