I want to talk about this because of a conversation I had with a colleague on a lunch break a few days ago. I am a doctor, and I was talking to him about how angry I was (and still am) about the fact that the COVID vaccines, when they were first invented, were not made public, but instead were patented and sold. This basic fact made millions of people around the world suffer. I was rambling about how scientific information should always be free. How we should be able to use the internet as the greatest library our ancestors could have only dreamt of, instead of putting information behind paywalls. Even back in med school I was an avid user of sci-hub and I wasn’t ashamed of it one bit. I still use sci-hub to keep up with new researches so I can treat/inform my patients better. And I hate how some of my colleagues think that I am stealing others’ work.
Anyways, so I was rambling on and on. I sometimes do that. And my friend said something so strange and unrelated (in my eyes) to the conversation. He said “Look at you, defending open access to medical information for everyone, yet you only use Apple products.” I was like, “What? What do you mean?” He explained, “Man, all the things you use are made by Apple. Your laptop, tablet, phone, watch, earbuds or whatever, made by the company that is one of the main adversaries when it comes to right-to-repair and open source software.” So you need to see here, I’m not a tech guy. It’s just not my field. My job only requires me to read textbooks and keep up with new researches in my field, which any device can do. So I was like, “I… I don’t think I follow.” So he briefly explained what open-source software is, and how it’s related to my idea of free and open access to information for everyone, but this time it’s not in our field but programmers’. And when I almost reflexively said “Well we’re not programmers” he said “I mean, when it comes to software, it’s the programmers’ and developers’ thing. But free and open source is an idea. It applies to everything. And I think you’re supporting a company that opposes your views by buying their products.”
We didn’t have much time left so that was the end of that conversation. And I have been thinking about it since. When buying tech products I mainly care about if they are integrated with each other or not. Like if I turn on Do not Disturb on my watch, I want my phone, tablet and laptop to go quiet as well. Or I like being able to answer a phone call on my laptop. And I love the aesthetics of Apple products, at least more than what other companies have to offer.
Every evening since that conversation I’ve been looking up stuff related to open source software. Linux, distros, the philosophy behind it all, Linus Torvalds, Steve Wozniak, Arch, “read the wiki”, terminal, GUI, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA my brain is filled with so many things at this point that I don’t understand anything at all.
So, TLDR; I’d love to hear your opinions about Apple. Most people (myself included) buy Apple devices because of the ecosystem, the design, privacy (?), consistent updates (especially on mobile), or for you might say, a lack of knowledge in the field of tech. Do you support Apple or are you against them, or are you indifferent? Do you think people who are not in the tech field as well should look into and use open source software? Leave your thoughts below! ^^
Personally, I strongly agree with your colleague. If you truly believe openness is a good thing (and it sounds like you do), Apple’s ethos is just about the direct antithesis. They only collaborate with the wider tech industry when they absolutely have to. Otherwise, they are greedy, secretive, controlling, and vindictive - oftentimes openly hostile to anyone who dares choose a non-Apple device/platform.
The best example of this is the iMessage “green bubbles” phenomenon. Some background: Apple’s default texting experience is iMessage. This service has a bunch of nice, modern chat features - except they’re only available when texting another iPhone. These “better” messages are indicated by blue bubbles. People who don’t use iPhones (whether by choice or by necessity) are forced to use the ancient, insecure, feature-poor SMS protocol, reducing the privacy and security of everyone involved (including iPhone users). It’s also extremely obvious when this happens, since the chat app will switch to green bubbles.
In places where this service has caught on (such as the US), Apple uses this separation to deliberately make texting non-iPhone users a significantly worse experience. This causes social effects, especially among teenagers, where those who don’t use iPhone are bullied and shunned for being a “green bubble”. The Wall Street Journal did a great expose into this phenomenon.
Now, to be clear, this is a totally artificial problem - Apple could fix this overnight if they wanted. For years, the wider tech industry has been working on replacing SMS with a much more modern standard called RCS. Every single other party in the mobile industry has adopted it. Apple, however, is the lone holdout. They see kids bullying other kids into buying an iPhone as a good thing - more iPhone sales! In fact, Apple openly encouraged that narrative: when a journalist asked the (very reasonable) question of “how can I make texting with my Android-user mom better?”, Apple CEO Tim Cook responded with “buy your mom an iPhone.”
