I own everything about the critical devices I work on, Linux. I have a magical device which "just works" in my Apple products.
If someone breaks this, I'll be sad.
Years ago, I replaced my trusty Nokia 6310 with an O2 XDA phone. It ran Windows CE, routinely crashed or froze and would be unable to make or receive calls. Since then, I've always wanted a phone that just works. The iPhone is the nearest thing to that for me.
Like Apple Music?
Each phone vendor including Apple does this to some extent. On Android you at least have some options (I had a few of them all were very close to stock), and usually you can disable these apps if there are any.
Worst I had to deal with was shortcut to OnePlus community forum, which is arguably less offensive than Apple Music, which is often reported to bind to the Bluetooth play button.
As for services that 'demand' you install something, the option exists on Android and no one demands people install things on their Android devices. Why would iOS be different?
https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/mobile/android
1. It is used now. 2. Google is a lot less aggressive than apple (see meta vs ATT).
Sure it’s not “forced” like you go to jail or your phone doesn’t work, but you can’t use the way 99% of people will get their games.
As opposed to Apple quietly changing airdrop behavior based on what opinions the CCP has on freedom of speech?
I get why you like Apple and voluntarily submit yourself and all your private data to the comfort of the JustWorks (TM) ecosystem, but after their whole "we're gonna keep scanning pics on your device (actually our device) for CP", there's no way I'm trading my freedom and privacy for the sake of a little bit of comfort Apple's ecosystem offers.
Also, If Apple would open up their OS/ecosystem more, it means other SW vendors could offer the same quality of life of Apple's own apps, such as easy backups, photos and music, etc. but since Apple has everything locked down in their favor, of course only their apps work the best on iOS and alternative are always second class. Microsoft was sued for this in the past for monopolizing certain app segments by shipping them as default with Windows (Internet Explorer, Media Player, etc).
In the end, I trust no billion dollar publicly listed mega-corp to own my data and lease it back to me for a monthly fee, as they're beholden to their shareholders who demand constant revenue growth, and once they capture the majority market share (they already have in the US) and the users are locked in to their comfy ecosystem, there's nothing stopping them from selling users out to advertisers to generate the revenue growth demanded by the shareholders. What are their users gonna do, leave the ecosystem and 10+ years of purchases and backups behind and move to Android lol?
Not being part of "The Ecosystem (TM)" in the first place, means I'm free to walk away to a competitor whenever I sense the vendor is shifting its behavior in ways that are not in my best interest, at the cost of more time and effort to manage my services individually. Basically don't put all your eggs in one basket should be the possibility on mobile devices.
I don’t care that random developers have to workaround annoying restrictions and pay 30% to apple because it means it does just work and I don’t have to think — no one is trying to persuade me to do anything non Standard because there is no wiggle room. That’s a good thing.
But it is a risk — I don’t like what apple is doing in China, and we are not that far away from that in the us and uk. If apple does start behaving poorly here I will be SOOL.
Remember this in 10 years or so when Apple will do things you won't like and you'll have no way out.
I've bookmarked your comment to have it handy in a few years when people are gonna start complaining once Apple acts against their interests.
Remember, you (plural) voluntarily asked for this. "Lock me down Apple, I love it."
I’ll be interested to return to this conversation in 10 years because as a priviledged, not-politically-radical (or at least not activist) person my hunch is that apple will still be a reasonable home for me. What I worry about is that it won’t be so comfortable for people who want to protest, or are in the margins in some other way.
I do care about this and would love another solution that worked.
Similarly I’d love not to use WhatsApp/fb and avoid as far as I can, but I want to play tennis or meet friends for bike rides and there is just no way of avoiding it right now without making substantial personal sacrifices.
I think the only solution long term is more regulation of large tech companies so that they act in the common good. That’s a hard problem though.
Apple has been working tirelessly for years to retrofit the iOS model to Mac. It's probably just a matter of time, unfortunately.
Being skeptical, and critical is important. This skepticism, criticizing and warning caused Apple to at least postpone their CSAM scan and reconsider their algorithms.
We need to talk, and talk indeed openly about the things we don't like. Otherwise we'll be the real chickens at the end of the day.
