What do you think about Apple and its ecosystem? (And a little conversation I had with a colleague)

Personally, I strongly agree with your colleague. If you truly believe openness is a good thing (and it sounds like you do), Apple's ethos is just about the direct antithesis. They only collaborate with the wider tech industry when they absolutely have to. Otherwise, they are greedy, secretive, controlling, and vindictive - oftentimes openly hostile to anyone who dares choose a non-Apple device/platform.

The best example of this is the iMessage "green bubbles" phenomenon. Some background: Apple's default texting experience is iMessage. This service has a bunch of nice, modern chat features - except they're only available when texting another iPhone. These "better" messages are indicated by blue bubbles. People who don't use iPhones (whether by choice or by necessity) are forced to use the ancient, insecure, feature-poor SMS protocol, reducing the privacy and security of everyone involved (including iPhone users). It's also extremely obvious when this happens, since the chat app will switch to green bubbles.

In places where this service has caught on (such as the US), Apple uses this separation to deliberately make texting non-iPhone users a significantly worse experience. This causes social effects, especially among teenagers, where those who don't use iPhone are bullied and shunned for being a "green bubble". The Wall Street Journal did a great expose into this phenomenon.

Now, to be clear, this is a totally artificial problem - Apple could fix this overnight if they wanted. For years, the wider tech industry has been working on replacing SMS with a much more modern standard called RCS. Every single other party in the mobile industry has moved on. Apple, however, is the lone holdout. They see kids bullying other kids into buying an iPhone as a good thing - more iPhone sales! In fact, Apple openly encouraged that narrative: when a journalist asked the (very reasonable) question of "how can I make texting with my Android-user mom better?", Apple CEO Tim Cook responded with "buy your mom an iPhone."

There's plenty more examples of this antagonistic behavior I could talk about, but this one is the most telling.

Of course, if you do choose to go all in with them, you won't see that side of Apple at all. They are frighteningly good at cultivating their image as the "good guys" among Big Tech, and, honestly, it's not unwarranted. They are good at what they do, and they do take care of their users. Their tech is great.

Ultimately, my take is that if you prefer using Apple's stuff over more open alternatives, don't change what you like! Just remember that they have a dark side. It is good to be aware of the wider tech ecosystem, and to make open technology choices where you can. By being active on the Fediverse, you're already doing your part 😁

Dont feel too bad about not knowing everything from everywhere, as you said you arent a tech guy, but lets get to your questions

1. Privacy thats...depending on how you see it, supposedly they don't sell to third partys but they do use it for you
2. I will never support them, not only are their prices disgustingly high compared to their quality, their walled garden and fucking tooth and nail fight to keep it that way isnt helping helping
3. While not required I do think they should at least look into all of it for a bit

Im the end, do whatever you wanna do

For all of their faults I admire Apple's commitment to product design a lot. They really seem to center the human use case and mold the technology around that. This kind of focus on design (not just aesthetics!) brings the benefits of technology to people that might not have been able to access them otherwise due to knowledge, time constraints, etc.

How does this relate to FOSS? Well to be blunt the UX on a lot of FOSS technology is bad. It conveys freedom and privacy to technologically inclined people like us who can make sense of it, but it does very little to liberate people who don't find this stuff easy or can't devote enough free time to it. Ease of use is not a weakness to be mocked. It can be an extremely powerful force if done correctly. Personally I would love to see more UX designers getting into FOSS development, but unfortunately I can't really help myself on that front.

It is with high confidence and with a straight face that I can state my opinion that Microsoft is a better partner of open source software than Apple. Microsoft contributes back, Apple pretty much doesn't. They're better than AWS, but that's more a matter of damning with faint praise.

Apple's built up a vertically integrated market of disposable widgets which cannot be repaired or upgraded. Their sole positive is they're better than the other guys at keeping older software updated, but I'm sure they did the math on having their customers not getting hacked at the time.

I'm my opinion they're worth looking at for anti-trust.

@IronTwo
Apple's ecosystem works well for it's users, but it screws over anyone else not completely consumed in their ecosystem.

I dislike Apple due to their user-hostile business practices. They don't let you install alternate browsers or keyboards (TRULY alternate and not just re-skins of Safari and the iOS keyboard). They don't let you sideload (officially). They don't want you to interface with other phone manufacturers in an equitable way (see the whole blue bubble/green bubble drama). They don't want you to have the freedom to repair your own devices (see the whole right to repair movement).

And so on and so forth. They are nice products and do what they are supposed to with minimal friction. I just cannot support a company that is so blatantly user-hostile.

I spent many years trying to be as FOSS as I could. I tried many different Linux distros, hunted for open source operating systems for my phone (at the time, none did even the basic things I needed it to do) until one day I decided I was sick to death of having to spend hours researching and trying multiple arcane cli commands to get even simple things to work (like WiFi). I realised that I was wasting an enormous amount of time being all-things-open-source.

My next purchase as a macbook as it was based on a *nix and I've come to realise that while Apple is a walled garden and in some ways is 'evil', it's less evil than Google is now, or Microsoft was back in the day.

