[HN Gopher] Your smartphone, their rules: App stores enable corp...
___________________________________________________________________
Your smartphone, their rules: App stores enable corporate-
government censorship
Author : pabs3
Score : 423 points
Date : 2025-11-19 13:28 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.aclu.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.aclu.org)
| analog8374 wrote:
| When is censorship ok?
|
| We have moderators, here in hn. We also have them in reddit.
|
| So sometimes we like censorship and sometimes we don't.
| Retr0id wrote:
| It's ok when users have choice. Those who don't like HN
| moderation can hang out somewhere else (and many do).
|
| Not using app stores isn't an option for most users, especially
| on iOS.
| analog8374 wrote:
| "If you don't like it you can leave" strikes me as an evasion
| of my point.
|
| The fact is, we sometimes like censorship. Which is funny.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Just because it's here doesn't mean it's liked. Various
| factors contribute to whether any given site is moderated,
| and to what degree. It's almost never just "the will of the
| users".
| analog8374 wrote:
| When the subject arises, the consensus seems to be that
| moderation (and thus censorship) is indispensable.
|
| I blame a deep, possible even genetic, authoritarianism.
| fwip wrote:
| It seems obvious to me that we just don't mind delegating
| this task some of the time, as long as we largely agree
| with the results.
|
| I don't think you need an appeal to authoritarianism to
| appreciate a forum that isn't 80% penis-enlargment ads. A
| few people spending their time to moderate this content
| saves the whole group a lot of time.
|
| In the same way that I'm okay with other people deciding
| a tomato is too moldy to sell (whether that's the farmer,
| health inspector, or grocer), I'm also okay with some
| people having the power to remove the equivalent speech
| from certain spaces.
|
| You just need to be more careful when the jurisdiction
| becomes larger, because it becomes harder to "vote with
| your feet" to go to a place whose policies you agree
| with.
| isodev wrote:
| But is HN the only forum for tech discussions available to you?
|
| The whole point is that both phone platforms are required to
| participate in modern life. Imagine if your water or
| electricity company decides not to supply your house. There is
| a reason such fundamental services are made into universal
| rights and do not follow the usual competition rules.
|
| Apple/Google can't be both the store, the device and the OS.
| hmry wrote:
| Censorship by a website moderator means you need to move to
| another website to express your ideas. Censorship by the
| government means you need to move to another country.
|
| Censorship on an app hosting page means you need to host your
| app somewhere else. Censorship on the _only_ app hosting page
| allowed means you can 't host your app at all.
| nxor wrote:
| Speaking of reddit: that doesn't justify a miniscule amount
| of people deciding what the rest of users may express.
| jaennaet wrote:
| What is your proposed alternative, though?
| quantummagic wrote:
| Silos. You can create your own and say anything you want
| (only constrained by the law). Everyone else can join it,
| or blacklist it, for themselves. Nobody gets to shut off
| someone else's silo, they can only ignore it for
| themselves. Nobody gets to decide what other people
| choose to read or write.
|
| For the case of Reddit, a silo maps nicely onto a
| subreddit. Within any subreddit the moderator can have
| full control, they can moderate it exactly as they
| choose. If you don't like it, create your own where you
| will have free rein.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That already exists, it's called a website.
| quantummagic wrote:
| That's a good point. But for all practical purposes,
| Facebook, Reddit, and other major social networks
| represent what the web means to an average person. Many
| of them never even open a browser. So those major social
| networks should be treated more like a public square, for
| the discoverability that provides, if nothing else. And
| in the context of sites being delisted and apps being
| banned (Google, Apple, etc), it would be nice for major
| social networks to be committed to free speech on their
| platforms.
| buellerbueller wrote:
| What is censorship except arbitrary enforcement of a funnel
| that leads to centralization (of ideas, app stores, etc.)
| makapuf wrote:
| On reddit moderators can even be local to a sub, so you may
| just need to move to another one.
| Xelbair wrote:
| Moderation is okay when it properly adjusts signal-to-noise
| ratio of discussion.
|
| Censorship is about suppressing opinions which fall out of
| Overton's window, which is not okay, as all it does is to
| enforce status quo.
|
| There was a good blogpost by Ex-reddit engineers about it where
| the idea was to treat it as signal which you cannot understand,
| and your core purpose as moderation(from automated PoV) is to
| adjust the signal to noise ratio without being able to
| comprehend/read the underlying data.
|
| A bit hypocritical of them, looking at how reddit's moderation
| works.
|
| Frankly i'm also against private censorship in case of social
| media - as it is basically outsourced government censorship.
| surajrmal wrote:
| The problem is that there are regulations passed to
| centralize requirements on censorship, it helps incumbents by
| making it too burdensome for new companies to enter the
| market. Existing corporations publicly state their desire to
| let the government be the arbiter. It's a delicate balance
| and governments prefer to act slowly to ensure the right
| outcome.
| backpackviolet wrote:
| I think it's inversely correlated with power, influence and
| reach. HN and Reddit don't have guns, can't throw you in
| prison, and there are lots of social medias to choose from, so
| a fair bit of censorship can be tolerated. Apple can't deport
| you, but you also don't have a lot of other choices, very low
| tolerance for censorship. The Government can really ruin your
| life if you get on the wrong side and your options for changing
| it or escaping it are pretty limited, we should demand the
| highest levels of transparency. Sure, some secrecy around
| military and intelligence for a little while, but we should
| eventually know what they decided and why.
| analog8374 wrote:
| Censorship is fundamentally poisonous. Even without all that
| other stuff.
| surajrmal wrote:
| This is dogmatic reasoning. If censorship wasn't necessary,
| neither would the government. At sufficient scale, humans
| stop behaving in the best interest of the group, and you
| need ways to correct that. It'll never be perfect, but much
| like democracy, we don't know of a better system.
| analog8374 wrote:
| Surely, in a conversation, the most damaging thing you
| can do to the integrity of that conversation is to
| selectively nullify the voice of a participant.
|
| It ceases to be a conversation then. It is something
| else, posing as a conversation.
|
| Maybe it would be better if this censorship-power is
| democratically controlled. But if this power is given to
| an individual. Well that's different.
| pjc50 wrote:
| In order to have a conversation at all, you need to deal
| with the guy with the megaphone first. If you do not have
| moderation, you drown in spam, and do not have a
| conversation at all.
| lawn wrote:
| I think the key here is choice.
|
| Are there other sites where you can discuss the things you use
| Hacker News for, without much of a loss? Then it's probably
| moderation.
|
| Is this the only forum that matters with respect to a certain
| topic? Then it's probably censorhip.
|
| For example, if a private company controls the de-facto
| subreddit for a topic or product and uses that to control the
| narrative then it's more like censorship than moderation.
|
| Also, it sounds like you think it's black-and-white but it's
| much more gray than that and something one might call
| moderation someone else might call censorship, and there might
| not be a clear-cut answer.
| Levitz wrote:
| Whenever you enter a community, you implicitly agree to a small
| contract with the community. If I enter a running community,
| it's assumed that I'm not there to talk about cooking pasta, if
| I sign up to a book club, people will surely get tired of me if
| I don't stop yapping about music.
|
| There's of course leeway around this, but communities,
| generally, have purpose, implicit (built by the community) and
| explicit (what it says on the sign).
