There's competition of regulatory regimes—mandatory and strict (could be stricter, IMO) vs. optional and looser.
Absent government outlawing a bunch of the bad behavior Apple tries to curb, I like being free to have that choice to opt into their regime. When corporate dragnet spying and other hostile bullshit is outlawed and the laws are effectively enforced, sure, I'd want Apple to tear down the walls on their garden.
(please don't just post "but you wouldn't have to use alt stores!" in response—it's been done to death on here, and everywhere else, differences opinion are apparently irreconcilable and we're not likely to gain any ground here today, and Android's still kickin', so the option for that kind of environment does exist for those who want it)
Amusingly, advocacy of optional regulatory regimes enforced by corporations is usually a right-Libertarian position. Not that that's necessarily a point in its favor (see again: I'd much prefer this crap simply be illegal) but those folks do love free markets.
They've done this since the early days of the app store. Mostly-content apps without really broad appeal have long carried a high risk of rejection.
> Homescreen widgets: utterly useless, but can't get more iOS-y and less webapp-y than this, right?
This especially, but really the whole post reads like the system working as intended.
Granted (as the author notes) way too much shit gets through anyway, but that's not an excuse to do even worse. I do, as a user, wish they'd tighten up the rules a lot and improve enforcement. I'm quite sure it'd improve my experience on the store (and probably on the web—imagine how much better the Reddit site would get, probably overnight, if their app got pulled over not being well-justified).
I think Apple has every right to tighten up their first-party App Store, but they should also acknowledge the user's right to install what they want. Maybe some people do want a "too simple" app, and I don't think Apple has the right to tell the user what is-and-isn't appropriate. It's common sense. This would be a great time for them to add a Developer Mode a-la Android, and also start purging their own shopfronts. If Apple genuinely believes they can compete in a free market, they should have no problem restocking their store.
In fact, aren't these preferable? I just want a weather app that shows me the current weather and a forecast, without any social bullshit, accounts, ads, etc.
Also, if iOS users have that "one app" they can't live without, surely it makes them stickier? Why would Apple want to limit the chances of hitting that spot with their users by curbing the number of apps available?
Exactly this, one of the things that really struck me about apps on fdroid is just how simple they are.
They do one thing, and (usually) do it pretty well, probably because the developers probably don't have the time and resources to do anything more than that. But that's perfect for someone who just wants the thing on their phone to do what it says on the tin.
I'm convinced that if iOS was opened up to third party app stores, a potentially popular store wouldn't be a Facebook/Google monopoly store that exists solely for user tracking, but rather something boutique and niche like F-Droid (except maybe without the FOSS focus). The current App Store is huge and unwieldy, its search and discovery UX dated. There's ample room for third party app stores that specialize in high-quality design, or high-functionality minimalism, or privacy and security. They might even have higher standards than the official App Store.
Well, the EU is starting to think the iPhone ecosystem is about anti competitive behavior and poor customer experience. The intentions of a multinational corporation are completely irrelevant when talking about the real-world impact on thousands of developers.
The deal is the same as it ever was: Apple can continue selling their extremely safe applications with their extremely secure payment system and state-of-the-art curation team; the only condition is that other shops get to play along too. There's zero downside to them going this route, I think it would allow them to further secure the iPhone by paring back the entitlements allowed for their store. Nobody would criticize them for this, but Apple's greed prevents them from conceding.
Just think about how you'd feel if your Mac could only use the App Store to install software. Personally, I wouldn't even be able to do anything on it if that were the case.
Screw the impact on developers. As a user, I'm more concerned about the impact on users.
The EU is dead wrong. EU commissioners have absolutely zero clue about what makes for good "customer experience". There's one party that has proven, for 15 years now, to have the most clue about that. It's Apple.
That's a fine perspective to have, but many people feel that a government of elected representatives is a better place for determining and adjusting impacts on people.
I find myself in the utterly bizarre position (to me, anyway) of defending a megacorp against government interference because government has failed to reign in the bad behavior of the entire rest of the software market. Granted the EU's headed the right direction, but they've still not gone far enough, and the US is way behind. I hope EU citizens get what they want, but am also hoping we don't see those effects bleed over into the US market—yet, with the legal protections we have in place right now.