"But we said Microsoft would do this bad thing, and then they did it!" is not a valid argument for why we should believe "But we've been saying for 12 years that Apple will do this bad thing Any Day Now™! They haven't yet, but it'll definitely happen Very Soon, just you wait!"
Companies are companies. I'd love the future to sucker punch me and prove completely otherwise.
Meanwhile the only PC I own is a Steam Deck.
iOS would instantly be the biggest target for crapware ever. Enough companies want out from under apple that you’d be almost forced to use sideloading to install mainstream apps (Facebook, Fortnite, Spotify, etc), so users would expose themselves to all sorts of scams very quickly.
You seem to be a power user, and I get what you want, but pleeeease no signed binaries! :D For me a setting "I know what I'm doing" would be good enough :) (like on Android smartphones). That way I can install anything I want, and you can install only signed binaries.
Perhaps some middle ground can be achieved.
I think the idea is that if Apple finds you signing software with malware, they can invalidate your certificate, and then your software won't run anymore on anyone's mac. And you know that you will lose your certificate and have a hard time creating a new one if you sign malware, so you probably won't do it. You also know that by default, your users won't be able to run malicious versions of your software, so your reputation won't be damaged by stories of "I installed the Schipplock Frobnicator App and my machine got infected".
In effect, it's a decent system to allow other distribution methods than the App Store without opening the flood-gates for malware and trojans. I 100% agree though that there should be some obscure option to run unsigned software, it should be a system acting on behalf of the user to protect the user, not a system acting on behalf of Apple to control the user.
As a user of portable Macs, I concur. I use Linux desktops, Mac laptops and iOS mobile devices.
> All I want is the for the iPhone to be as open as a Mac. Let me run binaries signed by legit devs!
That should be nice, indeed. It'll take us to the good old PalmOS days.
Maybe users should be more mindful and more educated on the pros and cons of dumping their entire private lives in the devices they don't control and are instead controlled by publicly listed trillion dollar corporations who's sole purpose is revenue growth and shareholder ROI.
Just a thought.
Apple's OS and the API it provides for developing apps is what gets us here. Lord knows there are some real busted apps out there, but your system doesn't fall apart.
Let's not even get into the fact that Apple itself was doing OS X stuff, which was able to have a high bar for software quality, and no "don't install random binaries" stuff to be seen.
It’s related to the “one app source”. See…
> no "don't install random binaries" stuff to be seen.
Because it was a lot smaller target than windows in terms of uses and impact. Maybe you forget, but there was certainly crapware that would bog your system down.
Meanwhile iOS is probably the single greatest target today. Statistically rich users, extremely important device to the user, and lots of users.
Regardless of your view on if apple should open it up, if it were to happen, it would instantly be a massive target. Companies would flee the 30% fee (@epic/fortnight) or the privacy policies (@meta) and maybe even employers buying some Oracle/SAP junk for their employees and quickly bring legitimacy to sideloading.
Everywhere would then fill with more of those “your Java is out of date plz download” sites, but instead it’d be apps. Now, for better or worse, no one has to question what they download (too much).
If you could side-load then you’d soon almost be forced to side load and it would be heavily exploited.
Billions of machines use software distributed via package managers like Apt that have existed for decades, yet there is no epidemic of rampant malware proliferation via Linux package repositories despite trillions of dollars worth of assets being managed by Linux machines.
This argument is typical FUD, and it's very common for App Store apologists to not argue based on what's happening today with other app distribution methods, but via Y2K-era fear and the classic "but what about Facebook!" refrain.
Yea, most of the argument is “I fear that there will be generated uncertainty in how trustworthy apps will be. I doubt that most people can make smart decisions.
> it's very common for App Store apologists to not argue based on what's happening today with other app distribution methods
I’m not an App Store apologist, but also APT is hardly a fair comparison For many obvious reasons, not the least of which is that no actually relevant volume of humans use Linux. Servers aren’t people and don’t download random plugins and “Java updates” from their browser.
Drive by browser downloads and scams are the real threat vector. They’re still a thing in 2022. Just because your DNS based ad-blocked Linux desktop with a JavaScript free Firefox installed from the command line doesn’t see them, doesn’t mean they’re not there.
Maybe you don’t think they’re as important as “freedom to install what I want” but you can’t dismiss it as y2k fud.
