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Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store

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1704 points ardit33 | 4 comments | 13 Aug 20 19:03 UTC | HN request time: 0.005s | source
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mapgrep ◴[13 Aug 20 21:45 UTC] No.24149792[source]▶
You could argue about Apple's rights, or citizens' free speech rights, or consumer rights, under existing law. It would be an interesting discussion because I think it's a lot more complicated an issue that most people appreciate.

But really why not talk about how we think things should work on platforms like iOS? What should the law be? What protects essential human rights, encourages creativity, and allows business to function to some extent?

Personally, I would argue that consumers should have a legal right to install whatever software they wish on a product they have purchased, including onto the bundled operating system. I don't think it should be permissible for a company like Apple (or Microsoft or whoever) to sell me a gadget and then use various sorts of locks to try to keep me from putting whatever apps or app stores or services I like on it.

Does anyone have any argument for why this right would be a bad thing? People would get bad software on their phones, but last I checked, this is happening already, including on iOS. Apple would lose some margin, but last I checked, their investment in creating and maintaining iOS has been handsomely rewarded and would surely continue to be.

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tommymachine ◴[14 Aug 20 07:55 UTC] No.24155099[source]▶
Customers do have the right to install whatever they want. Apple just doesn’t have to facilitate making it super easy for them to do that if they don’t think it contributes to the health of the platform & their business model.
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saagarjha ◴[14 Aug 20 10:35 UTC] No.24156167[source]▶
Super easy? There is no way to install an app in your iPhone to export you iMessages or render websites using Gecko short of exploiting it.
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tommymachine ◴[14 Aug 20 14:58 UTC] No.24158741[source]▶
If you want a messaging app that’s easier to hack you can always download one. See: Jeff Bezos‘ WhatsApp hacked
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saagarjha ◴[14 Aug 20 15:48 UTC] No.24159461[source]▶
I’m having trouble engaging with your comment in good faith when it looks like you’re implying that the ability to access messages I have sent that are sitting locked up in my own device makes it “easier to hack”?
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1. tommymachine ◴[14 Aug 20 16:21 UTC] No.24159871[source]▶
I’m sorry you’re having trouble.

You can always touch & hold a message, & select “Copy” to export an individual message. You can also screen shot your messages, or simply view them in the app.

How does not allowing batch export of sms messages to other apps stop you from accessing them?

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2. saagarjha ◴[19 Aug 20 03:25 UTC] No.24206854[source]▶
That's useful if you want to share a couple of messages with someone else, not if you're looking to archive them. Try finding a message you sent on August 15, 2015, or saving a copy of your messages from 2018–you can't. Again, your tone and choice to pick a strange meaning of the word "access" when it is fairly obvious which definition I am talking about (to the point where you clearly knew what I was saying, since you quoted it) is not welcome.
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3. tommymachine ◴[01 Sep 20 12:37 UTC] No.24341111[source]▶
Saying that one cannot access one’s texts on an iPhone is quite the hyperbole. It would be a bit of a hassle, sure, to locate a text on a specific day if one had many messages in the thread since then. One may have to scroll for quite sometime. I wouldn’t call that blocking access. One can always search for the text based on its content. If one transfers one’s data to one’s new phone, all the texts would transfer as well. So they aren’t deleted by any means, unless one deletes them oneself or gets rid of one’s old device without transferring them.

Batch exporting text messages is an wholly different thing from simply accessing them. The only confusion about the meaning of the word “access” seems to be on your end. You appear to intend it to mean something like “having all the features that I personally want in order to best facilitate the activities I desire to do with the highest priority, disregarding the popular use cases entirely” which frankly is an insane definition of the word “access”, and deserves probably a much harsher tone than it’s been given thus far. The fact that you still appear to be standing by it as a serious definition is even more shocking.

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4. saagarjha ◴[01 Sep 20 18:03 UTC] No.24344754{3}[source]▶
I am using "access" in the same way you might access funds from your bank, which I hope includes the usecase of "I want to withdraw all my money" rather than "I can only take out the last $1000 I put in". I would actually be much more lenient iMessage organized messages better, as many other chat apps do, but it doesn't–I can't search by date, I can't sort attachments by filesize or even given an attachment jump to where it was sent (a big problem if you get sent videos!), if you scroll too far the app scrolls to a crawl, to say nothing of how little you must value your time to want to do that. I am merely frustrated that an app that provides no way of doing fairly common things also blocks people from doing this in any other way, and in doing so effectively does prevent people from accessing their data.