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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

#711

Post by helen___keller »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #669
helen___keller wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they saw the futility of taking some hopeless, simplistic, you-don't-even-live-here side, decided this was not the hill they wanted to die on, and pulled the app This is the problem though, that the CCP can strongarm corporations into these decisions. China poses a huge risk to any company that does a lot of business or does production there. Today it's just pulling an App, but what is it tomorrow? In the states th…

There's also the risk that the US President might unilaterally ban American corporations from doing any business with you. Through secondary sanctions, that ban will extend to corporations around the world. The US has arbitrarily cut off entire countries from the world market, including Iran and Venezuela, and it has cut off individual corporations as well, including Huawei and ZTE. Everyone here seems to be up in ar…

No, I don't think there's any risk to Americans or American corporations that the president will unilaterally ban American corporations from doing business with me, an American

There is a very real risk to me, an American, that the products or services sold to me by an American corporation will be degraded or changed at the request of the CCP in exchange for that corporations continued access to the Chinese market

Does that clear things up?

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#712

Post by dan-robertson »

grawprog wrote: post #677
dan-robertson wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you can of course side load apps more easily on Android, but it isn’t super easy. I guess that matters less when people are motivated. But... if this statement were true in spirit as well then why don’t we see google seizing this PR opportunity and making statements about the superiority of their App Store’s more liberal model? Why do we instead see Google quietly removing HK-protest related apps too? I guess the…

>but it isn’t super easy It's pretty easy, in fact when I got a new phone and tried to install the f-droid apk, android took me directly to the setting to toggle side loading apps. The permissions seemed even a little more fine grained than before with a seperate one to allow f-droid to install apps also, but still only one tap away once I actually tried to do it.

I don’t disagree that you found it easy. I’ve done this in the past and found it easy too. But the things that you or I may find easy are not necessarily easy to the large fraction of the population who are not particularly good with technology.

I’m not sure how I found F-droid. I think it was from knowing I wanted free software, finding myself overwhelmed with crap in the regular App Store and some combination of luck/determination.

In the case of the protests in Hong Kong I think there is sufficient motivation to go through these potentially tricky/scary steps and there would, if necessary, surely be resources on how to do it.

But that’s also a situation where following instructions from some crowd to download some apps from some non-google source is risky. It seems that if people were doing this then it wouldn’t be long until there was a reasonable chance of being tricked into downloading CCP-sponsored malware

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#713

Post by bduerst »

simonh wrote: post #156
m0xte wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point when the world is legislating our privacy away? It's a pointless self-defeating marketing ploy then and nothing more.

Do you think it is ethical for a company to require it's employees to break the law?

Apple used to think so when privacy was on the line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_San_Bernardino_attack#Pho...

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#714

Post by shadowgovt »

s_dev wrote: post #324
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #297

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.

Converting an iOS app to "a web app" isn't exactly a trivial undertaking. Remember you're likely saying "Reimplement the app atop an entirely different family of libraries and APIs."

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#715

Post by amatecha »

parliament32 wrote: post #597

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…

That's funny: "Apple will always be a second-class citizen to Android"

You don't hear about 14 million iPhones being infected by malware[0], do you? Or malware stealing users' bank credentials[1]? Heck, there are people whose brand new phone comes pre-loaded with malware[2]. Oh, this one was just posted five hours ago -- applications on the Google Play store load with trojans and spyware[3].

I can keep going, but the point is: if any platform is "second-class", it's Android by far. I'll pick the one that doesn't have apps on its official App Store rooting my phone and installing spyware.

[0] https://www.zdnet.com/article/copycat-android-malware-infect...

[1] https://android.gadgethacks.com/news/new-android-malware-is-...

[2] https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/206574/how-to-re...

[3] https://www.zdnet.com/article/gaming-photo-apps-in-google-pl...

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#716

Post by dan-robertson »

Faark wrote: post #684
dan-robertson wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you can of course side load apps more easily on Android, but it isn’t super easy. I guess that matters less when people are motivated. But... if this statement were true in spirit as well then why don’t we see google seizing this PR opportunity and making statements about the superiority of their App Store’s more liberal model? Why do we instead see Google quietly removing HK-protest related apps too? I guess the…

> mostly circumstantial that Google cannot so thoroughly lock down their systems You can say the same about any end to end encrypted service. Setting yourself up to not be able to bow to unreasonable request is the best defense and can be quite the extra effort. And I'm thankful for companies doing so. Thing I don't understand why Apple made that decision. In their position I'd would have fought very hard to get gov…

Yeah I agree that it’s a bit nuanced but I’m not convinced that the reason for it was a moral stance about user liberty. I think it was more straightforward: this was how non-Apple phones worked and it was how computers worked, so it possibly didn’t require much effort to think to lock down the OS. Of course I think many people at google at the time would have been in favour of that decision. I wonder if google would make the same decision today, and I wonder who would argue for which sides about it.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#717

Post by sneak »

helpPeople wrote: post #305
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #297

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…

To be fair, Apple users consider it a benefit to not have control over their phones. I know right? It's crazy people pay more money for less. I'm not sure how to teach Apple users, they seem to find an excuse for every anti-consumer thing they do.

For the vast majority of people, protecting them from their own lack of willingness to educate themselves about data security and malware (a nontrivial time investment, let me tell you, having done it myself), is a feature, not a bug.

It's not that they're paying more for less; it's that they're paying more for a curated less. For the vast majority of Apple's customers, this works out great (provided they aren't ever going to engage in an antigovernment protest).

Please don't get it twisted. What Apple does has value to many people; it's not as black-and-white as you seem to make it out to be.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#718

Post by helpPeople »

afarrell wrote: post #430
helpPeople wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't buy stuff from them. Easy. So easy.

The name for why this is not easy is “coordination problem”.

I don't see how that is relevant.

If I don't use Apple products, I can't get my apps removed by the Chinese government.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#719

Post by dan-robertson »

parliament32 wrote: post #676
dan-robertson wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you can of course side load apps more easily on Android, but it isn’t super easy. I guess that matters less when people are motivated. But... if this statement were true in spirit as well then why don’t we see google seizing this PR opportunity and making statements about the superiority of their App Store’s more liberal model? Why do we instead see Google quietly removing HK-protest related apps too? I guess the…

>it isn’t super easy In settings, enable "allow installation of apps from unknown sources". Then download the .apk file from your web browser / dropbox / whatever, and tap to install. It's literally a single-setting toggle to let you install any apk from anywhere. >Google quietly removing HK-protest related apps Like what? The app that Apple removed is alive and well in the Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/a…

Example here: https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/10/10/revolution-times-hong-...

Though I concede that this app is more objectively pro-protestor (rather than general public safety) and the statements from google feel more like generic policy than obvious bowing to pressure.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#720

Post by bduerst »

paulcarroty wrote: post #375
joelx wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boycott Apple for sucking up to China. Google products are at least a year ahead now anyways and Google actually left China altogether at one point.

Yep, but they aren't saints: Project Dragonfly.

Which was only a project proposal that was cancelled after employees rebelled against it. Apple actually did it.
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