The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down • Hacker News Board

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#61

Post by evilduck » Sat, Apr 27, 2024, 4:54 PM UTC

Bjorkbat wrote: post #14

Something I keep thinking about is how we’re seeing the end of what I call the “tech zeitgeist”. Started upon realizing that we‘ve likely seen the end of the social network era. No new social networking startups have popped-off in a while, and the recent ones are arguably more about connecting you to entertainers than friends. Besides that, a lot of the tech ideas from 2012-2020 have kind of fizzled out. 3D printing…

> 3D printing will likely never enter the mainstream.

I'm going to argue that it still might. I've been at it for about 5 years now and when I started printing my local Micro Center didn't carry anything related to 3D printers. Then they picked up the Ender 3 a few years back as the one printer they offered and they had a dozen basic color options of filament on the end of one side of an isle. Today that same store stocks at least 6 different printers on display and there's one and a half isles of a variety of filament options and another half isle of parts. And while Micro Center employees are usually more technically inclined than other retail employees, they themselves seemed to have gone from wondering what this odd Maker enthusiast carried up to the register to initiating conversations about your selections and comparing them to their own purchases. They wouldn't dedicate the floor space, let alone expand it continually and invest in larger and more expensive inventory if it wasn't selling at an increased rate. It's still a niche maker/techie hobby of course, but it's expanding more rapidly now than ever before.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#62

Post by r00fus » Sat, Apr 27, 2024, 4:54 PM UTC

beeboobaa3 wrote: post #33

pfannkuchen wrote: post #18

One thing that I haven’t seen mentioned in discussions of communications tech monopoly (or “monopoly” in many cases) is the risk of future political censorship by a hypothetical future evil Apple. Centralized market power here isn’t just about unfair profits or bad products, it’s also about control of information (and therefore control of minds).

Especially considering how these big tech companies seem obsessed with gobbling up communication, and seem to want all of their users communication to go through them. Sure, Apple makes grandiose statements about its security and privacy. But they are protecting you from others. Apple has the keys to the kingdom and if they want they can just silently push a targeted software update to your device. They can make your…

Everything you said is hypothetically true but fails to withstand scrutiny.

Apple has a brand of trust and security. If they decided to become even the tiniest bit evil in that dimension their “secure” brand would evaporate overnight.

Unless you think they control all media and levers to power too?

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#63

Post by hyperbovine » Sat, Apr 27, 2024, 4:54 PM UTC

talldayo wrote: post #12

aurareturn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth is, all businesses do what Craig suggested. AirBnB isn't opening up their platform to Expedia. Meta isn't allowing your Instagram data to be accessed by another platform. Your own company isn't voluntarily making it easier for its customers to leave.

Well, yes. It's a great reason to not let businesses decide on these things, because their petty interpretation will always override a communal solution. Once you reach Apple's scale, you shouldn't expect to start replacing stuff like SMS with a proprietary alternative and get away with it.

Maybe Apple’s “scale” is because its users do not enjoy being shackled to crappy SMS?

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#64

Post by rootusrootus » Sat, Apr 27, 2024, 4:55 PM UTC

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #56

yinser wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is Apple the most vulnerable? What is the argument? Half the planet uses their devices and their users see it as a superior product.

For you, is there nothing on earth beyond US borders? Last I checked, android was dominant, specially in poor countries (whereost people live)

The last thing we need is another race to the bottom. Android gets new features to be competitive, if they dominate by basically giving away their product it'll be the end of any innovation. And we have ample evidence that Google is not even slightly more altruistic than Apple.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#65

Post by alangibson » Sat, Apr 27, 2024, 4:55 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #46

jillesvangurp wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They tried and lost. They can threaten all they want. The EU would let them and good riddance as far as we're concerned. But there is this pesky notion that it's a huge market and Apple earns a lot of money there. So, they really can't walk away from that. For the same reason they play by Chinese rules in China. Because it's a big market and they need to be in on that as well. And if you think the EU is picky, the Ch…

> The EU would let them and good riddance as far as we're concerned. But there is this pesky notion that it's a huge market and Apple earns a lot of money there. So, they really can't walk away from that. Does that not seem contradictory to you? If it's a huge market they make a lot of money in, then there's by definition a lot of people who don't think "good riddance" if they leave. Apple has more leverage than you…

American living in Europe here. in the EU, you can't just apply economic logic to everything like you can in the US.

