There are no options - there are no longer any mobile devices you actually own and control. The right to private property has been cancelled by, ironically, free market extremists.

I really don't consider myself a free market extremist. I fully support regulation for health and safety reasons, mandatory accurate and informative product descriptions, minimum quality requirements in many areas, consumer protection laws such as minimum warranty periods. There are many areas where it makes sense for us collectively, through our governments, to make sure we as consumers are not getting ripped off and get a fair deal. It's just balancing out the power disparity between vendors and individual customers.

So I am open to arguments for regulating mobile phone platforms, if that proves to be necessary. I just don't think it is, none of the arguments Ive seen so far are compelling. They mostly seem to be sour grapes. "I want to buy X product with P, Q, R features and nobody is making one, we should force them to by law". No, that's not how that works.

And, if by mobile, you mean network connected, even if you built your own hardware from components, you still don't own and control the networks (cellular or otherwise) over which that device will communicate.

ADDED: And if it's not obvious from the context, by "network" I mean a network that can communicate with the broader world, not just a LAN.

Also, you probably don’t have the right to make your own mobile modem unless you’re fine with it needing its own car battery and alternator thanks to Qualcomm’s patents.

Standards patents must be made available to license. Apple tried really hard to invest in a competing cellular modem provider (Intel) and gave up. Turns out, they’re really hard to build, and that’s why you can’t build one. Not patents.

Apple did purchase Intel's modem division[0], so while they temporarily have started purchasing from Qualcomm, maybe they're throwing more R&D at it than Intel did to actually compete with Qualcomm within the next few years.

0: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/07/apple-to-acquire-the-...

I'm not following you. What's to stop you setting up your own local network, entirely under your control?

For a LAN: Nothing, but you won't be able to communicate to anyone outside of it. You also won't be able to access it away from wherever you set it up.

For the primary networks at issue here, cellular networks: The FCC, and regulations restricting what devices can access which EM frequencies legally.

Nit: it is possible to build a private LTE/5G network if you use appropriate spectrum reserved for that purpose:

* https://www.sierrawireless.com/iot-blog/what-are-private-lte...

Not sure about connectivity to the larger / global SS7 network.

So, you don't own other people's networks? Right.

> They mostly seem to be sour grapes. "I want to buy X product with P, Q, R features and nobody is making one, we should force them to by law". No, that's not how that works.

I think it’s closer to: I bought a 10% black box (90% open) widget in the 1990s, and now in 2020 that same widget (with a few more functions) is 80% closed. And: why can I no longer use a generic computer for what I want to use it for? We’ve forgotten that an open distributed learning web is possible, and how instead computer literacy (programming) is very low because most of us can no longer follow our curiosity and look inside technological systems; only ‘experts' are allowed to do that (someone wrote about that recently, that whenever he talked to older/earlier computer hobbyists, how most of them mention that they are pretty disappointed by today‘s black box world/web).

And no they’re not ‘sour grapes‘, they’re just sensing the painful ways in which the commons has been plundered, and feeling frustrated by the way people such as yourself pretend that there are still many benefits to be found in locked down/black box platforms and devices, which there aren't.

The completely ludicrous part is how normalized all this is today. How much our tools are now over-engineered, non-modular and non-repairable; how much black box shit we produce. Literal shit. Single use shit. Biological systems have no waste, yet our current production systems produce the most toxic, anti-life sludge the world has seen (see Baotou -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_UdqZdFr-w). Today we produce coffee machines that have iPads sitting in a dock with virtual buttons to choose options. An iPad. What the fuck. What is that? Infinitely less complex technology was used to send people to the moon. What a complete and total waste of valuable resources and laborers' time!

I'm talking about how we could have so many more open standards and decide to produce only high quality stuff. But no, our culture teaches us to discredit those who came before and to commoditize tiny incremental updates, slapping our own names on them (‘branding’) to please our neglected and alienated souls. I’m so tired of this false story of the need for competition. Humans are copying machine. It’s ok to copy! It’s how we learn and grow.

Anyways, to get closer to a 'universal basic inheritance' - a commons that respects actual scarcity, and thus also the abundance of digital resources (scientific knowledge and technological blueprints), we need a new system for accounting. I believe http://valueflo.ws can offer us a very possible way forward https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vymAHXGSM14: they are radically distributed supply chain systems using the Resource-Event-Agent ontology, built on fully distributed tech, e.g. holochain and activitypub.