|
| We are okay with censorship when it serves to that purpose. We
| like it when HNs and Reddit delete viagra ads in comments. We
| don't like it when it runs contrary to or subverts the purpose
| of the communities. The userbase here would have gotten pretty
| mad if the threads about Cloudflare yesterday were deleted, as
| they evidently are of interest regarding current tech, and they
| would also have been pretty mad if anyone criticizing
| Cloudflare was banned, as we are supposed to be able to freely
| comment on such matters.
|
| This is much more common on Reddit, where mods (and users!)
| will often silence stuff they don't like, even if relevant.
| This creates conflict regarding the two types of purpose
| mentioned before.
|
| Now, countries should have as much censorship as they want,
| this is already patent in hate speech laws around the globe,
| before anyone brings up the 1st, do note that the US could also
| (at least in theory) change the constitution if the people so
| wished. Extreme caution should be taken in this regard though
| as one does not simply "stop being member of a country".
| buellerbueller wrote:
| >Whenever you enter a community, you implicitly agree to a
| small contract with the community. If I enter a running
| community, it's assumed that I'm not there to talk about
| cooking pasta, if I sign up to a book club, people will
| surely get tired of me if I don't stop yapping about music.
|
| No. If you're running, you can talk about pasta all you want.
| If you participate in the book club discussion, no one cares
| if you also talk about music.
| koolala wrote:
| One answer is client-side based moderaton social networks.
|
| If I want to read moderated comments I should be allowed to. Or
| in the same way I could choose to let others block things for
| me.
| Retr0id wrote:
| Doing this entirely on the client side falls down when you
| want to moderate something because there's too much of it
| (e.g. bulk spam)
| pjc50 wrote:
| This is kind of a "why do we have law at all" level
| conversation.
| wmeredith wrote:
| The mods on HN don't have police forces and standing armies
| with guns.
| isodev wrote:
| I'm very happy to see a US organisations picking this up finally.
| Apple/Google clearly want to fight this on a country by country
| basis so they can stretch it until forever. Hope the pressure
| results in meaningful changes for all.
| shagie wrote:
| If it's not done on the basis of jurisdiction, then laws about
| what constitutes illegal content in Germany or China or United
| States applies to everyone.
|
| Taking the stance of "we're not going to follow _any_ laws and
| publish everything " puts the companies in very difficult
| places in those countries as publishers of the content.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Or just.. make it easier to not be constrained to app stores.
| I realize losing that sweet, sweet 30% fee on every
| transaction hurts their wallet but I think my $1000 phone
| should be mine to freely install things on.
| dizlexic wrote:
| *and hurts design and development of their products...
| which you bought... because you're complaining about it.
|
| I get in trouble for this a lot, but didn't you as a
| consumer know what you were getting into? I know I did when
| I bought into the apple ecosystem.
|
| What's the actual argument? Apple doesn't have a monopoly
| on smartphones, computers or applications. This boils down
| to. I use their products by choice, but I want the
| government to force them to change. Their platform their
| rules. idk why this is controversial.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Because there's a lot more of us than there is of them
| and the government steps in to make things better for
| most of its citizens.
| dzikimarian wrote:
| Google isn't much better and there's no more serious
| competition.
| realusername wrote:
| It's not called a duopoly for no reason, both Apple and
| Google have very similar policies and if there's any
| competition, I'm not seeing it.
|
| You can use Apple which controls everything you are
| allowed to see and do on your phone or you can chose
| Google which ... controls everything you are allowed to
| see and do on your phone.
|
| And as a developer, both fees are exactly the same (what
| a coincidence!)
| shagie wrote:
| The duopoly comes about from a few things forcing it.
|
| There's the "it took a while to build it." iOS and
| android had decades of time to get to where they are now
| and centuries of developer hours put into writing it.
| That makes it challenging for others to get in. It isn't
| impossible, but it's really challenging. For the company,
| it's likely a loss for a long while before it becomes a
| possibility of not being a loss. The windows phone was
| being worked on for 3 years before the iPhone was
| released and wasn't released for another 3 years... and
| wasn't exactly a success.
|
| Next is the licensing of the modems for the phone
| spectrum. That takes FCC approval in the US and isn't
| something that random companies do without good reason.
| Part of that licensing is the requirement that it is
| locked down sufficiently that the user can't do malicious
| things on the radio spectrum with the device... and
| _that_ tends to go against many of the open source
| ideals. It 's a preemptive Tivoization of the device.
|
| Assuming that those two parts are down, the next
| challenge is to make it a tool that you'd use in place of
| an iPhone or an android phone. Things like holding PCI
| data. That again makes it difficult to do. Persuading a
| bank that the device can act as a payment card and that
| the authorization is sufficient to avoid fraud from
| either the apps on the device or the user being able to
| inject _other_ payment cards that they don 't own into
| the device.
|
| Likewise, things like allowing the device's digital
| wallet to act as the identification card.
| https://www.tsa.gov/digital-id/participating-states
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/11/apple-introduces-
| digi... - those require trust between the government and
| the company that is likely absent with a open source
| device.
|
| I'd love to see an iPod touch like device (non phone)
| that allows me to run apps or develop my own and build up
| an ecosystem and demonstrate that trusting it is
| feasible... but so far I haven't seen many that have
| lasted beyond kickstarter money running out. I've got a
| Remarkable ... which isn't exactly small (or cheap). I'd
| like to see more things like that in other form factors
| that allow me to do things with it akin to
| https://developer.remarkable.com
| Aunche wrote:
| > That makes it challenging for others to get in. It
| isn't impossible, but it's really challenging.
|
| Huawei made Harmony OS smartphones in 2 years. That said,
| they were uniquely motivated by the Google Mobile
| Services ban, Chinese state support, and likely had set
| the groundworks for such a transition much earlier.
| shagie wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HarmonyOS#Early_development
|
| > Reports surrounding an in-house operating system being
| developed by Huawei date back as far as 2012 in R&D
| stages with HarmonyOS NEXT system stack going back as
| early as 2015.
|
| It wasn't green field to release in two years and likely
| had almost a decade of prep. It probably got additional
| resources with the Google Mobile Services ban... but even
| without that it would likely have shown up within the
| next few years.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| One of the classic roles of the government is to prevent
| certain unfair business setups. For instance, providers
| of a service aren't supposed to have agreements to not
| compete and carve off markets from each other. Likewise
| price fixing is prohibited.
|
| Apple already lost here when it attempted to prevent
| people from even linking to other payment platforms. That
| was "their platform" until it wasn't, thanks to a court.
|
| Giving them exclusive control to police speech - legal
| speech - without an opt out that doesn't involve
| thousands of dollars of loss is also "part of their
| platform" today.
|
| I actually disagree with the ICEBlock app.. but that's
| for the courts to decide if it's legal, not a private
| company.
| JustExAWS wrote:
| At least in the US, every single app maker can link out of
| an app and accept payments. But most still don't.
|
| You know why? It came out in the Epic Store that 90%+ of
| App Store revenue comes from pay to win games, coins, and
| loot boxes. Game developers love to have direct access to
| whale's wallets.
| isodev wrote:
| They're welcome to curate a store if they want to but
| installation and configuration of any 3rd party software,
| freely, without attestation mandates should be available.
| Also, Apple introduced a very complex process of fear
| mongering for the Alt Store in the EU - all that must go away
| in order to rectify the user's right to own their device.
| sunaookami wrote:
| They only do this now because Trump is president. It's very
| dishonest that they didn't fight for it before. ACLU etc are
| pro-censorship, they also want to censor other viewpoints,
| don't be fooled. They are screaming now because they are the
| ones targeted. I won't fall for it.