Policymakers will absolutely piss off a huge number of people over some basic principle. Look for instance at Germany's willingness to burn it's industrial base to the ground over Ukraine.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#66

Post by beeboobaa3 » Sat, Apr 27, 2024, 4:55 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #58

beeboobaa3 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially considering how these big tech companies seem obsessed with gobbling up communication, and seem to want all of their users communication to go through them. Sure, Apple makes grandiose statements about its security and privacy. But they are protecting you from others. Apple has the keys to the kingdom and if they want they can just silently push a targeted software update to your device. They can make your…

> They can make your phone send messages you never typed. They can make your phone show you things that never happened. How many microseconds do you think it'd take before someone noticed and made it into a huge PR nightmare?

If it was well targeted and thought out? We'd be lucky if someone even realized it happened. And even then, they'll probably just blame it on a hack from $OTHERCOUNTRY

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#67

Post by beeboobaa3 » Sat, Apr 27, 2024, 4:57 PM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #62

beeboobaa3 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially considering how these big tech companies seem obsessed with gobbling up communication, and seem to want all of their users communication to go through them. Sure, Apple makes grandiose statements about its security and privacy. But they are protecting you from others. Apple has the keys to the kingdom and if they want they can just silently push a targeted software update to your device. They can make your…

Everything you said is hypothetically true but fails to withstand scrutiny. Apple has a brand of trust and security. If they decided to become even the tiniest bit evil in that dimension their “secure” brand would evaporate overnight. Unless you think they control all media and levers to power too?

The org has that brand. Could be that a small part of the org with access to the correct tech has different ideas. Like I said, the entire org doesn't have to be in on it.

I don't actually believe this is actually happening, but it could.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#68

Post by rootusrootus » Sat, Apr 27, 2024, 4:58 PM UTC

Bjorkbat wrote: post #14

Something I keep thinking about is how we’re seeing the end of what I call the “tech zeitgeist”. Started upon realizing that we‘ve likely seen the end of the social network era. No new social networking startups have popped-off in a while, and the recent ones are arguably more about connecting you to entertainers than friends. Besides that, a lot of the tech ideas from 2012-2020 have kind of fizzled out. 3D printing…

My non-technical neighbors have 3D printers, so I think it is definitely heading mainstream. Maybe not for the older generation, but definitely for young people. And outfits like Bambu Labs are pushing it even farther that way. Automatic everything, pick models from your phone, just insert the filament into a hole and you're done. The real obstacle is the difficulty making your own models, but many people go quite a while before hitting that limit; you can get models for a lot of common everyday things without having to design it yourself.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#69

Post by stephc_int13 » Sat, Apr 27, 2024, 4:58 PM UTC

Being developer-hostile has always been part of Apple's identity, one unfortunate side of Steve Jobs's hubris enabled this stance, but it has worsened considerably under Tim Cook.

The eccentric and slightly authoritarian leader knew how to offer just enough to sweeten the deal.

Under Cook, on the other hand, Apple has turned tone-deaf and has continuously played hardball, making numerous faux pas along the way.

I believe that developers good to be considerably worse now, and even if the numbers don't speak loudly yet, I have no doubt they will.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#70

Post by layer8 » Sat, Apr 27, 2024, 4:59 PM UTC

aurareturn wrote: post #34

pessimizer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies shouldn't be expected to individually make suboptimal decisions in order to preserve the health of the market. They should be regulated by a functioning government.

Let's just say that the government decided in the year 2005 that no private company can ship something that will replace SMS as the defacto messaging system because it wants interoperability. We would have never had iMessage, Whatsapp, Messenger, etc. Other countries would have far surpassed us in messaging communication tech. Regulations are a double edged sword.

We had lots of progress despite regulation of technical standards in the past. And the regulation doesn’t have to force a particular communication protocol, it could simply be forcing a separation between hardware and communication providers.