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Spotify CEO renews attack on Apple after Musk's salvo

reuters.com

541–550 of 903 posts

Re: Spotify CEO renews attack on Apple after Musk's salvo

#541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand where you are coming from, and support you on that. On the other hand, I'm pretty happy with the default state of an iPhone. It just manages itself, and all that hard problems (backups, updates, ease of use, experience homogenity, etc.) are solved. I manage more than enough servers at work, and I don't want to manage another server in my pocket, do nitty-gritty settings, allow selected apps background ac…

Would giving people the ability to opt out of Apple's ultra-managed experience and take more control over their device harm your ability to continue to enjoy those benefits? I heard an argument like this a lot at the start of discussions about whether we should be able to choose to WFH in the longer term. "I don't want to WFH because..." Ok, sure, but nobody is trying to force you to. It might just be me, and I'll de…

> Would giving people the ability to opt out of Apple's ultra-managed experience and take more control over their device harm your ability to continue to enjoy those benefits?

Not OP but yeah, I think it would. Im currently an android user because I thought it wouldn't, but in practice it does.

The most explicit example is that despite owning a flagship phone from a flagship manufacturer, the Google suite of apps don't integrate properly with the hardware. I have a Z flip 3, and I need to use Samsung Pay (over google wallet) with the phone to use it while folded. Because Samsung Pay doesn't integrate with my Google account, I'm forced to use both services in praxtice.

These sorts of niggley incompatibilities are _everywhere_ on android.

The other point is what epic has done is going to spread (side note: I used to work for Epic, this is my take on their move, not speaking on their behalf). If I want to play the Fortnite right now, I am forced to download an extra launcher on my device that interacts differently to the play store and Samsung store, doesn't support the integrations with the rest of my apps. I can only guarantee that as other apps grow we'll end up with storefronts for X, Y and Z (see uplay, battle.net, origin, epic launcher, ms store) so that those apps can either take a bigger cut or skirt around the requirements the platform holder has - on iOS it will make it so that sign in with apple isn't a requirement on third party stores.

The fact is that people who do want to sideload have the option to right now - use android. The people who want to live in a walled garden also have an option. By forcing apple to be more open you remove that option from the people who want it.

As with it OP, I'm not saying everyone should feel this way.

Re: Spotify CEO renews attack on Apple after Musk's salvo

#542
post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is essentially just the typical corporate aversion to taxation. They want to benefit from the infrastructure, but don't want to pay for it. Nothing new here, other than the weird tech bros leaping to defend the behaviour...

Why should Apple be allowed to have a competitor in the same space without paying the 30% Apple tax on top then? That's anti-trust 101.

So should we also stop console makers from having first party games? Stop stores from selling store brands?

Re: Spotify CEO renews attack on Apple after Musk's salvo

#543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand where you are coming from, and support you on that. On the other hand, I'm pretty happy with the default state of an iPhone. It just manages itself, and all that hard problems (backups, updates, ease of use, experience homogenity, etc.) are solved. I manage more than enough servers at work, and I don't want to manage another server in my pocket, do nitty-gritty settings, allow selected apps background ac…

Nothing of this would change if iPhones had a simple 'unlock' setting with an 'at your own risk' disclaimer. People who are happy with the default just keep the phone locked, others can trade Apple's "warm embrace" against the freedom to install any software they want on their own device. Tech companies really should stop treating their users like idiots who can't think for themselves. It's all about the sweet app st…

Sure it would - apps with enough clout will do this: https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/mobile/android

And tell you the only way for experience X is to follow these safe steps to unlock your phone and use their launcher.

Re: Spotify CEO renews attack on Apple after Musk's salvo

#544
post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm dreading the day my 4K "dumb" LCD TV dies. It's now basically impossible to replace.

Eh. Get an Apple TV. HDMI CEC means you never have to interact with the default UI.

I have one! That’s the plan currently. But you can’t avoid it entirely, it’s why TVs are so slow to turn on, they still try to collect data and so on.

Re: Spotify CEO renews attack on Apple after Musk's salvo

#545

Stop buying Apple if you don't like it. Seriously. At the end of the day all of these companies would do the exact same thing as Apple if they were in Apple's position. The real solution to this is improved functionality of web apps and complete migration to those, then you can be free of the duopoly. Other than using phone specific features, why can't all apps run on your desktop, laptop or elsewhere? I'll never get…

Even Spotify’s web app on mobile is severely limited..by themselves. You can’t even view your Library and one of the navigation items is Get App.

https://open.spotify.com/

Re: Spotify CEO renews attack on Apple after Musk's salvo

#546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand where you are coming from, and support you on that. On the other hand, I'm pretty happy with the default state of an iPhone. It just manages itself, and all that hard problems (backups, updates, ease of use, experience homogenity, etc.) are solved. I manage more than enough servers at work, and I don't want to manage another server in my pocket, do nitty-gritty settings, allow selected apps background ac…

Would giving people the ability to opt out of Apple's ultra-managed experience and take more control over their device harm your ability to continue to enjoy those benefits? I heard an argument like this a lot at the start of discussions about whether we should be able to choose to WFH in the longer term. "I don't want to WFH because..." Ok, sure, but nobody is trying to force you to. It might just be me, and I'll de…

> Would giving people the ability to opt out of Apple's ultra-managed experience and take more control over their device harm your ability to continue to enjoy those benefits?