That’s the core of most “app store apologist” arguments. That the control and peace that comes from the App Store is worth the loss of freedom. If you wanted freedom, there are alternatives.
You can disagree with the trade off, but that’s the trade off and other people prefer the other thing.
Personally, I want the pretty and powerful hardware of the iPhone and the freedom but I’m glad I don’t have to explain to my mother why her iPhone doesn’t need new Java.
I want all my problems on it to be solved by rebooting and I want it to just work and all the apps be safe by default.
I have never experienced this. What settings?
However, as a result, the backup tasks I created my parents keep stopping randomly, and I don't like that.
I heard an argument like this a lot at the start of discussions about whether we should be able to choose to WFH in the longer term. "I don't want to WFH because..." Ok, sure, but nobody is trying to force you to.
It might just be me, and I'll definitely fret about whether I'm being unreasonable for at least the next couple of hours, but this kinda frustrates me.
I'm supportive of your choice, but you already get to do the thing you want, and nobody is trying to take that away.
Expressing that you wouldn't behave any differently given more options is a distraction in a discussion about whether other people should be allowed to make a different choice.
You can always Jailbreak your device?
I think Apples response to your argument would be that it isn't the technically aware user that is trying to get control over their device that is the problem, its apps being used by those with no technical ability. Once an App is allowed to break out of the sandbox or be installed away from the AppStore the likelyhood of an average users phone getting into a broken mess at best and becoming infected with a virus at worse goes up my an order of magnitude.
No, you can't and this isn't a serious alternative, especially since Apple goes out of their way to prevent and break jailbreaks.
> Once an App is allowed to break out of the sandbox or be installed away from the AppStore the likelyhood of an average users phone getting into a broken mess at best and becoming infected with a virus at worse goes up my an order of magnitude.
And yet multimillion dollar scams flourish on the App Store[1]:
> That man’s name is Kosta Eleftheriou, and over the past few months, he’s made a convincing case that Apple is either uninterested or incompetent at stopping multimillion-dollar scams in its own App Store. He’s repeatedly found scam apps that prey on ordinary iPhone and iPad owners by luring them into a “free trial” of an app with seemingly thousands of fake 5-star reviews, only to charge them outrageous sums of money for a recurring subscription that many don’t understand how to cancel. “It’s a situation that most communities are blind to because of how Apple is essentially brainwashing people into believing the App Store is a trusted place,” he tells The Verge.
Apple is also responsible for distributing 500 million copies of Xcodeghost to users via the App Store[2].
The App Store model is about profits, and security is an afterthought that makes for good PR.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/21/22385859/apple-app-store-...
[2] https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7bbmz/the-fortnite-trial-is...
No, you can’t. Apple has tight control over what gets installed on the iPhone, all the way throughout the boot chain.
Jailbreaking is about finding vulnerabilities to somehow acquire root, and many times exploits are not persistent after a reboot. The keyword here is “vulnerability”, something that Apple is eager to patch using security as an excuse, which is hard to argue against. But Apple could provide its users the ability to flash their devices with a warning that if they do, they’re on their own, but Apple wont do that for the aforementioned reasons by countless people in this thread! They are locking down the platform on purpose, and neither privacy nor security are adequate excuses.
Jailbreaking shouldn’t be a thing, because users shouldn’t be living in jails, they should live in fortresses.
Jailbreaking is incredibly bad UX. You are forced to use closed source software to “jailbreak” your phone, a jailbreak which may or may not be persistent after reboot. And only if you have the right iOS versions. So users are forced to stay on vulnerable iOS versions and not upgrade and pray to God that a new exploit is made for their version. Because if they upgrade, Apple wont let them downgrade again, which makes the users miss the opportunity of using a newly created exploit. It’s a cat and mouse game, and it makes users more vulnerable to malware.
Jailbreak use security exploits. I guess I want them fixed.
This option lets hackers into yr phone to steal yr nudes click OK to continue. Are you SURE? Check this box if you're sure. Check this box if you're just clicking every box to get through this to cancel, or wait thirty minutes to continue. Type "I GET IT MR APPLE BRING ON THE VIRII" and tap continue to continue. Get any Gold badge on HackerRank to continue. Put your phone in the microwave on HIGH for 30 minutes to continue.
...
...
