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> Apple's restrictions have little to do with controlling device owners I would think you were making a joke if not for the earnest tone of your post. But, com

by veidr 14y ago

> Apple's restrictions have little to do with controlling device owners I would think you were making a joke if not for the earnest tone of your post. But, come on, that is a ridiculous statement to make. We had free as in freedom, free as in beer, and then Steve Jobs came up with free as in "freedom from porn". You appear to buy into that doublespeak redefinition of freedom without irony. The Soviet Union made a similar to give people freedom -- from class distinction, religious persecution, etc., and it used the same logic. (And was just as true.) Apple's restrictions are all about controlling device owners to make Apple more money. (Otherwise they would be "suggestions".) You may not install apps that don't pay Apple 30% of their revenues. You may not install apps that compete with Apple's favored apps. You may not even keep functionality you've already bought from Apple's store and been using, if Apple realizes after the fact that it conflicts with their lucrative hardware licensing deals (Airfoil Speakers). I'm not saying there aren't user-experience benefits to be had from a locked-down experience; there are, and Apple obviously knows it. I'm saying freedom doesn't what you think it means, and I don't think even Frank Luntz could make it mean that.

Steko 14y ago
"The Soviet Union made a similar" Oh come on, one is a market proposition and the other is a forced choice at the barrel of a gun. Is the "no shirt no shoes no service" sign at the store down the street the second coming of Stalin too?
- veidr 14y ago
  Ha ha, OK I admit that analogy was too heavy-handed for the context. It didn't feel so as I wrote it, maybe because I had already walked it back from 'Arbeit macht frei', which was the first thing to come to mind. The point I wanted to make was that it feels kinda creepy when people start believe the propaganda (of a government, corporation, cult, or whatever it may be) that calls it "freedom", when it's actually the other thing.
  - Steko 14y ago
    You're right that it's certainly not freedom that Apple is selling. The correct counterargument to Doctorow et al has to take the freedom issue head on, it looks like this: When people move from the country to a small town they are forced to give up some freedoms. When the small town turns into a large town even more. A large city, even more. I can't crank the stereo to 11 and play it at all hours every night on my block of dense apartment buildings. I also can't keep a pet rhino, walk around outside naked or throw my tv out the window onto the sidewalk 14 floors down. I could list these all day and there are some legitimate things I should be free to do but I can't, that's a slightly harmful byproduct we accept for convenience. Regulation is an easy scapegoat but every 'wild west' town with no rules either got a serious government willing to make those trade offs or it died out. That's universal not just in the US. One of the well known promises of technology is to shrink the world and connect everyone to everyone. In short we'll all be much closer cyberneighbors then today and there will be large sacrifices to privacy and other freedoms just like people who moved or found themselves in cities had to make. Another well known byproduct of technology has been the amount of potential damage a small group of people can do (Aum cult, McVeigh, Unabomber, Amerithrax). This again will act as a multiplier on the trade offs we will be forced to make as we move from the ability to 3d print guns to bomb materials to nuclear and biologic molecules. The deeply interconnected world of tomorrow will need people to wear virtual pants. QED.
    - aethertap 14y ago
      You make some good points, but I think it's important to make a distinction between the management of behavior by fiat and the management of behavior by response to improper actions. The examples you give for restricted behaviors are clearly valid, but they don't imply that I should not be allowed to own a stereo or TV on the chance that I might crank it to 11 or throw it out the window. I think that the issue at stake here is more closely related to the opposite case, where we would be disallowed from owning those things for fear of future misbehavior. In my opinion, there is a profound difference between limiting a person's behavior by eliminating their ability to decide versus limiting it by responding to transgressions. The logic of limiting ability to decide ends with a gilded cage, which is something I'd prefer to avoid.
parasubvert 14y ago
You seem to be under the impression that phones once were free & loose, and then Apple locked them down. Phones never were free - carriers controlled what went on them, and what features were used. Apple opened devices up to a level never before seen - no more carrier crap pre-loaded, and a serious push to improve data pipes and 3G availability throughout North America. Not to mention an app marketplace NOT controlled by the carriers, and an web browsing experience that doesn't require you to be snooped on by WAP gateways. Do you not still see the (baseless) grief Apple gets from carriers about how their phones are "data hogs"? Or how the media breathlessly claims the retina display is going to clog up all of our bandwidth from higher resolution video and pictures? Phones were always locked down heavily, Apple blew up that up to a large extent, but not completely, of course, as they are in business.... But today's variety of walled gardens are mostly untouchable by the carriers. > Apple's restrictions are all about controlling device owners to make Apple more money. (Otherwise they would be "suggestions".) No, the restrictions are all about curating an experience. Suggestions require choice. Most people don't want to make choices on how their phones work, they want to be handed experience with most decisions made for them, and for popular variations to be tweakable. "Opinionated software". > You may not install apps that don't pay Apple 30% of their revenues. Well, yes, they are capitalists, shame on them. > You may not install apps that compete with Apple's favored apps. That sucked, I agree, but that's changing. Chrome is out for iOS. Alternative Email clients are out. Apple generally is known for good customer service according to most customer satisfaction surveys, and presuming these people are semi-rational beings, that usually implies Apple actually listens to them (eventually). > I'm saying freedom doesn't what you think it means, and I don't think even Frank Luntz could make it mean that. You seem to be confusing political freedom with freedom to violate others' property. Firstly, you do realize that you have political freedom -- people are completely free to jailbreak their phones, no police will come after you. If you violate your carrier's T&Cs they can fire you as a customer, but that's due to years of historically poor regulation of telecom in the USA. Secondly, none of the software you use, that you haven't written, is owned by you. All owners of that software have a restriction on your behaviour with that software, including free or open source software. You have never been completely free when you use software. Thus, degree of openness is just a feature. Apple is trying to find a balance that people care about. Naturally developers & technical folks don't like losing the freedom to tinker, while most people couldn't care less. Apple needs to maintain a developer community that tinkers, though. So it's a balancing act.
snowwrestler 14y ago
> Apple's restrictions are all about controlling device owners to make Apple more money. (Otherwise they would be "suggestions".) It's worth pointing out that Apple allows free (beer and speech) apps in the iOS App Store, and in fact most of the apps are free (as in beer). They are not making any money on those--to the contrary, they are an expense that Apple incurs. Now, it's true that to get a free app into the App Store, a developer must pay their $99 to get their app signed. But--that still does not make Apple any money from device owners. Code signing is a well understood security for verifying the integrity of end-user software; this is a plausible explanation for the app distribution lockdown of iOS, especially since that is Apple's own explanation. And of course the App Store on the Mac (and code signing in general) remains optional.

