iPad Camera Multitasking • Hacker News Board

Re: iPad Camera Multitasking

#91

Post by bengale » Sat, May 08, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

isatty wrote: post #25

vbsteven wrote: post #10

This is what bothers me most about Apple devices and software. They probably have the "best" devices out there in terms of user experience. I use an iPhone and iPad every day because of it. But they keep very tight control over what software can be installed and run on it in order to safeguard their views on UX and security/privacy. This means for me as a developer that it's hard to write software and tools for my ow…

The tight control over what the software can do is a big part of what makes apple devices have such a good user experience. Even as a power user/SWE/tinkerer I hope that does not change because I want my daily driver devices to be as reliable and zero config as they can be. Sideloading/rooting an idevice as long as it can’t do Apple Pay/bypass find my iPhone is fine of course.

I think my preference would be that hardware manufacturers should give the ability to boot other operating systems. Then if people want to run their own software they can without forcing someone else’s OS to fit them. Then there can be no more arguments about not owning your own device, run what you want on it. Consoles, phones, laptops whatever.

Re: iPad Camera Multitasking

#92

Post by mcot2 » Sat, May 08, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

vbsteven wrote: post #10

This is what bothers me most about Apple devices and software. They probably have the "best" devices out there in terms of user experience. I use an iPhone and iPad every day because of it. But they keep very tight control over what software can be installed and run on it in order to safeguard their views on UX and security/privacy. This means for me as a developer that it's hard to write software and tools for my ow…

We have over a decade of data and experiences with this Sandboxed approach. The fact that you still use an iPhone/iPad over Android means you are tacitly agreeing with the approach.

Re: iPad Camera Multitasking

#93

Post by bydo » Sat, May 08, 2021, 2:53 PM UTC

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #87

bydo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an iOS dev, so correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these specifically App Store entitlements? So if you try to submit an app using an API covered by one without having been granted permission to it, that request will fail, but if you're just building and running on your own hardware you can use any private API you feel like?

Not the way it works. On non-jailbroken iOS, entitlements are enforced at the kernel level. If your app is signed with an entitlement that isn’t listed in the provisioning profile (which only Apple can generate with its private key), the system rejects the binary. It’s the same on Mac, but you can disable amfi to get rid of that shit, which used to also be possible on jailbroken iOS.

Huh. Thanks; I stand corrected. The last time I messed with iOS development was years ago, and you could sign and deploy whatever you wanted locally. I forget if it required a developer account then, but definitely not a paid one.

Re: iPad Camera Multitasking

#94

Post by mcot2 » Sat, May 08, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

isatty wrote: post #25

vbsteven wrote: post #10

This is what bothers me most about Apple devices and software. They probably have the "best" devices out there in terms of user experience. I use an iPhone and iPad every day because of it. But they keep very tight control over what software can be installed and run on it in order to safeguard their views on UX and security/privacy. This means for me as a developer that it's hard to write software and tools for my ow…

The tight control over what the software can do is a big part of what makes apple devices have such a good user experience. Even as a power user/SWE/tinkerer I hope that does not change because I want my daily driver devices to be as reliable and zero config as they can be. Sideloading/rooting an idevice as long as it can’t do Apple Pay/bypass find my iPhone is fine of course.

I disagree but will likely get downvoted on HN as this communtiy does not really reflect the huge set of customers Apple is building these devices for. The Mac is for us. iDevices still for the most part target a broad swath of users (despite the pro moniker) and have to be easy to use and as secure as possible.

Offically suporting sideloading will lead to what we have on the Mac, an official app store that is barely used and compromises the security model and user experience for many major apps. If you give an official channel to bypass Apple policies people will use it for everything. A major part of the security model for example is a third-party (Apple) being able to nuke abusive apps. Also enforcing compliance with certain UI guidelines as the devices evolve keeps things very easy to use. Its possible to have some of the things for sideloaded apps but more difficult to control.

Re: iPad Camera Multitasking

#95

Post by mcot2 » Sat, May 08, 2021, 3:03 PM UTC

bengale wrote: post #91

isatty wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tight control over what the software can do is a big part of what makes apple devices have such a good user experience. Even as a power user/SWE/tinkerer I hope that does not change because I want my daily driver devices to be as reliable and zero config as they can be. Sideloading/rooting an idevice as long as it can’t do Apple Pay/bypass find my iPhone is fine of course.

I think my preference would be that hardware manufacturers should give the ability to boot other operating systems. Then if people want to run their own software they can without forcing someone else’s OS to fit them. Then there can be no more arguments about not owning your own device, run what you want on it. Consoles, phones, laptops whatever.

We are just used to this for “computers” because of how the industry evolved but it really is the exception and not the norm if you think about it. Even for early cell phones and pdas most ran their own OS and didn’t seperate the hardware and software layers.

