Posted on 08/22/2015 10:43:19 PM PDT by Swordmaker
There is so much to admire about Apple. They make superb, beautiful products. Their amazing comeback story is unparalleled in corporate history. Steve Jobs has become something akin to a modern-day patron saint of the tech industry. Tim Cook is, rightly, enormously respected.
So why do I think they represent so much of what’s wrong with the tech world?
It’s because they have, I think, an almost Shakespearean tragic flaw: their obsession with centralized corporate control of the devices they sell. Apple sells fantastic hardware, and excellent software … and tries to maintain an iron-fisted grip on both, throughout their lifespan. Even its defenders tend to admit: “Apple is always arrogant, controlling, and inflexible, and sometimes stingy.”
You are only permitted to download and install software that has been officially approved by Apple onto your iOS device. This isn’t true of OS X, yet, but that’s clearly only because user control is grandfathered in … and arguably being slowly boiled like the proverbial frog.
Let me hasten to admit that this seems like no bad thing for the end user. It acts as a bulwark against malware. And Apple has been admirably pro-privacy, especially of late, despite the skepticism of industry analysts.
Now, this is partly because Apple is not particularly good at advertising or cloud services in general, compared to, say, Google — but also because their implicit bargain is “your personal information is safe with us, because we make our money from selling things to you rather than you to other companies” vs. Google’s “your personal information is safe with us because our advertising division is extremely careful about anonymizing and securing it when we use it to make money.”
(Despite being an occasional equal-opportunity Google-basher, I actually believe that latter claim to be true. I also believe Google’s cloud services are probably more secure than Apple’s. But I can see how people would still feel more uneasy about their implicit bargain with Google.)
All the same, though, this is short-term gain that risks long-term pain. Apple, for all their glory and their genius, is the apotheosis of a philosophy of technology which is fundamentally different from mine: technology as a centrally controlled hegemony unsullied by tinkerers who want to go outside of their sandbox, a walled garden of an ecosystem that is only permitted to evolve when Cupertino initiates the evolution. Only Apple is allowed to think outside the box in which its users live.
‘It May Seem Silly’
Saturday, 22 August 2015
Jon Evans, in a piece for AOL/TechCrunch headlined “Don’t Be Apple”:
There is so much to admire about Apple. They make superb, beautiful products. Their amazing comeback story is unparalleled in corporate history. […] So why do I think they represent so much of what’s wrong with the tech world? It’s because they have, I think, an almost Shakespearean tragic flaw: their obsession with centralized corporate control of the devices they sell. […]
What could go wrong? Well, let’s get dystopically speculative for a moment. Can you remember some of the most hyperbolic overreactions to the fall of the World Trade Center, and how they were welcomed by large swathes of the American public? Can you imagine a future in which, following a similar tragedy, Apple rolls over and becomes a de facto arm of surveillance states? I sure can — and Apple’s centralized-command-and-control ecosystem would make it worryingly easy to turn every iOS device into an eye and ear of the panopticon, more or less overnight.
At which point we’d be forced to continue using these spyware Apple products because… ? And engineers at Apple would continue working for the company rather than resigning en masse because… ? And Apple would suffer no bad publicity for its cowardice because… ? Because: Tim Cook could surely flip a switch that would enable this surveillance without anyone noticing.
This advice is madness. Evans is recommending against using a platform that is secure and private today, from a company with a consistent decades-long track record in this regard, because in the future they might turn coat and become an accomplice of government mass surveillance, even though, if that came to pass, we could and would all just abandon the use of Apple products.
You can aim similar criticisms at Android, too, but they would miss the mark. Love it or hate it, Android is not near [sic] as centralized as iOS, and Google is not nearly as controlling as Apple. It’s open-source, and major organizations can — and do — fork it to create their own independent versions.
Parts of Android are indeed open source — “except for all the good parts”.
Apple fights an ongoing war with iOS jailbreakers, claiming that their work is “potentially catastrophic”; Google makes it especially easy to root Nexus devices. […]
Glenn Fleishman, writing for Macworld last month, “Hacking Team Hack Reveals Why You Shouldn’t Jailbreak Your iPhone”:
A massive breach in the private data of a firm that sells software to governments to spy on communications shows that jailbroken iPhones are vulnerable. […]
Two security outfits — the commercial Kaspersky Lab in Russia and academic Citizen Lab in Canada — first revealed in June 2014 that they had discovered and decoded Hacking Team’s smartphone-cracking software. The reports at that time indicated that only jailbroken iOS devices could be hijacked, but that malware could be installed on an iOS device when connected to a computer that was confirmed as trusted, and which had been compromised.
That external analysis has now been complemented by the Hacking Team’s internal documents. One price list shows a €50,000 ($56,000) price tag on an iOS snooping module with the note, “Prerequisite: the iOS device must be jailbroken.”
Apple works to close jailbreaking exploits because they are potentially catastrophic.
Back to Evans:
It may seem silly to criticize a fantastic company that makes superb products and delights its users on the basis of an abstract philosophical dispute.
Even the most jacktastic article usually has one true sentence.
But I have a sneaking suspicion that over the next year this dispute will grow more and more concrete. Maybe, as this contrast heightens, Apple will see the light; maybe instead of fighting jailbreakers, they will offer jailbreaking and sideloading as an option for power users out of the box, just as Android does. That alone would be a huge seismic shift.
But I’m not holding my breath. And until and unless that happens, I find it hard to recommend the iOS ecosystem in good conscience, despite its power and beauty, because Apple refuses to return any of the trust it demands from its users.
