That’s not a solution. It’s a way for you to avoid the problem. It does nothing to help the millions of people who are already deeply invested in the Apple ecosystem.
Not sure if it’s a fallacy if it’s about addressing people who have spent a ton on an ecosystem and can’t just devote more money to buy the alternative and time to figure out the parts that aren’t compatible
What parts aren’t compatible? And you can load Linux and Windows on all Mac’s. You can also sell your iPhone and buy an android phone with money left over… getting out of the apple closed ecosystem is cheaper than sticking with it.
You asked what parts aren’t compatible, and one answer is everything bought for Apple computers, iPhones, iPads, etc. Apps, media, anything that isn’t subscription based.
Ok? And Photoshop license isn’t for just osx… you’re literally proving the point that you can migrate but you don’t want to because of some stupid allegiance to apple
I… Don’t like Apple at all. I’m engaging in a thing called a thought experiment, which is required to rationally assess why somebody might not want to throw away things they have purchased and devote both more time and more money to something that doesn’t work as well as it.
So I don’t know what all the cool killer Mac apps. Replace Photoshop with the name of a bunch of cool killer Mac apps, and repeat the question.
I (and other people) have already said that re-buying the same products and learning alternative ones is expensive in both time and money. That’s the point.
And I don’t know a ton of iOS killer apps but you would probably have to convince people with a ton of effort that Procreate is replaced by something on Android, let alone any other app I don’t know about
And I’ve already pointed out that almost all products you buy are not OS specific…the license is for the software not the OS. So you don’t have to rebuy, but that seems to be something the fanboys are missing.
For most people, time is not regarded to be free (i.e. not a cost). As a devoted Linux user, the adage that “Linux is only free if you don’t value your time” is absolutely true.
I’m not the parent commenter, but Apple Silicon has much wider app support than ARM on Windows. There’s also Rosetta Stone, which works alright, I suppose. Not spectacularly and usually not anywhere near native performance but it’s at least okay.
You’re incorrect. Tons of apps are native ARM on Mac now, also rosetta2 emulation is really fast. Obviously not as fast as native ARM but it surprised me.
Exclusivity isn’t the point. A healthy app ecosystem is what we’re discussing, which ARM on Mac has. It wasn’t great for 6 months or so, but it’s quite good now.
??? No the whole discussion on this has been how people can’t get out of the ecosystem. Which I’ve provided multiple ways to get out of it. There is really zero point to even bring up ARM MacBooks, because as you have said the ecosystem isn’t exclusive.
Learning Windows is still a time cost. You’re also losing your library of Mac software and quite a few interoperability features between your other Apple products.
??? So you’re plan is to just say fuck it, and continue to be fucked over by apple? The fuck logic is that? Almost all software has a replacement in windows/Linux. I work in all 3 ecosystems, there is very little that lacks an alternative in each os. Sticking to osx/iOS is just a cop out.
No. My argument is that if Apple isn’t going to open up their ecosystem to genuine competition and genuine interoperability then they need to have their hand forced through regulation.
Telling people to just stop buying Apple products is a lazy, knee-jerk self-righteous response that ignores the realities of platform lock-in.
You seem to think that regulation doesn’t work. Luckily, we have a test case set up for us in real-life.
In the United States, consumers relied on voting with their wallets. In the European Union, regulatory agencies forced Apple to take pro-consumer moves through regulation.
Now take a look at which approach produced results and which approach left consumers continuing to complain about the lack of interoperability and the lack of competition in Apple’s walled garden.
If you already have a bunch of Apple stuff, it makes more sense to continue using Apple stuff, because switching would cost money and effort. You’d also lose access to the software library that you paid for.
Having a bunch of Apple stuff also makes buying more Apple stuff in the future a better value proposition because you gain access to features that you wouldn’t otherwise have. Platform lock-in is not a sunk-cost fallacy. You’re just uninformed and being smug about it.
The sunk cost fallacy only applies when stopping is free or the cost is low enough (in money or effort) that it makes more sense to quit than continue.
voting with your wallet doesn’t work when most people would buy anyway (whether it’s because they’re ignorant, trapped to do so, etc)
The minority of people that actually care and know about privacy and software freedom is just a tiny statistic in Apple’s perspective, so voting with your wallet doesn’t work.
