Live data from Hacker News

Apple vs. the "Free Market"

pluralistic.net

91–100 of 169 posts

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#91

Apple's product is its users. All of the privacy changes are not to protect the privacy of their users, it's to ensure that there are no ways to access Apple device users without Apple being the middleman.

> All of the privacy changes are not to protect the privacy of their users, it's to ensure that there are no ways to access Apple device users without Apple being the middleman.

The issue anytime this thread comes up are binary statements like the above. There's a lot more nuance here where privacy changes are likely both. When ATT came out it was good for the user, but also poked FB in the eye which I'm sure Apple enjoyed.

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren’t you free to load any OS you like? Not trying to justify anticompetitive behavior from Apple here, but tired to see people saying ‘do you own it?’ when they really mean ‘does the manufacturer help installing third parties apps on its default OS’.

> Aren’t you free to load any OS you like? Not while the bootloader is locked.

The thing is, there aren't many hardware examples which allow installing an arbitrary OS, esp. if one has specific hardware requirements.

I prefer machines with a Wacom EMR stylus, and it's simply not possible to find a device which:

- supports the same Wacom EMR technology as my Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ and Kindle Scribe

- has a high-resolution display

- decent battery life

- tablet form-factor

I currently compromised on a Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 (because I simply couldn't find a direct replacement for my Samsung Galaxy Book 12), but the only OS option there is Windows 11 --- I've been considering a Raspberry Pi 5 and Wacom One 13 2nd Gen w/ Touch or Movink 13, but the display is only 1920x1080 and arranging for a battery is rather hackish...

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#93

> Tumblr still remains heavily moderated and heavily censored. Why? Because Apple kept kicking Tumblr out of the App Store on the basis that it contained sexual material, and without Apple users, Tumblr was dead in the water > Apple claims this is merely a matter of "editorial standards," no different from a bookstore deciding not to shelve pornography. The difference is that in this case, Apple can block you from pa…

"X" is 99% either nazi stuff or porn. Unfiltered hardcore porn.

How come that's still in the appstore then?

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#94
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm like you and my primary device is my laptop. That being said: For the vast majority of people, their phone is their primary computing device.

These people are generally not technically knowledgeable at all. If you opened up the phone so it could run any software, all of them would instantly become infested with malware that would massively invade everyone's privacy and probably steal their credit cards and scam them. I grew up with the open Internet starting in the 1990s. I feel like a lot of people haven't wrapped their heads around just how hostile and r…

This is the thing that a lot of software minded folk don’t get. And I’m one of them

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#95
post #48

If Patreon doesn’t like Apple’s rules, they should just take their app off the App Store. All these companies moaning about Apple yet aren’t doing the one thing they have the power to do which is just leave. If they refuse to leave, then they’re admitting that Apple’s platform is providing value to them and they should pay what Apple wants. I support creators on Patreon, what exactly is wrong with just doing everythi…

Counterpoint, monopolization is not a good thing, and as long as Apple doesn't allow alternative app stores, we can talk about how the value they provide is artificially gatekeeping the devices of over a billion people from running the software they would like. There's not only business in this equation, and historically attacking tech monopolies through legislative power has been more effective than suggestion that…

There are now alternative app stores in europe.

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#96

> Tumblr still remains heavily moderated and heavily censored. Why? Because Apple kept kicking Tumblr out of the App Store on the basis that it contained sexual material, and without Apple users, Tumblr was dead in the water > Apple claims this is merely a matter of "editorial standards," no different from a bookstore deciding not to shelve pornography. The difference is that in this case, Apple can block you from pa…

You do not. This has been established for quite some time. You’re not forced to purchase Apple. If you like Apple, you know you’re getting the ecosystem that comes with it. Honestly the App Store is already garbage with the heavy amount of moderation it has. I can’t imagine what a cesspool it would be without that oversight. Admittedly, I’m a fan of this approach. I like it. If I didn’t, I just wouldn’t buy Apple pro…

This! I’m still suprised people behave like owning an iPhone is some kind of government mandate. Unhappy? Choose differently! Don’t like Apple, buy a pear. It’s like listening to offroaders complaining their Mercedes Maybach gets stuck in the mud.

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#97

> Tumblr still remains heavily moderated and heavily censored. Why? Because Apple kept kicking Tumblr out of the App Store on the basis that it contained sexual material, and without Apple users, Tumblr was dead in the water > Apple claims this is merely a matter of "editorial standards," no different from a bookstore deciding not to shelve pornography. The difference is that in this case, Apple can block you from pa…

You do not. This has been established for quite some time. You’re not forced to purchase Apple. If you like Apple, you know you’re getting the ecosystem that comes with it. Honestly the App Store is already garbage with the heavy amount of moderation it has. I can’t imagine what a cesspool it would be without that oversight. Admittedly, I’m a fan of this approach. I like it. If I didn’t, I just wouldn’t buy Apple pro…

Wouldn’t App Store competition allow someone to build a better, more strictly moderated App Store? I think Apple knows that and it’s part of the reason they forbid competition.

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#99
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS and macOS are not the same product. If you want a real computer you have to get a Mac, which is why I do not own an iPad. IMHO if you can't run anything you want on it it's not a real computer, it's a "console." This is how I think of phones. The iPhone does everything I want a phone to do, but that's not much: web, a few apps, turn by turn directions, texting, e-mail, etc.

I'm like you and my primary device is my laptop. That being said: For the vast majority of people, their phone is their primary computing device.

I’m a programmer by trade who grew up on DOS and early Macintosh computers and ran Gentoo on my main machine for a bunch of years. I’ve done sysadmin work and Internet system architecture and blah blah blah.

The reality of my actual behavior these days is that my primary device is an iPhone. All the stuff I do that actually matters in my personal life (not work) takes place there.

“Real” computers are worse at or totally incapable of doing a lot of what it does for me (I don’t want to use a laptop for turn-by-turn directions or to hail an Uber or whatever, to call out just a couple examples) and its lack of “real” computing capabilities are somewhere between irrelevant-to and beneficial-for what I need it to do and how I need it to operate.

I use Windows and Linux for play but nothing that matters happens there. If every computing device I own except my phone stopped working, I would have no actual need whatsoever to replace them, and nothing bad or even inconvenient would happen. (Exception for my work MacBook, but I don’t own that)

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#100

> Tumblr still remains heavily moderated and heavily censored. Why? Because Apple kept kicking Tumblr out of the App Store on the basis that it contained sexual material, and without Apple users, Tumblr was dead in the water > Apple claims this is merely a matter of "editorial standards," no different from a bookstore deciding not to shelve pornography. The difference is that in this case, Apple can block you from pa…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN