> The following content was criticized by Apple in its review:
>
> Hardware attacks: hacking chips on the (very) cheap (https://media.ccc.de/v/camp2015-6711-hardware_attacks_hacking_chips_on_the_very_cheap)
> Bluetooth Hacking – The State of The Art (https://media.ccc.de/v/22C3-536-en-bluetooth_hacking)
> Hacking Medical Devices (https://media.ccc.de/v/MRMCD2013_-_5209_-_de_-_gate_104_-_201309081123_-_hacking_medical_devices_-_flo)
> Gamehacking & Reverse Engineering (https://media.ccc.de/v/gpn15-6940-gamehacking_reverse_engineering)
> Crypto-Hacking Export restrictions (https://media.ccc.de/v/1114)
> Jailbreak: eine Einführung (https://media.ccc.de/v/hackover14_-_6494_-_en_-_raum_1_7_-_201410251615_-_jailbreak_eine_einfuhrung_-_erik_e)
> Social Engineering und Industriespionage (https://media.ccc.de/v/MRMCD15-7034-social_engineering_und_industriespionage)
> $kernel->infect(): Creating a cryptovirus for Symfony2 apps (https://media.ccc.de/v/froscon2014_-_1436_-_en_-_hs6_php_-_201408231115_-_kernel-_infect_creating_a_cryptovirus_for_symfony2_apps_-_raul_fraile)
Yes, that is how censorship works nowadays: you can put it online, but simply won't get it anywhere near a channel where any sizeable amount of people might see it.
Freedom of speech isn't really the right to say what you want to a large group of people, it's the right to say what you want _period_ regardless of who's listening. It's your job to find an audience.
That's an easy stance to take - I'm sure many oppressive regimes would be more than happy to permit that definition of "freedom of speech": You may say whatever you like, provided no one is there to hear it.
Of course there is no right to an audience. But if the success or failue of finding an audience starts to depend on the goodwill of a few powerful gatekeepers (media/TV companies before and now apparently "platform" operators) then the right to free speech stops to really be worth very much.
You have the right to say anything you want, you do not have the right to say it in my home. I don't understand how there are so many people that don't understand FOS.
They understand it perfectly - you're conflating the law (the government isn't allowed to prevent you from speaking) with the principle it's based on (restricting people's ability to speak is a backwards, repressive thing to do).
The story talks about an European group trying to reach a global audience. I was making a more general point about how over-reliance on private platforms makes censorship much easier for governments and corporations everywhere. Why do you guys keep assuming that "the law" equals "US law as I understand it"?
I've extended the "in my home" argument to "on my website" before--e.g. Reddit restricting what you can say on Reddit is not really censorship--but stretching "in my home" to mean "on the hardware which you purchased from me" seems like rather a different thing.
No that's the 100% correct stance to take. You are not forced to use Apple's products or their walled garden, and they are not required to grant you access.
> I'm sure many oppressive regimes would be more than happy to permit that definition of "freedom of speech"
Can we drop the hyperbole and focus on the discussion please?
>No that's the 100% correct stance to take. You are not forced to use Apple's products or their walled garden, and they are not required to grant you access.
It doesn't matter if you're forced or not. In a world where the majority chooses to use them (for other reasons, e.g. convenience, features, price, etc), the company controlling what's broadcast on them is censorship, and has the same effects as censoring the publishing of a book had in 1700.
If the majority had chosen those platforms with the EXPLICIT goal of avoiding your content that would be another thing.
They have no right to deny you access to their platform or to deny content from being distributed through their platform. Something about that sounds incorrect.
Well, a black man not being a slave wasn't his right in 1840 Georgia either. Staying in the same hotel as whites wasn't his right in 1950.
It's always better to concentrate at what we think SHOULD be the right or what it's we consider ethical, than merely restating what happens to be the law, which can very easily be BS.
And "whether we like it or not" plays a huge role in having laws changed -- that's where we should be starting from, not waving it away as if we're some kind of non-citizen slaves where things are just forced upon us.
> You may say whatever you like, provided no one is there to hear it.
Freedom of speech does not mean you are granted unmitigated control over the content a private medium, channel, or platform. For example, it doesn't imply that I can force the New York Times to publish this comment in their newspaper, nor can I force NBC to read this comment aloud on the nightly news. Similarly, I cannot force Apple to publish my content on their platform. In no way does this violate of my freedom of speech.
>Similarly, I cannot force Apple to publish my content on their platform. In no way does this violate of my freedom of speech.
