Quit whining about Apple and just stop using them • Hacker News Board

Re: Quit whining about Apple and just stop using them

#171

Post by harikb » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

codemac wrote: post #85

CydeWeys wrote: post #3

"Whining" is an overly prejudicial word choice for this title. These are legitimate issues people have with what Apple is doing, not mere whining. This echoes the "if you don't like it so much then just leave instead of speaking up" dismissal that is so commonly used as a lampshade for suppressing dissent. Not sure if that's the intent here but that's what it comes off as. And this point from the article needs to be…

Apple is not a monopoly! They have a majority (not monopoly) on a very specific US-based market. They aren't the only US market, and they are a small international market. Apple isn't even the #1 handset manufacturer (they are #3 or #4 depending on who you ask), and far and away isn't the #1 laptop manufacturer. The attitude that it is a monopoly is exactly the disconnect between this article and your comment. The ar…

They are indeed a monopoly in a certain market segment - aka, those who are more than willing to pay for apps.

https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-users-spend-twice-apps...

Their existing monopolistic actions like “preventing interoperability at any cost” feeds this viscous cycle where high school kids are embarrassed to send text message to iPhone from an Android device.

I own Apple stock, would love then to crush competition, but let us not twist facts.

Re: Quit whining about Apple and just stop using them

#172

Post by pjmlp » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

jld wrote: post #149

pjmlp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple isn't a monopoly as per law, there are plenty of other device manufacturers to choose from, and in some markets iDevices aren't even available.

The traditional understanding of monopolies does not seem so useful in this case. We live a world where there are two walled gardens that control everything you do. They are both lovely and nice, and you can choose which you pick, but in both, everything you do owned by the landlord. Even how we communicate is controlled, and talking to people in the other garden is degraded. (iMessage and FaceTime). Even if both wal…

Seems to work quite alright on game consoles.

Re: Quit whining about Apple and just stop using them

#173

Post by chacham15 » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

codemac wrote: post #85

CydeWeys wrote: post #3

"Whining" is an overly prejudicial word choice for this title. These are legitimate issues people have with what Apple is doing, not mere whining. This echoes the "if you don't like it so much then just leave instead of speaking up" dismissal that is so commonly used as a lampshade for suppressing dissent. Not sure if that's the intent here but that's what it comes off as. And this point from the article needs to be…

Apple is not a monopoly! They have a majority (not monopoly) on a very specific US-based market. They aren't the only US market, and they are a small international market. Apple isn't even the #1 handset manufacturer (they are #3 or #4 depending on who you ask), and far and away isn't the #1 laptop manufacturer. The attitude that it is a monopoly is exactly the disconnect between this article and your comment. The ar…

> Apple is not a monopoly! They have a majority (not monopoly) on a very specific US-based market

In the video "Competition is for Losers with Peter Thiel", Peter Thiel discusses this. The problem here is in how you define "monopoly". If you're a large company, you want to say that the market is a lot larger than what you are operating in. To take this to an extreme, you could say that you're a technology company and if people dont like cell phones, they can use tablets/laptops/desktops. Conversly, if you narrow the definition of monopoly, there are tons of them. E.g. how many supermarkets are there within a 4 block radius of my house?

Because of this, instead of simply looking at scope, a common method is to look at what sort of behavior is the company taking. Is the supermarket lowering its prices below profitable to not allow another supermarket to survive in my neighborhood? In the case of Apple, I think people see the behavior of controlling the App Market as a monopolistic behavior which prevents others from competing.

Re: Quit whining about Apple and just stop using them

#174

Post by coronadisaster » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

That's what I have been doing for more than 20 years... Apple didn't really ever change, not even when Steve Jobs died. Too many anti-user rules...

Re: Quit whining about Apple and just stop using them

#175

Post by elvecinodeabajo » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

Apple a monopoly? Letting Google become the monopoly? Once again Linux is forgotten in the scene and Linux community means nothing. Stop taking profits as a reference, there's a world beyond your iPhone.

Re: Quit whining about Apple and just stop using them

#176

Post by hinkley » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

I am a long-time Apple customer, but my first reaction to this title was, "well I've never used cigarettes, does that mean I can't 'whine' about them?"