| fluidcruft wrote:
| I donated to ACLU during Bush vs Gore and they promptly sold
| my name and address everywhere and I got junk mail and spam
| for years as a reward for supporting their efforts. They can
| kiss my ass.
|
| EFF >> ACLU
| AlgebraFox wrote:
| While censorship is one thing, they forgot another overlooked
| ability of these app stores: pushing unwanted apps/services to
| our personal devices without our knowledge.The fact that the
| majority of people don't care about this censorship and backdoors
| makes me think we don't really appreciate the concept of freedom,
| and maybe we are okay with being slaves--at least until we cannot
| take it anymore. Maybe that's why history repeats itself every
| few decades to remind us about these values.
| gruez wrote:
| >While censorship is one thing, they forgot another overlooked
| ability of these app stores: pushing unwanted apps/services to
| our personal devices without our knowledge
|
| When was the last time the play store or app store pushed apps
| "without our knowledge"? I've only heard of it done by shady
| third party bloatware that OEMs bundle with the OS. The actual
| issue is a system that can perform OTA updates, not app stores
| themselves.
| knollimar wrote:
| The play store doesn't even update my apps for me anymore
| often
| pjc50 wrote:
| There was the time Apple dropped a U2 album on everyone, to
| widespread annoyance, but that's not the same thing.
| AlgebraFox wrote:
| What about when Google pushed Android Safety Core to all
| Android devices out there?
|
| And you also realize they can push modified build of any
| apps, now that they also own the keys to sign the apps?
| gruez wrote:
| >What about when Google pushed Android Safety Core to all
| Android devices out there?
|
| You mean the package that apps have to opt in to use? I
| guess that's technically counts as "unwanted
| apps/services", but that's like complaining about firefox
| "pushing unwanted apps/services", because they added some
| javascript function to every firefox installation out
| there.
|
| >And you also realize they can push modified build of any
| apps, now that they also own the keys to sign the apps?
|
| If you read my original comment more carefully, you'll
| notice I'm not denying they have the capability to do so,
| only that there's no precedence of them doing so.
| realusername wrote:
| It happened a few months ago with Gemini at least for
| Android, probably similar for Apple Intelligence on iOS
| although I can't comment since I don't use it anymore.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Well, there is the issue of security. While the app stores are
| also far from perfect on that issue, it's still better than the
| Wild West given the sheer number of apps they have to do deal
| with. Then there's also the issue of hosting and deploying the
| client app. Convenience has a cost
| brazukadev wrote:
| The web is much safer than the App and Play Store while been
| also absurdly bigger.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I get some push back from a few tech friends because I avoid
| using apps (except for things like Chess game apps). I can't say
| for sure that preferring web versions of services helps with
| censorship, but it can't hurt.
|
| Using web versions, not apps, is important because companies keep
| user device statistics and if enough people insist in using web
| versions, the the web will continue to be at least partially
| supported by big tech.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| I prefer web versions because I trust the browser sandbox more
| than I trust the developers at Super Store 01.
| apricot wrote:
| I also prefer web versions for similar reasons, and enjoy
| them while I still can.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| Yes! I meant to also say that, thanks.
|
| Sorry for going off on a tangent, but last week I asked
| Gemini about security and privacy advantages of running Gmail
| and Google Calendar using Safari and DuckDuckGo Browser -
| Gemini made good arguments for using the browser versions:
| ironic!
| candiddevmike wrote:
| The recent Facebook scandal of running a service to receive
| requests for tracking shows the app store sandbox model is
| far more of a denylist vs an allowlist, it's leaky by design
| in the name of "developer enablement" or "user experience".
| jerlam wrote:
| It's even funnier when the desktop app is just the web app
| with a wrapper, but the desktop app is worse.
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| There's also PWA, which while not perfect, is supported on iOS.
| theK wrote:
| PWA was an awesome idea and should have been the way forward.
|
| Unfortunately both Google and Apple very early on identified
| that it was in their best interest to keep the concept around
| in a half-dead state and ensure nobody really built on it...
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Google seems to be all in on PWAs, they even have a way to
| monetize them in the play store via TWAs.
| theK wrote:
| Admittedly I am not up to date on the latest developments
| but as far as a couple years ago the PWA runtime on both
| ecosystems was significantly stymied in comparison to the
| APP runtime. No access to real storage functionality,
| significantly less platform APIs, yada yada.
|
| Sure, you could build "better (installable) websites" but
| even to get standardized stuff like background execution
| or notifications working was either impossible or a long
| series of jumping through hoops. Even installation
| prompts bugged out way too often.
|
| But to be clear, if that isn't the case any more I will
| be positively surprized by either platform provider.
| mmis1000 wrote:
| PWA on android's side is at least usable.
|
| You get notification. You can autoplay video/audio. You get
| whaterver video or element full screen with all necessary
| UI. You get rotation lock. You have a fullscreen to do what
| ever you want for any purpose. You probably can't touch
| hardware APIs(for example: bluetooth/nfc) like native app.
| But that isn't really needed for most apps either.
|
| On the other side. Apple seems sabotage the PWA as much as
| possible. You can't autoplay video/audio. You can't even
| fullscreen anything other than video, and when fullscreen
| video, UI is ignored. Also there is no way to disable
| gesture so your app will misfire system gesture. And you
| can't lock the rotation either. There is no way to auto
| rotate the video player or whatever when maximized either.
|
| It's really a golden example for pretend to do something
| while actually not. It seems you can do pretty much
| everything with ios pwa. And when you try to do it. You
| will figured out it will have a worse experience than
| native app because all sort of issues.
| popcornricecake wrote:
| To be fair, Android also sabotages PWAs, it's just done
| behind your back. You see, in order to get a PWA to
| properly install, you'll have to use Chrome, and you'll
| have to have a Google Play account and Chrome will submit
| the PWA manifest for validation to a Google server, which
| in turn will decide whether the PWA is worthy, and if it
| is, it will generate a so called WebAPK, which is then
| installed on your device. If it's not worthy however,
| then it will become a bookmark instead, and many of the
| features that can be described in the manifest will not
| work at all.
|
| So if you wanted to use a different browser or install a
| PWA without a connection to the internet, or without
| Google Play, all you get is a bookmark.
| mmis1000 wrote:
| > in turn will decide whether the PWA is worthy
|
| In my personal experience, it only validate whether
| manifest is malformatted though. Although it's still up
| to google if they want to do something wonky.
| popcornricecake wrote:
| I saw someone claim on SO that they were not able to get
| a PWA to install properly until they changed their IP
| address, supposedly because they were from Iran, a
| sanctioned country.
| daveoc64 wrote:
| Other browsers on Android support PWA, such as Firefox.
| popcornricecake wrote:
| To my knowledge, every PWA installed from Firefox on
| Android will become a bookmark. For Firefox I believe
| that means for example that if you try to open a link
| elsewhere that is within the manifest scope, it will not
| open in the PWA. That's because it's not possible to deep
| link to the PWA without it having an AndroidManifest with
| a corresponding intent filter, which is what the Chrome
| WebAPK achieves and why they can support for example
| custom protocol handlers or share targets or launch
| handling options.
| alternatex wrote:
| Google invented PWAs and broke their back trying to make
| them a thing. I'm not a fan of Google but credit where
| credit is due.
|
| They were also highly incentivized to develop the APIs that
| make it all work as Chromebooks are basically hosts for
| browser apps. Apple, as well as the other tech giants
| involved in the W3C had no such incentives and were
| dragging their feet.