Only in the sense that this "freedom of speech" is codified in current law -- and that's specific to the US even, elsewhere can differ.
Other countries for examples don't allow a shop owner discriminate as to who he choses to do business with (e.g. like that Colorado bakery that refused to sell to gay couples).
I'd say it would be good for society if companies having mass business platforms were forced by law to not be allowed to censor anything not already censorable by law already (e.g. child pornography, libel etc).
Freedom of speech in a liberal democracy comes packaged with the right for property. And your freedom of speech does not hold on other people's property.
Not trying to defend Apple, but I find it interesting how many people on HN willingly embraced walled gardens. Thankfully the web is still there, still open and great.
> but simply won't get it anywhere near a channel where any sizeable amount of people might see it.
They have a youtube channel, with over three million views, which can be accessed from any device with a modern browser. Your definition of "censorship" seems to be an incredibly liberal one.
By that definition, there is still no censorship happening here. Apple isn't preventing content from reaching anyone, because that content is still available through the youtube app on the same platform and any available web browser.
I mean today a sole internet webpage/domain by the CCC might reach 10x as many people as it would back 20 years ago.
Besides, even if it was available on Apple TV would many people care for it?
It seems like some people don't just ask for distribution on those "closed gardens" (which CCC are denied, and I agree it would be better if they got), but they also fantasize that had they had said distribution it would also magically give them some huge audience.
Not potential audience, mind you -- rather it's as if they think that merely being there they deserve/should/would be a success.
Come to think of it, that's also the case with some people allowed in the closed gardens -- they lament that "hey, I made my app/content and got it there, where's my top 10 spot?".
I guess those people can't understand than in a list of N places (the top 1000 most successful apps say), if the candidates are MxN (where M>1), then (M-1)*N of them won't make the list.
People are choosing to agree to EULAs that say they have no right to sue for any reason, but agree in advance in the case of disputes that they'll submit to binding arbitration by an arbiter chosen by company, and if the consumer loses that they pay all the costs associated with that arbitration.
Just because they chose to be a part of that agreement doesn't mean it's OK or not worth complaining about.
There is a nice comparison. We have a newspaper distributor in Germany, having 54% of market share. I one paper would print a story, reporting some shady ongoings inside this distributor, he would be forbidden by regulation not to distribute this paper.
So it is his walled garden, but policy has thought about such things happening if one market player becomes strong enough to hamper the "free" flow of information.
The content that is shown by the CCC app can also be watched in the YouTube app or in safari. Do these apps have to go?
It might be more clear to observe that many popular Internet things created in the past 20 years have content restrictions. I think it's totally valid to ask why that is and by what mechanism(s) it was caused.
Yes but how certain are we that it wasn't an automated program that flagged it causing a rejection [possibly by a human who just obeys the flags most of the time]?
Of course i understand Apple should be rewarding hackers who research and report security flaws, and not punish them, but do they really need to support/allow hackers who don't intend to report these security flaws to Apple but instead use them to create jailbreaks?
Don't get me wrong I have nothing against jailbreaking, but Apple supporting the jailbreaking community well that sounds a little extreme...
The problem is the angle here. Apple chooses to be arbiters of content. That shouldn't be their job. If the app used private APIs or misused background processing, it's good for us, the consumer, that Apple makes sure it doesn't get released in that fashion.
But I reject that it's good for us, the (adult) consumer that Apple act as parental controls for adults. They're using a position of power to stifle speech. It doesn't matter if it's a First Amendment violation - it's still egregious.
Their "private closed platform" that is based on monopolies and privilege provided from the public coffers - spectrum auctioned off by the FCC, publicly subsidized student debt used to buy iphones and macs, off the rails "intellectual" monopolies through off-the-rails copyrights and patents, and soon to be legal immunity from CISA for sharing info with the government. They clearly like to pretend that they are a "commons" deserving of public support... except when they don't.
I wonder if the same dismissive attitudes would take place if the Youtube app were required to block said content, or were to completely disable/remove youtube from the store because of questionable content on youtube.
Not all platforms aggressively censor content to benefit the owner of the platform.
I can easily use Google search and YouTube to find out how to block Google's own ads[1] and to root Android phones. Google doesn't censor information that hurts Google's interests.
Microsoft's Bing has information on how to replace Windows Media Player with free and open alternatives like VLC.
Bing even suggests searches to prevent Windows 10 from spying[2].
