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Falling Out of Love with Apple, Part 3: Content and Censorship

hardware.substack.com

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Re: Falling Out of Love with Apple, Part 3: Content and Censorship

#171

Post by sudosysgen »

acdha wrote: post #146
Nextgrid wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've had unlocked desktop PCs for decades and the only "bricking" you can imagine is BIOS updates going wrong, and even that is nowadays going away with things like fallback BIOSes. It's perfectly possible to allow arbitrary third-party software without exposing the device to a risk of bricking.

It’s possible to compromise a device at the firmware level - as evidenced by the recent UEFI attacks in the wild - but the better comparison would be ransomeware. That’s shut down businesses, school systems, hospitals, etc. and is completely prevented by the iOS security model. Whether or not I like the impact on flexibility, there are inarguable benefits to the users from having devices which cannot be resold, perma…

Whether or not the uefi allows you to boot custom code has no impact on whether or not permanently compromising the uefi is possible.

Re: Falling Out of Love with Apple, Part 3: Content and Censorship

#172

Post by soylentcola »

acdha wrote: post #158
encom wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple doesn't care about racism. Why else would they allow a song called "Fuck White People" on iTunes? https://music.apple.com/us/search?term=fuck%20white%20people

Did you listen to the song? I mean, I’m a white guy and it’s hard to read the lyrics and not say they’re coming from a place of legitimate grievance: https://genius.com/Ajj-fuck-white-people-lyrics This hits the key point: there’s no history of oppression adding weight to that. Someone can not like white people but that’s not linked to a history of violence, financial discrimination, etc. which is living memory for a…

Not to mention how (for better or worse) they don't apply the same content restrictions to music, movies, and other media as they do to software. A movie can include a sex scene or a song can include someone using explicit language to express how they feel about something. They will still often sell them. Not sure how I feel about it, but it seems to have been their policy for a while now.

Re: Falling Out of Love with Apple, Part 3: Content and Censorship

#173

Post by zherbert »

Wow, honored our post is so upvoted and discussed! In case anyone wants to read the prior posts in our series, links below!

Part 1: Software and Services https://hardware.substack.com/p/falling-out-of-love-with-app...

Part 1.5: macOS Privacy Scandal and App Store Policy https://hardware.substack.com/p/falling-out-of-love-with-app...

Part 2: Hardware and Accessories https://hardware.substack.com/p/falling-out-of-love-with-app...

Re: Falling Out of Love with Apple, Part 3: Content and Censorship

#174

Post by rglullis »

AlexandrB wrote: post #166
rglullis wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false dichotomy that both pro-government and pro-corporate people fall into. Whether Apple or "Our Government", we shouldn't be giving this much power to institutions. > But even so, what are we supposed to do? Vote with your wallet. Stop consuming whatever it is that comes with attached strings. Stop putting convenience above principles. Refuse to pay/subscribe/accept any terms that are clearly not in your…

> Vote with your wallet. Stop consuming whatever it is that comes with attached strings. This is... impossible. Ignoring the amount of time I would sink into researching every eventuality for a given service (how do you find out what the unsubscribe flow is for a site before you subscribe to it?). Some "services" have their hooks in just about everything. Good luck avoiding the likes of Google Analytics or ReCaptcha…

This is quite a strawman.

It might be "impossible" to do everything at once, but there is nothing stopping you from taking steps in that direction, and the more people taking those steps with you the stronger the market forces will force the companies to provide the things that you do want.

Not signing up to the NYT is a choice. Not buying from Apple and all their locked down systems is a choice. Not signing up for any subscription service that has DRM is a choice. Having an ad-blocker to fight surveillance capitalism is a choice. Adopting and promoting alternatives to every "free" offering from Google is a choice, even if they are of inferior quality. Putting your money where your mouth is and supporting the development of better alternatives for whatever comes from FAANG is also a choice. If you are doing all of that, then maybe you will be entitled to complain. But I am sure you have a lot of veggies to eat before that.

Re: Falling Out of Love with Apple, Part 3: Content and Censorship

#175

Post by wayneftw »

ubermonkey wrote: post #151

Honestly, the arguments in this series of posts are not strong. I laughed out loud when I got to his complaints about Apple's headphone chips and the ease of pairing they allow -- and how it's somehow unfair that Apple, having developed this competitive advantage, is refusing to share it with other companies. What IS it about Apple that makes a certain class of tech geek feel like they have to dislike them in such a…

> What IS it about Apple...?

I guess you haven't been around for the past 20-30 years? They're part of a culture war that they helped create surrounding Mac vs PC, iOS vs Android.

Steve Jobs even created these types of wars in-house. (e.g. the new Mac team vs everybody else - see The Pirates of Silicon Valley) Business is war.

People choose sides and they must defend their choice out of pride. It's like Ford vs Chevy.