| pjmlp wrote:
| PWAs are a pain to develop, with tons of boilerplate.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| What? It's less boilerplate than native apps.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Native apps are offline by default.
|
| PWAs require a ton of JavaScript junk to simulate that.
| saagarjha wrote:
| As opposed to Swift junk?
| pjmlp wrote:
| Swift doesn't need a service worker to proxy all browser
| behaviour, and make use of local storage, with
| unspecified limit, to prentend to be working offline.
| saagarjha wrote:
| You do realize that there are many APIs that exist so
| that your Swift app works offline, right? There are
| specific persistence frameworks, tools for controlling
| caching, extensions for managing external files, etc. The
| argument that writing JavaScript that doesn't make
| network requests and needs to store state to disk is
| somehow super special and different than any other
| regular JavaScript makes no sense.
| pjmlp wrote:
| You do realise using Swift doesn't require having a
| network card on your laptop to run 100% of all
| applications compiled with swiftc?
| lenkite wrote:
| You do realize that neither do browser apps require
| having a network card on your laptop, right ? You can run
| local browser apps (HTML + CSS + JS) on a computer with
| no network card.
| jampekka wrote:
| You can make a PWA fully offline with someting like a 10
| line service worker.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Yeah, for a hello world app, and with something like
| Workbox.
| theoldgreybeard wrote:
| Most things that are worth doing usually involve some level
| of pain.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| They also don't require a dump truck load of third party
| dependencies just to have a serviceable set of widgets to
| use. Every time I start looking into web app development
| I'm always shocked at what's required to replicate what one
| gets for "free" in a UIKit app.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| I respect PWAs, but they take away so much that I personally
| want. No address bar, no tabs, no history, no extensions.
| It's a reversion from the glorious amazing user agency of the
| web to the sad state that computing had held us victim to for
| decades.
| pjmlp wrote:
| The problem is that the Web has turned into ChromeOS Platform,
| the only reason it hasn't yet is iDevices and Safari.
|
| Also Web apps are basically the 21st century version of
| timesharing like in the good old days, where we had one server
| for everyone.
|
| Even better for censorship purposes.
| saagarjha wrote:
| The platform that software is delivered through is
| independent of whether it works offline.
| pjmlp wrote:
| You mean the ISPs, whose permits are controlled by
| goverment authorities?
| lenkite wrote:
| Easier to threaten one Store rather than 10,000 ISP's.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Also easier to install a VPN than to replace your phone
| with one that isn't controlled by Apple or Google.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > 10,000 ISP's.
|
| Lol, you must be from the 90s. There's like 10 now.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| In almost all cases, phone apps talk to that same central
| server as the web browser, just with a different (much worse)
| client that you have less control over.
|
| If it were the case that phone apps weren't networked and
| could only sync through another channel like
| icloud/syncthing, then you'd be onto something.
|
| But right now most apps are "web browser but worse".
| pjmlp wrote:
| Native apps might need networking, Web apps require
| networking, they might simulate offline to various degrees
| depending on local storage, which they don't have any
| control over, and is shared.
| makapuf wrote:
| Web apps require networking
|
| PWA (installable apps, without the store) would like to
| differ.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| But now we're getting into the crux of it.
|
| What you want is a better (and easier to use) sandbox for
| native apps, so that users can feel as comfortable
| installing an app as visiting a web page as long as the
| app doesn't have any more permissions than the web page
| would have, and then you don't need central gatekeepers
| approving them.
| theK wrote:
| I also think that it sends the right signal in terms of "Hey,
| this really doesn't need to be an app". I don't need an app for
| my newspaper, I need a shortcut/bookmark to its web page.
|
| And once you start thinking about it, the same thing goes for a
| surprisingly large amount of apps.
|
| I feel like in the coming years the facade big A and big G put
| up in order to push everyone into their distinctive walled
| garden of apps will crumble in public opinion.
|
| It never was "yeah, it needs to be an app because the web
| platform doesn't have an API standard for it", geez, apple even
| forced a single web engine. They could have easily allowed
| access to their APIs on the browser. It just never was in their
| corporate interest to do so.
|
| Okay, this devolved into an anti corporate rant without it
| being my intention to... So, go web!
| neilalexander wrote:
| I don't really know how to articulate exactly how I'd
| classify into one bucket or the other but I think there are
| two types of "app" and I tend to have differing preferences
| on whether they should be native apps or web apps as a
| result.
|
| One is where relatively-static content is the priority, deep-
| linking is important or essential and the web platform is
| pretty ideal for those. News articles or blogs or Wikipedia
| pages or those sorts of things. Things where I might want to
| be switching between tabs or forgetting about for a while and
| coming back to later.
|
| The other is where the app is primarily interactive or where
| the content is a lot more likely to be real-time or
| ephemeral. Not least because if you're on a low-bandwidth or
| high-RTT connection, navigating between web pages or having
| interactivity blocked behind a backlog of XHRs (particularly
| where caching isn't permitted) is utterly miserable. My
| experience is that native apps usually continue feeling
| responsive to input even when the network itself is not
| responsive but that is often not true with many clickable
| elements in many web pages.
|
| PWAs might be the middle-ground here but they feel a lot like
| Electron apps to me: still foreign to all platforms, not
| responsive in the way that native UI controls are,
| weird/missing "back" behaviours and still no better support
| for deep-linking than the average app would have.
| pbmonster wrote:
| > Using web versions, not apps, is important because companies
| keep user device statistics and if enough people insist in
| using web versions, the the web will continue to be at least
| partially supported by big tech.
|
| It's also frequently just better. If I'm looking for hotels,
| flights, apartments, restaurants, hiking trails, ect., doing so
| in a browser allows me to keep dozens of comparable offers open
| for direct comparison - just by jumping between browser tabs.
|
| Doing the same in the app means endlessly navigating between
| offers, favorites, and new searches. It's often very obvious
| that the app was built explicitly to be less powerful.
| uhoh-itsmaciek wrote:
| The main downside to many mobile web sites is the desperate
| plea to use the app you have to dismiss every time. I feel
| sorry for the devs who build a great mobile version only to
| be forced to put a stupid "$SITE is better in the app" banner
| on it.
| electric_mayhem wrote:
| There's also companies which seemed to break their Web
| experience specifically to drive people into the app.
| Credit Karma hasn't worked on a browser on mobile or
| desktop for me in years. But the app version always works.
|
| I guess it's my fault for trying to use an Intuit product
| to begin with when I already know they're evil.
| lesuorac wrote:
| Does Credit Karma's app from last month work too?
|
| This is a reason I also like the web is that after the
| page loads I can just do stuff instead of getting kicked
| out to have to update the app ... Or even having to re-
| log in ...
| Loughla wrote:
| Fucking Menards and home Depot on mobile are two of the
| worst websites that exist. They're slow and full of bugs.
|
| Desktop is fine. Mobile sucks. I have to imagine it's
| intentional to push mobile users towards the app.
| pbmonster wrote:
| uBlock can stop those, if your device is allowed to have
| it.
