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

proton.me

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

#141

Post by msgodel »

_benton wrote: post #118
whstl wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are only two viable phone OSs and both have problems. "Vote with your wallet" is a BS argument in such a duopoly, because people care about other stuff.

There are many phones which let you flash your own OS and use with complete control. Please just purchase one of those and stop trying to interfere with my ability to purchase a phone that I want.

Lol.

It's legitimately easier to just buy a UMPC with an LTE card and use VOIP than do that. That's how bad the situation is at this point.

I say this as someone who gets paid to work on open source and used PostMarketOS on my primary cell phone for years. Even technical people really only have two options right now.

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

#142

Post by _benton »

whstl wrote: post #136
_benton wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The mom and pop stores in this analogy are the multitude of devices which are not produced by Apple and provide the same features, like Android phones and phones which are trivial to flash your own custom OS and software on. So no, your analogy does not support your conclusions.

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

#143

Post by 8fingerlouie »

msgodel wrote: post #117
8fingerlouie wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you sell me a computer and I don't have a shell on it that's false advertising at best I believe that's why they're calling it "a phone", or "a tablet". The computer they actually sell has plenty of shells available, and lets you tinker with whatever you like. A phone is not simply a computer, it's a regulated piece of hardware that must comply with local laws and regulations regarding radio transmissions and ot…

Lol. If phones were actually considered critical devices like this implies Android would have been nuked from orbit. No. They're computers with a modem peripheral. This is like saying once you plugged your e machine into the phone line it could interfere with 911 calls so they need to be regulated by the FCC. We settled that one over 50 years ago.

Let me put it another way.

Besides the FDA (and similar international counterparts), you're also using your phone for a bunch of other stuff that you probably don't want anyone having root access to. Wallets are one, banking apps, medical data and devices, password managers, and more.

If you have root access, that means that the apps can also get it, after all the app providing root access is itself an app.

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

#144

Post by _benton »

whstl wrote: post #126
_benton wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many phones which let you flash your own OS and use with complete control. Please just purchase one of those and stop trying to interfere with my ability to purchase a phone that I want.

No. In my opinion it is perfectly fine for society to order a company to hypothetically limit you on this minor thing (and let's be frank: this is super minor), because opening up iOS would benefit companies, countries, economies and other users of phones.

Who are you to claim that my consumer desires are irrelevant?

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

#145

Post by whstl »

energywut wrote: post #79
bitpush wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> 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. Which lawsuit PDF related specifically to iMessage interacting with Android was mentioned in this comment? I see a comment about RCS. Now, maybe you are right, maybe I narrowly interpreted RCS in iMessage to mean ch…

Focusing on the "the most" part is extremely petty.

This whole thread is the complete opposite of "thoughtful and substantive" and the "Converse curiously" from HN guidelines and I regret participating on it.

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

#146

Post by msgodel »

8fingerlouie wrote: post #143
msgodel wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. If phones were actually considered critical devices like this implies Android would have been nuked from orbit. No. They're computers with a modem peripheral. This is like saying once you plugged your e machine into the phone line it could interfere with 911 calls so they need to be regulated by the FCC. We settled that one over 50 years ago.

Let me put it another way. Besides the FDA (and similar international counterparts), you're also using your phone for a bunch of other stuff that you probably don't want anyone having root access to. Wallets are one, banking apps, medical data and devices, password managers, and more. If you have root access, that means that the apps can also get it, after all the app providing root access is itself an app.

Don't tell me what I want.

Yes I have my bitcoin-qt wallet, Etrade, my ssh keys, and my password manager on a machine I also have root on. I don't run non-free code on it (and I'm very picky about the open source code I do run.) Also just because I have root access doesn't mean I'm running all my apps as root. That's in insane statement to make. I run administrative tools as root and that's it.

The same thing is happening on your phone, you're just not allowed access to those tools, instead various other companies are and when they do things you don't like your options are: throw out your device and data, or bend over and take it.

Again at the end of the day a computer is a computer regardless of you being administratively locked out of yours.

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

#147

Post by whstl »

_benton wrote: post #142
whstl wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The mom and pop stores in this analogy are the multitude of devices which are not produced by Apple and provide the same features, like Android phones and phones which are trivial to flash your own custom OS and software on. So no, your analogy does not support your conclusions.

It is not about devices, but rather about mobile OSs. There are only two really viable ones for practical use.

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

#148

Post by whstl »

_benton wrote: post #144
whstl wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. In my opinion it is perfectly fine for society to order a company to hypothetically limit you on this minor thing (and let's be frank: this is super minor), because opening up iOS would benefit companies, countries, economies and other users of phones.

Who are you to claim that my consumer desires are irrelevant?

Compared to major interests of "companies, countries, economies and other users of phones", this is inarguably small.

Especially in the light of the only real complaint being that "there is a possibility of loss of security".

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

#149

Post by palata »

ronsor wrote: post #48
Workaccount2 wrote: post #39

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…

> - Yes, I know no one outside the US uses iMessage. Yes, people in the EU use WhatsApp, by Meta & Zuckerberg , and from what I've seen, often act as if that is some sort of mark of superiority.

> and from what I've seen, often act as if that is some sort of mark of superiority.

Feels like you weren't able to have a proper discussion with those people. In many EU countries, using SMS made/makes no sense because SMS was/is super expensive as compared to WhatsApp. And using iMessage makes no sense because most people don't have an iPhone. From their point of view, it actually makes no sense.

Now if you tell them "well, where I come from everybody has an iPhone" or "SMS have always been free", probably they won't say "still, I'm better than you for no apparent reason".

I don't think that it is actually seen as a mark of superiority anywhere in the EU to use WhatsApp. Unlike apparently in some places it is seen as a mark of superiority to have an iPhone vs an Android phone.

If you go in a EU country where SMS were not prohibitively expensive in the beginning of WhatsApp (e.g. France), you'll see that WhatsApp has been less successful (at least in the beginning). WhatsApp was a killer app because it was free SMS, really.

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

#150

Post by spongebobstoes »

buran77 wrote: post #60
Workaccount2 wrote: post #39

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 as Apple walling off iMessage Is that really the worst thing you've seen big-tech do? That's very fortunate. What about Blackberry Messenger which was the mobile instant-messaging golden standard for years and BB exclusive for as long as it mattered in the market? Was that too long ago to remember?

my understanding is that BBM was different because there was nothing to interoperate with at the time

Apple refusing RCS integration is a very clear example of hurting everyone in pursuit of profit

it's likely not the most evil, but I do think it qualifies as evil. it stands out by being inarguably willful, and having a very broad impact

I find harming hundreds of millions (probably billions) of friendships to be quite evil

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