To see an exciting future that has been buried yet not forgotten (it's a new Cybersyn documentary): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJLA2_Ho7X0

This is so out of touch with the actual real world it's a bit concerning. There are plenty of open computing platforms kids can learn from these days, and schools are full of them. PCs are still pretty open, Linux is easy to install, Raspberry Pi and similar devices are cheap and accessible. My kids learned about all that stuff at school here in the UK. In most developed countries almost every kid in school gets to learn how to write at least simple programs. I taught my kids Python on their iPads.

>...pretend there are still many benefits to be found in locked down platforms and devices, which there isn't.

Now you're in lala land. People derive enormous benefits from ubiquitous access to easy to use computer technology all the time. They're just not the benefits you personally seem to value or understand.

"There are plenty of open computing platforms"

And roughly zero of them can make a phonecall, or a contactless payment, or to find directions on the go because they are not portable and internet connected.

All of the areas you mentioned are heavily regulated. And do GPS require internet connection ?

Yeah, I'm not sure where this incredibly open world of 1999 (to say nothing of 1989 or 1979) existed.

Telephony has always been very closed--fringe phone phreaking notwithstanding. Heck, some of us have been around long enough to remember when you had to rent a phone from a regulated monopoly.

And in the 90s, Windows was mostly your choice in a computer. You could build your own PCs but you mostly had to run Windows. (Linux was still quite early days at that time.)

Access to computing under the hood is much more democratized than it used to be even if the vast majority of people choose to use effectively appliances for certain tasks.

And, if I recall correctly, in the '90s, you had to pay for developer tools for Windows. (Or Mac, but Windows was, indeed, mostly your choice in a computer.) Today, every mainstream computer shipped—Mac and Windows—has a dizzying variety of free-as-in-beer development environments available for them, many also free-as-in-freedom.

Yes. Developer tools (and consumer software generally) were quite expensive. A typical compiler from Microsoft was hundreds of dollars. (Borland drove pricing down somewhat.) I forget what an MSDN subscription cost but it wasn't cheap.

> I bought a 10% black box (90% open) widget in the 1990s, and now in 2020 that same widget (with a few more functions) is 80% closed.

My mobile phone in the 90s was certainly not 90% open, it was far less open than my current iphone. I guess it was easier to change the battery, if that's what you mean? Swapping a proprietary battery doesn't count as open in my book.

My desktop computer in the 90s on the other hand was far more closed than my current one.

> The right to private property has been cancelled by, ironically, free market extremists.

This line of argument is frankly incoherent. That many, not all, available mobile devices remain firmly under the control of their makers after purchase is not because some free marketeer (or cabal thereof) foisted these devices onto unwilling recipients. This situation came about because the majority of mobile device users saw the deal on offer and decided they were better off taking it that walking. The real source of the status quo is the average consumer... no matter their ideology. That buyers weigh promises of "Just Works", the status of owning the cool new device that's in fashion, and some guardian supposedly lurking in the background keeping them safe over your own (seemingly apparent) priorities is a matter of each individual choice.

Private property rights haven't been cancelled at all or by anyone. There simply aren't enough people interested in owning devices that they fully control. Insofar as there are few alternatives to the status quo... blame the privacy activists and those clamoring for "full control" for not better convincing the masses that what they're giving up for iOS & Android is more than they're getting by buying these devices. As a free market extremist myself, I guarantee you: if people stop buying these devices because the deal is perceived as bad the situation will change.

Finally, if I try to infer what you might be for (rather than what you're against), which I do because it's the only reason to call out "free market extremists", is that you want a small group of "our betters" to decide what exactly a mobile device should be, over and above all those that find the current deal sufficiently satisfactory. You would have your priorities made the only choice over the interests of the majority of consumers. Ironically, perhaps, you'd eliminate the broader spectrum of choices by forcing what choices were allowed... wanted and valued or not. Naturally, I'm reading a lot into your short comment... but what solution do you really see that isn't a free market extremist position that doesn't come close to what I think you're saying?

Its so ironic to see 'freedom people' defend a system that would make Stalin green with envy.