Re: iPad Camera Multitasking

#96

Post by asiachick » Sat, May 08, 2021, 3:11 PM UTC

mcot2 wrote: post #92

vbsteven wrote: post #10

This is what bothers me most about Apple devices and software. They probably have the "best" devices out there in terms of user experience. I use an iPhone and iPad every day because of it. But they keep very tight control over what software can be installed and run on it in order to safeguard their views on UX and security/privacy. This means for me as a developer that it's hard to write software and tools for my ow…

We have over a decade of data and experiences with this Sandboxed approach. The fact that you still use an iPhone/iPad over Android means you are tacitly agreeing with the approach.

No it doesn't. Example: Someone votes democrat because they want to support public schools doesn't mean they support every democrat policy.

Similarly, I can choose iPhone over Android for many reason, that doesn't mean I suddenly agree with every feature/limit of iOS

Re: iPad Camera Multitasking

#97

Post by asiachick » Sat, May 08, 2021, 3:13 PM UTC

mcot2 wrote: post #94

isatty wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tight control over what the software can do is a big part of what makes apple devices have such a good user experience. Even as a power user/SWE/tinkerer I hope that does not change because I want my daily driver devices to be as reliable and zero config as they can be. Sideloading/rooting an idevice as long as it can’t do Apple Pay/bypass find my iPhone is fine of course.

I disagree but will likely get downvoted on HN as this communtiy does not really reflect the huge set of customers Apple is building these devices for. The Mac is for us. iDevices still for the most part target a broad swath of users (despite the pro moniker) and have to be easy to use and as secure as possible. Offically suporting sideloading will lead to what we have on the Mac, an official app store that is barely…

Android allows side loading and there are at least 10 3rd party app stores. And yet the Google Play store is the main player. So there's zero evidence that allowing side loading would turn the iOS App Store (top store) into the Mac App store (barely used)

Re: iPad Camera Multitasking

#98

Post by BoorishBears » Sat, May 08, 2021, 3:15 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #56

tpush wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That that didn't generate more of a hubbub back then and seemingly didn't stay in people's memories for long is a real mystery to me (and a great boon to Apple!).

Well you can see people in HN are very keen to defend Apple as being the world's most privacy friendly tech company, despite no evidence in that direction :)

> despite no evidence in that direction :)

Is this a joke?

Anyways, the entitlement Uber had was one thing, it'd be another if they had passed approval while using the entitlement. Afaik it was used for an Apple Watch demo. No one ever found evidence of its use in the main app.

It wasn't an entitlement for recording a screen, it was an entitlement for low level graphics access that could then be abused to do so.

Had they actually used the entitlement to record screens it'd be one thing, and I take exception with unfair treatment of devs like this, but please. Actually implying Apple has taken 100x the steps of their nearest competitor to maintain privacy on the most used computing devices...

Re: iPad Camera Multitasking

#99

Post by machello13 » Sat, May 08, 2021, 3:36 PM UTC

0x0 wrote: post #57

Another weird example is how Apple's own "Clips" app has a special private entitlement that bypasses the permission prompt for camera access. Would it hurt them so much to prompt for camera access the first time the app is started after installing it from the app store? I found that extremely worrying as it means I can no longer trust the app store to provide a safe sandboxed environment. Suddenly there's an app with…

I guarantee you the product manager for Clips probably just made a lot of noise about trying to reduce onboarding friction as much as possible, and their manager talked to someone else's manager and got that entitlement. I agree it's bad optics, but on the other hand I'm not sure there's a practical difference between the Camera app having this entitlement, and Clips having this entitlement. Both are made and distributed by Apple, regardless of the method of installation.

Re: iPad Camera Multitasking

#100

Post by pydry » Sat, May 08, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

josephg wrote: post #61

andrepd wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you can see people in HN are very keen to defend Apple as being the world's most privacy friendly tech company, despite no evidence in that direction :)

Their record isn't perfect, but there's plenty of evidence Apple cares about privacy. For example, Apple added E2E encryption of iMessages long before signal and whatsapp made E2E popular. They also E2E encrypt the location of AirTags - which they absolutely did not need to do. Or the recent opt-in iOS data sharing rules - much to Facebook's frustration. But companies, like governments, countries and people are not w…

>Google makes some of their most valuable IP - Android and Chrome - (mostly) opensource and open platforms.

This was out of market necessity. They likely wouldn't have open sourced either if they thought they could have dominated the market without it.

Moreover, with both of these products they're drip feeding more and more functionality into closed source appendages (e.g. google play services). Their end goal is likely to ensure that if they did de-open source the whole lot, it wouldn't be possible to just fork it.