There’s plenty more examples of this antagonistic behavior I could talk about, but this one is the most telling.
Of course, if you do choose to go all in with them, you won’t see that side of Apple at all. They are frighteningly good at cultivating their image as the “good guys” among Big Tech, and, honestly, it’s not unwarranted. They are good at what they do, and they do take care of their users. Their tech is great.
Ultimately, my take is that if you prefer using Apple’s stuff over more open alternatives, don’t change what you like! Just remember that they have a dark side. It is good to be aware of the wider tech ecosystem, and to make open technology choices where you can. By being active on the Fediverse, you’re already doing your part 😁
As a follow up for those interested, here’s the exception that proves the rule: Apple’s adoption and support of the Matter smart home standard.
For those who don’t follow the smart home, the basic backstory is that there are several competing “controller” platforms for the smart home, including: Amazon Alexa, Google/Nest Home, Apple Home, and Samsung SmartThings.
Each of these platforms can control smart home gadgets like smart switches, lights, and thermostats, and they all do so in a slightly different way. However, this diversity in platforms posed an issue for gadget manufacturers (think Philips Hue): in order for their gadgets to work with each platform, they had to write integrations to talk with each service. This added a ton of extra cost and complexity to something that should be a commodity, meaning that only the larger players could afford to make gadgets that worked with every platform. Smaller vendors didn’t have that ability, so they’d focus their attention to just one or two platforms - often the largest ones.
This market setup was (fortunately) a disaster for Apple. As it turns out, people aren’t willing to pay hundreds of dollars for a nice speaker and Siri when you could get the vastly more capable Google Assistant/Alexa for literally a tenth of the price and blanket your home with them. Apple’s arrogance and hubris had landed it in an unfamiliar position: they were, by far, the smallest player in the smart home market, and accessory makers weren’t building for Apple Home as a result.
Faced with abject failure, Apple pulled a very un-Apple move: they joined an industry standard! They open-sourced parts of their HomeKit framework and helped the next-generation Matter protocol come to market, in collaboration with all the other big players (Google, Amazon, Samsung). Matter is great because it provides a single protocol for accessory makers to build for: as long as it supports Matter, it will work with any of the big smart home controllers, including Apple. Now that this standard is out in the world, it’s great: most newly-released smart home gadgets will work with whichever platform you prefer, including Apple!
So: why did Apple suddenly become collaborative in the smart home space? Because they were going to fail otherwise. Their backs were literally against the wall; their hand was forced. You can bet your life’s savings that if HomeKit had been even moderately successful, they would never, ever have supported the Matter protocol. They would have preferred the lock-in to their dystopian walled garden.
Commenting to agree. The green bubble is very literally a deliberate choice on the side of Apple. The infrastructure is already in place to merge with every other phone manufacturer.
Addendum: Apple products as status symbols has been their project from the start. “Sent from my iPhone” as default on emails, being the most emminent example.
Sent from my fairphone3
Of course, if you do choose to go all in with them, you won’t see that side of Apple at all. They are frighteningly good at cultivating their image as the “good guys” among Big Tech, and, honestly, it’s not unwarranted. They are good at what they do, and they do take care of their users. Their tech is great.
This paragraph perfectly describes me. Way back, I was a blind Apple fanboy. In my eyes, they could do no wrong. Plus, I enjoyed rooting for the underdog, because back then people were constantly publishing stories about how Apple was doomed to go bankrupt any minute.
Later, I learned how terrible they are in many ways… but I still use their stuff. I first learned how to use computers on a Mac, so any other OS is weird and unintuitive to me. Besides, it just works, literally right out of the box. Yeah, Apple is still overpriced, but it’s not as bad as it seems. If you enjoy spending hours to get something to work, and you think your time is worth nothing, then okay. If you’re like me, part of what you’re paying for is quality design and convenience.
you think your time is worth nothing, then okay.
What exactly do you mean by this? Do you really think that people who use or try to use open source software do not value their time?
Apple doesnt even need to support rcs to fix the issues with imesage. They just need to open the chat API for third party support or just release an imessage for other platforms like every other chat app does.
