211–220 of 230 posts
It's just nonsensical to use a device that dictates what you can install on it. Well, Androids don't come with root permissions either ( you should be able to get it easily if you want imo ) but at least you can install any app, even just create your own.
Creating your own app is actually pretty easy on iOS. I run an app on my phone right now that I built myself and that is not on the app store.
I feel like something that gets brushed off on HN all the time is: Do people actually want PWAs? In my experience the answer is a resounding “NO”. Android supports PWAs but they aren’t taking the world by storm. My Android friends don’t use any that I’m aware of and if you ask them about it they just get a blank look on the faces. Heck, businesses don’t care about PWAs or websites even. I work in this space, I’ve wri…
People have been trained to look for apps in the app stores. PWAs aren't there, and have a different installation method, for technical reasons that shouldn't matter in most cases. If you ask differently: do you want apps that install almost instantly, and take almost no space on your phone? A lot of people would be interested. Renting a scooter or charging an EV tends to require native apps for no good reason. These…
Of course, an efficiently-coded webpage (e.g. no JS-heavy libs) could also work, with arguably less hassle all-around. But native apps do tend to "feel" nicer.
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Safari does support extensions. And it has built-in Reader mode. And it needs none of that for this case since the website loads perfectly fine with no zigzagging required. What Apple is doing sucks, for sure, but let’s not lose sight of reality and make stuff up or misinform people.
Show me how to get ublock origin on safari in iOS. You can’t, and this is basically the top extension anyone wants, and so your blanket statement is also misinforming
I use Wipr, and it’s been better than the beloved uBlock has ever been.
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> I think this is the point of disagreement I appreciate you trying to steel-man their argument, but you’ve gone far enough that it doesn’t reflect what they were actually saying. The thing I’m disagreeing with is: > Apple's no longer a hardware company There’s no way to spin that into anything resembling reality. If they had said what you are saying, I wouldn’t have objected. > my favourite was destroying the busine…
Because it's grossly unfair and mendacious to argue that nobody except them should be able to link identities on iOS.
Just to clarify, ATT is where Apple says that apps can’t collect data on you and share it with other companies without your permission.
When somebody buys and uses an iPhone, they are clearly making an active choice to be an Apple user. Apple can use their data.
When somebody installs a third-party app Foo, they are clearly making an active choice to be a Foo user. Foo can use their data.
But then Foo adds the Facebook SDK to their app. This is invisible to the user. They haven’t made a choice to be a Facebook user. They don’t even know it’s happening. When Facebook gets their data because they use the Foo application, it’s happening without the user’s knowledge or consent.
ATT doesn’t ban Facebook from tracking them, it just says that the user needs to be asked first. It’s putting Facebook’s access to data on the same level of consent as Apple and the apps people choose to use.
Apple using your tracking data in their own ad business doesn’t violate that norm. The data isn’t being sent to an unknown third-party. Apple says:
> The Apple advertising platform does not track you, nor does it buy or share your personal information with other companies.
— https://www.apple.com/sg/privacy/control/
Do you have reason to believe this is a lie? Because if it’s the truth, then Apple are playing by the same rules as everybody else.
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Sure, caches make sense, and are where PWAs are a legitimate solution. But PWAs also are sold as a replacement for native apps (hint: they're not, but a whole bunch of native apps should be PWAs, or just static sites...), and the author of TFA does subscribe to that view.
But they can replace a lot of native apps. Calendar, Notes, Weather, Maps (to an extent), Reminders, Calculator, $CellProviderApp, Stocks, Cloud Drive (Apple, Google, Microsoft, …, to an extent), Translator, Mail, various Messengers, Youtube, Amazon, various public transport ticket apps, EV status apps, parcel tracking apps, … I’m only on home screen 2 of 5 and oh my, it’s almost all of the apps. Granted, some would…
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Because it's grossly unfair and mendacious to argue that nobody except them should be able to link identities on iOS.
They don’t do that as far as I am aware? On two counts. Firstly, they don’t say nobody should be able to link identities, and secondly Apple doesn’t link identities in their ad business. Just to clarify, ATT is where Apple says that apps can’t collect data on you and share it with other companies without your permission . When somebody buys and uses an iPhone, they are clearly making an active choice to be an Apple u…
And they're really not playing by the same rules as everyone else given that they own the platform that all this activity takes place on, so they get basically all iOS users data without needing any permission dialogue.
This is literally part of their ad sales pitch and ads is the fastest growing part of the services business.
So maybe they don't do all this stuff now (but they don't need to because they receive installs and conversions by the very nature of running the platform).
Like, google could make the same claim Apple make here and it would be true for Android.
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For me, the issue is, who do I distrust less - Google or Apple? Yes, they're both shitty in a number of ways. And while is is easier to root Android devices than it is to root iOS ones, last I checked you were still dependent on the vendor kernel and parts of the vendor display server on Android because not all of the necessary drivers and related config are upstreamed (and the lack of TIVO clauses in GPLv2 makes thi…
Apple's no longer a hardware company, they're a platform rent extraction company. They are directly misleading and harming their users with this move, and also with the existing dark patterns around iCloud storage.
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MacOS also has sudo.
and iOS, a newer OS where Apple could easily redo their security model while ignoring legacy baggage does not have sudo.
Final, ultimate control must always be vested somewhere. Your argument is that it's "more secure" for it to be in the hands of a profit-seeking corporation than in the hands that are holding the device.
Well, if nobody wants to play with our total clusterfuck of inconsistent APIs, we might as well drop support for them >:(