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! ^^
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
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 moved on. 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 😁
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
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.
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 tinkering, and you don’t consider that time a “cost”, then okay. On the other hand, If you’re like me, part of what you’re paying for is quality design and convenience. I used to be much more technically minded, so I get it, but those days are behind me.
That being said, I’m still bothered by their terrible business practices, and can’t wholly disagree with people strongly opposed to Apple.
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.
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.
Microsoft email address were collectively top contributers to Linux kernel patches for a few years, particularly as they were building out Azure and Hyper-V support. They’re contributed a service mesh to kubernetes. Visual Studio Code is open source. They’re backing GitHub. They developed typescript. Their developers are all over various GitHub repos.
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.
@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.
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.
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.
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.
Well, there are many things to consider here. First off, let me say I really appreciate your “battle” for open science: I think that’s what we should fight for, and I totally support that (I’m a PhD in computer science, but done with research). I don’t think that the fact that you don’t use FOSS makes your battle for open science any less legitimate, that is still super valid and you shouldn’t feel hypocrite. That said, it is true that Apple does not support or contribute to open source at all (I believe CUPS is one of the few open source things Apple did, correct me if I’m wrong here).
Nonetheless, I totally understand the coziness of having such an integrated environment between all your devices: this is not gonna happen on Linux, or at least not at that level. I do believe that the Linux desktop experience has become much more user friendly (imo much more than Windows for instance), and there are also cool integration options such as KDE connect, but that’s probably not as good and cool as Apple integration.
Committing to open source can be a time-consuming decision, and most people that advocates for FOSS still use or give their data to non-FOSS software (such as Google, Facebook etc.). So, my advice would be to embrace as much as you want of the open philosophy: you’re already “fighting” for open science, maybe you can start using some open source software (maybe your email client? your pdf reader?). Little by little you’ll judge by yourself what and how much you want to commit to the FOSS philosophy :)
Finding the right compromise can be hard. If you’re a really hard-core FOSS advocate, life can be very difficult in a modern society. I would love to live in a world where all of my mobile devices would run 100% FOSS and I would use only the kinds of services that respect my privacy. Sadly, getting there seems to take a while.
After having tried a bunch of different options, I’ve finally settled on a very disappointing compromise (apple). It’s far from being acceptable, let alone ideal, but the other options are much worse IMO. These are not absolute things, because everyone values different things and everyone needs to figure out where they draw the line.
A concept shared by both of these examples is that of the commons. You believe in an information commons, specifically as it pertains to medicine. A lot of users in the FOSS space believe in a technological commons.
I’m not going to delve too extensively into the political and philosophical definitions around the commons; there’s a wealth of economic and political anthropology dissecting the successes of the commons, how they tend to operate, and their potential place in future economies of the world. If you want a very brief primer, David Bollier’s Think Like a Commoner is a good start; it’s quick, inexpensive, and there’s an audiobook if that’s your jam.
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.
I’ll preface this by saying don’t beat yourself up for using Apple. You can be critical and still use their products. I am typing this on Windows 10 and have a macbook for work. Microsoft and Google are far from perfect in this space. As the saying goes, “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” lol.
I think you should use open source software but I don’t think you should force yourself if good alternatives don’t exist for your use case. A good example is Photoshop. The open source version is GIMP. I use GIMP mostly because I don’t want to pay for Photoshop but from what I’ve heard from people who edit pictures professionally it is not even a competition.
Compare that to Audacity, my understanding is more people in the audio world use it. Or VLC Media player! It can basically open any format of video, it’s crazy!
If you’re curious to try a linux desktop operating system the choices will become overwhelming like you said. Ubuntu is the go-to suggestion usually. There are ways to create “live USBs” to run it from the USB like a test drive (but it may be slow). I’ve decided my next computer I build I’m going to run Linux primarily but I haven’t got around to building it.
Just FYI vanillaOS is an awesome system to suggest to both new users and experienced ones. None of the snap BS but still based on Ubuntu. It also makes it really hard to mess up your system. Vanilla Gnome too. Check it out.
I suggest Ubuntu because it is so widespread and one of the ones that “just works”. Also I don’t want to introduce a newbie to the snap debacle. It won’t affect them much to be honest.
Mint > Ubuntu if you really want to stay in the Debian space. Canonical is without a doubt the dodgiest Linux company, and Ubuntu is only being recommended because it became popular almost 20 years ago due to the easy installer wizard and free CDs.
Fedora and openSUSE are also amazing “just works” distros. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen proprietary software company provide a deb binary but not an rpm/dnf one.
There are definitely reasons to not like Ubuntu but I still believe it is the best recommendation for beginners due to the massive community. I’m not saying Canonical is faultless. Mint has its problems too, in 2016 a hacker got an ISO with a backdoor onto the website (link).
I mean, how much of the Ubuntu info won’t be applicable to mint problems? And how often is a Debian/Ubuntu derivative user going to need distro specific help in the first place?
A hack from 7 years ago is not the same thing as a company constantly trying to exploit its users. What other distro thought it was a good idea to sell user data to Amazon, show ads in the terminal, or team up with Microsoft to EEE Linux?
Most people aren’t going to distrohop all that much. So what they start with is going to be what they stick with for a while. Nobody should have to learn Linux in a snap infested canonical world.
Like I said, I don’t believe Canonical is perfect by any means, it’s just that Ubuntu has the largest community and is easy to use. That’s it. I’m not saying anything else you’re saying is wrong, I just find these things more important for absolute beginners. I agree with a lot of what you’re saying, I just believe different things are important for the absolute beginner is all.
My mom’s (mid 80s now) has been using straight Debian for well over a decade with no problem. Just stick with the real OG.
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. ☺️
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
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