I’m already taking actions, but I do it with the understanding that it won’t make much of a difference.
I’m sorry to break your bubble but most people just don’t care. They want their computer to play a video off the internet, and don’t care how long that takes as long as it works. Maybe they’ll care about things in the specific interests they have, but they won’t care about computers, software, and libre software.
We, people that care about software freedom are a minority and we need to accept that. And the only way to get things done when you’re in the minority is to borrow power from the majority, e.g. by passing legislation.
Most people not caring isn’t a concern of mine. Apple being wealthy isn’t a concern of mine. What concerns me is that the products I use flourish and develop in ways that I like. I don’t use Apple, so I don’t particularly care about them - I just watch the drama from the sidelines.
You’re not bursting my bubble in any way, but you are being a little pretentious.
The solution is to realise that Apple aren’t the company for you and move away from them. Support products that fit your ethos. Don’t worry about the ones that don’t and leave them behind.
Yeah, let’s ignore the entire history of labor, environmental, safety, and product regulations, and believe everything is the way it is because of our dogmatic free market feefees.
Lol for a moment there I thought I was going off the rails with my puffa jacket rant above, but your segway into “free market feefees” is far more unhinged.
Lol that’s basically the Brave attitude, drown out the controversy with a marketing campaign and pull in more new unsuspecting users than the ones you lose.
You cannot root out the evil from within such massive companies. Nvidia still has a stranglehold on the market with CUDA. Literally the only thing one can do is to employ their wallet towards more fruitful endeavours, like donating and purchasing Android in this case. People who are invested into Apple are going to have to face that they made a choice moving away from freedom, even though I understand that staying the odd one out socially isn’t a lot of fun. There’s nothing to be done here unless someone with a lot of money and lawyers sues Apple. Know anyone willing to do that?
People should fully own the computers they buy, regardless of which company they buy from.
This means root access and a replacable primary bootloader, let alone just being able to install apps not on a curated market (what Apple calls sideloading). macOS and Windows both manage to allow root access, and so do certain Android devices (and obviously other OSs as well). Replacable primary bootloaders are more rare, though, especially in ARM devices due to efuse-based secure boot in the CPU that is impossible to turn off. There’s only one phone I can think of that allows for replacing the primary bootloader (Shift 6mq).
We shouldn’t allow for artificial restrictions placed by corporations on devices they sell, because as we have seen time and time again, companies copy each others’ restrictions, especially Apple. Same goes with game consoles, IoT devices, Smart TVs, etc. And before you mention the potential for piracy, DRM is an artificial restriction placed by corporations, and should also be removed from devices.
Anything less means that you don’t own the device that you paid for.
Apple is clearly attempting to comply with the EU DMA in bad faith so that they can maintain as much control over their users and app developers as possible.
Honestly, I don’t know how many normies this will upset. Pretty much only techies follow this and the people being annoyed by it might just blame the app developer and not Apple. Time will tell
The only way we can regulate any of these big assholes is to start making our own companies. And since there is no separation of big business and government… We need to build big companies ran by the people for the people who can also make policies.
Right now the Gov is for and by the Corperations and not the people… We need to change that ASAP!
I mean, this is basically malicious compliance. They did everything in their power to follow the letter but eschew the spirit of the law. Let’s hope the EU has teeth and keeps applying pressure.
They won’t care, they have the consumerist crowd locked down. The crowd that buys dozens of Stanley Tumblers so they have one that matches any outfit. There might be more of us who care than there used to be, but the average iPhone buyer doesn’t care and Apple knows it.
I mean, I’ll take a stab at speaking for Apple fans, and in fact developers. (I’m an ex-employee.)
There are a lot of things we like about the user experience on their platforms, and we appreciate their general interest in privacy while not engaging in the dirty data mining / advertising business of Google and Microsoft. There is a polish on their platforms that is best in class.
But I don’t believe any of us actually support the App Store lockdown situation. It’s probably the biggest black mark on their record. I think they got it right on macOS, requiring the binaries to be notarised (signed digitally) in such a way that malware can be blacklisted. This is a useful security feature. But developers are free to distribute however they want and third party stores like SetApp and Steam coexist happily with the App Store.
