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> That is not an acceptable way for a computer to work.

Luckily, you have a choice. Other companies make handheld computers that align better with your definition of ownership.



> Luckily, you have a choice. Other companies make handheld computers that align better with your definition of ownership.

The issue is that your choice is constrained by vertical integration. If you like Apple's hardware, or iOS, or iMessage, or any number of other things, these are all tied together with Apple's app store when they should not be. It's like encountering a retail monopoly in California and someone tells you that you're lucky because you can shop at another store and all you have to do is move to Florida, which also has a retail monopoly, but a different one.

Obviously this is not the same thing, and does not have the same benefits, as multiple stores being right next to each other and allowing you to choose the one you want on a per-purchase basis.


The opposing view, in this retail metaphor, is that they like living in a state with this retail monopoly, because the store will not sell them or anyone else... say, bacon. And they find bacon distasteful and like being able to live in a community where nobody eats it. If the retail monopoly were broken, then their neighbors would be able to purchase bacon, and some would have cookouts and they would have to smell it. Perhaps their favorite snack would discontinue its regional bacon-free variant and sell its normal variant in another store now that it is able to. Don't you know that bacon is bad for you?

The counterpoint is: if bacon is so bad awful and bad for you we should probably regulate its sale, rather than leave that up to a company bullying other companies.


The better counterpoint is, if you don't like bacon, don't buy it, and stop trying to control other people, lest they try and control you.


Careful. You start applying that to other things like, say birth control or planned parenthood, people lose their minds.


> The issue is that your choice is constrained by vertical integration.

No it’s not. It’s constrained by one’s preferences as a consumer. If I am concerned about vertical integration, I will not choose an Apple device. Personally, I am not concerned about vertical integration. It seems to make my devices work better.

> If you like Apple's hardware, or iOS, or iMessage, or any number of other thing, these are all tied together with Apple's app store when they should not be.

Why not? Because you say so? Or because it harms consumers? Can you describe how it harms consumers? Smartphones are cheap and plentiful. Cloud-based apps and services are too.

Yes, I might have to make some tough choices as a consumer. Maybe no company makes the perfect device for me. I might really like iMessage, but hate iPhone hardware. But there are lots of viable competitors to iMessage and plenty of viable mobile devices on which to run them. “I don’t get to use iMessage on my Pixel phone” is not evidence of harm.

> It's like encountering a retail monopoly in California and someone tells you that you're lucky because you can shop at another store and all you have to do is move to Florida, which also has a retail monopoly, but a different one.

No, it’s not. Switching mobile platforms is nothing like migrating 2000+ miles in terms of difficulty or expense. If you want to use a retail analogy, it’s like complaining that you can’t buy Kirkland-branded products at Wal-Mart.


I am quite aware of the landscape. I use a Pixel phone with GrapheneOS and an iPhone. I prefer many aspects of my iPhone, and can understand why many people choose one as their primary or sole mobile computer. A phone is a very special product category, it's where most users keep their digital lives. As such switching costs are quite high, and user agency is quite important. In general software introduces some very odd dynamics into ownership. If you buy a vacuum cleaner you can take it home, plug it in, and vacuum every room in your house; the vacuum cleaner is yours. If you buy a Roomba and take it home, it demands that you sign a unilateral EULA, then install an app on your phone, and then informs you that it will only clean one room unless you sign up for Roomba Pro for $20/mo[0]. So clearly Roomba still owns the vacuum cleaner they just sold you; they have the final say in what it does or doesn't do. That's ownership. Now, technically, you can legally disassemble your Roomba, and if you manage to dump, modify, and reflash its control software, then you'd be allowed to use your product to clean multiple rooms without paying monthly for the privilege. That would require a lot of effort and specialized skills and tooling, and you would then not be allowed to share your modifications with less skilled Roomba owners because doing so would almost certainly involve trafficking DRM circumvention technology, which is a crime. So in practical terms you only own the Roomba as an inanimate plastic puck.

This whole situation maps to iPhones as well. As things stand when you purchase an iPhone you own a glass brick, and Apple owns the phone part. They graciously allow you to use their phone to perform a certain limited set of activities. I am fundamentally opposed to this sort of non-ownership. Whether the buyer had an option to purchase a roughly-equivalent item with different terms is irrelevant; selling someone a product while retaining ownership of it is a mockery of property rights. Some rights are too important to allow people to sign them away with the tap of a button. When the market missteps by rewarding bad behavior like this it is the job of our democratic governments to step in and mandate good behavior.