It is possible to run an ethical platform that doesn't tilt the playing field to the provider of the platform. Apple most definitely does not provide an ethical platform.
Google banned disconnect.me -- a popular privacy app that blocks various tracking mechanisms (without blocking advertising itself) -- from Android[0]. Apple had no problem with the iOS version.
It seems that each big centralized walled garden has their targets.
> It seems that each big centralized walled garden has their targets.
This is false equivalence. Just because you can find an example where Google banned an app does not mean that all platforms are equally unethical.
Google Play simply doesn't allow apps that interfere with other apps. That's the reason the disconnect.me app was removed.
It's telling that other apps from Disconnect are still available on Google Play. Disconnect Search[1], for example, is contrary to Google's interests, but Google does not ban it because it doesn't interfere with other apps.
> does not mean that all platforms are equally unethical.
I would agree that Google is more ethical than Apple, for now. But they still do bad things, and they could easily get worse in the future. We need to move away from this kind of centralization, so that no one has the power to unilaterally gag legitimate content.
> Google Play doesn't allow apps that interfere with other apps.
Almost every app "interferes" with others in some way. The "no interference" clause seems clearly intended to target interference which was unwanted by the user, but that is not how Google applied it here.
If the user expressly intends that the app interfere with other apps, then I think that it is unethical to prohibit them from doing so on their own device. Disconnect is not malware; users install it for exactly the purpose it implements.
Interference here is targeted functional manipulation. Not fifth degree unintended side effects. The user's wish is not considered. There's a reason not a lot Xposed modules are on Google Play.
Don't like it? Enable 3rd party sources (a function added by Google!) and install those apps from elsewhere.
It's great that Google allows this. That's one thing that makes them better than Apple (in my opinion).
However, it is still the case that being banned from the Play store can kill an app. Few users know how to sideload things.
In a world where there are several competing app markets that users can easily switch between, it would not be a big deal for Google to refuse to carry apps they don't like on their market, but when 99% of the users realistically can't get apps anywhere else than Google Play, then it becomes problematic.
And then developers who get their apps handicapped by apps promoted next to them takes their apps down. I understand your reasoning, but Google's focus is the ecosystem. If it was trivial for everybody to disable all adds and in-app purchase functions in all free apps with just a few taps, there'd be far fewer of exactly those apps you want to use.
So the rest of us simply have to get Xposed from outside Google Play and root with unofficial methods to make all apps, including proprietary ones, behave exactly as we want on our devices.
> Google Play simply doesn't allow apps that interfere with other apps.
Or apps that play youtube videos while not having focus. There is no defense to that rule. Just trying to act the same as a desktop browser, with ads intact, is not allowed.
"Our Google Play policies (specifically clause 4.4) have long prohibited apps that interfere with other apps (such as by altering their functionality, or removing their way of making money). We apply this policy uniformly — and Android developers strongly support it. All apps must comply with these policies and there’s over 200 privacy apps available in Google Play that do."
> Google doesn't censor information that hurts Google's interests.
I challenge you to find a Chrome extension in the Chrome web store that lets you download Youtube videos. Does Google allow, say, Amazon app store app in the Play store?
Apple doesn't have a search engine of it's own so I cannot point you to search results showing how to use other software instead of Apple's but do you really think they would censor the results of a search engine? The comparison is irrelevant.
What about that time when Google banned Disconnect from the Play store? [1] Meanwhile Apple actually built a way to create content filters into the OS and actively promotes them in the App Store.
I'm not saying that Apple is without fault, certainly not, but neither of the big companies are a shining beacon of enlightenment, and every one of them operates out of self-interest.
You just linked to a search result page where there is only one extension with 57 reviews that purports to be able to do that. It's liable to get pulled if it gets any more popular.
Every other app is just a generic video downloader and many explicitly mention that they cannot download youtube videos due to Chrome store restrictions.
They regularly get pulled. Wanting an app that is going to still exist in a week is not moving the goalposts. The point is that the rules have removed all good apps with those features from the store.
It doesn't work with the sites you mentioned, at least not with Reuters or Facebook but it does work with many others. Why is, for example, Vimeo fair game for this extension but Youtube isn't?
> I tend to believe that centralization of power will lead to corruption simply by making it more possible/likely.
Completely agree.
> Do you think that something like Ethereum (https://www.ethereum.org) would enable us to sidestep these kinds of problems, at least on the web?
