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Here to see all the creative justifications for why Apple is correct, and it's actually the app developer's fault for not clearly stating why an app that users

by paxys 2y ago

Here to see all the creative justifications for why Apple is correct, and it's actually the app developer's fault for not clearly stating why an app that users explicitly downloaded to take photos takes photos. It's for the users' own protection of course. Even after all these years the reality distortion field is strong as ever. Meanwhile if Google had done this people would already be outside their HQ with pitchforks and calling for the government to break up their evil monopoly.

isodev 2y ago
It's funny because it's true. You can always count on the defenders of the Corp. to show up when needed.
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  I suspect this is in no small part because many people here’s livelihoods are dependent or intertwined with said Corps, whether directly or indirectly. It’s very difficult to separate that innate bias. I don’t agree with the gp comment’s sentiment though, plenty of people here and elsewhere go hard to bat for google, although admittedly lately that’s increasingly difficult to do with a straight face.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    I’ve never understood why one would take time out of their lives, go to an online forum, and simp for a trillion dollar corporation or a billionaire. What are they getting out of it? MegaCorp isn’t going to give you a coupon for defending their honor online. Their CEO isn’t going to come to your birthday party. Their PR team isn’t going to send you a nice letter on parchment thanking you. What does one get out of putting finger to keyboard in defense of a megacorp? You see it all the time on HN and it is bizarre.
    - cruffle_duffle 2y ago
      Because sometimes people are being wrong on the internet and given the entire point of this site is discussion, well, what else would you expect. Nobody is simping for anything. Taken at face value, folks just have an opinion that is different than your and they are expressing it on a site designed explicitly to express such things. And that is just fine. Who knows maybe they have a point that you never considered. Why else would you visit the comments here? Just to get a pat on the back that every person on the planet thinks exactly like you do?
  - jajko 2y ago
    I've found out even seasoned (but more often junior) devs and other folks have trouble accepting that their job is just another cog in some corporate machine where their added value or morality of job is often sorta grey area, without clarity even on the shade of it. It can be banking, it can be ad business, or any other morally questionable endeavors, its the same story. Don't blame them per se, they don't know better and life would look suddenly pretty bleak with cold hard look in the mirror. Maybe the only clear failure IMHO is to not have something much more important defining who you are to yourself, your self-worth to say. Because then this becomes rather unimportant aspect of your existence and the need for elaborate invention of new convenient truths is much lower.
    - JohnMakin 2y ago
      > I've found out even seasoned (but more often junior) devs and other folks have trouble accepting that their job is just another cog in some corporate machine where their added value or morality of job is often sorta grey area, without clarity even on the shade of it. This was/is very difficult for me. I am about a decade into my career and 15 years into when I first started seriously messing around with tech - in those days, ~2010, tech was seen as the future to the planet and that message very much was pitched all around silicon valley and trickled into my coursework. The massive disillusionment I felt right out of school was a really hard hit and caused a bit of depression. I wasn't changing the world, I wasn't even doing anything remotely useful for a company that also wasn't doing anything remotely useful and I think that's been the case for most of my career, outside of the occasional instances where I do consulting (which I find rewarding actually). But such is life, outside of tech as well. I take pride now in my work, not whatever I think I am contributing to society. If my work is doing something ultimately pointless or supporting something that is morally or ethically gray, I take pride in ignoring that (because I have no control over it) and doing it as best as I can and that has helped a lot. Some may judge me harshly for that, but I don't care, it is really one of the only sane ways to cope - rather than conjuring insane justifications for why things are the way they are (which suck).
  - resource_waste 2y ago
    You see teens/low income people with a new iphone and its their identity. I had a teacher call me poor for having an Android. I made 4x more money than her in a year, and decided to let her know that. I also let her know that a phone I can get for $30/mo isnt much of a status symbol. Unemployed teens are able to afford it somehow.
valval 2y ago
With however many hundreds of thousands (or millions?) of apps in the store, the reason for why is quite obvious. Apple doesn’t need to have AI models that try to figure out what permissions an app would need. Nor do they need to hire people to do that manually. Instead, they can make app developers fulfill whatever criteria they want. It’s their platform after all.