The current system they have essentially tricks less savvy users into thinking that iPhone is just better at texting and other services are bad, when the issue is that apple stealthily enrolled you all into a restrictive IM program that cant communicate with anything other than apple products. It’s actually quite devious. If imessage and itext were two separate apps from the start then it would be more apparent that you are texting the green bubble and using a limited chat app with iphone users and more people would probably just use one of the many chat alternatives that exist. Because they are able to still communicate with nonapple users in their chat program and even add them to groupchats and stuff it gives this weird appearance from the inside that the green chats are the problem.
I like to think that the initial goal of imessage being this way wasnt locking but as a way to seemlessly push grandma who would never go out of her way to download a chat app, into an IM client. The lockin side effect just wound up being a happy accident.
I spent many years trying to be as FOSS as I could. I tried many different Linux distros, hunted for open source operating systems for my phone (at the time, none did even the basic things I needed it to do) until one day I decided I was sick to death of having to spend hours researching and trying multiple arcane cli commands to get even simple things to work (like WiFi). I realised that I was wasting an enormous amount of time being all-things-open-source.
My next purchase as a macbook as it was based on a *nix and I’ve come to realise that while Apple is a walled garden and in some ways is ‘evil’, it’s less evil than Google is now, or Microsoft was back in the day.
I also like the way that the various Apple devices work really well together. But I hate the fact that it’s harder to hack things to be the way that I want. Don’t get me wrong, I still love open source software, but I have too few years left to waste them on modifying config.org files, or whatever they do now, so I’m much more selective with what I use. I tend to use FOSS applications on MacOS where the software works well enough.
Not trying to bash FOSS, just my 2 cents.
@Bluetreefrog
@IronTwo
I’ve got to say, Linux and FOSS in general has really come a long way just these few last years. For me it has gone from tedious and problem-ridden to mostly frictionless. But the times that I do stumble unto an issue, it still takes a while to figure out a solution 🙃 So, not perfect yet, but a looot more user friendly these days! 😃OP probably got really unlucky with their wifi chip and this is still an issue today with certain brands
it’s that awful that most linux user just buy a 20€ intel wifi card, open their laptop and than replace it but not anybody wants to do that so it isn’t a foolproof solution either
To get the point since as you’ve stated your brain is filled.
Here’s how I view Apple:
- anti consumer
- anti developer
- anti privacy
- anti right to repair
How does anti-privacy fit in there, and what mainstream alternatives are better?
While Apple claims to be private there really isn’t any proof since all their software is proprietary. On top of that, on my home network where I have a ton of devices and my wife has one iPhone, Apple sure gets a LOT of calls back to home base. So I’d say they collect a ton of data. Not private. But they do not sell it as much. Since you can look at how they make their money is primarily through hardware. That being said it still isn’t the only way.
You might want to check what those calls are, specifically. Out of the box they use the iCloud Private Relay to hide network traffic, essentially a VPN. If you go onto the wifi settings of her phone and turn off the “Limit IP Address Tracking” it will likely be a lot less chatty. Otherwise there is iCloud stuff, but overall they do not collect all that much data at all (they allow you to request a copy of what they do collect on their privacy page). You might also help her review the privacy settings on her phone, there are many things that can be disabled.
Right but this all completely neglects my first point, you don’t know if they are telling the truth.
That alone doesn’t make them anti-privacy,
While I suppose you’re right, the fella up there shares some of the other real reasons. Airtags too. They can recognize me with my android because I’m around enough Apple users and their devices flag mine. Apple’s mesh network for find my iPhone is the single greatest example that they don’t truly want you to be private, at least not from them. From others yes I will agree, but not from themselves.
As far as anti-privacy here’s an example https://gizmodo.com/apple-iphone-analytics-tracking-even-when-off-app-store-1849757558
And in regards to mainstream alternatives:
- Calyx OS
- Graphene OS
- Lineage OS
@IronTwo
Apple’s ecosystem works well for it’s users, but it screws over anyone else not completely consumed in their ecosystem.I agree. This is not only limited to the users, but also intentionally makes life difficult for those trying to develop multiplatform products and services.
Locking down the publishing routes and development tools for apple platforms is not such a big issue for parties that develop solely for apple products, but that is often not the case. Instead apple users often make up a minority of users, but maintaining and testing applications, websites and services so that they also work on apple devices can take up a disproportionately large amount of development time and effort.