Good. If you are reading this, it means you did not microwave your phone. You have passed the test. A fully clothed Apple representative is waiting for you in your car. Do not look directly into his eyes. Follow his directions to travel to our Appcave. After performing a gravity search for security reasons, he will grant you control over your device.
Something like that.
Johnny Tech-No might be able to navigate the checkboxes, he might even get through the trick one where you have to wait 30 minutes. There's no way he's getting Gold on HackerRank without having the know how to safely use a rooted phone. Surely.
No.
> It might just be me, and I'll definitely fret about whether I'm being unreasonable for at least the next couple of hours, but this kinda frustrates me.
The thing is, I'm stating my position and not telling that just because I choose something, everybody should be happy with that. I have only stated that Apple's proposition is better suited to my mindset and current preferences, given the choices are Android and iOS.
> I'm supportive of your choice, but you already get to do the thing you want, and nobody is trying to take that away.
I expressed no such fear or concern as far as I'm aware?
> Expressing that you wouldn't behave any differently given more options is a distraction in a discussion about whether other people should be allowed to make a different choice.
I don't think so. I skimmed the discussion and didn't see the position I have expressed here, and the parent asked for a counter-opinion, and I presented mine in a concise and polite manner. I guess we're discussing by expressing our opinions here, what am I missing?
Your comment was an example of that, if not a particularly egregious one. We're not about to sway Apple in a HN comment thread. Specific reference to your comment was intended only to use it as an example to illustrate the point.
> I expressed no such fear or concern as far as I'm aware?
Nor did I claim that you did. While it is not your position that allowing others a choice would harm you, explicitly mentioning that you don't stand to lose anything by allowing that choice is supportive of the main point in the next sentence.
> the parent asked for a counter-opinion
They didn't.
Next thing that would happen is that every major "can't miss out" app will walk its users through the process to disable safe management features, all to fulfill the promise of showing cute cat gifs. You know that's how it is.
Seriously, basically any other topic we can discuss like adults here but when it comes to Apple and their restrictions/bad behavior it feels like the most upvoted posts are paid ones (not stating they are, but it certainly would look like that on more generic forums)
Because the only mobile OS provider which allows blinding tracking frameworks with a single click is Apple currently, and every software vendor will want its telemetry and ads for their "monies".
The application model evolved from "pay this to get that" to "train this AI implicitly which we gonna use against you, and ah, we also sell your every aspect of you" to see cute cat GIFs.
Some of us are seriously against this and Android doesn't provide that. Maybe it's because Google is an advertisement company which provides nice looking (free-ish) utilities which also acts as nice data funnels (incl. Android).
Also, we have a gatekeeper called Google Play Services. In other words, even if you have a custom ROM, you need that all-encompassing framework to have nice things.
Clients may differ, but the cloud platform and the connector which enables all these "Android" things is closed source, and controlled by Google.
---
If you want to install microG super easy and are still choosing your next phone, get one supported by LineageOS: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
Then instead of the official LineageOS build, get one from here with microG preinstalled: https://download.lineage.microg.org/
For low budget folks, a lot of Xiaomi phones are supported. You'll have to sign up for their account and wait for a few days, but otherwise the process is pretty straightforward. E. g. this is for my current phone: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/ginkgo/install
Lets not forget the stuff you (and most of us) so loathe is direction Apple is actively heading for few years via their own ad-space. Truly surreal discussion.
Well that would be in violation of existing US Federal Law
The common example I give is that if you replace the radio in your car, and then the water pump fails the manufacturer of the car can not refuse the warranty because you change the care
Similarly, if in this instance you remove the sticker to turn on Dev Mode and then the Screen fails it would be incumbent on Apple to prove some software or something you did directly cause the screen failure before voiding the warranty claim, they can not simply relay on a sticker
[1] https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/ftc-warranty-sticker... [2] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2018/04/...
Do you expect most users would know about side loading in Apple's case?
This has never happened on Android.
[0] https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/fortnite-removed-from-g...
>When Fortnite launched on mobile in 2018, Epic Games very notably sidestepped the Google Play Store and pushed users to download the title directly from their website, an effort made to avoid the substantial revenue cuts that Google takes from in-app purchases of Play Store downloads. At the time, the move was understandable for Epic, which was sitting on the hottest free-to-play game of the year that was pulling in substantial revenues from in-app purchases.