Honestly not sure. Part of the problem with the way things work today is that everyone is chasing money -- the next hot app, the next unicorn. That's how FB, Apple and Android attracted people into their walled gardens.
As long as we have hungry developers, we are going to have the problem with gardens attracting them.
If I was running a store that represented my brand I would make sure every piece of third-party content was curated, showed things that catered to my audience, and minimised my legal liabilities. I would want my store to reflect my brand's values and culture.
How is it that we expect app stores to show anything and everything anyone submits? And how does this prevent the open web from continuing?
You seem to be upset that people like curation and are drawn to heavily curated App Stores. Meaning that such things gather large audiences.
But people can compile and run their own code on the platform. And it has actually gotten easier and cheaper — not more difficult — over time.
I like curation where it ensures a base level of functionality and quality. I don't want ideas curated. I can do that for myself, thank you. I don't need a corporation presuming parental control over me or any other adult.
But that's not really up to you, is it? If it's my store, my platform, then I get to decide what products are going to represent my brand.
If I was running the Disney store, for example, I would want all my third-party products to be family friendly. It would be crazy for someone to yell "censorship!" because I was disallowing products with mature themes from being sold at my store. This is how shops work: they pick what represents their brand so that customers who like their choices can just walk in and browse their products.
Apple wants their App Store to be family friendly. They don't want apps that deal with serious or divisive political issues, they don't want apps which represent them in a bad light, and they don't want apps that are going to shock or horrify their customers.
You and I can make these decisions for ourselves. That's why it's great that we can download code from the Internet and build it for our own devices.
It's not a real problem because 99.9% of the people interested in this sort of things are not going to access this (kind of) content via AppleTV or Apple Store or whatever.
I have a feeling that when someone at Apple who knows what CCC is wakes up on Monday morning, this rejection will be reversed.
Remember that these rejections are not the Official Word Of Apple From The Ghost Of Steve Jobs. It's just some random employee that has to get through a million of these in a day or something. The thought process is probably something like "hacking, jailbreaking, industrial espionage... nope" and they click a button to reject. Or it could even be a mistake.
That's not better is it? It just means that if you're already famous, you can get around rules that apply to others. It centralizes and increases censorship.
They put a very specific list of talks that they do not approve - it does seem that they spent some time going through the content that CCC wanted to share through this app before finally rejecting it.
Headline is misleading. "Its platform" implies that Apple is somehow excluding CCC's content generally, across Apple's entire product line. Which is absurd. Apple has denied them a dedicated tvOS channel for broadcasting their content about industrial espionage, etc. The content is still viewable by many other means, across all of Apple's devices.
My cat also does not have a dedicated tvOS channel.
To be fair, I do support CCC's position here, overall, but this headline is still hysterical.
Is there a quality laptop not bound to an ecosystem that doesn't come loaded with shitware? Of course I would just install over it, but I don't want to support those kinds of models either.
In mobile I suppose there is cyanogen. Anyone tried them recently?
Microsoft sells computers in their store under Microsoft Signature Edition branding. Signature Edition computers don't come with any type of extra software [1]. For example the Dell XPS 13 [2] is available in Signature Edition. In fact when you buy your device direct from the Microsoft Store, you get support direct from Microsoft, instead of the OEM [3].
I'm not sure the status of the shitware since I installed Linux over the Windows install immediately, but the Dell XPS 15 is a great laptop worth looking into.
> In mobile I suppose there is cyanogen. Anyone tried them recently?
I recently bought the £130 Wileyfox Swift [1]. It's amazing. Almost unbeatable on price alone among smartphones, but it's actually a really decent phone; certainly unbeatable value IMO.
They also make a higher-spec'd 'Storm' for £200. Both run Cyanogen OS out of the box.
"Is there a quality laptop not bound to an ecosystem that doesn't come loaded with shitware?"
Yes - it's called a macbook (pro/air/whatever) running OSX. It is still (thank god) a general purpose computer and you can do whatever you'd like with it.
I'm on a One Plus One phone currently, which is CyanogenOS not CyanogenMod technically, but close enough. However, it is a shame that relations between One Plus and Cyanogen broke down... that said, I tend to stick to devices open enough to run Cyanogen, which usually means I'm about 6-8 months behind "new" when I buy... my last couple phones I had for about 2 years each, all out of contract on cut rate plans.