100% of their arguments about keeping the App Store as the sole distribution chain are bullshit because macOS is the proof. It’s pure rent-seeking behaviour.
But the privacy is just a facade, right? Like with that recent scandal about the government requesting push notification info, Google of all companies was actually only handing it over with valid warrants while Apple was giving it to any law enforcement who asked.
There is a polish on their platforms that is best in class
As someone who was an Android user and tried switching to an iPhone, I see lots of weird bugs and behaviors I never had with Android. Sure, the OS is slightly better, and rarely crashes, but everything else is a little bit worse.
Literally every Google app is better than Apple’s. Be it Google maps, keyboard, mail, calendar, etc. But because they aren’t made for iPhone, there’s all kinds of little bugs, mostly visual/UI related.
And then there’s all these nonsensical decisions that make my life harder. Hotspot can’t run with wifi on, you can’t record your calls (very useful when talking to banks, government, etc.), can’t even arrange the icons in “home” screen to fixed locations or make them smaller.
I finally figured out that when Apple fans talk about polish, they just mean it looks pretty and feels high-end. Which, sure, I can concede that. But that’s not what I actually care about.
Oh I’m sure there will be. It will be technically difficult (but not impossible) for them to allow other app-stores and sideloading but have the hardware and software be different enough in both markets to not have some slip through.
I suspect there will be lots of hacky shit for this.
I remember that there was an identifier based on model number. FaceTime wasn’t allowed in the Middle East for a while, there was a way to tell if the model will support it based on the last character after the / in the model number. Middle East models won’t even have the app at all.
Propably they’ll do the same for models sold in the EU.
There are already hardware variants of the same iPhone. I think the US gets an iPhone with all eSIM, and China has two physical SIM slots.
Literally all I had to do to make my phone have a usable performance again was to set the region to France, and the language to English. I should add that it was totally fine before an update.
My wife has an iPad and one of the things I hate the most is that you can’t install adblock extensions into Firefox on it like you can on Android. Which is a thing that has made using the browser on the phone wayyyy more enjoyable.
I use AdGuard both on my Android phone and iPad. Not quite as good on the iPad because Apple doesn’t make it easy, but definitely makes a huge difference. For me, $30 a year is worth it and you can use it on 3 devices. I got sick of the ads in apps that were downright disturbing in some cases and reporting them didn’t do a whole lot. Browser extensions can do a lot more to tidy up the experience, but I will take what I can get.
I ended up getting it from them directly. I am on Android 90% of the time and don’t pay for the license from the Apple store. No idea if that one is a single device or the same as the multi-device. I tend to not do things from the Apple store as I don’t have an iPhone and they seem to want or assume you have one. Just like I can never use their watch (not that I want one).
The Orion browser for iOS/iPadOS supports both Firefox and Chromium extensions, however, the support is quite buggy and limited. Nonetheless, a valiant effort by Orion devs.
Because if it is the hardware you want to keep and not the software, there are good android based options. And if what you want is control over the software, there are also good android options. I’d recommend a Pixel phone, and you’ll always have the option to de-goggle it completely with either CalyxOs, GrapheneOs or similar ones.
I was more poking fun at how ios users who let an ultra mega corp holds all their data and actively cripples privacy efforts while touting a false sense of privacy as marketing, never ask to de-apple their iPhones
And it comes down to a fundamental question: Will the European Commission follow through with its intent to right-size Apple’s abuse of power? Or will the DMA be nice in theory, but in practice, have no substantive meaning for most developers?
They already do that, they can say whatever, they will be isolated with their shitty Apple products and if they want decent browsers then they will need to use decent systems. Apple can’t abuse of their power and force us to follow their abusive rules, they can’t even have a decent UI desktop. They are so bad programmers.
Android was a victim of the NSO’s Pegasus because of WhatsApp, and possibly that only worked because Facebook negotiated with phone manufacturers to bundle dodgy pre-installed system apps outside the Google Play Store.
Apple’s iOS was a victim of the NSO’s Pegasus because of iMessages.
For me, that’s enough to completely steer clear of iOS altogether. I mean, the lack of customisation and control over my device was already enough, but that kind of vindicated it for me.