My preference would be that spying and hoarding data about users simply be outlawed (plus a bunch of other things, some of which Apple does, unfortunately, allow) and those laws be well-enforced—and also the walled gardens opened up, by law if necessary, but I'd much rather not see the latter without the former happening first, since the current state of things in-fact lets me choose to have some protection against that bad behavior, without significant time investment on my part. If that private regulatory service breaks down for any reason, I'll simply be worse off, as things stand.
The "if iOS is opened up, Meta will put Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp on their own app store and steal user data" doomsday scenario has always seemed a little half-baked to me. Regulators on both sides of the pond are scrutinizing tech companies for all sorts of issues now. I doubt the EU will just be asleep at the wheel if Meta sets up a massive data collection op on European citizens. User data and privacy is just as important to them. Perhaps governments can walk and chew gum at the same time.
> The "if iOS is opened up, Meta will put Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp on their own app store and steal user data" doomsday scenario has always seemed a little half-baked to me.
Meta was literally already caught doing this by abusing enterprise certificates to bypass the App Store to spy on people, including children, until Apple stopped them.
Yes, and presumably the authorities would not go easy on them next time, with the greater political pressure to rein them in. And if Meta was doing that on their own third party store where all attention can be focused on them, misbehavior would be even more visible because they would not be hiding it behind someone else’s platform.
This happened after GDPR was in force and the EU was pushing hard on privacy. I just think it’s a little silly to dismiss as “half-baked” the idea that Meta might do something they have already been caught doing before. This is not a company that is afraid to break the rules when it comes to privacy.
It also happened under the cover of an obscure promo program that was far less visible than a rival app store. I don’t believe it is a true precedent for the hypothetical people are worrying about here.
Another important factor is the consumer backlash it’d engender.
To do something as disruptive as to create a new App Store and force everyone to migrate is not easy. Users are sick of juggling as many user accounts as they do already. Not all existing iOS users will switch, there will be grassroots viral social media campaigns on other platforms warning people not to use it, and it will bring a lot of bad PR. It would not be a frictionless transition and Meta would quickly discover that it is more trouble than it is worth. (And as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, I don’t believe Facebook or Google have the gumption these days to create widely popular new products these days.)
Ultimately, I believe both the public in the form of democratic government, and in the form of consumers, can be counted on to do the right thing. We should not put ourselves in the position of simply relying on one corporation’s benevolent paternalism to check the power of other corporations.
So what you're saying is that the app store is just as good as the government in this case? If meta will do this anyways, I'd rather have the openness and democratic oversight
A "government of elected representatives" (which is not what ruled in this case, of course, that's not what the EU body in question is) actually is the worst possible way to determine what a good customer experience.
Which is why God invented corporations for this purpose. I'm all for democracy, and there's a place for that. This isn't it.
Every developer does, but I doubt that's the case for users. They like the App Store, true, but few of them are aware of what kinds of barriers Apple places to new apps there.
The user has no "right" to "install what they want". Words have meanings.
Apple absolutely has the right to control what apps are available on its store, and what apps are not. This isn't about what is "appropriate"; you just made that up.
This also has nothing to do with "common sense", or at least what you think is common sense.
> The user has no "right" to "install what they want". Words have meanings.
If I own a gadget, I own it. That means that I _have the right_ to do whatever I want with it, including jailbreaking it, disassembling it, or throwing it from a cliff.
Apple might not like it, and might take punitive action. Void the warranty, maybe even cancel your Apple account. But they can not send me to jail.
> whether you have the right to force Apple to carry any apps
We are explicitly talking the opposite - let me install apps even if Apple disapproves of them. No need for the Appstore. Just let my sideload my own software on my own device I paid for with cash.
No, what's at issue is whether Apple has the right to gatekeep the relationship between people who have bought one of their phones and developers who write software which is capable of running on those phones.