- dmix 2y ago
  This is just some dumb random app reviewer as the creator of Halide said themselves. It’s like going to the DMV, the type of people who work at those human facing administrative jobs often don’t care about doing their job well, they just blindly check boxes and exploit their small of amount of power to avoid any personal responsibility. You guys are overthinking this
skhunted 2y ago
This is a strange narrative to me. Google and other companies have done crappy things without people calling for a break up of the company. It’s possible you are in your reality distortion field. An anti-Apple one. I don’t know anything about this particular case but there is a gray area when it comes to what an owner of a platform should/shouldn’t be allowed to do. I hope the EU cracks down hard on both Apple and Google. Both of these platforms have become essential to modern life in many ways and as such a case can be made for strict government oversight of them.
- anankaie 2y ago
  Nobody seems to be suggesting it is any better when Google does it; but on Android (if you ignore the efforts that Google has gone to to make the experience be limited) one can at least avoid the AppStore altogether, while still installing and running various things on device.
- resource_waste 2y ago
  I think Apple rightly gets the most criticism since their marketing is among mind-control levels and they are fine with doing unethical things (Lying in ads, using fake customers to pretend to have popularity, astroturfing/upvote farms to control narratives, making people status insecure) Once you realize how dirty Apple's marketing is, its quite off-putting. I have a similar aversion to Samsung, Nintendo, Disney. Maybe Google does mind control, but I didn't catch them. Apple, Samsung, Nintendo, Disney, these companies have no qualms making you feel pain to get a sale.
  - skhunted 2y ago
    This is news to me regarding the level of shittiness of Apple's marketing. Do you have any sources? If not that is OK. I don't think it's outside the realm of feasibility that this is so. It's not an extraordinary claim. Apple executives have the aura of "good guys" but that is merely a public facing facade.
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  > This is a strange narrative to me. Google and other companies have done crappy things without people calling for a break up of the company. Just a minor nitpick/correction here but there are multiple ongoing anti-trust suits that Google is getting killed on that very likely will lead to the breakup of some of its company's products, so that may be where the comment you are replying to is coming from.
petesergeant 2y ago
Here’s my creative justification: there’s a policy that works for 99% of apps, and in this case requires Halide to fill two sentences of text in to comply with. The alternative would be more mad.
- dghlsakjg 2y ago
  The alternative is that Apple lets me run code an apps on my phone (hand computer) without gatekeeping it. My laptop computer has that ability built in, and it isn't really "mad"
  - petesergeant 2y ago
    You understand that this is an entirely separate argument about an entirely separate issue right? Even if Apple did do that, presumably it wouldn’t change their process for listing things on their curated App Store.
    - dghlsakjg 2y ago
      The fact that Apple's app store is the ONLY place for third party software means that the issue of app store listing policies and the inability to load unapproved software are deeply linked, and effectively the same issue. If Apple allowed me to load software from third parties directly, like I do on my computer, I wouldn't care what the App store policies were, much like I don't care what the MacOS app store policies are.
- rollcat 2y ago
  It's endemic. I should put "Expert at Writing Compliance Copypasta" in my CV.
petesergeant 2y ago
> if Google had done this I’m coming fresh off weeks of app rejections that turned out to be I included the word “review” in the description of my app on the Google Play Store, and best I can tell was an automated rejection based on keyword matching and entirely unhelpful to explanatory text, so let us not pretend Google is running a tighter ship here.
Uehreka 2y ago
(looks around) Nope, not seeing anyone defending Apple on this (at least in the top hundred or so comments at time of writing). Even if you can find one, the posts ITT remarking on how common ridiculous Apple defenses are likely outnumber the actual comments defensive of Apple. Y’all may want to adjust your priors.
consteval 2y ago
I agree Apple is a monopoly and their software grip should be loosened. However, in this particular case, I think Apple is correct. The intended functionality of the App, no matter how obvious it may seem, needs to be documented to users IMO. Yes it's a camera app - yes it takes pictures. However, users should understand WHEN and under what conditions the app takes pictures. Saying "this app takes photos" is really not enough. Does it take photos while I sleep? That might sound ridiculous but remember the plethora of apps that take location data when they don't explicitly need it at that moment.

by paxys 2y ago

isodev 2y ago

It's funny because it's true. You can always count on the defenders of the Corp. to show up when needed.