by veidr 14y ago

Steko 14y ago

"The Soviet Union made a similar" Oh come on, one is a market proposition and the other is a forced choice at the barrel of a gun. Is the "no shirt no shoes no service" sign at the store down the street the second coming of Stalin too?

veidr 14y ago
Ha ha, OK I admit that analogy was too heavy-handed for the context. It didn't feel so as I wrote it, maybe because I had already walked it back from 'Arbeit macht frei', which was the first thing to come to mind. The point I wanted to make was that it feels kinda creepy when people start believe the propaganda (of a government, corporation, cult, or whatever it may be) that calls it "freedom", when it's actually the other thing.
- Steko 14y ago
  You're right that it's certainly not freedom that Apple is selling. The correct counterargument to Doctorow et al has to take the freedom issue head on, it looks like this: When people move from the country to a small town they are forced to give up some freedoms. When the small town turns into a large town even more. A large city, even more. I can't crank the stereo to 11 and play it at all hours every night on my block of dense apartment buildings. I also can't keep a pet rhino, walk around outside naked or throw my tv out the window onto the sidewalk 14 floors down. I could list these all day and there are some legitimate things I should be free to do but I can't, that's a slightly harmful byproduct we accept for convenience. Regulation is an easy scapegoat but every 'wild west' town with no rules either got a serious government willing to make those trade offs or it died out. That's universal not just in the US. One of the well known promises of technology is to shrink the world and connect everyone to everyone. In short we'll all be much closer cyberneighbors then today and there will be large sacrifices to privacy and other freedoms just like people who moved or found themselves in cities had to make. Another well known byproduct of technology has been the amount of potential damage a small group of people can do (Aum cult, McVeigh, Unabomber, Amerithrax). This again will act as a multiplier on the trade offs we will be forced to make as we move from the ability to 3d print guns to bomb materials to nuclear and biologic molecules. The deeply interconnected world of tomorrow will need people to wear virtual pants. QED.
  - aethertap 14y ago
    You make some good points, but I think it's important to make a distinction between the management of behavior by fiat and the management of behavior by response to improper actions. The examples you give for restricted behaviors are clearly valid, but they don't imply that I should not be allowed to own a stereo or TV on the chance that I might crank it to 11 or throw it out the window. I think that the issue at stake here is more closely related to the opposite case, where we would be disallowed from owning those things for fear of future misbehavior. In my opinion, there is a profound difference between limiting a person's behavior by eliminating their ability to decide versus limiting it by responding to transgressions. The logic of limiting ability to decide ends with a gilded cage, which is something I'd prefer to avoid.

