And in one fell swoop, Apple has made it effectively impossible to install this app on your phone. There's no realistic workaround. †
Apple should never have been capable of making such a drastic decision for all of their customers. It's one thing to make determinations about what products are allowed in your store, but quite another to unilaterally ban software from what is many people's primary computer. We live in a digital age, and software is a form of free expression. We wouldn't find this acceptable with eBooks, and we should not find it acceptable for applications.
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† Unrealistic workarounds include paying $100 per year for a developer account, reinstalling the app once every seven days, or finding a shady, stolen enterprise certificate. These are not real alternatives for 99% of people.
>And in one fell swoop, Apple has made it effectively impossible to install this app on your phone. There's no realistic workaround.
Make the app a Web App and visit it in Safari.
Apple has banned it being notarized and distributed from their App Store but iPhones still have access to the conventional web which Apple has no control over.
Apple has been (I suspect purposefully!) dragging their feet on progressive web app support. There list of limitations is long, but most critically for this app (I would imagine), they can't send notifications and they can't work offline.
OR go to android that allows you to sideload apps from other sources. Of course, you run the risk of malware, then but at least if Google were to pull something like this you could just sideload it.
Converting an iOS app to "a web app" isn't exactly a trivial undertaking. Remember you're likely saying "Reimplement the app atop an entirely different family of libraries and APIs."
> And in one fell swoop, Apple has made it effectively impossible to install this app on your phone
You mean years ago?
Not that I support this move by Apple, but ... how is this different from them rejecting any application for any reason? We've had a ton of stories on HN of them doing that (for various different reasons)...
It's because the locked-down nature of the iPhone is always made out to be an all-or-nothing policy. I legitimately don't understand why.
There are real benefits to having a curated, sandboxed, and audited selection of safe, quality software. Most users should never need to leave such an environment
What is necessary is an escape hatch—one that doesn't involve continual software reinstalls, or outright buying new hardware. It's fine to hide the option away in settings, where most users won't find it. But in extraordinary circumstances—like when your city is rioting against your government—people will help each other locate the switch, and download what they need to stay safe.
For the vast majority of people, protecting them from their own lack of willingness to educate themselves about data security and malware (a nontrivial time investment, let me tell you, having done it myself), is a feature, not a bug.
It's not that they're paying more for less; it's that they're paying more for a curated less. For the vast majority of Apple's customers, this works out great (provided they aren't ever going to engage in an antigovernment protest).
Please don't get it twisted. What Apple does has value to many people; it's not as black-and-white as you seem to make it out to be.
The website developers have already added a Javascript plugin that instructs visitors on how to add the app to their homescreen, after they visit the website in Safari, which gives presumably identical behavior to the app store app.
Hopefully this alleviates the immediate negative consequences of the removal.
iPhones, iPads and the whole mobile device segment is useless if a company can decide the content. It will never be your device.
Microsoft tried the same crap with their store, which was fortunately rejected to a large degree. The future of software shouldn't look so backwards. I can understand users being drawn in by accessibility, which is hard to realize for more open systems. But I don't really understand developers choosing Apple aside from monetary opportunities.
Macs try to go in a similar direction, so these comments saying I shouldn't care about app notarization are nothing but short sighted in my opinion. Because the security benefit is minuscule and new dangers like this pretty impalpable but nevertheless very real and the degree of enforcement of these mechanism will certainly increase as soon as Apple sees the opportunity.
>iPhones, iPads and the whole mobile device segment is useless if a company can decide the content. It will never be your device.
I don't like it either, but don't fool yourself: lots of people don't care. They don't care if it's "their device" or not. They're perfectly happy to pay $1200 for a high-end device they don't have full control of, because it signals wealth, and does what they want it to do.
Just look at how many people lease cars instead of buying them. It's not that different; they don't own those cars, they're really just renting them. They're not allowed to modify them, and can get in trouble if they don't follow the maintenance schedule or drive them too much. But for those people, they're fine with that.
>Microsoft tried the same crap with their store, which was fortunately rejected to a large degree.
This is probably for at least two reasons. 1) There was already a huge ecosystem of Windows software out there, long before MS tried to ape Apple. Those companies were already successful in selling their apps directly to customers, without having to give MS a 30% cut. Why would they want to adopt MS's new strategy? 2) MS being MS, they most likely bungled it in some way. This happens every time they try to ape Apple or someone else; the first few iterations are absolutely terrible and a big joke. Sometimes they persist and it finally works out for them, other times they finally give up (e.g., PlaysForSure, Zune).
I Jailbreak my own iPhone, and I'm personally delighted about checkm8. But for most people, this is yet another "unrealistic workaround".
Imagine you're a Hong Kong protester. You're spending a significant portion of your time in the streets, and the rest at work, or school, or whatever other life tasks you're responsible for. Do you really want to spend an hour reading up on how to Jailbreak your phone? And then, because this is a "tethered" Jailbreak, what happens if your phone reboots and you're not near a computer?
There is a balance to be struck here. Sideloading can't be too easy, lest people get tricked into doing it. But it shouldn't require more than five minutes, and it should be a one-time process. (Or at least nearly-one-time: making it annual might be reasonable.)
In principle code signing is a good idea, this way Apple can ensure an improved security standard over their competition.
But the downside is of course that Apple is in control, and like any corporation it will do things with that power that are unethical, immoral, anti-competitive, anti-consumer, etc. to the fullest possible imaginable degree.
Its like when you buy a DRM protected piece of content and that company revokes access in the future. Its entirely predictable and preventable.
Customers buy DRM content all the time and they buy Apple products instead of phones that give you freedom. Ignorance is not an excuse, I won't blame Apple, they aren't people, they just do what is natural in all corporations, I blame people/consumers, they deserve every single last bit of totalitarianism that is coming their way.
> In principle code signing is a good idea, this way Apple can ensure an improved security standard over their competition.
There is nothing wrong with code signing. There is everything wrong with making Apple the sole arbiter of mandatory code signing. It's the difference between being against locks, and being against someone else owning the keys to your house.
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> I won't blame Apple, they aren't people [...] I blame people/consumers
No, you can't blame people. It isn't the individual consumer's job to consider the ins and outs of how they may be limiting their free expression in the future. That's not realistic.
Corporations are not robots; Apple is run by people, and specifically people who should be considerably more knowledgable on this subject than the average consumer. They should feel some level of social responsibility.
This will not be the last time Apple ends up in this type of situation. I hope we have the right conversations about them, and I hope they make Apple hurt. Because this was entirely predictable, and entirely of Apple's own making.
