9 ms·

The App Store was always authoritarian

150 points by bertman 1y ago

Mindwipe 1y ago
Completely correct. The only way to ensure this doesn't happen is to criminalise device manufacturers being in charge of what software runs on their devices.
- john_the_writer 1y ago
  Sounds like a right to repair argument. It will lose. Try putting linux on a windows-10 laptop. That BIOS is nailed down hard. It can be done but its a right PITA
  - microtonal 1y ago
    Can you elaborate? I bought a ThinkPad early this year. It probably had Windows 11 (didn't check, wiped it immediately) and it works fine? I don't doubt that there are laptops where it is hard, but I would love to hear some examples and in what way the UEFI firmware is nailed down such that you cannot install Linux?
  - lawn 1y ago
    It's easy to put Linux on a Windows 10 laptop. You must be holding it wrong.
- rahkiin 1y ago
  I’d love to be able to clean up the shitty touch interface on my oven.
- john01dav 1y ago
  It's not "their devices". I recently bought a house and the previous owner kept trying to influence what I did with it, and everyone -- even those in government who ultimately had to help enforce my ownership rights -- agreed with me that that was ridiculous and intolerable. When Apple, Samsung, or whoever else sells something it isn't their's anymore! They have no right to continued involvement in it! That's how selling works!
  - victorbjorklund 1y ago
    Do they have any continued responsibility for it to not explode or break in other ways?
    - john01dav 1y ago
      They have a responsibility to engineer it properly and to fix consequences of poor engineering, since they are selling something as capable of various features and presumably safe.
  - DanOpcode 1y ago
    What about warranty?
- BrenBarn 1y ago
  Or just criminalize device manufacturers holding more than a certain market share.
blurbleblurble 1y ago
[flagged]
- ocdtrekkie 1y ago
  When I moved to iPhones a few years back (death of Windows Mobile, and I wasn't suffering Android again, see every reason under the sun why), I set some really hard limits on not being in the ecosystem. It's a good phone, but I won't buy paid apps, do not accessorize beyond a case. Everything I use tends to just be client apps for things I do on the web at a desk. (Apparently a few years ago was... like six years. Dang the base model iPhone 11 got me really far.)
  - magnio 1y ago
    Same. I switched from Windows to macOS three years ago, and I tried my best to only use cross-platform softwares (or none at all, in many cases where websites suffice). Thanks to Electron many apps work on both Windows and macOS nowadays.
- bowsamic 1y ago
  > exercise of utter worship It’s insane to me that you deify their computers so much. It’s just the only popular computer company that has a coherent set of high level APIs and good hardware. It’s sad that they’re the only one but it doesn’t make them God
  - 9dev 1y ago
    Right? These comments are so bewildering. I like the design and UX, and the promise to at least a bit more privacy, but if I had to use android or windows or Ubuntu tomorrow, it’d be another device that I use. How you could even expend so much of your time to think about computers more than necessary to use them, much less worship a brand, is beyond me.
    - bowsamic 1y ago
      I’m often surprised at how strong these things run. And while I would prefer to use a mac than anything else for a few reasons, I find it very strange when my boss praises me for being the only one who is happy making sure our software works on Windows mac and Debian, as if it’s some kind of superpower to not throw a tantrum for having to use a different computer
buyucu 1y ago
the internet was fine before appstores. sure, occasionally an idiot downloaded virus.exe, but that was never the end of the world.
- Y-bar 1y ago
  98% agreed. Sometimes even smart and savvy persons end up doing it, I did once on SourceForge via their confusing buttons. But the virus was a Windows variant and would not run on my Mac. SourceForge has since cleaned up their act so no shade on them today.
- 9dev 1y ago
  The CSO of Maersk might have a different opinion on this.
  - buyucu 1y ago
    who?
    - 9dev 1y ago
      The C(I)SO, chief information security officer of Maersk, the worlds largest logistics company that lost billions to an infected accounting program that wrecked their global infrastructure at once.
bitwize 1y ago
I don't think Google has handled Android particularly well, but you have to be on some 1990s Netscape kool-aid to think that the web is or should be "the primary way for users to experience computing". Computing is just one kind of online service, and despite decades of effort to attempt to force-fit all applications into a browser, sometimes just a damn program that runs natively on the CPU is a much better fit for the task. Computing through the use of such programs is not a bad thing. Providing a central distribution point for such programs is not a bad thing—Linux distros do it all the time. Some of the fuckery-duckery Google has tried to pull with Android should be criticized, but it's not as cut and dry as "the web is open, everything else is proprietary vendor lock".
- wiseowise 1y ago
  > is a much better fit for the task Such as? > Providing a central distribution point for such programs is not a bad thing—Linux distros do it all the time. It is a bad thing if it is A) the only source of distribution B) controlled only by the software vendor providing the OS
- cube00 1y ago
  > despite decades of effort to attempt to force-fit all applications into a browser, sometimes just a damn program that runs natively on the CPU is a much better fit for the task WebAssembly will run natively if ECMAScript is holding you back. While it's still on a VM, so is Java, and that's the only mainstream game in town for "native" Android apps. It'd be exciting to see what the web could be if Apple didn't spend decades dragging their heels implementing standards for progressive web apps (PWAs) because they know it'll cut into their app store gravy train.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  I miss the native apps + Internet protocols of the 1990's, even though Web pays most of the bills, it should have stayed as an hypermedia documents platform.
- array_key_first 1y ago
  Most applications are forms and slow moving visualizations. Consider banking - banking is very complicated. It's just forms and slow moving visualizations. It can, and should, be on the web. Also, most native apps are just web views anyway.
wiseowise 1y ago