I care about the ability to root my phone and install third party OSes, I've only actually done it on my G1, and my next (samsung) phone. If you buy new, at the top end, your third party options are ususally limited, and iOS in particular. I'd love to see more open platforms/oses, as I'd actually love to see an android-like (or based) platform that the vendor simply provided drivers on open interfaces for (for the stupid, locked down communications). At least that would be a step in the right direction.
MacBooks aren't really high quality. Shitty keyboard, pointing device, and an overheating chassis make them subpar (screens are amazing though).
A ThinkPad X250 or T450s with a LiteOn keyboard is pretty good. (Lenovo has two providers for keyboards, one sucks. If you get such a part, just get it replaced under warranty.) The screens don't compete with Apple, but otherwise there's no better laptops available. And if Lenovo doesn't cock up their upcoming "Retro" release, we might see an IBM-esque quality ThinkPad soon.
I'll agree with you on the keyboard, and even the heat issues.. but the mac trackpad is the main reason I'm still on a macbook pro. I also like the better display. However, Lenovo was a pretty bad actor just this past year. Beyond that, I happen to like the metal chasis on the MBP, though I'd really love to see anodized aluminum in either black or oher colors available... but then I'd also like to get user servicable batteries, memory and standard drives again.
It doesn't seem to respond to tapping, is that right? Gotta click it? And there's no buttons, so no easy way to right or middle click (middle click being great for tab management or entering scroll mode). What do you like about it so much?
Lenovo is shit and I despise them. But they are the only ones making ThinkPads so sorta no choice there.
User replaceable parts are great. X250 shipped when 16GB SODIMMs weren't common. Now that they are, it was a simple 5 minute upgrade.
I like that you have to press/click it.. no accidental clicks while typing... as to middle click, click with three fingers on the pad, as two acts as a right click.. once you get used to it, it's very intuative, dedicated click regions (like many pc pads are adopting) are actually really annoying to me after using it, as is dedicated buttons imho. I have not love for apple, but really do like the touchpad interface they have more than any other.
There are some alternatives to Lenovo, I happen to appreciate some of the Acer and Asus products available. I just like the macbook pro as a whole much more... Though, to be honest I don't see myself having to have a new laptop for some time, and even then likely won't buy Apple because their software has not been as good lately, I'm not tied to it, and would just assume use Ubuntu if there were a good hardware option (good by my admittedly arbitrary standards).
The thing I like the least about macs is really my muscle memory is heavily tied to the Model-M style keyboards (including the mechanical feel). I have a Unicomp for my work macbook at work, that I flipped the ctrl/option/cmd buttons around, only in terminal windows, it's referested there and I can't enable software that could correct/reverse it only for iterm...
By installing over it, I would argue that you're not supporting that model. Sure, the system vendor is getting paid by some dodgy party for the inclusion of said shitware, but ultimately it's the dodgy party that's losing out because in your case, they're not going to get any return on their partial subsidy of your laptop.
Good to know. I've personally been using write.as for the past few months for stuff like this, as they're more Tor friendly [0]. What do you use instead?
As a workaround, I use google cache or the waybackmachine when viewing sites that have issues with my strict HTTPS-only policy. I expect it's also a viable workaround for Tor users.
DuckDuckGo nicely lists these options if you search for the full URL too.
Most of the arguments I read here are: it's OK for Apple to do this because they're a closed app, and the same content is on Youtube anyway.
Tomorrow Google says: "We remove this content from Youtube, Apple did it anyway and many of you thought it was OK. We're a company making money too, we're not the Government".
Now what's the argument? The first one to censor is OK, the second one is not?
A few people will still say: they can still use their own player and servers!
Then the UK govt will block them, if one does not ask explicitely their ISP to have a access to it. Then Comcast will throttle them through bad peering.
Then nobody will care anymore if it gets blocked further or not, they're out of most people's reach already.
It's an outrage. I recently submitted an incoherent, hate-filled diatribe to the New York Times, and they refused to publish it on the front page! Where is my freedom of speech? I recently submitted a video of my parrot to NBC, and they refused to play it on the nightly news! Where does the censorship end? We're clearly witnessing the erosion of our constitutional rights.
Your comparison is so far off anything, that I have a hard time answering.
Nobody asked Apple to publish the videos on their front page. There is an app that let's people access CCC content in a more friendly/more easy way then say Safari or YouTube.
Apple blocks said app, but does not do so for all the other apps that can show this content. And the reason they give is, that this app shows content, that does show how "secure" some Apple products are. Content mostly from renown security hackers?