Looking right at Adobe with Venezuela, U.S based company is taking an executive order at face value and cut off anyone there to using their products. It's worse now since Creative Cloud must be active to use the core tools, at first they weren't even going to refund anyone that just paid a year but luckily due to the outcry they will now allow refunds at least.
Being a software engineer I side with consumers more as I use a ton of services, but that's the flip side to the convince the consumer has absolutely no ownership to anything.
You sure about that? I mean yeah, "we" as in at least you and I, but the general public... I still enjoy https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html as prophetic fiction and occasionally remember that around 10 years ago Amazon in reality remotely deleted copies of Orwell's 1984 from kindle devices when Amazon learned that version of the book was put on their kindle store without authorization. (But at least on the issue here Amazon does better, it's not hard to load your own mobis or convert things to mobi format. I suspect the kindle would still be very popular without such ease though.)
> You sure about that? I mean yeah, "we" as in at least you and I, but the general public...
...no, sadly I'm not sure. The point I wanted to make is that banning certain apps is no better than banning certain books.
I originally wanted to write something like "We wouldn't be okay if certain books were banned on certain brands of bookshelves", precisely for the reason you mention—but I decided the comparison would be too weird.
That said, I don't think it's a coincidence that every e-reader (as far as I'm aware?) allows sideloading, including the Kindle line, which Amazon sells at a loss. The optics of any company "banning books" would just be too poor. I wish the optics on "banning software" were equally poor.
It's not your iphone/ipad/Macbook, it's Tim's iphone/ipad/Macbook that he deigns to let you use, but only at his pleasure and only to do what he thinks is OK.
This is why Apple will always be a second-class citizen to Android.
If I have a good reason, I can toggle a setting and install APKs built by anyone. If I have a good reason, I can wipe my phone and unlock the bootloader to literally replace and de-Google the entire OS.
When I buy a phone, it's a hardware product I'm buying. Just like when you buy a PC/laptop, what you run on it is your business, not the manufacturers. It's certain nice that Dell pre-loads Windows 10 on their laptops, but if I want to run Linux, I can.
>but I want my phone to just work
You also have the freedom to stay in the walled garden. The difference is you have to option to run different software if you so choose, and having that freedom is so much more important to me than how slick the UI is or how good the ecosystem is.
I don't own any Apple products, although I was strongly considering switching to iPhone a few years back. These recent developments confirm that I definitely made the right choice staying with Android.
That's funny: "Apple will always be a second-class citizen to Android"
You don't hear about 14 million iPhones being infected by malware[0], do you? Or malware stealing users' bank credentials[1]? Heck, there are people whose brand new phone comes pre-loaded with malware[2]. Oh, this one was just posted five hours ago -- applications on the Google Play store load with trojans and spyware[3].
I can keep going, but the point is: if any platform is "second-class", it's Android by far. I'll pick the one that doesn't have apps on its official App Store rooting my phone and installing spyware.
This argument reminds me of the gun control argument.
People in favour of "more guns" are fully aware that more guns means a more dangerous society. But they consider the freedom to choose whether to own guns more important than living in a statistically safer society.
Whereas, people in favour of "gun control" consider the safety of society overall to be much more important than the freedom to own devices designed to kill people.
To me, that's what Android vs iPhone represents with respect to freedom. Android gives you more freedom to choose different devices, but at the cost of most devices not getting security and OS updates.
Likewise, Android gives you the freedom to side-load all kinds of things onto your devices, and of course the Android ecosystem is chock-full of malware.
The proponent of freedom says, "Yes, I understand that this is a much more dangerous ecosystem, but I value the freedom to defend myself."
The proponent of safety says, "There are some dangers that are best met by a centralized, platform defence, not by individuals."
Philosophically, I understand both arguments, even if I am very clearly in one of the two camps with no interest whatsoever in switching to the other.
I'm technical so I like tinkering and don't care a whit for Apple's locked down ecosystem and it's cost of entry, so I avoid it. But I'm totally aware of the reasons Apple make their business decisions. Their loyal fan base and easy interoperability of their products is testament to this. It has brought many technological solutions into the hands of the non-technical consumer, which has benefitted us technical folks by bringing attention to what can be achieved by technology.
(I'm not crediting Apple with this in its entirety, far from it, but they brought non-technical attention to the technical arena)
Anyone on HN complaining that their iDevice doesn't give them sufficient 'freedom of ownership' is willfully ignorant of Apple's well publicized and infinitely discussed closed system strategy.
What an incredibly weak argument. Android absolutely destroys iOS in market share, it's not even a comparison. That's why it's targeted by malware writers. That doesn't mean it's any less secure than iOS. You have to try very hard to infect your phone.
I'd pick being able to run whatever I want over Apples choice of apps any day.
> You don't hear about 14 million iPhones being infected by malware
No, but I have heard of 400 million iPhones being infected by malware via Xcodeghost. This is serious data exfiltrating malware, not simply ad popup malware, and this is on the official app store and legitimately sourced devices unlike the malware in your first three links.
> If I have a good reason, I can toggle a setting and install APKs built by anyone. If I have a good reason, I can wipe my phone and unlock the bootloader to literally replace and de-Google the entire OS.
This is not possible for many (and I suspect the majority of) android phones.
> This is not possible for many (and I suspect the majority of) android phones.
But it is.
You can install APKs from anyone on any phone. It's a feature of the OS.
> I can wipe my phone and unlock the bootloader to literally replace and de-Google the entire OS.
I've never had an Android phone I couldn't unlock and flash. From the original Evo to Pixel 2.
I have an iPhone as of two months ago. I just wanted to try something new. The amount of restricted access to things is boggling. I can't even download an mp3 on Safari or Chrome. I thought I was doing something wrong and spent 2 hours trying to figure out what. Then I learned it was just the phone.
This is possible for pretty much all android phones. What's not necessarily possible for all phones is to root the phone but yes most android phones allow you to install apks downloaded via the browser after toggling "allow installation of apps from unknown sources" in the settings.
That's probably also the reason why GNU and FSF should get new momentum. In the 90s/00s there was good reason to get away from Windows because it was really unstable - and Apple being expensive and niche. Now both are kind of viable options for most things but the freedom to use whatever application one wants to use is definitely becoming more important.
So you can of course side load apps more easily on Android, but it isn’t super easy. I guess that matters less when people are motivated.
But... if this statement were true in spirit as well then why don’t we see google seizing this PR opportunity and making statements about the superiority of their App Store’s more liberal model? Why do we instead see Google quietly removing HK-protest related apps too?
