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Apple just lost its lawsuit trying to ban iOS virtual machines

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281–290 of 344 posts

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

#281
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alrighty then, kindly send me money amounting to 25% of your annual expenses. I'm told such fees are harmless.

Are you making my app searchable and downloadable on 1B devices? Because hell yeah I’ll take that deal. I paid Apple 30% on about $1M of revenue that would have been less than $10k without them. You think I feel abused?

Serfs felt that life was great under their lord, they were protected from barbarians. They were given access to a whole city, and could sell their grain here! Their lord was mighty generous, giving them access to such an impressive market. And he built it all on his own!

Well, until the lord decided to come down, take their harvest and claim their lands. Also the lord built the house on the blood and tears of actual, working people. At least serfs could rebel and take down the lord were their lives threatened, but Apple can just ban your account and you'd have HN commenters claiming "iT's ThEiR pLaYgRouNd tHeY bUilT iT".

Having a userbase is not work. Apple deserves to be paid for their hardware, for their software. But for having users and giving you the privilege of letting you show them things ? That is, quite frankly, pathetic.

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

#282

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…

GitHub uses macOS VMs as part of some agreement under NDA (that supercedes the terms outlined in the EULA). See previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29419610

TIL wtf? Has there been anything new on this front? Very interesting.

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

#283
post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So more than “a couple of years ago” Cos been almost 10 years since apple ditched Nvidia.

I have no idea when they last used nvidia. I'm just answering the question "Which apple product had Nvidia in it"

I asked cos the person I replied to stated that it was a couple of years ago. I thought maybe there’s some other apple product other than macs that have Nvidia in them. But seems like there isn’t.

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

#284
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they're not, and I just showed you why. Epic is a scummy company that employs dark patterns to extract as much money as possible from easily manipulated consumers and Apple kneecaps those strategies on iOS by having control. If Epic got their way, this is what you would have to deal with on iOS too.

Again, it doesn't matter if Epic is scummy. In the issue they were litigating for, I want them to win, because I want app stores to not be a monopoly on platforms. That's it. I don't care what else Epic does, I'm not going to say "oh if an evil person agrees with me, that means I must change my opinion".

You still don’t get it. There are thousands like Epic. They’ve shown (the FTC’s opinion, not just mine) that they will stoop low to make an extra buck and the only thing stopping them on iOS are Apple’s rules. You wanting app stores to not be monopolies means billions of people will be directly subject to unethical companies like Epic. As a consumer, I say fuck that.

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

#285
post #239
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you read the details of the judgment? Most of the dark patterns Epic used aren't possible on iOS. In fact, the reason they hate Apple's walled garden so much is because they add too much friction to the dark patterns they want to use, notably authentication for subsequent in-app purchases, so I don't know what exploitation profiting you're referring to. Apple protects consumers from shitty companies like Epic ab…

> Apple protects consumers from shitty companies like Epic abusing consumers (in this case, children) and for that I thank them. Last time I checked the App Store was filled to the brink with worthless pay to win and gambling (sorry I meant surprise mechanics) garbage. Doesn't seem very protective of the children to me. And an opt-in authentification system for microtransactions doesn't make it okay either.

It’s not opt-in, it’s the default. What people do with their money is none of your business. The reason Epic got fined was because people whose credit cards were saved and charged didn’t consent to the purchases and Epic refused to refund even when their virtual currency wasn’t used, or they locked out the accounts entirely when the transactions were charged back.

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

#286
post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, it doesn't matter if Epic is scummy. In the issue they were litigating for, I want them to win, because I want app stores to not be a monopoly on platforms. That's it. I don't care what else Epic does, I'm not going to say "oh if an evil person agrees with me, that means I must change my opinion".

You still don’t get it. There are thousands like Epic. They’ve shown (the FTC’s opinion, not just mine) that they will stoop low to make an extra buck and the only thing stopping them on iOS are Apple’s rules. You wanting app stores to not be monopolies means billions of people will be directly subject to unethical companies like Epic. As a consumer, I say fuck that.

How will people be subjected to unethical companies like Epic if you're free to install alternate app stores on the phone you've purchased?

This strikes me like such as "but Big Brother good, he protects us from ourselves!" argument.

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

#287
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That and their price is why I will never have an apple product too

They have a very good price-to-value ratio, especially when you account for their high resale value, so that's not really a good reason to avoid apple. It is simply unbeatable on the laptop market currently, imo.

We get dazzled by "benchmark number higher" and ignore other factors. The lock-in means I'd need to have a gun to my head to use an Apple product. I can't game on it or use Linux. My laptop and desktop are both ~10 years old- how long are Apple computers supported? These factors don't show up in benchmarks but they are just as important.

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

#288
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a very good price-to-value ratio, especially when you account for their high resale value, so that's not really a good reason to avoid apple. It is simply unbeatable on the laptop market currently, imo.

We get dazzled by "benchmark number higher" and ignore other factors. The lock-in means I'd need to have a gun to my head to use an Apple product. I can't game on it or use Linux. My laptop and desktop are both ~10 years old- how long are Apple computers supported? These factors don't show up in benchmarks but they are just as important.

Your laptop and desktop are 10 years old, and that’s it. They are not supported by anyone, they just didn’t die on you yet. Apple actually supports their devices for that long easily, that’s one category they really outshine their competitors in.

Also, the macs are not at all locked down if we are talking about that. OSX is pretty much a general linux with a generally supported graphical environment on top.

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

#289
post #285
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple protects consumers from shitty companies like Epic abusing consumers (in this case, children) and for that I thank them. Last time I checked the App Store was filled to the brink with worthless pay to win and gambling (sorry I meant surprise mechanics) garbage. Doesn't seem very protective of the children to me. And an opt-in authentification system for microtransactions doesn't make it okay either.

It’s not opt-in, it’s the default. What people do with their money is none of your business. The reason Epic got fined was because people whose credit cards were saved and charged didn’t consent to the purchases and Epic refused to refund even when their virtual currency wasn’t used, or they locked out the accounts entirely when the transactions were charged back.

> It’s not opt-in, it’s the default.

I meant Screen Time which lets you disable in-app purchases for children, not authentification which just requires you to enter your password for validation against accidental purchases. That was a mistake from my part.

> What people do with their money is none of your business.

Sure it isn't but what exactly is it that makes the App Store especially protective of users then in comparison to the competition? Play Store also gives the same controls and the same premise of guarding users from malware - which does still slip through, don't get me wrong, but so does it on the App Store - without having to block sideloading. Apple is fine with psychological mechanics designed to get particularly children to dump money into a game over and over as long as the developers paid their cut to them - which as you mentioned is fine in the context of individual responsibility, but it really does not scream "protective" to me. At that point why not give me freedom to install apps from wherever I'd like?

> The reason Epic got fined was because people whose credit cards were saved and charged didn’t consent to the purchases and Epic refused to refund even when their virtual currency wasn’t used, or they locked out the accounts entirely when the transactions were charged back.

Yes and never have I defended that. I am very glad they got zapped for that. I am simply against the idea that any corporation is a trustworthy guardian angel which only has the customers' best interests in mind. Any of the tech giants are more than happy to employ anti-competitive and customer-unfriendly tactics in the name of profit and siding with either one because of favoritism or holding a grudge against the one instead of on a rational case-by-case basis is just silly.

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

#290
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s your alternative? You’re not suggesting any. And yes concretely, the two options if you want cloud are either the usual suspects (ms google apple), or unproven companies.

I've used Fastmail for over 10 years now, but they may not be "proven" enough to be a True Scotsman.

Google has 50x more people working in security than fastmail has total employees.
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