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iOS 15 Humane

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Re: iOS 15 Humane

#101

Post by a_t48 »

superasn wrote: post #89
BluSyn wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using "security" in air quotes diminishes the significant effort Apple and others put into making devices secure, and this does have fundamental trade-offs for the end-user. Some of us actually care a great deal about security, and appreciate the trade-offs and effort put in to making that happen. I sympathize with the tinkerer mindset, but this mindset exposes serious lack of empathy in exposing REAL risk to REAL pe…

Sometimes one in that 0.01% end up creating a world changing operating system like Linux. I shudder to think what the world would have be if Andrew Tanenbaum/Linus/Wall/etc had to wait for a week long review after creating their software and got rejected every time because Apple support told them.. "Are you out of your freaking mind!? You possibly can't think we will let you do anything remotely like that on our hard…

The great news is that we had options then and we still have options now.

Re: iOS 15 Humane

#102

Post by Cthulhu_ »

superasn wrote: post #89
BluSyn wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using "security" in air quotes diminishes the significant effort Apple and others put into making devices secure, and this does have fundamental trade-offs for the end-user. Some of us actually care a great deal about security, and appreciate the trade-offs and effort put in to making that happen. I sympathize with the tinkerer mindset, but this mindset exposes serious lack of empathy in exposing REAL risk to REAL pe…

Sometimes one in that 0.01% end up creating a world changing operating system like Linux. I shudder to think what the world would have be if Andrew Tanenbaum/Linus/Wall/etc had to wait for a week long review after creating their software and got rejected every time because Apple support told them.. "Are you out of your freaking mind!? You possibly can't think we will let you do anything remotely like that on our hard…

Is that 0.01% really deterred by one particular OS and hardware platform being restricted? There's alternatives.

Re: iOS 15 Humane

#103

Post by tshaddox »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #95
BluSyn wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are fundamental engineering trade-offs here. The amount of effort required to secure a device AND make it accessible to "tinkerers" would be an effort worthy of an MIT research lab. It's not trivial, and a huge security risk to satisfy 0.01% of the user base. Especially when such users will likely just buy an open source device anyways. Seems like a huge waste of effort to me.

I'm not overly familiar with the low-level details of iPhones and Android phones, but it's not clear to me why it would be such a big effort to allow one to install whatever OS they like on an iPhone. Maybe display a big, scary "unofficial OS, you're on your own, don't bother us if your iPhone becomes unusable". Maybe have one jump through some hoops, like getting an "approval" code by signing some mile-long EULA on…

I think the point there isn’t a technical challenge, but rather a business challenge. Namely, Apple probably actually cares about how satisfied their customers are. They probably could easily make their iPhones support following instructions from some forum about how to install Fortnite hacks, but some of those hacks are going to cause problems for their customers, either accidentally (bugs) or maliciously (spyware, random ware, etc.). The typical response from a HN thread might be “well if the user installs something that’s their problem,” but Apple probably actually cares about their customers’ satisfaction more than they care about assigning moral culpability.

Re: iOS 15 Humane

#104

Post by quink »

Crazyontap wrote: post #49

Even though this article is sarcastic(?) I can't help but get genuinely angry at these trillion dollar companies thinking they know what is better for us and trying to control and police everything. This is even worse than govt censoring porn and cuss-words back in the day thinking they know what is moral for the society. I was just talking to a friend the other day on how badly Apple and Google are trying their best…

“Actually, I have never even checked 386BSD out; when I started on Linux it wast available (although Bill Jolitz series on it in Dr. Dobbs Journal had started and were interesting), and when 386BSD finally came out, Linux was already in a state where it was so usable that I never really thought about switching. If 386BSD had been available when I started on Linux, Linux would probably never had happened.“

Linus Torvalds, 1993

https://gondwanaland.com/meta/history/interview.html

If Linux hadn’t been created, 386BSD and its derivatives would be correspondingly more popular. Or Hurd would have happened. Or both. Maybe BeOS would be a contender amongst commercial OSes.

If Linux hadn’t been created things wouldn’t be that different in all likelihood.

Re: iOS 15 Humane

#105

Post by prawn »

slver wrote: post #72
trustfundbaby wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a business opportunity ...

Yes, just imagine the billions of people eagerly awaiting a blank smartphone that they can tinker the BIOS settings of.

Reminds me of the "women want pockets in all their clothes" angle. If it were vital, someone would be making buckets of money from that exact solution. That you don't hear about it suggests that fashion-first is king in the sort of clothing you wear out.

Every year there's a new pitch from a modular laptop or a hackable smartphone. Never met anyone who uses one though.

