Why can't someone exchange money for a service they find valuable? As I understand it, that has long been a common practice.
[lifts hand up] Uh-uh, me, pick me: because most consumers have been trained and conditioned by corporations that they pay for the HW, the thing that they can feel and resell, and that the SW running on it should come for free.
Most consumers can't put a value on SW ownership, unless that SW is a video-game on a disc in their hand. Thanks to Google, Youtube, we've grown to expect that everything of value should be free.
It's also more convenient for the consumer to have a one and done payment.
The only thing I wish is if there was a monthly maintenance package when my devices get older so I can keep getting updates that keep my device running fast, secure, and can maintain some form compatibility with most apps.
Then it became free.
When you got a computer with Windows 8 you would get 8.1 and 10 for free. 11 if you have the right TPM / chip (doubtful). Same with Windows 10 to Windows 11, provided you meet the specs. Same with Mac OS (not versed enough to list the versions).
I believe Apple started this yearly iOS update (and with that a more rapid deprecation).
I don't think people would want to spend $1,200 on a phone knowing they have to pay each year for a software upgrade. They also would not spend $1,200 on a phone knowing that next year you have to BUY a new one to get the latest software.
And in Apples mind all of this is fine. iOS has the highest adoption of the last iOS version. So in terms of non-security bugfixes they can focus on the last version. Only security fixes might warrant an update for an n-1 version of iOS.
Yet, security updates aren't "free". I'd guess that keeping an OS secure is probably more expensive than developing new features. That part gets tricky.
Also, supporting 5+ year old hardware gets harder since that hardware stops getting made and the new stuff gets more and more different.
I'm absolutely still using PCs from over a decade ago and I'm still getting security updates.
On Widows at least, drivers from the Windows Vista days still work just fine on Windows 11 as the ABI hasn't changed that much since then. Good luck with that on Android.
Should some government regulatory body like the EU intervene to force their hand? Maybe.
But do remember that in the "old-days" of dumbphones and featurephones you were getting no SW updates at all ever and replacing your phone every 2-3 years was the norm back then.
It's only now we're thinking about this as we start to think about phones more as general purpose computers in our pocket and less as phone dialing devices like in the old days.
One thing's for sure, it's that the free market will never self regulate itself on this matter.
They are getting there and maybe someday they will be as they start to mature, but today it's just not realistic.
Oh poor thing. They protect themselves and software houses from torrent-esque and crack-esque like solutions which can be easily found for everything that runs on Windows, including Office, not to mention the Windows OS itself and everything Android.
That's also the reason why Apple dominates the US market whereas Android has the majority of devices elsewhere in the world.
Americans will fight between each other with hordes of lawyers at the cost of thousands of dollars for the stupidest things, but won't spend 30 seconds torrenting in order fuck Hollywood,Amazon, Netflix and Microsoft in the ass.
When you ask the reason why, their reply is : 'convenience'
When you ask why they fight for the stupidest things against fellow citizens using hordes of lawyers at the cost of thousands of dollars the reply is: 'To prove a point'
Bizzarre
It's extremely easy to find pirated software for macOS, too. Let's not pretend that Windows is Skid Row and macOS is a pristine gated community.
Huh. How about that. A country of people who don't just think they're entitled to the labor of others.
Holy Stockholm syndrome level of cognitive dissonance batman!
The whitelist approach to security has its merits.
Security doesn't require constant updates if the software they shipped didn't have bugs in the first place. These updates are just fixing faults in software that I've already paid for. Similarly, if I buy a car that made have the airbags explode for no reason, the car is recalled and the airbags are replaced for free.
Right, Including protecting me from me unless I find extra pleasure in ‘calling big fruit boss every few days’ for running my own soft on my (supposedly) own phone.
To avoid this ‘pleasure’ I have to pay developer fee yearly. If someone is looking for definition of ‘idiocy’ one should look no further.