I dislike Apple due to their user-hostile business practices. They don’t let you install alternate browsers or keyboards (TRULY alternate and not just re-skins of Safari and the iOS keyboard). They don’t let you sideload (officially). They don’t want you to interface with other phone manufacturers in an equitable way (see the whole blue bubble/green bubble drama). They don’t want you to have the freedom to repair your own devices (see the whole right to repair movement).
And so on and so forth. They are nice products and do what they are supposed to with minimal friction. I just cannot support a company that is so blatantly user-hostile.
And this is the main reason I like Google phones. I think their phones are the most anti Google phones (if you know how to do that). Its so much easier to de-Google a Google phone than it is any other phone. I wish Apple were more like that. Hardware is great but its the fact I cant sideload (officially) apps and install FOSS.
It is interesting that a Google phone of all things is the phone that best supports making it anti Google as you said. So many other manufacturers don’t even allow it by locking down the bootloader in certain countries or punishing users for unlocking it like Samsung does with Knox.
Yeah it is pretty interesting. Im thinking of buying a pixel just so I can install one of the more privacy based ROMs. Right now im using an Xperia and ive installed FOSS wherever I can.
It is with high confidence and with a straight face that I can state my opinion that Microsoft is a better partner of open source software than Apple. Microsoft contributes back, Apple pretty much doesn’t. They’re better than AWS, but that’s more a matter of damning with faint praise.
Apple’s built up a vertically integrated market of disposable widgets which cannot be repaired or upgraded. Their sole positive is they’re better than the other guys at keeping older software updated, but I’m sure they did the math on having their customers not getting hacked at the time.
I’m my opinion they’re worth looking at for anti-trust.
A good recent example of Microsoft supporting the open source community is Orca. It’s a LLM that was basically taught by ChatGPT (GPT3.5) and GPT4 instead of training on its own dataset by having the chatbot explain its reasoning step by step, ELI5, etc. And it’s about to go open source.
For all of their faults I admire Apple’s commitment to product design a lot. They really seem to center the human use case and mold the technology around that. This kind of focus on design (not just aesthetics!) brings the benefits of technology to people that might not have been able to access them otherwise due to knowledge, time constraints, etc.
How does this relate to FOSS? Well to be blunt the UX on a lot of FOSS technology is bad. It conveys freedom and privacy to technologically inclined people like us who can make sense of it, but it does very little to liberate people who don’t find this stuff easy or can’t devote enough free time to it. Ease of use is not a weakness to be mocked. It can be an extremely powerful force if done correctly. Personally I would love to see more UX designers getting into FOSS development, but unfortunately I can’t really help myself on that front.
I’m a UX product designer and a major issue I’ve encountered within FOSS is extremely opinionated developers, who regularly sacrifice usability for features and configurability, which is instantly off-putting to a general audience.
I’m painting a very broad picture there, and I’m not criticising - I’m a staunch advocate for Linux and FOSS in general, the technical execution and intent is usually brilliant.
Apple is extremely opinionated in their design by limiting options and complexity, that’s one way they achieve a solid foundation, by offering few options (both in terms of software and hardware). They don’t make their users think too hard.
There’s plenty of low hanging fruit that could be addressed (use of plain language, clear actions, other tried and tested design principles) but that’s not enough, and it often relies on strong UI dev skills, which the team doesn’t necessarily have.
I’ve seen some appetite for making FOSS projects easier for a general audience, but things fall flat when it comes to making hard decisions (stripping out or hiding complexity, making decisions to promote simplicity, spending considerable effort on UI instead of features).
I’d love to be more involved in it, and maybe I’m being unfair, but it can be demoralising work for a designer.
Yeah, that’s the main thing keeping me personally from using more FOSS.
I tried using Linux for example, but it’s just so incredibly tedious compared to Windows that I didn’t even last a week before I got frustrated and switched back.
Though I did switch to Aurora store on my Android, because using the Play Store is actually becoming harder and harder. There are so many ads on it now, browsing it is starting to get difficult.
I’ve gone through a lot of periods in my life where I’ve chided myself for not using more FOSS, but what you said is one of the reasons why I don’t think it’s as black and white in my mind recently.