I guess the moral is that both Apple and Google will kowtow to the desires of the Chinese government in these cases and it’s mostly circumstantial that Google cannot so thoroughly lock down their systems
In settings, enable "allow installation of apps from unknown sources". Then download the .apk file from your web browser / dropbox / whatever, and tap to install. It's literally a single-setting toggle to let you install any apk from anywhere.
It's pretty easy, in fact when I got a new phone and tried to install the f-droid apk, android took me directly to the setting to toggle side loading apps. The permissions seemed even a little more fine grained than before with a seperate one to allow f-droid to install apps also, but still only one tap away once I actually tried to do it.
> mostly circumstantial that Google cannot so thoroughly lock down their systems
You can say the same about any end to end encrypted service. Setting yourself up to not be able to bow to unreasonable request is the best defense and can be quite the extra effort. And I'm thankful for companies doing so.
Thing I don't understand why Apple made that decision. In their position I'd would have fought very hard to get gov (preferably HK) order the removal and then just "having to comply". But it's probably the natural consequence of wanting to curate entire availability beyond just in-store generate content (e.g. advertising, search ranking and so on). Again, it matters what you set yourself up to be.
> So you can of course side load apps more easily on Android, but it isn’t super easy. I guess that matters less when people are motivated.
Well, there's a balance here. If it's too easy, some users will be tricked into installing malware.
I think Android is a good compromise. If you're even a tiny bit technically inclined, you can enable sideloading in a couple of minutes at most, and it's a one-time process.
This is where the comment goes into “my opinion is fact and dissenting opinions are wrong.” There are millions of Apple customers who get their preferred OS by buying hardware directly from the OS developer. This has been a viable business model for Apple for long enough to just laugh at that sentence. Hating Apple is an identity, like a political party, and some are too invested for their ego to allow for simple factual observations.
Why does it have to be Android? It's another commercial closed-source OS and therefore the business interests controlling it will at some point conflict with a user's definition of freedom. There are FOSS alternatives easily found by searching.
"This is why Apple will always be a second-class citizen to Android."
Android wouldn't allow an app to be installed on official phones if Google didn't want so, and unofficial ones are built in China anyway plus often already ridden with spyware. The only workaround would be a 100% FOSS phone where the user is king and decides what would run or not.
Android has no way to prevent an APK from being installed. The only thing they can do is add the signature to Play Protect, which will just prompt you that the app may be unsafe, and you can disable it.
I think this is very serious and it should be a wake-up call.
As simple citizens we don't have much choices but vote with our wallets and use social networks to attack the most valuable asset of those companies, their reputation.
That’s not how this works. Apple is one of the wealthiest companies in the world, and saying “just don’t spend money there” is a bit reductionist and trivializes the problem of corporations with more power than nation-states.
You need to fight fire with fire: governments of the world (especially the US government) need to create laws that restrict and punish this kind of behavior. Otherwise, I sincerely doubt Apple’s going to even notice the missing couple hundred thousand dollars of revenue because of principled “voting with your wallet”.
> “just don’t spend money there” is a bit reductionist and trivializes the problem of corporations with more power than nation-states.
You're totally mistaken if you believe that boycotts and the like aren't taken seriously by big companies, especially companies like Apple where the brand is more important than the product. Of course, it all depends on the size of the boycott, but it doesn't have to cost them millions to become a major problem.
Homegrown sentiment against Apple will very quickly turn the company in the right direction. None of these large companies can afford to completely neglect their home territories.
How does that play out? The US and China would pass contradictory laws and then companies would have to choose which to follow. They will follow the money and we may not like the result.
Apples marketing claim in the recent years has been users privacy concerns. So why shouldn't such a move be also just as relevant as the marketing in the recent years?
I find it interesting how the blame shifting works these days. While with Blizzard, all the hate goes to Blizzard, with Apple there seem to be at least two fronts. One blaming Apple, the other aiming away from them towards China.
Apple is one of the wealthiest because people buy their products. No other reason. Before people started buying iphones, Apple had near to zero power. If they stop doing that, they'd not have power to restrict people's choices again. Hong Kong people are risking lives for freedom. Are US people ready to risk not having the latest greatest iphone, or maybe they don't need that damn freedom that much?
And we already see what government with laws created to restrict and punish behavior can do. Of course, our government will never do that, we know they'd always use their immense powers responsibly and for the good of the people, right? Right?!
I am almost always against more government regulation and firmly believe in the power of our collective wallets.
That being said, I try to hear out other viewpoints because it’s entirely possible that I am wrong. So, tell me, what law would fix this situation? A law that forces tech corporations to allow free speech? Or a law that forces companies to put ethics before profits? I genuinely don’t know what law we could make that would address the issue while also being fair and enforceable. It seems a lot easier to get the people to rally behind a boycott than to get legislators to have a good idea and actually act upon it.
> You need to fight fire with fire: governments of the world (especially the US government) need to create laws that restrict and punish this kind of behavior. Otherwise, I sincerely doubt Apple’s going to even notice the missing couple hundred thousand dollars of revenue because of principled “voting with your wallet”.
and as we all know, governments are becoming a thing of the past. too slow too bad. I welcome our technotopia overlords
> trivializes the problem of corporations with more power than nation-states.
But they don't have more power than nation states. Last I checked nation states had guns, and guns are still very much the real source of all power in this world.
Apple has a lot of money. That makes them economically dependent on a larger surface area of not only nation states but other corporations. In a way it gives them less power.
A more personal analogy: a regular old Joe or Jane can say anything they want on social media with little fear of anything bad happening because their economic dependency surface area is small. A corporate CEO must watch what they say much more carefully, as Elon Musk learned with his various stupid tweets. A government official on the other hand, like Trump, can say asinine provocative things all day with little consequence because he's in a high position in an organization with guns. Xi Jinpeng is even more immune as his government has fewer checks and balances.
In terms of practical freedom of speech and political/social action, being rich outside the protection of the state is probably the least powerful position you can be in.
There are lawmakers - both GOP and Democrat - who are in favor of recognizing social and app platforms as public squares. Such regulation would limit arbitrary corporate deplatforming.
I think that more effective than voting with your wallet is voting in your elections and communicating with your politicians. Even voting with your wallet by donating to support political action.
Collective action is more effective when it's done via law because that removes the incentive to defect for personal gain. It means that people not paying attention aren't accidentally contributing to immoral causes.