Beyond that - Apple is very much against putting general computing freedom in the hands of users especially in iOS but also definitely in macOS. Lots of people hate a tyrant and don't want to work with them and will try to convince people who don't care about that to join them. And of course there are people who disagree.

So that's basically where you get all the anti/pro Apple argumentation.

Re: Falling Out of Love with Apple, Part 3: Content and Censorship

#176

Post by bitexploder »

fierarul wrote: post #101

I'd estimate that the more one rationalises this the less likely to actually switch away from Apple. It's actually quite simple: let things run their course. When the iPhone becomes too lousy, don't buy another iPhone. When the Apple Watch gets broken, don't buy another Apple Watch. When the laptop won't work, get something else. Step by step you realise all the Apple gear you have is just broken or old stuff.

I am in that boat after some painful experiences with my 2018 Macbook Pro. Battery bloated and wrecked the keyboard and touchpad. That combined with the OS continued to go be "iOSified" I am out. Back to Linux for me. The phone... that is harder, Android phones just aren't as good as iPhones, and that is okay. The quality of both Macbooks and MacOS have been in decline for some time now and it is quite disappointing. Even simple things that used to just work like migration assistant required me to deal with errors in the process and it was not simple.

Re: Falling Out of Love with Apple, Part 3: Content and Censorship

#177

Post by selectodude »

mrweasel wrote: post #144
jevgeni wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, as a European, I'm not sure what you are talking about. Try cancelling your mobile contract in Germany early. Secondly, I might want to buy/subscribe to things that come from companies outside of EU.

I thought it was an EU regulation, but perhaps not. In Denmark you can't bind customers to a mobile contract for more than six month. You can sell them a phone and have them pay that off for 24 months, but that different, you can pay that off at anytime, for a fee. That's also why you're not getting a new phone from your carrier every two years like most Americans seems to do.

Phone subsidies have completely disappeared in the United States. Phone companies will finance your phone over 24-30 months but you can cancel the contract (and the interest free financing) at any time.

Re: Falling Out of Love with Apple, Part 3: Content and Censorship

#178

Post by Siira »

microtonal wrote: post #69
tshaddox wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, okay, it may be the case that our democracy is so crippled that it can’t protect basic consumer rights. But even so, what are we supposed to do? Quit our jobs, abandon our livelihoods, and take to the streets until our government decides we’re too much trouble and hands over power to a more consumer-friendly replacement government? Or just continue to want to use subscriptions through Apple where possible?

I don't know, perhaps vote for politicians that do have your rights and not corporation's rights at heart? Convince people that protecting their rights and livelihoods is not socialism or unamerican? I know that this is difficult in the US, both because there is so little choice in elections and it is difficult to convince other people to vote differently. But you can be sure that if everyone puts all their eggs in A…

“Voting” for pre-selected candidates in rigged elections without a way to hold the elected accountable to their promises, basically means the citizens have zero means but strikes/violent protests. (This is true in most non-Western “democracies”.)

Re: Falling Out of Love with Apple, Part 3: Content and Censorship

#179

Post by shrimp_emoji »

AlexandrB wrote: post #166
rglullis wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false dichotomy that both pro-government and pro-corporate people fall into. Whether Apple or "Our Government", we shouldn't be giving this much power to institutions. > But even so, what are we supposed to do? Vote with your wallet. Stop consuming whatever it is that comes with attached strings. Stop putting convenience above principles. Refuse to pay/subscribe/accept any terms that are clearly not in your…

> Vote with your wallet. Stop consuming whatever it is that comes with attached strings. This is... impossible. Ignoring the amount of time I would sink into researching every eventuality for a given service (how do you find out what the unsubscribe flow is for a site before you subscribe to it?). Some "services" have their hooks in just about everything. Good luck avoiding the likes of Google Analytics or ReCaptcha…

>Good luck avoiding the likes of Google Analytics or ReCaptcha if you want to use the internet.

I avoid Google Analytics all the time. It's called NoScript. c: It actually has no effect on site functionality, either.

ReCaptcha's a different story though. :c

Re: Falling Out of Love with Apple, Part 3: Content and Censorship

#180

Post by modo_mario »

ubermonkey wrote: post #151

Honestly, the arguments in this series of posts are not strong. I laughed out loud when I got to his complaints about Apple's headphone chips and the ease of pairing they allow -- and how it's somehow unfair that Apple, having developed this competitive advantage, is refusing to share it with other companies. What IS it about Apple that makes a certain class of tech geek feel like they have to dislike them in such a…

>What IS it about Apple that makes a certain class of tech geek feel like they have to dislike them in such a public and performative way?

Well in this case some of the reasons seem to be anticompetitive behaviour.

Tech geeks like to use their general purpose machines where they have a choice to pick their preferred tools and programs rather than feel like they're being pushed to get trapped in a walled garden of everything [company x] that comes to exist by said company exploiting monopsonies and leveraging it's platform control to slowly increase it's clout and push out competitors.

Yes the same can apply to Microsoft or the like in other/similar cases.

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