This is a good example of how innovation, competition and small businesses are being stifled by the anticompetitive behavior of the mobile app distribution cartel.
Consider contacting your state's Attorney General office, and the US Attorney General office. Many states' AG offices have antitrust divisions[1].
The US Dept. of Justice also has an Antitrust Division[2], along with a page that details how and why[3] to get in touch with them:
> Information from the public is vital to the work of the Antitrust Division. Your e-mails, letters, and phone calls could be our first alert to a possible violation of antitrust laws and may provide the initial evidence needed to begin an investigation.
The FTC has the Bureau of Competition[4], as well.
Not to mention the effect on intellectually curious users (and learning). These computers bundled with phones are crippled, tinker-proof, and there is no way to extend or improve them after purchase except as according to the seller's business model. Un-tethering from the seller and opting not to use their servers is effectively discouraged or prevented. "Protecting you" is a suspect justification for all the hoops one must jump through to "accept the risk". There is no anticipation of user autonomy. The world according to the seller is divided into "developers" and "users". Anyone in both categories is intended to pay Apple twice. First for the hardware, then again for the "developer certificate" and a percentage of any licensing revenue.
Maybe that is what the market is demanding. Or maybe the market does not have full information and thus does not understand the full spectrum of possible choices. As long as the cartel persists we will never know.
The State of California will do precisely nothing about the abuses of the largest company on the planet, domiciled in their state, employing tens of thousands of the most well-paid and politically-connected taxpayers of their State, whose primary competitor in this space is doing exactly the same thing to their users, is also domiciled in the State, and is also pissing firehoses of money into its budgetary coffers.
Your call will be politely received, and the regulator on the line will duly note your concerns. After the call concludes, the regulator's office will promptly file your concerns under L, for "LOL @ this fucking nerd".
I see this a lot. If I sold someone a computer that was a metal case full of crush-n-run and they sue me and win. It's not clear to me why Apple is exempt.
The mobile landscape presents a very difficult choice.
Choose Android, get actual access to your device and install what you want but have your privacy completely trampled upon by Google
Choose Apple, get marginally better privacy but no ownership of your phone and no possibility to install what you want.
I wish we had a reasonable alternative, it's so frustrating to have to choose between two bad alternatives and the behavior of those companies that completely disrespect and tramples their customer right makes my blood boil.
I just want both the right to use my phone fully and the right to my privacy.
Re: Android, I tried to log out of YouTube on my phone yesterday. It said "Sure, as long as you don't mind logging out of GMail too." I was taken aback by this -- I didn't realise this was a hostage situation.
Yes, Google is using Gmail specifically for this purpose. Once you use Gmail on an Android device, it installs a Google account with all its consequences like getting the list of all your contacts, tracking you in Google apps and so on. For that reason I tried several alternative apps that don't involve adding a Google account to my device, but they were less comfortable to use - specifically, the search function was subpar.
If you use 3rd part clients for Google services - YT, Gmail, Calendar, etc. and run non-Chrome browser (Firefox is very good on Android, and supports many extensions) you can largely avoid Google. However, Play and Location sharing are much harder to block.
I love FF on Android (it's my primary browser there), but there is a serious limitation on what extensions can be installed now. I think you're limited to only a certain curated list of like 12 extensions. Thankfully, uBlock is one of them, but I miss some of my others.
You can install firefox beta or nightly and use developer tools access to add extension collection from your choice which will replace these recommended extensions.
Note : you must create this collection on firefox addon or find existing one as you will need the collection ID.
Does anyone know what the benifit is to Firefox to create such a roundabout workaround? Why Google makes things difficult and obscure is clear, but why does Firefox care what add-ons you install on your phone?
Majority of any browser users are not tech people so making these workaround easier would confuse those users as most of the plugins are not written with mobile aspects into consideration (Even their mobile API is not complete yet).
afaik a lot of extensions aren't fully supported yet. I tried about a dozen different tab managers on FF Nightly, none of them worked. I'm guessing the Tab API or something isn't fully ported yet
addons are usually hyper tunnel visioned around desktop users and almost none of their ui's work on mobile the way the developers of those extensions originally intended.
ublock and the other featured apps essentially had to adapt to the mobile firefox way of doing stuff and opening settings in a separate mobile ff tab etc.
If you want an alternative to the Play Store client, Aurora Store is quite excellent. It can be acquired on F-Droid.
I know you are most likely referring to Play services, but still worth noting for folks who may not know it exists as an option. I suppose for the latter, microG may offer a useful option.
You could try using Island or similar to create a "work profile", and only log into Google and install Gmail (or Drive or whatnot) in the work profile. This way, apps running in the regular profile don't see your Google account.
I am very happy with my current setup after flashing my new One Plus 9 Pro with LineageOS for microG (https://lineage.microg.org/). It's LineageOS with application spoofing and comes pre-baked with microG.
I'm able to use all the standard apps (Uber, games, etc) without a Google account. I use Aurora instead of the Google Play Store, local maps as my GPS back-end, and my phone only contains the apps I actually used instead of pre-baked vendor bullshit. It's all super smooth and completely stable. I really can't say enough nice things about it.
If you're looking for the third option, I would really give aftermarket android roms a try.
Pretty sure that's a non-starter for anyone who needs to use their phone for work, which is more people than you would think now that so many office workers are remote.
Great, if a work phone is required by a company, let the company provide it and leave that one alone. Do you have to supply your own work computers or other equipment "required" to do the job as well, outside of contract work?
Unfortunately that assumes the employer will provide the phone rather than going "this guy can't do his job because his phone is rooted?" and hiring someone else. Or that the employer knows what rooting even is.
Most companies ask you to install work profiles and such only after your sign on. It would be exceedingly petty of them to fire you for something like that, especially at a tech company that will definitely have the money to provide ~$300 work phones
I run GrapheneOS on my Pixel 4a, unrooted, bootloader locked. However this avenue prevents the use of Google Play Services (which partially or completely eliminates functionality from many proprietary apps on the Play Store) or MicroG. This isn't a problem for me personally.
If you're a tinkerer it's pretty easy to bypass - the main method of rooting currently is Magisk, which also includes a very powerful self-hiding mechanism, able to bypass SafetyNet and most other root detection methods.
I’ve tried that path before but SafetyNet makes it hard. I can’t use my banking app for example, and for better or for worse, I wouldn’t be able to access my work email either.
I haven't looked in a while, but last time I checked, Magisk had a SafetyNet bypass. It's a cat and mouse game of course, but when I was using it, Magisk stayed ahead of Google 90%+ of the time.
I remember being able to do mobile banking on a website on my BlackBerry. It must have been 2010 or '11, before banks began rolling out native apps.
I don't understand why that's not possible now. Responsive websites are basically 1:1 in functionality w/ desktop, there is no need to have separate, gimped "m.bank.com" sites anymore.
End result of this is that I stopped doing banking on my phone, and 90% of my use cases are now served by F-Droid or by apps not on the Play store.
We had a third option but developers very publicly refused to support it and Google worked tirelessly to hamstring it in every way they could.
Now we're all crying for a third platform because Apple is too restrictive and Google, surprise (to no one least of all WP users), turned out to be evil and I feel absolutely no sympathy for the tech community, particularly developers who decry the current paradigm. We chose this.
For anyone that remember the 90s it is utterly bizarre to hear Microsoft talked about as some type of potential savior that was unfairly muscled out of the market.
I don't disagree that having a third player in the space would improve things, but it is just weird how the perception of some companies change.
It's funny, I grew up them and remember quite clearly how Microsoft was(likely still actually is), I haven't had windows installed on any of my computers since 2009, yet, I'd still be willing to give a Microsoft phone a try at this point just for some kind of alternative.
Yeah. Their contribution to Linux over the last few years always has me either giggling or suspicious. I realize that they have concrete reasons to support it considering how dominant Linux instances are on Azure, but considering the "open source is cancer" or "Linux users are communist thieves" comments from the late 90's or early 00's, it's hard to believe.
My beef with them is more recent. Specifically, with their recent "We Love Linux" push, they are trying to kill it entirely on the desktop via the use of WSL, and now via threatening to make boot restrictions mandatory.
Half of the magic of Linux is being able to run it on bare metal. Microsoft is acting against that.
WSL is just good old competition at work. I run both Windows and Linux boxes but I just prefer Windows despite the various shortcomings. I've been using Linux since within a week or two of Linus' first release, and for a long time my primary machine was running Redhat, Gnome and Enlightenment - my current preference is not for lack of experience or interest.
I agree with your bare metal magic point, but I also like using a GUI. As well as being middle aged I also grew up in a technological backwater. So the first arcade game I encountered was Pong and when I was old enough to start working with computers it was with dumb terminals to mainframes and punch-tape print spoolers; that experience of working with technology that was already obsolete is kinda like extra lifespan. Loving the command line is one thing, but i love GUIs precisely because I didn't have access to them early on, and being able to see things on a screen is still magical for me.
I know GUI development is a lot more work, but I've been very disappointed by the snail's pace of advancement on Linux, and how little experimentation or efforts at standardization there are. GNOME these days feels like a clunky kid's toy. My most recent desktop annoyance was installing PyCharm on a a laptop running Ubuntu, and then finding that there was no obvious way to either add it to my start menu or the dock (it's built in Java and launches from a shell script, and though it shows up in the dock when it's running, there's no option to pin it there). It's not that hard (see below) but the fact that I had to go and look for a solution just speaks to how crap and broken the Linux desktop experience is by default.
I take your point that WSL creates a new problem for Linux lovers by invalidating a default use case. And I agree that Microsoft is doing so for its own selfish reasons so it can continue to rake in billions from enterprise and OEM licensing, while the plucky Linux underdogs rely mostly on the generosity of sponsors and community spirit. But there's more to a GUI than a compositing window manager that lets you play with tiling and transparency (the last really innovative and cool thing in Linux Land, and where the idea is still implemented best).
But my counter to that is that desktops matter, and Linux users are just not really trying these days. There re too many options and most of them are just not very good or even interesting. Look up one of those 'Best Linux desktops in 2021' and all you see is a bunch of OK launchers with some beautiful wallpaper, maybe a widget or two. The wallpaper is usually much cooler than the user interface it is decorating. When the packaging is more interesting than the product, the product is failing. the only distro I've seen really trying to innovate in this area is Deepin, a Chinese distro where they have really worked on the front end and is developing its own distinct visual identity.
