Apple, Give Us a "Freedom of Choice" Button

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/06/eff-nothing-new-about-iphones-closed-platform

by there • 16 years ago

43 38 16 years ago

naz• 16 years ago

It's quite simple -- you can choose not to buy an iPhone.

rpledge2• 16 years ago

Exactly... People should vote with their wallet. Why should Apple be forced to conform to what the EFF thinks is right? If enough people cared about these issues and stopped buying Apple would take notice, but until that happens this is all noise few will hear.

commandar2• 16 years ago

Well, the reason groups like the EFF are important is because they're there to raise the issue before it becomes a problem. Sometimes people don't realize how serious a problem is until it bites them in the ass, like the MyFrame developer that defended Apple's approval process up until the point that his app got arbitrarily rejected.[1]

The point of watchdog groups like the EFF is to make some noise and get people to realize they should care about having alternatives.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1394958

ajscherer• 16 years ago

Who said anything about forcing Apple to do anything? The blog post wasn't talking about suing Apple or asking the government to step in. It was merely criticizing a system they find slimy and contrary to the interests of Apple's customers.

It isn't like Apple is going out of their way to tell potential customers "people are out there writing software that you would like to have on your phone, but we aren't going to let you have it".

Why shouldn't the EFF be free to criticize whoever they want?

It's quite simple -- you can choose not to read blog posts that are clearly going to be critical of the app store.

jsz0• 16 years ago

Exactly. It's an increasingly easy choice. I've said all along I think the controversies around the iPhone exist because it challenges so many assumptions people have always made about technology products. The EFF and others seem to be trying to make Apple conform with their views. Is that really choice? Why can't consumers have the choice of a curated/managed platform? There's a fine line here between consumer protection/advocacy and trying to subject ones personal choices onto others.

cabalamat• 16 years ago

Maybe what the EFF are really doing is warning potential customers of the digital handcuffs on the iPhone and other similar products, so those consumers can make an informed choice.

CamperBob3• 16 years ago

No, it's not "quite" that simple. Almost every other mobile computing manufacturer is tripping over their own shoelaces these days to copy Apple's policies and practices.

Look at Microsoft's direction for Windows Phone 7, for instance, and tell me it's going to be any sort of alternative.

And as for Android... eventually, someone is going to release some kind of really hideous malware that does substantial harm to a large portion of their user base. Jobs will spin this event as inevitable -- just as he has already tried to do by casting Android as the "porn" platform of choice -- and Google will end up marginalized further in the public view because they made the silly mistake of leaving their garden gate unlocked.

The harm done by Apple's policies can, and has, rippled out across the entire mobile computing sector. It is dangerously naive and disingenuous to claim that you can dodge this damage by "choosing not to buy an iPhone."

darkandbrooding• 16 years ago

Your post contains the implicit assumption that "really hideous malware" will strike the Android platform before it does the iPhone, which is the necessary condition for Jobs to say "I told you so." (I make the assumption that Jobs would not be able to credibly deliver that line if iOS became a malware target before Android did.)

I don't own an Android phone, and am only superficially familiar with its OS or software stack. Do you think that the Android OS is architecturally more susceptible to malware than iOS? If not, do you think that Android's application distribution model is more likely to get malware onto people's phones that Apple's highly restrictive one?

zweben• 16 years ago

Apple policies are not 'harmful' to general consumers. They're unappealing to certain tech-savvy consumers, but those people are a niche. The average phone buyer has priorities more in line with what a curated app store provides, and that's why other companies are following Apple's lead.

Even if Google decides to focus on making Android appeal to a broader audience and starts following Apple's strategy, the market will still exist for open devices. Either someone will cater to it (which I am confident Google will continue to do), or the market has become so small that no one will bother. Either way, it's just the free market at work, not some evil conspiracy.

sandee• 16 years ago

Just as, it was quite simple you can choose not to buy windows PC.

People raised issues with Microsoft practises because as a dominant player they set the industry trend. Taking it lying down means accept this as a general trend.

donaq2• 16 years ago

We can - now. But what of the future? Imagine if the iPhone had an overwhelmingly dominant market share of mobile computing devices, say, 90%, and that mobile computing has become an integral part of life (which seems like what's going to happen). At that point, Apple would be able to dictate standards. Even supposing the quality went south and consumers genuinely started disliking the user experience, could one realistically choose not to buy an iPhone then? We've seen this happen before. Is Windows the best operating system out there? I don't think so, but I still have to use it now and then. I have a choice of only working with people who do not use Windows, of course, but it's not a realistic one.

The problem is that consumers don't necessarily make the choices that are in their own best long-term interests. That's why tobacco companies are still in business.

tkahn6• 16 years ago

Just like you can use Linux instead of Windows, you can choose Android instead of iOS.