In a case like this collective action means things like putting tarrifs on goods from China, so that their workforce isn't important, and banning exports to China, so that their market isn't important. More direct laws like "no censoring what China wants you to censor" are problematic because it's hard to detect in most cases, and it often violates freedom of speech.
And yes, I'm suggesting a very painful thing to do economically.
I've been using Android since the beginning, and I think Google is making it worse and worse with each passing day. I was thinking of switching to Apple. I really like where they're going with this privacy stuff. But, no, not a chance. Fuck Apple forever over this decision. I will never buy an Apple product in my life unless they make this right.
On my Google Pixel 3a, I can download AOSP to my own computer, modify it how I wish, scrape the vendor dependencies I need[1], compile it myself, sign it myself, and use my own key to control what OS gets installed, then relock the bootloader so it only trusts updates using my key! I can choose not to use Google Play and then install whatever App I want on it.
I wish I could not have to use any proprietaryy binaries, but this is as close to an open device that you can get today [2].
[1] This is where the quasi defense comes in. AOSP has no official process to install all of the vendor binaries needed to support carriers. If you don't include this process you get broken SMS, Calling, WiFi Calling. This script helps you do it:
https://github.com/GrapheneOS/android-prepare-vendor
[2] Yes I know of the Librem 5. I am a day one backer and have yet to get a shipping notification despite shipping starting in Sept. I also know of the Pinephone, it is not publically available. I await the day those types of products are viable.
> ...I think Google is making it worse and worse with each passing day. I was thinking of switching to Apple...
As you have noticed, neither one really have consumer and citizen interests at heart.
I'm planning on taking the step of opting out completely. I plan to build my own "phone". I recently purchased a low-cost Mini-PCIe 4G module, antennas, and a USB adapter. I should be able to tether it to a RasPi.
My "phone" won't actually look like a phone; it's going to be more of a "data terminal" - something to hack on, send/receive data, and have SMS texting capabilities. I pretty much never use voice calling anyway.
Everything I plan on doing, others have already done in various forms. You can find Raspberry Pi based homebrew "cell phones". People have also made similar phones using the Arduino and the ESP microcontrollers (8266, 12, 32, etc), among others (there are probably PIC and Propellor based phones, too - heck, I wouldn't be surprised if someone repurposed a modern 8051 or 52, or Z80 core controller for such a device). Some of these phones are purely basic - make and take calls, maybe some stored phone numbers. Other run entire operating systems under-the-hood.
I guess what I am saying here is that if you have electronics hacking skills, consider a homebrew phone an option. It may not be pretty, it may not be svelte, it may not even be 4G (2 and 3G modules are cheaper and more common) - but it will be (mostly - unless you have your own mad skills at FPGA design and more) yours.
Bonus points if you make it run on TempleOS!
If you don't have those skills? Well - it wouldn't be a bad project to work towards. Don't take it on as your "first project" though - instead, build up to it, then when you think you have enough experience to take it on, go thru your idea, break it down into manageable parts, and work on those individually for small successes, and later, start merging them together - just like any large project, success is more a matter of "divide and conquer", as looking at it as a whole can lead to feeling inadequate, or being demoralized at finishing, etc...
Apple is pulling an app that's available online as a web site. Google assists the Chinese military in developing AI to round up muslims for organ harvesting.
No, this is companies betting that the few percent of the American market they are losing by behaving this way will be outweighed by getting access to the Chinese market.
If this was a straight-up choice between only the US market or only the Chinese market, they would be picking the US.
Depending on the year either the EU or the USA are the biggest economy with China being either second or third. So long as 'the west' sticks together (which we haven't for the past few years) there is nothing that can break that hegemony. Whether that's a good thing depends largely on where you live.
So far no one has had to choose. If the US started sanctioning US companies that took these kinds of actions, then we'd find out as companies either reversed their decisions or fled the US.
It's not "now" Apple. Apple has been serving the criminal Chinese government for years now. Even Facebook and Google have been doing so, even going so far as to build censorship into their products specifically for the Chinese government.
The only thing that gives me pause is thinking would the Chinese be better off without access to any Apple or Blizzard products at all? Because I think that is ultimately the threat of not following the mandates.
That is unfortunately the essence of the issue surfacing with South Park, Blizzard, NBA, & now Apple. The Chinese market is the "wallet" and China is "voting" with it.
They have the ability to almost instantly evaporate a multi-billion dollar market. That is the kind of "wallet power" (somewhat idealistic) democratic-capitalist consumers like to think they have, but never really execute on with the same impact. This isn't defeatism on my part - things could be different - but they aren't for now.
As someone who has appreciated the privacy stance Apple has had and the privacy assisting steps it has taken for a long time (long before iPhone), I believe Apple is coming out to be completely hypocritical and anti-privacy/anti-freedom on this app. I cannot believe that Tim Cook and other senior executives haven't examined this deeper and taken a bold stance to let the app stay! Shame on you, Apple!
Even John Gruber agrees: [1]
> I still haven’t seen which local laws it violates, other than the unwritten law of pissing off Beijing.
> This is a bad look for Apple, if you think capitulation is a bad look.
Apple only cares about privacy because it's a threat to Google and Facebook's business model. They don't care about privacy, they only care about "caring about privacy" when it is good for their business.
Well the same can be said about human rights, they only care about it when it affects their business model in a positive way. if it cost them money they are very willing to turn their backs on it.
privacy is not possible in a world where governments are free to suppress the speech and will of the people. any company claiming otherwise simply sees their bottom line as more important than people, whether they are employees or customers.
To me Apple is the worst here because Tim and team have no shame, they will strut upon their stage at their own conferences about how they stand for rights but when the show lights are off they act completely different.
At a more basic level, apple doesnt see people as customers. They have already maxed out thier target market. Expansion now turns on access to new markets: the will of governments. Governments are now the customer. Any app that angers them is for the block.
Right, and in marketing-speak it's called positioning. Taking a privacy stance allowed Apple to differentiate against their competitors without actually innovating.
If I took a slightly less black and white stance, I would say that totally stand for privacy and human rights, in the United States.
Isn't is possible (yes) for people to care about principles in their homeland, where it matters to them more and impacts them more? I care a lot more about my hometown than BFE Chinese countryside, even though in principle I want them to have a living wage, decent time off, and good health care.
I am still angry at Apple, the NBA, Blizzard and the rest. I think this is a darker shade of grey, though.
Privacy is cheap to engineer because it involves not doing things or hiring more people. They won't allow actions, won't sync data, won't pursue advanced ML, etc etc. It's a clever way to say, "Keeping up with Chrome/Android is hard".