[0]: this is made up to illustrate a point, I don't actually know how Roomba service works


This is all so exhausting and goes in circles over and over. I honestly can not believe that there are people on HackerNews of all places that want two companies to control pocket computers and just because one is only marginally better it's totally okay that the first one is draconian.

I feel like someone who woke up in the middle ages with a fever and they are trying to cure me with leeches. Yes yes. No need to worry. Let the leech do it's work and you too will be secure from the plague.

Does anyone actually know anyone that has gotten hacked on their Android phone?


People like their iPhone and get mad when you point out it is not the best for everyone and go back to I got mine. Really sad to see on HN especially.


Great news! I don’t see many people on HN getting mad when you point out that Apple isn’t the best for everyone. I’m not saying you made it up. Maybe I just don’t read enough comments.

I do see people saying they like how Apple devices work, and that they consciously choose Apple devices over devices from other manufacturers. Those are informed consumers making a choice you wouldn’t make. It’s not sad. Some people won’t agree with you in life. That’s normal.

Choice does exist in the market. There are far more than 2 manufacturers, and some of them focus on more HN-ish people who have more principles than I do.

I don’t really want the government to limit my smartphone choices in this way, but I also realize that Apple devices will continue to exist and will mostly work the way they do today, so it’s not that big a deal to me.


There are 2 parts to this argument, first being people are justifying their iPhone ownership,(and cult membership) with "Apple should do exactly what they are doing" because I like what I get, and I don't want the other folks in my cult ;).

Point 2 being the H in HN stands for Hacker defined as: "a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data." Then the argument becomes why are people who are reading HN and, presumably, calling themselves hackers so interested in keeping status quo and letting Apple control everything? I think we go back to argument 1 and excluding others, green bubbles and such making a subset "better" than others. Elitist as F and some folks, like myself cannot stand for this and take time to explain the failure to others.

Pretty simple really ;)


> There are 2 parts to this argument, first being people are justifying their iPhone ownership,(and cult membership) with "Apple should do exactly what they are doing" because I like what I get, and I don't want the other folks in my cult ;).

It sounds like you’re assuming that people are in a “cult” because they don’t share some of your opinions. I’m sure that’s not what you’re doing, because you are a rational person engaging in a rational discussion. Can you help me understand what you really meant?

> Then the argument becomes why are people who are reading HN and, presumably, calling themselves hackers so interested in keeping status quo and letting Apple control everything?

Because they like Apple devices. Next question.

> I think we go back to argument 1 and excluding others, green bubbles and such making a subset "better" than others. Elitist as F and some folks, like myself cannot stand for this and take time to explain the failure to others.

It sounds like you’re upset because some people who buy Apple devices make jokes about “green bubbles” and “blue bubbles”. I’m sorry that happened to you. Nobody likes getting their feelings hurt.

I’m generally opposed to snobbery, but I don’t think it’s illegal.

> Pretty simple really ;)

Cool winky face.


The reply was mostly tongue in cheek via elaboration... The point about hackers wanting to change their devices still stands though and as one of other replies noted there is no reason both cannot coexist, some use their iPhone as Apple wants and some don't, if Apple doesn't want to relinquish control, we'll make them, just like MSFT was made to do things it didn't want to.

I don't even use an iPhone, I do use some Apple hardware as well as my household, but still stand for openness and am not in favor of walled gardens.

Snobbery is mostly about people trying to explain their usage of devices that break core tenements of open [internet, hardware, software ...] with poor arguments of "I like what I get" or simply "I got mine" and you can't for reasons.


No… I like my iPhone and get mad when people want the government to force Apple to change how it works. I like how it works now, which is why I bought it.


And you could continue to enjoy that experience by only using Apple's own app store, while everyone else would also be free to use other app stores to install apps they want which Apple does not like. See how this still works? You don't lose here, you win freedom even if you don't want to take advantage of it. You might even win financially because competition from other app stores might force Apple to lower their fees.


"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

Pretty sure some of the shills here are heavily invested in Apple stocks.


Apple revenue would likely go up in an open ecosystem. See Microsoft if you don't believe me.


Everyone is, it's the second biggest company in SPY.


"...selling someone a product while retaining ownership of it is a mockery of property rights."