I just don't get how Linux people go into ecstasies about new way to do graphics in the terminal but then shrug their shoulders at the craptastic state of the Linux desktop. As you correctly point out, Microsoft is now making moves to draw Linux users back to their commercial platform and with their resources, experience, and tenacity may well succeed.
To Linux folk who view that prospect with horror, my advice is make an environment that people like to use. The terminal is not that. The terminal is for nerds, developers, autists, and control freaks, who make up only a small portion of computer users. I match all those categories to varying degrees but even I don't want to spend my whole life in the terminal. And by 'environment people like to use' I do not mean 'imitate Windows' (although you should shamelessly pinch ideas from there). Experiment. Play. You know a great source of user interface ideas that people absolutely like to use and where you can try out wacky ideas? Videogames.
People love games. They are full of eye candy. Videogames use eye candy to rapidly convey information in very intuitive ways. People can rapidly learn to perform very complex tasks when supported by a rich interface. If you don't want desktop Linux to die for lack of attention and you don't want to see Linux-on-your-own-hardware itself die for lack of users (because everything they need is available on Apple, Windows, or in the cloud), make desktop tools that look fun, futuristic, and don't keep forcing people back to the terminal.
It’s funny that we software developers have been so coddled into thinking that we don’t need unions because we get paid enough for our work. Yet we all know and see these oversteps by companies, taking away our very ability to work our trade as we see fit, piece by piece, inch by inch.
I support the EFF, but that’s basically all I know how to do. Imagine if Google’s software developers went on strike every time they tried to pull another AMP on the open web?
I don't understand how unions would help here. Closed platforms are in the interest of developers. Devs make a good amount of money on closed platforms like iOS.
Closed platforms are not in the interest of users.
Unions can help implement democratic processes for deciding how to work and what to work on.
For example, Kickstarter unionized in 2020. One of things that initiated unionization was this lack of democratic decision making at Kickstarter[1]:
> One of the changes that most angered employees was the decision to end Drip, announced in late 2018. Drip was a tool that had been developed to let creators of projects on the site start subscriptions, similar to Patreon, allowing them to build sustainable revenue streams. Eliminating the tool “came out of the blue,” Zhang says, with “no consultation” with employees who were affected. “It seemed to be at the whim of one person to just make a blanket decision,” she adds.
If employees are working on projects that go against their users' interests, democratic decision making can give them a voice that they otherwise wouldn't have.
A consumer union is an interesting idea but not what people think of when you say "union." It is actually a really good idea if you think about it... if labor unions can counterbalance labor monopsonies maybe consumer unions can counterbalance monopolies.
I think the problem is that the overwhelming majority of consumers don't care at all about, or even are aware of (because they don't care), anything being discussed here.
Tell a non-tech person that their data is being harvested by Google and Facebook, and see what they reaction is.
Then Apple decides that my app isn’t acceptable, Google decides I have to implement their special code to show up in search results, and this gave me power how exactly?
Unions in top level SWE will literally never happen, at least within our lifetimes. There's simply too large of a worldwide talent pool that would drop everything to come work in the US for even 50% of what current salary/benefits are.
SWE's sold their soul/morals/values for money & built evils that there's no way back from. Just have to deal with the consequences of their actions now.
WebOS was great on the phone I had.. forget the name. I really wish it had gotten more traction. Easy for webdevs to build apps for, and still would allow lower level access for games and such.. by now it would of been really dialed in and the modern hardware would of offset performance issues.
There is no reason for anyone to hope that users would have more freedom and independence if windows phone had survived. Microsoft didn't even care to persuade vendors to publish specifications or allowed the system to be downloaded by their small number of users after it was abandoned.
The tables turn if you consider ownership of your app settings and internal data
On Android it is locked down in an inaccessible /data partition, unless rooted. (Ignoring /sdcard and the iOS equivalent Files app)
On iOS you can access almost the entire filesystem via extracting iTunes backups. You can freely dig into app internal database, files, message history, etc. You can even edit these backups and restore them, allowing full write access
You know... since 2017 when I started getting wary of Apple due to Qualcomm, IMG and Services Strategy. I sometimes wish Microsoft are still in the Mobile race. Trying find some synergy between Desktop PC gaming, Xbox and Mobile. Surface Phone. Porting some of their work from Xbox.
But unlike Microsoft and Google. Apple has no inherent weakness in their business and strategy. They also have an extremely strong cult following both online and offline.
So unless government managed to do something about it ( which I seriously doubt ), the future will be as frustrating as it is now.
The original Zune windows app is still head and shoulders above spotify.
They had:
- great song management
- better than YouTube song discovery (looking into playlists with the same song)
- incredible ui (skins)
- small memory footprint
I wonder who worked on that team and what they are up to today.
And/or if Microsoft could open source it.
I disagree with the word “marginally” here. Compared to Android, it’s far better and keeps staying ahead (while Android may try to catch up for certain features and controls).
Almost all iOS apps are sending telemetry to data brokers like Facebook and the platform makes open source stuff extremely hard. It really is marginal when you look closer.
Yes, but only if you're foolish enough to install the apps. With Android, an individual app may or may not be a worse actor than it would be on an iOS device. But, it hardly matters since Google is primarily doing all the invasive tracking on an Android device, and you have zero control over this.
It's hard to even find a good feature phone these days.
At least I'm looking for one now because my Nokia E5-03 died yesterday so now I have to figure out what to get.
I want something small, that I can stick in my pocket and not worry about the screen, with days of standby battery life, and where I don't have to read and "agree" to pages of legalese.
In the heyday of feature phones, I could pick one up for $20. Nowadays, those phones are designed for old people, and are more expensive than a cheap smart phone.
If you're someone who's able to figure out how to block such things on Android, then you'd be happy to know that this is possible on iOS by using apps like Lockdown that work completely on-device. [1]
The problem with iOS is that it's built on the assumption that you can't not trust Apple and their services. An iPhone literally trusts Apple more than it trusts you. It won't let you past the initial setup unless it gets an okay from the mothership. On Android you could at least disable all the Google stuff.
kind of, if you go through 15 different obscure menus and hope you haven't missed any, and some stuff like push notifications you can't not go through google anyway. Google also forced manufacturers to make the location toggle more obscure.
On my Android phone I have no google account and I've disabled anything related to google. Yes I worry I've missed something somewhere, but on the whole, at least I can.
I was given an iOS tablet as a gift, tried setting it up and it absoltely requires setting up an account with an apple and giving them a phone number. Haven't found a workaround. So the tablet sits in a box unusable, because I'm not giving apple a phone.
Point being, the ability is still there if you want it. There's microG which is an open-source reimplementation of Google services minus the nasty parts. And even if you do use Google services, you can still sideload apps pretty easily without any Google involvement whatsoever — something that iOS lacks entirely.
Privacy is actually behind on Apple, as long as they 1) don’t allow proper adblocking and 2) actively boicot webapps in favour of installed apps that can spy much more efectively
They allow VPN and DNS-based blockers, request interceptors in Safari (so-called Content Blockers) and are adding support for WebExtensions to Safari in next iOS release. Plus there are 3rd-party browsers with build-in content blockers, like Brave and Firefox Focus. Safari itself is doing clever stuff with Tracking Protection (https://webkit.org/tracking-prevention/).
All apps I run use SafariViewController for in-app web browsing, so the same ad blocking systems kick in, too, and the app itself has very limited capabilities to track our web activity. Facebook is sole notable exception.
They also added "App Tracking" prompt recently. I doesn't do much for technical standpoint (like DNT header in browsers), but Apple _can_ enforce it via app publishing restrictions - only if they choose to do so.
I'd say they are very close to Android or desktop macOS.
> They allow VPN and DNS-based blockers, request interceptors in Safari (so-called Content Blockers)
Yeah, DNS based blockers misses a LOT of ads and webannoyances. And if you think that the content blockers are good enough you probably havent been using youtube lately on safari as they are now able bypass all current content blockers that I tested (adguard[1], 1blocker, wipr).
> ... and are adding support for WebExtensions to Safari in next iOS release.
Yeah, but I'm not holding my breathe that they will allow extensions similar to uBlock and noscript (hope to be wrong).
> I'd say they are very close to Android or desktop macOS.
Anyone with experience using uBlock/NoScript/uMatrix can attest that content blockers on iOS is not close at all, it's just a skeleton of uBlock Origin capabilities.
[1]adguard created a shortcut extension to bypass the content blocker restriction but its utterly annoying to do it everytime some random video.
Request interceptors are simply subpar. I understand the motivation, which is prevent adblockers themselves from spying on you, but in practice I would prefer to be able to install uBlock origin which is excellent on desktop and Android.
The Safari WebView restriction means there is no browser choice.
I cannot put any trust in iOS supporting WebExtensions in a meaningful way, given their track record of undermining web technology - but hopefully I will be proven wrong.
The problem is, that some important (e.g. banking) apps are missing and cannot be installed/run with the Android emulator. Another problem is, that Sailfish is available only in very few countries, e.g. not in the US.
With Sailfish you also have to give up all the security advancements in Android/iOS, in both good and bad. You can do what you want more freely, but also each app has equal access to all your data. Unless they've implemented some access control in the later versions, but I haven't heard about it.
I really wish there was a large enough player to get non-Android (Linux) drivers for the flagship mobile phone processors.
The fastest of the open source phones right now has the same processor as the Pixel 2. IIRC it might even be another libhybris implementation (glibc/mesa/gbm userspace on an Android kernel and driver stack).
>I wish we had a reasonable alternative, it's so frustrating to have to choose between two bad alternatives
It's highly likely that even if there's an commercial alternative which gains significant market share to compete with duopoly in the future, they will have to do so by either compromising privacy or ownership of the device.
Solution right now is to make difficult lifestyle choice by using passion or idealistic projects. LineageOS + Fdroid can get things done for those who use their smartphone as an tool and ready to sacrifice a bit of social conformity(which can be a privilege at current times).
There are more extreme alternatives like Linux phones which I hope becomes less extreme in years to come.
There really needs to be a third way … how are Linux smart phones looking? No hope of getting WhatsApp etc presumably but at the very least a fairly solid browser should be possible …
Work on PinePhones and Librem 5 is going well. There are still issues of course but I’ve been blown away by the community efforts to iron out the issues. You can get Linux Signal and you’d still need to have it connected to an android or iOS device too, but that would at least give you messaging.
The other caveat being that there are still many apps that are not designed for mobile form factor, and while there is strong work on libhandy and many apps use it for responsive GTK apps, there are many great apps were work hasn’t yet started for mobile sizing/touch input/virtual keyboard
Well, contributing apps that do stuff you want a Linux phone to do, working on the existing apps you want to bring to the mobile form factor.