I’ve been doing iOS development for work, and I have to say that their emphasis on building accessibility features into apps from the beginning is something I really love to see. I’d love to be proven wrong on this because this is very anecdotal, but accessibility is something I don’t see mentioned too often in FOSS spaces.
That and languages. I’m a long-time learner of Japanese, and I’ve noticed language support in FOSS apps is inconsistent. There was a time when I was looking at a more privacy-focused Android OS to run, but there aren’t any Japanese keyboards on F-droid (the only strictly Japanese offering was unmaintained and incompatible with my phone, and the multi-lingual keyboards that I found didn’t support Japanese). Not being able to interact the way I need to made those OS’s into non-starters for me, sadly.
I hate to complain like this because it’s no one’s fault necessarily; there are only so many people working on FOSS, those people only have so much time and energy, and there might not be enough demand for certain features. When I build something I try to do what I can to live up to my own expectations, but as someone that doesn’t really have the necessary skills (in tech or in Japanese, in this case), or the time to create and maintain my own alternatives, then those issues put up some heavy barriers. I’d love to use more FOSS but right now I’m sort of stuck straddling the two sides.
I 100% agree with your colleague, though I don’t agree with his purity test. You’re allowed to feel the way you do about medicine and still use whatever products you want. But, yeah, I don’t own or use and Apple products, though I would like to own and restore an Apple IIe.
Dont feel too bad about not knowing everything from everywhere, as you said you arent a tech guy, but lets get to your questions
- Privacy thats…depending on how you see it, supposedly they don’t sell to third partys but they do use it for you
- I will never support them, not only are their prices disgustingly high compared to their quality, their walled garden and fucking tooth and nail fight to keep it that way isnt helping helping
- While not required I do think they should at least look into all of it for a bit
Im the end, do whatever you wanna do
Wait till you google Richard M. Stallman.
Whether it’s biotech or software, there’s always tension between creating incentives for innovation vs fostering wide availability and openness.
The Free Software / Open Source world exists on the openness side, and while some business (including Apple) have made a business while contributing to open source projects, there is sometimes a catch. For example, Google gives away the core of Android (the Android Open Source Project), but if an OEM wants Google Maps, Google Play, etc, they have to play by Google’s rules.
Anyone who tells you it’s just as easy to make a living selling free software (what GNU calls it) as it is selling proprietary software is full of shit. It’s not as easy. It can be done, and Open Source can be a selling point, but it’s nowhere near as straightforward as just selling a thing for a price. Copyrights, like the copyrights protecting iOS and macOS, let companies just sell a thing for a price. No bullshit.
Apple, like any corporate interest, has reason to support or oppose various laws. I’m an Apple fanboy as much as anyone, but I’ll readily admit they’re on the wrong side of history with right-to-repair. Apple’s an excessively litigious company. They’re bullies in some markets. But I still prefer their simple transactional value proposition, which is that you pay for goods and services. Software is a good.
Open Source software is great too, and often as good as the proprietary stuff, but a world without copyright (basically what he is suggesting) would have a very hard time promoting the useful arts. For that matter, Open Source licenses typically function through copyright law. The GNU GPL, for example, only works because it has copyright as a backstop if you refuse to accept the license.
Apple isn’t super popular among the geeks for this exact reason. They make everything proprietary. Like, everything everything. They aren’t willing to give up even their charging cables.
Yea they make stuff convenient for people who don’t want to think about the tech at all, but you’re giving up a huge deal of your freedom. And by extension even of other people, because by using Apple products, you’re helping them strengthen their iron grip. See the bubble color debate regarding iMessage. Worse, they turn this into a trend that other companies follow.
Linux can be as complicated or as simple as you want it. Yea if you’re a programmer or a nerd, you can use Arch and literally take it apart.
Or you can use Mint or Ubuntu and your experience will be as smooth and straightforward as using MacOS. True, nobody has as interconnected ecosystems as Apple but again… It’s not just money you’re paying with.
The analogy of free access to information is indeed apt.
Thank you for opening yourself up to the discourse!
First of all: I don’t use any apple products, because I strongly disagree with the company on an ideological level.
