Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

#131

Post by elagost » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 1:52 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #98

The problem I have with Stallman is that he’s usually right, but he is remarkably horrible at coming across as someone with valid opinions. It is disingenuous to come to the table with clearly cherry-picked evidence, and calling companies and their products with stupid names is just childish. There are a lot of problems with companies, and Stallman is very good at recognizing them, but he’s just pretty bad at getting…

Stallman is very much on one of the far ends of the technological spectrum, with, say, normal people with Android phones and Gmail and a Windows laptop on the other.

I think most people, given enough explanation, would recognize that Stallman and the FSF are 100% correct in their extremism and zealotry - but most aren't able to live without the convenience they've come to know and love.

It's important to have him on his end, so that him and those like him can balance out the other end, and that most people can reasonably fall more towards the middle. Can't have shadows without bright light.

Re: Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

#132

Post by Yetanfou » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 2:02 PM UTC

craigsmansion wrote: post #130

derekp7 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing that gets me, is that if a piece of hardware has firmware that you can't replace then it is OK to use. But if they add the functionality to replace the firmware, then it all of a sudden is not OK to use that hardware. Or, is it the case that if the firmware is pre-loaded, but replaceable, instead of needing to download the firmware to the board every time you boot, then that would still be acceptabl…

It's a point that causes a lot of confusion. As soon as a piece of software is replaceable, the one who provides you with the software can use its distribution to make you promise to ignore the four software freedoms. If a piece of software is not replaceable, that point is moot, since the one who provided you with the software has no sway over you regardless. They have no control over you or the device.

Better rephrase that to indicate that they have no more control over you or the device than the non-replaceable firmware allows, this is definitely not the same as "no control". Non-replaceable firmware can ping home, it can be used to monitor users, it can download arbitrary code and run it, it can listen for some trigger to start messing with your data or downright destroy said data, it can start randomly rebooting systems or non-randomly restart all affected systems at a specific time - which may cause brown- or blackouts depending on the power draw and -supply, etcetera.

Re: Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

#133

Post by auslander » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 2:03 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #98

The problem I have with Stallman is that he’s usually right, but he is remarkably horrible at coming across as someone with valid opinions. It is disingenuous to come to the table with clearly cherry-picked evidence, and calling companies and their products with stupid names is just childish. There are a lot of problems with companies, and Stallman is very good at recognizing them, but he’s just pretty bad at getting…

"usually right" and "with clearly cherry-picked evidence" dont come together

Re: Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

#134

Post by Alterlife » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 2:36 PM UTC

hellofunk wrote: post #29

jpdus wrote: post #24

Wow - regardless of whether one agrees with RMS, alone the fact that this submission has been heavily flagged already (and will thus drop from the frontpage soon) tells you a lot about the power of Apple and their fans here. HN urgently needs to address the flagging problems, this has been the case for many important but controversial topics recently and leads to a degraded quality of frontpage submissions in my view…

I have not flagged this article, partly because I’m curious to see the debate here. But I’m sure those who have flagged it did so because this article is not objective, this is a very extremist position with a lot of cherry picked arguments that are obviously from a personal bias he has against Apple. Many of the points he is specifically isolating for Apple are quite true of most of the big tech firms.

> Many of the points he is specifically isolating for Apple are quite true of most of the big tech firms.

I am an apple fan myself, but this is not true. He isn’t “singling out” apple. Apple is the subject of this article.

Perhaps there should be other posts about other tech companies, perhaps there already are, it doesn’t matter.

The discussion is the ethical behaviour of companies, and This post is specifically about Apple.

Re: Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

#135

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

tokyodude wrote: post #96

jeromegv wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be simplifying things a bit too much. Apple doesn’t keep track of where your device has been. Your iPhone knows but it’s not being sent to Apple. Google has been shown to know this data even when you disable as many location services as you can.

Apple knows which is how they can display every devices location on icloud.com including "last known location" which means the location was previously sent to Apple.

[deleted]

Re: Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

#136

Post by justtopost » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 3:07 PM UTC

lucidguppy wrote: post #74

I tried using linux on the desktop but plugging in monitors to my laptop just failed.

Odd, works just fine for me. What laptop and distro?