Also submitting issues and spreading the word help. Mastodon is where many of the developers in open source world hang out so follow @linmob@fosstodon and Librem folks and you’ll find the community.
Testing, sponsoring, buying the hardware all great options too.
If you are talking about the marketplace, yes, but if you as an individual want google out of your life, there are multiple android distributions without Google included by default.
>the behavior of those companies that completely disrespect and tramples their customer right
Here is a "radical" idea: what if we had an Apple users union? What if Apple had to justify their app censorship to that union? What if the union could vote that censorship out?
Our current capitalistic model assumes that competition is the solution for the consumer, but the Apple/Google stranglehold is essentially indisruptable.
Of course, the only way we could really get this union model would be to have it forced by the same government which has repeatedly and increasingly failed to protect the consumer from these bloated monopolistic corporations. I guess we'll have to settle for some optimistic SciFi porn. Paging Cory Doctorow: https://pluralistic.net/
I love it but the main power a union wields is the collective action of the members to strike.
When the union says "Ok, Apple isn't cooperating, so everyone... " ...actually, what would you have the members do? Turn off icloud? Stop buying new airpods? You will never get all the "users union" members to give up one atom of convenience.
If the union members are willing to strike, i.e. go without pay for an arbitrarily long period of time, why wouldn't users be temporarily willing to go without anything, when they know there is a good self-interested reason for doing so?
Saying "people won't do that" is just a self-fulfilling prophecy. Convince them that it's in their interest and they will.
The problem with consumer protection agencies is that they're subject to regulatory capture. Politicians take Apple's money, or are subject to threats to remove thousands of jobs from their jurisdiction.
What you really want is a third party app store which is operated as a co-op, supports multiple platforms (making it easier for users to switch and keep their apps), and has enough users to have bargaining power.
The only thing I wasn't able to do without so far is SMS 2nd factor. Dumbphone is enough for that.
I don't mind if banks/govs require use of some protocol. But forcing use of specific apps goes against past achievements to make public institutions use open formats and protocols, so I reject that where possible, or complain.
It should not be acceptable. I still remember times when people had to pirate MS office to be able to open some .doc from their gov, or use MS windows to run some proprietary form filling software. That's mostly a thing of the past, thankfully. "My-app or highway" attitude feels like a setback in that regard.
My banks no longer allow SMS 2fa. The only 2fa available are those through their mobile app. So without android or iOS banking will quickly become impossible.
And I wish I could just switch banks but in some situation it's not possible and in the country I currently live in, it seems that now no banks support 2fa SMS for any transaction above a tiny amount anyway.
In additional to those comments on banking and 2FA, these banking apps also requires certain version of Android and IOS ( rightly so because of security concern ). Which means you are now, in some way forced to upgrade your phone every x years if your phone no longer gets any software update.
Most of these apps are just dipping mustards around HOTP/TOTP, so it's a standard protocol. There's an ecosystem of standard applications around it; Twilio, Microsoft, and Google all make pretty popular ones.
In Europe, SMS 2fa is getting deprecated in favor of apps, you can still get a device generating tokens sent by post in most banks but who knows for how long they will keep that running.
Yes. One of the thing not mentioned or posted on HN. In China where there are flooding going on, a whole city with no power, and mobile network. Since their whole infrastructure was setup with Digital payment ( WeChat Pay or AliPay ) and dont use any cash, they could not use it without Mobile Network. Authentication and other Government usage also requires an App and unusable.
Most people act as if Mobile Phone and Apps doesn't matter. It does and increasingly so. I think the argument would have some ground in 2015 or 2018. But in 2020 and forward looking into 2025 and 2030 there is no denying, phone is acting like an infrastructure, whether we like it or not.
I've encountered a few apps where the QR codes are only valid for a few minutes and rotate. For your vaccine status it's probably not an issue but using QR codes to auth yourself for payments or access will probably be a no-go eventually.
Valid question, but having a phone and a phone number is increasingly becoming a basic necessity to participate in society and to interact with the governments.
My ISP still provides (very low quality) landline service for a fraction of my monthly phone bill. The UI on that phone is awesome: just a speaker and dialpad, no display at all.
> Choose Android, get actual access to your device
lol, not sure which android you are talking about... probably the one where you need to find an exploit to be able to root it (I guess even HN forgot that you are supposed to be administrator on your own computer)
Eh Apple users you can still download this app and it will stay on their phones after it is removed from the app store
This post seems to mischaracterize what is going on and seems to be pre-prepared sentiment that has nothing to do with what actually is happening or going to happen
Apple users can still file share dos games, if they download that app now. Not clear what level of device control you are reacting to, without agreeing or disagreeing with your sentiment.
It will stay on the phone, but won’t be available for downloading again since it’s being removed by Apple. Once the phone dies and the user buys a new phone, there won’t be a way to get this app unless the user copied the app package through a third party application on a Mac (Apple removed the ability to sync/backup app packages to a Mac since iTunes 12.7).
It so happened once that iPhone removed an app that I didn't use for some time to save space on the phone, leaving behind just an icon shortcut. When I tried to use it, it tried to download it back, but couldn't, because the app had been removed from the store.
So by default you can't count on your apps staying on the phone.
> Once the phone dies and the user buys a new phone, there won’t be a way to get this app unless the user copied the app package through a third party application on a Mac (Apple removed the ability to sync/backup app packages to a Mac since iTunes 12.7).
yeah. thats where the experience diverges from other platforms.
the current device, with the current OS, won't have any problems. asking for more is mostly a different standard than other platforms, sad to hear they killed making your own app package copies.
A future OS update can break app compatibility if the app is not updated, apps not on the store won't be updated
Restoring a device from cloud backup will download all your apps, except apps no longer on the store
The device right now, with the OS right now, with the app right now will still be able to use this app and its file sharing feature in perpetuity which is an aspect that isn't different or worse than other kinds of devices or computers. Only the system restore embellishments being different or better or worse. People on other systems that pay for apps can still run into scenarios where their updated operating system is not compatible with an app they paid for. I'm not trying to be an apologist for things Apple or the mobile landscape could do better, only pointing out the standard people seem to be asking for without realizing it.
My understanding is that if the developer certificate is revoked, then the app would fail to run. But otherwise, apps on the device should run even if they’re removed from the App Store (by Apple or by the developer).
Sigh, this is exactly the rule Apple once falsely rejected iSH for. It’s disappointing to see that they’re still applying their convoluted rationale to take down legitimate apps based on the actions their users take inside the app. As I wrote earlier:
> For example, iSH was once rejected with the rationale that “During review, your app installed or launched executable code, which is not permitted on the App Store.” The template itself clearly outlines the case it is meant to apply—an app that is installing code by itself, to bypass review—but in the case of iSH the reviewer chose to install code and then complained that the app did what they told it to do.
It's quite bizarre that Apple just released an iPad Pro with a CPU that is more powerful than the desktop CPU in my workstation, but then cripples the device by severely restricting what kind of software you can run on it.
I mainly use Linux but was looking for a secondary laptop/tablet hybrid for my office needs. I considered getting an iPad but ultimately went for a Surface Pro, which was the right choice I think. The device and UI (just Windows 10) is not nearly as polished as iPadOS, but at least I can just install normal FOSS software like KeepassXC instead of downloading some proprietary app from the store, hoping it won't exfiltrate my data. I can even play the occasional round of SimCity 2000 in DOSBox. iOS & iPadOS devices are great for media consumption, but I would never consider them for any type of "serious" office work.
This. Everyone grumps about the Pinephone having a slow CPU but it outruns the iPhone for most things I do because the iPhone ha to run anything usefull in an interpreter.
Also there are lots of old apps that have found homes on Linux (like gEDA) that don't run on iOS because Apple makes things so hard.
I feel like our definition of "pro" is different from Apple's. Apple has always marketed to professional creatives who need specialized software for content production. Developers are a completely different user-story.
The ideal machine for a programer looks absolutely nothing like the ideal machine for a digital artist.
Pro hasn’t meant Pro for like 10 years. Not sure it ever meant what HN considers a Pro, meaning a development machine. Pro also meant Professional as in Artists, Photographers, Musicians, and content creators.
They have sweet hardware so us developers always wanted then. We always were the last use case; everyone machines, content creators, and then developers.
I remember several articles from the time the iPad came out that phantasized about how the iPad could replace PCs (as in “Personal Computer”) one day, even from Steve Jobs. Today that idea looks nothing but ludicrous. It was Apple themselves that nipped that notion in the bud, no competition required. If you want to do anything other than gaming and media consumption, don't buy an iDevice.
Your bias is showing, as is your blinkered view of what's possible on an iPad.
For many, many people, the iPad absolutely DOES replace having a traditional computer. The prediction came true.
I rarely bother traveling with a laptop anymore unless I need to present or run demos. My iPad pro + the fancy keyboard case gives me insane portability and battery life plus access to all my files (via Dropbox), native Office, etc.
Whining that "you can't do anything but game and consume in iOS" in 2021 is just hilariously wrong.
I have a latest gen iPad and file management is a disaster. Apps are so sandboxed that either every app needs access to my dropbox or you have to go through the atrocious files interface - assuming your app even actually supports the files dialog.
God help you if you actually want to browse a network share or use a non-standard cloud.
The iPad is just barely, barely capable of downloading a document from email, opening it, signing it and emailing it back out. I bet most users couldn't do it without instruction.
On a PC, the moment I power it off those apps no longer have access. That access is controlled by filesystem permission, and exfiltrating that data is relatively hard.
Every app on my ipad needs oauth access. That means those credentials can sit on a remote server and be leaked or used at will, and no firewall or filesystem permission is going to help me.
That is what many people do with their computers. It fits what they do.
I personally was very excited about the iPad right up until the point I found out it had been 'downgraded' to use the iPhone interface. It went from 'shut up take my money' to 'meh, i will get something else' pretty much instantly.
I have bought a few for family members. They use it for gaming, watching videos, and some light web surfing. I personally just use a nice light laptop.
You can extend it like you have. But many people do not.
If I had to 'do over' I might go down the route you have. But as is I am pretty sunk into my work flow.
Agreed. The iPad is leaps and bounds better for casual device use during travel - reading, movies, music, emails, browsing, social media and some casual document editing works just fine on the iPad. Except for the development environment, I don't need to reach for a laptop at all. I can even read code via the Github app.
So, unless I know I have to write code, I don't carry my laptop anymore. 10 years (or even 5 years ago), this was unthinkable for me.