JohnMakin 2y ago
I suspect this is in no small part because many people here’s livelihoods are dependent or intertwined with said Corps, whether directly or indirectly. It’s very difficult to separate that innate bias. I don’t agree with the gp comment’s sentiment though, plenty of people here and elsewhere go hard to bat for google, although admittedly lately that’s increasingly difficult to do with a straight face.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  I’ve never understood why one would take time out of their lives, go to an online forum, and simp for a trillion dollar corporation or a billionaire. What are they getting out of it? MegaCorp isn’t going to give you a coupon for defending their honor online. Their CEO isn’t going to come to your birthday party. Their PR team isn’t going to send you a nice letter on parchment thanking you. What does one get out of putting finger to keyboard in defense of a megacorp? You see it all the time on HN and it is bizarre.
  - cruffle_duffle 2y ago
    Because sometimes people are being wrong on the internet and given the entire point of this site is discussion, well, what else would you expect. Nobody is simping for anything. Taken at face value, folks just have an opinion that is different than your and they are expressing it on a site designed explicitly to express such things. And that is just fine. Who knows maybe they have a point that you never considered. Why else would you visit the comments here? Just to get a pat on the back that every person on the planet thinks exactly like you do?
- jajko 2y ago
  I've found out even seasoned (but more often junior) devs and other folks have trouble accepting that their job is just another cog in some corporate machine where their added value or morality of job is often sorta grey area, without clarity even on the shade of it. It can be banking, it can be ad business, or any other morally questionable endeavors, its the same story. Don't blame them per se, they don't know better and life would look suddenly pretty bleak with cold hard look in the mirror. Maybe the only clear failure IMHO is to not have something much more important defining who you are to yourself, your self-worth to say. Because then this becomes rather unimportant aspect of your existence and the need for elaborate invention of new convenient truths is much lower.
  - JohnMakin 2y ago
    > I've found out even seasoned (but more often junior) devs and other folks have trouble accepting that their job is just another cog in some corporate machine where their added value or morality of job is often sorta grey area, without clarity even on the shade of it. This was/is very difficult for me. I am about a decade into my career and 15 years into when I first started seriously messing around with tech - in those days, ~2010, tech was seen as the future to the planet and that message very much was pitched all around silicon valley and trickled into my coursework. The massive disillusionment I felt right out of school was a really hard hit and caused a bit of depression. I wasn't changing the world, I wasn't even doing anything remotely useful for a company that also wasn't doing anything remotely useful and I think that's been the case for most of my career, outside of the occasional instances where I do consulting (which I find rewarding actually). But such is life, outside of tech as well. I take pride now in my work, not whatever I think I am contributing to society. If my work is doing something ultimately pointless or supporting something that is morally or ethically gray, I take pride in ignoring that (because I have no control over it) and doing it as best as I can and that has helped a lot. Some may judge me harshly for that, but I don't care, it is really one of the only sane ways to cope - rather than conjuring insane justifications for why things are the way they are (which suck).
- resource_waste 2y ago
  You see teens/low income people with a new iphone and its their identity. I had a teacher call me poor for having an Android. I made 4x more money than her in a year, and decided to let her know that. I also let her know that a phone I can get for $30/mo isnt much of a status symbol. Unemployed teens are able to afford it somehow.

valval 2y ago

With however many hundreds of thousands (or millions?) of apps in the store, the reason for why is quite obvious. Apple doesn’t need to have AI models that try to figure out what permissions an app would need. Nor do they need to hire people to do that manually. Instead, they can make app developers fulfill whatever criteria they want. It’s their platform after all.

