4 ms·

I completely agree with pretty much everything you're saying, but to be fair, the iPhone's parental controls do allow you to lock down the browser.

ivankirigin 17y ago
I expect my kids to eventually outsmart anything I do to hide things from them, long before they are old enough to vote.
- calambrac 17y ago
  Okay. That doesn't change the fact that you can lock down Safari on the iPhone, in direct contradiction of your statement "The browser is far worse. And not restricted." Again, I agree with you in pretty much everything else you're saying. I just think its stupid to pretend like Apple is evil for this particular alleged hypocrisy - "Oh noes, they let kids look at porn without restriction in Safari but ban my dirty word dictionary!" - when their real fuckups are already sufficiently bad.
  - ivankirigin 17y ago
    Apple is doing the filtering in the app store. People do the filtering on the browser. That is an important difference.
    - calambrac 17y ago
      No, it's not, at least not to the point you were originally making, which was that Apple has put in place a system of control for apps but not for their own browser - that's false. Why are you hung up on this? I'm not saying "don't be pissed at Apple", I'm saying "don't be pissed at Apple for imaginary things".
      - ivankirigin 17y ago
        I'm not hung up - I'm right. You do bad shit in your app, and apple doesn't let people get it. You do bad shit available in the browser, and apple leaves it up to you do not get it. It's the exact opposite policy. If there were a parental control for the app store that blocked objectionable content, off by default, this whole issue would go away.
        calambrac 17y ago
        If there were a parental control for the app store that blocked objectionable content, off by default, this whole issue would go away. Um, that's exactly how the parental controls for the app store work. Apple uses the rating system to determine what apps are considered objectionable, the parental controls block access based on those ratings, and access to everything is enabled by default.
        ivankirigin 17y ago
        I thought apps with objectionable content don't get in the app store at all. Is that not the case?
        calambrac 17y ago
        That's not the case anymore, since the introduction of parental controls in iPhone OS 3.0. That should have been more than clear from the article, Schiller and Gruber both emphasize precisely that point.
lutorm 17y ago
But won't locking down the browser mean that you can't access the bus schedule, or their online school books, or whatever other good things there might be on the internet? Sort of a blunt weapon, no? It's like saying that because your eyes may see bad stuff, we will force them to wear eye patches...
- calambrac 17y ago
  I wasn't saying that this is a good feature, or that I'm glad it exists, I'm just pointing out that it's there, and that it seems like a waste of time and energy to pretend that Apple's censoring dirty words while giving parents no way to prevent kids from looking at porn with Safari.

ivankirigin 17y ago

I expect my kids to eventually outsmart anything I do to hide things from them, long before they are old enough to vote.

calambrac 17y ago
Okay. That doesn't change the fact that you can lock down Safari on the iPhone, in direct contradiction of your statement "The browser is far worse. And not restricted." Again, I agree with you in pretty much everything else you're saying. I just think its stupid to pretend like Apple is evil for this particular alleged hypocrisy - "Oh noes, they let kids look at porn without restriction in Safari but ban my dirty word dictionary!" - when their real fuckups are already sufficiently bad.
- ivankirigin 17y ago
  Apple is doing the filtering in the app store. People do the filtering on the browser. That is an important difference.
  - calambrac 17y ago
    No, it's not, at least not to the point you were originally making, which was that Apple has put in place a system of control for apps but not for their own browser - that's false. Why are you hung up on this? I'm not saying "don't be pissed at Apple", I'm saying "don't be pissed at Apple for imaginary things".
    - ivankirigin 17y ago
      I'm not hung up - I'm right. You do bad shit in your app, and apple doesn't let people get it. You do bad shit available in the browser, and apple leaves it up to you do not get it. It's the exact opposite policy. If there were a parental control for the app store that blocked objectionable content, off by default, this whole issue would go away.
      - calambrac 17y ago
        If there were a parental control for the app store that blocked objectionable content, off by default, this whole issue would go away. Um, that's exactly how the parental controls for the app store work. Apple uses the rating system to determine what apps are considered objectionable, the parental controls block access based on those ratings, and access to everything is enabled by default.
        ivankirigin 17y ago
        I thought apps with objectionable content don't get in the app store at all. Is that not the case?
        calambrac 17y ago
        That's not the case anymore, since the introduction of parental controls in iPhone OS 3.0. That should have been more than clear from the article, Schiller and Gruber both emphasize precisely that point.

lutorm 17y ago

But won't locking down the browser mean that you can't access the bus schedule, or their online school books, or whatever other good things there might be on the internet? Sort of a blunt weapon, no? It's like saying that because your eyes may see bad stuff, we will force them to wear eye patches...

calambrac 17y ago
I wasn't saying that this is a good feature, or that I'm glad it exists, I'm just pointing out that it's there, and that it seems like a waste of time and energy to pretend that Apple's censoring dirty words while giving parents no way to prevent kids from looking at porn with Safari.