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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

#791

Post by Jach »

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…

> We wouldn't find this acceptable with eBooks

You sure about that? I mean yeah, "we" as in at least you and I, but the general public... I still enjoy https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html as prophetic fiction and occasionally remember that around 10 years ago Amazon in reality remotely deleted copies of Orwell's 1984 from kindle devices when Amazon learned that version of the book was put on their kindle store without authorization. (But at least on the issue here Amazon does better, it's not hard to load your own mobis or convert things to mobi format. I suspect the kindle would still be very popular without such ease though.)

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#792

Post by Drdrdrq »

thekyle wrote: post #774
celdon25 wrote: post #763

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it have to be Android? It's another commercial closed-source OS and therefore the business interests controlling it will at some point conflict with a user's definition of freedom. There are FOSS alternatives easily found by searching.

> Why does it have to be Android? It's another commercial closed-source OS What do you mean? Android is FOSS not closed-source.

Android is closed source. AOSP is open source (and pretty useless).

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#793

Post by techntoke »

newnewpdro wrote: post #605
techntoke wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just switch to Android and you can install the APK, and likely unlock your bootloader and install a custom ROM.

Yeah, because you can just install Android on the iPhone you already possess.

No, but a comparable unlocked phone is $300.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#794

Post by duiker101 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #725
duiker101 wrote: post #662

And 2 days ago I got down voted for making the point that Apple is trying to slowly put macOS users in the same cage by nagging developers and pushing them to their crappy store.

In this regard, macOS works almost exactly how I wish the iPhone worked. Apple makes a curated app store available to users which they monitor for security and privacy violations, and they prevent the execution of unsigned code. However, users can allow unsigned apps with a quick Terminal command, and even grant them low-level privileges like kernel access with a somewhat less-quick Terminal command.

For now, yes, but it is clear that Apple is trying to change this, little by little, they make it harder and harder until being outside of the App Store will be so bad that they will eventually kill it. It's not something they can do in one day, but they definitely want to get there.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#795

Post by msla »

redwall_hp wrote: post #701
sergioj97 wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think some of those countries are usually referred to as Central America. From Wikipedia's article on Central America: "Central America consists of seven countries: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama."

Central America isn't a continent. It's a political designation that simply exists for Americans to "other" neighbors. (When not meddling in their politics.) Greenland is also part of NA.

There's no consistent definition of continent; if there were, Europe damn well wouldn't qualify as one.

So, is Asia only a distinct continent so Europeans can other Asians?

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#796

Post by vegan_zaddy »

Removing this app was the only logical solution. Keeping it on the store would have only added fuel to the fire. An app like this would be catastrophic for any community, Hong Kong or not. Keeping it on the App store would have allowed anyone to evade law enforcement and add even more damage that has already been done by the rioters.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#797

Post by Wowfunhappy »

Jach wrote: post #791
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…

> We wouldn't find this acceptable with eBooks You sure about that? I mean yeah, "we" as in at least you and I, but the general public... I still enjoy https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html as prophetic fiction and occasionally remember that around 10 years ago Amazon in reality remotely deleted copies of Orwell's 1984 from kindle devices when Amazon learned that version of the book was put on their ki…

> You sure about that? I mean yeah, "we" as in at least you and I, but the general public...

...no, sadly I'm not sure. The point I wanted to make is that banning certain apps is no better than banning certain books.

I originally wanted to write something like "We wouldn't be okay if certain books were banned on certain brands of bookshelves", precisely for the reason you mention—but I decided the comparison would be too weird.

That said, I don't think it's a coincidence that every e-reader (as far as I'm aware?) allows sideloading, including the Kindle line, which Amazon sells at a loss. The optics of any company "banning books" would just be too poor. I wish the optics on "banning software" were equally poor.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#798

Post by squarefoot »

shadowgovt wrote: post #653
squarefoot wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is why Apple will always be a second-class citizen to Android." Android wouldn't allow an app to be installed on official phones if Google didn't want so, and unofficial ones are built in China anyway plus often already ridden with spyware. The only workaround would be a 100% FOSS phone where the user is king and decides what would run or not. Pine64.org devs, are you listening?

Can Android kick out APKs that are side-loaded? And if they can, what stops a user from swizzling identifiers for the APK and reinstalling it?

The problem with Android is its mostly closed nature, so there are multiple places where malicious software could be placed by design, system apps and to a greater degree device drivers being the first obvious choice. By malicious I mean software that limits or acts against the user choices, not necessarily behaving like a virus.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#799

Post by [deleted] »

mehhh wrote: post #458
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has been (I suspect purposefully!) dragging their feet on progressive web app support. There list of limitations is long, but most critically for this app (I would imagine), they can't send notifications and they can't work offline.

There are a number of interesting use cases for PWAs, but part of Apple's fear is (potentially) many of their clients will migrate to PWA only, reducing App Store revenue severely. Apple also loses all code auditing and screening, meaning they can't ban GPL licensed PWAs like they ban alternative Linphone builds (as they are GPLv2), Signal Private Messenger builds (GPLv3) and only the official developer can build and…

[deleted]

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#800

Post by saagarjha »

mehhh wrote: post #458
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has been (I suspect purposefully!) dragging their feet on progressive web app support. There list of limitations is long, but most critically for this app (I would imagine), they can't send notifications and they can't work offline.

There are a number of interesting use cases for PWAs, but part of Apple's fear is (potentially) many of their clients will migrate to PWA only, reducing App Store revenue severely. Apple also loses all code auditing and screening, meaning they can't ban GPL licensed PWAs like they ban alternative Linphone builds (as they are GPLv2), Signal Private Messenger builds (GPLv3) and only the official developer can build and…

I’ve been looking at the App Store Guidelines recently and I don’t see much in them that seems to block GPL specifically. Maybe it’s OK now?
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