What I’ll say in Apples defense is they largely are what they say they are. You may not like what Apple provides, which is fair, but at least you know what you’re getting.
Hence why I have never owned and never will own an apple product. Google used to have the company of motto of Don’t Be Evil. Everyone should have jumped ship when they deliverately removed that from the record.
Are we seriously going to pretend that a single person can be wholly evil? Much less a company of 200k people.
Even if Google takes this huge step of requiring their blessing for every Android developer (which Apple has ALWAYS had on their side), they will still be better (by my estimation) along the freedom dimension than Apple. Maybe too far removed for my involvement, but better nonetheless.
I would agree insomuch as Google’s privacy issues are better known.
Nonetheless, we are comparing two jail cells. One has a finger-puzzle that opens the cell-doors (and an obvious surveillance camera), and the other one is securely locked with a less-obvious/hidden camera (iphone backups)… and the issue at hand is akin to removing the finger-puzzle because the captives keep opening it to let baddies join them.
That didn’t stop Apple from handing over backups to the FBI that were swiftly decrypted after several high profile incidents (like the San Bernadino shooting), and I assume it would be even less difficult for them to fork over info for another Snowden if they use Apple products.
Because guess what? They don’t have them. They don’t want them. Apple’s business is selling hardware, not collecting your data that they would then be liable for. Their business model is not predicated on data mining and collection. Google’s is.
This is not to absolve Apple; they are after all a major corporation and therefore inherently evil prima facie. But I don’t worry about them selling or leaking my data.
Fair, but I think that while Apple is generally more authoritarian with regard to developer experience, they’re less user-hostile overall and generally strike a good (at least compared to the current alternatives) balance between freedom, privacy, and usability for most people.
I think Google (and Silicon Vally writ large) is coming to terms with the fact that past a certain size userbase, authoritarianism is necessary to maintain control, consistency, and (very importantly) safety… where Apple has pretty much always embraced it; for better or worse.
I could easily turn this into a larger critique about society and governance, federated republics being necessary in the long-term versus corporate monoliths, and the “10x everything” culture being the root of the new tech-right, but I will digress, lol.
In terms of freedom, Apple is the most user-hostile company in the business and has been forever. People are screaming in justified outrage at Google taking out sideloading in 2025, but when was the last time you could sideload something on an iPhone? Oh, never? Right.
The passes Apple constantly gets, even here, are absolutely fucking insane to me. “Oh well, at least they’ve always been authoritarian!” What??
I make no claim against the lack of freedom on Apple devices, but “un-free” doesn’t mean “user-hostile”. We’re talking about the perceived quality of experience for the user, not anything else. Like, look, don’t get me wrong, I still hate Apple (and all the big tech corpos) out of principle- but they provide an objectively better user experience for the vast majority of people.
Apple has been, while extremely restrictive, very consistent on what users are allowed to do with devices… Google has repeatedly shown that they can’t be trusted to actually commit to popular features or services that they put out.
Apple has put forward several measures to increase [perception of] user privacy where Google has repeatedly shown that they have no interest in doing anything other than collecting as much of your data as possible and using it for their ad business.
iOS/iPadOS accessibility features blow Android’s out of the water in terms of breadth and quality; where with Android you often have to rely on third-party apps that may or may not work consistently or break with an update.
It’s the lack of choice on what to do with your hardware after EOL that always rubbed me the wrong way with Apple. Unless there’s a known exploit to unlock the boot loader, you can’t install something like postmarketOS or LineageOS to continue using it, so you just feel compelled to treat it like e-waste and buy a new device.
I’ve had 3 android phones total in my life, and one of them I only replaced after it got crushed in a roadside accident. The other 2 are still useable.
That might because many people (at least in the US) get their phones through payment plans with a cell service carrier, and those usually aren’t unlocked unless you pay for the whole phone + if they care enough to give you the code after.
I always bought unlocked phones directly, so I guess I never had that issue?
I seem to remember a very high profile case where the FBI wanted access to a suspect’s iPhone, and all Apple had to do was give them an iOS side release that bypassed the unlock system. Apple refused to do it since it would break user security.
It’s very possible things have changed since then.
Are we seriously going to pretend that Google hasn’t been just as evil for years now? At least Apple is able to provide a halfway-decent UX…
What I’ll say in Apples defense is they largely are what they say they are. You may not like what Apple provides, which is fair, but at least you know what you’re getting.
I fully agree with that sentiment, for what it’s worth. Apple is authoritarian but at least they’re mostly transparent about it.
I mean the reason Apple AI sucks is because they violated their users privacy way less than Google, which is, good? I guess?
Hence why I have never owned and never will own an apple product. Google used to have the company of motto of Don’t Be Evil. Everyone should have jumped ship when they deliverately removed that from the record.
Ugh, hard disagree on apple UX.