dmix 2y ago
This is just some dumb random app reviewer as the creator of Halide said themselves. It’s like going to the DMV, the type of people who work at those human facing administrative jobs often don’t care about doing their job well, they just blindly check boxes and exploit their small of amount of power to avoid any personal responsibility. You guys are overthinking this

skhunted 2y ago

This is a strange narrative to me. Google and other companies have done crappy things without people calling for a break up of the company. It’s possible you are in your reality distortion field. An anti-Apple one. I don’t know anything about this particular case but there is a gray area when it comes to what an owner of a platform should/shouldn’t be allowed to do. I hope the EU cracks down hard on both Apple and Google. Both of these platforms have become essential to modern life in many ways and as such a case can be made for strict government oversight of them.

anankaie 2y ago
Nobody seems to be suggesting it is any better when Google does it; but on Android (if you ignore the efforts that Google has gone to to make the experience be limited) one can at least avoid the AppStore altogether, while still installing and running various things on device.
resource_waste 2y ago
I think Apple rightly gets the most criticism since their marketing is among mind-control levels and they are fine with doing unethical things (Lying in ads, using fake customers to pretend to have popularity, astroturfing/upvote farms to control narratives, making people status insecure) Once you realize how dirty Apple's marketing is, its quite off-putting. I have a similar aversion to Samsung, Nintendo, Disney. Maybe Google does mind control, but I didn't catch them. Apple, Samsung, Nintendo, Disney, these companies have no qualms making you feel pain to get a sale.
- skhunted 2y ago
  This is news to me regarding the level of shittiness of Apple's marketing. Do you have any sources? If not that is OK. I don't think it's outside the realm of feasibility that this is so. It's not an extraordinary claim. Apple executives have the aura of "good guys" but that is merely a public facing facade.
JohnMakin 2y ago
> This is a strange narrative to me. Google and other companies have done crappy things without people calling for a break up of the company. Just a minor nitpick/correction here but there are multiple ongoing anti-trust suits that Google is getting killed on that very likely will lead to the breakup of some of its company's products, so that may be where the comment you are replying to is coming from.

petesergeant 2y ago

Here’s my creative justification: there’s a policy that works for 99% of apps, and in this case requires Halide to fill two sentences of text in to comply with. The alternative would be more mad.

dghlsakjg 2y ago
The alternative is that Apple lets me run code an apps on my phone (hand computer) without gatekeeping it. My laptop computer has that ability built in, and it isn't really "mad"
- petesergeant 2y ago
  You understand that this is an entirely separate argument about an entirely separate issue right? Even if Apple did do that, presumably it wouldn’t change their process for listing things on their curated App Store.
  - dghlsakjg 2y ago
    The fact that Apple's app store is the ONLY place for third party software means that the issue of app store listing policies and the inability to load unapproved software are deeply linked, and effectively the same issue. If Apple allowed me to load software from third parties directly, like I do on my computer, I wouldn't care what the App store policies were, much like I don't care what the MacOS app store policies are.
rollcat 2y ago
It's endemic. I should put "Expert at Writing Compliance Copypasta" in my CV.

petesergeant 2y ago

> if Google had done this I’m coming fresh off weeks of app rejections that turned out to be I included the word “review” in the description of my app on the Google Play Store, and best I can tell was an automated rejection based on keyword matching and entirely unhelpful to explanatory text, so let us not pretend Google is running a tighter ship here.

Uehreka 2y ago

(looks around) Nope, not seeing anyone defending Apple on this (at least in the top hundred or so comments at time of writing). Even if you can find one, the posts ITT remarking on how common ridiculous Apple defenses are likely outnumber the actual comments defensive of Apple. Y’all may want to adjust your priors.

consteval 2y ago

I agree Apple is a monopoly and their software grip should be loosened. However, in this particular case, I think Apple is correct. The intended functionality of the App, no matter how obvious it may seem, needs to be documented to users IMO. Yes it's a camera app - yes it takes pictures. However, users should understand WHEN and under what conditions the app takes pictures. Saying "this app takes photos" is really not enough. Does it take photos while I sleep? That might sound ridiculous but remember the plethora of apps that take location data when they don't explicitly need it at that moment.