Privacy is good. By being better for privacy than the worlds largest advertising company/consumer spy agency, Apple announced its intent to be for all that is good in the world. That it's a shining beacon of morality. Protector of Italian virginity.
China is bad. By capitulating to them after having declared themselves the enforcer of all that is good and holy, Apple has thus committed hypocrisy.
While there are privacy concerns from the precedent it sets (can a journalist trust Apple not to bend to CPP information requests?), I agree that this seems to conflate privacy with an only indirectly-related subject.
Agreed! If Apple caves in to Chinese pressure on this, what else will they do? Does Xi Jinping's brutal authoritarian regime now effectively make decisions for Apple abroad, since they can always threaten to cut Apple out of the lucrative mainland market?
They are fine to piss off US government, because they know US government will play by the rules and let them do it. China won't, so as soon as China gives them a dirty look, they wet their pants and bend over.
Nothing in Twitter photo statement talks about privacy. It's clear why the app is problematic: It's being used to target law enforcement, putting those people into danger. The debate here should be between the tradeoff of said danger versus the dangers to the protesters, factoring in the standing-up-to-China.
The privacy stance is just marketing. They have handed over iCloud keys and data to the state in China already. If they cared about privacy over market dominance that wouldn’t have happened.
Unfortunately as an iOS user tied to the ecosystem this puts me in a difficult situation ethically speaking. I am sponsoring this.
Perhaps I should stop buying into corporate marketing ideologies. Got burned by that before (Microsoft))
It's really not a matter of ideology, it's a matter of law. They either comply with Chinese law, or they risk their employees being arrested for breaking the law, or they stop doing business in China.
I think they would argue that, given that all phones are subject to state surveillance, iPhone users in China are no worse off than if they were using another phone. Also since iPhones are generally a lot more secure than other phones against non-state attacks, they are actually better off than they would otherwise be.
That's a tough call. I have family in China, since my wife is Chinese, and they have iPhones. Would they be better off if Apple pulled out of Chine or worse off?
Well, they chose iPhones and they are more secure so isn't it up to them? They wouldn't thank me if I took their iPhones away. On the other hand, if Apple pulled out of China on privacy grounds, it would be massive news. It would not be something the Chinese government could ignore, and might conceivably raise awareness of pervasive state surveillance in China.
But people in China are already very much aware of pervasive state surveillance. They even have a social credit system based on watching everything they do. Chinese state control of public narratives is so total, I actually doubt it would make any difference.
There's a fatal flaw to this approach though. The world is regressing into surveillance because quite frankly the mechanisms are already there and it's easy. What happens if someone in the US or the UK start using the justification of "well you did this in China so we'll legislate so you do that here". Someone has to make a stand and the people running the apparatus purposed to make this possible are morally culpable for the outcome to some degree for making it technically possible to do so.
The world is not that a big place. It doesn't take a lot for this to end up on everyone's laps and then it's too late to say I told you so.
Apple has not handed over the iCloud keys and has testified in the US under penalty of perjury that they have not done this and not made an exception for China. Repeating this is dangerous because it’ll cause people to take different (probably less safe and private) actions based on incorrect information.
> has testified in the US under penalty of perjury that they have not done this
Craig Federighi testified that he’s not aware of them doing it. That doesn’t preclude the possibility that it has been done by someone else in the company without his knowledge.
They did it in two steps. Apple forced users to opt into storing iCloud data in Chinese data centers, and then the Chinese Government nationalized the data centers six month later.
> They have handed over iCloud keys and data to the state in China already.
Have they not regularly done so in the U.S. too? I thought the recent-ish drama with them refusing to unlock phones was that they were being asked to break into their own secure enclave system, taking an unreasonable amount of effort and permanently making their own product less secure?
They're a big company but they're still a company. They have to abide by the laws of whatever countries they're operating in.
Readit News
Apple should never have been capable of making such a drastic decision for all of their customers. It's one thing to make determinations about what products are allowed in your store, but quite another to unilaterally ban software from what is many people's primary computer. We live in a digital age, and software is a form of free expression. We wouldn't find this acceptable with eBooks, and we should not find it acceptable for applications.
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† Unrealistic workarounds include paying $100 per year for a developer account, reinstalling the app once every seven days, or finding a shady, stolen enterprise certificate. These are not real alternatives for 99% of people.
Make the app a Web App and visit it in Safari.
Apple has banned it being notarized and distributed from their App Store but iPhones still have access to the conventional web which Apple has no control over.
Is the web censored in HK?
You mean years ago?
Not that I support this move by Apple, but ... how is this different from them rejecting any application for any reason? We've had a ton of stories on HN of them doing that (for various different reasons)...
Apple's position was never okay, and I hope this situation makes more people realize that.
I know right? It's crazy people pay more money for less.
I'm not sure how to teach Apple users, they seem to find an excuse for every anti-consumer thing they do.
There are real benefits to having a curated, sandboxed, and audited selection of safe, quality software. Most users should never need to leave such an environment
What is necessary is an escape hatch—one that doesn't involve continual software reinstalls, or outright buying new hardware. It's fine to hide the option away in settings, where most users won't find it. But in extraordinary circumstances—like when your city is rioting against your government—people will help each other locate the switch, and download what they need to stay safe.
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It's not that they're paying more for less; it's that they're paying more for a curated less. For the vast majority of Apple's customers, this works out great (provided they aren't ever going to engage in an antigovernment protest).
Please don't get it twisted. What Apple does has value to many people; it's not as black-and-white as you seem to make it out to be.
There is nothing on this world, nothing, is good anytime anywhere to anyone.
Hopefully this alleviates the immediate negative consequences of the removal.
Microsoft tried the same crap with their store, which was fortunately rejected to a large degree. The future of software shouldn't look so backwards. I can understand users being drawn in by accessibility, which is hard to realize for more open systems. But I don't really understand developers choosing Apple aside from monetary opportunities.
Macs try to go in a similar direction, so these comments saying I shouldn't care about app notarization are nothing but short sighted in my opinion. Because the security benefit is minuscule and new dangers like this pretty impalpable but nevertheless very real and the degree of enforcement of these mechanism will certainly increase as soon as Apple sees the opportunity.
Overall a crappy platform to develop against.
I don't like it either, but don't fool yourself: lots of people don't care. They don't care if it's "their device" or not. They're perfectly happy to pay $1200 for a high-end device they don't have full control of, because it signals wealth, and does what they want it to do.
Just look at how many people lease cars instead of buying them. It's not that different; they don't own those cars, they're really just renting them. They're not allowed to modify them, and can get in trouble if they don't follow the maintenance schedule or drive them too much. But for those people, they're fine with that.