The EU has decided that Apple doesn't have that right, just as companies don't have the right to enforce a contract which requires that the signer becomes their indentured servant. We don't accept slavery of meatspace humans, so it is only consistent that we don't allow companies to own our digital selves too.
> you have the right to force Apple to carry any apps you want
You might be talking about that, but I get the impression that the rest of us are talking about something else. I have, for example, specifically mentioned jailbreaking.
I don’t see why you’d reject ‘mostly content’ apps as long as they have the content to justify keeping on your phone? If I want an app instead of a website that is my business.
I’m all for rejecting ‘low effort’ apps, but this app clearly isn’t low effort.
Offline content as an app without extra permissions seems pretty justified. This is a curated Flipboard or subreddit with the ability to buy tickets, which maybe you could do on Flipboard/Reddit, but then Flipboard/Reddit would profit from the curation, not the person doing the curation who made an app.
I do think it's at least surprising that changing your email address on GitHub would cause you to lose access to places where you used GitHub 3rd party auth to login. If those schemes don't centralize management of those kinds of details to the auth provider, what's the point of them?
We don't get to see, directly, how everyone else experiences life. They might tell us, and they might do so more or less truthfully and accurately. They might struggle to communicate those things in a way we really understand. Meanwhile, we ourselves may struggle to explain our experiences and perspectives to others, or be ashamed or embarrassed about doing so.
One aim of literature and poetry is (or may be) to open up that inner world—to do a better job of expressing those experiences than most folks manage to, to do so across a breadth of experience we may not all encounter, and to make explicit and examinable things we may not ourselves think to examine, or may otherwise think shameful or private and ours alone.
Like, say, the experience of taking a drug and not feeling at all like you changed, but that the world did, as in the original example.
The practical utility of this in communication is evident in that the well-read tend to reach for episodes from literature or passages of poetry to relate difficult concepts concerning that inner life, and this practice is in fact helpful to readers who have a similar background, or, if you will, a common language (as in the section of my post that you quoted). This is seen extensively in philosophy, for example, and is so helpful in religion that even those that try to downplay literature or scripture (Buddhism, for example) tend to end up with extensive literatures regardless, because they are so useful for relating difficult, very personal ideas and experiences, even if they can only ever be the "finger that points" and never directly the thing-in-itself. For the individual per se it can help us understand ourselves, help us feel less alone, act as a kind of therapy to some degree, be one factor in working out what exactly we're doing here, what we want or ought to be doing, expand or exercise our empathy, and provide ethical and moral guideposts more effectively than any kind of "do this, don't do that" list of bullet points.
> and to make explicit and examinable things we may not ourselves think to examine, or may otherwise think shameful or private and ours alone
That's just a claim, I could write the complete opposite and have it be just as (in)valid.
> be one factor in working out what exactly we're doing here, what we want or ought to be doing, expand
OK, so give some examples. Without saying "we all are doing/wanting different things". Get a mate, have a comfortable life... any advance on that?
> and provide ethical and moral guideposts more effectively than any kind of "do this, don't do that" list of bullet points
Another unverified claim and I don't accept any of it.
Point is when artistic types are pushed into a corner they come up with this kind of handwavy stuff about being human or whatever, the point being the fuzzier the claim the harder it is to dispute.
Art needs to at least try to be as rigorous as science, as it stands it so often lets itself down.
Shrug. If you don't find it valuable, feel free to ignore it. Meanwhile most of your requests amount to "give me a liberal education in a Hackernews post" so are entirely ridiculous.
You perpetuated this flamewar several times. Can you please not? We're trying to avoid this kind of thing, especially the kind that degenerates into a tit-for-tat spat, and double especially when the topic is something tediously generic like science-vs-humanities mud wrestling.
Maybe it's not valuable because it's not true? (and maybe it is because it is - but how can I tell). In science we can point to solid results like having electric lights to write literature by.
What is literature worth - show me some measures. Oh, you can't. That doesn't make it worthless, I love a good book, and be happy if you said it brings much happiness to people, that alone would justify it. But you claim more, far too much.
Show me that liberal arts types are on average more ethical than science types, which seems to be what you claimed, or maybe don't claim so much.