Yeah, my Android doesn’t have WhatsApp, I neither have Google apps. It’s a degoogled OS. I feel free and things works, even my default web browser on my Android has NoScript (JavaScript blocker), to make it safer. With Apple… you are sold.
Ditto! No Google needed, and Facebook apps are prohibited on my phone. I can even get banking apps working with a bit of Magisk, working in Zygisk domain with a deny list hiding it from the apps. Apparently proper SafetyNet checks aren’t that common anymore.
For browsers, I’d recommend Mull and Mulch. Mull is a privacy fork of Firefox, Mulch is a hardened version of Android System Webview (the backend browser that lots of apps use). Both come pre-installed with DivestOS.
Mozilla doesn’t have the sort of leverage to make an impact by abandoning apple devices. Firefox has an incredibly low market share and this could push people to other browsers. People tend to use the same browser for stuff like bookmark and password syncing, so abandoning ios could have larger consequences.
Yeah I understand, but if Apple is fucking up with our development, not only for Firefox, for any developer that makes apps for phones… why keep following their abusive rules? When I say “stopping developing apps for Apple” I mean, any developer that dislikes the abusive rules of Apple and fees. If we abandon the system, the iOS users will need to move to Android or other systems that are more friendly for developers.
Oh yeah generally I’d agree, with firefox I just think it’d be better to do what will push the fewest people away as long as it’s possible to maintain development.
So hear me out. What if we took $6.9M out of the CEO bonus and dropped the Mozilla AI project?
Maybe that would be enough to hire a maintainer or two for Firefox iOS port?
Maybe that could work?
I don’t know, just an idea. Crazy.
Nearly 10k and 400 stars on those respective repos.
A way to run a large language model on any operating system, in any OS, in a simple, local, and privacy respecting manner?
For linux we have docker, but Windows users were starving for a good way to do this, and even on linux, removing the step of configuring docker (or other container runtimes) to work with nvidia, is nice.
And it’s still FOSS stuff they aren’t being paid for, currently. But there are plenty of ways to monetize this.
Here’s an easy one: tie in the the vpn service they have to allow you to access the web ui of the computer running the llamafile remotely. Configure something like end to end encryption or or nat traversal (so not even mozilla can sniff the traffic), and you end up with a private LLM you can access remotely.
With this, maybe they can afford some actual development on firefox, without having to rely on google money.
A lot of money, but not enough to actually to actually do a lot. They keep cutting features their “customers” like. Why?
Because development is expensive.
Google props mozilla up to pretend they don’t have a monopoly on the internet. Just enough money to barely keep up, not enough to truly stay competitive.
Mozilla wants to not rely on google money, so they are trying to expand their products. AI is overhyped, but still useful, and something worth investing in.
I know that, but why did you bring it up in order to contrast it with Mozilla’s consumer base? Do you mean to say that Google is the actual paying customer?
It seems like such a bizarre thing to bring up at all.
Yeah tried it like a month ago and it was too buggy for me as well. Safari on iOS does already support ad blockers though they’re not as good as ublock origin most likely.
Cool! Are you talking about something like pi-hole or something else? In what way is it going to lead to better outcomes? I already have a pretty much flawless experience with my adblockers (especially when it comes to easily creating custom rules, using the element zapper, and testing new blocklists).
I find that my suite of browser extensions serves me really well, and it keeps working even when I enable my VPN, but something like pi-hole stops working if you do that.
How does the solution you’re talking about differ? How does it provide a better experience?
It’s the other way around. DNS based filters are more efficient since connection attempt is simply dropped, but browser based adblocks are a lot more feature rich allowing blocking specific HTML elements not just domains. Additional CPU power to have such extension is miniscule compared to what you gain.
Honestly, Mozilla doesn’t even have the resources to maintain a proper WebKit-based version of Firefox on iPadOS, when a large amount of the work is handled for them by Apple. (See, for example, the fact that it still does not support multiple windows, a feature that has been available since 2019.) It would seem a mistake for them to try taking on a much larger load of work when they can’t handle what they’ve already taken on.
Sideloading is explicitly about enabling the user to install multimedia and apps that are not approved by the manufacturer or OS vendor, so this is probably illegal (depends on how the law’s been written) and I expect Apple to be taken to court over it in the very near future.
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