Really? I find the laptop still better for that stuff. For the ipad you have to use some clunky folding stand thing. Its awkward to sit there with it on your lap waiting for a flight, or have to hold it up in front of you with one hand and do something with the other. Laptop on the other hand is pretty comfortable on a lap, and macbooks these days don't weigh very much at all.
Key to the use case would be a robust folding keyboard/stand situation. I use the "magic" one from Apple, but there are less spendy competitors available now.
To me a PC is a device that runs whatever software you need, and that you can program to do the stuff that you need.
iOS imposes limitations on that, you cannot run third party applications that are not on the store, you can't write your own programs or scripts, or you can with 100 limitations that makes it in practice impossible to do so.
And I'm not talking about the hardware, it's powerful, probably more powerful by a lot of computers, but in the end the stuff that you can do on an iPad is far less than the stuff that you can do with a Raspberry Pi, a 35$ computer, but with Linux on it, and that lets you do whatever you want.
It's a very small cohort of people that want to do "whatever they want". Most people do productive stuff within the bounds of what's possible in an iPad - I mean Office/Outlook, Social Media, a full fledged browser with most websites supporting mobile mode now, reading apps, video/entertainment apps, games, social media apps, even corporate vpn apps are readily available. My dev environment is the only one I know of that I have to absolutely have a laptop for.
Yes, you can use an iPad to connect via remote desktop to a PC somewhere to do serious work. All other things, you can't.
Let's talk about office. Try to open a spreadsheet with macros on an iPad, of course you can't, even if Microsoft wants to implement it, that would violate the clause that an application shouldn't run third party code. A lot of companies have spreadsheets with macros to do their administration (I don't say that this is good, I only say that in the real world Excel is abused and that is a fact).
Safari doesn't have the same support of Firefox/Chrome. In my country for a couple of sites of some public administration you still need Internet Explorer! Even if the site work on Safari, they are probably not optimized for touchscreens and mostly thought to be used with a keyboard and a mouse.
And all the other applications? How about all the management software that is used in all companies?
Email clients? Too basic compared on the one for PC. Other specific applications? The one on iOS are more basic. Specific kind of software to talk to specific equipment? Doesn't exist.
Support for external USB OTG devices? Practically not existent on iOS.
The argument isn't that iOS offers everything that a traditional computer does. The argument is that, for many many people and many many use cases, it offers ENOUGH while offering significant advantages over the traditional laptop.
Macros are a corner case. Sure, I use them sometimes, but they're only present in a small minority of my overall spreadsheets. I don't need them on the iPad.
Word functions BEAUTIFULLY on the iPad. I use it ALL THE TIME. Ditto PowerPoint.
"In my country for a couple of sites of some public administration you still need Internet Explorer!"
This is not a problem with the iPad.
Complaining about the email client on the iPad is REALLY rich considering most folks use a webmail client that is even MORE limited. I use iOS mail quite often, and while it can't do everything Outlook can do, it's more than sufficient for most people, and more than sufficient for ME most of the time.
You've made more of a case for "alerighi doesn't like iOS" than you have for "iOS isn't useful for real work," in other words.
I got a phone call from my nephew a few weeks back asking how to mod an NES rom.
My wife pretty frequently wants to do simple room diagrams.
I'm hosting a game night for an RPG. Everybody needs a laptop - the player software doesn't work in Safari.
I frequently pull and add notes to large passages of text. My notes are kept in markdown and in the cloud. This workflow is basically unusable outside of a real computer.
Your definition of “most” is wrong. MOST people don’t want or need to do any of the things you mention.
BUT let’s talk about them:
1. The ROM. Sure, hardware hacking is probably going to require specialized tools not available in iOS. Most people don’t do this, though.
2. There’s nothing about “simple room diagrams” that suggests this is a task you need a traditional desktop/laptop to do — unless you’re insisting on using a drawing program that only exists on those platforms. No points here.
3. I’m taking your word for it that your software won’t work in Safari, but plenty of us played RPGs for decades without having any computers around at all, and I’ve definitely been party to game nights where an iPad was entirely sufficient.
4. I mostly live in text files, too. You know what works great on my iPad? Text files. No idea what you’ve done to your workflow to make it impossible to do on a tablet, but suffice it to say it’s not an inherent limit to iOS (or, I presume, Android).
All that said, nobody is arguing that YOU should switch tools. But it’s hilariously wrong to insist that iPads aren’t “real” computers, or aren’t capable of handling a broad range of general computing tasks that formerly required full-on laptops or desktops.
Your definition of "PC" is really, really narrow, then.
IOW, you're defining "PC" in a way that excludes the thing you don't want to define as a "computer," which amounts to a semantic game, not a description of reality.
For many, many people, an iPad answers all the needs they have. It's a computer.
To be fair many, many people can also get everything done on their phone too. An ipad gives more screen space and better multitasking. A 2-in-1 (like a Surface Pro) gives even better multitasking and file management. It's all up to what you need.
I have a friend who did the same thing as you (go full-time iPad), but eventually switched to an XPS when his favorite apps started getting pulled. He built a pretty impressive workflow, but it required him to pay for a dev license and do a bunch of other super complicated stuff to maintain it. Once they pulled his favorite emulator (GBA4iOS), it was the last straw.
YMMV, but this guy couldn't even use the device for entertainment/reliable text editing. If that's what it takes to replace a "traditional computer", then I'm pretty sure my left shoe qualifies as one.
That's what they say about tablets in general.
But there is a loooong way. Filesystem access in Android is a mess, typing is a mess, multitasking is a mess (it seems that only services can run at the same time). Want to do some engineering work ? Good luck finding something. Want to do SW development ? There are some BASIC intetpreters. Security ? Two choices: all and none. User interface: Windows 1.0 ( though Microsoft seems to be returning to its roots with Win 10 and 11).
So yeah. Has a processor, some memory and a screen like a computer. Everything else is different.
He was right, though. A lot of people were buying $1000 computers to do not much more than check their email, shop online and play Farmville. Those people exist in much larger numbers than power users who need a lot more of full functionality of a PC.
So selling a blown-up iPhone for $500 to that market made more sense than what Android OEMs did, which was advertise Flash compatibility.
That being said, I have only ever owned Android tablets. I dip my toe into iOS and iPadOS every now and then but it always feels too locked down compared to what I'm used to.
I think it did replace PC for a huge group of people. But at the same time PC isn't dead and it is showing its advantage in many scenario. So we could think of it as both Tablet and PC won. Nothing is winning over the cooperate, enterprise usage of PC and Laptop. A Keyboard and Mouse is still N times more productive than a Tablet. And as long as that continues, ( a iPad with Keyboard and mouse still couldn't win because the software was written specifically for touch screen ) Enterprise wont adopt iPad for those jobs. That is roughly 700M PC there.
Tablet is literally everywhere for those on the Field. From Engineers on site, to Sales going to visit client doing presentation.
The way we should think about it is that Tablet didn't replace PC as "the" computing platform, as the platform itself, the pie grow a lot bigger. There are close to 300M iPad user. That is not a bad figure.
When I was younger, my family couldn’t afford a laptop, but I have the distinct memory of wanting to learn to code on the iPads at my school, and being unable to find any app which would let me just write and execute programs. Looking around the App Store now, there do seem to be a couple of apps which would allow this, but it’s still really disappointing to see this kind of removal. The majority of kids these days will likely use a phone lots more than they use a laptop. For those who want to learn to code, why doesn’t Apple make it easier?
Apple, like most corporations, is happy to entertain passive consumers. After all, empowering people to learn new things about computers could lead to healthy competition, and that's definitely not something we want, or is it?!
I doubt Apple cares about people that need to "work" on their machine anymore. Those people will buy PCs because a lot of industrial software is still Windows only and Apple shows no interest in changing that. Modern Apple products feel more like toys for adults (in a non-lewd way).
I don't think that's the case so much. Apart from key elements, most workers in tech companies have no clue what they're doing. They're just a tiny cog in the machine, and they feel that way.
Likewise, most people who graduate from Computer Science curriculum have no idea what they're doing. They're very knowledgeable about specific problems (eg. some graph algorithms, analog electronics, programming language theory) but fail to conceive computing as an ensemble of ethical and usability concerns.
You know how it took thousands of people to build the first atomic bomb, and most of them had no clue what kind of evil force they were working on? Computing industry is like that most times, except of course in the free software ecosystem, where it does happen but community cooperation enable more skill sharing and more perspective about software from a political perspective.
The noughties dream of 'digital natives' has not ever come to fruition. Children growing up around technology has not brought great understanding of computing/creating software, instead it has driven a race to the bottom for passive apps, with predatory attention grabbing mechanics.
Young people today have grown up post computer. Evening owning a desktop is rare for non-gamers.
Most people I know have no mechanical sympathy for the computer nor ability to turn it off.
My (now passed away) Grandmother had better (but not great) than a lot of my-aged people I've explained things to - and thanks to basic on the BBC micro a long way back, way better abilities in terms of actually making the computer do what you want.
Well it has to some extent, but that's the minority seeing through the matrix. Just yesterday, i was reading here on HN about someone who learned how to make websites using just a smartphone! I can't say i wasn't impressed.
Also worth noting, we can still realize our dreams of digital natives around us. Build academies, hackerspaces and whatever kind of non-profit entity/space will enable you to teach hacking to uninitiated folks.
I think what you say is true to an extent. The barrier to entry is significantly lowered thanks to the internet, so thankfully it's not just caucasian males at universities who have access (like during the first computing explosion in the 70s and 80s).
Sadly though I think that there will always be a significant majority of the population who don't care how their world works, and hope only to consume media and distractions to avoid the unpleasantness of our world.
> The next update to Swift Playgrounds is supposed to allow full iOS app development…
May or may not be pedantry, but it’s not allowing the UIKit APIs, only SwiftUI. Still possible to make a full app, but on top of the IDE features that it lacks from Xcode, it’s specifically shutting out important parts of current iOS app development in 2021.
That’s not to say there’s not good reasons for it too, but it’s worth pointing out.
FWIW, Swift Playgrounds currently allows apps to load any library–I would be surprised to see technical restrictions preventing the use of UIKit. App review might not like it, but other than that it doesn't seem like there would be much stopping it.