Excellent comment, it sums the situation up very well. And the above extract encapsulates the matter in just a few words.


If I buy an iPhone, I can legally sell it. Thats ownership.


Phones are unique in the consumer space because of how thoroughly they can restrict end user usage. Once you buy an iPhone you can use it physically as a hammer if you wish, but if you want to digitally use a non-Apple wallet then you are restricted. Most consumer goods don't behave this way; my TV lets me watch anything I input into it, my bike lets me ride to wherever a pedal to, my vacuum lets me clean my counter if I want it to. Consumers are choosing a desirable physical good with undesirable digital restrictions. Apple is flexing its hardware power to its advantage and end user's disadvantage in software.


> Consumers are choosing a desirable physical good with undesirable digital restrictions.

So long as it is the customers making that choice, and they have access to alternatives, then it's not really a problem. If apple were advertising the iphone as a consumer product that had no such digital restrictions in an effort to hoodwink people into buying them, or if iphone were the only serious game in town, then those restrictions would be an issue, but right now iphones are advertised as being worth more than their competitors specifically because of those restrictions, and people are willing to pay such premiums. That you personally would not make the same decision does not mean they've been manipulated by anti-competitive measures into making theirs.

If someone were to make a consumer product that worked better for my use cases at the expense of being worse at or even incapable of doing things I don't intend to use it for, I should have the option to buy it. If you don't like the restrictions, buy something else. That's not anti-competitive, that is exactly how competition is supposed to work.


There is literally only one other competitor. That is not flourishing, competitive market when consumers can make many different choices. There are two companies that control nearly the entirety of the mobile software market, how can you expect that there would be no oversight to make sure they don't advantage their own software offerings?


Samsung, Sony, Google, LG, Xiaomi, Motorola, Nokia, TCL, Kyocera, Fairphone, Pine64, Purism, and many others are more than "literally only one other competitor". And even if your complaint is that the only other option is "Android", there's no reason why those manufacturers couldn't make their own OS if they wanted to. There's no reason why even if they didn't want to, they couldn't make their own custom Android distribution.

If the linux community as small as it is can produce multiple varied and unique linux distributions largely on the backs of volunteers, there's no reason why these manufacturers (especially some of the bigger names) couldn't do the same with Android / Linux and their own hardware. And whatever reason is behind the failure of literally the entire cellphone industry to do what they were doing before the advent of iOS and Android, it isn't because Apple is somehow stopping them from making their own OS, and SDKs and app stores.


But the reason is there only one other competitor isn't at all because of Apple or the competitor and doesn't have anything to do with their practices. The reason for it is because it's incredibly difficult and complex to put together a device like that and only certain types of companies have the resources and funds to create a product like that.


> isn't at all because of Apple or the competitor and doesn't have anything to do with their practices.

Can you buy the display from a supplier that supplies Apple and put together your own phone? No, they have exclusive agreement with apple.

Their anticompetitive practices Make It incredibly difficult and complex to put together a device. That's the whole point!


Is the assertion that Apple's supposed monopoly is because they have exclusive agreements on their hardware?


I think you could buy an OLED display from Samsung if you wanted.


Exclusive agreements are legal.


Not if you are a dominant company.


> right now iphones are advertised as being worth more than their competitors specifically because of those restrictions

Huh, I must've missed all the iPhone ads touting the device's inability to play Fortnight as a premium feature.


> Phones are unique in the consumer space because of how—

—they were marketed as phones that can compute, instead of as computers that can phone.

That's the crux: people would never have accepted the restrictions on computers like the iPhone, if that thing were instead sold as a general computer called the iPalm or similar. But since it's sold as a phone, any thing else it can do is more easily perceived as a bonus, and we hardly feel the restrictions at the beginning.

Only people who see smartphones for what they really are, general purpose palmtops that can make phone calls, can really perceive the egregiousness of those restrictions. The first step then, is generalising this understanding to everyone.

A good first step, I think, would be to start naming those things more accurately. I'd personally suggest "palmtop".


It isn't a general purpose computer. The form factor is compromised to make it work as a phone and it doesn't matter how good the CPU is.

A general purpose computer would be hard to use if it had an OOM killer instead of swap and if running the CPU full speed shut it off because it got too hot inside. (Using it too hard can also drain the battery even if it's on a full strength charger.)


> It isn't a general purpose computer.

This is straight up lala-land. Phones do banking, browsing, document writing, printing, video editing. Many people don't even have a computer.

