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The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

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Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#72
post #3

I’ve got to be honest while I appreciate the direction they are forced in, I have yet to find anyone outside the tech industry who actually knows or gives a crap. Also the only reason Epic and Spotify are after them is not some altruistic reason but they want to be the guys charging the 30% margin. It’s a bit of a grey victory but I’ll take it.

> I have yet to find anyone outside the tech industry who actually knows or gives a crap.

Lots of school kids who get mocked for being "Green Texters" with crummy images and videos in their group texts. They really want their parents to shell out for an iPhone so it stops. Just because non-tech people don't know the cause, doesn't mean it doesn't affect them.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth is, all businesses do what Craig suggested. AirBnB isn't opening up their platform to Expedia. Meta isn't allowing your Instagram data to be accessed by another platform. Your own company isn't voluntarily making it easier for its customers to leave.

Well, yes. It's a great reason to not let businesses decide on these things, because their petty interpretation will always override a communal solution. Once you reach Apple's scale, you shouldn't expect to start replacing stuff like SMS with a proprietary alternative and get away with it.

I’m torn on this. Where does it stop? Must Apple open up every single part of the phone because of their scale? Should it allow access to the raw data of FaceID? Does it have to provide an alternative to OS notifications? Does every single feature have to be cross platform?

I’d argue that a much more urgent matter is opening up “accounts” so that they can never lock and delete my online data without recourse. This is way more important than iMessage on Android, to which there are plenty of options already.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#74
As a newish user of Apple (Macbook and the IPad mini) it was not as big a leap from Android and Windows as I had feared. I still live in Google services including Gboard on the IPad mini and apart from klutzing around with system settings occasionally the mini feels "not terribly different" from the android devices I use. The Macbook is a bigger challenge though.

I only picked the mini because I couldn't get the same performance with that form factor in Android.

I only entertained the mini because I was forced to use a Macbook for work and realized that apart from annoyances with keyboard shortcuts and system settings I could continue to live in a Firefox + Chrome + Edge + Google services ecosystem.

I will now definitely consider Apple hardware if I don't find a good fit in the Android + Windows world

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes. It's a great reason to not let businesses decide on these things, because their petty interpretation will always override a communal solution. Once you reach Apple's scale, you shouldn't expect to start replacing stuff like SMS with a proprietary alternative and get away with it.

Maybe Apple’s “scale” is because its users do not enjoy being shackled to crappy SMS?

Maybe so; it doesn't really matter when you're looking at damages. It's Apple's job to solve interoperability with their own platform, and not only have they failed to provide SMS-levels of interop, they actively work against it to promote ulterior products. It's exactly the sort of anticompetitive bundling that harms the market without improving competition.

Maybe Ma Bell's success was in-part due to their free long-distance calls. It's kinda moot speculation when you look at their top-down business strategy though.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#76
post #44

I’ve been a recent convert to the iPhone. It gives me a unique perspective since I’ve spent almost my entire life in the Android ecosystem. I first bought an iPhone 5c on a whim, which is well out of support by apple, 5 versions behind the modern iOS. If you turn it on, all the default Apple apps work, in 2024. You can stream Apple Music and download podcasts with no App Store whatsoever. It’s a powerful little devic…

This has nothing to do with the classic Apple vs Android debate. It's about Apple's practices of pushing people to purchase the iPhone even if they might not want to.

SMS still works fine. No one is forced to purchase an iPhone because they want to message someone.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#77
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with the classic Apple vs Android debate. It's about Apple's practices of pushing people to purchase the iPhone even if they might not want to.

Right, and I’m trying to state that those practices are ancillary at best reasons when the end user just sees a functional phone. Joe Consumer doesn’t even notice the garden has walls.

Just wait a bit, you will encounter lots of stuff that doesn’t work, or that has you jump through hoops or buy a subscription, soon enough.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#78

I’ve been a recent convert to the iPhone. It gives me a unique perspective since I’ve spent almost my entire life in the Android ecosystem. I first bought an iPhone 5c on a whim, which is well out of support by apple, 5 versions behind the modern iOS. If you turn it on, all the default Apple apps work, in 2024. You can stream Apple Music and download podcasts with no App Store whatsoever. It’s a powerful little devic…

When my Android phone broke in the past I was lent an iPhone 6s to use in the meantime. It was absolutely slow and many things didn't work. I ended up getting rid of it because having no phone was better than using it.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies shouldn't be expected to individually make suboptimal decisions in order to preserve the health of the market. They should be regulated by a functioning government.

Let's just say that the government decided in the year 2005 that no private company can ship something that will replace SMS as the defacto messaging system because it wants interoperability. We would have never had iMessage, Whatsapp, Messenger, etc. Other countries would have far surpassed us in messaging communication tech. Regulations are a double edged sword.

That's a poor option to regulate from. They could just as easily have required messaging apps to make their protocols open, allowing for competition in the app space messaging over them and not facing lock in.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#80

I’ve been a recent convert to the iPhone. It gives me a unique perspective since I’ve spent almost my entire life in the Android ecosystem. I first bought an iPhone 5c on a whim, which is well out of support by apple, 5 versions behind the modern iOS. If you turn it on, all the default Apple apps work, in 2024. You can stream Apple Music and download podcasts with no App Store whatsoever. It’s a powerful little devic…

Compare this to the Android system, where google has wholesale deprecated their podcasts app. You’ll have to find a 3rd party one if you want to access that functionality.

My Galaxy S1 still plays podcasts just fine....I keep it hooked up to bluetooth speakers just for that.

Google disabled the ability to download new/updated apps that could run on this phone long ago, but the apps already on the phone still work. Indeed, it works better than the iPhone 5c, since I can use any micro usb connector to charge my phone, but the 5c is stuck with a proprietary connector that isn't made or sold anymore.

The point I’m trying to make is that for Joe Consumer, everything on an iPhone just works.

This hasn't been true for years, if it ever was. Siri never worked properly, and most people complain about the horrible accuracy of the fingerprint and face unlock. Text messages sent to/by Apple users frequently disappear into the ether, discovered only when the communicants physically meet up. The cloud software is prone to overwriting files or accidentally deleting them. And don't even get me started about all the people holding their phones the wrong way...

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