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Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

proton.me

131–140 of 665 posts

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#131
post #47

I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory as Apple walling off iMessage, giving the impression that Apple phones were high technology, and interacting with peasant androids is what made group chats fragment and pictures and videos look like trash. Few things are more enraging than people being left out of chats with friends and family because they didn't bend over for Apple. Even…

> I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory Don't you think this is _maybe_ an overstatement? I was annoyed about this for years but reading your take is borderline satirical.

Considering how much it's messing up with kids and young people's social circles, this is seriously very fucked up even for big tech standards.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#132
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their ecosystem is your phone. As long as you cannot install anything on your phone without going through their app store, it's a monopoly

- You don't need to have an iPhone - You agree to the letter of the ToS when you click "I Agree" when you set up the iPhone, - You also already agree to the spirit of the App Store when you buy it. After all, it's not some big secret - You can get by with webapps for the most part anyway - You can buy an Android, a flip phone, or pull a power move and have no phone Buying an iPhone and then demanding that it has to w…

The problem is that app developers can't ignore iOS because the market is too big. Therefore Apple can do whatever they want and developer have to accept their condition.

As a developer, there is no choice. Apple should not be able to abuse their dominant position.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#133
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not controversial, you can still have your walled garden as-is. The point of this is so that there is the possibility of escaping that walled garden, arguably welcoming more users into the ecosystem. Nothing would change for you. Just like android users can keep using all things Google, they have the possibility of installing apps from other sources.

Except implementing the functionality to optionally open up your device to the world inherently makes it less secure. I now have no ability to purchase the phone that I want. It's actually decreasing consumer choice.

Are there any versions of iOS without jailbreak exploits in them? The security was always theatre.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory as Apple walling off iMessage I think you might be living in a bubble, if this is the "most evil" thing you have heard of a big tech company doing. Go read up on IBM's history, especially in the 30s and 40s. Or a more contemporary example, read up on Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Or Amazon's mistreatment of workers in both corporate and…

> I think you might be living in a bubble, if this is the "most evil" thing you have heard of a big tech company doing. Go read up on IBM's history, especially in the 30s and 40s. Or a more contemporary example, read up on Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Or Amazon's mistreatment of workers in both corporate and warehouse settings. Or Meta scraping data off your devices without permission to train AI. I wouldn't count th…

Oh, Roblox by far and away is worse than Apple. But also, Facebook is pretty clearly implicated in a genocide in Myanmar. It's difficult for me to put any genocide in a bucket less important than some kids being put into out-groups.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#135

There is a lot I hate about building apps and releasing them on the App Store, and I'd be happy for there to be alternatives. But that said, I don't understand how its a monopoly. There is no requirement to build an app for iOS devices. There are other devices and means for software delivery out there. What makes their control of their own ecosystem monopolistic? As someone who has paid the apple tax for digital sale…

> There is no requirement to build an app for iOS devices.

Either this is bad faith, or you are uninformed.

> that's the cost of doing business.

All the question is there. Is that the cost of doing business, or is Apple abusing their dominant position?

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#136
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you legally prevented from controlling your device The bar isnt whether it is legal or not. You know that no company can create laws, and either you're saying it out of ignorance, or willful ignorance. When Walmart drives away mom and pop shops, and dominate a certain town and then hikes the prices for groceries, you cant say "but it isnt illegal to go buy groceries from elsewhere, what did we - Walmart - do wr…

This analogy makes no sense because you are not prevented in any way from purchasing the many other devices that provide almost identical functionality. It's like complaining that Walmart hiked their prices but ignoring the fact that the mom and pop stores still exist, at a higher number compared to walmarts, and are selling the same products for cheaper. You have incredible consumer choice for phones, you can't chos…

You're wrong. It's like complaining that Walmart hiked their prices after they drove away all Mom and Pop stores.

> I think it's perfectly fine to prevent you from having this

Yes I can, legally and morally.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#137
post #69

I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory as Apple walling off iMessage, giving the impression that Apple phones were high technology, and interacting with peasant androids is what made group chats fragment and pictures and videos look like trash. Few things are more enraging than people being left out of chats with friends and family because they didn't bend over for Apple. Even…

This is hopelessly exaggerated and bad-faith. First of all, when Apple created iMessage, there was no possible way for them to predict that friend groups would use it as a reason to treat members of their groups poorly due to using Android phones. Second of all, Apple did not deliberately make interacting with non-iMessage users in group chats "look like trash" in order to exclude them. Apple went out of its way to m…

What Apple could have done, for sake of clarity, sanity, and good practice is to handle SMS using one app, and handle iMessage using another, *separate* app.

The problem is not that iMessage exists, it's that it operates in opaque and unpredictable ways, mixing SMS and iMessage (and now RCS) communication in a way where even more tech-savvy users do not understand how it works (first-hand experience - had to explain to someone why their images are super compressed when they send them to me, but OK when they send them to their friend with an iPhone).

And now it's the same with RCS (Android-iOS). I send person A an image, the conversation switches to RCS. They use the "automatic reply" when I call them, conversation switches back to SMS. With person B, the switching between RCS and SMS is even more unpredictable.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#138
post #80

I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory as Apple walling off iMessage, giving the impression that Apple phones were high technology, and interacting with peasant androids is what made group chats fragment and pictures and videos look like trash. Few things are more enraging than people being left out of chats with friends and family because they didn't bend over for Apple. Even…

Or you could use an actual program on a desktop computer to do it. When did everyone forget how that works?

Use a program on a desktop computer to do what exactly?

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#139
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not controversial, you can still have your walled garden as-is. The point of this is so that there is the possibility of escaping that walled garden, arguably welcoming more users into the ecosystem. Nothing would change for you. Just like android users can keep using all things Google, they have the possibility of installing apps from other sources.

Except implementing the functionality to optionally open up your device to the world inherently makes it less secure. I now have no ability to purchase the phone that I want. It's actually decreasing consumer choice.

I'm sure you won't have to worry.

If apple is incompetent and makes it less secure, I'm sure they'll fix it.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#140

I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory as Apple walling off iMessage, giving the impression that Apple phones were high technology, and interacting with peasant androids is what made group chats fragment and pictures and videos look like trash. Few things are more enraging than people being left out of chats with friends and family because they didn't bend over for Apple. Even…

The most evil thing a tech company has done is make a proprietary messaging app?

Apple didn't make SMS bad, it just was. Apple has since implemented RCS and it hasn't changed how I communicate with people from my iPhone at all.

Google should probably take most of the blame for repeatedly fumbling messaging on non-Apple platforms for the past 2 decades. Every time they had something that was getting any amount of traction it got quickly replaced with some stupid new, worse messaging app so a PO could get a promotion.

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