Heh, that’s all very cool and lots of smart words, but have you thought of children? Have you thought of elderly falling and unable to get up[1]? Surely you don’t want your fellow citizens to fall for Russian, Chinese, Another State Actor propaganda? State surveillance on unprecedented level? Don’t be paranoid! Surely a state actor would never abuse the power to snoop for your private photos[2]! Electronic waste? Duopoly? Censorship? Ownership? Those are made up words, comrade! [1] - https://youtu.be/cwCtM6D4GOc https://youtu.be/cwCtM6D4GOc [2] - https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/karen-read-case-officer-joked-searching-phone-nudes-1235296877/ https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/karen-r...
- whatevaa 1y ago
  Not an Apple user, but they support their devices for a long time, so there is that.
  - notrealyme123 1y ago
    So does raspberry pi. They are supported even longer.
- Andrew_nenakhov 1y ago
  > Surely you don’t want your fellow citizens to fall for Russian, Chinese, Another State Actor propaganda? Centralized Appstore monopolies are best friends of the authoritarian governments. Both Google and Apple readily removed any app the local government points them to, saying that they are committed to working in accordance with the legislation of countries where they provide their services. "....but added that it complies with the local laws of each particular country." [0] [0]: https://www.techspot.com/news/67701-russia-tells-apple-google-removed-linkedin-app-their.html https://www.techspot.com/news/67701-russia-tells-apple-googl...
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Razengan 1y ago
[flagged]
- Panzer04 1y ago
  The point is that it's all just an excuse. So long as the app store is your only alternative they can charge 30% and get away with it, and they'll say whatever you want to hear so long as it lets them continue to do that. They don't really give a shit about you, they just want your money.
  - Razengan 1y ago
    > they can charge 30% and get away with it Ok so what? No really. Who charges less and handles hosting, unlimited downloads, updates and provides a reach to millions of users? Steam takes how much? $100 PER FUCKING APP!!? Google? Xbox? PlayStation? Nintendo? Good luck putting your crap on GoDaddy and reaching even 10 users a week, without a LOT of words in a LOT of mouths. As a user, I have plenty of nits to pick with Apple [0], but again as a user, the 30% ""aPpLe TaX"" isn't one of them, and even as a dev it'll be long before it becomes an issue to even think about. The only people bitching about it are the mobsters wanting a bigger cut of the pie. Who started this whole hullabaloo anyway? Epic, a paragon of the common folk? hah. And scummy corps like Match.com the owners of Tinder etc. wow Yeah downvote this but literally no actual user ever whined about the 30% like you guys do. Users moan about shitty shovelware, shitty search. What we SHOULD be pitchforking about is not why Apple takes 30%, but about why is Apple not using all that 30% to IMPROVE the App Store for everyone?? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45556132 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45556132
- yard2010 1y ago
  Ironically that's the point. A shitty app store with shitty apps won't become any better, it will be the same shitty experience plus authoritarian bs. The same goes for the government as well IMHO. Authoritarian regimes are not any better than non authoritarian ones, it's just a management style.
  - 9dev 1y ago
ocdtrekkie 1y ago
Agreed, Alex... but the Chrome team is not different. Nor is Edge. All three companies are willing to use all of their products for authoritarian control. The web platform feels no less captured than the app market.
- slightlyoff 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - troupo 1y ago
    > It's something we create organically inside communities of shared democratic commitments (e.g., Blink) Blink is bot a "shared democratic community". As evidenced by the amount of Chrome-only APIs pushed into it. And you were very okay and completely silent about it while you worked there, and likely pushed quite a few of your own. Well, you're still fine with it as you call it "a community of democratic commitments".
    - slightlyoff 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - troupo 1y ago
        Yes, you post this every time as if that absolves Chrome, or you, of shipping "standards" against objections from both Mozilla and Apple, or before consensus on APIs and capabilities, or before even having a spec that others can implement. To quote your article: "every vendor always ships "whatever it wants." Indeed, and Chrome ships constantly, recklessly and with hardly a lip service to the standards process. Your article does have its funny moments. "Blink's rigorous launch process frequently prevents unvalidated designs from shipping". Lol. Lmao even. You, more than most other people, should know that once something is shipped, it stays in the platform forever, and it's very hard to change something that is already shipped. Yet not only Chrome ships features all the time, its team gleefully announced those features as fait accompli standards on web.dev, and then developers including you demand that other browsers implement these features.
WhereIsTheTruth 1y ago
Corporate tax in China is 25% Corporate tax in Apple land is 30% Funny?
- xuki 1y ago
  Tax is only on profit, Apple "tax" in 30% (15% in some cases) of revenue.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- whatevaa 1y ago
  Comparing apples (pun intended) to... a country? Profit vs revenue.
  - WhereIsTheTruth 1y ago
    I used "Apple land" deliberately, a single unelected gatekeeper stealing 30% straight off the top line feels more authoritarian than China's 25% on profit If Apple were a country, it wouldn't just be authoritarian, it'd be a dictatorship with a 30% flat tax on revenue, no appeals, and the power to erase your business overnight Hence the parallel, but yeah fair point, I wrote the comment too fast
hexage1814 1y ago
I remember when Mozilla censored Dissenter.
mycocola 1y ago
Maybe it's not a great idea to allow a company to decide what software users can run, and I am inclined to believe that Murphy's Law will apply. Ultimately, software is freedom of speech.
- shafiemoji 1y ago
  I never thought about this topic to have an opinion on this, but this is the best take for sure!
  - schoen 1y ago
    The "software is speech" idea was popularized partly by being used (successfully) as an argument in litigation about U.S. software export controls. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_as_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_as_speech (It was later partly rejected by other courts in the DMCA anticircumvention context.) This argument doesn't imply that companies have to help you publish your software, because they might be entitled to some kind of editorial control over which speech they do or don't distribute. But it does at least imply that the stakes of such control are very high and that free speech norms may be implicated by them!