"saw the deal on offer and decided they were better off taking it that walking"

The same reasoning applies to loan sharks, drug dealers and mafia. 'Unlimited' free market always degrades into oligopoly or Mafia rule.

"you want a small group of "our betters" to decide what exactly a mobile device should be"

You want that, and you have that- a small group of powerfull men decide to do with your device. Tomorrow your device uodates and startps reporting you to police for speeding, and there is fuck all you can do.

I am not asking for a communist mobile pgone comitee, I am asking for the word ownership to mean something. It's not a difficult concept.

At least with Android, you have the option to install external APKs, as cumbersome as that is.

7 steps isn't cumbersome.

-- 1) Open Chrome.

-- 2) Find and Download APK. https://i.imgur.com/ZFZb1uE.png

-- 3) Accept warning and Open APK.

-- 4) Go to settings. (This only has to be done once) https://i.imgur.com/R8FzTzP.png

-- 5) Toggle Install Unknown Apps for Chrome. (This only has to be done once) https://i.imgur.com/K0ADO2q.png

-- 6) Click back (This only has to be done once)

-- 7) Click install. https://i.imgur.com/xVSndex.png

-- Done. https://i.imgur.com/fyasTK9.png

Once you do this for the first time, the process reduces down to 4 steps each time after: Open Chrome, Download APK, Open APK, Click Install. Done.

Seems like you could copy paste this into every single "complaining about Apple" thread on Hacker News for the last few years. That people think that Android doesn't exist or is exactly the same as Apple, and you can't sideload apps or root at least some devices has become a widely held belief on Hacker News that has to get corrected in every single thread. I count several different comments that are mistaken in this way in this post alone.

That's because we don't like telling the people who need to be told that you can sideload apps, because they're the very same people who will later complain that they downloaded a "Free APK" of Sparkle Monkey Defenders eX from some Chinese app store and now their phone is vomiting up full-screen interstitial ads every few minutes. ...and we're supposed to fix it for them.

-- 8) Wait for a call from Aunt Susan after she installs some malware that told her it would boost her cell signal. :)

* https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/infected-apkpure/39273/

God forbid we hold users responsible for exercising due diligence. No, we must assume everyone is too incompetent to distinguish between shady and legit software.

> No, we must assume everyone is too incompetent to distinguish between shady and legit software.

As someone who has worked retail in the past, and who currently works in IT: starting with this assumption generally minimizes headaches down the road.

There are only so many hours in the day: people learn what they need to get their job done, and tend to move on. Some people are quite dim, but others don't have the time/energy/motivation/need to learn the details.

I think us enthusiasts tend to lose sight of the fact that most people don’t care to learn about how their computers work, just like how most people don’t care to learn about how their cars work.

And pretty much no one understands to any significant depth all or probably even most of the technology they interact with every day.

Every discussion about the average user needs to start with https://xkcd.com/2501 to put yourself in the right mindset.

Proffeshionals can't distinguish vulnerabilities in their own fucking software, so we have no right to blame the users.

First rule of IT club is you DONT TELL AUNT SUSUAN ABOUT THIS METHOD!

It used to be grandma. Because of grandma (and Aunt Susan), future generations of children will never have the freedom we had growing up.

Is not like the Google and Apple stored are not filled with garbage, it was recently revealed that Apple refused to notify the users that got infected from their "safe" store.

About Aunt Susan , you could have the device locked by default and have a more complex process to root the device, like some code/password that is in the box of the device, in that envelope Apple PR team could inform Aunt Susan that she should not do this unless she is tech competent or a communist.

Also you can install AOSP which is open source android operating system on some devices. And some other open source Android flavours. Yes, may be with few driver blobs, but that's not a restriction, you still can do anything with your device on every level.

Well and at least some suppliers offer you the option to install your own OS on it. At which point any restrictions the phone has are at least technically self-imposed.

That's a rather extremist viewpoint but it does have a nice rhyme to it.

PinePhone?

> The reason it's a problem is, as it turns out, this model works really well for a lot of people and is fantastically popular.

Turns out a lot of people don't want to deal with the responsibilities of completely owning a device (updates, anti-malware, app origin), and are willing to give up some control/ownership in exchange for convenience and being able to get on with life. (Certainly not everyone of course.)

Whether this view of convenience is short-sighted and will be regretted long-term remains to be seen.

