Most of the participants in this “Hacker” News thread are definitely not hackers ;)
You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It
161–170 of 235 posts
Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It
#162If only there were phones made by other manufacturers where the experience, which you know in advance, is different from the iPhone experience which you also know in advance! Then this wouldn’t be a monopoly!
As if having just two options were meaningful. Also, the phrase "dominant market position" or "oligopoly" is a mouthful so people just (incorrectly) say "monopoly" for short.
Though since even "literally" nowadays often means "figuratively" instead, you might as well say this is what the word means now.
Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Also, security requires constant updates and updates cost money, so it's not realistic to use a device for a decade, because you won't have security updates from any company at that point. Apple has better updates over time, which is reflected in it's higher resale values. I'm absolutely still using PCs from over a decade ago and I'm still getting security updates.
You're getting updates for PCs over 10 years old because thanks to the way IBM PC clones work, the OS kernel can be independently updated from the drivers of the peripherals, not tied to them as it is in the ARM ecosystem with obscure FW blobs that are tied to the interfaces of a particular Android/Linux version. On Widows at least, drivers from the Windows Vista days still work just fine on Windows 11 as the ABI has…
LineageOs
Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It
#164Common misconception that hardware matters and thus we are not in a duopoly situation with Google and Apple being the only options for software. Doesn't mean Apple aren't -holes with repairs, but in my opinion the above software problem is worse.
It massively limits human creativity and productivity all for protectionism under the guise of safety
They don't care about safety they care about lock in to their ecosystem. I'm not into ANY of these ecosystems. I don't want MSFT installing Edge ever, or OneDrive, or having Phone sync software on my PC that links my contacts to Office/Outlook Online, or have Bing web search forced into my search bar or Google for that matter, ALL to track you and push ads on you from the people they get their money from.
And don't even get me started on cars tracking everything you do. In many cases you don't have a choice. I want a smartphone that doesn't lock me into all these ecosystems. I want a car that lets me turn off all tracking, bluetooth sensors to monitor my tire pressure, etc.
The reality is people are stupid. They couldn't manage using a computer safely so the industry gave them a phone and sold them on safety. The fact that something like 80% of people are getting their news on a phone and not a computer should tell people they are trapped in a bubble that controls what they see, know and think. What good is having a choice if you don't know you have a choice? They simply want consumers.
Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is an unavoidable side effect of Touch ID fully happening inside the module. The logic board has to have full trust of the module, because the module will simply inform the OS that fingerprint X was seen - the OS/logic board have no way to confirm the information
It’s their design choice. Most Windows laptop or Android phone do not have this hardwired coupling approach.
google pixel does, but they did the unimaginable and released the tool where users can actually recalibrate the sensor.
Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
No one ever stole my phone, but I had everything from broken displays to dead batteries, so at least in my case this is not good for me as a owner.
Textbook confounded reasoning: it’s possible no one stole your phone _because_ they’ve been made such undesirable targets for theft.
These "locks" might reduce theft, but not only they still happen, but you can also make money with a stolen phone. You can sell it for parts. An iPhone will annoy you about the replaced display, but the phone still works. You can transfer the old battery's controller to the new one so the phone doesn't know about the change. You can sell the shell of the phone, speakers, cameras, etc.
Maybe now I benefit from these Apple restrictions and annoyances, but I've been using expensive phones since before Apple started doing this and yet my phone was never stolen. I've cracked a few displays and killed a few batteries though.
What seems to help me is having some awareness of my surroundings. I live in a big city and every day I see people standing by the road waiting for a bus. Phones out, noise cancelling headphones, bikes passing right in from of them... I mean, it's not that hard for a snatcher to take their phone.
Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It
#167The reason I think users don't mind Apple's control of their devices is that the reality is that users don't control devices, programmers do. Also, security requires constant updates and updates cost money, so it's not realistic to use a device for a decade, because you won't have security updates from any company at that point. Apple has better updates over time, which is reflected in it's higher resale values. So o…
> > I feel that Apple protects us from bad programmers for the most part Oh poor thing. They protect themselves and software houses from torrent-esque and crack-esque like solutions which can be easily found for everything that runs on Windows, including Office, not to mention the Windows OS itself and everything Android. That's also the reason why Apple dominates the US market whereas Android has the majority of dev…
> They protect themselves and software houses from torrent-esque and crack-esque like solutions which can be easily found for everything that runs on Windows, including Office, not to mention the Windows OS itself and everything Android.
It's extremely easy to find pirated software for macOS, too. Let's not pretend that Windows is Skid Row and macOS is a pristine gated community.
Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
That seems surprising to me, when surely there's no easy way to steal a phone (iPhone or Android) and not have it completely locked and unusable. I would imagine that cars are eminently more desirable a target to steal as they're often left unattended for hours/days at the side of the road and they're typically worth far more than $1k. It's also relatively easy to attack a car waiting at traffic lights, over-power th…
Pickpocketing is quick and easy, sometimes not even a crime, and even though phones are locked, you can sell the Android phone for pieces. That's not the case for the iphone.
> That's not the case for the iphone.
You can definitely re-use or sell iPhone parts. Most of replacement parts shops have access to are not sold directly by Apple.
As mentioned in the article, some parts won't work and others will show warnings. And sometimes you can reprogram chips with small devices easily available from China, which essentially defeats Apple's hardware pairing.
Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It
#169Anecdotal, but back in those "good old days" when you could get a screen replaced in 5 mins like this article said, on the three occasions I did this I ended up with the worst cheap Chinese knock off screens I have ever seen, the last time I ended up spending even more to get a genuine one. Hard to avoid this with small businesses when they need to make the enough of a margin at those cheaper retail prices. I'm sure…
One of the reasons I switched to iPhone was that Google only does their repairs here through third parties. Even though it was with official parts, the repair quality was never great and it often needed to be manually calibrated or go in for another repair to fix the things they broke in the first repair. My experience (YMMV!) with AppleCare has always been stellar.
In my experience AppleCare repairs are stellar because they're never actually repairs. I've never once had them repair a phone/laptop/etc. Every single time they're like here's a new/refurb instance of the same phone(not that I'm complaining!). I'm hoping they're eventually refurbing the old one and reselling it, but I suspect they're often just tossed(ahem "recycled").
Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
How often does phone theft actually happen? I keep hearing this argument but in my ~15 years of owning non-apple phones and laptops, I've never had one stolen, or heard of anyone getting theirs stolen. Have I just been very lucky?
> but in my ~15 years of owning non-apple phones and laptops > I've never had one stolen > Have I just been very lucky? No you’re not lucky. Your items aren’t worth stealing. Rarely does anyone steal android devices, or windows laptops the resale value isn’t there. Which should be obvious to the most casual observer.
Are you suggesting that a thief won't snatch your +$1k Galaxy S23 Ultra because they'll only get $700 instead of $900 for a similarly priced iPhone?
I'm not sure if they're that picky.