So why is CCC-TV banned, but not Safari? Not any other browser? Not YouTube?
Why does Apple get to selectively punish smaller organisations and all the fanboys run to their defences?
btw.: Written on a Macbook Pro, but not from an iOS user.
The point of the comparison is not about placement on a front page (I could complain the NYTimes won't publish my article anywhere on their server), but rather that Apple created and operates a private distribution channel, and it has a right to exercise editorial judgement over that channel.
I don't necessarily agree with their decision to omit CCC-TV, and I think it's a bit silly that they did so. But it doesn't matter: it's their right to do so, and I don't get to force my will on them just because I disagree or think they're being irrational.
I'm glad people are critical of Apple's decision, but not when they claim it's a violation of freedom of speech, or when they falsely equate it to government censorship. I can't support a gross misunderstanding of law, government, or the Constitution that's being invoked, even if we want the same end result.
I know you are writing this tongue-in-cheek, but imagine if the US postal service made it a felony to send a letter to anyone that had "hate speech" (by their definition) in it. Or that you had to be verified and "white-listed" (via SS #, or facebook) to even post your parrot link before it could be rightly rejected.
The reason people get up in arms about these sorts of things isn't that companies should do what they want regardless profit or existing business strategy, it is that once you successfully take a decisive action on something that most people don't care about, it makes it that much easier to do it with something that is important in the future when it is difficult for people to choose another option or vote with their wallets.
Here's the text of the referenced section 3.2(e) of the developer program license agreement:
(e) You will not, through use of the Apple Software, services or otherwise, create any Application or other program that would disable, hack or otherwise interfere with the Security Solution, or any security, digital signing, digital rights management, verification or authentication mechanisms implemented in or by the iPhone OS, this Apple Software, any services or other Apple software or technology, or enable others to do so;
It looks like the reviewer thought this was a jailbreaking app.
I wonder what Apple tries to accomplish by blocking a specific way of accessing freely available content - besides annoying security researchers. People who understand the talks are able to watch them anyway, even without the app. How inclined they now are to follow "responsible disclosure" procedures when it comes to Apple, remains to be seen...
I see no sign in here that they have even initiated the appeals process, much less gotten a response from that.
Spurious rejections happen. Whether or not it's meaningful and indicative of Apple's policy can't be determined until you appeal it. Maybe the reviewer thought this app was intended to aid in jailbreaking as suggested in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10483860. Maybe the reviewer is just zealous. Or maybe it really is Apple's official policy to disallow this. We can't know that until it's appealed.
Does this really matter? Think of the App Store like Apple's physical retail stores. They are only going to put products in there that show their best, that they curate, and products that they like.
This is exactly the sort of app that anyone interested in using could pull from Github and install on their own device.
Isn't this kind of the same as on TV. I don't find this to be offensive at all to be honest.
It is like you can't have over sexual content during certain time or 18+ ( porn ) on a publicly viewed TV.
Do you want to watch those exotic content? Do you want to watch porn? Then you move to other site specifically for these content. Now someone will point out porn is a different sort of thing. How about a video making a bomb for teaching the science behind it? I am not sure about US but many other counties in the world would simply not allow to be aired.
I'm willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt for now that it was a automated layer or a ignorant reviewer. I'm hoping for a reversal of the decision here.
Regardless, I really lament the dilemma of the open web vs. walled-off apps. Hopefully Apple shares that perspective. My regrets to the FLOSS community, but years of using substandard laptops, lagging user experiences, and dealing with low-level Linux problems has gotten to me.
Please save the "you should try this or that" -- I'm just tired of the whole hassle. I want to spend my time focusing on building things and focusing on higher level problems. For me, that means using a Mac.
It's possible that companies like Apple will push folks like me to see how far they can extend their walled garden. I'll admit, at some point, it would cause me to jump ship. I guess I'll just hope that reason will win out here.
Well, good to see which smart tv box I don't need to buy then. I usually like and prefer Apple's products but if they ban content that is highly interesting to me then no thanks.
Zero surprise. Why is this even a story? Why would CCC even waste time developing for a closed platform. Focus on the free web, available on all devices... for now.
Does CCC have an app on Fire TV? On Chromecast (Android)? It bothers me that Apple has this power but is there even another choice in this specific example?
Banning content on your site that discusses how to bypass security in apps from said company is not bad behavior of company but something any sane company should do. I happen to hate apple, but i'm honest enough to know banning this app is a non-story.
so, if they upload to youtube, causing youtube to now have the exact same content, and apple do not take down YouTube app, can they sue for discrimination?