Google proceeded to try to scare users away from sideloading Epic's app, and Epic sued.
>“Google puts software downloadable outside of Google Play at a disadvantage, through technical and business measures such as scary, repetitive security pop-ups for downloaded and updated software, restrictive manufacturer and carrier agreements and dealings, Google public relations characterizing third party software sources as malware, and new efforts such as Google Play Protect to outright block software obtained outside the Google Play store,” an Epic Games spokesperson said in a statement. “Because of this, we’ve launched Fortnite for Android on the Google Play Store.”
https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/21/epic-games-launches-fortni...
>> This has never happened on Android.
> When Fortnite launched on mobile in 2018, Epic Games very notably sidestepped the Google Play Store and pushed users to download the title directly from their website...
Though that's the exception that proves the rule. Besides Fortnite, who else has pushed users into side-loading? It's not at all common, which weighs strongly against the scare-mongering that it would somehow cause their platform security to collapse if Apple allowed it.
It also seems like it would be the case if your app is big enough to get people to side-load it, it's probably also big enough to get some security/privacy of its own to keep its practices in check.
Amazon did the same with its app store (one they tried to push when they first released their tablet)
>The lawsuit is effectively claiming that this openness is a facade, because while customers technically have the choice of where to get their apps from, Google’s business practices have prevented a viable app store competitor from emerging.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/8/22568111/google-play-andro...
>Google has struck at least 24 deals with big app developers to stop them from competing with its Play Store, including an agreement to pay Activision Blizzard Inc about $360 million over three years
https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-agreed-pay-360-mln...
>Epic reached an agreement with OnePlus to preload Epic Games on the company’s smartphones. As part of the agreement, Epic says it developed a version of Fortnite specifically for OnePlus devices to take advantage of the OnePlus phones’ high-refresh-rate screens...
Google demanded OnePlus not implement the agreement outside of India, where the company allowed OnePlus to move forward with the deal.
OnePlus reportedly informed Epic that Google was “concerned that the Epic Games app would have the ability to potentially install and update multiple games with a silent install bypassing the Google Play Store.”
https://mobilesyrup.com/2020/08/14/epic-google-oneplus-prelo...
Since Google lets most apps do what they want in most ways, there's not much motivation for bypassing the App Store--unless you're greedy like Epic. Since Apple restricts apps more with each passing year, the motivation is much higher, in addition to the identical 30% fees.
Not OP but yeah, I think it would. Im currently an android user because I thought it wouldn't, but in practice it does.
The most explicit example is that despite owning a flagship phone from a flagship manufacturer, the Google suite of apps don't integrate properly with the hardware. I have a Z flip 3, and I need to use Samsung Pay (over google wallet) with the phone to use it while folded. Because Samsung Pay doesn't integrate with my Google account, I'm forced to use both services in praxtice.
These sorts of niggley incompatibilities are _everywhere_ on android.
The other point is what epic has done is going to spread (side note: I used to work for Epic, this is my take on their move, not speaking on their behalf). If I want to play the Fortnite right now, I am forced to download an extra launcher on my device that interacts differently to the play store and Samsung store, doesn't support the integrations with the rest of my apps. I can only guarantee that as other apps grow we'll end up with storefronts for X, Y and Z (see uplay, battle.net, origin, epic launcher, ms store) so that those apps can either take a bigger cut or skirt around the requirements the platform holder has - on iOS it will make it so that sign in with apple isn't a requirement on third party stores.
The fact is that people who do want to sideload have the option to right now - use android. The people who want to live in a walled garden also have an option. By forcing apple to be more open you remove that option from the people who want it.
As with it OP, I'm not saying everyone should feel this way.
I'm sure I have a couple of vice grips around here somewhere. I wonder how far an iPhone will fold before Apple Pay stops working. Surely some YouTuber has tested this already...
I personally have never used a Samsung device, but from I've read, I feel like Samsung phones are trying to be their own OS and do as much as they can to hide the fact that they're running Google's Android OS.
It's similar to the same way MacOS tries to hide the fact that it's Unix under the hood and hides all the Unix directories (/usr, /bin, etc.) in the Finder by default.