>Microsoft tried the same crap with their store, which was fortunately rejected to a large degree.
This is probably for at least two reasons. 1) There was already a huge ecosystem of Windows software out there, long before MS tried to ape Apple. Those companies were already successful in selling their apps directly to customers, without having to give MS a 30% cut. Why would they want to adopt MS's new strategy? 2) MS being MS, they most likely bungled it in some way. This happens every time they try to ape Apple or someone else; the first few iterations are absolutely terrible and a big joke. Sometimes they persist and it finally works out for them, other times they finally give up (e.g., PlaysForSure, Zune).
Imagine you're a Hong Kong protester. You're spending a significant portion of your time in the streets, and the rest at work, or school, or whatever other life tasks you're responsible for. Do you really want to spend an hour reading up on how to Jailbreak your phone? And then, because this is a "tethered" Jailbreak, what happens if your phone reboots and you're not near a computer?
There is a balance to be struck here. Sideloading can't be too easy, lest people get tricked into doing it. But it shouldn't require more than five minutes, and it should be a one-time process. (Or at least nearly-one-time: making it annual might be reasonable.)
But the downside is of course that Apple is in control, and like any corporation it will do things with that power that are unethical, immoral, anti-competitive, anti-consumer, etc. to the fullest possible imaginable degree.
Its like when you buy a DRM protected piece of content and that company revokes access in the future. Its entirely predictable and preventable.
Customers buy DRM content all the time and they buy Apple products instead of phones that give you freedom. Ignorance is not an excuse, I won't blame Apple, they aren't people, they just do what is natural in all corporations, I blame people/consumers, they deserve every single last bit of totalitarianism that is coming their way.
There is nothing wrong with code signing. There is everything wrong with making Apple the sole arbiter of mandatory code signing. It's the difference between being against locks, and being against someone else owning the keys to your house.
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> I won't blame Apple, they aren't people [...] I blame people/consumers
No, you can't blame people. It isn't the individual consumer's job to consider the ins and outs of how they may be limiting their free expression in the future. That's not realistic.
Corporations are not robots; Apple is run by people, and specifically people who should be considerably more knowledgable on this subject than the average consumer. They should feel some level of social responsibility.
This will not be the last time Apple ends up in this type of situation. I hope we have the right conversations about them, and I hope they make Apple hurt. Because this was entirely predictable, and entirely of Apple's own making.
Being a software engineer I side with consumers more as I use a ton of services, but that's the flip side to the convince the consumer has absolutely no ownership to anything.
You sure about that? I mean yeah, "we" as in at least you and I, but the general public... I still enjoy https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html as prophetic fiction and occasionally remember that around 10 years ago Amazon in reality remotely deleted copies of Orwell's 1984 from kindle devices when Amazon learned that version of the book was put on their kindle store without authorization. (But at least on the issue here Amazon does better, it's not hard to load your own mobis or convert things to mobi format. I suspect the kindle would still be very popular without such ease though.)
...no, sadly I'm not sure. The point I wanted to make is that banning certain apps is no better than banning certain books.
I originally wanted to write something like "We wouldn't be okay if certain books were banned on certain brands of bookshelves", precisely for the reason you mention—but I decided the comparison would be too weird.
That said, I don't think it's a coincidence that every e-reader (as far as I'm aware?) allows sideloading, including the Kindle line, which Amazon sells at a loss. The optics of any company "banning books" would just be too poor. I wish the optics on "banning software" were equally poor.
It's not your iphone/ipad/Macbook, it's Tim's iphone/ipad/Macbook that he deigns to let you use, but only at his pleasure and only to do what he thinks is OK.
Dead Comment
If I have a good reason, I can toggle a setting and install APKs built by anyone. If I have a good reason, I can wipe my phone and unlock the bootloader to literally replace and de-Google the entire OS.
When I buy a phone, it's a hardware product I'm buying. Just like when you buy a PC/laptop, what you run on it is your business, not the manufacturers. It's certain nice that Dell pre-loads Windows 10 on their laptops, but if I want to run Linux, I can.
>but I want my phone to just work
You also have the freedom to stay in the walled garden. The difference is you have to option to run different software if you so choose, and having that freedom is so much more important to me than how slick the UI is or how good the ecosystem is.
I don't own any Apple products, although I was strongly considering switching to iPhone a few years back. These recent developments confirm that I definitely made the right choice staying with Android.
You don't hear about 14 million iPhones being infected by malware[0], do you? Or malware stealing users' bank credentials[1]? Heck, there are people whose brand new phone comes pre-loaded with malware[2]. Oh, this one was just posted five hours ago -- applications on the Google Play store load with trojans and spyware[3].
I can keep going, but the point is: if any platform is "second-class", it's Android by far. I'll pick the one that doesn't have apps on its official App Store rooting my phone and installing spyware.
[0] https://www.zdnet.com/article/copycat-android-malware-infect...
[1] https://android.gadgethacks.com/news/new-android-malware-is-...
[2] https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/206574/how-to-re...
[3] https://www.zdnet.com/article/gaming-photo-apps-in-google-pl...
People in favour of "more guns" are fully aware that more guns means a more dangerous society. But they consider the freedom to choose whether to own guns more important than living in a statistically safer society.
Whereas, people in favour of "gun control" consider the safety of society overall to be much more important than the freedom to own devices designed to kill people.
To me, that's what Android vs iPhone represents with respect to freedom. Android gives you more freedom to choose different devices, but at the cost of most devices not getting security and OS updates.
Likewise, Android gives you the freedom to side-load all kinds of things onto your devices, and of course the Android ecosystem is chock-full of malware.
The proponent of freedom says, "Yes, I understand that this is a much more dangerous ecosystem, but I value the freedom to defend myself."
The proponent of safety says, "There are some dangers that are best met by a centralized, platform defence, not by individuals."
Philosophically, I understand both arguments, even if I am very clearly in one of the two camps with no interest whatsoever in switching to the other.
I'm technical so I like tinkering and don't care a whit for Apple's locked down ecosystem and it's cost of entry, so I avoid it. But I'm totally aware of the reasons Apple make their business decisions. Their loyal fan base and easy interoperability of their products is testament to this. It has brought many technological solutions into the hands of the non-technical consumer, which has benefitted us technical folks by bringing attention to what can be achieved by technology.
