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Spotify CEO renews attack on Apple after Musk's salvo

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

#561

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Any argument in favour of the iPhone being so locked down needs to contend with the fact that Macs are just as reliable, but far more configurable. All I want is the for the iPhone to be as open as a Mac. Let me run binaries signed by legit devs!

My parents use a Mac, it’s still occasionally a hostile environment for them. The iPhone has vastly more users, who are installing many more apps. People put all of their digital lives into these devices. I really don’t want iPhones to be as a open as a Mac!

>People put all of their digital lives into these devices. I really don’t want iPhones to be as a open as a Mac!

Maybe users should be more mindful and more educated on the pros and cons of dumping their entire private lives in the devices they don't control and are instead controlled by publicly listed trillion dollar corporations who's sole purpose is revenue growth and shareholder ROI.

Just a thought.

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

#562

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People used to build websites for IE. Now people build websites for chrome. Firefox is a better browser but people are stuck with chrome cos everything works in chrome. Google controls chromium. Its absolutely history repeating when Google adds is own standards. People whine about iOS Safari but the reality is it works really well and most of the complaints are “it works in chrome but not safari and I don’t want to s…

I can't think of any websites that don't work with Firefox. It was hell back in the IE days because a lot of sites required ActiveX or whatever that nonsense was.

I encountered a lot of them. Especially ones that use recaptcha, a lot of times hidden recaptcha and you just get enigmatic error messages.

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

#563

I want the option to control my devices. I don’t understand the arguments that claim Apple needs to rule the device with an iron fist. What problems does it cause to make the locked down experience the default with the option for me to disable that and take control of the device after I buy it? I want to own my stuff. I want to repair it and I want complete control over it. I think that in 10 years we’ll all have car…

The steam deck has really been a breath of fresh air to me. To have a company release a device in 2022 with a full linux distro with root access telling you that it's yours and that you can do anything you want with it and also releasing all the parts you might need alongside guides and stuff is really amazing.

Of course it's too big to whipe it out like a phone and too small to comfortably replace a laptop but their philosophy is great.

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

#564
post #538

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? Next thing that would happen is that every major "can't miss out" app will walk its users through the process to disable safe management features, all to fulfill the promise of showing cute cat gifs. You know that's how it is.

Android has had this from day one(?) and it has never been an issue.

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

#565

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Apple Music is their biggest competitor and they are very close in terms of userbase size. Apple Music is also (along with Tidal) one of the top places people go when they leave Spotify (for the various good reasons one might leave Spotify). Not much business point in trying to go after Google. The 30% cut IS a big deal but that's not the primary reason. As for why so many companies target Apple's level of control ov…

Tracking and data based companies crying about lost revenue is one of the big reasons I'm fully in the Apple ecosystem.

Good news, Apple is also becoming a tracking and data company.

The only reason Apple went after Google and Facebook with the new privacy feature is so they can swoop in and take some of that money for themselves. Hence why you are seeing them pushing ads left and right across their platforms.

MacOS will soon be as filled with ads as Windows.

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

#566

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Having to jump through so many hoops is why I never bothered to root my phones. It sounds like 90% chance to brick it.

It doesn't matter anyway. Thanks to Google pushing remote attestation, all you can expect from a custom ROM is the actually important apps (like bank) no longer working.

I think you mean hardware attestation. And yes, it is the biggest problem I have. I can do without KNOX, but it is becoming harder to do without these locked down apps (ex: bank), and workarounds are harder to get by, no matter the manufacturer.

And of course forget about anything that isn't iOS or Android. I don't expect banks to support alternative OSes anytime soon.

I probably won't root my next phone, not worth the hassle for a daily driver.

What could be nice is if phones could run VMs, so you have your stock ROM with all your "important" apps, and a VM where you can run anything you want: hacked Android, Linux, maybe even a desktop OS. Modern phone hardware should be more than powerful enough to do that.

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

#567

I wish this guy would take some of his ample spare time and get his engineers working on the support for HomeKit devices that customers have been demanding for years now[1]. [1] https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/iOS-Implement-Na...

It's hard to take Spotify's call for openness seriously when they're just as controlling as Apple is when it comes to how it allows its users to use its product. Most egregiously, they never delivered the promised playback-capable replacement for libspotify, probably because they want to keep their users in their little walled garden where Spotify can subject them to incessant A/B test tweaks to the UI designed to he…

Surely Spotify has reasons related to music licensing that makes them enforce strict control of playback interfaces? I remember the days of libre Spotify clients, but that was during the days of Spotify still being a relatively small service compared to the iTunes' of the world. Spotify won the battle for 2010s music and that made record companies more eager to control the distribution of their IP.

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

#568

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

Then don't install it or only install it if its worth the trade off. The only real reason for 99.9% of apps to want to do that is to prevent Apple from taking a huge portion of the revenue. Decrease the tax and this problem virtually goes away.

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

#569

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…

Exactly the same sentiment for me. I use both devices and I couldn't be more happy with the freedom this allows me. I own everything about the critical devices I work on, Linux. I have a magical device which "just works" in my Apple products. If someone breaks this, I'll be sad.

The "it just works" argument is what keeps me using an iPhone, even though my computers and servers all run Linux.

Years ago, I replaced my trusty Nokia 6310 with an O2 XDA phone. It ran Windows CE, routinely crashed or froze and would be unable to make or receive calls. Since then, I've always wanted a phone that just works. The iPhone is the nearest thing to that for me.

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

#570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your data is (mostly) safe from advertisers because that's not their business. I beg to differ. Apple is becoming an ad company despite privacy claims https://proton.me/blog/apple-ad-company https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33736259

Both your links go to the same Proton article and the heart of it seems to be this: > Apple monitors your every move in the App Store and its News and Stocks apps and then uses that data to sell ads targeting you in those same apps. To meet its growth forecasts, experts expect Apple to start selling ads in its Maps, Podcast, and Books apps, meaning it could replicate this model across more of its services. Much more…

People keep saying Google reads your emails (even when Google explicitly says otherwise), but have no proof, and trust Apple's words as the gospel of truth - how strange. It's almost as if it's fashionable to criticize them.

This is on Gmail's homepage:

"We never use your Gmail content for any ads purposes. Gmail uses industry-leading encryption for all messages you receive and send. We never use your Gmail content to personalize ads."

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