- dewey 1y ago
  I get that point as a person who frequents HN, but for many regular people that’s probably a net positive. People would install random apps or browser extensions just to gain an advantage in some Facebook click came. Having some kind of hidden “I know what I’m doing” mode would make sense, but would probably defeated the same way as “I’ll teach you how to open browser console” to paste some command exploits.
  - mycocola 1y ago
    Just as a thought experiment: Governments could mandate banks to prevent their customers from spending beyond what'll go to rent/mortgage. It'd certainly prevent overdue or missed payments. Would that be a net positive, or would that prevent or slow people from learning fiscal responsibility and the benefits that go along with that?
willtemperley 1y ago
> Google is not creating moral distance between itself and Apple I laughed out loud at this. Google lost two antitrust lawsuits this year alone.
- jauntywundrkind 1y ago
  One of which only existed because Android was open source in the first place (but the app store was not). Something far more generous than most companies.
  - noman-land 1y ago
    It's not generous, it's a calculated business decision no different than a drug dealer giving out hits for free.
    - Ferret7446 1y ago
      So you're saying a more abusive company is better because it's not actively trying to attract users by being less abusive?
jiggawatts 1y ago
I just want to remind people that the alternative to authority is anarchy. No, not the utopian kind, Star Trek style. Think: Mad Max. I’m trying to communicate with relatives of my partner while on holiday. We have iPhones, they all have Androids. We asked them to install “ChatGPT” because its voice mode is shockingly good at near-real-time translation. When I type “ChatGPT” into the Apple App Store, the top hit is… drumroll… the very same, by OpenAI. My uncle in law was struggling a bit on his phone and showed me what came up: a wall of fakes. Scam app after scam app, all with similar icons and similar names “GPT Talk”, “Chatty GTP”, and garbage like that. Why would anyone want this? Why would I prefer this? Why would you… unless you’re an “app developer” working for… not the company that ought to be getting the first and only search result. The problem here — specifically here on Hacker News — is that a lot of you work for those companies. Startups faking till they make it, engaging in guerrilla marketing, less then perfectly legal practices… hoping to be the next Uber or AirBnB by emulating them. Politely, and with all due respect: Bugger off. Your arguments come from unclean hands. Most of the world likes the authority of the App Store. If you don’t, if you’re vocal about “rules are bad!” it says volumes about you, not the rules and the people that enforce them.
- Andrew_nenakhov 1y ago
  You'll change your mind when Apple will remove the app that you actually need. For now, you remind me of a certain poem: First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist [0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came
- parlortricks 1y ago
  Seems like the app stores could just seperate into App Store Recommended and Community apps. Then you keep both but the app store vetted ones are top always.
- panstromek 1y ago
  I partially agree that the authority has its use and that restricting the freedom to publish apps in some way is reasonable to prevent problems. The problem with Apple (and to a lesser extent Google) is that it goes way further than that. It dictates what technologies you can use, it dictates a ton of specific rules for how your app should behave, it gatekeeps your bug fixes, it takes an absolutely obnoxious share of your revenue while providing just bare minimum service, with decades old bugs you have to workaround. Many of those things also makes the service worse for their users - it really feels like as a developer for their platform, you're in a hostile relationship with them, and pay for it.
clutter55561 1y ago
Well written, but its starting point seems to be “Apple used to be force for good”. — It is a corporation. It wants your money. This is not new. This is not any different from Lilly (Mounjaro), or Google, or any other, er… corporation. The idea that a CEO will stand up to his democratically elected dictator is absurd. Why should he, when the dictator is merely implementing the policies he said he would during the campaign and still got elected? Why should he make himself and his company and his shareholders martyrs? Because many people hold Apple to higher standards, that is why.
- slightlyoff 1y ago
  Author here. You seem to have missed the bleedingly obvious point that responsibilities are a function of scale. Nothing you allege was missed, and indeed it was considered at length in the longer series on these topics: https://infrequently.org/series/browser-choice-must-matter/ https://infrequently.org/series/browser-choice-must-matter/
  - clutter55561 1y ago
    Not sure what you mean by “responsibilities are a function of scale”. “With great power comes great responsibility”? Like I said, it is a good article, about an important topic, but you already knew that. I mostly agree with you - not that my opinion is particularly important. It prompted me to comment for only the second time. I’ll take a lot at the rest of the series later.
- nozzlegear 1y ago
  > The idea that a CEO will stand up to his democratically elected dictator is absurd. Why should he, when the dictator is merely implementing the policies he said he would during the campaign and still got elected? Why should he make himself and his company and his shareholders martyrs? This is exactly what Apple did when they stood their ground against the FBI in the case of the San Bernardino shooter though. Of course, Obama could hardly be called a dictator, and wasn't a petty, vindictive man like our current president. But it'd still be good to see Cook rediscover that "fuck you, make me" attitude from the old Apple.
heisenbit 1y ago
The problem with authoritarianism is that it does not scale. The ecosystem covers now whole lives of people across the globe - humongous difference.
schoen 1y ago
