When’s your next court date against Apple? Let’s hope the California government can stand against this type of federal overreach.
I have no hope that the solution can be solved through lawfare. The ability of one company to control what the vast majority of people can do with their phones is unacceptable, regardless of what happens with this one app.
The vast majority of the people on this planet have never touched an iphone. Android dominates basically everywhere outside north america and, interestingly, the DPRK.
Take a breath. Obama drone-struck and killed more than one American citizen. Biden's rhetoric against his political opponents was no less "fascist" than Trump's. Do you find yourself nostalgic for the civility of the McCain-era Republicans? He was called a Nazi by his detractors, as well. Trump doesn't hold a candle to FDR when it comes to being an authoritarian.
Take a breath. Obama drone-struck and killed more than one American citizen. Biden's rhetoric against his political opponents was no less "fascist" than Trump's. Do you find yourself nostalgic for the civility of the McCain-era Republicans? He was called a Nazi by his detractors, as well. Trump doesn't hold a candle to FDR when it comes to being an authoritarian.
I think that Apple is a company that has to obey the rule of law. Maybe the problem here isn’t Apple but the rules they are being forced to abide by?
> I think that Apple is a company that has to obey the rule of law. Right, so the fundamental problem is having a device where the software that runs on it is controlled by a single company. It creates the attractive nuisance of being able to choke off anything the government doesn't like because, as you said, that single point of contact can't avoid obeying the government. Computing needs to be open and controlled o…
That’s your belief and there is a platform that allows just that.
The fundamental problem here is not specific to Apple; It’s specific to a regime that is overstepping its bounds daily.
I’m not sure who you’re expecting to convert. Most people- thinking of people like my parents- think any app that hinders police must be a bad thing. The idea that something like ICEBlock is benevolent and doesn’t make the user a criminal by association just doesn’t register.
Surely an app designed to help circumvent the law is a bad thing, even if it doesn't make one legally a criminal merely by association?
With that attitude in 1775-76, the US wouldn't have won independence. Would you tug your forelock (and empty your purse) and Kneel to the King ?
I'm also a shareholder and I'd say I'm pretty happy with Apple not needlessly getting involved in fights. The most important thing is not getting tariffed. Their reputation will be fine, no one but the terminally online are going to stop buying an iPhone because of this. Pretty sure most of their shareholders feel similarly.
I agree that most people will not hear about this app being removed. (Though note that it's being reported here in "normal people" news, not tech news.) But it's far from the only way Cook has aligned himself with Trump in just the last few months. The dumb gold-glass plaque and the UK royal visit are two much more visible examples.
Doing what he needs to avoid tariffs is fine in my book. It's practically his responsibility towards shareholders.
You left out the pretty important part of § 372 " by force, intimidation, or threat ". Please don't just make up cover for capitulation. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/372
FWIW, everyone who claims that Apple fundamentally needs the centralized ability to control apps on their platforms "for everyone's safety" -- despite how that obviously and repeatedly makes them become patsies for governments all over the world to enforce their censorship regimes -- are complicit in this stuff (in addition, of course, to the people who build it at Apple...).
> are complicit in this stuff I don’t know that that is fair. This framing is designed to shame people into feeling guilty for their point of view, rather than their actions. Being complicit means to be knowingly involved in or facilitating an illegal or wrongdoing act. In my books, it requires a level of participation that I don’t think your characterization meets.
It’s happened many times before, and people heard about it and aren’t that stupid or forgetful. They just want to believe something incompatible, so they permit themselves a little internal dishonesty: maybe it’s a separate issue that somebody else will surely figure out, or there’s a better solution (that we won’t pursue), or everybody always exaggerates (but we won’t verify that), or they find a way to hate and dismiss everybody who talks about it. Declaring your own shamelessness is more of the same: you’re reframing the problem from the consequences of your actions to your feelings about those consequences, then addressing only your feelings. It’s the same sort of behavior as heroin addicts, who find a route to happiness that doesn’t push them through the good things that the pursuit of happiness was meant to.