As someone that used to hate Apple and still does, I use apple products (don't buy them myself). There are many reasons people use Apple products. From the support to the high quality of their products. There's also the fact that a macbook can run all 3 main operating systems at the same time, whereas no other hardware can easily and legally do so. Macbooks are also pretty much the lightest and smallest laptops you can get.
Some people also get them because of loyalty to Apple from the past, or because OSX is unix-compatible.
The point I'm trying to make is, you can disagree with Apple and still use their products. I hate Apple but my work provided me with a mac mini and a macbook, which I use every work day. I also have developed iOS apps even though I've never owned an iPhone.
Also, if you are talking about iPhones, you are going to see a lot of those everywhere because you really only have 2 viable choices anyway.
Apple is not an abstract concept, it's run by people. I'm curious why, in your opinion, those people's decisions on behalf of apple should not be subject to moral judgement?
Yes, companies are made up of people, but people in groups do not act like people. A group is more than the sum of its parts. This is important to understand if you ever deal with groups of people in any way, shape or form.
Sure, you can hate on Tim Cook or whoever as much as you want, but will that change the behaviour of Apple as a company? Extremely unlikely. The responsibility of a CEO is towards the share holders (who only care about the profit). The responsibility of a manager is towards his superiors. Very few people in a company of this size have sufficient power to change this kind of behaviour and the (dis)incentives are simply (and demonstrably) not sufficient.
You can and should hold Apple the company, as well as the relevant decision makers personally accountable for this kind of behaviour. But if you expect them not to act like this, you're simply being naive.
Find a way to prevent this kind of behaviour in the future. Or at least make sure you're not supporting it. But boycotting evil corporations turns out to be nearly impossible considering how many evils are being committed by nearly all significant companies and how few companies can actually be called independent or untainted.
Be outraged. But don't be surprised. Unless you learn from this so the same thing won't surprise you if it happens again in the future.
It's ok to me for Apple to do this, too. Regulating is what governments and laws are for. Apple can exclude stuff from its ecosystem simply because it competes with its own offerings; excluding it for 'moral' reasons is relatively charitable.
There is simply no disincentive. Yes, it's upsetting, but is it upsetting enough to impact their bottom line, now or in the near future? Not likely.
It's okay because this is the kind of behaviour we have come to expect from large, for-profit corporations. It's how they're expected to behave, it's textbook behaviour. If you're outraged that a company would do this, you've simply not been paying attention to the business world for decades.
Whether it's morally okay or not is a different question. Companies are amoral. They can't be expected to act on conscience because they have none. If you want them to act on morals, you need to codify these morals in regulations -- or you need to make sure your moral outrage is big enough to directly create a disincentive for that kind of behaviour (e.g. be in a position of power where that outrage directly translates to a significant change of their bottom line).
It's not morally okay. It's legally okay. Morality is irrelevant when it comes to corporate decision making.
I'm not saying this is how it should be. I'm saying this is how it is. And that is nothing new.
The problem isn't that Apple all of a sudden misbehaves. The problem is that apparently a lot of people have a really flawed mental model of what kind of behaviour they should expect from a company like Apple and make bad decisions because of that.
This is what companies are supposed to do by design. If consumers prefer companies with different behaviors, they will have a competitive advantage.
Companies are constantly in imbalance but heading towards what consumers want. If you were to engineer "perfect" actors, Soviet style, you'd get perfect balance in the initial second and nightmare scenarios in the long term.
This kind of commentary helps users decide which companies to support. If Apple's behavior causes it to lose customers, it will change how it acts. So, it makes sense to be upset while acknowledging that Apple is profit-motivated.
Companies are entitled to put their bottom line first. Consumers are equally entitled to get upset when this goes against their interests. (And if they get very upset about it, the company might have to change.)
Yes. You should be. But "should I be using Google or Microsoft products instead of Apple products" is asking the wrong question.
The walled garden has been called out as horrible from day one. To Google's defense, it's still easier to install Android software without Google Play than it is to install Apple software without the App Store.
It's mind-boggling why the tech scene seems to be so oblivious (or hypocritical) towards Apple's vendor lock-in. Heck, even at its peak Microsoft wasn't nearly this powerful (or effective).