Yet there is always someone trying to justify even that. ‘It is more secure ‘ - they usually say forgetting to mention that security starts with control and ends without it.
The obvious question to ask usually would be:
So who would protect you from Apple itself?
More entertaining question could be: Who is going to protect you from you?
But then we recall about AI and we can guess the answer which spoils the whole entertaining aspect of the question.
So the only question left is: What people would not justify when some big company does it?
Pick your poison, right ?
Someone is in control of the machine and it’s not me since I didn’t make it
I don’t know who you are so I don’t trust you
Thus I pay to live inside the walled garden
Is it total freedom ? No, but it’s reasonable enough for me and my family
Right as long as you know what poison you choose. At least control someone who controls your machine, including the building process.
>Thus I pay to live inside the walled garden
At the moment it’s more like you pay for garden with imaginable walls while in reality there are no walls and frankly it doesn’t look like garden at all.
The only real wall you face is when you are trying avoid living in this fantasy. There is more precise definition for such ‘garden’ - starts with prison. Is it total freedom ? no, but it seems it’s reasonable for …. I barely see something reasonable about it. It’s more like a luck of wish to stand for own dignity thinking that such stand is possible to avoid.
When people (some people) thought sharing some data is not a big deal in current conditions. Did they think about another situation when current form of AI is around? Did you think about changes of the environment when you wrote ‘ it’s reasonable enough’? You didn’t even add ‘for now’ suggesting of course you know everything that ‘now’ is happening. And you even ready to expand this vision to whole family? I wish to be that sure about the future.
I am not trying to attack you personally, I think it is very common ‘logic’ these days except I cannot see it as logic at all.
been using Android for over a decade now, not once did I feel a particular need to be extra-protected by the Big Brother. I'm all for competition, enjoy your devices, Android is far from perfect, but I will not let Jobs or anyone else living or dead dictate what I can or can't install on my expensive-ass phone. I know, data point of one, but so is this "i feel" comment.
I'm just echoing how Apple users feel about the product that we buy in large numbers and are also very happy with.
The reality is that we are forced to install apps in modern life. Want to go to a concert then you have to install our app. Want to board a plane then you have to install our app. Want to talk to your friends on whatsapp, then you have to install our app. Why do we have to give all this private information to McDonald's to buy a hamburger? We like having someone put limits on the programs running on our phones, because we often have little choice but to install the programs.
This is my take on the ecosystems. YMMV.
In simplest terms, Apple keeps users away from control. They make decisions for the user and often, it's reasonable. In some cases, Apples control makes useful features no-gos. Tasker is an example. It's either not present or crippled. In summary, iPhones are great choices for people that just want a smartphone. They don't plan on getting fancy with it, they just need a daily driver.
Android is more of a swiss-army knife, imo. It has more flexibility, at the cost of ease-of-use, to get that. The UI overlays, for the most part, are tragedies. AOSP is the gold standard for me, but Pixel hardware has been a shitshow, so good luck with that. Android is a more developed (wide-reaching) OS, being used in numerous IOT and other devices. In summary, its also a daily driver, but mostly for those that like to tinker or have an all-in-one device. The overlays can be a PITA, but you get what you get and some folks like them.
I'm a career SysAdmin. I've done seem edits on flip phones, I've rooted and rommed Androids, I've jailbroke my iPhones in the past. Now? It's just a phone. I use better tools for things I need to do, rather than try to bend 1 device to be everything.
Again, YMMV.
NGO group would like a word with you. /s
I got an Iphone for work. Although i was excited to see how good it is, my excitement died when it said that it can connect to Wifi or data anytime, even when Wifi or data is turned off.
So on my iPhone, I feel that Apple protects us from bad programmers for the most part, because if you look at Android and the lower quality of many of their apps and the way large tech companies run over the users by installing spyware on their devices, but Apple to some extent is protecting us from Facebook and Google and keeping us more in control of our devices, by limiting which applications can be run on them.