Apple has a responsibility to its shareholders to make money. It therefore has a near-totally correlated responsibility to make products that appeal to the market. If people want Apple products they will buy them and if there exists a market that Apple chooses not to sell to, other companies will exploit it.

The problem is that consumers don't necessarily make the choices that are in their own best long-term interests.

Best for who? You? You, like I, may like the freedom that OSs like Android allow, but the majority of people don't really care at all.

CamperBob3• 16 years ago

This was basically my point as well, and like you, I was promptly modded down for it. It looks like "Just use Android" is going to be the new "Just install Linux."

ryanjmo• 16 years ago

Well I bought an iPhone before apple got increasing closed, but I'm on a 2 year contract. What should I do now?

usaar333• 16 years ago

Sell it and buy a new phone. (With early termination fee pro-rotation, I never got what the big deal with breaking ones' contract is. Often, it is cheaper to pay the ETF and switch to another provider).

logic• 16 years ago

http://linuxoniphone.blogspot.com/

That suggestion is only somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

siculars2• 16 years ago

Before civil labor laws that was like saying you can chose not to work at the local factory/sweatshop. What we need is blanket protection from the federal government akin to the civil labor laws that grew out of the industrial revolution.

We need digital privacy, portability and general freedom laws enacted by congress to set the playing field level between consumers and producers for this next revolution, the digital/social/mobile revolution.

It is not enough to say "vote with your wallet". Our liberties are being encroached from every angle in the digital sphere. Virtually every major corporation that plays in this space is screwing the consumer one way or another when it comes to these basic, common sense rights we should all have. Why is it that myspace and facebook and google and apple and amazon all have their own twisted, difficult to understand, legalize terms of service and privacy policies? Where is the government intervention, who loves to stick it's nose in everyones business, when it matters?

lionhearted2• 16 years ago

> What we need is blanket protection from the federal government akin to the civil labor laws that grew out of the industrial revolution.

I don't want to be protected from doing voluntary transactions by the federal government - they have a pretty bad track record of making citizens' lives worse when they do that.

And besides, laws like this are started as a shield, but eventually get turned into a sword that's corrupted and hijacked by entrenched powers in the various industries. It's the nature of the current political situation with lobbying and a public that cares about the hot button issue, but doesn't follow up on the regulations a few years later to see how it turned out. Once people no longer care, the lobbying starts and you get all kinds of asinine things. Thanks but no thanks - the federal government isn't the answer.

tensor• 16 years ago

And I haven't. But I do like the rest of the technology in the iphone/ipad. Thus, I will complain. Bad feedback is better than no feedback.

DavidSJ• 16 years ago

There are at least several questions:

* Should Apple have the policies it has?

* Should Apple be legally allowed to have the policies it has?

* Should we buy Apple's products, given that it has the policies it has?

One might think the answer to the second and third are yes while the answer to the first is no.

chc4• 16 years ago

It's not that simple: If I choose not to buy an iPhone, I'm choosing not to buy a good smartphone. There simply aren't any others of comparable quality.

Like I've said before, the choice here is not between "open" and "closed," but between "open" and "good." That's the part that annoys me. If there were a legitimate platform that's just like the iPhone only without Apple's ridiculously oppressive policies, I'd be all over that. But there's not.

moxiemk1• 16 years ago

Has Apple started suing people for jailbreaking or unlocking their iPhones? The people experimenting with running Android on them?

No?

They don't have to make it _easy_ for you to do anything you want. They can choose what functionality they put in. But they're hardly stopping you from doing whatever you want with the device.

benbeltran• 16 years ago

This is true. My only bug with apple right now is the lack of transparency in the App Store Submission Process. The rest is really their decision, the hacking community is relatively free to do what they want, and apple knows it's good for them.

invisible2• 16 years ago

While I tend to agree, deciding whether an app will probably get allowed in doesn't take serious brain power. Does it duplicate something that Apple spends tons of R&D money on (e.g. phone capabilities, "redoing" what the iPhone normally does, etc)? Probably avoid stepping on too many toes. Do you use private APIs? I'd rewrite. Is it illicit? Good luck on that one.

chc4• 16 years ago

I think intentionally bricking people's phones[1] qualifies as "stopping you from doing whatever you want with the device."

[1] http://www.macworld.com/article/60252/2007/09/iphoneunlock.h...

nwjsmith• 16 years ago

Apple doesn't add buttons. It only removes them.

brisance• 16 years ago

>>The principle is simple: just as you get to choose whatever after-market modification you want to make to your car,<<

I'm sorry, but I stopped reading beyond that bit. There is no functioning government regulatory body in this world that would allow exhaust systems without catalytic converters or external wastegates, for example.

Apple, Give Us a "Freedom of Choice" Button

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