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

Re: Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

#151

Post by johnchristopher » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 4:51 PM UTC

xondono wrote: post #66

johnchristopher wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology carry its own intrinsic political and ethical weight. Choosing a tech over another tech for technical reasons and ignoring other aspects is a political choice.

I’m seriously kind of tired of this argument. We’ve gone from “not choosing is a choice” to “every choice is political”. I’m sorry but the latter doesn’t immediatly follow from the first. You can and are totally free to not use a technology or buy from a particular company for political reasons, but that does not mean that others are making a political choice when doing so. Similarly you should argue that eating meat…

I understand you don't like it but every choice, every act has a political significance. I believe it doesn't follow that you actively support or promote whatever comes with a choice but the fact remains that choosing a tech only on tech merits or choosing a tech despite who you support by buying it is still a political choice.

That's why I use Firefox and not google chrome even though at some points one is better than the other.

> We’ve gone from “not choosing is a choice” to “every choice is political”.

> I’m sorry but the latter doesn’t immediatly follow from the first.

Nobody said or implied that.

> Similarly you should argue that eating meat is a religious choice, since some religions prohibit meat consumption.

Now that's a bogus reasoning and I don't see why you twist the analogy like that since it loses relevance.

Re: Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

#152

Post by hellofunk » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 4:54 PM UTC

wayneftw wrote: post #145

hellofunk wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a few good reasons to choose Apple: My new iPhone XR needs to be charged only once or twice per week. For development, I get a certified UNIX machine with an excellent user interface, best of both worlds for the vast majority of tasks we need using computers. Apple makes money off me because I buy their products. I am myself not the product, their hardware is. This has so many natural side effects that benefit us…

> My new iPhone XR needs to be charged only once or twice per week. It's not the only phone that does that and it's not a new feature. Even with older phones, you can simply get a battery case. > with an excellent user interface The user interface is terrible and all the core features are extremely limited with no extensibility whatsoever. Just about every other desktop OS has a better user interface. > Apple makes m…

Just to make sure I understand you and your perspective correctly, I'll isolate just your first point: You are saying that there is, in fact, no difference between a phone with a good battery and a different phone with a separate battery you must attach to it?

I believe this line of reasoning also explains your other points satisfactorily.

Re: Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

#153

Post by ashildr » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 5:02 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…

He‘s the annoying vegan of free software...

Re: Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

#154

Post by dang » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

fwdpropaganda wrote: post #56

tokyodude wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with Google. Google has privacy teams as well which are > quite powerful and forces lots of safeguards about how exactly data can be used. Apple recommends apps based on other apps I've downloaded. So does Google. Apple recommends music based on other music I've played. So does Google. Apple recommends books and movies as well based on similar data. So does Google. Apple keeps track of every placed your Apple de…

HAHAHA stop spreading lies. Google uses chrome to spy on people. Here's just a latest example (as with Stallman, you could say that I cherry pick examples, but I assure you I have many many examples like this) At work, completely new computer, new OS. They gave me chrome by default. One night late at the office I go on chrome, go on youtube to listen to ONE single song. Tubular Bells, by Mike Oldfied. 40 minutes or s…

We've had to ask you several times before to stop breaking the site guidelines in your comments here. If you keep doing this, we're going to have to ban you.

"Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

#155

Post by dang » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

Hamuko wrote: post #112

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…

Does this mean that talking about non-harmful voluntary pedophilia is somehow a bad way to market yourself and your ideas? And that people are less receptive to your ideas when you present them like a raving vegan in a sketch?

No personal attacks, please.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

#156

Post by dang » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 5:18 PM UTC

auslander wrote: post #37

None of the points make sense. Checked 'email spying' turned out to be plain spam filter. Apple is most ethical of them all. Aging is not without effects on brain, sigh.

Please keep personal attacks off this site.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

#157

Post by Hamuko » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #155

Hamuko wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this mean that talking about non-harmful voluntary pedophilia is somehow a bad way to market yourself and your ideas? And that people are less receptive to your ideas when you present them like a raving vegan in a sketch?

No personal attacks, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

If this is a personal attack, then I'd say every third sentence from Stallman is a personal attack.

Re: Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

#158

Post by Topolomancer » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 5:25 PM UTC

This is only one item of a larger list. As someone whose university buys Apple products (and uses quite some services on the Stallman's list): does HN have any advice for advocating for making the switch?

Let's take Slack as an example: what strategies are there to convince people to make the switch to an alternative product? From the perspective of users (who may not always care about the things RMS cares about), a switch just involves a lot of time and effort.

Any suggestions or hints how to approach this?

Re: Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

#159

Post by dang » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 5:29 PM UTC

Hamuko wrote: post #157

dang wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No personal attacks, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

If this is a personal attack, then I'd say every third sentence from Stallman is a personal attack.

Maybe. But he's not posting here. If he starts posting personal attacks here, we'll ask him to stop as well.

Re: Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

#160

Post by xenadu02 » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 5:29 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.

That requires you to opt-in to the “Find My iPhone” or “Find My Friends” feature which are explicitly designed to locate the phone.

If you don’t enable those things (which are not automatically enabled) then Apple does not know the location of your phone.