Again, feel free to disagree with and ignore the entire millenia-long traditions of the liberal arts outside math and science if you like. You may be right, and all those other people wrong. It doesn't seem like you're really trying to engage with it, though, and the answers to these "show me..." type requests are—and I'm not trying to be flippant—literally "read a book" (or, rather, lots of them—guides to which might be valuable are easy to come by) which is why I'm not trying to answer them. The attempt to address them is sometimes called the "Great Conversation" and can fill whole bookcases. But if you don't think anything's missing in your life that they might help fill in, or that it's even possible there can be any truth there because only science can provide truth, then don't. That's fine too.
Arguing with artistic types is frustrating because they have no rigour. For instance "because only science can provide truth" - I never said that.
(edit: regarding "Maybe it's not valuable because it's not true?" I'm saying maybe literature is not as valuable as you claim, just so that doesn't get misunderstood, nothing to do with science).
"But if you don't think anything's missing in your life that they might help fill in" - Sure, I love a good escapist read and literature can definitely provide for that, but beyond that, what I want is a job, a GF, drugs, sex, going out and seeing some good mates. Lessee, will literature help there?
You claim, but are willing to provide no evidence. You won't even answer a simple question I asked, let me try again "Get a mate, have a comfortable life..." - what else?
Life is not awash with deep questions, most stuff in life is trivial and straightforwards.
> Show me that liberal arts types are on average more ethical than science types
Liberal arts types? Science types? More ethical?! I could pick out more but that was a fun, dense one, and anyway I don't want to engage on that level because I don't think it'd help this exchange a bit. Frustrating indeed.
Physician, et c., et c.
I'm not trying to argue, anyway—I answered one reasonable (if a touch hostile) clarifying question and have since been trying to communicate that "recite entire fields of the humanities to me" is unreasonable in this context. How would you react to my demanding proof that science is as good at getting at the truth as you seem to think it is? (incidentally, outside this for-the-sake-of-argument analogy, I do probably largely agree with you on that, so this isn't intended as an actual point of contention) If you've got the patience of a saint, maybe you point out some examples of evident successes, you explain the process—but I say that's not enough, examples of apparent successes aren't proof, and so on. At some point you probably ought to tell me to go read a damn book or take a few courses (i.e. get an education in the thing I'm dismissing but also have so many questions about). It'd be crazy to expect you to produce a philosophy of science course (at a minimum—we could, if I were obstinate, keep digging deeper forever) over HN posts.
My usual approach if a whole lot of apparently-smart-people-with-seemingly-decent-taste think something is valuable and that certain things are true about it and I don't see it is to assume I lack the necessary education and that if I want to be able to understand it and have an informed opinion on it, I need to seek out that education, and to engage with that thing a whole bunch even if it's unpleasant and seems pointless or even bad at first.
I picked that attitude up from... literature and philosophy, largely. I've found it useful. I've never gotten over that initial barrier by asking questions to which I think I already have the answers, on a web forum. Not even (hahaha) this one. In the case of the arts the usual argument for their value, as far as what convinces people, is precisely that kind of direct engagement, perhaps with some guidance from a teacher.
Practically no-one arrives at the conclusion that the arts are valuable and express truths or provide an improving education by reading some scientific paper. Yet, so very many people do reach that conclusion, plenty of them a hell of a lot smarter than me, and they keep doing it well into the scientific revolution—including tons of scientists ("science type"—smh). So the best I can write is that, if you actually want to be convinced, that's the thing to do.
What you seem to be doing instead is asking me to prove to a skeptic's satisfaction that general relativity is true, purely via slam poetry and using only the vocabulary contained in Doctor Seuss books. Be pretty fucking impressive if I pulled that off, right? Wrong tool, wrong approach, if that skeptic's actually interested in being convinced—not that such a thing couldn't be good, or even useful, if such a work existed, just as some kind of scientific examination of the value of the arts might be good and useful, but in either case I doubt it would suffice to convince anyone on its own.