Yes, it would, because <insert your giant corporation here> will require you to opt-out of Apple's ultra-managed experience to use their app.
I do think that could be solvable. Something like different personas on the phone could be the next step for the new “focus” features on the iPhone— maybe if you could disable App Store lockdowns but only for isolated profiles on your phone?
Exactly. Not just employers, but also Facebook, TikTok, and whatever new and worse invasive tech that is enabled by the lack of Apple's restrictions.
> I do think that could be solvable.
I agree. And it should be solved. But, those who are asking for less restrictions won't be happy, because what they are looking for is better tracking tools.
Why are these companies not happy with the current commissions structure? What guarantee is there that they'll be happy with a new one? Corporations are greedy. They will ask more of whatever their bottom line needs, including users' attention, privacy, etc.
> Then don't install it or only install it if its worth the trade off.
And get excluded from online circles that everyone in the world uses? Or, find a different job, because my employer wants to install their surveillance app outside Apple's sandbox? I prefer not having to do the trade off at all.
So, which "<insert your giant corporation here>" is making you do this on android, where you can actually sideload apps?
[0] https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/fortnite-removed-from-g...
When I was last looking for a job, I clearly stated that I did not want to work from home and that I was only interested in onsite. Out of dozens of recruiters contacting me, only 1 respected that desire.
I share a house with my sister and she has terrible boundary issues (the places she socialized with others closed and went out of business from the Covid shutdowns). Her refusal to stop "visiting" during working hours cost me 2 jobs.
The correct phrasing is probably "I would rather not work with a mix of remote co-workers". Which is very different, though I'd argue still a perfectly reasonable preference!
I'm not sure I'd agree on the reasonableness point.
It's definitely a reasonable preference to have (although this is true of all preferences). To me, the reasonableness ends at trying to make anyone else satisfy that preference.
World of Warcraft has a day/night cycle, but it runs in a full 24-hour cycle just like the real world. This meant that if you were like me and mostly played at night, you mostly only ever saw the game world at night, and rarely saw the beautiful daytime colors.
I found forum threads of people asking for the option to either disable the day/night cycle entirely (it was 100% cosmetic and had no effect on anything in the game), or perhaps change it to something shorter like a 6-hour cycle.
And in every one of them, there were people arguing against having it as an option because they wouldn't use it. It seems people struggle to understand what "optional" means.
It's a mindset that I just absolutely don't understand. I could maybe see someone coming at it from the standpoint of "I don't think devs should spend the time on implementing an option I won't use when there are so many other things to work on", but in the specific case of WoW's day/night cycle, I can't imagine it would be much of an effort.
I remember back to when Apple allowed apps to set location privacy options. They could make it so ‘only while using the app’ wasn’t an option. So uber only let you have it always on or always off. It took Apple unilaterally enforcing an opinionated stance on what apps are allowed to do before companies stopped being anti-user in that particular way. When Apple allowed more flexibility, app makers didn’t.
I don’t want Apple to allow app-makers the freedom to provide apps that are anti-user. In practice, it seems to bethe lesser evil.
I remember when Apple allowed Uber to give users the location preferences of “always” and “never,” before they required apps to offer “only when using the app.” I guess I just tend to like what apple’s tight restrictions do to the entire ecosystem.
If I want the option to shut off Apple's controls and sideload a bunch of malware, that doesn't have to affect users who don't want to do that (assuming this option is gated behind some sufficiently stern warnings about the consequences). That Apple doesn't allow that has far less to do with protecting users than it does protecting their bottom line.
Having said that, Apple making these kinds of decisions for business reasons is (IMHO) a perfectly valid and logical way to operate. I'd just prefer we didn't pretend they're making this decision because allowing users to take more control over their devices is necessarily dangerous. That excuse has more holes than a slice of this fine Gorgombert.
And tell you the only way for experience X is to follow these safe steps to unlock your phone and use their launcher.
A freedom of choice has to be a freedom to choose. As I said farther you the thread, this immediately becomes an "and" rather than an "or".
"I can install this app via my preferred storefront" is a fine choice - but "I have to use all of the services that every third party wants to bundle in to use their specific service" isn't a choice, it's forced upon you and is no better than the situation we have now. We've seen this on android - try and install the Google camera app on a Huawei device and let me know how that goes for you, or use the Samsung app store on your Google device.
