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Apple is top funder of lobby group that says it represents small developers

arstechnica.com

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Re: Apple is top funder of lobby group that says it represents small developers

#71

Post by erklik »

HeavenBanned wrote: post #55
echelon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Apple is 50% of the US smartphone market, and what this means in factual terms is that they're the gateway to computing, communication, banking, and more for these folks. - Apple doesn't allow side loading of apps. You have to go through their store with their rules. - You have to pay Apple 15% of all commerce originated on your idea or platform. - You have to integrate with Apple login and Apple payments, which re…

- On the flip side, Android has _88%_ of the global market share. Arguably (and quite clearly) the bigger gateway. By a country mile. - What average user side loads apps? That would be like asking to sideload apps on your microwave -- it's just impractical and not the commonplace behavior. I understand this is HN, but still. Sideloading apps is a minor complaint for a minority: Google report recently showed 0.06 of u…

> - What average user side loads apps? That would be like asking to sideload apps on your microwave -- it's just impractical and not the commonplace behavior. I understand this is HN, but still. Sideloading apps is a minor complaint for a minority: Google report recently showed 0.06 of users sideload apps, globally. Paltry.

Does it matter? The capability exists. I can and have downloaded F-Droid and can easily download open-source free-from-Google apps without ever interacting with the Play Store. That's impossible on iPhone. If side-loading doesn't matter, then why doesn't Apple just allow it? Why the big hoopla?

> - If you don't like the Apple browser (Safari) you're more than welcome to use Firefox and Chrome if you'd like and make adjustments to make it the default browser.

Except you can't. Apple forces you to use Safari even if you install Firefox, Chrome etc. It's just reskins, not the actual browser. Safari is the new IE. An old, aging, out-of-date browser existing only so Apple can force their users into the prison of the App Store.

> - They should be allowed to expand on their own OS. Claiming they can't because it "competes" with other apps is just not true, frankly. I think of the recent medications app. Does what most other junk medication apps do in the app store but 100X. Now I don't have to pay $19.99 for a "good" app (which frankly, sucks) I can just use the app Apple has.

In other words, the big mega-corp can destroy competition as long as you don't have to pay $20 and can keep feeding the beast. Apple has stolen the concepts, ideas of apps that are well-loved by consumers, pretending that it's just apps that suck is disingenuous. Apple is not some saviour coming in to create better apps. They're stealing from competition and forcing them out of business.

It's a trillion dollar business, they should not be allowed to constantly destroy perfectly fine businesses. It leads to a crappy, non-competitive market.

Re: Apple is top funder of lobby group that says it represents small developers

#72

Post by Retric »

smoldesu wrote: post #67
Retric wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, your statement makes it clear that Apple didn’t install nets at Foxconn’s factory. So the original statement was objectively false as was the implication it was needed when US collages have higher suicide rates. Apple doesn’t have real control over Foxconn any more than Microsoft, Sony, Google, Nintendo, etc who all use them, but people where competing for those jobs.

Right. It's "wrong" in the sense that Apple pays another company to deal with horrifying working conditions in their absence.

That’s not really what’s going on ether, the CCP doesn’t let foreign companies setup and run factories inside of China.

So Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Apple, Nintendo, Nokia, Sony etc all end up using Foxconn to manufacture electronics at scale. Foxconn is actually slightly above average for Chinese manufacturing, but that’s really saying more about working conditions in China than anything positive about Foxconn.

Re: Apple is top funder of lobby group that says it represents small developers

#73

Post by Aunche »

smoldesu wrote: post #57
dkonofalski wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>story about a three-hundred fifty billion dollar international company that employs child labor and once had to install suicide nets on their factory buildings. Neither of those statements are true. Please refrain from making emotional arguments based on misinformation.

You're right. They're currently valued at over a trillion dollars, and the ones responsible for the suicide nets/child labor/political prisoner labor is their suppliers, not Apple. Crisis averted, right? Sources: - https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/apple-sends-tim-cook-t... - https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-knowingly-used-child-l... - https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/10/22428899/apple-suppliers-...

It's convenient that this transitivity of evil always stops exactly when it comes to writing snarky comments on a device that inevitably has as questionable of a supply chain as any Apple device.

As far as the suicide nets go, during their worst year of suicides, Foxconn had a suicide rate of 1.5 per 100,000, which is over 10 times less than the suicide rate of the US or China.

Re: Apple is top funder of lobby group that says it represents small developers

#74

Post by newtritious »

smoldesu wrote: post #67
Retric wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, your statement makes it clear that Apple didn’t install nets at Foxconn’s factory. So the original statement was objectively false as was the implication it was needed when US collages have higher suicide rates. Apple doesn’t have real control over Foxconn any more than Microsoft, Sony, Google, Nintendo, etc who all use them, but people where competing for those jobs.

Right. It's "wrong" in the sense that Apple pays another company to deal with horrifying working conditions in their absence.

The working conditions are not horrifying. That’s the misinformation.

The suicide rate at Foxconn when the suicide nets were installed was lower than the average at US colleges.

Everything about this story is just sensationalism.