Note that Apple's app store transparency report (thanks to them for publishing this, they don't have to) https://www.apple.com/legal/more-resources/docs/2024-App-Store-Transparency-Report.pdf https://www.apple.com/legal/more-resources/docs/2024-App-Sto... says that there are over 1700 apps removed per year due to "government takedown demands". Since this is separate from about 2 million (!) apps they rejected from the app store and about 80,000 apps they removed from the app store on their own initiative, it stands to reason that they would have disagreed with quite a lot of those requests, but they still obeyed them. One could think about this in at least two ways: (1) If the 2,000,000 apps they rejected or the 80,000 apps they removed on their own initiative were very dangerous or very harmful in some way, one might believe that Apple's huge and arbitrary power over iPhones is ultimately beneficial because it's mostly used to protect people, and only slightly used to uphold state power over citizens. (2) If you compare this to the baseline of "OS developers shouldn't decide what software you can run", then it's already, well, thousands of programs, probably often quite popular ones, that people are being intentionally prevented from using because their governments disapprove. And probably quite routinely for reasons that large parts of the population would disagree with. It is already a frequent event; in some countries (it's a long tail so the absolute majority of the removals in 2024 were attributable to the PRC!) it's plausible that most iPhone users directly experience the results of app censorship. (You could add to this that users would also be divided about some of Apple's decisions on its own initiative, primarily apps that the company banned for sexual or violent content, usually fictional. Some users may agree with Apple using its power this way and other users may disagree. A recent example is that they've banned the SpicyChat AI erotic chat app, and probably many other "AI boyfriend/girlfriend" apps. In the past, they've banned apps created by various porn sites.) I think this issue is confusing. I've always believed that device owners should have complete control of their computing devices and not be subject to other people's power when using them. You can see people in this thread pointing out that sometimes this power is being used to protect users (including from having their devices hijacked by malicious third parties, which would also tend to significantly undermine their control of their devices... although one can then argue about what responsibility different parties had to actively prevent that outcome). The argument that technological paternalism contributes to maximizing users' practical control is an argument that must be engaged with. And also, sometimes it's simply not being used to protect users at all. By the way, if you get into the object level issue then you can get even more confused: (1) I think the U.S. government probably wanted to ban this particular app merely because it was successful at helping people avoid deportation. But it might turn out that, with this app or with some future app that looks superficially similar, it actually is being used to coordinate violent attacks, even if the developer didn't intend that outcome. At some point, governments will have a case that there is some kind of meaningful physical-world harm associated with the observed usage of some piece of software. (More on that in other points below.) (2) If Apple literally prevented itself from having the power to approve or reject software for iOS (e.g. by allowing "sideloading", which was the norm for almost all historical computing environments), then you literally could have apps that explicitly describe themselves as meant to coordinate violence (against law enforcement, against minority groups, against specific people, or whatever). This is not a strawman. It's really easy to write such an app. There is no reason to think that people who know how to write apps are all refraining from writing violence-coordination apps. In other contexts, people might be able to agree not to blame toolmakers for downstream uses of their tools, like not blaming radio manufacturers for having their radios be able to receive the broadcast incitements to genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s. So maybe we would eventually similarly be able to agree not to blame Apple for making an OS that could run the "Let's Kill ______" third-party app. But we should understand that on some occasions such an app would probably exist. You know, there are video games whose content is actually pretty gross by almost any given standard. A lot of people have been able to agree that those games can exist, or at least that people other than the developers bear no responsibility for their availability. (3) You could say that Apple should just make good ethical object-level case-by-case decisions about how to use its power, which is probably what they try to do most of the time, but they sometimes fail, or sometimes there isn't a consensus within the company or within a society about what the right call should be. In this case, we're going to be back here again and again talking about the merits of different app bans, when they manage to get wide enough attention. Remember, again, there were already 1700 app bans per year last year, and presumably lots of governments are only just waking up to the possibility of demanding them! (4) Governments are already using offline harms to justify incredibly intrusive control of computing and communications. Some of those offline harms are real, not speculative. For example, there really were lynchings coordinated via WhatsApp groups and via WhatsApp memes in several developing countries. The remedies and "solutions" that many governments have suggested in response to such things are incredibly scary.
ValveFan6969 1y ago
To me, Apple has BEEN far behind. It's been far behind since the removal of the headphone jack. It's been far behind in the lack of USB integration. It's been way, way far behind the standard of technology, yet people are so pseudo-intellectual about it, to cope for the fact that they spent a ridiculous amount of cash on what is basically mainstream Linux. You can't do anything really interesting with it. You can barely game. It's simply for the mind-numbing office work, and nothing else. You're stuck in this room - this office work Eco system - and you don't know how to leave, and it's all Apple's fault you fell for the bait. You just want to open a window (pun intended) and let fresh air in, but there are no windows, and it's all Apple's fault.
rendall 1y ago
> ...and Apple is all but refusing, playing games to prevent powerful and safe iOS browsers and the powerful web applications they facilitate. Web applications that can challenge the App Store. I have been patronized about this for years, but I still maintain that Jobs' opposition to Flash was its conflict with the App Store, and not that it was a security problem as he and his flying monkeys insisted.
GabrielMMMM 1y ago
I don't believe it.