That's not a choice, and it's no better than being forced to use steam in the first place.
But none of this is Microsoft's business. That's the important part.
Because it's not user choice, it's publisher or developer choice. If I want to play Fortnite, I don't have a choice to play it on steam or EGS, and similarly if I want to play league of legends,I can't play it on steam. This sort of "choice" isn't a choice for the user, it forces them to be subject to the data protection and whims of every publisher whether they want to or not.
I'm all for flexibility, but of the two choices we have today, I prefer Apple's proposition more. If they decide to add more flexibility without compromising their quality, I'd be more than supportive of the feat.
As my business become more complicated and I become less a tech oriented student and more a "have to get the paperwork done for legal reasons" type person I went back to iPhone and never looked back.
I noticed many people I know running very time consuming business to be iPhone users too, not having the time to tinker with Android.
I notice my tech friends working in support love android, as their job doesn't really let them tinker. How we for those running's servers and dealing with backend stuff I see iPhone ownership is about 50/50, far higher than in support.
And most people I know that own their own business like I do are almost always iPhone users.
We just do not have time to dig deep into our phones and tinker, we have too much work to do and we are already stretched for time with our families, why waste that on configuring yet another Android ?
Android is not Linux and is not exclusive to geeks and tinkerers. The market share also exemplifies this.
My wife switched from Android to Apple, then Apple back to Android a couple times. Turns out they're really not that different, and the "simple" one is the one you're used to (noting in the Android ecosystem companies like Samsung really do a disservice by trying to stand out from stock in a different-but-no-better way).
The part that I'm not telling that my choice shall be default for everyone, which I repeated numerous times in this thread.
Apple decides to add a switch to convert iOS to macOS levels of freedom? Fine. Apple enables sideloading? Fine, I'll applaud even.
The thing is I'm not pro-"Apple's current stance". I'm pro-choice, but what I get today is satisfying my needs. If we can satisfy more users' need with one device (regardless of manufacturer), we should do that, and I support that.
Neither my iphone 12 Pro max nor my new one have made a successful backup yet. Tried all the things and contacted support nothing so far, but no chance. Always stuck at "Estimating .. "
On the other hand, my wife bought iphone 13 mini after being whole life on android and its a proper shitfest form her point of view - basic settings simply NOT possible by OS because Apple decided they know better than users what users want and users have no say in this apart form losing warranty via jailbreak, basic convenient features missing. The whole device can be summarized as 'basic for very premium price' - it looks very cheap, works cheap, not a single fancy or cool thing on it.
Was about to give a chance to Apple myself but quickly rolled back after what I've seen. Plus all the scandals that show Apple is just another amoral non-privacy corporation just like the rest of bunch, despite their hard efforts at marketing. My wife will be probably rolling back to Android soon since its pretty bad experience overall. So completely opposite experience.
> ...its a proper shitfest form her point of view
You know what? That's perfectly OK in my book. Android and iOS are backwards with respect to each other, and they are built on different default modes of operation. However, I'll never call Android like that as an iOS user.
> basic settings simply NOT possible by OS because Apple decided they know better than users what users want and users have no say
Well, again this is a subjective view. I used many things before an iPhone. Android, Palm, Windows CE Casiopeia, Windows Mobile to name a few.
People think PalmOS is dead, but it's very well alive and its name is iOS. Basic iOS mode of operation is a direct descendant of PalmOS, and evolved from there. When looked from that point of view, it's a perfectly capable device which provides all the settings I want. Again, it might not be providing what you or your wife's expecting, and that's OK. This is why we have choices, and I support that.
> The whole device can be summarized as 'basic for very premium price' - it looks very cheap, works cheap, not a single fancy or cool thing on it.
Well, again it depends on your view. Considering I can do anything I need on it, short of conquering the world (which I'm gonna publish an app for that), I don't call it a basic tool. It might not be as open as an Android system (for things which I call fancy, you need to root that system too), but seriously, calling it "incapable and basic" is inaccurate and laughable.
> Apple is just another amoral non-privacy corporation just like the rest of bunch despite their hard efforts at marketing...
Apple is just another company, which earns money in different ways. Just to be clear, I don't see them anything extraordinary.