So let’s get this straight: Jon Evans is deeply concerned about a hypothetical dystopic fantasy scenario where Apple turns a 180, abandons all of the privacy principles the company has adhered to for decades and has prominently promoted as a competitive advantage, and begins cooperating with the U.S. government to surveil on iOS users. To alleviate his concerns, Evans wants Apple to stop its efforts to close jailbreaking exploits, and in the meantime, he can’t “recommend the iOS ecosystem in good conscience”. This, despite the fact that in the actual world, today, we know for a fact from the Hacking Team data breach that various governments around the world — including Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan, Azerbaijan, and Turkey — have been sold software that allows them to snoop on iOS devices, but only if the devices have been jailbroken.
I’m sure iOS users want Apple to get right on this.
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
If such an event were to occur, what condition would the other large tech companies who are ALREADY doing much of the bidding of the NSA and government authorities be like? Does he think they would be somehow better for having paved the way NOW?
What an idiotic screed.
Fine Jon Evans - don’t be Apple - who cares?
It’s like the writer is recommending going back to the 90’s when Apple was going to make their OS available to any computer.
Deja vu.
Apple is Big Brother.
Do you use Apple products? If you did you'd be aware of the fact that you are exactly two clicks away from a fully functional UNIX™ Terminal. . . with which you can do anything the computer is capable of doing. But don't let facts stand in your way of a good propaganda meme.
Try posting again once you have a CS degree.
You don’t know what you are talking about.
Try almost 40 years in the industry, not just a piddly CS degree but a degree in Economics and Finance. . . and past experience as a CEO. Then YOU get back to me about knowing what you are talking about.
Are you even aware that Mac OS X is UNIX™ and entitled to use the UNIX™ trademark? In fact, it's the number one selling UNIX in the world today.
Sorry, 40 years in the industry myself and have launched and sold multiple s/w companies. Currently MD of a multinational firm providing Linux, Android, and iOS s/w. I would very much like you to explain your “two clicks” method.
I am very much aware of that. I spend all my time at the shell.
Again, to clarify, you are saying that you are two clicks away from a shell “with which you can do anything the computer is capable of doing.” That implies a root shell. Forgive my ignorance, but as an iPhone user I’d like to know how you do that. Can you enlighten us?
Apple is involves a cult of users and supporters so no use trying to express common sense to them. They will support Apple to the end and it just might be the beginning - of the end.
That said, Apple has great products but are overpriced (but great profits). They will have to reevaluate their market and adjust or eventually die. Market pressures are the culprit here not the product.
You realize that there are 1.2 BILLION iOS devices that have been sold. 700 MILLION of them are for iPhone users, and 300 million are for iPad users. That is SOME CULT, Deagle. There are just over 100 Million OS X Macs now in the wild. OS X Macs are continually gaining ground while Windows PCs have been losing ground in every quarter but one for the last five years. Again, that is some cult, especially when you realize that the vast majority of the Mac users come from ex-Windows users. Perhaps those Mac users know something about the devices they use that you non-users just don't know? Especially since most of them are already intimately knowledgeable about Windows and have deliberately chosen to go to another platform?
As for Apple products being "overpriced", when that many people are willing to step up and spend THEIR hard earned money—their money they could easily choose to expend elsewhere—to buy Apple products, the unbreakable Law of Supply and Demand, says that Apple products are priced just exactly correctly—especially because Apple is selling every single one they can produce and has a backlog of demand they cannot meet on products such as the Apple Watches.
I have a degree in Economics. That's what you learn in Economics, especially Capitalist Economics. Ergo, Apple products are NOT "overpriced" and in fact they are priced just right to meet demand. I could put that in mathematical functions and price point derivatives, and all that, but let's not waste time doing it.
When you can show me Apple dumping products to get rid of them. . . then you can start claiming they are "overpriced."
Actually, I think that you have demonstrated my point! Thank you, Apple has no where to go but down in prices (call it the China syndrome) and you will be one of the last to understand what is happening and why.
Also call it technology finally catches up to most modern products and Apple’s products are way past due except for the cult thing. Apple products are nice but overpriced and since China has entered into the picture, they will drop! Don’t buy stock now...
I think you've demonstrated you don't have a grasp of Economics at all. . . and Apple is just entering the Indian market doubling its presence there this year over last year. Right now Apple's sales in China are down because people are waiting for the iPhone 6S refresh due next month. No one is going to buy last year's model for the same price they would pay for this year's model merely by waiting for a few weeks. If you don't grasp this, you are hopeless. The Chinese consumers are not stupid. The Chinese stock market or even their currency devaluation is not going to have much effect on it. These are people who were wiling to pay a 200% spiff on top of the retail to get smuggled iPhones a month early when they first came out. A 5% increase won't bother them.
If I had a dollar for every time someone said "technology finally catches up to. . . " and "Apple's products are way past due except for the cult thing", I'd have one hell of a pile of dollars. I am going to buy a pile of Apple stock with the dollars I have. . . and I have a LONG way to go before I lose anything of my Apple investment.
Frankly, you sound like the same broken record we've heard for years. . . and we've gone through these downturns before.
Frankly, that’s okay. You should invest your savings in Apple and we will see how your stock performs the next year.
It’s okay that you don’t agree but the loss is probably yours - there is a slim chance that I might be wrong for the coming few years but... Economics is a strange thing in that it tends to suck in those that believe with their hearts instead of their brains.
Well, you are right that I do sound like a broken record but maybe that is because it always happens. That’s okay though, Take charge professor and make your fortune...
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