But, I repeat yet again, if things are going swimmingly for you, disregarding the possibility of valuable truth or insight existing in the arts or their being improving, keep going as you are. Seriously. The arts are largely a kind of exercise in working through our collective existential confusion and trauma, and if you don't see the need for that, holy shit, that's great—or if you do see the need for it, and have genuinely sought comfort and answers and guidance across the liberal arts and found all but science wanting, well, that's too bad but is also an entirely fine place to end up.
At any rate, if you want to see if anyone has tried to address your questions from a scientific perspective, you're on the Internet. Have you gone looking for that information? (maybe you have, I really don't know—hell, I could well be communicating with a top researcher in some very-relevant, specialized discipline for all I know)
You have the right to talk about confusion and trauma when you have had your life (and your siblings lives also) destroyed by child abuse. You, with your nice mental health, and your lovely stable relationships and peace of mind, something I've never had. Ever had half a lifetime of clinical depression, the real shit, like blackness eating you from the inside out and it hurts like you can't imagine, no, not "having a bad day" depression. You talk about insights into human nature but there are some insights you have never had and never will and don't know how fortunate you are, you with your sodding self-indulgent burblings of 'confusion' and 'trauma', so STFU you have no experience of what other's life can be like and you never want to know that life can be a curse. Just shut up.
Damn dude(ette?). I sincerely wish you peace. I suggest we not continue this (doesn't seem like you were planning to anyway). Sorry if this exchange caused you pain.
> Show me that liberal arts types are on average more ethical than science types
Are interest in science and interest in liberal arts mutually exclusive now? Anecdotally, I would say that the two interests are positively correlated.
As to evidence of the benefits of reading fiction, there has been a fair amount of research done in that area[1].
Before there was science, technology, math and statistical inference, there were our dreams and our stories about a world that could be something other than what it was at that very moment for that very individual.
Have you noticed how many Star Trek gadgets are real things you can now buy in a store? That does not happen in some inevitable scientific process that will eventually produce obvious predefined advancements. It happens because our art and our philosophy inspires our science and our engineering. We are what we dreamed we could be.
You are sitting on top of a very large mountain of human achievement in the humanities. Law, government, peace, prosperity, human rights, ethics. These things all spring from the humanities. They were all invented before the scientific method. We would be still living in caves without them.
I was talking about literature. You just expanded it a whole lot, which diffuses the point I was making. I don't think this is a tactic, I just don't think you can focus.
Nonethless, "It happens because our art and our philosophy [1] inspires our science and our engineering [2]" You conveniently assume [1] and [2] are divorced and each lies with two entirely divided castes. They are aspects of the same.
"Law, government, peace, prosperity, human rights, ethics. These things all spring from the humanities"
I think that's one of the most important qualities of literature and poetry—they can illuminate those "truer than science" personal-perceptual aspects of the human experience, which are hard to get at otherwise. Literature as a whole ends up providing a kind of language for our inner lives, and a map of what is human.
Evidence points to it mostly being small-scale and largely accidental (e.g. someone has two residences and forgets they voted in one place earlier in the year, votes in second place later in the year, accidentally commits voter fraud).
When people with the motivation, mandate, and access, plus often full support of an entire state government, to find as much fraud as they can, go looking for it, that's typically all they find. A handful of cases, mostly accidental, not part of a big conspiracy or effort to swing the election.
Like when Kobach, a guy who'd made his entire political identity "voter fraud is rampant and super-serious" got clearance to go on a big crusade in Kansas. 6 convictions, mostly accidental, none part of a coordinated effort, mixed R and D (IIRC the cases actually leaned R, but small sample size, so either way, not that meaningful)
Rhetoric that it's a big deal (that stupid D'Souza "documentary"), but when they have to put up or shut up (i.e. take their evidence to the courts) there's simply nothing (meaningful) there.
Yeah, I would entirely love it if I could use the same key for everything I have that takes a key. That'd be great. As it is I just don't bother with keys for, like, back doors to my house and such. They're in a drawer somewhere and never get used. I just can't enter those doors from outside, if they're locked.
One key (well, I mean, I'd want copies of it) for everything would be excellent.