You frame it as a conscious choice, but in my experience more than 9 of 10 Apple users are completely ignorant of the issues. They only "know what they like" or think "Apple is best. " There's no consideration at all of reasons or consequences.

There absolutely is consideration of the reasons or consequences relevant to them, that they care about. The fact is the things you think they should care about, they just flat out don't, and that's fine.

I tend to agree with you, but it’s also definitely possible that segments of the population are unaware of issues they would care about if they were.

This, exactly.

When I have conversations with non techy friends and introduce them to my take on the privacy and consumer rights issues, and they take the time to look into the problems and think about it, they've almost always come back and said the costs in loss of rights, market diversity, ecological impacts, or simply in dollars, are not worth the value provided by huge companies like Apple and Google.

They both ruthlessly squash competition and innovation that threaten their bottom lines, but somehow project wholesome images as innovation engines and friends of consumers. They both ruthlessly exploit employees and partners, while somehow appearing to be wholesome and desirous places of employment.

They're both soulless megacorps with institutional algorithms that prevent any threat to the control over a domain of profit. When such institutions arise, outside the control of any human or group of humans in the loop, they should be forcibly broken up. That level of power and influence belongs in the hands of people, not inhuman constructs.

Certainly, the vast majority of people in rich countries can afford to care more about fashion (including bubble color) than functionality, and this is reflected in their smartphone purchases. The frustration you see in these comments comes from technologists like the OP thinking the same way and repeatedly running into leopard ate my face moments.

> Certainly, the vast majority of people in rich countries can afford to care more about fashion (including bubble color) than functionality,

I've been an iOS and Android developer—as in, paid to do it. Was an Android phone user before doing any mobile dev. Finally got my hands on IIRC a 3rd-generation Surface at work a few years back, as a test device.

Having extensive experience with the competition, I now choose Apple phones and tablets for a few reasons, functionality very much among them.

I don't doubt your experience, but I would expect you to be an outlier and that more technologists would prefer a device they can program with the same APIs as the manufacturer without any gatekeeping and non-buggy web access most of all. Having better photo sharing and phone call capabilities, less device restarts, notification filtering, the ability to caption audio for times when having the speaker on is inconvenient or not loud enough, and supporting restricted guest accounts are also features that most people who don't worry as much about fashion would not want to give up.

> I would expect you to be an outlier and that more technologists would prefer a device they can program with the same APIs as the manufacturer without any gatekeeping and non-buggy web access most of all.

I doubt most "technologists" care about writing code for their phone to begin with, and I don't know what you mean by "non-buggy web access". That doesn't mean I think most "technologists" would pick Apple (I really don't know) but I don't think I'm the outlier here, preferences-wise, even if I am on which platform I choose.

> Having better photo sharing and phone call capabilities, less device restarts

Photo sharing's never been a problem—what am I missing? I don't talk on the phone much so maybe that's actually terrible (it seems entirely fine?) and I just don't know it. Device restarts? How often do you think I restart my iOS devices?

> the ability to caption audio for times when having the speaker on is inconvenient or not loud enough

That is cool. Not something I'd use personally, but it's cool.

> supporting restricted guest accounts are also features that

Account management is my biggest complaint about I-devices. Mostly the iPad—I don't really care if iPhones continue to have only two modes (full, and PIN-restricted "screen time" mode—which I don't use anyway, so I wouldn't mind if that disappeared, really) but true multi-account would be great on the iPad.

> most people who don't worry as much about fashion would not want to give up.

Hahahaha.

> I doubt most "technologists" care about writing code for their phone to begin with

I program my computing devices constantly, and with my phone being a computing device I have near me almost all the time, I naturally program that as well.

> I don't know what you mean by "non-buggy web access".

Webkit is extremely buggy and the only supported way to access the web on iOS. On other platforms, if one engine is buggy, I can use another.

> Photo sharing's never been a problem—what am I missing?

Uploading photos to your server in the background.

> I don't talk on the phone much so maybe that's actually terrible

You can't route calls through other services, you can't record calls (which the first makes trivially possible), you can't have your phone answer the call for you and show you a realtime transcription or save the transcription for later viewing, you can't have the phone wait on hold for you, etc. The iPhone is extremely limited as a phone.

> Device restarts? How often do you think I restart my iOS devices?