When the Apple Watch came out I actually considered whether it's worth buying. But in order to use the Apple Watch I'd have to replace my smartphone with an iPhone. And then I'd need to use iTunes, which only really works well on OSX (there's a crappy Windows version that's really a second class citizen but I'm on Linux anyway). So I would have also had to replace my laptop with a MacBook or MBP. And since all the syncing and cross-device stuff is stuck in the Apple cosmos there'd really be no point in not also replacing my tablet with an iPad. Boom, the entire stack is now Apple because of a single product.
And that's just a hardware purchasing decision -- I haven't even mentioned software lock-in (e.g. Chrome on iOS being really just a wrapper around Mobile Safari because there's no way to swap out the actual engine, or the lackluster integration of third-party apps compared to the OS defaults).
This same argument can be used to argue against any sort of consumer protection. (NB: I am not arguing for government intervention in this case.)
I have an extremely hard time seeing how it can possibly be beneficial to consumers for Apple to attempt to censor this kind of content. Even a "well, App Store censorship of jailbreaking talks is ultimately beneficial in the long run for consumers because Apple making more money means more R&D investment" sort of argument falls flat because nobody who could possibly make use of technical descriptions of jailbreak techniques would be in the slightest bit hindered by the availability of the content in the iOS App Store.
What gives people the idea I'm defending Apple? I'm not defending them. I'm just saying it's wrong to have expected them to act any different than this.
You can't force them to behave morally. But you can inform your market decisions if you understand that companies will behave like this if there is no sufficient disincentive.
You're not to blame if you think this is bad. It is bad, and you are right to be morally outraged. But you are totally to blame if you're a happy Apple customer and are only offended because the behaviour surprises you.
Why deny any content then? Each content creator is another opportunity to make money off of advertisements, etc. If there's a concern about adult or other objectionable content then put that behind a section people have to agree to view.
Apple wants to make money, Apple needs its customers to make money, upset customers are bad for Apple. Hence, getting upset is a way to influence Apple. It has worked before, it will work again.
You are right, but the people I have steered towards Apple, expect a friend, especially when they spend $20,000 on various gadgets.
Apple used to be a pretty good friend, but they are slipping.
Personally, I never bought/needed the friend experience, and might be the only person thrown out of a Apple Store. (Still don't know if it was my comment I made to the Genius Manager who was barking orders to the employee helping me? I politely asked the Genius Manager, "Why are you checking the inventory, when you are walking with my item in your hands?". Yea, it was my fault, I don't like power hungry little managers. Why are they always little in stature? I had the incident video taped on YouTube, but felt sorry for the little guy, and didn't want him to loose his job. It was priceless though. It was a clear video of him holding the metal door, screaming at me to leave. It was priceless. I did question my own sanity after the incident though. Am I that bad, or was he having a bad day? I will never know.)
Back to my point. The people I steered towards Apple spent thousands, so they can have Geniuses hold their hands like a good friend would. I got tired of holding their hands while on a Microsoft product. I gave them to Apple. Apple can fix their whiny problems. Problems caused because they never bothered to learn anything about computing/programming. A problem Apple was complicit in? 'You don't need to think with our products. They just work! Sit back and push those buttons!' (Sorry, just finished helping someone who had somehow ended up with 12 Photos Applications on their computer, and I still can't figured out what they did.)
The problem is, these people, I steered towards Apple don't know an App from a website, so they wouldn't even understand this argument--and they would never get the concept of a "walked off garden". The people who spend the most at Apple seem to know the least about computing, so Apple isn't affected if the few people, like me, leave?
Until the masses stop buying their products they will still be selfish dictators? I hate to say this, but my Apple days are over. One--because I can't afford their products anymore, and will patch up my gadgets from the unending supply of parts on EBay. And two--I just don't like the company since Jobs died. I didn't want to think one man could make a company, but in this case it's arguable? Yea, I know it was "walked off garden" with Jobs too, but I didn't care as much back then, or maybe I was one of the clueless masses?
Apple is not a friend and never was. They're just creating an illusion of a relationship because that is what the market seems to want and so that is how they make money.
Thinking a company can be a friend is no less wrong than thinking a prostitute (as in: someone you actively pay for sex) can be your romantic partner. You're paying for a fake relationship and both parties should be conscious of that. If you think it's real, feelings will get hurt -- or worse (just ask a sex worker about creepy patrons who mistake them for friends just because they paid for sex).
EDIT: Actually it's worse. At least prostitutes actually are real people (well duh) and have a real identity outside their job allowing them to have an actual relationship with someone. Corporations don't even have that.
