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The concept of "admin" is not a black and white concept, it's a spectrum. Every iPad user is an "admin" of their device. Apple isn't stopping you from "adminis
by dangus 2y ago
The concept of "admin" is not a black and white concept, it's a spectrum.
Every iPad user is an "admin" of their device. Apple isn't stopping you from "administering" it.
There are limitations to the device but every device has limitations somewhere.
On that spectrum, the iPad is a much less limited device from a software and hardware standpoint than a lot of other devices, such as game consoles, point of sale terminals, medical devices, etc.
A lot of devices are intentionally designed with safety guardrails for very good reason.
For example, an inexperienced end user should not be able to freely reprogram the firmware on a robotics system used for surgery. A system like that is very intentionally shipped with guardrails that prevent the owner of the device from making dangerous modifications.
Other guardrails exist for other hardware where the end user is given some freedom but still kept from destroying the hardware or harming themselves. For example, your processor or graphics card won't let you fry the system by exceeding thermal limits, but they may still allow you to change settings like clock speeds and voltages. These limitations generally make sense and I would not really appreciate if AMD allowed me to accidentally fry my processor. A car infotainment system that allowed you to play videos or games while you drive or disable driver attention monitoring during self-driving would be grossly negligent.
I personally think the "everything should and must be open source" crowd takes a good concept way too far and essentially wants to dictate business models and approaches to safety and security.
I would support a more moderate approach that would force Apple to support more of a level playing field for things like alternative app stores, interoperability, and fair competition with alternative software, software/hardware end of support anti-e-waste regulations, but forcing them to divulge schematics and allow you to modify sensitive parts of the hardware like the secure enclave is not particularly beneficial. Just my opinion, though.
And finally, I’m firmly in the camp that I’m not going to tolerate a shitty solution just because it’s open source. No, I’m not going to use a $1000 Librem 11 tablet that’s at least 4x-12x slower than an iPad Pro that costs the same amount of money.
- armada651 2y ago> For example, an inexperienced end user should not be able to freely reprogram the firmware on a robotics system used for surgery. A system like that is very intentionally shipped with guardrails that prevent the owner of the device from making dangerous modifications. Comparing an iPad to a device that controls matters of life or death is almost as ridiculous as pretending these "guardrails" exist to serve the user. The guardrails exist to prevent the user from exiting Apple's garden. It is there to protect a monopoly, not to protect the user. Can we stop pretending it's anything else?
- dangus 2y agoCan you not pretend that my argument had zero nuance? I specifically mentioned in my reply that Apple should be forced by consumer regulations to remove guardrails like disallowing competing app stores, and they should be forced to have more interoperability with competing standards and products (e.g., iMessage/FaceTime should be an open protocol where other vendors could make compatible communication apps). But they shouldn't be forced to allow you to gain full root or dump the secure enclave's private keys.
- moondev 2y agoChromeOS allows you launch a Linux terminal app which runs a shell inside a VM. There are no "entitlement" limitations to what you can do in it, while the base system remains isolated. For example you can launch a MacOS vm with qemu.