It's just such an intellectually weak argument coming from a company that sells general purpose computing devices.

Apple doesn't sell general purpose computing devices anymore

Steve Jobs envisioned the Apple Macintosh as a personal appliance - locked down, no expandability. But with only 128KB or even 512KB, the computer couldn't do a whole lot. Once Jobs left Apple, management expanded the Mac's features.

When Jobs acquired Apple, his vision of computing appliances was restarted - iPod, iPhone, et al. They have a lot more functionality, but the iOS walled garden keeps enough of the users happy - at least in the Silicon Valley/USA.

Look at early 20th-century Sears-Roebuck shopping catalogs online - one of the pages showed a hand-sized motor and the various attachments one could buy to attach to it - want a blender - get the motor and the blender attachment, et al.

An early 20th-century motor-based ecosystem similar to the battery-powered power tools you see today.

Eventually the idea of a generic motor that gets specialized with whatever particular attachment you want was refined to combine a motor and each particular attachment into its own separate integrated device - no swapping of motor and attachment anymore. There are pros and cons to both systems, but the integrated specialized appliance approach won for the most part.

> When Jobs acquired Apple, his vision of computing appliances was restarted - iPod, iPhone, et al. They have a lot more functionality, but the iOS walled garden keeps enough of the users happy - at least in the Silicon Valley/USA.

This sentence is backwards. About the only users not happy with the iPad as computing appliance are the ones in Silicon Valley USA or drinking its "car makers should design for garage mechanics not for driving" koolaid. (Commenters here, for instance.)

If you accept the premise the best tech disappears behind "the job to be done" for users, if you acknowledge driving is not about tinkering under the hood, to run an errand a driver shouldn't need to even know how it works under the hood, and most drivers are better off picking up groceries or kids or traveling, not ever opening the hood, then you will have a better time making cars for the drivers who buy Apple because it's an appliance farther along the novel engineering utility curve, where tinkerability is for engineers, utility is for users, and most users are not mechanics.

See also this, on Apple's "brand promise" and the EU's DMA:

https://hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/p/215-buildi...

They sold about $30B in Macs last year. If you're going to claim they aren't general purpose computing devices, you're operating under a different definition than just about anybody else.

I'm not sure that I see how what the level of sales is has anything to do with the question of whether or not they're a GP computing device.

My opinion? They are, but of a somewhat restricted sort.

I mean Asahi Linux works really well on many versions of Apple Silicon these days, you're definitely moving goalposts if you're saying that a MacBook isn't a general purpose device.

Just to be clear, I was saying that MacBooks are general purpose computing devices. I was disputing that the level of sales of a device has anything to do with whether or not the device is general purpose or not.

What's my MacBook Pro?

I think it's reasonable to restrict pornography on a device intended to be used for AR in public.

From Apple's perspective, it's important that using the device in public doesn't have a stigma.

Otherwise, we don't need to wait for deepfake AI / AR apps to undress people.

Creeps could go in public, see a person they like, and put porn next to them without anyone knowing.

Without restricting porn, an AR device just becomes a machine to violate others boundaries. There's a reason cell phones in Japan cannot turn off the shutter sound.

Given that they literally tell you not to wear the device outside (and that early reviewers showed how it stopped working in a moving car or on a moving train, the device stops displaying content when its accelerometer determines you might become nauseated by outside motion) I don't think this argument holds water.

MacBooks can access an unrestricted amount of porn yet the public doesn't immediately equate computer users -> using porn right now.

This is factually inaccurate. It doesn't stop working in a moving car or train. The reviewers/users that were using it in those instances simply didn't turn on the Travel mode of the device. In order for the 3D windows to persist, they need tracking data. Travel mode disables the external tracking and leaves it as internal. It's less accurate but it's completely usable in a moving vehicle.

But "without anyone knowing" means privately, and not in public, right?

> Creeps could go in public, see a person they like, and put porn next to them without anyone knowing.

So uh, can't people already do this with phones? I could watch porn on the train in front of people right now?

What NEW boundary does AR violate?

Crickets.

There is no new boundary except for the one puritans dream up. A holographic projection of their own inner monologue on the topic, if you will. ;)

It's all just so painfully dumb, and we have to weather the same arguments literally every time there's a new content format.

> Creeps could go in public, see a person they like, and put porn next to them without anyone knowing.

Does this affect anyone else more than imagining the same thing using one’s brain?

No, but that is a very, very, slippery slope, and there's a supermajority against enabling it.

Slippery slope to where, exactly? I genuinely don't see it

The same argument (who is it hurting if its notreal and viewed by a singular person?) is commonly used by organizations who would like to see the age of consent lowered / widespread legalization of child pornography.

I don't want to discuss it too much because there's enough nuance here for people to hang you with no matter what you say, but, a brief parable: I spent exactly 1 sentence pointing out to someone you could make porn with Stable Diffusion and they started hosting a SD instance for deep fakes in our non-technologist community with girls in it, and also started what I still think of as a "porn dungeon" chat room.

It was immensely frustrating trying to verbalize why this was antisocial and why there was a set of people who were legitimately upset by it. They never really understood fully.

But I'm sure they had moment with the Taylor Swift deepfake stuff from last week.

There's isn't really a 100% logical Spock reason why it's bad, other than other humans find it deeply distasteful.

Count me among those who don't see the problem. I believe that there are people who are upset by it, but that alone does not justify prohibiting it.

Can't tell if this is satire or if you're being serious...

Just in case you're being serious, you realize that people can already imagine others naked in public or just snap a picture or video of them using their phone and upload it to your AI undressing service.

It being strapped to your head adds absolutely nothing, and you might be projecting your own fantasies.