Absolutely, this is what we eventually did, and I’m immensely grateful for the current ubiquity of low-cost hardware :) it’s just discouraging to me that Apple takes such a hard line on this
In my case, I've got a random 30 eur (~$25?) Chinese netbook over Ali-whatever with Android and 1GB. Totally outdated specs, but with Fdroid (huge repo off libre apps) and Termux (tmux, Perl, clang, lynx...LOTS of CLI libre tools) it makes an amazing machine for the price of two hard-cover books.
EDIT: mocp under Termux works, so is not as limited as I tought.
Their iOS and i-thingy announcement videos pretty much always feature "producers" very heavily, and the features and software they release and maintain often focus on making things. What's the deal with that?
If macbooks were gone tomorrow, the ipad would not replace it. Very different use cases. Sure, if you took an ipad, put OSX on it, and glued it to the hinges of a macbook as the screen - then maybe it'd be very similiar. Not great performance or battery life, but similiar. But in no way am I getting work done on an ipad touchscreen with a little flimsy foldable keyboard and kickstand.
As an iOS (and Android) user and developer since about the iPad2, iPads interest me less the more iOS shifts toward being a general-purpose OS. I wouldn't buy one with macOS or equivalent on it, even if it'd been modified to work well on touch screens. At that point I'd probably get the cheapest large Android tablet I could find as a PDF reader, and just... not do the other stuff I do with iPads at all, I guess.
I hope Apple will be punished for their behaviour. I could ideally understand them reserving the power to decide what gets uploaded and what doesn't on their stores, but then they must allow sideloading. People paid good money for their phones, and so they must be free to use them as they see fit. To me this sounds like buying a car that's restricted from entering Germany or buying a fruit processor that forbids you to blend fruit, which would universally be considered as an abuse of power from the manufacturer.
Apple can't just impose to user what basically boils down to a fee to use your own hardware as you want, while at the same time preventing their competitors from competing at par with their services. Their draconian policies have been getting harsher and more drastic over time, it almost feels like they are really trying to get the EU Commission to punish them somehow.
I very much want Apple to allow proper sideloading on iOS and iPadOS without any sort of developer account requirements that they currently impose and without any sort of weird workarounds to refresh certificates like altstore [1]. I think Apple absolutely should change their policy here because it is something I find unattractive about their devices and their devices are worse than they should be because of it.
With that being said, your analogies don't actually hold up at all.
> People paid good money for their phones, and so they must be free to use them as they see fit.
Apple doesn't hide its policies from its customers and while some people may be ignorant to them, it doesn't change the fact that it's not hidden away. You're not tricked into buying an iPhone thinking you'll be able to install any software you want on it. Anyone that cares enough to want to do so is also fully capable of looking this information up and understanding that they can't (even if they really want to).
> To me this sounds like buying a car that's restricted from entering Germany
It's more like you buy a car knowing fully well that it doesn't run Spotify on its computer then buying it anyway, then being upset that it doesn't run spotify. I get that your point is more that a car's purpose to drive places and an iPhone is a computer so its purpose is to compute things, but even a car imposes restrictions on its use with things like a governor to prevent you going over a certain speed. If you want a car without that restriction you buy one without it.
> or buying a fruit processor that forbids you to blend fruit
If anyone bought a fruit processor that doesn't blend fruit, that's kind of on them. But given that this were hypothetically possible, the person wouldn't have to buy that fruit processor because they should know before hand that that particular one doesn't blend fruit.
I very much hope not. If you don't like the way Apple does business, feel free to buy from someone else. They are a minority player in the marketplace by a significant margin; getting all upset about how they manage their platform is a weird, weird look.
That's the very reason I've been buying from "someone else" for almost a decade. Still, in certain markets they are not a "minor" player, and even then that still doesn't give them an excuse to abuse the position. Yes, they are a minor player compared to the WHOLE market, but if you compare only the segments they actually put the effor to compete in, they have quite a large slice and they rake in more profit than anyone else from it. You can't reasonably use under-$200 phones to justify the fact Apple doesn't have a monopoly when they refuse to enter that segment. You may even argue that if that's a valid argument they would never want to sell cheap phones in the first place, and that market share isn't a good metric for anything.
I don't see why the option to sideload stuff onto the iPhone you've bought would make the platform less secure, especially if it is disabled by default and requires explicit user consent to be turned on.
Also, their focus on "security" has always felt very phony to me, as much as their focus on "standards" always basically meant they only evangelized for interoperability when it suited their interests. What they have been doing with iMessage in the USA is the epitome of abusing your market position, but I guess the FTC doesn't really care about that.
> I don't see why the option to sideload stuff onto the iPhone you've bought would make the platform less secure, especially if it is disabled by default and requires explicit user consent to be turned on.
You don't see how running any code you want on a device is less secure than restricting the kind of code that you can run? I think the risk is heavily overstated by Apple, but it's a bit inane to claim that it doesn't make the platform less secure.
I agree with you that the process you describe is probably sufficient and I don't think the security aspect is a reasonable argument against allowing sideloading.
> You don't see how running any code you want on a device is less secure than restricting the kind of code that you can run?
Who's Apple to decide what I consider to be secure or not in my own free will, on my device? It's like saying that guys from Ford have the right to chime in whenever they want and tell me I can't drive my Ford-branded car to a given supermarket chain.
> Who's Apple to decide what I consider to be secure or not in my own free will, on my device?
They're deciding what is secure on their platform that they can be held liable for. Once you buy an iPhone, you can do whatever you want to it. You can hack it, you can smash it with a hammer, you can submerge it deep underwater. There's absolutely no one restricting your free will in any way here. What you are doing is, of your own volition, purchasing a device that you know has software that has built in restrictions, that you may or may not be able to bypass, but it wasn't designed to be, and getting upset that it doesn't behave as it wasn't promised.
The car analogy doesn't hold up. It'd be more akin to buying a car with android auto and being really upset that it doesn't run apple carplay.
Honest question - what do iOS users do in such situations? I'm using Android and we can always install things from outside the store, or even from alternative stores (eg. F-Droid). Is there any similar solution? If the app is open-source, can you at least build it yourself and sideload it as if you are the developer and you're testing your app? What solutions are there?
It is possible to sideload apps on iOS, it just requires jumping through hoops that you don’t have on Android. Apple allows sideloading of apps signed by the same Apple account that you’re signed into on your iDevice.
Since this is really intended to make developing iOS apps more accessible, it requires resigning or rebuilding apps. Since iDOS is open source, that should be no problem here - you can compile and install your own copy, likely just by loading the upstream project in Xcode and deploying it your iDevice like app developers do. A usability problem is that apps installed this way are only runnable for a week [0], at which point the signature must be refreshed or iOS will refuse to open the app.
AltStore [1] is a project that streamlines this ordeal as much as possible. It’s an alternate app store that allows you to install a bunch of open source apps not allowed in the app store (e.g. apps using permissions that would be rejected, or game console emulators). It also comes with a server component that uses Apple’s frameworks on Mac/Windows to refresh those apps’ validity on iDevices on the same network. If you regularly connect your iDevice to a network with an AltServer of your own, the apps should continue to work.
It’s certainly not pretty, and very far removed from fare more open Android devices, but workarounds to run your own software on iDevices do exist. There’s an entire subreddit, r/sideloaded, dedicated to this apparently mostly for piracy purposes.
[0]: Unless you pay for the Apple Developer Program, which has much longer limits. This limit is for free accounts.
An additional limitation is that you can only have three such applications installed at a time. You also aren't going to be able to get access to functionality like push notifications (which might be obvious) or network extensions (which might not be: you have to have a paid developer account to develop/install a custom VPN for iOS; I find this limitation particularly frustrating, as it seems to mostly serve the purpose of helping authoritarian governments, and it isn't like Android has such a restriction so we know it isn't "par for the course": they are going above and beyond here).
They rationalize no longer being able to do something they used to be able to do, for no real practical or technical reason, as actually being a good thing.
Hence the newspeak of "sideloading" being accepted as opposed to recognizing it as a frankly outrageous and capricious policy designed to encourage an unknowing and comatose userbase.
I don't rationalise it as a good thing. I think there are many things to consider when buying a phone and this is just one of them.
Lately Apple started mandating that apps like telegram or discord must make it impossible for iPhone users to see nsfw content, which has tipped the balance towards android for me. For the first time in many years I'm using an Android phone. But as I said, one of all the factors to consider.
It’s a bit more nuanced than that - NSFW content can still be shown but the app needs to express a 17+ age rating on the App Store. That’s why apps like the Reddit client Apollo[1] and Google Chrome[2] are 17+.
You can sideload the app yourself - but the account can only have 3 devices, and the app expires and stops running weekly for a free account or every 90 days (iirc - it's been awhile since I entered this particular dumpster fire) for a paid account. This is to prevent you as a developer from using your provisioning profile to backdoor-distribute software to end-users.
The largest loophole still is probably Enterprise Distribution, which allows high-limits (long time, many devices) signing associated with an Enterprise account.
Gave up. I was wishing WWDC21 bring something like this due the M1 iPads but all I got was a refresh on Playgrounds... It's frustrating but I'm still inside the garden, and getting more tired by the day.
Some of them are children. Some need or prefer Apple's locked in stuff (iMessage.) Not to mention Android is a slow burning trash fire.
I've seen so many ignorant comments like this about iOS lately I'm on the fence about deleting my HN account. I think I'd be happier, and all the people here who keep defending Apple's abuse would be happier.
This assumes that users understand the implications of the garden they're buying into. For many there may be a strong bandwagon effect, and they don't fully grasp what they are losing.
I have an iPhone simply to facetime with my parents, who refuse to talk to anyone with a green bubble. You can't make this up. If I could use iMessage on any other device, I wouldn't have an iPhone. Apple knows this, and it probably scares the shit out of them.
What I don't understand is why so many devs choose to accept Apple's rules. These devs know full well that they will likely be f***** over like this in the end. Yet they still give Apple their business.
Much higher rate of sales (apps and IAP) and subscriptions than Android. Not sure how the ad market looks (I've not worked on ad-supported apps) but wouldn't be surprised if those—at least in some categories—also pay so much higher that they're more lucrative on iOS, too, despite the smaller user-base.
I think I largely understand the implications of the garden I chose, and I doubt there will be much anguish among my less technical family/friends about their loss when they fully grasp that they will never be able to run a DOS emulator on their iPhones.
The only reason we're talking about something as obscure as DOS is because it wasn't threatening. Now that people have raised awareness of the inconstency they're blocking it, like many other general purpose emulators.
Pretty much what you have just described, one needs to pay for the yearly premium of the iOS developer programme in order to run custom code on your own device. Bear in mind that iOS apps are compiled in Xcode so one also needs to own hardware that runs OSX.