150 points by bertman 1y ago

Completely correct. The only way to ensure this doesn't happen is to criminalise device manufacturers being in charge of what software runs on their devices.

john_the_writer 1y ago
Sounds like a right to repair argument. It will lose. Try putting linux on a windows-10 laptop. That BIOS is nailed down hard. It can be done but its a right PITA
- microtonal 1y ago
  Can you elaborate? I bought a ThinkPad early this year. It probably had Windows 11 (didn't check, wiped it immediately) and it works fine? I don't doubt that there are laptops where it is hard, but I would love to hear some examples and in what way the UEFI firmware is nailed down such that you cannot install Linux?
- lawn 1y ago
  It's easy to put Linux on a Windows 10 laptop. You must be holding it wrong.
rahkiin 1y ago
I’d love to be able to clean up the shitty touch interface on my oven.
john01dav 1y ago
It's not "their devices". I recently bought a house and the previous owner kept trying to influence what I did with it, and everyone -- even those in government who ultimately had to help enforce my ownership rights -- agreed with me that that was ridiculous and intolerable. When Apple, Samsung, or whoever else sells something it isn't their's anymore! They have no right to continued involvement in it! That's how selling works!
- victorbjorklund 1y ago
  Do they have any continued responsibility for it to not explode or break in other ways?
  - john01dav 1y ago
    They have a responsibility to engineer it properly and to fix consequences of poor engineering, since they are selling something as capable of various features and presumably safe.
- DanOpcode 1y ago
  What about warranty?
BrenBarn 1y ago
Or just criminalize device manufacturers holding more than a certain market share.

blurbleblurble 1y ago

[flagged]

ocdtrekkie 1y ago
When I moved to iPhones a few years back (death of Windows Mobile, and I wasn't suffering Android again, see every reason under the sun why), I set some really hard limits on not being in the ecosystem. It's a good phone, but I won't buy paid apps, do not accessorize beyond a case. Everything I use tends to just be client apps for things I do on the web at a desk. (Apparently a few years ago was... like six years. Dang the base model iPhone 11 got me really far.)
- magnio 1y ago
  Same. I switched from Windows to macOS three years ago, and I tried my best to only use cross-platform softwares (or none at all, in many cases where websites suffice). Thanks to Electron many apps work on both Windows and macOS nowadays.
bowsamic 1y ago
> exercise of utter worship It’s insane to me that you deify their computers so much. It’s just the only popular computer company that has a coherent set of high level APIs and good hardware. It’s sad that they’re the only one but it doesn’t make them God
- 9dev 1y ago
  Right? These comments are so bewildering. I like the design and UX, and the promise to at least a bit more privacy, but if I had to use android or windows or Ubuntu tomorrow, it’d be another device that I use. How you could even expend so much of your time to think about computers more than necessary to use them, much less worship a brand, is beyond me.
  - bowsamic 1y ago
    I’m often surprised at how strong these things run. And while I would prefer to use a mac than anything else for a few reasons, I find it very strange when my boss praises me for being the only one who is happy making sure our software works on Windows mac and Debian, as if it’s some kind of superpower to not throw a tantrum for having to use a different computer

buyucu 1y ago

the internet was fine before appstores. sure, occasionally an idiot downloaded virus.exe, but that was never the end of the world.

Y-bar 1y ago
98% agreed. Sometimes even smart and savvy persons end up doing it, I did once on SourceForge via their confusing buttons. But the virus was a Windows variant and would not run on my Mac. SourceForge has since cleaned up their act so no shade on them today.
9dev 1y ago
The CSO of Maersk might have a different opinion on this.
- buyucu 1y ago
  who?
  - 9dev 1y ago
    The C(I)SO, chief information security officer of Maersk, the worlds largest logistics company that lost billions to an infected accounting program that wrecked their global infrastructure at once.

bitwize 1y ago

I don't think Google has handled Android particularly well, but you have to be on some 1990s Netscape kool-aid to think that the web is or should be "the primary way for users to experience computing". Computing is just one kind of online service, and despite decades of effort to attempt to force-fit all applications into a browser, sometimes just a damn program that runs natively on the CPU is a much better fit for the task. Computing through the use of such programs is not a bad thing. Providing a central distribution point for such programs is not a bad thing—Linux distros do it all the time. Some of the fuckery-duckery Google has tried to pull with Android should be criticized, but it's not as cut and dry as "the web is open, everything else is proprietary vendor lock".

wiseowise 1y ago
> is a much better fit for the task Such as? > Providing a central distribution point for such programs is not a bad thing—Linux distros do it all the time. It is a bad thing if it is A) the only source of distribution B) controlled only by the software vendor providing the OS
cube00 1y ago
> despite decades of effort to attempt to force-fit all applications into a browser, sometimes just a damn program that runs natively on the CPU is a much better fit for the task WebAssembly will run natively if ECMAScript is holding you back. While it's still on a VM, so is Java, and that's the only mainstream game in town for "native" Android apps. It'd be exciting to see what the web could be if Apple didn't spend decades dragging their heels implementing standards for progressive web apps (PWAs) because they know it'll cut into their app store gravy train.
pjmlp 1y ago
I miss the native apps + Internet protocols of the 1990's, even though Web pays most of the bills, it should have stayed as an hypermedia documents platform.
array_key_first 1y ago
Most applications are forms and slow moving visualizations. Consider banking - banking is very complicated. It's just forms and slow moving visualizations. It can, and should, be on the web. Also, most native apps are just web views anyway.

