I want to mention that I think it's incredibly disingenuous to edit your comment to argue against my reply without mentioning that you've edited what I was arguing against. It's even more so when you use the exact same wording I did, making it look like I'm arguing something that was explicitly stated in your post, when it wasn't there at the time I wrote my reply.

I am seriously disappointed in this level of discourse. If you want anyone to take you seriously, you'll stop pulling shit like that in the future.

Shame on you.

I would be a lot more sympathetic if your reply had been something other than

> Don't act like you're scandalized about discovering the big secret that Apple won't let you fully control your iPhone in 2017.

I'm not sure why you seem to have a personal vendetta against me, unless you're an alt of feelin_googley. If you want to argue, I think we can keep it to the one chain we already have going, yeah?

Does your device behave correctly when you block these domains? If so, what is the impact on your service and battery life?

I really feel a dissonance between Apple's marketing position with privacy and the behavior of their devices in the background.

Is there really a dissonance? iOS lets you keep everything as local as possible if you want, and lets you limit the exposure of personal information.

As opposed to "we are open Android" but everything that most people define as Android includes closed source Google Play Services and proprietary drivers?

The comment you are responding to explicitly says no alternatives are good and disclaimed any idea that they were telling people to use something different. They shouldn't have had to make that disclaimer, but apparently it didn't even work.

This part of the comment did not exist when I replied....

Clarification: After many years of desensitization to this practice since the first iPhone, it is neither "a secret" nor "scandalous", but it is still disappointing. Moreover, I am not advocating any other mobile OS simply by making a comment about iOS. In fact, none of the "smartphones" being sold today are satisfactory to me as portable computers when compared with the control I get using an open source OS with i386, amd64 or even a development board.

Depending on when scarface replied, that last paragraph did not exist in the original post.

>iOS is a BSD-like OS configured so that the user does not fully control it

Oh come on. You act like this is some malicious or unexpected new behavior when this is how Apple has behaved for at least 15 years now. And if the BSD guys didn't want their software used in that fashion, they'd change their license. But since BSD wrote their own license that allows for that, they explicitly approve of it.

Don't act like you're scandalized about discovering the big secret that Apple won't let you fully control your iPhone in 2017.

> You act like this is some malicious or unexpected new behavior

No, I'm pretty GP "acts like"

> After many years of desensitization to this practice since the first iPhone, it is neither "a secret" nor "scandalous"

I've never really understood the absurd (but common!) argument that a repugnant state of affairs isn't worth discussion if it isn't new. Usually, the heckler even agrees with the person they're heckling! What's the goal? Sabotage of a cause one agrees with merely to redeem hipster / cynic points? I don't get it.

It's disappointing that GP felt the need to preemptively address this possibility in their post, but it's downright silly that parent didn't even let this fact stop them. So it goes.

I think it's fair to note that they edited that part in after I wrote my comment using that exact same wording, but failed to mention they edited it. It's not that their wording didn't stop me from replying, its that their wording did not exist when I replied.

It's a scummy argument tactic, which you've proven is highly effective.

A fair complaint, but you didn't address my main argument -- that novelty shouldn't be a precondition for discussing repugnant situations. Diversion is also a scummy argument tactic.

Seriously? Diversion? You just spent 100 words ripping me apart for a completely valid argument that you misunderstood, and you have the gall to say I'm only pointing that out as a diversion. Seriously. Take a look at yourself right now.

This was their original comment without their subsequent edits:

>I have been logging, redirecting and blocking these queries for these domains and more for years.

>It is one of our biggest complaints about the "new" Apple. There is no option for the user to disable the nonstop phoning home. iOS is a BSD-like OS configured so that the user does not fully control it. The user cannot fully configure it. This is no fun.

>Turn on an iOS device and it will keep trying to connect to Apple servers; it will not stop. An incredible tracking device if those servers keep logs.

It's a far whinier post, with the biggest complaint being that the BSD license allows companies to lock their software down, as intended. Not every piece of software needs to be fully controllable by the end user. I wouldn't call it "repugnant".

How do you know when the parent poster knew what? Must all Apple users know the entire history of Apple device DNS usage? Where is the universally known documentation on such usage?

I'd expect somebody commenting about "the 'new' Apple" to have awareness of Apple's historical activity, yes.

I'm not talking about DNS usage because neither were they. They were talking about being able to fully control their iOS device, which has never been the case, even dating back to the original iPod.

There is pretty universal documentation on that called "every sentence ever uttered about iOS since ever".