Every single time you need to update a system app.

I'd be willing to be those 9 out of 10 users barely know how to use a desktop computer beyond "click on the button for the internet".

I suppose that's the difference: the price they pay in user control and freedom is swapped for experiences and abilities to which they would never otherwise be exposed.

I prefer not to frame those people as ignorant in a negative way. It is we who set them up with those devices and taught them how to use them, we were just as ignorant.

I tend to agree, it's about how you manage your focus and memory in a world of distractions.

The same can be said for Android users. Are you really taking the snobby attitude that 'real' technical people would hack together their phone from parts and open source software?

All of today's desktop browsers come with developer tools built in. How many people know that, and how many know how to use them?

Many Android phones come with unlockable bootloaders. Again, how many of those who bought such a phone know about this capability?

What I'm trying to say that it's fine to sell a device in a locked down state. What's not fine, however, is not providing an unlocking mechanism, possibly deliberately well-hidden like it is in case of Android bootloaders, for those who know what they're doing.

There is absolutely no reason we can't have our cake and eat it too.

That would require solving hard security problems instead of punting on them by whitelisting.

Apple’s policies are guided in part by profit motive but also by security nihilism.

There’s no reason these security measures couldn’t be opt-out

If we regret it long term, people will start buying different products with the features they want.

They won't, if those products aren't available on the market. Which they won't be, because currently the "managed" approach yields more revenue.

"Voting with your wallet" doesn't work on most technology markets, where products and services are not commodities, and where the barriers to entry are insanely high. Yes - insanely high. Sure, you can get a $100 computer and a $10/month Internet connection and start writing software for millions, except it won't do you much good - software is the easy part. To compete with Facebook, you need to bootstrap a whole social network. To compete with Apple and Google on the phone market, you'll need to bootstrap your own hardware manufacturing, because all the smartphone vendors are into the same user-hostile crap these days.

Projects like PinePhone are probably as far as you can reasonably get on the "smartphone, except not user hostile" front. It's worth looking into why they don't succeed. It's not as simple as "people must not truly want it because they aren't paying the premium to get it".

It's irrelevant. We don't get to tell people what they are and are not willing to pay for.

Consumer protection law is the tool that allows that to happen.

Ironic that we're talking about using law to protect consumers from a company by not allowing them to use a walled garden to protect consumers.

The App Store model is about extracting rents. That the walled garden offers "protection" to consumers is incidental. The "privacy" and "security" stance taken by Apple is about protecting their revenues and burnishing their image in the eyes of the public. When their revenues are at risk (like their concessions with China) they take the financially expedient route.

> The App Store model is about extracting rents. That the walled garden offers "protection" to consumers is incidental.

Not according to many on HN who argue that it is precisely why they purchased an iOS device instead of an Android one.

I think we have to be really careful about trying to push our ideals on others via regulation.

> Not according to many on HN who argue that it is precisely why they purchased an iOS device instead of an Android one.

raises hand

It's not the only reason, but it is a reason. With government asleep at the wheel on regulating things like subscriptions, scams, spyware (which is, like, most software these days), et c., I'm living the anarcho-libertarian dream of paying a corporation to be my regulator. As it naturally would in the real world, this requires them to be big enough to distort and control markets, for it to be worth paying for. Does that mean they're behaving as a monopoly? Yeah, probably.

This sucks, of course, but it's what we've got.

This situation leaves me so conflicted on the whole antitrust, “just force iOS open” thing.

On one hand, the locked down iOS clearly hurts a lot of businesses and broader market competition.

On the other hand, Apple has been open and honest (and rather boastful) of the locked down nature of iOS since Day 1. Consumers have very clearly voted with their wallet time and time again that this system (and it’s tradeoffs) is the one they prefer.

To force iOS open is to undo the choices that consumers have made. But to leave iOS restricted is to harm broader business competitiveness.

You’re right that if Apple had marginal market share, this behaviour would not be problematic.

Broadly speaking, I’m not all that sympathetic to the plight of the big-name developers like Facebook and Match Group. They’ve collectively made users so cynical about privacy, security and the general trustworthiness of software that it’s prompted users to take refuge behind these hardened walled gardens. I just hate to see good independent developers have to be harmed as a consequence of that as well.