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| Shoutout to Firefox for Android for being the only mobile
| browser of note that lets you use uBlock Origin
| beand1p wrote:
| Edge does as well.
| cess11 wrote:
| Really? I thought it was a Chromium wrapper and subject
| to the same nerfing done to it and Chrome.
| monocasa wrote:
| And copying text. That's such a killer app for the web that's
| barely supported in native apps.
| amarant wrote:
| It's such a killer feature for the web, some of the more
| egregious websites try to remove it using JavaScript!
|
| Some corporations just really hate their users, and will
| never understand why
| johnisgood wrote:
| Yeah, both copying text and the search function, IMO.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| If a mobile app like that supported tabs AND somehow allowed
| you to see key things between tabs, you wouldn't even reach
| for the browser. Crazy how much different that landscape
| could be if they thought about such a critical use case. My
| guess is non-power users just look at one offer at a time.
| UltraSane wrote:
| What is really stupid is when the app is just a web browser
| limited to one tab like for Amazon. The web site is better on
| phones because you can open links in new tabs but you can't
| in the app even though the app is obviously just displaying
| the exact same web page.
| NotPractical wrote:
| > I can't say for sure that preferring web versions of services
| helps with censorship
|
| The linked article isn't enough to convince you? Look up Gab or
| Parler. (Yes, I find most of the speech there reprehensible.
| No, I don't think they should be denied the right to publish
| and distribute an app.)
|
| Using a social media app instead of a website, as most people
| do, means that everything you are seeing has essentially been
| pre-approved by Apple and Google.
|
| If the tide swings even a little further to the right on X,
| expect the X app to be banned as well. I was secretly hoping
| that it would be banned when Musk took over just to remind the
| right of why centralized app stores are a terrible idea. But
| with ICEBlock the left has finally been alerted to that fact as
| well, which might be even more beneficial to the cause of
| software freedom in the long run, since the left is generally
| less afraid of the proper solution to this problem, regulation.
|
| In the meantime, keep using web apps instead of native apps.
| JustExAWS wrote:
| Parler was also kicked off of AWS...
|
| As far as X being banned, if you haven't heard Tim and every
| other tech CEO bends a knee anytime Trump and conservatives
| asks him to.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Parler was also kicked off of AWS...
|
| Which reminds us of the difference between AWS and Apple --
| Amazon Web Services is the web and the web is an open
| platform. If AWS denies you, you go sign up at any of their
| competitors or buy your own servers and plug them into the
| internet. If Apple denies you, iPhone users can't get your
| app, and if you go sign up at a competitor or buy your own
| servers, they still can't get your app.
|
| > As far as X being banned, if you haven't heard Tim and
| every other tech CEO bends a knee anytime Trump and
| conservatives asks him to.
|
| That's because they currently control the government. Now
| think ahead by more than two days and consider the
| possibility that the other party might win an election
| again someday. What should you do right now when you're in
| control of the government to prevent yourself from getting
| screwed the next time that happens?
| Unknoob wrote:
| > If AWS denies you, you go sign up at any of their
| competitors or buy your own servers and plug them into
| the internet
|
| And then your ISP kick you out.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| All of them? It's a website, the servers don't have to be
| in the same place as your bedroom. They don't even have
| to be in the same country.
| JustExAWS wrote:
| And then what happens when CloudFare de platforms you? It
| doesn't take much to DDOS most websites that aren't
| protected by something like CloudFare.
| Zak wrote:
| AWS isn't the only way to host a website, and his been an
| obviously bad choice for hosting something controversial
| since it denied service to Wikileaks.
| JuniperMesos wrote:
| They also bent a knee to previous Democratic party
| administrations and will bend the knee to them again the
| next time the Democratic party is in power. Large tech
| companies aren't interested in spending money and poltical
| capital fighting censorship demands of anyone who is likely
| to have power within the US government.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| And therein lies a problem. Each 'side' has no problem
| with it as long their team is not affected. Just
| yesterday -- on AM radio of all places -- I had
| democratic pundit openly wondering how Epstein's list is
| going to be used against them after spending a fair
| amount of political capital pushing for its release. It
| is all a game and, sadly, we are getting played. In such
| an environment, it is hard not to become cynical.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| It's even better to avoid the internet entirely. It's purely a
| liability at this point.
| immibis wrote:
| You should install F-Droid. lmoat every app on there is
| completely ethical, and there are many (not enough but many).
|
| Many of the ones that require a server side connect to your
| self hosted server instead of some central server on the cloud,
| which is a reason they will never get popular, but sounds
| perfect for you. There are some that use central servers, and
| this fact will be clearly stated in the antifeatures section.
| Many other F-Droid apps just work offline. And hardly any have
| ads.
| gramakri2 wrote:
| > Using web versions
|
| ahem, heard of cloudflare? web hosters and developers are
| voluntarily centralizing themselves.
| cogogo wrote:
| I subscribe to the NYT and find it so irritating that they
| regularly prompt me to download their app from safari on ios I
| may cancel. I do not want their app ever.
| biff1 wrote:
| Yep. Not using apps and avoiding the cloud at all costs (e.g.
| not backing up everything to iCloud, turning off one drive) are
| litmus tests for having a clue. Using Bluetooth is almost the
| same but it's hard to get by without it nowadays. Same for
| connecting your tv to the internet.
| nazgulsenpai wrote:
| Glad to see I'm not alone. I never install apps unless there's
| no other way, and often remove them as soon as possible. My
| home screen is a collection of web shortcuts. Amazon, YouTube,
| X, bank, all web links. But I also use LineageOS with MicroG.
|
| I've been asked why, and it's not really fear of surveillance
| (although I'm not a fan of it) or making a difference or
| whatever, just because it's one of the few ways I'm able to
| give the finger. Sure, noone will notice but it makes me feel
| better :)
| makapuf wrote:
| Sont listen to naysayers. There are dozens of us. Maybe
| hundreds!
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| (The actual number is millions.)
| taeric wrote:
| I'm curious that tech friends would push back on this. I'd
| expect them to be the ones to agree with the idea, oddly.
|
| The standard layman, on the other hand, wants to be able to
| trust that they can trust people.
| jerlam wrote:
| "People in tech" has grown so large that the term has become
| a bit meaningless.
|
| For every person in tech that knows who Stallman is and what
| he stands for, there's a person in tech that believes that
| NFTs and AI will bring about world peace and end poverty.
| taeric wrote:
| Fair. I'd still expect most "in tech" people to be more
| sympathetic to how bad apps have become.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| Personally I generally prefer the UX of apps for software _that
| I trust_ , ie, open source software downloaded via F-Droid. I
| feel the same with native desktop clients. For untrusted
| software, web apps are the way to go.
| dzonga wrote:
| bingo!! web apps solve most of these issues.
|
| let's say for the ICEblock or whatever - pull up a map pin
| (geotag), that can be done in a web app.
|
| the things most people advocate apps for e.g notifications are
| nuisances that some of us permanently turned off. My phone is
| always on do not disturb, I get 0 notifications. The only time
| I prefer notifications is something actionable - I pay online
| then the bank says open app to approve in-app notification (pop
| up) not those things (notifications) that just come to your
| phone asynchronously and bother you.
|
| I have a smartwatch (if at all) garmin it's not hooked up to my
| phone for notifications.
|
| unless you're making games / hell now games can leverage webgpu
| - no reason to make native apps at all for 96% of things. just
| make a web app - service workers enable offline access for some
| things.
|
| - my simple take -> do what the porno companies do in regards
| to tech. simple & effective. but please don't copy their ads
| thing.
| concinds wrote:
| I'm disappointed by the EFF not mentioning PWAs and web apps.