There are also people offering to sign you app with an enterprise certificate for a fee in the more dodgy corners of the internet but Apple is known to crack down on those once in a while as this obviously goes outside their ToS.
If the app's open-source, you can build it yourself, with restrictions on how long the app will function on your device before you have to reinstall it (one year IIRC for paid developer accounts, but only 7 days if you're not enrolled in the paid program).
If the app isn't open-source, you don't have any great options. Hypothetically, compiled apps from other developers can be re-signed just like apps you build yourself (see AltStore [1], which uses this technique), but those apps are still time-bombed and have to be periodically refreshed. The barrier to entry means you don't see a ton of apps around that do this; if something can't be compliant with App Store rules, it generally doesn't get made on iOS.
(There's also jailbreaking, and there used to be a decently-large community of developers building applications and tweaks for jailbroken iOS devices. That's gotten smaller both as Apple's made jailbreaking more difficult to maintain, and as new features in iOS have made much of the functionality people used to jailbreak for redundant.)
You can sign 7 apps a week for your own device with the tethered non-dev Apple ID. The certificates expire a week after, so you need to resign those 7 apps every week or they will stop working.
All of the "alternative" stores and distribution methods work with this mechanism, there is no better way and it is completely at Apple's whims.
Really, most interested users probably gave up at this point, looking at the decaying Jailbreak ecosystem.
The target audience for iOS devices does not care about running dos emulators with their custom binaries. Believe it or not, many people are okay with boundaries, especially when the promised and mostly achieved return is a reasonably stable and secure experience.
I've had a couple of apps disappear (one I know Apple removed, the others I think just suffered from bit rot). I guess it's the same as if my grocery store stops stocking some brand I buy. I'm bummed about it, but life goes on.
Even just for coding, that sounds awful to me. iOS users bought a mobile device, and particularly if they're on an iPad Pro, a mobile device with a really good processor. For me, part of that would be being able to treat it like a mobile device, that it should keep working if I drive through a tunnel, that I should be able to use it on the go.
Hard for me to wrap my head around people being satisfied with "ignore that you have a well-built device with interesting sensors in front of you, and instead just use it as a thin client to another functioning computer."
There are cheaper thin clients out there than an iOS device if someone is OK ignoring their native hardware, doing all of their programming through a terminal, and having functionality break if their device goes offline.
I agree with you 100% - the situation sucks and I hope that these congressional hearings related to Apple being uncompetitive result in them being forced to allow multiple app stores and especially allow you to use a... mobile computing device for.... mobile computing. But I'm not optimistic.
This argument reminds me why I loved windows phone so much. iPhones are computing devices that have a phone app while windows phone was a phone that happened to be a computing device.
My windows phone would get unplugged at 9am, and I’d party until the sun came up. Pretty much everything was disabled by then (by the battery saver), but I could still call a cab. Everyone’s iPhone was an expensive paperweight until someone located a charger.
I do agree with your statement today. iPhones have gotten markedly better at being a phone first and computing device second. It’s still got a ways to go, but my phone isn’t dead at 2am with battery saver on.
That is just not true, though. If Apple allowed different stores, then software would migrate to those different stores for various reasons, but probably because they had less restrictions. That would force you to install those less secure stores to use that software, and you would give up the security you gain from Apple taking a hard line on many kinds of bad behaviour on their own store.
But that software is clearly stuff you don't want and aren't interested in since it breaks Apple's restrictions so what's the problem? Just learn to live without it just like you've learned to live without emulators, IDEs, etc. in the App Store already.
Users that want the choice can choose. Devs that want the choice can choose. You can stay in your walled garden. And considering the uptake of alternate app stores on Android this seems like FUD to me.
Whether software offers something I want and whether software does shady things behind the scenes are often completely separate things. If it were allowed, I am sure a lot of the apps I use today would do shadier things. But it's not allowed, so they can't.
If they had the option of going to a less restrictive store, they probably would, and they would do things I am not happy with there. That would be a loss for me.
> If Apple allowed different stores, then software would migrate to those different stores… That would force you to install those less secure stores to use that software…
I think you’re underestimating the power of defaults. App developers know that the vast majority of users will not install an alternative app store, even if the platform allows them to. For proof, see the Android app ecosystem. There has been no migration from Google’s Play Store. There isn’t even a hint of store fragmentation. What you see is: 1) some OEMs run their own stores, which mostly rehost apps from Google’s store. These stores are not meant to be installed by arbitrary Android devices, so there is no chance that a user might feel compelled to install the store on their device. 2) F-Droid exists to host FOSS apps, some of which violate some asinine Google policy and as such are exclusive, but most of which are also available on the Play Store.
Basically, we have strong real-world evidence that allowing sideloading does not create app store fragmentation. If you want to argue against sideloading from a security standpoint, you’d be better served with the “sideloading allows an abusive spouse to install a keylogger/tracker on their partner’s phone” narrative.
Yeah, calling the iPad a PC is very short sighted by Apple.
Where is the next generation of developers going to come from, if they grow up on iPads?
But I feel the same towards Apples stance on server hardware, which they discontinued over a decade ago: Even if servers don't make a sizeable profit on their own, they help ensure that developers can build large scale stuff inside the apple ecosystem.
Yet, that hasn't really been the hindrance I feel it ought to have been.
> Yeah, calling the iPad a PC is very short sighted by Apple.
It's only shortsighted because they lock it down. It's got the same M1 hardware (if slightly less powerfull IIRC), and you can get an official keyboard+trackpad (and many third party ones), so the only thing that really keeps it from being a PC is their software installation policy that locks what can be run.[1]
1: Well, and also their policy of only allowing iOS to run on the hardware. This would be less of an issue if you could throw Linux, or even just Android on them. I'm sure Microsoft would be happy to ship an M1 ARM version of windows if they had hardware that would allow it to run.
That's fcking my mobile. I paid for it. I own it. If I want to install something on my owned device, who the f is Apple to stop it?
Think about it this way: A chair supplier telling Apple to only allow it's employees to sit a certain way. Or architects telling it to only build their HQ's a certain way. Not as an advice, but, enforced.
Not as ridiculous as being well aware of the limitations of iPhones wrt to installing applications outside of App Store and still buying one. People should vote with their wallets. Me personally I do not mind the limitations, but if you do - don't buy it.
That only works in efficient markets, which, obviously phones are not. An oligopoly where the barrier of entry requires like a billion dollars to spin up new phone hardware, a new OS, and an app ecosystem is not a place where effective competition is going to occur.
If we require sideloading via untrusted sources, then that's just flipping the situation on its head to where, now, people who do want a phone with a single authority screening the entire software stack (from the bootrom to third party app code) don't have a phone to pick from that will suit their needs. With such a law, it becomes impossible to enter into the market at all with a product for these customers.
The phrase "vote with your wallets" should just be eliminated because it's completely meaningless. You're asking to "just" coordinate millions of people to do some collective action or to change their behavior.
Do you know what the tool for doing that is called? Government. Vote with your actual votes.
Vote with your wallet works in that, if someone made an undesirable product when right next to it at the Best Buy is a superior product, the inferior product sells zero units and thus the company loses millions or billions of dollars in sales. If both of those products suck, then why would consumers buy them and Best Buy stock them? Or is it that both of those products are invaluable and some people are just mad that the products have certain features (security restrictions) which they don't want.
Their designs are protected at the point of a gun through patents and copyrights. Breaking those literally means the police will use force to stop you and to ruin and imprison you.
Take away these restrictions and you’d see an identical iPhone, but without Apple’s restrictions. I bet that phone would sell millions. That would actually allow voting with your wallet to be real.
Since the government enables these behaviors, it is also the only one who can actually reign them in. Unless these nearly perpetual lock-ins stop, voting with your wallet is impossible.
I don't think they should remove it, but I also don't think it's that ridiculous. Apple has always been against tools that allow execution of arbitrary code. Which is fair; it gives applications on the App Store the ability to bypass review. At some point it's on you as the consumer to understand the limitations you're signing up for when you get an iPhone.
Or states demanding yearly inspections if your car is up to safety standard and your modification didn't make it more dangerous / unlhealthy for the public. Absolutely ridiculous.
I don’t see how these two things are in any way related. If your car is unsafe, you could kill someone. If you sideload an app on your phone, that only affects you. There’s a line we must all draw between personal freedom and the right of others to also be free when you decide to live in a society with other people.
> If your car is unsafe, you could kill someone. If you sideload an app on your phone, that only affects you.
If there is no authority / safety-check over the apps, potentially thousands could lost millions from new wave of scams. Some sort of oversight has to be in place for devices with that much personal data. In the worst case scenario, Apple could get sued for that.
Apple has always been like this. Better hope they dont decide to throttle down your current hardware when they release a thinner one next year and deem yours obsolete.
Imagine for a moment you're an Apple exec who gets to see real usage numbers and revenue numbers per platform and is on board with the current company belief system.
You see MacOS devices completely dwarfed in both users and profit per user by iOS devices.
As that executive, who keep in mind probably doesn't share your opinions on open technology or they would never have got into that position. What decisions would you be making on the direction of their platforms.
I can't help but think we're only going one way and it's not towards something more open.
Exactly. Apple executives threw macOS under the bus in the Epic trial, saying that its capability to run arbitrary software makes it unacceptably insecure (e.g. https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/19/22444353/mac-malware-not-...). It shouldn't surprise anyone if a future macOS version requires a paid developer certificate to run unapproved apps or access the Unix layer.
MacOS is indeed unacceptably insecure. Imagine someone downloads FortniteForMac.app (as in, a fake Fortnite for MacOS download since it's not available except on Windows right now) - that can lead to a keylogger and clipboard watcher beaming your data to some foreign data lake, where it'll soon be used to sign into your Bank (proxying requests to your computer to appear less suspicious, of course).
The Apple II enabled expansion and the creation of (for the time, amazing) software like VisiCalc. Starting with the original Macintosh, Apple has had a continuous tug-of-war over whether "creative freedom" is better than a "curated experience". iPhone give the "curated experience" side an unprecedented amount of ammunition for their side. Malware apps like Facebook continue to feed that side.
You can see it in the back and forth dance on the Mac. Will Apple ruin it by closing down too much? Time will tell.
Apple has been trying to take control of users ever since the original Macintosh with its attitude of hiding things from them.
DOS came with a debugger that let you modify and create your own software. The Mac didn't.
