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Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

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Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#951

Post by seec »

saagarjha wrote: post #861
seec wrote: post #840

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really about system administration. The average person is a low effort moron who will do whatever he pleases without thinking about the consequences. The difference with computing is that since it's "new" and sometimes it has bugs, they will blame the hardware/OS any chance they get.

Just like your comment was not really about providing anything new, but insulting people who use technology?

Have you done a lot of tech support for people? If not, you really don't know the extent of it. It's not insulting, it's just how people are. You should meet the guy who had a lot of issues on his MacBook Pro, related to low storage left (barely a few gigs) that was entirely due to his extremely large porn collection.

When asked about it, he doesn't have too many files. What do you do in that case? Isn't he a moron both for storing so much porn and at the same time (somehow) believing a tech support person wouldn't find the root of the problem. It was in a "hidden" folder, so not only he is a moron for the first offense, but doubly so for thinking a competent person wouldn't find something so obvious.

So, I reiterate, most people are morons, and technology just reveals their ineptitude in plain sight, it's simple as that.

You are free to believe in your idealized version of the world, but it doesn't match my experience at all.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#952

Post by seec »

Zak wrote: post #902
seec wrote: post #840

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really about system administration. The average person is a low effort moron who will do whatever he pleases without thinking about the consequences. The difference with computing is that since it's "new" and sometimes it has bugs, they will blame the hardware/OS any chance they get.

That's unfair. Modern computers are extremely complicated to the point that even the most knowledgeable person has only a partial understanding, and nearly everyone is required to use them to function in western societies. There's probably something important and complicated in the world you have to interact with regularly that you don't understand very well. Based on this comment, I think it might be people .

Modern computers are complicated to build and to use for complicated stuff but they have been extremely easy to use for regular stuff since the late 90s.

Pretending otherwise is nonsensical, since the richest economies in the world depend on it and surely not everyone is at a genius level.

There are some things important and complicated that I don't understand very well but they are not about basic operation of relatively simple things. It's like saying operating a washing machine or using a knife is something special.

And I do understand people very well; in fact, much more than I wish, by necessity. Your average person is frustratingly basic to the point of being extremely annoying on top of boring. I just choose to not pretend and "be nice" anymore, because it just hides reality and doesn't help anyone. The fact that we have some people designing complex computers or sending people to the moon while others are barely able to cook a meal is largely a testament to that.

You might want to get rid of your ideologies if you believe what I said is controversial or wrong. Most people, by statistical definition, are idiots. Technology just reveals that fact very clearly, it's as simple as that.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#953

Post by nicoburns »

vessenes wrote: post #101

I guess I’ll take the contra here on messages integration — moving a message over BLE to untrusted hardware and worse accepting them back into iMessage is a massive, massive change in the security boundary and therefore security architecture and therefore security promises that apple makes on iMessage. I do not believe average smartwatch users understand what they’d be doing if they got this. I do not believe vendors…

Do you have a problem with SMS spam? I can't remember the last time I got a spam SMS message, and I had my phone number on public on my personal website for a number of years.

Perhaps SMS spam is a US thing?

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#954

Post by maximusdrex »

vessenes wrote: post #910
maximusdrex wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again there is no technical rigor behind these notions. Video providers didn’t like the idea of untrusted HDMI devices scraping video from DRM protected content so they came up with HDCP, which allows anyone to develop and certify solutions as trusted software/hardware. There’s no reason apple can’t do something similar, it doesn’t have to be completely open vs. completely closed. There are always alternative solutio…

True. But why? Why should Apple spend a bunch of money hardware certifying, and adding liability? There was a compelling reason to add HDCP -- content makers required it, and had criminal penalties as threats to go after infringement. Apple doesn't need outside ecosystem builders here; what is the business reason for them to add process expense, risk, and possibly incorporate timelines from other vendors into their s…

I actually agree with that completely. I just want it to be clear that this is a conscious business decision that apple is making and not the result of technical challenges. I think the distinction is important because I don’t love the tradeoffs apple chose to make, but I continue to buy an iPhone because at the end of the day my phone is mostly about being social and it’s a frustrating experience trying to communicate with friends and family who all have iPhones which make interoperability with other messaging ecosystems frustrating. If iPhone RCS support worked as well as native messaging I’d switch to an android in a heartbeat.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#955

Post by 827a »

nunez wrote: post #929
827a wrote: post #813

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Propaganda. There's extremely few reasons why a modern Android phone from Google or Samsung is less secure than an iPhone, against any attack vector that 99.sevennines% of people [1] would ever experience. The worst way I've ever seen the most tech-illiterate person ever mess up an Android phone is by installing some QR Code reader that took over as a home screen launcher so it could (nonmaliciously, but questi…

Replacing a launcher can be pretty bad. This happened to people I know. Some innocent sounding app replaced their launcher and added a fake Gmail widget to their home screen. It prompted them to login and, well, you know the rest. This would never happen on iOS because you can't change the launcher.

