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Apple just lost its lawsuit trying to ban iOS virtual machines

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Re: Apple just lost its lawsuit trying to ban iOS virtual machines

#131

Post by lostlogin »

saagarjha wrote: post #106
musicale wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is not anti-VM. It is anti VM-on-non-Apple-hardware. ;-) Presumably they have determined that lost hardware sales would offset any increased app or service sales from allowing VMs on non-Apple hardware. Though I don't actually know what platform macOS and iOS VMs run on in GitHub Actions and Azure pipelines. Edit: apparently Azure pipelines uses Mac pros. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines…

Apple makes it pretty annoying to run VMs on Apple hardware too. Their license agreement has restrictions in it that are kind of unfortunate.

Why are people so hung up on the licence agreement? VMs run fine all on all sorts of hardware, Mac’s, Nucs, NASs, actual servers etc.

I often see posted that using VMs violates the agreement, has someone been sued or something?

Re: Apple just lost its lawsuit trying to ban iOS virtual machines

#132

Post by lostlogin »

scrollaway wrote: post #123
l8rlump wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want to sell hardware. I'm reminded of this every day when I can't use Apple Reminders and Calendar properly on non-Apple devices. I have an Apple phone but use a non-Apple computer. You used to be able to have a web interface to Reminders, but they changed it and now you can't add tasks in the web interface. No worries then, let's use Caldav. Hmmm, can't add a Caldav server to iCloud anymore. Ahh, we can add a…

This shit is why I use Google products on my iphone: gmail, calendar (with reminders), contacts, etc. (Paid version at that: I pay for google workspace, even for personal use) I'm not locked in to the Apple ecosystem: I can use it on my Linux desktop, or switch to an Android phone at any time.

Is that a solution, or an additional poison?

Re: Apple just lost its lawsuit trying to ban iOS virtual machines

#133

Post by lostlogin »

chrisshroba wrote: post #94
crazygringo wrote: post #51

Can someone remind me why Apple is so anti-VM in seemingly every instance? It just seems so arbitrary and unhelpful, and I have a hard time imagining that the amount of hardware purchased it forces outweigh the benefits from making macOS/iOS better platforms for development and computation. It just seems like such an odd stance to take.

One guess: if macOS could be virtualized, it would be even easier to run things like Messages, FaceTime, and Photos on non-Apple hardware, which reduces some of the lock-in effect that keeps people from leaving the ecosystem (i.e. Green Bubble Effect)

> One guess: if macOS could be virtualized, it would be even easier to run things like Messages, FaceTime, and Photos on non-Apple hardware

I can be and it’s not hard to do. I assume your referring to breaking the licence agreement?

Re: Apple just lost its lawsuit trying to ban iOS virtual machines

#134

Post by sixothree »

Sytten wrote: post #84
musicale wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now I'd like to be able to legally run MacOS on a virtual machine or on AWS or Azure or Google Cloud or something Azure Pipelines supports macOS 11 and 12. GitHub Actions supports macOS 11, 12, and 13 beta.

They cost a shit ton though because they have to run on mac mini AFAIK. It would most likely be way cheaper if there were to run on commodity hardware.

Pretty sure you also pay for them when they are shut down too.

Re: Apple just lost its lawsuit trying to ban iOS virtual machines

#135

Post by lostlogin »

csharpminor wrote: post #107
chrisshroba wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One guess: if macOS could be virtualized, it would be even easier to run things like Messages, FaceTime, and Photos on non-Apple hardware, which reduces some of the lock-in effect that keeps people from leaving the ecosystem (i.e. Green Bubble Effect)

Yes, and would lead to iMessage spam and FaceTime robocalls.

Would it?

Have a crack and you can probably get a macOS VM running on whatever hardware you have in short order.

Re: Apple just lost its lawsuit trying to ban iOS virtual machines

#136

Post by simondotau »

qmarchi wrote: post #41
Robotbeat wrote: post #35

Now I'd like to be able to legally run MacOS on a virtual machine or on AWS or Azure or Google Cloud or something. I know you can rent a bare metal Apple Mini or something, but Apple's terms of service make this all basically illegal to use like any other VM. That means if I want to develop an app for iOS (beyond just what you can do in Swift Playgrounds), I can't just boot up a VM or AWS instance, I have to either b…

Not illegal, but a breach of contract.