> OOM killer instead of swap

Windows 10 apps work like that.

> Running the CPU full speed shut it off because it got too hot inside.

Happens to some crappy laptops. These are basically irrelevant details.


>Happens to some crappy laptops. These are basically irrelevant details.

Don't most modern (>2010) CPU's thermal throttle until they are back within operating temps? You'd have to stuff a laptop inside a backpack while maxing it to get it to overheat to the point of resetting


Phones do browsing only until you switch to another app and it has to kill the tab to save memory.

And remember, they don't do Flash ;)

It's web pages that changed to fit on phones, more than the other way round.


you can add a keyboard to a phone the same way i can add a keyboard to my desktop to function.

phones are actually more general-purpose since they travel with you and know where you are.


At this point, most people likely associated the word "phone" with something closer to a modern smartphone than a landline. Language can change. From my point of view, the problem is more that Apple set a precedent of these restrictions due to them being the first mover, and few mainstream phone companies have tried to break out of this idea (even though other phones are technically more flexible if you try hard enough).


> From my point of view, the problem is more that Apple set a precedent of these restrictions due to them being the first mover, and few mainstream phone companies have tried to break out of this idea

It's even worse than that: though I stand by what I said, you're correct, people are gradually realising that the difference between their smartphone and laptop/desktop (if any), is one of degree, not kind. But we don't see the push back we would have seen if they had realised right away. Instead, as you rightly point out, companies are building on Apple's precedent to try and expand their model to our good old laptops and desktops.

And it looks like they're succeeding. It would seem one has to pay Apple to even get the right to distribute a regular MacOS program regular users can actually execute (no Apple developer plan, no code signing). And newer versions of Windows are displaying increasingly scary warnings for programs telling you they "protected" your computer, which are bad enough that we get tutorials about how to get past them.


Surely first-mover for smartphones is palm or blackberry or even Windows Mobile.

Yes, apple has about half the market today, that’s not the same thing as being first-mover. In fact it’s actually completely different because people had to make the choice to move away from the first-movers to apple.

People literally did give up their blackberries and palms and Jornadas for iPhone, consciously and deliberately, because it was a better product. And now you want to change the product and erode the benefits back to the minimum standard defined by android. That’s a taking.


It was a better product. But it would be quite a take to say their tolling & gate keeping was a significant contributor.

It was a better product because of its capacitive multi-touch screen and its overall speed (which I must insist depends more on what apps are installed by default than on the restrictions on third party apps).


> But it would be quite a take to say their tolling & gate keeping was a significant contributor.

Do you remember the first iPhone? Or for that matter what "mobile development" looked like before the iPhone? The first iPhone was more "tolled" and "gate kept" than any iPhone we have today. There was NO app store. To get an app on the iPhone, Apple had to make it, which meant you had to be big enough for Apple to care. Google got a Youtube app because they were that big. At some point Facebook had a built in integration (though I don't remember if it was a full fledged app). That was it. Development for the phone was going to be "web apps" only, without the biggest "web app" framework at the time, Flash. Compared to the first iPhones, a modern iPhone is wide open to all sorts of developers.

But perhaps more than that, even that first iPhone was leaps and bounds for most people over what prior devices were (save perhaps Palm Treos) in terms of "openness". Before the iPhone, the carriers decided what your phone could and couldn't do. A Razr phone from AT&T could send and receive data over bluetooth (like contacts and ring tones). That same exact phone from Verizon could only use bluetooth for headsets. Data transfer was locked down to vVrizon's own service (with a fee of course). Mobile app development was a crap shoot of different sdks and licensing costs per device, and then a hope that each carrier would allow your bejeweled clone, and served up through their services, of which they took HUGE cuts of the revenue. The 30/70 split of the iPhone app store was quite literally "revolutionary" in the cell phone space.

Which leads one to wonder if the tolling and gate keeping is such a hinderance, why is it that the iPhone remains so successful despite their largest competitor having none of those restrictions, pretty much from the get go. It's not like Apple was open and suddenly slammed the gates down on apps and iPhone development. And it's not like Android's openness is brand new. So the question that has to be asked is why does Apple continue to sell so well despite the restrictions? Why hasn't Android eaten all of Apple's market share as a massive open platform where anyone can do anything?