Google was only pro freedom and open source as long as it hurt Microsoft more than them.
That is not the case anymore.
Dont defend either of them please.
If there were any alternative, we wouldn’t have these problems.
Most of lemmings are technicals: where alternative? Build LemmyOS xD
“It’s not fragmented, it’s federated!”
Are we seriously going to pretend that a single person can be wholly evil? Much less a company of 200k people.Even if Google takes this huge step of requiring their blessing for every Android developer (which Apple has ALWAYS had on their side), they will still be better (by my estimation) along the freedom dimension than Apple. Maybe too far removed for my involvement, but better nonetheless.
edit: misread “just as evil [as Apple]”
On privacy, google is much worse
I would agree insomuch as Google’s privacy issues are better known.
Nonetheless, we are comparing two jail cells. One has a finger-puzzle that opens the cell-doors (and an obvious surveillance camera), and the other one is securely locked with a less-obvious/hidden camera (iphone backups)… and the issue at hand is akin to removing the finger-puzzle because the captives keep opening it to let baddies join them.
iphone cloud backups are encrypted, and can be turned off very easily. Local backups to a pc can also be encrypted if you want.
That didn’t stop Apple from handing over backups to the FBI that were swiftly decrypted after several high profile incidents (like the San Bernadino shooting), and I assume it would be even less difficult for them to fork over info for another Snowden if they use Apple products.
Didn’t Apple deny the FBI access for the San Bernardino shooting?
Quick edit; yeah, you can stop spouting bullshit, the FBI hacked in WITHOUT Apple’s help.
Apple provided the icloud backups off of the device. Apple did not provide the decryption key for unlocking the phone directly.
Edit: direct link to Wikipedia article discussing apple and FBI compliance: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple–FBI_encryption_dispute
Encrypted doesnt necessarily matter. I dont trust apple to not give up the keys.
They’ve always refused in the past…
Because guess what? They don’t have them. They don’t want them. Apple’s business is selling hardware, not collecting your data that they would then be liable for. Their business model is not predicated on data mining and collection. Google’s is.
This is not to absolve Apple; they are after all a major corporation and therefore inherently evil prima facie. But I don’t worry about them selling or leaking my data.
I know for a while that was true?
Never read Apple’s privacy policy, huh?
Fair, but I think that while Apple is generally more authoritarian with regard to developer experience, they’re less user-hostile overall and generally strike a good (at least compared to the current alternatives) balance between freedom, privacy, and usability for most people.
I think Google (and Silicon Vally writ large) is coming to terms with the fact that past a certain size userbase, authoritarianism is necessary to maintain control, consistency, and (very importantly) safety… where Apple has pretty much always embraced it; for better or worse.
I could easily turn this into a larger critique about society and governance, federated republics being necessary in the long-term versus corporate monoliths, and the “10x everything” culture being the root of the new tech-right, but I will digress, lol.
In terms of freedom, Apple is the most user-hostile company in the business and has been forever. People are screaming in justified outrage at Google taking out sideloading in 2025, but when was the last time you could sideload something on an iPhone? Oh, never? Right.
The passes Apple constantly gets, even here, are absolutely fucking insane to me. “Oh well, at least they’ve always been authoritarian!” What??
I make no claim against the lack of freedom on Apple devices, but “un-free” doesn’t mean “user-hostile”. We’re talking about the perceived quality of experience for the user, not anything else. Like, look, don’t get me wrong, I still hate Apple (and all the big tech corpos) out of principle- but they provide an objectively better user experience for the vast majority of people.
Golden fucking handcuffs. Is that the right expression?
i couldn’t find that, but I found this as consolation
It’s the lack of choice on what to do with your hardware after EOL that always rubbed me the wrong way with Apple. Unless there’s a known exploit to unlock the boot loader, you can’t install something like postmarketOS or LineageOS to continue using it, so you just feel compelled to treat it like e-waste and buy a new device.
I’ve had 3 android phones total in my life, and one of them I only replaced after it got crushed in a roadside accident. The other 2 are still useable.
To be fair, unlockable bootloaders seem a bit exceptional on the Android side too…
That might because many people (at least in the US) get their phones through payment plans with a cell service carrier, and those usually aren’t unlocked unless you pay for the whole phone + if they care enough to give you the code after.
I always bought unlocked phones directly, so I guess I never had that issue?
Literally the worst
Bad. Regularly snitches to the bad guys.
Arguable. If everything you own is in their ecosystem and up to date.
Nobody uses apple because of this shit. It’s all dtatus and branding.
I seem to remember a very high profile case where the FBI wanted access to a suspect’s iPhone, and all Apple had to do was give them an iOS side release that bypassed the unlock system. Apple refused to do it since it would break user security.
It’s very possible things have changed since then.
I seem to remember one where they caved, but i also remember them refusing a bunch
they’re only good to the extent that they’re forced to be by the GPL