Yes, it would, because will require you to opt-out of Apple's ultra-managed experience to use their app.

Re: Spotify CEO renews attack on Apple after Musk's salvo

#547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pick that one because there's always arguments that Apple is not a monopoly (just switch to Android) therefore other examples of dangers of monopolies don't apply. The studio system was multiple oligopolies and not a monopoly. I think it parallels the current smartphone app market more. The decrees were reversed because they served their purpose and studios no longer have oligopolies, not because there were new fin…

I’m old enough to remember the Microsoft monopoly. 2022 Apple isn’t like that at all. Back in the 90s, telling someone to just buy a Mac, was a joke. No one had macs, besides schools, but even those went away. Apps simply didn’t exist on Mac. Files couldn’t even be transferred between machines because the floppies were formatted differently. To not use a windows PC, was an actual burden. Now let’s compare to 2022 App…

Files were able to be exchanged between Macs and Windows PCs as far back as 1990. The Mac came with an extension to read DOS formatted disk.

Re: Spotify CEO renews attack on Apple after Musk's salvo

#548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would giving people the ability to opt out of Apple's ultra-managed experience and take more control over their device harm your ability to continue to enjoy those benefits? I heard an argument like this a lot at the start of discussions about whether we should be able to choose to WFH in the longer term. "I don't want to WFH because..." Ok, sure, but nobody is trying to force you to. It might just be me, and I'll de…

> Would giving people the ability to opt out of Apple's ultra-managed experience and take more control over their device harm your ability to continue to enjoy those benefits? You can always Jailbreak your device? I think Apples response to your argument would be that it isn't the technically aware user that is trying to get control over their device that is the problem, its apps being used by those with no technical…

> You can always Jailbreak your device?

No, you can’t. Apple has tight control over what gets installed on the iPhone, all the way throughout the boot chain.

Jailbreaking is about finding vulnerabilities to somehow acquire root, and many times exploits are not persistent after a reboot. The keyword here is “vulnerability”, something that Apple is eager to patch using security as an excuse, which is hard to argue against. But Apple could provide its users the ability to flash their devices with a warning that if they do, they’re on their own, but Apple wont do that for the aforementioned reasons by countless people in this thread! They are locking down the platform on purpose, and neither privacy nor security are adequate excuses.

Jailbreaking shouldn’t be a thing, because users shouldn’t be living in jails, they should live in fortresses.

Jailbreaking is incredibly bad UX. You are forced to use closed source software to “jailbreak” your phone, a jailbreak which may or may not be persistent after reboot. And only if you have the right iOS versions. So users are forced to stay on vulnerable iOS versions and not upgrade and pray to God that a new exploit is made for their version. Because if they upgrade, Apple wont let them downgrade again, which makes the users miss the opportunity of using a newly created exploit. It’s a cat and mouse game, and it makes users more vulnerable to malware.

Re: Spotify CEO renews attack on Apple after Musk's salvo

#549
post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would Samsung allow its proprietary 'Knox' to work with other bootloaded OS? They have every right to not support any other OS other than their own.

They aren't "not supporting any other OS", they're causing the hardware to damage itself to prevent that software from working. It's like your laptop's motherboard detected you installed another OS in place of the OEM-provided Windows installation, and overvoltaged your NVidia GPU to burn it out. "We have every right to not support high-performance graphics on any other OS other than our own - if you want to install…

Damaging the hardware is a bit of an overstatement. What people are calling fuses isn't really a fuse in the traditional sense. An eFuse usually is just write once memory. All the limiting features are implemented in software which reads out the state of this memory.

Re: Spotify CEO renews attack on Apple after Musk's salvo

#550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume Apple doesn't also track every website and email you read (especially if you use the default Apple-made apps)? After all, they make the OS, they can track whatever they want.

Nobody's reported seeing that sort of network traffic sent off of iOS devices. It's trivially easy to spot it, and it's well documented, going to Google and others across the web, though.

You will have no idea what is being carried via encrypted channels to Apple's opaque backend servers.
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