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Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

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Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#621

Blizzard and now Apple. I think this is very serious and it should be a wake-up call. As simple citizens we don't have much choices but vote with our wallets and use social networks to attack the most valuable asset of those companies, their reputation.

I've been using Android since the beginning, and I think Google is making it worse and worse with each passing day. I was thinking of switching to Apple. I really like where they're going with this privacy stuff. But, no, not a chance. Fuck Apple forever over this decision. I will never buy an Apple product in my life unless they make this right.

> ...I think Google is making it worse and worse with each passing day. I was thinking of switching to Apple...

As you have noticed, neither one really have consumer and citizen interests at heart.

I'm planning on taking the step of opting out completely. I plan to build my own "phone". I recently purchased a low-cost Mini-PCIe 4G module, antennas, and a USB adapter. I should be able to tether it to a RasPi.

My "phone" won't actually look like a phone; it's going to be more of a "data terminal" - something to hack on, send/receive data, and have SMS texting capabilities. I pretty much never use voice calling anyway.

Everything I plan on doing, others have already done in various forms. You can find Raspberry Pi based homebrew "cell phones". People have also made similar phones using the Arduino and the ESP microcontrollers (8266, 12, 32, etc), among others (there are probably PIC and Propellor based phones, too - heck, I wouldn't be surprised if someone repurposed a modern 8051 or 52, or Z80 core controller for such a device). Some of these phones are purely basic - make and take calls, maybe some stored phone numbers. Other run entire operating systems under-the-hood.

I guess what I am saying here is that if you have electronics hacking skills, consider a homebrew phone an option. It may not be pretty, it may not be svelte, it may not even be 4G (2 and 3G modules are cheaper and more common) - but it will be (mostly - unless you have your own mad skills at FPGA design and more) yours.

Bonus points if you make it run on TempleOS!

If you don't have those skills? Well - it wouldn't be a bad project to work towards. Don't take it on as your "first project" though - instead, build up to it, then when you think you have enough experience to take it on, go thru your idea, break it down into manageable parts, and work on those individually for small successes, and later, start merging them together - just like any large project, success is more a matter of "divide and conquer", as looking at it as a whole can lead to feeling inadequate, or being demoralized at finishing, etc...

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#622
post #524

Ben Thompson of Stratechery talks about this a lot. Apple always says they want to own the most important pieces of their products but then Tim Cook when he was COO made the decision to be completely beholden to China for their manufacturing. I hope that Apple is seriously trying to diversify their supply chain out of China. It can be done at scale - Samsung moved all of their manufacturing out of Chins.

China is a big growing market and the CCP cleverly share a huge piece of the pie with Western companies. Western Democracies are growth addict and China is their dealer. Another "problem" is that despite its corruption and autocracy, the CCP still manages to make life better for the average Chinese. On the street it is not a hopeless hell, so right now giving up some of their freedom looks like a good deal to them. S…

> the CCP still manages to make life better for the average Chinese

Only if you are an average Chinese that toes the party line, and even then you've got to be careful. Otherwise, if you are Christian, Muslim, Falun Gong, Tibetan Buddhist, or any other ideology that threatens the communist monopoly on authority then you are 'disappeared' and your organs end up in some rich Westerner or a research lab.

It is a false comparison to look at whom tyranny benefits. Tyranny always benefits someone, else there wouldn't be a tyrant. The real question is who does the tyranny harm.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#623
post #315

Here we go again... Let me explain how Chinese people think about HK, since none of them ever seem to explain it on a site like this. Imagine you are a middle class American. Maybe you are but if not, just imagine, tech city on the east or west coast. You're pretty invested in being an American, skin in the game, manifest destiny etc. Very good. They call this tianxia by the way, basically Chinese manifest destiny. L…

This is not accurate at all.

If you want to make an American analogy, it's more like if Puerto Rico wanted independence from the US. Because the US kept violating it's citizens human rights.

That said Hong Kong is a fairly unique situation that doesn't accurately compare to any others in recent history.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#624
post #613

This is why Apple will always be a second-class citizen to Android. If I have a good reason, I can toggle a setting and install APKs built by anyone. If I have a good reason, I can wipe my phone and unlock the bootloader to literally replace and de-Google the entire OS. When I buy a phone, it's a hardware product I'm buying. Just like when you buy a PC/laptop, what you run on it is your business, not the manufacturer…

Why? You want to meddle in politics of foreign countries?

Not as much "meddle in politics of foreign countries" as "help fellow humans avoid disasters".

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#625
post #613

This is why Apple will always be a second-class citizen to Android. If I have a good reason, I can toggle a setting and install APKs built by anyone. If I have a good reason, I can wipe my phone and unlock the bootloader to literally replace and de-Google the entire OS. When I buy a phone, it's a hardware product I'm buying. Just like when you buy a PC/laptop, what you run on it is your business, not the manufacturer…

Why? You want to meddle in politics of foreign countries?

Because I know my phone won't betray me if I end up getting into a situation like these protesters. I own it, it'll run the code I want, full stop.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#626
post #613

This is why Apple will always be a second-class citizen to Android. If I have a good reason, I can toggle a setting and install APKs built by anyone. If I have a good reason, I can wipe my phone and unlock the bootloader to literally replace and de-Google the entire OS. When I buy a phone, it's a hardware product I'm buying. Just like when you buy a PC/laptop, what you run on it is your business, not the manufacturer…

Why? You want to meddle in politics of foreign countries?

1 country, 2 systems.

But one is not keeping it's promise obviously.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “just don’t spend money there” is a bit reductionist and trivializes the problem of corporations with more power than nation-states. You're totally mistaken if you believe that boycotts and the like aren't taken seriously by big companies, especially companies like Apple where the brand is more important than the product. Of course, it all depends on the size of the boycott, but it doesn't have to cost them million…

They are seeking new revenue in the Chinese market. To them they see a minuscule boycott in the US as the cost of gaining that market- net positive.

China, through its own behavior in situations like these, makes its own market less attractive for companies and investors, though. You'd have to be crazy to see what is going on right now, and go all-in in with the market in China. The arbitrary power of the CPC over market access is a huge liability.

Big companies may still want to do business in China, but they need stronger footholds in other markets to offset the risk.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#628
post #324

And in one fell swoop, Apple has made it effectively impossible to install this app on your phone. There's no realistic workaround. † Apple should never have been capable of making such a drastic decision for all of their customers. It's one thing to make determinations about what products are allowed in your store, but quite another to unilaterally ban software from what is many people's primary computer. We live in…

>And in one fell swoop, Apple has made it effectively impossible to install this app on your phone. There's no realistic workaround. Make the app a Web App and visit it in Safari. Apple has banned it being notarized and distributed from their App Store but iPhones still have access to the conventional web which Apple has no control over.

Web pages are trivially censorable directly by the Chinese government though. I don't see how that's responsive solution to the problem here.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#629
post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

edit: I removed this comment. I travel in China. (HN doesnt' apparently allow me to "delete" it, so I apologize for the edit.)

The reason is because for the vast majority of Chinese, they are as likely to end up in a re-education camp as an American is to end up at a Chicago black site prison.

...and the only reason why that's true is because (1) the "vast majority" are not Uyghurs and (2) (rightfully) fear their tyrannical government and take care to not offend it. If you changed the criterion to "likely to end up in [bad place] if they said stuff their government didn't like", the likelihood for Chinese citizens would be multiple orders of magnitude higher than for Americans.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#630

If their customers want it, it should not be removed.

Beyond that there's a fundamental issue that app store monopolies should be illegal. All marketplaces need competition.

Apple doesn't have the right to choose what I get to install on my phone.

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