It most certainly is linux. You probably mean it's not a GNU operating system.
He more likely means you don't manage it as a linux system.
A lot of linux systems don't use GNU, especially embedded ones, or containers. Busybox is very common. But you don't really treat these systems any differently from GNU/linux other than some relatively mundane command differences.
My wife switched away from an iPhone an an Android device less than a year ago exactly because this _wasn't_ the case.
- Restore from backup failed... pretty much impossible to solve as far as we could tell
- Tell iTunes what songs you want loaded onto your phone and sync. Then leave the house and it downloads some of the songs off the internet, because it _didn't_ actually sync them to the phone. It just loads a placeholder. Pretty severe impact for someone not on an unlimited plan.
- Ran into a problem and had to get the music library from itunes/phone. I don't recall the exact details (it was years ago), but every song had been renamed to some random alphanumeric string. It took a long time to fix them.
Honestly, it was one long series of the system doing something that clearly wasn't what she, as the user, would expect (or exactly _not_ what she told it to do).
I have had to restore my iDevices from backups several times. It has worked flawlessly every time.
I have been syncing my music library from iTunes to my iDevices since well before the iPhone existed. The only times I have ever had a problem with songs not being on the iPhone are when a) I wasn't actually syncing my whole library, but a subset, and I had forgotten which songs I hadn't synced, or b) the songs failed to sync, and iTunes/Finder gave me a big dialog box saying so, with a message explaining why for each individual song that didn't sync. This is true for songs I bought through the iTunes Store as well as those from other sources.
Does this mean I expect these things to work perfectly for everyone, every time? No, of course not. I've had my share of problems with all my Apple devices.
But it does mean that either because of user error or unusually bad products (ie, you got a lemon), your experience is not typical.
But would you even notice if the song showed up in your itunes list "as if" it was on the phone but, when you played it, it grabbed it off the internet (with not delay, because it streams it). I expect most people wouldn't notice this at all.
> But it does mean that either because of user error or unusually bad products
- The issue with it loading songs (that you have told it to put on the phone) from the internet is, as far as I was able to determine, intended behavior.
- The issue with it renaming every song to a "random" alphanumeric string is, also as far as I was able to determine, intended behavior. Although needing to get the songs "back out of itunes" is, I imagine, an edge case.
- The failed backup restore, I have nothing on. It didn't work, but it was long enough ago that I don't recall why. I do not think it was faulty hardware. It could have been user error... but the entire point of the iphone argument is "it just works"; "you didn't do it right" isn't really a reasonable response in that context. Especially when you consider we really couldn't find a way to recover from it.
All of those things have been taken out of my hands, the first two because those of ludicrous App Store rules and policies.
The issue I have with people going after Apple is that _everyone_ does this more or less.
Amazon could sell books if they wanted to, they would just have to pay Apple.
This is a bit funny to me. I'll give you the homogeneity argument, but as for the rest, as someone who has owned both iPhone and Android since 2008 or so, it took Apple a long, long time to catch up to Android in the backup/update department. Remember having to do everything via iTunes? I remember.
Now, they're essentially the same in that regard.
This type of person is just drawing a line in the sand then falsely labelling it as “full control”, then adding on the rather dangerous commandment: “…and everyone must have it this way because ‘slippery slope and apologists’”
The fact is choice exists and consumer purchasing behaviours are also a demonstration of choice. The successful penetration of these smartphone/ similar devices relies on having different levels of control hard baked into the system - otherwise we are fracturing the ability to have something like the smartphone as a universal minimum.
How many of you folks out there have parents that don’t really use their computer but carry their smartphone everywhere? That’s something to think about.
I manage more than enough servers at work, and I don't want to manage another server in my pocket, do nitty-gritty settings, allow selected apps background access, try to find what changed and what broke every update.
I'm using Linux for 20 years, and I'm not going to change that, however Android is not Linux and settings persistence on Android is just is not present.
My parents use Samsung A9s, and I help them configure theirs from time to time, and seems like every important setting is either buried six levels deep or is not guaranteed to stick after an arbitrary time.
While iPhone's (or Apple's) ecosystem lacks control, it promises dependability, and this is huge in removing obstacles from your productivity. I can just get things done in my iPhone and never touch settings app ever, except the occasional "is my battery doing good" checks.