wiseowise 1y ago

Heh, that’s all very cool and lots of smart words, but have you thought of children? Have you thought of elderly falling and unable to get up[1]? Surely you don’t want your fellow citizens to fall for Russian, Chinese, Another State Actor propaganda? State surveillance on unprecedented level? Don’t be paranoid! Surely a state actor would never abuse the power to snoop for your private photos[2]! Electronic waste? Duopoly? Censorship? Ownership? Those are made up words, comrade! [1] - https://youtu.be/cwCtM6D4GOc https://youtu.be/cwCtM6D4GOc [2] - https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/karen-read-case-officer-joked-searching-phone-nudes-1235296877/ https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/karen-r...

whatevaa 1y ago
Not an Apple user, but they support their devices for a long time, so there is that.
- notrealyme123 1y ago
  So does raspberry pi. They are supported even longer.
Andrew_nenakhov 1y ago
> Surely you don’t want your fellow citizens to fall for Russian, Chinese, Another State Actor propaganda? Centralized Appstore monopolies are best friends of the authoritarian governments. Both Google and Apple readily removed any app the local government points them to, saying that they are committed to working in accordance with the legislation of countries where they provide their services. "....but added that it complies with the local laws of each particular country." [0] [0]: https://www.techspot.com/news/67701-russia-tells-apple-google-removed-linkedin-app-their.html https://www.techspot.com/news/67701-russia-tells-apple-googl...

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

Razengan 1y ago

[flagged]

Panzer04 1y ago
The point is that it's all just an excuse. So long as the app store is your only alternative they can charge 30% and get away with it, and they'll say whatever you want to hear so long as it lets them continue to do that. They don't really give a shit about you, they just want your money.
- Razengan 1y ago
  > they can charge 30% and get away with it Ok so what? No really. Who charges less and handles hosting, unlimited downloads, updates and provides a reach to millions of users? Steam takes how much? $100 PER FUCKING APP!!? Google? Xbox? PlayStation? Nintendo? Good luck putting your crap on GoDaddy and reaching even 10 users a week, without a LOT of words in a LOT of mouths. As a user, I have plenty of nits to pick with Apple [0], but again as a user, the 30% ""aPpLe TaX"" isn't one of them, and even as a dev it'll be long before it becomes an issue to even think about. The only people bitching about it are the mobsters wanting a bigger cut of the pie. Who started this whole hullabaloo anyway? Epic, a paragon of the common folk? hah. And scummy corps like Match.com the owners of Tinder etc. wow Yeah downvote this but literally no actual user ever whined about the 30% like you guys do. Users moan about shitty shovelware, shitty search. What we SHOULD be pitchforking about is not why Apple takes 30%, but about why is Apple not using all that 30% to IMPROVE the App Store for everyone?? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45556132 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45556132
yard2010 1y ago
Ironically that's the point. A shitty app store with shitty apps won't become any better, it will be the same shitty experience plus authoritarian bs. The same goes for the government as well IMHO. Authoritarian regimes are not any better than non authoritarian ones, it's just a management style.
- 9dev 1y ago

ocdtrekkie 1y ago

Agreed, Alex... but the Chrome team is not different. Nor is Edge. All three companies are willing to use all of their products for authoritarian control. The web platform feels no less captured than the app market.

slightlyoff 1y ago
[flagged]
- troupo 1y ago
  > It's something we create organically inside communities of shared democratic commitments (e.g., Blink) Blink is bot a "shared democratic community". As evidenced by the amount of Chrome-only APIs pushed into it. And you were very okay and completely silent about it while you worked there, and likely pushed quite a few of your own. Well, you're still fine with it as you call it "a community of democratic commitments".
  - slightlyoff 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - troupo 1y ago
      Yes, you post this every time as if that absolves Chrome, or you, of shipping "standards" against objections from both Mozilla and Apple, or before consensus on APIs and capabilities, or before even having a spec that others can implement. To quote your article: "every vendor always ships "whatever it wants." Indeed, and Chrome ships constantly, recklessly and with hardly a lip service to the standards process. Your article does have its funny moments. "Blink's rigorous launch process frequently prevents unvalidated designs from shipping". Lol. Lmao even. You, more than most other people, should know that once something is shipped, it stays in the platform forever, and it's very hard to change something that is already shipped. Yet not only Chrome ships features all the time, its team gleefully announced those features as fait accompli standards on web.dev, and then developers including you demand that other browsers implement these features.

WhereIsTheTruth 1y ago

Corporate tax in China is 25% Corporate tax in Apple land is 30% Funny?

xuki 1y ago
Tax is only on profit, Apple "tax" in 30% (15% in some cases) of revenue.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
whatevaa 1y ago
Comparing apples (pun intended) to... a country? Profit vs revenue.
- WhereIsTheTruth 1y ago
  I used "Apple land" deliberately, a single unelected gatekeeper stealing 30% straight off the top line feels more authoritarian than China's 25% on profit If Apple were a country, it wouldn't just be authoritarian, it'd be a dictatorship with a 30% flat tax on revenue, no appeals, and the power to erase your business overnight Hence the parallel, but yeah fair point, I wrote the comment too fast

hexage1814 1y ago

I remember when Mozilla censored Dissenter.