| Fighting censorship means fighting for those too. Platform
| owners will always have more direct control over sideloading.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| I just wish a culture of quality would become the rule and not
| the exception in web app development. It's a far more frequent
| thing for web apps to stutter and make my phone hot (or on a
| computer, keep an entire core pegged doing nothing) than it is
| for native apps to do the same. This experience is universal
| between browsers and platforms, too; I've observed it on Chrome
| under Android and Edge on Windows for example.
|
| Of course there are plenty of crappy native apps too, but the
| incidence and severity is comparatively lower and in many
| cases, there are well-behaved "handcrafted" small dev
| alternatives to crappy native apps which are much less common
| (or at least, more difficult to find) on the web.
| lenkite wrote:
| Need to have standardized native web components for the
| "culture of quality". Everyone building their own special
| widget in JS+CSS+virtual DOM Framework does not enforce UX
| quality.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| Totally agree, it's the inevitable result of infinite wheel
| reinvention; none of the wheels ever receive the level of
| refinement they need. By the time the first stone wheel
| starts showing hints of a polished sheen, it's time to go
| carve a new stone wheel.
|
| I'm a big proponent of browsers including something
| resembling a traditional UI framework out of the box. It
| doesn't have to try to be perfect or fit everybody's needs
| (which is impossible anyway), but it _will_ serve many
| developers well and give everybody else a solid foundation
| to build their own (much lighter) stuff on top of.
| lenkite wrote:
| You tell this to frontend experts and they are _totally_
| against it. "Lack of UI customization", "this is already
| possible", "you should skill up and learn web-tech", "use
| one of the popular (multi MB) component libraries", "we
| don't need more bad browser APIs", yadda yadda yadda.
|
| The real reason is that most of them are afraid it would
| reduce the number of frontend jobs. But nowadays that is
| already being eaten by AI...
| gibsonsmog wrote:
| I've been a web/ux guy for a long time now and I don't think
| I've ever used a single mobile app/site that is better than a
| proper full screen piece of software. It's always been a
| compromise no matter how hard myself or my designers try. Maybe
| quick photo/video edits but that's less because they're good or
| they have quality user experiences but more because its often
| overkill to pop open Photoshop just to cut out a dog pooping in
| the background or whatever. Most times I feel like mobile devs
| (myself included) don't even utilize the various unique
| features mobile devices do have.
|
| I'm also old, cranky and turning into a crusty CLI guy as I get
| even older and crankier. If you kids need more than a TUI, get
| off my lawn!
| lunias wrote:
| I also avoid apps. I tell everyone that I meet to avoid apps
| because the general population is going to drive us right into
| a future where there are no more web-based options and almost
| everything must be accessed through a separate app. People are
| simply not aware of what they're giving up by using apps that
| would work perfectly fine as websites.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| How long before smartphone providers start controlling your web
| browser?
| prism56 wrote:
| I just will not install an app unless it specifically provides
| some features not available on the site. I can block ads/tracks
| with ublock then.
|
| I'm not installing my electricity providers app with any
| permissions when their website shows the same.
| viktorcode wrote:
| How about app creators sue DOJ and/or Apple if the law is on
| their side?
| gruez wrote:
| It's possible to criticize something without having the law "on
| your side". The OP characterizes Apple's action as
| "unacceptable, censorious overreach", but doesn't claim it was
| illegal. Once upon a time, slavery was illegal, but it would be
| daft to oppose emancipation on the basis of "How about slaves
| sue DOJ and/or slave owners if the law is on their side?".
| pjc50 wrote:
| Did you miss the Epic lawsuit?
| mosura wrote:
| Most people on here should consider the opposite extreme: a free
| for all where millions of idiots are carrying devices where they
| can install and run anything on a device where arbitrary radio
| signals can be transmitted and received at will under software
| control. Once you accept that would be ridiculous then the
| question becomes where to draw the line.
| hyperhopper wrote:
| Are you anti handheld radio?
|
| Yes, that's the point of freedom. People can carry devices that
| do things. If they break the law, that's another question, but
| everyone should be allowed to have computers that communicate
| that they can control
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| I don't want someone to walk around, I don't know, forcing
| all the phones around them in a 10m radius to blow up their
| batteries and hurt people.
|
| Handheld radios, like my wireless tx/rx for lavaliers have to
| have their spectrums cleared by the FCC. As do most
| transmitting devices. There are baseline requirements before
| they can be sold/used.
|
| I get often with these things if you give an inch they take a
| mile, but there have to be some foundational guardrails here
| IMO. You can't just have a bunch of laws punishing people for
| behavior and no attempts at preventing it in the first place.
|
| The ability to just transmit anything indiscriminately is
| just a dicey proposition to me. Like how we used to just
| allow a free for all with drones.
| stetrain wrote:
| Can you show an example of a phone blowing up its battery
| with the potential to hurt people because of a harmful
| radio signal?
|
| This seems like something the phone should be able to
| handle. People already have root access on devices with
| radio transmitters, they're called laptops. I don't recall
| many incidents of a malicious actor with a laptop forcing
| all the laptops around them to blow up and hurt their
| owners. If that were a reasonable possibility then they
| certainly wouldn't be allowed on planes.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Maybe I'm misunderstanding but the prior comment seemed
| to say "people should be able to transmit whatever they
| want, however they want, with whatever device they want."
|
| I imagine it's not insanely difficult to get a phone to
| crank up voltage or something until the battery starts
| melting down. Maybe I'm letting sci-fi/thrillers pollute
| my sense of reality though
| stetrain wrote:
| My point is that transmitting whatever you want doesn't
| mean the devices around you will "blow up", devices also
| have controls on how they receive radio transmissions.
|
| A malicious transmitter could likely jam signals, but
| this is already illegal and that comment said "If they
| break the law, that's another question"
|
| Your hypothetical doesn't make sense. People can already
| hack around with radios and transmit whatever they want,
| doing so doesn't result in devices around them blowing up
| or hurting people.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Fair enough. I think I'm not following the thread well
| here. I'm also probably too tired after a very early
| start day lol
| shagie wrote:
| Malicious transmitters are illegal. There is liability
| for the person operating the malicious transmitter along
| with the sale, marketing, and manufacturing of the
| transmitter.
|
| If the maker of a phone allowed a user to break the law
| by having the phone become a malicious transmitter and
| the phone maker _didn 't_ try everything in their
| capacity to prevent it, they'd be in trouble too.
|
| Yes, you can hack your own. You can get a CB radio and
| boost its power by replacing parts of it. That's on you.
| If you were able to get a phone from a company that
| knowingly allowed you to install some software or do this
| "one silly trick" that allowed the phone to broadcast at
| 10x the power, you'd be in trouble - but so would the
| company that made the phone.
| stetrain wrote:
| Sure, but we already have consumer devices with root
| access that have radio transmitters. Is this a common
| problem with laptops? Why would it be a larger problem
| with smartphones?
| shagie wrote:
| The amount of integration between the system and the wifi
| modem, the frequencies that it can broadcast on, and the
| regulations for that part of the spectrum.
|
| You'd be quite challenged to make your wifi modem connect
| to an access point a few miles away. Phones do it all the
| time. A phone may be broadcasting with as low as a
| milliwatt when near a transmitter to a few watts when
| further away ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_dev
| ice_radiation_and_... ). Wifi has a much smaller range of
| acceptable broadcast power available (and at the most
| powerful end of acceptable is less than a phone).
| 63stack wrote:
| How would arbitrary radio signals blow up a battery?
