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Apple blocks Google from running its internal iOS apps

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Re: Apple blocks Google from running its internal iOS apps

#641

Post by sneak »

_bxg1 wrote: post #3

I feel less vengeful satisfaction from this one, but I respect that they're applying their rules consistently. I just hope it doesn't backfire. On a totally personal level, I'd rather Facebook feel the hurt for its audacity than Apple be forced to backtrack because they made too many enemies.

Apple does not have any obligation to enforce rules consistently from the standpoint of those it enforces against. Apple should enforce when and where will sell the most hardware. Apple is a phone manufacturer, not a government. They can and should selectively enforce to promote their brand values—some of which are security and privacy.

Re: Apple blocks Google from running its internal iOS apps

#642

Post by chj »

userbinator wrote: post #486
chj wrote: post #411

Another horror story of Apple's totalitarian control. Some people say that what Big Apple is doing is necessary for their security and privacy needs. This sort of blind trust, while incurable, waits for a major scandal to kill itself.

Indeed. The authoritarianism in the comments here is rather disturbing. I am baffled at how everyone seems to be so keen on putting Apple's nooses around their own necks.

Guess that most of the HN audience are not hackers any more.

Re: Apple blocks Google from running its internal iOS apps

#643

Post by RandomBK »

xvector wrote: post #619
RandomBK wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the washing machine was internet connected, then yes. If not, I'd still like the JTAG interface intact. Now, _will_ I do that? Probably not, but my opinion is that as the owner of the device, I should have the ability to do so if I so choose.

> I should have the ability to do so if I so choose. And what about the manufacturer? Why should it be their legal responsibility to satisfy your whims for programmable interfaces? Not to mention what you're mentioning that what you're suggesting will make the iPhone incredibly insecure.

I'm not sure where you're getting the "legal responsibility" part from - I'm not advocating legislation, simply stating my personal preferences as a consumer. I do what I can to try and bring others to my point of view, but I am in no part trying to push this as a legal burden on manufacturers. Please don't bring strawman arguments into this, this topic is complex and nuanced enough as-is.

Regarding security, that very much depends on your threat model and definition of "secure". Indeed, I see this general trend of decreasing user control over increasingly complex and connected hardware as a massive security threat where I am forced to trust multiple 3rd parties who may arbitrarily disrupt my life anytime new "features" or "policies" get pushed out.

It is perfectly possible to securely implement a tamper-evident "I know what I'm doing" switch/fuse that enables advanced control by device owners. However, I'm well aware that I'm in the minority on this topic, so I'm not holding my breath for such features to be implemented.

Re: Apple blocks Google from running its internal iOS apps

#644

Post by gojomo »

zimpenfish wrote: post #638
gojomo wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Separate from tax and employment regulation, ‘contractor’ is also plain language meaning “someone under contract”. If these people weren’t paid what they were promised, they could sue for breach-of-contract. There’s no trickery here: that’s the ordinary legal meaning, and it is those who insist on only the far narrower regulatory/tax ‘contractor’ category who are playing semantic tricks. It doesn't matter how many pe…

> Compare this account from a reporter at VentureBeat – who also happens to be a member of the California State Bar Not since 2007 - http://members.calbar.ca.gov/fal/Licensee/Detail/215049 And his CV suggests he only practiced any law at all between 2001 and 2004 - http://www.jhorwitz.com/jhresume.pdf Disingenuous of both him and you to claim he has any authority to speak from a legal point of view on this, really, n…

Not really disingenuous; from looking at his resume, I hadn't noticed his bar membership had expired. (And, it's interesting that his resume reports him as active through 2017.)

But still, a legal degree, one-time certification, and some legal practice are kind of relevant, compared to anonymous commenters who are just insisting by repetition "but that's not a 'contractor'!"

Is it your reasoned argument that an individual receiving payment for services rendered to a corporation, under the terms of a mutually-agreed contract, is not a "contractor" in the eyes of the law?

Re: Apple blocks Google from running its internal iOS apps

#645

Post by aasasd »

landryraccoon wrote: post #639
aasasd wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that a server, being a stupid piece of inanimate junk, is unable to enter any agreements or disagreements. In contrast, people, being endowed with free will supported by the ability to reason, need to apply said will and reason when directing actions of pieces of junk, so as to follow the same procedures of inter-party conduct as in direct interaction. Since a web server, by its primary mode of operat…

> Since a web server, by its primary mode of operation, does indeed more or less indiscriminately send replies to whomever makes a request, it follows that the duty of choice lies with the client. Sorry, why isn't it the duty of choice the server owner, who chooses to put the server online in the first place? What exactly are these rules you think exist? This is the first time I've ever heard of them. > Since a web s…

Well, if you think that it would be more reasonable and expedient to require users to read a contract beforehand and then authenticate themselves to the service before accessing any content―please, knock yourself out on your site.

It appears that the rest of the web gets by pretty well using the legal framework I've described. Because, you know, they tend to choose things to be pragmatical instead of those that “can be done.”