(I'm not crediting Apple with this in its entirety, far from it, but they brought non-technical attention to the technical arena)
Anyone on HN complaining that their iDevice doesn't give them sufficient 'freedom of ownership' is willfully ignorant of Apple's well publicized and infinitely discussed closed system strategy.
P.S. LineageOS for the win.
I'd pick being able to run whatever I want over Apples choice of apps any day.
No, but I have heard of 400 million iPhones being infected by malware via Xcodeghost. This is serious data exfiltrating malware, not simply ad popup malware, and this is on the official app store and legitimately sourced devices unlike the malware in your first three links.
This is not possible for many (and I suspect the majority of) android phones.
But it is.
You can install APKs from anyone on any phone. It's a feature of the OS.
> I can wipe my phone and unlock the bootloader to literally replace and de-Google the entire OS.
I've never had an Android phone I couldn't unlock and flash. From the original Evo to Pixel 2.
I have an iPhone as of two months ago. I just wanted to try something new. The amount of restricted access to things is boggling. I can't even download an mp3 on Safari or Chrome. I thought I was doing something wrong and spent 2 hours trying to figure out what. Then I learned it was just the phone.
But... if this statement were true in spirit as well then why don’t we see google seizing this PR opportunity and making statements about the superiority of their App Store’s more liberal model? Why do we instead see Google quietly removing HK-protest related apps too?
I guess the moral is that both Apple and Google will kowtow to the desires of the Chinese government in these cases and it’s mostly circumstantial that Google cannot so thoroughly lock down their systems
In settings, enable "allow installation of apps from unknown sources". Then download the .apk file from your web browser / dropbox / whatever, and tap to install. It's literally a single-setting toggle to let you install any apk from anywhere.
>Google quietly removing HK-protest related apps
Like what? The app that Apple removed is alive and well in the Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=live.hkmap.app...
It's pretty easy, in fact when I got a new phone and tried to install the f-droid apk, android took me directly to the setting to toggle side loading apps. The permissions seemed even a little more fine grained than before with a seperate one to allow f-droid to install apps also, but still only one tap away once I actually tried to do it.
You can say the same about any end to end encrypted service. Setting yourself up to not be able to bow to unreasonable request is the best defense and can be quite the extra effort. And I'm thankful for companies doing so.
Thing I don't understand why Apple made that decision. In their position I'd would have fought very hard to get gov (preferably HK) order the removal and then just "having to comply". But it's probably the natural consequence of wanting to curate entire availability beyond just in-store generate content (e.g. advertising, search ranking and so on). Again, it matters what you set yourself up to be.
Well, there's a balance here. If it's too easy, some users will be tricked into installing malware.
I think Android is a good compromise. If you're even a tiny bit technically inclined, you can enable sideloading in a couple of minutes at most, and it's a one-time process.
Dead Comment
Not to me.
What do you mean? Android is FOSS not closed-source.
Android wouldn't allow an app to be installed on official phones if Google didn't want so, and unofficial ones are built in China anyway plus often already ridden with spyware. The only workaround would be a 100% FOSS phone where the user is king and decides what would run or not.
Pine64.org devs, are you listening?
And if they can, what stops a user from swizzling identifiers for the APK and reinstalling it?
This is why we need to support efforts to create and maintain such platforms. Even taking a moment to spread the word is helpful here.
Dead Comment
"the foxes have verified that the app has been used by hens to ambush foxes"
Deleted Comment
I think this is very serious and it should be a wake-up call.
As simple citizens we don't have much choices but vote with our wallets and use social networks to attack the most valuable asset of those companies, their reputation.
You need to fight fire with fire: governments of the world (especially the US government) need to create laws that restrict and punish this kind of behavior. Otherwise, I sincerely doubt Apple’s going to even notice the missing couple hundred thousand dollars of revenue because of principled “voting with your wallet”.
You're totally mistaken if you believe that boycotts and the like aren't taken seriously by big companies, especially companies like Apple where the brand is more important than the product. Of course, it all depends on the size of the boycott, but it doesn't have to cost them millions to become a major problem.
Apples marketing claim in the recent years has been users privacy concerns. So why shouldn't such a move be also just as relevant as the marketing in the recent years?
I find it interesting how the blame shifting works these days. While with Blizzard, all the hate goes to Blizzard, with Apple there seem to be at least two fronts. One blaming Apple, the other aiming away from them towards China.
And we already see what government with laws created to restrict and punish behavior can do. Of course, our government will never do that, we know they'd always use their immense powers responsibly and for the good of the people, right? Right?!
That being said, I try to hear out other viewpoints because it’s entirely possible that I am wrong. So, tell me, what law would fix this situation? A law that forces tech corporations to allow free speech? Or a law that forces companies to put ethics before profits? I genuinely don’t know what law we could make that would address the issue while also being fair and enforceable. It seems a lot easier to get the people to rally behind a boycott than to get legislators to have a good idea and actually act upon it.
and as we all know, governments are becoming a thing of the past. too slow too bad. I welcome our technotopia overlords
But they don't have more power than nation states. Last I checked nation states had guns, and guns are still very much the real source of all power in this world.
Apple has a lot of money. That makes them economically dependent on a larger surface area of not only nation states but other corporations. In a way it gives them less power.
A more personal analogy: a regular old Joe or Jane can say anything they want on social media with little fear of anything bad happening because their economic dependency surface area is small. A corporate CEO must watch what they say much more carefully, as Elon Musk learned with his various stupid tweets. A government official on the other hand, like Trump, can say asinine provocative things all day with little consequence because he's in a high position in an organization with guns. Xi Jinpeng is even more immune as his government has fewer checks and balances.
In terms of practical freedom of speech and political/social action, being rich outside the protection of the state is probably the least powerful position you can be in.
Deleted Comment
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/22/repost-the-non-liberta...
(search for sections 2.3 and 2.3.1)
That the tech industry has been a primary player in enabling this.
Each and every one of us needs to have a nice long think about our own ethics and what we're willing to support.
Collective action is more effective when it's done via law because that removes the incentive to defect for personal gain. It means that people not paying attention aren't accidentally contributing to immoral causes.
In a case like this collective action means things like putting tarrifs on goods from China, so that their workforce isn't important, and banning exports to China, so that their market isn't important. More direct laws like "no censoring what China wants you to censor" are problematic because it's hard to detect in most cases, and it often violates freedom of speech.
And yes, I'm suggesting a very painful thing to do economically.
On my Google Pixel 3a, I can download AOSP to my own computer, modify it how I wish, scrape the vendor dependencies I need[1], compile it myself, sign it myself, and use my own key to control what OS gets installed, then relock the bootloader so it only trusts updates using my key! I can choose not to use Google Play and then install whatever App I want on it.