Isn’t it rather reductionist to say that the closed nature of iOS is why people buy it?

I chose iphone because a string of bugs left a sour taste in my mouth with android, and inertia locked me in. I definitely don’t want this level of locking it down, and I doubt a majority of iphone buyers want this.

I can't speak for others, but in my case it is indeed one of the reasons. I am using my iPhone and iPad solely as communication, productivity and entertainment tools. The consistency of experience, the relatively higher app quality and slightly improved ecosystem safety are valuable things to me. I can still create whatever application I want in XCode, as long as it doesn't push the boundaries of the allowed, and yes, those boundaries are a restriction, but one that I am fully aware and accepting of.

I am also fully aware that if I want a mobile hackable device I will have to find another option and I am fine with it.

And by any measure, this already put me in the minority of minorities. I doubt most users would want a more open iphone if they are made aware of the trade ofs. Why should a businessman want to know more technical stuff in order to use his phone? just so we geeks would be able to sideload stuff? Well, he don't want it, he actively don't want the device to give him this freedom, because them he would have to be aware of boundaries that he didn't have to before, more cognitive workload for him for no value added.

Security, privacy, reliability and “it just works” was always a major selling point of the iPhone. The various software restrictions were a major part of delivering that assurance that some third party software wouldn’t mess with your device. It might not have been a motivating factor for you, but it certainly was for a lot of consumers.

And regardless, Apple has never hidden the nature of iOS. These consumers have clearly decided that the tradeoffs of the walled garden were acceptable, despite there being plenty of more open alternatives on the market in the early days of the iPhone.

> Security, privacy, reliability and “it just works” was always a major selling point of the iPhone.

Security, privacy, reliability and “it just works” was always a major selling point of the Macbook too.

The dichotomy between secure and locked and open but unsecure is a complete strawman. It is possible to be both open and secure. People would still be able to only install applications from the App Store even if the iPhone was less locked.

I would say that iOS is clearly more secure, private and reliable than OS X is.

Apps on Mac OS X can absolutely screw up your machine. Adware in particular is a big problem for novice OS X users (speaking first hand here, having had to support these users). That’s an exceptionally rare occurrence on iOS.

I’m comfortable with the security model on macOS, but would be very concerned if that same model were applied to iPhoneOS, where users (myself included) carry significantly more private information.

On my phone, I want applications to have access to as little private information as possible, even if it’s detrimental to functionality. Call me a security nihilist, but security and privacy is by far my #1 overriding concern on mobile platforms, given the wealth of personally identifying information these devices gather.

More succinctly: the threat model on mobile devices is not the same as the threat model on personal computers. It’s inappropriate to apply the same security to both platforms.

I don't think so. 99.9% of people don't need or want to do anything beyond what iPhone/Android currently offers, I would put money on the fact that a majority of iphone buyers are completely happy with things as they are.

It’s interesting that, specifically with regards to the App Store and iOS API restrictions, the complaints more or less exclusively come from two groups:

1. Third party developers

2. A subset of power users

The broader end user appears to be quite satisfied with the status quo.

It’s a weird situation where anti-trust law (which ostensibly exists to protect the consumer) is likely in opposition to broader consumer sentiment.

It’s a very different situation than Microsoft’s antitrust in the 90s, where consumers strongly supported the antitrust actions.

> It’s a very different situation than Microsoft’s antitrust in the 90s, where consumers strongly supported the antitrust actions.

Customers mostly didn't care about Microsoft antitrust trial in the 90s either. It was mostly affecting third party developpers and companies selling computers. The situation is not particularly dissimilar except Microsoft had a clear monopoly while Apple and Google are a duopoly and Apple is seen as a lifestyle brand to defend by a rabid minority of its customers while Microsoft was strictly seen as a tech company then.

Most end users loved Microsoft because they put real computing power in the average user's hands at an affordable price.

It is also important to note that Internet Explorer was a VASTLY SUPERIOR PRODUCT to Netscape. So Microsoft competed, fair and square. The antitrust trial was just Netscape getting assmad that they were beaten at their own game.

> Isn’t it rather reductionist to say that the closed nature of iOS is why people buy it?

No, we've heard plenty of people here on HN specifically say that's why they prefer it.

Just because you buy something for some of the features, it doesn't mean you want all the features it has.

The problem is the false marketing around this.