Re: Apple is top funder of lobby group that says it represents small developers

#75

Post by dkonofalski »

smoldesu wrote: post #57
dkonofalski wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>story about a three-hundred fifty billion dollar international company that employs child labor and once had to install suicide nets on their factory buildings. Neither of those statements are true. Please refrain from making emotional arguments based on misinformation.

You're right. They're currently valued at over a trillion dollars, and the ones responsible for the suicide nets/child labor/political prisoner labor is their suppliers, not Apple. Crisis averted, right? Sources: - https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/apple-sends-tim-cook-t... - https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-knowingly-used-child-l... - https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/10/22428899/apple-suppliers-...

Apple is the only company that regularly audits their suppliers for exactly the complaints that you're saying are their fault. What would you have them do? And why aren't you this vociferous against Microsoft or Samsung or any other companies that use the exact same suppliers? All your posts come off as being just anti-Apple as opposed to reasoned complaints.

Re: Apple is top funder of lobby group that says it represents small developers

#76

Post by Tijdreiziger »

Bilal_io wrote: post #27
duxup wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there something about Steve that would indicate he wouldn't do this? I don't know of anything in his history that would lead me to believe that, but I'm hardly his biographer or anything.

Jobs wanted to create a system where you could use apps without needing an app store, similar to the idea of everything being a PWA, but that was before the success of Apple's App Store. I doubt he cared about it afterwards.

Well, that’s the charitable interpretation, with the uncharitable interpretation being that he needed an excuse because the App Store wasn’t done in time for the iPhone’s release.

Re: Apple is top funder of lobby group that says it represents small developers

#77

Post by Firmwarrior »

smoldesu wrote: post #67
Retric wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, your statement makes it clear that Apple didn’t install nets at Foxconn’s factory. So the original statement was objectively false as was the implication it was needed when US collages have higher suicide rates. Apple doesn’t have real control over Foxconn any more than Microsoft, Sony, Google, Nintendo, etc who all use them, but people where competing for those jobs.

Right. It's "wrong" in the sense that Apple pays another company to deal with horrifying working conditions in their absence.

This whole Foxconn suicide net thing is really screwed up. I was there in person working for another US tech company, not Apple, but in the same Shenzhen factory compound during the big hubbub. It wasn't nearly as bad as the news reported.

1. Foxconn at its worst was having fewer suicides per-capita among its workers than most populations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides#Analysis (sourced from ABC News and The Economist)

The rest is anecdotal first-hand data from me, so feel free to ignore it:

2. The working conditions were bad, but not THAT bad. It was a shitty factory job where you were under a lot of scrutiny, but probably not as much as working at Amazon today.

3. The pay at those Foxconn jobs was great. People were making multiples of what they could earn back home for way less effort. Foxconn factory workers thought of themselves as hot shit, much like factory technicians used to think of themselves in the USA before all those jobs disappeared. It looked like there was a nice corporate ladder you could work your way up, too, since they'd filter things through multiple layers of increasingly-elite technicians/engineers on their way to me.

The place looked like a lot like a college campus when I was there. Tons of young, happy-looking people working hard and getting paid well for it.

IMO this all stems back to that debunked and retracted NPR report talking about armed guards and a prison-like atmosphere. The worst thing I had to deal with in Shenzhen was there not being enough butter in the cakes at the factory's onsite bakery when I bought my coworkers a couple of big birthday cakes.

Re: Apple is top funder of lobby group that says it represents small developers

#78

Post by dkonofalski »

smoldesu wrote: post #63
atonse wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your best source on the suicide nets is from 11 years ago?

The parent was claiming that the suicide nets are 'misinformation'. Apple themselves admit to suggesting the use of nets to avoid factory suicides at Foxconn plants - that link serves purely to dispel the idea that it's misinformation.

It is misinformation. Apple isn't the company whose employees are doing it and Apple is not ignoring these issues with their supplier. They regularly audit them, they regularly shift away to other suppliers when their audit remediation isn't followed (see their move to TSMC), and Apple also doesn't use child labor.

You're attempting to dispel the misinformation you posted with more misinformation?

Re: Apple is top funder of lobby group that says it represents small developers

#79

Post by Firmwarrior »

nimbius wrote: post #49

fascinating read. from what I've gathered its a story about a three-hundred fifty billion dollar international company that employs child labor and once had to install suicide nets on their factory buildings. the story indicates they've also decided the counterintelligence level data they collect from their walled garden of proprietary-only apps is entirely insufficient to thwart oncemore being pressed to acquiesce t…

I hate to simp for Apple, but comeon man

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides#Analysis

> ABC News[48] and The Economist[49] both conducted comparisons and found that although the number of workplace suicides at Foxconn was large in absolute terms, the suicide rate was actually lower than the overall suicide rate of China[50] or the United States.[51] According to a 2011 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, China had a high suicide rate with approximately 22.23 deaths per 100,000 persons.[52] In 2010, the company's employee count was a reported 930,000 people.[53]

Re: Apple is top funder of lobby group that says it represents small developers

#80

Post by dkonofalski »

waboremo wrote: post #70
atonse wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your best source on the suicide nets is from 11 years ago?

You can read more about it in "Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn, and The Lives of China's Workers" by Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Ngai Pun. Published in 2020.

How does the publication date of the book affect the timeframe where the incidents occurred? The book is still only referencing events from over 11 years ago.
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