Re: Apple blocks Google from running its internal iOS apps

#646

Post by [deleted] »

aasasd wrote: post #645
landryraccoon wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since a web server, by its primary mode of operation, does indeed more or less indiscriminately send replies to whomever makes a request, it follows that the duty of choice lies with the client. Sorry, why isn't it the duty of choice the server owner, who chooses to put the server online in the first place? What exactly are these rules you think exist? This is the first time I've ever heard of them. > Since a web s…

Well, if you think that it would be more reasonable and expedient to require users to read a contract beforehand and then authenticate themselves to the service before accessing any content―please, knock yourself out on your site. It appears that the rest of the web gets by pretty well using the legal framework I've described. Because, you know, they tend to choose things to be pragmatical instead of those that “can…

[deleted]

Re: Apple blocks Google from running its internal iOS apps

#647

Post by landryraccoon »

Zanni wrote: post #640
landryraccoon wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my knowledge making an HTTP GET request and then receiving a document does not involve agreeing to any TOS, implicitly or otherwise. If the server didn’t want to send the data over an authenticated channel, then why does it send the data?

My mailbox opens and closes for my mailman to collect outgoing mail and deposit incoming mail. But anyone can open it. That doesn't mean I want them to, or that they are allowed to. But if my mailbox doesn't want to allow access to private information, then why does it open for unauthorized individuals? Because physically securing it would be a pain in the ass, most people are honest, and if I can keep my mail safe t…

Your argument holds for mailboxes because it is not a common use case of mailboxes that their owners want complete strangers to check as often as possible because they've left something they want taken.

A better real world analogy is a bulletin board on campus or a wooden power pole.

Lets suppose that it is super common that people staple flyers to power poles, with the expectation that people will read them as they pass by. Your analogy would claim that if I staple a letter to the power pole, expecting that only my friend that I told about the letter should read it, that passers-by are doing something unseemly by reading it, while being surrounded by want ads and for sale flyers that people do want read.

Websites are nothing like mailboxes. The vast majority of websites would prefer that as many people as possible read their contents as much as possible. Email would be a better analogy.

Re: Apple blocks Google from running its internal iOS apps

#648

Post by Legogris »

wutbrodo wrote: post #504
Legogris wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An important difference that Nielsen doesn't have an agreement with Vizio that they broke and the "protection" being Vizio terminating their end of that agreement as a response.

As much as I dislike Apple, its amorality, its attitude towards it users, its effect on the markets it's in, etc, I don't have any disagreements with Apple's actions here: Facebook/Google violated their license, so Apple revoked them. But the terms of this license are by no means "protecting" users who voluntarily chose to install these apps for payment. A license can have multiple legitimate purposes, including prot…

Indeed. The violation here really has nothing to do with protecting users, as you say, it's more of a positive side-effect. On the other hand, if it weren't for that aspect, the press-coverage that sparked Apple's revokal would most likely not have happened.

Apple found themselves in a position were doing "the good thing" aligned with business.

Re: Apple blocks Google from running its internal iOS apps

#649

Post by zimpenfish »

gojomo wrote: post #644
zimpenfish wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compare this account from a reporter at VentureBeat – who also happens to be a member of the California State Bar Not since 2007 - http://members.calbar.ca.gov/fal/Licensee/Detail/215049 And his CV suggests he only practiced any law at all between 2001 and 2004 - http://www.jhorwitz.com/jhresume.pdf Disingenuous of both him and you to claim he has any authority to speak from a legal point of view on this, really, n…

Not really disingenuous; from looking at his resume, I hadn't noticed his bar membership had expired. (And, it's interesting that his resume reports him as active through 2017.) But still, a legal degree, one-time certification, and some legal practice are kind of relevant, compared to anonymous commenters who are just insisting by repetition "but that's not a 'contractor'!" Is it your reasoned argument that an indiv…

> Not really disingenuous; from looking at his resume, I hadn't noticed his bar membership had expired.

Ok, I'll remove you from the disingenuous. He stays though because he should definitely mention it on his CV.

> a legal degree, one-time certification, and some legal practice are kind of relevant

Yep, he's definitely probably got more standing than anonymous commenters. But that's a low bar. He didn't practice contract law (it was transactional IP) and it was 14 years ago - it's an almost certainty he isn't au fait with current contract or employment law.

> Is it your reasoned argument

I don't have one knowing nothing about US contract or employment law. My layperson viewpoint is that it's quite clear they weren't Facebook contractors in the terms of the Apple agreement.

Re: Apple blocks Google from running its internal iOS apps

#650

Post by CPLX »

Natanael_L wrote: post #451
CPLX wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's absolutely nothing anti-competitive about this from a legal standpoint whatsoever.

Apple completely forbidding the availability of certain types of software on their devices from third party developers? Not anticompetitive? Although sure, in this particular case it wasn't because of the type of app, but it still has the same effect because certain apps ARE forbidden from the store, and this does indeed mean that nobody can effectively offer such apps because of Apple's rules There's no actual legal…

It’s not a legal thing. If you think it is at least try to cite the general area of law.

You can create devices and sell them and not make them compatible with other companies products if you want. It’s true from printer ink to PlayStations.

The only issue would be market share and monopoly problems, which given that Google’s alternative platform has 54% of the market is totally irrelevant here.

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