| tremon wrote:
| That's called a weapon (EMP discharge), and there's quite a
| lot of people in the US that are ready to defend even such
| devices. There's even a Constitutional article about it
| IIRC.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| If you're going to respond like that then don't bother
| responding.
| tantalor wrote:
| The risk is if you have unfettered control then it's easy to
| get tricked into installing malicious apps, and now my device
| is getting zero-day attacks over bluetooth or wifi from state
| actors using your phone.
| stetrain wrote:
| The same can be done with a laptop, and millions of idiots
| carry those around.
| bla15e wrote:
| > a free for all where millions of idiots are carrying devices
| where they can install and run anything on a device where
| arbitrary radio signals can be transmitted and received at will
| under software control
|
| As a matter of fact, I can consider that opposite extreme
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG3uea-Hvy4
| sudobash1 wrote:
| I don't get your point. This article is about control of the
| high level software running on your phone, not the firmware
| controlling your phone's radios. Even if an app store allowed
| any software without filter, this would not allow anyone to
| transmit "arbitrary radio signals". The much lower level
| firmware ensures that the radio communicates at proper power
| and protocol.
|
| The phone hardware is not capable of arbitrary radio signals
| anyway. People can buy software defined radios off the shelf,
| but people generally don't abuse this because a) there really
| isn't any motivation for them to and b) they would quickly land
| in really hot water with the FCC.
| Shoetp wrote:
| You are so brainwashed by app stores' talking points that you
| don't realize you are describing computers.
|
| Just let users install whatever they want. Maybe add a
| verification process (a-la app verification for Mac) if users
| want to be restricted to verified apps. Show a "this is from an
| unverified developer" messages if the app comes from an
| unverified developer (is not signed).
|
| There's no need to draw lines. Leave that to painters and
| architects.
| mosura wrote:
| If laptops really were as ubiquitous as cellphones they would
| end up regulated the same way.
| stetrain wrote:
| Laptops are regulated on their radio transmissions. Just
| not on which games you are allowed to install.
| fithisux wrote:
| It is their device after all.
| saagarjha wrote:
| > Once you accept that would be ridiculous
|
| No, I don't think I will.
| yupyupyups wrote:
| Yes, keep "all those potential idiots" in check, except the
| rich and the powerful.
|
| How about no?
| 827a wrote:
| Facts that I find myself in-agreement with:
|
| 1. A world where every human's smartphone is an open-field
| install-anything no-controls-beyond-antivirus device similar to
| your desktop PC would be a functionally and utilitarian-ly
| worse world than the one we live in today where these devices
| for most people exhibit strong, centralized, corporatist
| control.
|
| 2. There are use-cases these devices are now being adopted for
| that open-field install-anything desktop PCs have _never_ ,
| even to this day, adopted. You cannot install your drivers
| license and passport into your desktop PC, nor can you tap-to-
| pay. Its likely many of these use-cases needed the level of
| hyper-security Apple and Google are pushing toward in order to
| digitize these use-cases, validly or not.
|
| 3. Apple's extreme of restricting the installation of anything
| outside of the App Store (and, for that matter, even severely
| restricting the things you can distribute through the app store
| for no reason, such as until recently alternate payment
| providers) is a step too far. As you say, the opposite extreme
| is bad, but that doesn't mean Apple's extreme is good.
|
| 4. There's a middleground we need to find, and by the way, I
| don't think Android strikes the middleground very well today. A
| couple examples of things that would move in a more positive
| direction toward this middleground: (a.) I think phones should
| be able to be purchased from the factory immutably with the
| quality of requiring binaries to be signed by Apple/Google.
| Google should sell Pixels that are hyper-locked down similar to
| the iPhone and that characteristic can never change about them;
| its etched into the security coprocessor itself. Conversely,
| maybe if I have an Apple developer account, I should be able to
| buy an iPhone that allows me to install binaries from any
| source. (b.) Apple should have an "App Store Extended" backend
| capability where developers still distribute their apps through
| the App Store, all the same security scanning happens, but the
| developer has to handle their own marketing via the web; the
| app never appears in the App Store App itself. In exchange,
| their distribution rules are more relaxed (alternate payment
| processors, applets, sensitive content, etc).
| the_snooze wrote:
| > Apple's extreme of restricting the installation of anything
| outside of the App Store... is a step too far.
|
| This is the key for me right here. I think it's fine to offer
| preferred services and distribution platforms on a piece of
| hardware. But actively preventing other software from running
| on that hardware is silly. The user really doesn't own the
| thing at that point.
|
| Contrast Apple's treatment of iPhones and iPads with Valve's
| position on the upcoming Steam Machine:
|
| >Yes, Steam Machine is optimized for gaming, but it's still
| your PC. Install your own apps, or even another operating
| system. Who are we to tell you how to use your computer?
| tremon wrote:
| _is silly_
|
| The word you're looking for is oppressive.
| fithisux wrote:
| The title is correct. The landscape became dangerous because
| governments withdraw from regulating the space unleashing big
| corporates on citizen's privacy and options.
|
| It is a Corporate-Government dystopia.
| ncr100 wrote:
| Apple / Google did not but should sue the Gov't for this abuse.
| Perhaps it could be more popularized, to sway Goo-Apple's mind
| and take the expensive plunge.
|
| Glad the ACLU is starting to talk about it, at the least.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| This is why a real, committed FLOSS OS is needed for smartphones.
| Something like how Debian works. You have a non-commercial entity
| steering the project, it has a governance model, and the goal is
| to create something that ultimately, no one owns or can take full
| control over.
| Liquix wrote:
| there are plenty of "real" open source mobile OSes. the issue
| is third party apps. if Debian couldn't run NGINX, Apache,
| Docker, Kubernetes, etc, it wouldn't matter how mature or solid
| the OS is, because 90% of software people want to run on a
| server doesn't work.
|
| if FAANG apps and banking apps don't run on a mobile OS it will
| never be viable. the government, these big companies, and the
| device manufacturers all have a vested interest in making sure
| it never happens.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Honestly, at least for me, it doesn't _have_ to run those
| things. It has to run a private browser and Signal, and it
| needs to run on easy-to-obtain smartphone hardware with no
| dependency on anyone 's app store. I would hope that is at
| least somewhat doable.
|
| I have no delusions about there ever being a year of the
| GNU/Linux smartphone. Google will make damn sure that never
| happens, like you say.
|
| EDIT:
|
| I should say, I see this being a "second" device. Something
| to use when you don't want someone generating profit off of
| your data.
| amelius wrote:
| Biggest problem is banking apps.
| immibis wrote:
| LaLiga matches may not be shown on any device that allows
| alternative app stores or side loading:
| https://torrentfreak.com/laliga-says-isps-joining-its-piracy...
|
| Google probably knew about this rule change long in advance and
| it's what motivated them.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Yes. Apps are now just another layer of privacy invasion. 95% of
| apps could just be a website with zero reduction in function.
| Literally a bookmark on your home screen to the thing.
| superkuh wrote:
| It is not your smartphone. The user computer is yours but the
| phone is owned by the telcom. You do not have a license to
| operate it. The telco does. They are the owners of your smart
| phone. Smart phones are terrible computing devices. They are
| excellent shopping/bank terminals and navigational aids, but they
| are not allowed to compute. Set it to host a hotspot and use a
| real computer if you want control. A smartphone will never, _can
| never_ , allow you to own it. It would be illegal.