Re: Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

#137

Post by Viral_Execution » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 3:15 PM UTC

So google then? Haha well let us not forget Apple denied the FBI a backdoor and to unlock an iPhone. Hmm wonder how that would have turned out if it was any other company. Sorry but that spoke massive volumes to me. And when those FBI text leaks came out they were going to harass Tim Apple lmao. But I see a lot of errors & more personal opinions that lacks evidence but ok. But by all mean please if you have more to show please do we all need to know. This Has nothing to do with fanboy either I use both and the comparisons is night & day. Also I'm only interested in censorship in places it shouldn't be. In China that's how it is. Although we disagree that's there way of life and it's just the same as if you were to fly into there country and stay for a few days you'd obey there laws right? Or go in with your country's laws? Pointless to add that imo. So if that is a problem for you. I suggest taking it up with China the ones who call the shots not Apple. Its annoying for that to pushed on someone or something that absolutely has no power over a country. Dumb,Just sayin. I'd prefer that business not to be conducted there. But kinda to late for that when everything says made in China.

How bout that prism 5 privacy phone? Hope it's successful and provides the needs which we all grown accustomed to with all these apps. Over all even tho I dislike there practices and absurd prices. And just putting out there I know my way around the phone then the average because both views are different, I'd rather stick with Apple a hardware company than a software company like google 2 different agendas. And to just be flat out real & honest where can you go? Everything is doing F*ckery everyone decided to wait to damn long to say anything when I know majority of us here knew about it all way back but the sheep heard didn't budge till recently to damn late they grew to powerful and google no longer needs you to have there device or any on you to track you. Plus everyone just welcomes all there products into there home already. If they are gonna farm my data I at least expect it to be handled like it's gold. And they could offer a paid version that we can choose to use that will keep our data off limits since we are paying for it. They still get there money. I personally think if we are paying outta pocket our data is off limits. The isp sells our data so why do we still pay for cable? Sometimes I think a solar flare would be nice and reset everything but I doubt people will learn.

Re: Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

#138

Post by wayneftw » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 3:49 PM UTC

This list sounds like it was written by someone who wants to use Apple but needs some justifications not to. I only ever needed one reason to not use Apple products unless I was forced to: They're mostly not good products. The parts that are good are completely obstructed by the bad parts.

For instance, macOS is a stable, supported Unix on slick hardware. That's great! But only at the cost of all the core desktop functionality being complete fucking garbage. The global menu is colossally stupid and it sucks, the Window management sucks, the Finder sucks and the Dock sucks. Everybody knows this except for the people who have made their computing hardware and software choices part of their identity.

That last one was also infamous internally for sucking at the time it came out except in one respect: It marketed well. Oh and that slick hardware that you're being forced to buy is probably outdated before it left the store. Also, you were probably steered directly to the most expensive version of that hardware due to the skimpy lineup that you have to choose from and the lack of upgrade-ability.

Same thing with iOS - you get some great stuff like long battery life and stability, but only at the cost of this little thing we call "freedom" to do what the fuck I want without having to ask my Apple parent.

Seriously - Fuck Apple. They've always been a smug bunch of assholes. If you have to use their products (since they have just enough market share to be annoying) - just buy it used from a non-Apple source. Don't give these assholes your money.

Re: Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

#139

Post by jijojv » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 3:49 PM UTC

Well Stallman also hates the internet:

4th line on that page is

Re: Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

#140

Post by mark_l_watson » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 3:59 PM UTC

snazz wrote: post #107

mark_l_watson wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for that comment. I still have a Galaxy 4 and last week I pulled it out of the drawer and charged it. I looked at LieageOS but was concerned about the time spent installing it. Also, my Galaxy 4 no longer has a SIM card; do you know what the LineageOS experience would be like WiFi only?

It works fine without cellular. In the hands of someone who can install Linux, it shouldn’t take more than an hour (if you have a not-dialup internet connection). First, apt install adb heimdall-flash. These are the basic tools for interacting with Samsung phones and Android devices in general from a Linux machine. From there, follow the instructions I linked below, which basically amounts to getting root and unlocki…

Thank you for these instructions! I am going to try later this afternoon after some family stuff.