Comment by otterley
5 years ago
Apple has the ability to put every submitted app through rigorous analysis before publication on the App Store to look for forbidden behavior, in order to protect their customers. They don't have that ability with arbitrary websites.
So you trust a third-party, a company, to define what is 'forbidden' for you to install, if they say they do this "to protect our customers"?
At least in democracy we can elect the people who define whats allowed or forbidden to us, and they can only do it, in the constraints of a constitution.
If we let companies get away with it, we are allowing them to create shadow states, a sort of new digital feudalism, where our digital overlords can control a big part of our lives. (Remember that we are going to a process of digitalization of our lives and experience, with IOT, AI, smart gadgets, to take into account how powerful a entity who can control all of this can be)
Today, its just Apple. But with people normalizing this kind of behavior, it will be more and more over time, til its too late for all of us.
By enforcing other browsers to use their implementation of Web platform, for instance, they knew they could control the Web from being a good contender to their exclusive application platform.
This kind of action alone, should be outlawed, because is pure uncompetitive behavior, not to say its hurting their customers freedom to choose whats best for them, and that actually have nothing to do with the privacy or safety of their users.
You vote with your wallet. If you don't want to patronize Apple, go with Android, or find some other phone and browser vendor.
Also, you mention without evidence that Apple's actions have no relation to the safety or privacy of users. Are you claiming that their actions are merely a pretext, and that Apple provides no such value, or that they have no such intent? If so, how do you know?
I already do. I never touched anything Apple because i don't want to be owned by what i own.
Apple has no proper concept of digital property, as it thinks its entitled to do anything with the machines that i own, and of course, to make it less offensive, they will use the card that they are doing this always thinking of me like a loving mother.
Its not just Apple, but any company, giving the financial games they need to play, the goal is to maximize profits, so the well being of its user or consumer is secondary to that (You know that CEO XYZ that actually were thinking about the user first? gone.. the board kick him out of the company because the profits were bad in the last quarter). If they can get away with using BS, where people buy the reasons their are using to justify their actions, they will do it, because its good for their real goals.
If you want context, we can use the same on this thread. Where you can clearly see that is reasonable from the security perspective to bar some of them, but a lot of others, is to bar the web platform to compete with their app platform.
Its not just now, nor just this.. if you have been following closely, aware that they do this kind of thing, you see this pattern in a lot of other places.
With Apple is not even difficult to create a Dossie to point this out. But if you didnt notice this since the beginning of the iphone launch, i guess theres little i can do here.
Apple is very good at creating a emotional bound with its things.
I dont like this "evil vs. good" kind of narrative, and Apple is not evil or good per-se (this is a childish pointf of view). Its a tech company that will use their power and position to survive and thrive. But we also need to be aware that with novelties, new problems will arrive. And we need to be aware that sometimes with the sweet, there's also this sour taste that may become a big trouble in the following years, if we are not aware of it.
Cant you see which web apis, from the ones that were bared, that are not actually security threats, but would become a threat not to security but to their monopoly on the app platform in the devices they ship?
But wait, we can just use Chrome right? nope.. because Apple is forcing every other browser to use their own version of Webkit.
Even without the need to go through every move Apple is making, isn't that clear to you?
Its clear for me how Apple is and will be the new "IE 6" of tech, being a impediment not just to the evolution of the web, but all the tech moving forward, all because they need to maintain their feud where we end with less and less option of what we can do with the stuff that we own.
Its not very clear right now, because they are still moving the needle, but if you looked into te Microsoft of the nineties, you would also not believe it.. and yet in the 2000's it happened..
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You made the same point before but again, how did tiktok, facebook and all the other crap gets past it? What about all the other chinese spyware?
> Apple has the ability to put every submitted app through rigorous analysis before publication on the App Store to look for forbidden behavior, in order to protect their customers.
Note that Apple does not regularly exercise that ability…