> Which leads one to wonder if the tolling and gate keeping is such a hinderance

I don't know, perhaps you should ask that to someone who actually made that argument? If I recall, people are still buying cigarettes, are they not? Stuff doesn't have to be good for you to sell good.

---

I don't dispute the facts you lay out here. I'll even cite game console as other general purpose computers that were (and still are) quite heavily locked down too. Apple however made one step further, and managed to sell a locked down general purpose computer for purposes other than gaming.

At the root of it all, I think, is how hardware vendors got away with selling their stuff without the full manual. Some instead provide a proprietary Windows driver. Others hide keys in them, don't tell users what they are, and then lobby to send heroic reverse engineers to jail. If I was the regulator I would probably start there.


Luckily, we have anti-trust and other forms of law and regulation specifically because assuming markets will alway provide meaningful choices has historically proven a bad assumption.


In this case, we don't have to assume. There is meaningful choice in which platform you use.


We only have to assume that our legal system will do it's job. Personally, I think the government has a weak case. No customers are being harmed by Apple's restrictions and there is certainly no monopoly.


Motor companies should not be able to gate physical features (seat heaters) behind software.

My opinion isn't changed by the fact that I can purchase from a company that doesn't do that.


> Motor companies should not be able to gate physical features (seat heaters) behind software.

Why not? If you don’t want a car with this property, don’t buy one — how are you being harmed?


It would be fine if companies were extremely clear about it, saying “the car is $30k, but the average customer ends up paying an additional $2k in subscriptions for basic features”. Or “the phone is $1000, but most software will be more expensive due to our 30% tax”. Of course they’re not that clear, and I would argue these business models only make sense when there’s deception involved.


Just because you aren’t being harmed doesn’t mean you can’t think it’s wrong or try to prevent it. There are lots of things people fight against that doesn’t directly impact them (yet).

One good reason in this particular examples is I don’t want subscription based heated seats to become popular, because then I won’t have a choice anymore.


No, the part that's really bad is that they lock up features behind software locks, but these aren't that hard to break for hackers. But then they get laws passed which make it illegal to change these features on your car, or even to tell other people how to do so.

How the DMCA hasn't been struck down by the Supreme Court as an abridgment of the 1st Amendment, I really don't know.


Because its stupid and annoying


Then don’t buy one.


Luckily, people can like something despite shortcomings and ask for it to become better.


“You can buy this other thing” is not a good defense against antitrust allegations simply because that’s not what it’s about.


What is it about?


But these computers are so different… But if Apple does that it would be differently different… /s

I mean, what gp wants is literally just there on the shelves and they don’t want it. But they also want it, but in Apple, because it’s nicer when Apple does[n’t] it. Why would they want it after Apple does it?


Surprise, people want more than one thing out of a product.

Voting with your wallet works very badly when there are two main options. Which anti-consumer behaviors do you pick? When something is bad enough, it's better to make it illegal for all options.


I’m all for your device = your control, and I mean your.

But allowing software vendors to ignore AppStore will eventually lead to my bank apps, local maps apps, delivery apps etc to go non-AppStore-only route and do whatever they want on my phone, because I have no alternative (except for not using my phone). The first thing one of my bank apps did on my android phone was to install some sort of an “antivirus firewall” which abused every access and semi-exploit to make sure I’m “safe”.

Your ideas will affect me, and I can’t see why your (and my) inconvenience is more important than my security. It’s not just “better”. I’m asking to consider this perspective as well.


The controls on apps that prevent them from taking over should be part of the OS, not the app store.


The controls are in the app store because there is no way of doing it in the OS.


Whatever an "antivirus firewall" does, it sounds like something that should be tied to permissions or not have an API for it, either way easy to stop all apps from doing.

And I'm skeptical that governments would stop Apple from enforcing a rule that says apps have to let you refuse permissions.


By definition apple can’t do anything in that situation, because people don’t want third-party app stores and sideloading to be managed or notarized by apple at all.

This is the very definition of bad-faith motte-and-bailey argumentation, and it’s logically incoherent to boot. Get apple out of regulating apps and App Stores, no more telling developers what they can do! Oh and i guess they can tell developers to do one thing…


These apps usually simply refuse to work without permissions, so this is not a solution. Empty/fake permissions are easily detectable too. Someone will make a “framework” for that and we’ll see it in most important apps.


Unfortunately regulations and lawsuits like this one seek to reduce the amount of meaningful choices consumers have in the smartphone market.




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