Planned obsolescence was also not something new --- the infamous Lisa was designed with clock hardware and software that couldn't make it past 1995, for a machine released in 1983. (The PC AT, from 1984, has an RTC that went to at least 2000, and is still a design in use today.)
Apple giveth: firmware updates for 5 year old phones
Apple taketh away:
"Apple on Wednesday agreed to pay $113 million to settle consumer fraud lawsuits brought by more than 30 states over allegations that it secretly slowed down old iPhones, a controversy that became known as "batterygate. Apple first denied that it purposely slowed down iPhone batteries, then said it did so to preserve battery life amid widespread reports of iPhones unexpectedly turning off. "
As stated in the other comment, old batteries often physically couldn't handle the voltages required to run at peak performance, so if iPhone detected these conditions, it would temper those peaks so that the phones would stop randomly turning off for people. The issue was that they didn't tell affected device owners that this was happening, and now they do in Settings.
I guess we need a congressional bill that lets people sideload apps on their phone. It seems ridiculous to have to get to that level but apparently that’s the only way. We have some progress now on right to repair. Next up, right to use.
Not every problem, no. But I don’t see the invisible hand of the market fixing this one. I don’t think most users care about how open their technology is; the downsides are too nebulous and distant to drive consumer spending away from walled gardens.
If most users don't care about how open their technology is, why would such a change benefit them/why would they agree to it? Surely they would choose a more open system if they really wanted one (especially since Android phones that can sideload apps from the internet are going to be cheaper than iPhone anyways).
The problem with the iPhone is a problem of coercion. Apple is exerting legal power and the threat of force to prevent you from doing what you want with your phone pursuant to the DMCA.
If there were no legal restrictions with what you're doing with you're phone, Apple would have a very hard time preventing you from doing what you want. Anyone could buy an exploit for iOS for a million and sell unlocks for 50$.
There is force and coercion involved, so a governmental intervention is much more necessary.
It would also make it way easier to transfer your apps from platform to platform and to switch OSes.
They simply make it technically infeasible to jailbreak since jailbreaks run untrusted code that bypasses security restrictions (eg. adware that survives resets).
Just like for ripping DVDs, yes it is legal to do it personally. That's not what I was talking about, I'm talking about commercial jailbreak operations which are still illegal.
What makes them illegal? I imagine the only reason nobody does it is because there’s no market - anyone that wants their phone jailbroken probably doesn’t want to pay, or just doesn’t want to be without their phone for a week+. Plus, it’s not like a commercial operation like this is going to start making their own jailbreaks and then hoarding the exploits so that you can’t use your own PC to perform them - the jailbreak community would immediately hate such a company.
It's illegal because of the DMCA. It's not legal to sell tools that bypass copy protection.
You wouldn't need to send your phone or anything, you can do fully remote jailbreak from a web browser with the right exploits.
You'd be surprised how popular pay-to-jailbreak shops are/were in places where this isn't enforced. You go there and the guy jailbreak your phone in front of you then hands it back to you. There's absolutely a market
Right to repair for software. If you buy software that has bugs, company should have to hand over documentation and source code, so that you can get someone to fix it, if they don't want to.
Plus companies should be required to give tools to unlock and lock a bootloader plus any documentation to help write your own.
If you want to do whatever to your phone there are already lots of options. I’m not sure what a law is going to do here that you can’t already do today.
People are stuck in their ecosystem. The monetary coat of changing platform is quite high if you’re already invested in that ecosystem.
Everyone is paying a lot of money for a system they basically own nothing about.
You keep paying, for apps, for hardware, that’s forever tied up to the whims of that platform’s owner (not you).
Not in favour of more laws, but forcing the hands of these platforms so they provide more control to their customers is not a bad thing.
At the moment none of them have any incentive to do it.
Don’t people do this now with game consoles for example?
I could easily switch. I guess maybe we should all make sure we buy software that is device independent or something too.
If you want regulation, then I think thats a good starting point. Software doesn’t have to be made for every device, but if you buy it for one you buy it for all.
Or we can just let things go too. Seems to be working mostly fine.
I'm totally opposed. My parents (who are rather old) use an iPhone and iPad, and I'm happy they have no option to fuck things up more than they already do. If you're talking about "freedom": nobody forces you to buy Apple.
"Side loading" (what a terrible word for what should be the normal way of installing software) could be disabled by default, and behind an extra scary warning screen in the settings which explicitely warns the user about the consequences. At some age (maybe starting at 16 or so?), people should be allowed to make their own decisions without "helicopter companies" hovering above them all the time telling them what to do.
That's essentially how it is now with jailbreaking. Unfortunately, with iOS >14.4 or so, the SEP panics the phone and so the only way to side load is to disable SEP features like the passcode and Apple Pay. I can easily see this situation continuing even if an "Allow Side Loading" switch is provided— flip the switch and Apple gets to yank features to tilt the decision in their favor.
And all I even want to do is have a parametric equalizer so PowerBeats sound decent with Apple Music while I run…
The problem is that there isn't really a choice, because it's either the Apple- or the Google-ecosystem and both are "walled gardens" (at least Android still allows "side loading" though). The third choice is not owning a mobile phone at all but that's nearly impossible these days.
Most people don't know this thing when they go to buy the device, and of course nobody will tell you about that. If on the box there is written "THIS DEVICE WILL ONLY RUN SOFTWARE APPROVED BY APPLE", how many people would buy that? In reality most people don't know this thing.
They discover it later, when they ask some more expert friend "can you install me an app to do so, like the one you have on your phone", and you have to explain that no, you can't because Apple didn't approve it for the store. And then they understand that they made a bad choice, but it's too late.
Or when someone goes to you asking for an iOS app and you have to explain that putting it on the store (the only way they can install it permanently, even if they need it only on one phone) they will have to spend a lot of money. While with Android you just give them the .apk and you are done. And most of the time these customer will buy Android phones because it's cheaper to buy a new phone than get the app on the store.
>If on the box there is written "THIS DEVICE WILL ONLY RUN SOFTWARE APPROVED BY APPLE", how many people would buy that?
My toaster can't run any software at all.
Most people will care about their inability to run their own software on their iPhone about as much as they care about running it on their toaster, or car, or desk. Most people are not naturally hackers or tinkerers.
>Or when someone goes to you asking for an iOS app and
If someone is going to you asking for an app that you compiled yourself, let alone one that you programmed yourself, they're such a statistical anomaly it isn't funny.
It's not the same thing. Most people doesn't even know that a toaster run software. It's not a computer, at least as a primary function, it's an appliance, built for doing one thing. Same thing for all embedded devices. In that devices the software replaces things that once where done mechanically or in electronic with discrete logic.
> If someone is going to you asking for an app that you compiled yourself, let alone one that you programmed yourself, they're such a statistical anomaly it isn't funny.
Yes, that could be the case, but it's more common with apps like emulators of old console, that on iOS are not approved, or to listen to music from YouTube in background and without ads, or a file manager to copy stuff from/to a removable device, and so on.
There is also the case of people that asks me for apps for their business and I have to say, sorry for iOS I cannot do so because Apple forbids that. You would better buy a cheap 200$ phone/tablet only for that application, because getting it approved by Apple and putting it on the store will cost you more.
I agree - I'd also be opposed. I understand why it frustrates people (especially in the cases such as iDOS 2), but it was a known factor for me buying an Apple phone. More importantly, it was an aspect of the ecosystem that I _wanted_.
On Android the Play Store is a major distributor of malware [1]. I would like to avoid that, which comes with trade-offs, which I accept. Is it perfect? No. But it works.
I do wonder if there is a path where iOS can be completely replaced by a third party OS, so iPhones can be used in a way to allow you to install anything you want, but it is no longer Apple's 'responsibility'. However, that also comes with its own set of problems.
Yes, I understand that, but how do I _know_ if I am using this functionality?
In this case, it is the ability for an app to install and execute arbitrary code that hasn't been reviewed. I download an update to DoodleJump and it installs some malware on my device. I'd be none the wiser.
I don't want that stress, which is why I chose an Apple device. It protects me from that scenario.
there is a lot of pressure to buy either an iPhone or an official (GooglePlay) Android phone. Most (all) services only support these two options. Also true for public/governmental institutions.
Microsoft in the late 90s/2000s: Tells OEMs that they can't sell their own PCs with alternative operating systems. Gets forced by the government to stop. Hackers everywhere cheer.
Apple since 2008: Tells people that they can't install programs on their own devices. Any mention of asking the government to force them to stop this is met by Hacker News users vehemently defending their right to let Apple (and only Apple, at all times, with no off switch) decide everything.
I don't buy it. Something stinks here. This is nothing short of a digital new world order and obviously the current status quo is very, very valuable to the companies who run these platforms but I believe it's also very valuable to the entire power matrix that holds us all in check.
Many of Hacker News users are young and they believe that one day they'll run a company like Apple and they wouldn't like regulation to dictate how they can make their profits (which then quickly get disguised to avoid taxes).
Some also think that such regulation will hit their future small business - which is like being scared of going out because a bus may hit you.
There is a sort of numeric tragedy of perception that happens with app stores and other environments where a curator is filtering fraud but also sometimes nuking some good apps in the process.
As users, we only have any visibility into three numbers:
A. The number of good apps that make it through the filter. (True positives.)
B. The number of good apps that are caught by it. (False positives.)
C. The number of fraudulent apps that make it through the filter. (False negatives.)
B may be larger than C, leading to the perception that the filter does more harm than ngood. But we are getting caught in a base rate fallacy. To really understand the filter, we need one more number:
D. The number of fraudulent apps caught by the filter. (True negatives.)
My impression is that average people have no idea what a huge sea of garbage, fraud, and bad actors is swirling out there on the Internet. The number of bad people is relatively small, but the volume of malicious hot garbage they are able to spew out is incredibly large. I wouldn't be surprised if every false positive (a good app like the one here getting caught) was balanced by a thousand true negatives (bad apps being filtered out).
With rates like that, the filter is clearly vital. But we don't see the full picture, so we never really know.
One piece of anecdata we do have is what unfiltered ecosystems look like. And they seem to universally descend into roiling cesspits of porn, hate speech, warez, etc.
So while it's very important to continue being critical of gatekeepers because they wield disproportionate social power, it's also good to be mindful that they aren't all bad. Notice how these days hacking always seems to be about phishing or email attachments? Everyone seems to have forgotten the days when worms in executables downloaded from the web were a major attack vector. That dwindled because the major OSes put these filters in place.
As usual, when something is working like it's supposed to, people incorrectly think it's doing nothing at all.