I wish I could not have to use any proprietaryy binaries, but this is as close to an open device that you can get today [2].
[1] This is where the quasi defense comes in. AOSP has no official process to install all of the vendor binaries needed to support carriers. If you don't include this process you get broken SMS, Calling, WiFi Calling. This script helps you do it: https://github.com/GrapheneOS/android-prepare-vendor
[2] Yes I know of the Librem 5. I am a day one backer and have yet to get a shipping notification despite shipping starting in Sept. I also know of the Pinephone, it is not publically available. I await the day those types of products are viable.
As you have noticed, neither one really have consumer and citizen interests at heart.
I'm planning on taking the step of opting out completely. I plan to build my own "phone". I recently purchased a low-cost Mini-PCIe 4G module, antennas, and a USB adapter. I should be able to tether it to a RasPi.
My "phone" won't actually look like a phone; it's going to be more of a "data terminal" - something to hack on, send/receive data, and have SMS texting capabilities. I pretty much never use voice calling anyway.
Everything I plan on doing, others have already done in various forms. You can find Raspberry Pi based homebrew "cell phones". People have also made similar phones using the Arduino and the ESP microcontrollers (8266, 12, 32, etc), among others (there are probably PIC and Propellor based phones, too - heck, I wouldn't be surprised if someone repurposed a modern 8051 or 52, or Z80 core controller for such a device). Some of these phones are purely basic - make and take calls, maybe some stored phone numbers. Other run entire operating systems under-the-hood.
I guess what I am saying here is that if you have electronics hacking skills, consider a homebrew phone an option. It may not be pretty, it may not be svelte, it may not even be 4G (2 and 3G modules are cheaper and more common) - but it will be (mostly - unless you have your own mad skills at FPGA design and more) yours.
Bonus points if you make it run on TempleOS!
If you don't have those skills? Well - it wouldn't be a bad project to work towards. Don't take it on as your "first project" though - instead, build up to it, then when you think you have enough experience to take it on, go thru your idea, break it down into manageable parts, and work on those individually for small successes, and later, start merging them together - just like any large project, success is more a matter of "divide and conquer", as looking at it as a whole can lead to feeling inadequate, or being demoralized at finishing, etc...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqWVH38jtQo
Apple is responding to a threat from China, whereas Google is actively assisting the Chinese. Just thought you'd like to know that.
If this was a straight-up choice between only the US market or only the Chinese market, they would be picking the US.
Protestors have to change that calculus.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21202793
They have the ability to almost instantly evaporate a multi-billion dollar market. That is the kind of "wallet power" (somewhat idealistic) democratic-capitalist consumers like to think they have, but never really execute on with the same impact. This isn't defeatism on my part - things could be different - but they aren't for now.
Easy. So easy.
Dead Comment
-Apple, 1983
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_(advertisement)
- Oct 6th: Apple first rejected the app [0],
- Oct 8th: Apple then approved it after criticism for rejection [1]
- Oct 9th: Apple removed it after criticism from the CPC (this story)
[0]: https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/apple-hk-protest-map...
[1]: https://www.scmp.com/tech/apps-social/article/3032001/apple-...
"HKmap.live, [...], received approval from Apple on October 4 and was made available for download on October 5, according to the developer"
Even John Gruber agrees: [1]
> I still haven’t seen which local laws it violates, other than the unwritten law of pissing off Beijing.
> This is a bad look for Apple, if you think capitulation is a bad look.
[1]: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/10/10/apple-pulls-hkm...
privacy is not possible in a world where governments are free to suppress the speech and will of the people. any company claiming otherwise simply sees their bottom line as more important than people, whether they are employees or customers.
To me Apple is the worst here because Tim and team have no shame, they will strut upon their stage at their own conferences about how they stand for rights but when the show lights are off they act completely different.
The chances that they keep up an app that people use to gain unwanted transparency into any state is exactly 0%
The framework needs to change. It's possible for the value of a company to be judged on more than just revenues.
Isn't is possible (yes) for people to care about principles in their homeland, where it matters to them more and impacts them more? I care a lot more about my hometown than BFE Chinese countryside, even though in principle I want them to have a living wage, decent time off, and good health care.
I am still angry at Apple, the NBA, Blizzard and the rest. I think this is a darker shade of grey, though.
China is bad. By capitulating to them after having declared themselves the enforcer of all that is good and holy, Apple has thus committed hypocrisy.
Deleted Comment
Unfortunately as an iOS user tied to the ecosystem this puts me in a difficult situation ethically speaking. I am sponsoring this.
Perhaps I should stop buying into corporate marketing ideologies. Got burned by that before (Microsoft))
I think they would argue that, given that all phones are subject to state surveillance, iPhone users in China are no worse off than if they were using another phone. Also since iPhones are generally a lot more secure than other phones against non-state attacks, they are actually better off than they would otherwise be.
That's a tough call. I have family in China, since my wife is Chinese, and they have iPhones. Would they be better off if Apple pulled out of Chine or worse off?
Well, they chose iPhones and they are more secure so isn't it up to them? They wouldn't thank me if I took their iPhones away. On the other hand, if Apple pulled out of China on privacy grounds, it would be massive news. It would not be something the Chinese government could ignore, and might conceivably raise awareness of pervasive state surveillance in China.
But people in China are already very much aware of pervasive state surveillance. They even have a social credit system based on watching everything they do. Chinese state control of public narratives is so total, I actually doubt it would make any difference.
The world is not that a big place. It doesn't take a lot for this to end up on everyone's laps and then it's too late to say I told you so.
I mean, in the end it's the same thing as the classic "I didn't do anything wrong, I've been following orders".
The FBI requesting a backdoor to terrorist iphones was the exact same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_San_Bernardino_attack#Pho...
Apple decided to comply with China to keep access to the market.
Craig Federighi testified that he’s not aware of them doing it. That doesn’t preclude the possibility that it has been done by someone else in the company without his knowledge.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208351
Can you link to a source showing that Apple didn't turn over control of iCloud in China to the CCP?
Not only has Apple given the iCloud keys to the kingdom to China, iCloud is actually run by the state in China
Fundamentally they moved their kit into a state owned data centre.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208351
Have they not regularly done so in the U.S. too? I thought the recent-ish drama with them refusing to unlock phones was that they were being asked to break into their own secure enclave system, taking an unreasonable amount of effort and permanently making their own product less secure?
They're a big company but they're still a company. They have to abide by the laws of whatever countries they're operating in.