Agreed. Its my opinion that you should be able to replace the launcher on Android devices, but the Play Store should refuse to distribute apps that do this.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#956

Post by bigiain »

saagarjha wrote: post #856
bigiain wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Same. I do not want 3rd party hardware/software vendors to have unrestricted access to the messaging app on my phone that is the only option my bank and PayPal and a bunch of other critical services use for 2FA. Especially not when the software they want to run is JavaScript, with all it's well known npm dependancy nightmares, _and_ from a founder and team that openly admit iPhones are a second class citizen in…

Psst…there’s JavaScript running on your phone right now.

Sure, but so far as I know none of it has access to the contents of SMS or iMessages.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#957

Post by skeaker »

bigiain wrote: post #580
lynx97 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a user, I am totally fine with Apple restricting access to iMessage. In fact, now that I read this, I want them to do this, thanks Apple.

Yep. Same. I do not want 3rd party hardware/software vendors to have unrestricted access to the messaging app on my phone that is the only option my bank and PayPal and a bunch of other critical services use for 2FA. Especially not when the software they want to run is JavaScript, with all it's well known npm dependancy nightmares, _and_ from a founder and team that openly admit iPhones are a second class citizen in…

Then don't grant them the access! This isn't all or nothing! It's a matter of being given a choice (to which you can say "no!") or being given no choice at all.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#958

Post by theragra »

wokwokwok wrote: post #726
smaudet wrote: post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a user, I'm not certain I completely agree. Yes, I don't want apps accessing my messages surreptitiously. Points there. However, what's wrong with allowing another app to post messages to my messages? If I don't want it, let me turn them off. Maybe, as a UI expert company, it's easy "block app from sending me messages" when I get a message. Seems like something that should be fairly transparent to the (potentially…

> However, what's wrong with allowing another app to post messages to my messages? > If I don't want it, let me turn them off. Can you it off for anyone sending you messages too? That's the issue; you not wanting to use it does not mean that spammers won't use it. That's the problem. You can't have nice things if some people can use it to abuse the system; and there are a lot of people who will. > But my point is thi…

So similar to democracy vs authoritarianism argument. If I live in Europe, why should I care that Russia is a dictatorship?

Because it affects my life, and can be fatal even, thats why.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#959

Post by liquid_thyme »

maccard wrote: post #908
liquid_thyme wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you could. It's indeed troubling to see this mindset on HN. We have an overflow of professional "explainers" these days, we need more doers and fighters.

If you want an alternative, android exists. I actively want a tightly integrated system that I know works well together. I don’t want to worry “does this device really work with this other device, even if it says it’s compatible” which was a constant source of issues I had on Android. Your desire for Apple to become an open system removes my choice to opt into a closed ecosystem, when you already have an open ecosyst…

>I actively want a tightly integrated system that I know works well together. I don’t want to worry “does this device really work with this other device, even if it says it’s compatible” which was a constant source of issues I had on Android.

Yeah, I mean Linux is an abject failure, nothing ever works or runs on it. Nobody needs open data formats or open protocols for interoperability. Binary blobs for the win! /s

>Your desire for Apple to become an open system removes my choice to opt into a closed ecosystem, when you already have an open ecosystem to play in.

Don't worry, it's easy to lock down any open system and we can give you that should you desire it.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#960

Post by zamadatix »

ketzo wrote: post #637
zamadatix wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post has a section regarding these concepts and why the author disagrees, why not respond to that directly instead? I tend to side somewhat with what the author is saying: they can be both relatively true statements and a way to abuse market power at the same time so identifying it as fitting the mold of one or the other is only the start of the conversation. People against the practices tend to care more about t…

> Apple claims their restrictions on competitors are only about security, privacy, crafting a better experience etc etc. At least that’s what they tell you as they tuck you into bed. Ah, yes, the author is clearly interested in an in-depth discussion of the tradeoffs in allowing 3rd-party users access to data that you tell your customers is 100% always encrypted.

The HN comments are for our discussion. If you choose to latch on to portions of initial posts or comments like the latter for swipes than that's the kind of discussion we get to have. If you choose to focus most of the discussion on other lines like:

> I personally don’t agree - they’re clearly using their market power to lock consumers into their walled ecosystem. This causes there to be less competition, which increases prices and reduces innovation. DOJ seems to agree.

instead then the quality of discussion here will match.

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