My opinion on apple products, personal opinion that is, is that the walled garden approach has pros and cons. Meaning, they control everything within their ecosystem. You can’t install a third party app without it being approved on the appstore first. This is good in the sense, that there is virtually zero risk of bad actors being able to access your systems. This is bad, because it allows apple to dictatorially allow/reject apps, and ideas that they don’t agree with. I don’t know if they have done this, but it would not surprise me.
Another large issue I have, as a nerd, with apple’s approach. Is that having everything easily accessible and controlled by the company (here I mean things like, its more difficult to make changes to your computer as compared to linux, where you have full control) makes for a tech-illiterate public. Anecdotally, I have friends who are very skilled at tech, one is a space-tech student, the other a high-level games programmer, and both feel they can’t switch to another phone than Iphone, because it is such a specific way of interconnectedness that exists when you have all apple products. It is so easy to airdrop, or screen share, cloud save etc etc. That it is a fundamentally different experience to use anything else. Now, that might seem like a pro for apple, but my issue is that this interconnectedness should be a priority between ecosystems too. Ideally I would like to have these features as a given on any system, like email can talk to email (fediverse hype), instead of being locked to a single ecosystem.
In conclusion: Apple is known for keeping their information under lock and key, and not allowing any interference with their systems. I think this is bad.
Thanks for bringing it up! And remember there is no right/wrong, except what you personally feel good about.
So Apple is obviously an evil, profit seeking company that exploits users and developers, maintains a monopoly and actively hurts efforts towards openness.
But bro, what else am I gonna use? Do you think Google is any better.
And, as you already noticed, most open source alternatives suuuck. (Man, I’m gonna regret saying this on an FOSS community) With some research you’ll get a usable desktop OS for some use-cases, but phones such as Fairphone and Purism are another story entirely. Don’t even think about watches or tablets. I love the Purism Firefox demo, where they enthusiastically say: “With Settings unusable in Portrait, it’s time to switch to landscape mode”.
The “you think … yet you buy …” argument is pointless, because it ignores the realities of monopolies and globalism. I’m sure his T-Shirt that day wasn’t made from ethically sourced cotton or whatever.
While I agree that the options aren’t always great, there is a bigger issue. We are all just too enslaved to convenience.
People right now wouldn’t be able to bear doing some of the difficult things we used to do. And the average Joe wouldn’t be caught dead using computers from 15 years ago. We have grown accustomed to our convenience. OP said what we looks for is being able to answer a call on his laptop and while I agree it’s a great feature, it’s a convenience. We can’t be bothered to pick up the phone.
The reality’s you talked about are there but another is we think we need these things, but really, it’s completely possible to live without them. We’ve just become to lazy, entitled, and rich too make the open philosophy important enough to us. So I’d ask, do you care more about your conveniences or for a more open future?
The Pinetime’s a solid FOSS watch, actually. Assuming you’re ok with pretty basic use cases (for now), it’s easily worth the $30ish to get one
I would argue that Google is much worse—their entire business model is built around collecting personal information and selling advertisements.
If we talk about smartphones, Android is open source, but is very limited without Google Services (GrapheneOS is great for privacy and security, but then you cannot pay with your phone, for example, because it needs to be approved by Google).
Linux on smartphones is more of a proof-of-concept, and not really usable as a daily driver.
So, Apple is the ‘least bad’ option now. (and there are ways to sideload FOSS apps)
As someone who went from FOSS -> Apple -> FOSS, I fully understand the love people have for the Apple ecosystem. In terms of proprietary hardware and software, they have a sheen and an inter-operation between their products that is genuinely unmatched.
That said, what ultimately pushed me out and back to Good Ole FOSS™ was the lack of any control, and the lack of any transparency. The idea of trusting a for-profit company with anything beyond my email address and sometimes phone number is just something I dislike doing. Apple’s processes are extremely opaque, and the last thing they want to give users is any control over their products, it’s an antithesis of what I desire from digital electronics.
As for if non-technical people should look into FOSS. I think FOSS can really give people a fundamental baseline of digital computing, and in the modern world such a baseline is extremely valuable. If they decide afterwards they prefer their proprietary ecosystems, Apple or otherwise, that’s their prerogative and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Your friend is right. Listen to them, read and understand. Don’t feel obligated to necessarily change your habits. If you get the time and desire to make a change, that understanding and knowledge will inform your actions. ☺️