This isn’t really a filtering issue though; this decision was arbitrary. It is an App Store New Rule of the Week issue.
Stores and platforms can and should keep all their sophisticated fraud-detection tools, hardened runtime environment, etc. and continue to guard against untold numbers of awful apps.
The human review is supposed to take over where the mechanics fail. Yet we know (from Epic trial, etc.) that Apple has a comically small number of people assigned to this, relative to the millions of apps in existence. We can extrapolate how little time must be spent on each human review.
We also know that people outside of Apple were able to dig up scams pretty easily, without even having access to all the tools/data that Apple must have. Apple clearly could have invested more in this, and did not.
So we know (1) the Apple review team is limited, (2) serious problems can still be found with relatively little effort, and (3) they nonetheless choose to spend their limited resources chasing minor violations of App Store Rule of the Week.
We also know from the Epic trial that, despite what they say, Apple certainly will give some developers special treatment. This means leniency or rule-bending was an option for them here, and who better to work with than a developer like this, who has spent years writing software for Apple platforms, clearly increasing the value of Apple devices in the process? Apple looked at that years-long relationship and said: “get out of our store”.
And these new security protections are obviously why users never get viruses anymore!
I spent a lot of time cleaning computers for friends and family, and often times they would have viruses because users were looking at porn or downloading games.
Well, it turns out most users like looking at porn and downloading games. Most users want to play indie games (that may be garbage) or read not-licensed foreign comics. Users enjoy being able to boot up old programs and play with fan made mods.
Let's not pretend cracking down on all of this is for the user. Honest computer security would give the user a clear and readable label ("hey, this free game is going to send off your personal data including browser history") and let them make the choice. Users are not farm animals to be kept in neat little pens.
They could start by banning the scammy apps that claim in ads that you can win “real money”, and in the fine print “no rewards are provided for ad play or game completion”
Probably around the time they launched Swift Playgrounds, I have not checked. They set the rules, they get to change the rules. But the same rules still apply them as to everyone else.
There's no contradiction here. The App Store rules apply to everyone else wanting to publish something on the App Store. Obviously Apple has its own internal rules for what their own software can do.
Apple doesn’t need to say in the rules that they can do what they want, because they are the ones enforcing the rules. They can exempt anyone, including themselves, from the rules for any reason including no reason, without having to say anything about that in the rules. Human rules are not computer code, and also not mathematical. Human rules can be interpreted, bent and ignored. Sometimes at great risk, sometimes at no risk.
They don't, though, at least not in this case. There are special exemptions for educational programming software in the App Store, that covers Swift Playgrounds, but also others wanting to create similar things.
Here is an exercise, when a police patrol car gets parked in 2nd lane, and the officier happens to buying some stuff on a nearby shop, go there and tell them nicely that 2nd lane parking is against the traffic laws and they should fine themselves.
Broken analogy? Apple is the police of Apple store.
I feel that Apple solve the problem of freedom vs security quite well on Mac: you can download and run whatever software you want, but there's a sort of "Captcha" involved (where you need to right-click + open to run software from non-registered devs). This prevents mom and dad from installing a bunch of Spyware, but let's me run obscure and cool apps by indie developers as I please.
They wouldn't ever do that on iOS because it would 'add friction'. Apple makes money off the App Store. They want users to head to the App Store for everything. Developers also want you using their apps, because they can track you better than they could on a website with content and tracking blockers.
It's not the same on MacOS because users aren't going around looking for new apps to install. People install their core programs (e.g. Office, maybe some games), and they get everything else on the web.
Yes. That's part of their profit margin. Just as how the PS5 literally sells for less than it costs to make the console[0], Apple doesn't realize all of their profits from iPhone sales until after purchase where they expect a certain dollar figure from their customers to be spend on either their subscription services or via the 30% app store cut.
This is also happening in VR, by the way - the Valve Index is still the top but the Oculus Quest 2 is insanely close to matching the Index in experience, and that's all thanks to how Facebook literally sells that at a loss of $400, since they want $800 for a version without (1) Ads and (2) their cut from Oculus store sales[1].
> It's not the same on MacOS
Exactly, and I think the pricing difference of these devices reflects that (despite the main cost centers, being manufacturing tooling and labor, having largely similar costs for both). If the iOS landscape turned into the MacOS landscape overnight, we'd see a similar jump in cost for the phone thanks to the lost post-sale revenue.
It's a step in the right direction, but I found it pretty frustrating in comparison to the way Linux/Windows handle things. It's not as draconian as iOS, but I probably spent 50-60% of my setup time trying to get Gatekeeper to treat me like the administrator of my own computer.
These stupid limitation by Apple makes me really hope that there will be real competition in the tablet space. Android tablets basically failed because most apps are just bit phone apps. Windows tablet aren’t that successful either.
The thing is iPads offer good experience as a tablet but when you want from it a bit more Apple doesn’t allow it because of their Apps Store policies.
Personally I think iPad could be a great device for coding on the go.
But the fact that we can’t install anything outside of apple’s control blocks this option.
RDP or SSH is nice but it relies on internet connection. I’d like to use the native power of the device. With M1 there’s no reason it wouldn’t be able to do so.
Their arguments about security to sounds more like bunch of excuses.
Agreed, Apple lost me (prior Air user) as a customer to the Surface, just because the value proposition of a touchscreen tablet computer - that’s actually a real computer - was so compelling.
Galaxy Tab devices work fine IMHO - I have a Galaxy Tab S6 and use it for many thing, including quite involved digital drawing with the desktop level Clip Studio Paint. It has a very good keyboard cover and can be easily connected to a full screen and keyboard/mouse with a HDMI dongle, which makes it switch to the desktop style DEX interface. You can also combine this with the Wacom One drawing tablet and get a really nice and flexible mobile drawing workstation.
Also in the future Steam Deck might actually fit the category! Like if you don't mind the extra knobs and controls it's basically a fully supported Linux tablet! :)
Sad… I played Kings Quest VI on an ipad with this emulator and it workers great. Why does Apple even care if a few people play some old abandonware on an ipad?
Well ... Exactly! I don't understand the rules or ehy it had to be removed. What about Pythonista and apps that let me code on my iPad? Don't they also "execute code"?
Please don't summon the dragon by uttering the name of the "P" app. I dread the day the Cupertino gang recognizes what can be done with it and makes it go away.
Their handling of this situation was not great, and I'm sorry for the author, but I was pleasantly surprised to see them explicitly point out exactly which rules where violated. What a stark contrast with the usual HN posts about apps being removed from the Play Store for vague reasons with little to no explanation. Google has a lot to learn.
FastCompany’s Harry McCracken and How to Geek worked together to publish an article on how to run windows 3.1 using iDOS 2 (and all your old games) on 12 July [0]. It his Mac news sites the same day. TWiT talked about running Win 3.1 and TRS-80 on iPad on 18 July [1].
The popularity of these articles and podcast may have shined a light on this bit of hackery. It sucks it is getting booted, but it’s largely interesting because it allowed you to do the thing Apple doesn’t want you to do.
Build web apps and free yourself from the tyranny of closed ecosystems. It's Closed vs. Open. Only the web is open. 99% of apps on both the Play Store and App Store could be implemented as web apps with no loss in functionality - in fact a very large chunk of them are web apps, simply wrapped in a web view.
If the users want native notifications, which most do, then developers have no choice but to release a native app because Apple purposely doesn't implement web standards on iOS that make web apps and PWAs usable.
How does this solve the problem of letting customers run a fat app without forking over for the corresponding server horsepower to run it? I know that JS is high performance when written well, but it takes time and money to do it right.
Apple can't enforce such basic App Store rules consistently, even when violations are deliberately and clearly mentioned in the submission... and we are supposed to believe that Apple can't allow other stores on the decice because THAT would compromise security...
These rules are applied selectively. I know very popular apps that are loading interpreted code over https and executing it. Also, these same apps are exploiting a flaw in iOS in order to track users across apps and using the interpreted code to hide this.
Those apps are definitely in direct violation of app store rules, and would be removed if they were detected. If they have not been removed, it is because they were successful in hiding their rule breaking.
Not if it's run through a system webview (Safari) though, right? They only want interpreted code run through a VM they control so they can effectively restrict what it can do on the OS.
This sucks. I have an old program called Jazz Guitarist I bought from PG Music, the makers of BIAB back in the 90’s, and its a treat to see it run on my iPad/iPhone. Even the QBASIC example programs for different sort algorithms is so cool.
I’m hoping and waiting for some kind of side loading, which isn’t very easy to do, to be forced on iOS through regulation. It could open the platform up for a lot more possibilities and also keep Apple on its toes in building more useful features into iOS (like what jailbreaking and Cydia did for a long time).
People using iPhones are consenting to Apple deciding what programs they are allowed to run. It may be OK for some people, but not for me. I feel the MacOS is moving int the same direction.
It is ok that phones and tablets are “consume-only” devices. Like for games, watch video, etc.
This just opens opportunity for “makers” devices (you can do something uniq) and companies. Ie some cheap phones with OS targeting market in Africa. This also means a new type of VCs / ycombinators.
Firefox (and every other 3rd party browser) internally uses the same web rendering engine as Safari. Rolling your own renderer + JS engine is not allowed.
Sure, if this was the first submission of the app, or the second. It isn't. It's had this feature and the intro explaining that it broke the rules from the get-go. But now, Apple suddenly backtracks it's decision to allow it AFTER the dev has already made sales based on the feature.
Apple should (in theory) give refunds for this, or make the developer whole somehow, because the dev's reputation is screwed.
No, they are incompetently enforcing the rules because the "not allowed" functionality was added a while ago and explicitly mentioned to the reviewers. The update review that triggered the removal was just bug fixes.
Apple and Google have consistently shown that they are poor stewards of the mobile app distribution market, having kept an iron grip on the market for over a decade now.
Consumers would benefit from real competition and disruption in this space, as competition increases efficiency and lowers costs.
Consider contacting your state's Attorney General office, and the US Attorney General office. Many states' AG offices have antitrust divisions[1].
The US Dept. of Justice also has an Antitrust Division[2], along with a page that details how and why[3] to get in touch with them:
> Information from the public is vital to the work of the Antitrust Division. Your e-mails, letters, and phone calls could be our first alert to a possible violation of antitrust laws and may provide the initial evidence needed to begin an investigation.
The FTC has the Bureau of Competition[4], as well.
[1] https://www.naag.org/issues/antitrust/
[2] https://www.justice.gov/atr
[3] https://www.justice.gov/atr/report-violations
[4] https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-competi...