There was a time when Apple’s hardware was user-serviceable; I fondly remember my 2006 MacBook, with easily-upgradable RAM and storage. I also remember a time when Mac OS X didn’t have notarization and when the App Store didn’t exist. I would gladly use a patched version of Snow Leopard or even Tiger running on my Framework 13 if this were an option and if a modern web browser were available.

I run NixOS on a plain X11 environment with a browser, an editor and a terminal. It's really boring. For my favorite development stacks, everything works. Flakes make workflow easy to reproduce, and it's also easy to make dramatic setup changes at OS level thanks to declarativeness and immutability.

I would argue people are being tugged in that direction more than it being simply better.

You can bet when people start to get to work building things --all sorts of things, not just software, they find out pretty quickly just how important a simple desktop running on a general purpose computer really is!

You may be smart enough to figure it out, but most people (even many smart tech people) get tired of these constant battles.

Here's an example from earlier this evening: I was buying a plane ticket from Japan Air Lines. Chrome automagically translates their website from Japanese to English. Other browsers, e.g. Firefox, and even Safari, do not - I checked. Is there a workaround or a fix? I'm sure you could find one, given time and effort. But who wants to constantly deal with these hassles?

Another very common example is communication apps. Or any time you're exchanging data in some proprietary format. Would it be great if no one used proprietary formats? Yes! Is that the world we live in? No. Can I force the rest of the world to adopt open standards, by refusing to communicate with them? No.

And most laptops at this point have removable/exchangeable storage. Except for Apple.

Apple has full-disk encryption backed by the secure enclave so its not by-passable.

Sure their standard question-set asks you for your password when you submit it for repair.

But you don't have to give it to them. They will happily repair your machine without it because they can boot their hardware-test suite off an external device.

In particular if a flaw was to be revealed on the secure enclave or encryption, it would be too late to act on it after the machines have been sent in for years.

To be clear, I'm reacting on the "Apple is privacy focused" part. I wouldn't care if they snoop my bank statements on disk, but as a system I see them as behind what other players are doing in the market.

I hear the point you're making and I respect the angle, its fair-enough, but ...

The trouble with venturing into what-if territory is the same applies to you...

What if the disk you took out was subjected to an evil-maid attack ?

What if the crypto implementation used on the disk you took out was poor ?

What if someone had infiltrated your OS already and been quietly exfiltrating your data over the years ?

The trouble with IT security is you have you trust someone and something because even with open-source, you're never going to sit and read the code (of the program AND its dependency tree), and even with open-hardware you still need to trust all those parts you bought that were made in China unless you're planning to open your own chip-fab and motherboard plant ?

Its the same with Let's Encrypt certs, every man and his dog are happy to use them these days. But there's still a lot of underlying trust going on there, no ?

So all things considered, if you did a risk-assessment, being able to trust Apple ? Most people would say that's a reasonable assumption ?

Well, have fun with my encrypted data. Then I get my laptop back, and it's either a) running the unmodified, signed and encrypted system I set before or b) obviously tampered with to a comical degree.

> What if the crypto implementation used on the disk you took out was poor ?

I feel like that is 100x more likely to be a concern when you can't control disc cryptography in any meaningful way. The same question applies to literally all encryption schemes ever made, and if feds blow a zero day to crack my laptop that's a victory through attrition in anyone's book.

> What if someone had infiltrated your OS already and been quietly exfiltrating your data over the years ?

What if aliens did it?

Openness is a response to a desire for accountability, not perfect security (because that's foolish to assume from anyone, Apple or otherwise). People promote Linux and BSD-like models not because they cherry-pick every exploit like Microsoft and Apple does but because deliberate backdoors must accept that they are being submit to a hostile environment. Small patches will be scrutinized line-by-line - large patches will be delayed until they are tested and verified by maintainers. Maybe my trust is misplaced in the maintainers, but no serious exploit developer is foolish enough to assume they'll never be found. They are publishing themselves to the world, irrevocably.

Framework has demonstrated in more than one way that Apple's soldered/glued-in hardware strategy is not necessary.

You don't have to. The fact that it's possible for you to do so, and the fact that there are many other people in the open source community able to do so and share their findings, already makes it much more trust-worthy than any closed apple product.

It was caught by sheer luck and chance, at the last minute - the project explicitly didn't have a bunch of eyeballs looking at it and providing a crowd-sourced verification of what it does.

I am all for open source - everything I produce through my company to make client work easier is open, and I've contributed to dozens of third party packages.

But let's not pretend that it's a magical wand which fixes all issues related to software development - open source means anyone could audit the code. Not that anyone necessarily does.

Back when I was new to all of this, the idea of people evaluating their computing environment seemed crazy!

Who does that?

Almost nobody by percentage, but making sure any of us CAN is where the real value is.

I suppose so they can do a boot test post-repair or something like that. I have only used their repair process like twice in my life and both times I've just automatically said "no" and didn't bother asking the question. :)

With Apple FDE, you get nowhere without the password. The boot process doesn't pass go. Which catches people out when they reboot a headless Mac, the password comes before, not after boot even if the GUI experience makes you feel otherwise.

Any claims about security of apple hardware or software are meaningless. If you actually need a secure device, apple is not an option.

I don't think this is precise, but the constraints seem a bit vague to me. What do you consider to be in the list of secure devices?

The fact that Apple refuses to let users bring their own keys, choose their disc encryption, and verify that they are secure makes their platforms no more "safe" than Bitlocker, in a relative sense.

Early, you mention people defending Apple security in a relative sense.

Later, you mentioned Apple refusing user actions to verify security makes them no more safe in a relative sense.

Are you just talking about Apple employing security by obscurity?

I just want to understand your point better, or confirm my take is reasonable.

And for anyone reading, for the record I suppose, I do not consider much of anything secure right now. And yes, there are degrees. Fair enough.

I take steps in my own life to manage risk and keep that which needs to be really secure and or private off electronics or at the least off networks.

That's good enough for most consumers, but a lot more sensitive for enterprises IMHO. It usually gets a pass by having the contractual relation with the repair shop cover the risks, but I know some roles that don't get macbooks for that reason alone.

except that isn't generally how factory repairs are handled.

I don't know about Apple specifically, but other groups (Samsung, Microsoft, Lenovo) will happily swap your unit with a factory refurbished or warranty-repaired unit as long as it was sufficiently qualified before hand -- so the 'replaced with a newer unit' concept might be fantasy.

Admittedly this was a few years ago. Has apple mended their ways or are they still on the "used car salesman" grindset?

Third parties and resellers though I’m convinced just call their returns/open box units that appear to be in decent condition “refurbished.”

You have a phone with a real, but subtle fault. Something not caught by the normal set of tests. You return it for repair, get sent a new one, they replace the battery in your old one and put into stock as 'reconditioned'.

My phone is perfect, save for a worn out battery. I send it in for battery replacement, they send me yours. Now I've swapped my perfect phone for your faulty phone - and paid $70 to do so.

Did I say it would be a "new one"?

> 'might replace my aging phone with a newer unit, '

unless you just want to argue about the semantics and differences between 'aging', 'newer' , and 'new'.

HN really has turned into reddit.

Semantics is literally the meaning of things. So, yes the difference between those phrases is semantics.

But your use of 'semantics' meant something subtly different. Ain't language weird?

Because Apple got sued for doing that once, and people including myself are in line to get checks from it.

It's called a warranty and not at all exclusive to apple whatsoever?

> Those people should stick to Linux, so that they can have a terrible usability experience ALL the time, but feel more "in control," or something.

Maybe you should stick to reading and not commenting, if this is the best you can do.