776
I'm fucking enraged man. I hope we can regulate these assholes.
this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2024
776 points (98.7% liked)
Privacy
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There is a very easy solution. Don't buy apple.
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.
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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.
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(4 replies)
And that's coming from someone who has "applelover" in their username. They fucked up big time by pissing off even their most loyal fans.
(/j)
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
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.
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I like how just about everyone I who’s looked at this is basically like, “fuck apple”.
There are a few fanboys, but they are way less common than usual.
I’m hoping Apple picks up on this and reverses course.
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.
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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 DNS level blocking for blocking ads on iOS devices.
Yeah not comparable. There is so much cosmetic blocking and also many sites will just load ads from the same domain.
Like YouTube iirc.
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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.
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Apple always had been painfull for any third party devs. Also Vivaldi worked several years to create a browser which works in this iPhone thing, and now, after it's release, Apple admits Chromium. 
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.
Yeah, that will fix Apple being total utter assholes. Giving them what they want always fixes everyone being assholes.
Mozilla has a budget of around 200 mil for software development, so the 7 mil are probably not enough. Not defending the high pay though.
Also, AI Integration into browsers could very well be a deciding factor for mainstream users when choosing a browser. So having some expertise around e.g. running LLMs privacy preserving on client hardware for page summarisation could pay off. Llamafile for example, is something cool coming from the Mozilla AI stuff.
page summarisation
I see a future where the journalist gives the LLM two sentences and asks it to spit out a 2000 word article out of that.
The user then asks the LLM to Tl;Dr the article down to the two core sentences.
Same probably for business email. Jane goes "send an email to Joe saying no." The LLM goes "dear joe.. we appreciate.... your valuable conteibution.. unfortunately at this time... cannot consider... looking forward... thanks for .... whatever". Joe then clicks the "summarise" button and gets "Jane says no".
Amazing how far we've come.
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Firefox is the only browser with local website translation. Literally the extension is the only app on Android that does that.
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oh yeah put the onus on mozilla, nice one
Yes, but also require Apple to expand its EU software to people not in the EU
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genuinely fuck Apple for stealing khtml and driving it into the ground
Why not stopping developing apps for Apple systems? Fuck them.
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.
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The issue is that larger companies which could have an impact (Netflix, google, Meta) already have special deals in place that bypass these rules
https://newsroom.spotify.com/2024-01-26/apples-proposed-changes-reject-the-goals-of-the-dma/
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?
From Spotify.
Update: https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/29/24054943/microsoft-apple-app-store-dma-rule-change-response Xbox (Microsoft)
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(9 replies)
The fun life of an Apple customer.
how do I de-apple my iPhone?
Don't purchase & start using it from the first place. Save yourself plenty of resources. Focus on something else productive & valuable.
You could try to jailbreak but honestly you're better off not having an iPhone
Direct a heat gun at the area right below the camera for 10min or so. The demon should be gone.
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(3 replies)
Their lack of choice is why I'll never buy Apple products.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Apple’s new rules in the European Union mean browsers like Firefox can finally use their own engines on iOS.
Although this may seem like a welcome change, Mozilla spokesperson Damiano DeMonte tells The Verge it’s “extremely disappointed” with the way things turned out.
“We are still reviewing the technical details but are extremely disappointed with Apple’s proposed plan to restrict the newly-announced BrowserEngineKit to EU-specific apps,” DeMonte says.
In iOS 17.4, Apple will no longer force browsers in the EU to use WebKit, the underlying engine that powers Safari.
“Apple’s proposals fail to give consumers viable choices by making it as painful as possible for others to provide competitive alternatives to Safari,” DeMonte adds.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney called the new terms a “horror show,” while Spotify said the changes are a “farce.” Apple’s guidelines are still pending approval by the EU Commission.
The original article contains 285 words, the summary contains 142 words. Saved 50%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I really hope the EU gives them the middle finger and tells them to apply the law in good faith, not like this.
Still can't do much for markets outside the EU though. Countries like the US, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Australia should implement similar laws. That would force Apple's hand.
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Apple does not care and will never care about open source other than the bits it has to care about because they're a part of Darwin, their core.
They're a company offering a particular "experience" and open source products do not fit into that model well at all. I use apple phones because I'm partially blind and for a very long time the accessibility story on Android was a screaming nightmare (I'm told it's got better) but I have no illusions that they're anything other than a profit seeking MegaCorp with all that implies.
Apple, Google, Microsoft all worthy of a massive boycott.
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