mycocola 1y ago

Maybe it's not a great idea to allow a company to decide what software users can run, and I am inclined to believe that Murphy's Law will apply. Ultimately, software is freedom of speech.

shafiemoji 1y ago
I never thought about this topic to have an opinion on this, but this is the best take for sure!
- schoen 1y ago
  The "software is speech" idea was popularized partly by being used (successfully) as an argument in litigation about U.S. software export controls. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_as_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_as_speech (It was later partly rejected by other courts in the DMCA anticircumvention context.) This argument doesn't imply that companies have to help you publish your software, because they might be entitled to some kind of editorial control over which speech they do or don't distribute. But it does at least imply that the stakes of such control are very high and that free speech norms may be implicated by them!
dewey 1y ago
I get that point as a person who frequents HN, but for many regular people that’s probably a net positive. People would install random apps or browser extensions just to gain an advantage in some Facebook click came. Having some kind of hidden “I know what I’m doing” mode would make sense, but would probably defeated the same way as “I’ll teach you how to open browser console” to paste some command exploits.
- mycocola 1y ago
  Just as a thought experiment: Governments could mandate banks to prevent their customers from spending beyond what'll go to rent/mortgage. It'd certainly prevent overdue or missed payments. Would that be a net positive, or would that prevent or slow people from learning fiscal responsibility and the benefits that go along with that?

willtemperley 1y ago

> Google is not creating moral distance between itself and Apple I laughed out loud at this. Google lost two antitrust lawsuits this year alone.

jauntywundrkind 1y ago
One of which only existed because Android was open source in the first place (but the app store was not). Something far more generous than most companies.
- noman-land 1y ago
  It's not generous, it's a calculated business decision no different than a drug dealer giving out hits for free.
  - Ferret7446 1y ago
    So you're saying a more abusive company is better because it's not actively trying to attract users by being less abusive?

jiggawatts 1y ago

I just want to remind people that the alternative to authority is anarchy. No, not the utopian kind, Star Trek style. Think: Mad Max. I’m trying to communicate with relatives of my partner while on holiday. We have iPhones, they all have Androids. We asked them to install “ChatGPT” because its voice mode is shockingly good at near-real-time translation. When I type “ChatGPT” into the Apple App Store, the top hit is… drumroll… the very same, by OpenAI. My uncle in law was struggling a bit on his phone and showed me what came up: a wall of fakes. Scam app after scam app, all with similar icons and similar names “GPT Talk”, “Chatty GTP”, and garbage like that. Why would anyone want this? Why would I prefer this? Why would you… unless you’re an “app developer” working for… not the company that ought to be getting the first and only search result. The problem here — specifically here on Hacker News — is that a lot of you work for those companies. Startups faking till they make it, engaging in guerrilla marketing, less then perfectly legal practices… hoping to be the next Uber or AirBnB by emulating them. Politely, and with all due respect: Bugger off. Your arguments come from unclean hands. Most of the world likes the authority of the App Store. If you don’t, if you’re vocal about “rules are bad!” it says volumes about you, not the rules and the people that enforce them.

Andrew_nenakhov 1y ago
You'll change your mind when Apple will remove the app that you actually need. For now, you remind me of a certain poem: First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist [0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came
parlortricks 1y ago
Seems like the app stores could just seperate into App Store Recommended and Community apps. Then you keep both but the app store vetted ones are top always.
panstromek 1y ago
I partially agree that the authority has its use and that restricting the freedom to publish apps in some way is reasonable to prevent problems. The problem with Apple (and to a lesser extent Google) is that it goes way further than that. It dictates what technologies you can use, it dictates a ton of specific rules for how your app should behave, it gatekeeps your bug fixes, it takes an absolutely obnoxious share of your revenue while providing just bare minimum service, with decades old bugs you have to workaround. Many of those things also makes the service worse for their users - it really feels like as a developer for their platform, you're in a hostile relationship with them, and pay for it.

clutter55561 1y ago

Well written, but its starting point seems to be “Apple used to be force for good”. — It is a corporation. It wants your money. This is not new. This is not any different from Lilly (Mounjaro), or Google, or any other, er… corporation. The idea that a CEO will stand up to his democratically elected dictator is absurd. Why should he, when the dictator is merely implementing the policies he said he would during the campaign and still got elected? Why should he make himself and his company and his shareholders martyrs? Because many people hold Apple to higher standards, that is why.

slightlyoff 1y ago
Author here. You seem to have missed the bleedingly obvious point that responsibilities are a function of scale. Nothing you allege was missed, and indeed it was considered at length in the longer series on these topics: https://infrequently.org/series/browser-choice-must-matter/ https://infrequently.org/series/browser-choice-must-matter/
- clutter55561 1y ago
  Not sure what you mean by “responsibilities are a function of scale”. “With great power comes great responsibility”? Like I said, it is a good article, about an important topic, but you already knew that. I mostly agree with you - not that my opinion is particularly important. It prompted me to comment for only the second time. I’ll take a lot at the rest of the series later.
nozzlegear 1y ago
> The idea that a CEO will stand up to his democratically elected dictator is absurd. Why should he, when the dictator is merely implementing the policies he said he would during the campaign and still got elected? Why should he make himself and his company and his shareholders martyrs? This is exactly what Apple did when they stood their ground against the FBI in the case of the San Bernardino shooter though. Of course, Obama could hardly be called a dictator, and wasn't a petty, vindictive man like our current president. But it'd still be good to see Cook rediscover that "fuck you, make me" attitude from the old Apple.