In what way is it a breach of contract? It is using someone else's intellectual property without a license. Morally it is no different to using a cracked version of Photoshop, or playing a cracked version of Grand Theft Auto. Quite simply it's breach of copyright.

To be clear, I'm not here to be a scold or a narc. Copyright is overly abused by large corporations. My ability to shed a tear for breaching the copyright of billion dollar corporations is limited. If you want to run macOS inside KVM on your own personal rig, all power to you. I'll cheer you on from the sidelines.

But if you're using this software as part of regular business operations, I'm not going to sit here and pretend that it's morally justifiable. And it's ridiculous to pretend that anyone should have the legal right to Apple's intellectual property without a license — save, apparently, for security researchers.

Re: Apple just lost its lawsuit trying to ban iOS virtual machines

#137

Post by wombatpm »

EGreg wrote: post #101
garbagecoder wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably from almost going out of business because they didn't control their own platform.

Yeah, Apple remembers very well the "clone wars". Steve Jobs came back and killed that off.

Clones were great until they went upscale with powerful expandable machines that competed with their profitable high end tower macs

Re: Apple just lost its lawsuit trying to ban iOS virtual machines

#138

Post by fsckboy »

crazygringo wrote: post #53
dragonwriter wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everything I find says that to be illegal, something must be against the law. A breach of contract is against, and has remedies provided under, the law of contracts.. > A contract is not law No, but the law of contracts is law.

But this isn't a question of logic, it's a question of definition. And all the discussion I can find online say breaking a contract doesn't fall under the definition of "illegal". Do you have an authoritative source that defines it otherwise?

> all the discussion I can find online say breaking a contract doesn't fall under the definition of "illegal"

I don't think this is the standard. I think the standard is, can you find definitions of illegal under which breaking a contract or a tort don't fall? And in the dictionaries I've looked in, there are many usage senses of the word illegal that do cover things that are not criminal.

Contract law and the law of torts are laws under which the state will enforce judgements. Even though the judgements are civil matters, they are enforced by the legal system. Till I see a definition of legal/illegal that clearly covers only criminal acts, I'm going with breaking contracts to be within the penumbra of that which is illegal.

just a few more points to round out my thinking

I think what we're seeing is that there is a clear distinction between criminal and civil law. And lawyers, wanting to be clear and unambiguous, shy away from blurring that distinction by applying the term illegal to civil matters; but lawyers being hyper-specific and unambiguous doesn't necessarily govern the definitions of words.

And I once took an introductory/survey course in the law (taught by an attorney/law professor), and the first day of the course we talked about the history of the law, and what were the sources of our laws, for example religious law (thou shalt not kill), feudal law, common law, (for the US) federal law, state law, town ordinances, and then contracts were mentioned as binding just like law.

Re: Apple just lost its lawsuit trying to ban iOS virtual machines

#139

Post by xcdzvyn »

hgsgm wrote: post #117
usernew wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"contracts" is civil law. to be illegal it would have to be criminal law. defamation is legal. it's a tort, you can get sued for it and lose. in civil court. there is contract law, but breaking contract law is not illegal. a tort for example, is a tort, not a crime.

Criminal law isn't the only law, so not the only source of illegality.

Breaking civil law is a tort, it is not illegal.

Contracts are civil law. It is not illegal to breach a contract. It is a tort.

Re: Apple just lost its lawsuit trying to ban iOS virtual machines

#140

Post by simondotau »

hackernewds wrote: post #55
TobyTheDog123 wrote: post #18

It's funny how the 30% tax and App Store nonsense automatically makes me want Apple to lose every single court case in perpetuity. Having such a monopoly on a device you purchase really means the legal system needs to take you down a notch.

The saddest event this generation is Epic vs Apple going in favor of Apple. It's tough to imagine Apple weren't a monolopy enforcing monopolistic policies.

Whether or not you believe Apple is a monopoly, whether or not Apple is benefiting from their current status as one of two dominant smartphone ecosystems, it is obviously false to describe Apple's restrictions around app sales and payment methods as being "monopolistic policies". The policies Apple has been criticised for were not gained as a result of monopoly power.

This is obviously true because the policies in question were substantially in place by 2009, long before anyone could have said "monopoly" in Apple's direction without being drowned in laughter.

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