parasubvert 14y ago

You seem to be under the impression that phones once were free & loose, and then Apple locked them down. Phones never were free - carriers controlled what went on them, and what features were used. Apple opened devices up to a level never before seen - no more carrier crap pre-loaded, and a serious push to improve data pipes and 3G availability throughout North America. Not to mention an app marketplace NOT controlled by the carriers, and an web browsing experience that doesn't require you to be snooped on by WAP gateways. Do you not still see the (baseless) grief Apple gets from carriers about how their phones are "data hogs"? Or how the media breathlessly claims the retina display is going to clog up all of our bandwidth from higher resolution video and pictures? Phones were always locked down heavily, Apple blew up that up to a large extent, but not completely, of course, as they are in business.... But today's variety of walled gardens are mostly untouchable by the carriers. > Apple's restrictions are all about controlling device owners to make Apple more money. (Otherwise they would be "suggestions".) No, the restrictions are all about curating an experience. Suggestions require choice. Most people don't want to make choices on how their phones work, they want to be handed experience with most decisions made for them, and for popular variations to be tweakable. "Opinionated software". > You may not install apps that don't pay Apple 30% of their revenues. Well, yes, they are capitalists, shame on them. > You may not install apps that compete with Apple's favored apps. That sucked, I agree, but that's changing. Chrome is out for iOS. Alternative Email clients are out. Apple generally is known for good customer service according to most customer satisfaction surveys, and presuming these people are semi-rational beings, that usually implies Apple actually listens to them (eventually). > I'm saying freedom doesn't what you think it means, and I don't think even Frank Luntz could make it mean that. You seem to be confusing political freedom with freedom to violate others' property. Firstly, you do realize that you have political freedom -- people are completely free to jailbreak their phones, no police will come after you. If you violate your carrier's T&Cs they can fire you as a customer, but that's due to years of historically poor regulation of telecom in the USA. Secondly, none of the software you use, that you haven't written, is owned by you. All owners of that software have a restriction on your behaviour with that software, including free or open source software. You have never been completely free when you use software. Thus, degree of openness is just a feature. Apple is trying to find a balance that people care about. Naturally developers & technical folks don't like losing the freedom to tinker, while most people couldn't care less. Apple needs to maintain a developer community that tinkers, though. So it's a balancing act.

snowwrestler 14y ago

> Apple's restrictions are all about controlling device owners to make Apple more money. (Otherwise they would be "suggestions".) It's worth pointing out that Apple allows free (beer and speech) apps in the iOS App Store, and in fact most of the apps are free (as in beer). They are not making any money on those--to the contrary, they are an expense that Apple incurs. Now, it's true that to get a free app into the App Store, a developer must pay their $99 to get their app signed. But--that still does not make Apple any money from device owners. Code signing is a well understood security for verifying the integrity of end-user software; this is a plausible explanation for the app distribution lockdown of iOS, especially since that is Apple's own explanation. And of course the App Store on the Mac (and code signing in general) remains optional.