| hereme888 wrote:
| The article is clearly an advocacy/op-ed that uses "loaded-
| framing" ("totalitarian control", "cop-in-your-pocket") and a lot
| of speculation. A one-sided point of view, as is common in modern
| "journalism".
|
| That said, code should never be banned in the U.S. But U.S.
| companies need to operate within U.S. laws.
| rangestransform wrote:
| I happened to like when Apple thumbed their nose at the
| government about the san Bernardino shooter
| shagie wrote:
| (a few months after that incident) - Mr. Fart's Favorite
| Colors https://medium.com/@blakeross/mr-fart-s-favorite-
| colors-3177... /
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11231631
| bigyabai wrote:
| That was 10 years ago. Since then, Apple has admitted to the
| government forcing them to cover-up backdoors:
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-
| to-... Apple has since confirmed in a
| statement provided to Ars that the US federal government
| "prohibited" the company "from sharing any information," but
| now that Wyden has outed the feds, Apple has updated its
| transparency reporting and will "detail these kinds of
| requests" in a separate section on push notifications in its
| next report.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > Apple has admitted to the government forcing them to
| cover-up backdoors
|
| Handing over push notification data stored on a company's
| server is not any type of "backdoor".
|
| That's how the law works in the US when the Federal, State,
| or local authorities come to you with a warrant.
|
| If the Feds come to you with a National Security Letter,
| then you are forced to hand over the data stored on your
| servers, and are indeed prohibited from speaking out about
| it.
|
| The only way to defend your customer's privacy is to
| minimize data collected and stored on your servers, which
| is what makes the surveillance capitalism business model of
| companies like Google and Meta so dangerous.
| bigyabai wrote:
| It's a backdoor. A rose by any other name is just as
| thorny.
|
| I'm sorry that it upsets you. If it's any consolation, I
| consider Google and Meta's complicity equally disgusting.
| But I consider it disgusting because they are doing the
| same thing Apple does; hiding the existence of
| interception and privacy-degrading functionality that
| benefits the government. The pedigree that Apple once
| garnered through publicity stunts like San Bernadino has
| been entirely negated in posterity. The federal
| government has a much closer relationship with Apple than
| any customer ever could; the "privacy is a human right"
| advertisement was always conditional on where you lived
| and how you're oppressed.
|
| The only way to defend customer privacy is to offer
| genuine freedom. As you've admit in this comment, federal
| coercion of a platform like iOS is like shooting fish in
| a barrel. iMessage, App Store, WebKit dylibs, Push
| Notifications, OCSP servers; none of them have any
| alternatives. If Apple were to lose control over the
| security of those products, the implications could be
| lethal. They could never argue that proprietary code or
| privately-managed security is a benefit to mankind ever
| again.
|
| It's no coincidence that Tim Cook greeted Kashoggi's
| killer last night over dinner. Welcome to the new normal,
| a surveillance state where Apple was priced-out of
| defending freedom, safety or privacy.
| hexator wrote:
| Well, you're right that this isn't journalism per se. But it's
| not trying to be, so your comment is a bit weird. Nobody is
| confusing the ACLU with CNN.
| hereme888 wrote:
| idk what's weird about my comment. Many people don't know
| that the ACLU is unapologetically a biased left-wing
| organization riddled with controversy, starting with its
| founder, to funding by George Soros, to very biased takes and
| use of their legal resources.
| pbiggar wrote:
| Another way these app stores enable censorship is by having
| arcane and inscrutable review processes, where they often ban
| your app for no reason with no recourse (unless you know a
| Googler or Apple employee, who can investigate).
|
| For example, we work with Aween Rayeh [1], an app that provides
| real-time traffic information about Israeli checkpoints in the
| Israeli-occupied West Bank. The author's account was banned for
| no reason at all on Google Play [2]. There was no means to get an
| appeal or a review.
|
| What typically we see happening is that someone internally at
| these companies issues a ban for what we assume are ideological
| reasons. Then when someone looks into it there's no actual reason
| for the ban to have happened, and it sails through. We see
| similar thing with shadow banning on social media: someone gets
| hard flagged and their account is completely shut down, and then
| when someone looks into it, there was never a reason to do it in
| the first place.
|
| [1] https://www.aweenrayeh.com/ [2]
| https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/thre...
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I wish I had more control over what the app stores show me. I
| should be able to block or hide apps on the storefront. Stop
| showing me TikTok Temu or Shein.
| metalman wrote:
| android 15 has a new volume control limit which prevents full
| volume from media and calls from bieng used to suposedly save us
| from ourselves
|
| if I get time,I will see if there is way to do something through
| adb, but I have already deleeted all media and media apps
|
| and am prepared to trash the phone
|
| also there are impossible to deleet pre loaded phone contacts
|
| and my first choices(now changed) for sim settings, come back on
| each phone restart
|
| nasty fashist garbage
| dekoidal wrote:
| Apple couldn't do a thing about a hypothetical iceblock.com
| gumby271 wrote:
| At least on iOS, Apple controls the singular web browser
| implementation. If they wanted to, they definitely could do a
| thing about any site. The same arguments for policing their App
| Store would apply to the open internet too, it's scary and
| dangerous!
| bigyabai wrote:
| Sure they can. Mobile users have no path of recourse if Apple
| updates WebKit to break or blacklist the site. There is no
| working alternative on iPhone or iPad.
|
| Maybe the people advocating for browser diversity on iOS were
| onto something...
| erikpukinskis wrote:
| Yes, no recourse. But there are still legal consequences. If
| Apple blocks certain web content they have a harder time
| arguing that they are not responsible for blocking _other_ we
| content: copyrighted material, etc.
|
| They don't want that cost/responsibility.
| Svoka wrote:
| Let me get this straight:
|
| - You: vote for people makings laws
|
| - Companies: comply with legislations they are bound to comply
| with
|
| - you: Censorship!
|
| I understand that not everyone gets a chance to vote for laws in
| the world, but for a company to do business in any country you
| have to comply with regulations.
| JuniperMesos wrote:
| Some types of censorship are popular and voters in democracies
| vote for polticians who pass and enforce such laws. A company
| that is censoring you because they are legally obligated to is
| still censoring you.
| nofriend wrote:
| Democracy is a tool we hope makes good decisions. If the
| democracy voted to have you killed, would you agree with that?
| If not, stop fetishizing democracy as a process, and instead
| start supporting outcomes that agree with liberty and justice.
| Svoka wrote:
| I mean, Constitution? Nobody 'fetishizing' democracy, what
| you describe is just not how it works.
| nofriend wrote:
| value outcomes, not process
| Fairburn wrote:
| Apps have their place. But collecting them like Pokemon isnt
| wise.
| jason-richar15 wrote:
| App stores hold significant control over what we can access,
| effectively enabling corporate and government censorship on
| devices we own.
| Dig1t wrote:
| The ACLU only writes these articles when the system is being used
| to take down something they like politically.
|
| They never had a problem with the App Store removing Gab, Parler,
| or Infowars. It's hard to take institutions like the ACLU
| seriously when they have such obvious bias. If the ACLU had taken
| a principled stance when the system was being used to take down
| things that they didn't like, they would have been able to keep
| their legitimacy.
| 827a wrote:
| Imagine working on a team in Apple and waking up to the news that
| the ACLU is now criticizing your work. Talk about being on the
| wrong side of history. Do Apple employees even care anymore? Or
| are they just there for the resume prestige? The mental
| gymnastics you must be doing in this moment to keep yourself from
| feeling cognitive dissonance.
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