Re: iOS 15 Humane

#106

Post by sneak »

donkeyd wrote: post #59
sneak wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Infinite scroll is a dark pattern in the way it gives you something your addicted brain wants, and therefore you think you might want, but it's actually just a way for them to get more money. Dark patterns are particular UI patterns that are of a certain objective type regardless of whether or not the user is an addict. Infinite scroll is not in the list. Slot machines are addictive and are designed to get people t…

> Infinite scroll is not on the list. I you want a discussion of semantics then... Wikipedia defines dark patterns as: "A dark pattern is a user interface that has been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things". Infinite scroll in many cases obviously fits this category as it tricks people into spending more time in an app. Fast company actually calls it the most prevalent dark pattern in this article: http…

Infinite scroll isn't a trick. It gives the user precisely what they indicated they want: more content.

If it took them to a different view, or made a purchase, or caused some negative side effect that the user then has to engage with to cancel, then it would be subterfuge.

Giving the user more of what they explicitly desired (and provided user input to request in the form of a swipe up) is the opposite of a dark pattern.

A good example of a dark pattern is when cancel/confirm buttons swap places from their usual locations on the sale screen, to trick a user into clicking buy when they meant cancel. When a user gives the gesture for "more content" and they get more content, that's simply an app that works well.

It's not the UI that makes social interaction addictive. Second landlines for teenagers "addicted" to social networking was a thing long before Instagram.

Re: iOS 15 Humane

#107

Post by Cthulhu_ »

cyberjunkie wrote: post #41
rho4 wrote: post #28

Meanwhile, today Microsoft gifted us a brand new "News & interests" area in the taskbar lobbying for our focus and attention. Successfully... I even had to google how to turn it off, and write this comment.

Yes, I like that I've paid for an operating system that tells me all the affairs someone is having right in my system tray.

You paid once, yes, but what about recurring payments?

Tongue-in-cheek LotR reference, but, it was pretty clear that Microsoft changed tactics after releasing Windows 10, turning it into an auto-updating evergreen OS without paid updates. They're earning money elsewhere now - Office365 and Azure are their big cash cows, I believe. But other departments are pressured to make money too.

Re: iOS 15 Humane

#108

Post by RedShift1 »

slver wrote: post #71
Crazyontap wrote: post #49

Even though this article is sarcastic(?) I can't help but get genuinely angry at these trillion dollar companies thinking they know what is better for us and trying to control and police everything. This is even worse than govt censoring porn and cuss-words back in the day thinking they know what is moral for the society. I was just talking to a friend the other day on how badly Apple and Google are trying their best…

How many smartphone users want to use interrupts, tinker with firmware settings, hack the port, and so on? Exactly.

The two things are not mutually exclusive. We can have hardware and software that's open to tinker with but still come ready to use out of the box.

Re: iOS 15 Humane

#109

Post by planb »

Crazyontap wrote: post #49

Even though this article is sarcastic(?) I can't help but get genuinely angry at these trillion dollar companies thinking they know what is better for us and trying to control and police everything. This is even worse than govt censoring porn and cuss-words back in the day thinking they know what is moral for the society. I was just talking to a friend the other day on how badly Apple and Google are trying their best…

And yet you can get a raspberry pi (which is way faster than your 286) for less than the price of a mediocre restaurant meal and learn all this stuff. Or an Arduino microcontroller to go even deeper low level. There are so many ways to tinker with electronics right now - but my main computer and phone are not "games", they are tools that I expect to work in a secure way.

Re: iOS 15 Humane

#110

Post by amelius »

camillomiller wrote: post #68
Crazyontap wrote: post #49

Even though this article is sarcastic(?) I can't help but get genuinely angry at these trillion dollar companies thinking they know what is better for us and trying to control and police everything. This is even worse than govt censoring porn and cuss-words back in the day thinking they know what is moral for the society. I was just talking to a friend the other day on how badly Apple and Google are trying their best…

Another peak self-absorbed Hacker News comment, in which we learn that curiosity only means tinkering with devices, learning how they work to the bits, plus some random Linux thrown in. This comment is ignoring that a device that does all that without you having to worry about how it works is a tool way more powerful than one in which you need to at least know how to build everything from scratch with an enormous lea…

No. It's not just that individuals can't tinker with hardware. It's also startups having this problem. Apple is integrating the entire supply chain. What we need is better "modularization" of the market where everybody has access to important components.

> Another peak self-absorbed Hacker News comment, in which we learn that curiosity only means tinkering with devices, learning how they work to the bits, plus some random Linux thrown in.

Totally unnecessary generalization.

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