Terrible analogy because I'd look at them like "damn, they've got it figured out!"
[EDIT] Thinking further, the only way this falls apart is if I want to give someone else a key to just one thing, but that's a non-issue with ssh, so the analogy is still comically backwards. "But what if someone gets ahold of one key! Same key for everything, that's access to all your stuff!" well shit man, that's about the same as getting one of them if they're all different, in most cases—where do you think I keep my extra keys? And the couple I carry, so are likely to get in someone else's hands by accident or whatever, are the "give you the kingdom" type anyway. Get my car key, you can get in my house (garage door opener). Get any house key, you can probably get in my car, plus the rest of my keys (e.g. safe) are in there because I don't carry them around all the time.
Yeah, letting someone borrow a key is the only time this might be inconvenient, and again, that's not a factor with SSH.
You know, there are master key systems that do exactly this: you can have a master key that opens everything and special keys for just one of the locks. There are even grandmaster systems with some locks opening subsets of locks. I'm personally a huge fan of a certain Finnish manufacturer but there are many others. You can't usually put one of those compatible cylinders into you car, usually, and there are other limitations, but, still, even just for doors and lockers it's a great thing to have. Also, usually, those expensive cylinders are reprogrammable in case of a compromise and there are other security features (keys being impossible to copy is the one I like most).
Clearly it contains alchemists' lost secrets to creating slimes. But is cursed to gradually turn anyone who reads it into a slime. Which at least one player will obviously try to do. There's some good motivation to complete the quest and/or make one or more players play as an intelligent slime for a while.
[EDIT] Gelatinous cubes, rather. Now I must read the Book of Shame.
Linux was my main desktop OS for about a decade. About four years of that on Gentoo, so yes, I do actually know what I'm doing, didn't just pointy-clicky install to an Ubuntu desktop and never learn how to actually use or configure it. I dropped Linux around 2012 for macOS (OSX, at the time) after I was forced to use that at work and, after about a month of getting used to it, realized what I'd been missing.
I try desktop Linux again every year or two[0]. It's always just as bad as it's always been. Way more application crashes than I'm used to on macOS, jankiness galore, all the stuff I used to avoid doing out of habit because it often breaks things on Linux (and to some extent also on Windows) but am now used to doing because it's fine on macOS is still often a bad on Linux (e.g. drag-n-drop actions). Lots of little annoyances like the default US English keyboard layout being crap for no reason on most distros, which, sure, I can change it, but why not have a good default? Still nothing as good as Preview on any platform other than macOS, AFAIK, which hurts quite a bit.
I think there was about a two-year high point in the late '00s when Ubuntu was just curating good defaults and smoothing things out and the future looked really bright, then Ubuntu rapidly deteriorated and it's back to how it had been before then, now, just shinier because of all the mostly-mediocre-or-bad GUI changes in the major DEs since then.
My next attempt, I'll probably just shoot for the holy grail of FreeBSD on the desktop. Linux seems like a lost cause at this point. May not be any better but a lot about it sure is way saner than Linux-land, so, worth a shot. Great on servers, certainly. Not expecting much because it's mostly the same as Linux in the GUI department, though.
[0] Last time: Ubuntu and Fedora (I don't like rpm-based distros, but thought I'd give them another shot), plus tried Void for the first time which was pretty great actually but I just don't enjoy fiddling with configs anymore so, it's a no for me.
Absent government outlawing a bunch of the bad behavior Apple tries to curb, I like being free to have that choice to opt into their regime. When corporate dragnet spying and other hostile bullshit is outlawed and the laws are effectively enforced, sure, I'd want Apple to tear down the walls on their garden.
(please don't just post "but you wouldn't have to use alt stores!" in response—it's been done to death on here, and everywhere else, differences opinion are apparently irreconcilable and we're not likely to gain any ground here today, and Android's still kickin', so the option for that kind of environment does exist for those who want it)
Amusingly, advocacy of optional regulatory regimes enforced by corporations is usually a right-Libertarian position. Not that that's necessarily a point in its favor (see again: I'd much prefer this crap simply be illegal) but those folks do love free markets.