heisenbit 1y ago

The problem with authoritarianism is that it does not scale. The ecosystem covers now whole lives of people across the globe - humongous difference.

schoen 1y ago

Note that Apple's app store transparency report (thanks to them for publishing this, they don't have to) https://www.apple.com/legal/more-resources/docs/2024-App-Store-Transparency-Report.pdf https://www.apple.com/legal/more-resources/docs/2024-App-Sto... says that there are over 1700 apps removed per year due to "government takedown demands". Since this is separate from about 2 million (!) apps they rejected from the app store and about 80,000 apps they removed from the app store on their own initiative, it stands to reason that they would have disagreed with quite a lot of those requests, but they still obeyed them. One could think about this in at least two ways: (1) If the 2,000,000 apps they rejected or the 80,000 apps they removed on their own initiative were very dangerous or very harmful in some way, one might believe that Apple's huge and arbitrary power over iPhones is ultimately beneficial because it's mostly used to protect people, and only slightly used to uphold state power over citizens. (2) If you compare this to the baseline of "OS developers shouldn't decide what software you can run", then it's already, well, thousands of programs, probably often quite popular ones, that people are being intentionally prevented from using because their governments disapprove. And probably quite routinely for reasons that large parts of the population would disagree with. It is already a frequent event; in some countries (it's a long tail so the absolute majority of the removals in 2024 were attributable to the PRC!) it's plausible that most iPhone users directly experience the results of app censorship. (You could add to this that users would also be divided about some of Apple's decisions on its own initiative, primarily apps that the company banned for sexual or violent content, usually fictional. Some users may agree with Apple using its power this way and other users may disagree. A recent example is that they've banned the SpicyChat AI erotic chat app, and probably many other "AI boyfriend/girlfriend" apps. In the past, they've banned apps created by various porn sites.) I think this issue is confusing. I've always believed that device owners should have complete control of their computing devices and not be subject to other people's power when using them. You can see people in this thread pointing out that sometimes this power is being used to protect users (including from having their devices hijacked by malicious third parties, which would also tend to significantly undermine their control of their devices... although one can then argue about what responsibility different parties had to actively prevent that outcome). The argument that technological paternalism contributes to maximizing users' practical control is an argument that must be engaged with. And also, sometimes it's simply not being used to protect users at all. By the way, if you get into the object level issue then you can get even more confused: (1) I think the U.S. government probably wanted to ban this particular app merely because it was successful at helping people avoid deportation. But it might turn out that, with this app or with some future app that looks superficially similar, it actually is being used to coordinate violent attacks, even if the developer didn't intend that outcome. At some point, governments will have a case that there is some kind of meaningful physical-world harm associated with the observed usage of some piece of software. (More on that in other points below.) (2) If Apple literally prevented itself from having the power to approve or reject software for iOS (e.g. by allowing "sideloading", which was the norm for almost all historical computing environments), then you literally could have apps that explicitly describe themselves as meant to coordinate violence (against law enforcement, against minority groups, against specific people, or whatever). This is not a strawman. It's really easy to write such an app. There is no reason to think that people who know how to write apps are all refraining from writing violence-coordination apps. In other contexts, people might be able to agree not to blame toolmakers for downstream uses of their tools, like not blaming radio manufacturers for having their radios be able to receive the broadcast incitements to genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s. So maybe we would eventually similarly be able to agree not to blame Apple for making an OS that could run the "Let's Kill ______" third-party app. But we should understand that on some occasions such an app would probably exist. You know, there are video games whose content is actually pretty gross by almost any given standard. A lot of people have been able to agree that those games can exist, or at least that people other than the developers bear no responsibility for their availability. (3) You could say that Apple should just make good ethical object-level case-by-case decisions about how to use its power, which is probably what they try to do most of the time, but they sometimes fail, or sometimes there isn't a consensus within the company or within a society about what the right call should be. In this case, we're going to be back here again and again talking about the merits of different app bans, when they manage to get wide enough attention. Remember, again, there were already 1700 app bans per year last year, and presumably lots of governments are only just waking up to the possibility of demanding them! (4) Governments are already using offline harms to justify incredibly intrusive control of computing and communications. Some of those offline harms are real, not speculative. For example, there really were lynchings coordinated via WhatsApp groups and via WhatsApp memes in several developing countries. The remedies and "solutions" that many governments have suggested in response to such things are incredibly scary.

ValveFan6969 1y ago

To me, Apple has BEEN far behind. It's been far behind since the removal of the headphone jack. It's been far behind in the lack of USB integration. It's been way, way far behind the standard of technology, yet people are so pseudo-intellectual about it, to cope for the fact that they spent a ridiculous amount of cash on what is basically mainstream Linux. You can't do anything really interesting with it. You can barely game. It's simply for the mind-numbing office work, and nothing else. You're stuck in this room - this office work Eco system - and you don't know how to leave, and it's all Apple's fault you fell for the bait. You just want to open a window (pun intended) and let fresh air in, but there are no windows, and it's all Apple's fault.

rendall 1y ago

> ...and Apple is all but refusing, playing games to prevent powerful and safe iOS browsers and the powerful web applications they facilitate. Web applications that can challenge the App Store. I have been patronized about this for years, but I still maintain that Jobs' opposition to Flash was its conflict with the App Store, and not that it was a security problem as he and his flying monkeys insisted.

GabrielMMMM 1y ago

I don't believe it.