There is, to an extent, 'second hand smoke' in any industry with a dominant player who doesn't agree with your sense of ethics. The App Store and its imitators have changed the landscape of software that is available to you and I.

I didn't run to OS X so much as I ran away from the chaos and aggravation of custom drivers and kernel compiles for Linux laptops (compiling on a subnotebook is quite painful), and doing tech support for friends & family, so the pickiness of the App Store solves a huge pain point that I am willing to compromise on other things to get. That it's a compromise means that the dissenters have a point, it's just not enough for me.

When you are trying to keep conceptual coherence in a thing, you have to reject a lot of ideas that would be really cool to do. It doesn't mean people aren't entitled to grieve, and it doesn't mean that you will always pick the correct winners ("why did my idea get rejected but your stupid ideas 1, 2, and 3 were included?"), and in some cases the bigger person would encourage someone to 'spin off' that idea. If the market of ideas gets too constrained then it's bad for everyone.

I suppose you could say that I want them to win, but only as long as that doesn't mean that everybody else has to lose. Like Chrome beating Microsoft without taking out Firefox (whups). We are not very good as consumers at ensuring that.

Re: Quit whining about Apple and just stop using them

#177

Post by foolmeonce » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #105

codemac wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is not a monopoly! They have a majority (not monopoly) on a very specific US-based market. They aren't the only US market, and they are a small international market. Apple isn't even the #1 handset manufacturer (they are #3 or #4 depending on who you ask), and far and away isn't the #1 laptop manufacturer. The attitude that it is a monopoly is exactly the disconnect between this article and your comment. The ar…

I'm not saying the answer is to break them up, but clearly as was shown with Microsoft in the 90s, they could be forced to allow competition on their devices, like Microsoft had to allow for different search engines on their browsers and different default browsers. Apple could be forced to allow alternative app stores or to stop dragging their feet on PWA features or any other number of reasonable regulations like th…

Who is going to do all the work of fighting a Trust when they drag their feet using legal grey area or random excuses?

Government worked out the correct action a long time ago. When you see a trust, you destroy it, when you still get collusion between the separate companies that is manageable since collusion has prisoners dilemmas.

Re: Quit whining about Apple and just stop using them

#178

Post by hellofunk » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

> I know that the devices are pretty and feel nice and maybe your friends all have one and you want to signal that you’re one of the crowd, but it’s not worth it.

This is when the author lost me. That’s not why I or many others own Apple devices.

Re: Quit whining about Apple and just stop using them

#179

Post by ntsplnkv2 » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

Androider wrote: post #77

If you make something like say, oh an email client, excluding the 1.5 BILLION people on the iOS platform is not just a handicap, it makes your entire business non-viable. So now Apple is the gatekeeper of new businesses and services. Fortune 500's and small one man shops alike have been terrified to speak up against Apple, because Apple has the ability to deliver a death-sentence by kicking you out of their store on…

This is simply not true. There are more on the android platform, and therefore enough for viability.

The reality is people want all the benefits of the iOS world without paying anything for it.

Re: Quit whining about Apple and just stop using them

#180

Post by fbelzile » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

mstolpm wrote: post #163

In my opinion, developers do have the right to articulate critics - be it towards Apple or any other gatekeeper. Just stopping to use/develop for a platform isn't enough. However, I feel the discussion often misses a central point when it is focused on "developers" against "Apple" (or be it Google): the interest of the customer. Of course, a developer wants to maximize return, as wants Apple. But what about the users…

Exactly. We had a choice to go buy it from Frys -OR- other stores like Best Buy -OR- from the developer themselves. There is no choice with iOS.

A band that I like released a CD. I buy a CD from one of their live shows. I should have the right to play the CD on my CD player without having to pay 30% of all CD sales to the maker of the CD player.

I don't mind paying a 30% cut to a store that made it more convenient for me to buy the CD (even if the store is owned by the CD player manufacturer). The problem here is that I shouldn't HAVE to go to that ONE CD store to buy ALL of my CD's.