I also like the way that the various Apple devices work really well together. But I hate the fact that it's harder to hack things to be the way that I want. Don't get me wrong, I still love open source software, but I have too few years left to waste them on modifying config.org files, or whatever they do now, so I'm much more selective with what I use. I tend to use FOSS applications on MacOS where the software works well enough.

Not trying to bash FOSS, just my 2 cents.

To get the point since as you've stated your brain is filled.

Here's how I view Apple:

• anti consumer
• anti developer
• anti privacy
• anti right to repair

I 100% agree with your colleague, though I don't agree with his purity test. You're allowed to feel the way you do about medicine and still use whatever products you want. But, yeah, I don't own or use and Apple products, though I would like to own and restore an Apple IIe.

As someone who went from FOSS -> Apple -> FOSS, I fully understand the love people have for the Apple ecosystem. In terms of proprietary hardware and software, they have a sheen and an inter-operation between their products that is genuinely unmatched.

That said, what ultimately pushed me out and back to Good Ole FOSS™ was the lack of any control, and the lack of any transparency. The idea of trusting a for-profit company with anything beyond my email address and sometimes phone number is just something I dislike doing. Apple's processes are extremely opaque, and the last thing they want to give users is any control over their products, it's an antithesis of what I desire from digital electronics.

As for if non-technical people should look into FOSS. I think FOSS can really give people a fundamental baseline of digital computing, and in the modern world such a baseline is extremely valuable. If they decide afterwards they prefer their proprietary ecosystems, Apple or otherwise, that's their prerogative and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Thank you for opening yourself up to the discourse!

First of all: I don't use any apple products, because I strongly disagree with the company on an ideological level.

My opinion on apple products, personal opinion that is, is that the walled garden approach has pros and cons. Meaning, they control everything within their ecosystem. You can't install a third party app without it being approved on the appstore first. This is good in the sense, that there is virtually zero risk of bad actors being able to access your systems. This is bad, because it allows apple to dictatorially allow/reject apps, and ideas that they don't agree with. I don't know if they have done this, but it would not surprise me.

Another large issue I have, as a nerd, with apple's approach. Is that having everything easily accessible and controlled by the company (here I mean things like, its more difficult to make changes to your computer as compared to linux, where you have full control) makes for a tech-illiterate public. Anecdotally, I have friends who are very skilled at tech, one is a space-tech student, the other a high-level games programmer, and both feel they can't switch to another phone than Iphone, because it is such a specific way of interconnectedness that exists when you have all apple products. It is so easy to airdrop, or screen share, cloud save etc etc. That it is a fundamentally different experience to use anything else. Now, that might seem like a pro for apple, but my issue is that this interconnectedness should be a priority between ecosystems too. Ideally I would like to have these features as a given on any system, like email can talk to email (fediverse hype), instead of being locked to a single ecosystem.

In conclusion: Apple is known for keeping their information under lock and key, and not allowing any interference with their systems. I think this is bad.

Thanks for bringing it up! And remember there is no right/wrong, except what you personally feel good about.

A concept shared by both of these examples is that of the commons. You believe in an information commons, specifically as it pertains to medicine. A lot of users in the FOSS space believe in a technological commons.

I'm not going to delve too extensively into the political and philosophical definitions around the commons; there's a wealth of economic and political anthropology dissecting the successes of the commons, how they tend to operate, and their potential place in future economies of the world. If you want a very brief primer, David Bollier's Think Like a Commoner is a good start; it's quick, inexpensive, and there's an audiobook if that's your jam.

I don’t like Apple because of their anti-user, anti-third party policies, but their quality, interoperability, and privacy make me pick it over google for my phone, tablet, and watch.

Granted, it I could replace those things with FOSS alternatives that worked as well as Apple products do, I would in a heart beat.

You should look in to openstreetmap.org . It's open and free map data. Having a single giant company (Google) control all the maps is not good for the commons.

I'm so glad Wikipedia exists as a non-profit organizations. Imagine if Facebook or Google owned The Encyclopedia

Speaking of, there is something called the https://creativecommons.org/ mostly known for the Creative Commons family of non-comercial Licences. It's used by creators to licence and freely share their work, similar to how programers use FOSS software licenses

There are a number of ongoing FOSS projects that will hopefully culminate in an ecosystem experience comparable to Apple. There are already some laptops being sold with Linux pre-installed, guaranteeing hardware compatibility (HP, Dell, System76, Slimbook, Tuxedo, Starlabs). KDE Connect integrates your phone and computer. Nextcloud can do much of what iCloud can do. Various phone projects are making the Linux phone possible, like Librem Purism, Pinephone, FOSH, KDE Plasma Mobile. And degoogled Androids like /e/ project / LineageOS and GrapheneOS. There's the PineTime smart watch.

Things often move slower in the FOSS world compared to literal TRILLION dollar companies. But when FOSS solutions get a foothold there's no going back. FOSS projects are also virtually immune to enshitification

While the Apple ecosystem is nice, it's also the epitome of Vendor Lock-In. They deliberately make their products hard to integrate with other products (charging cables, green text bubles etc). As well as everything else people have mentioned here about right-to-repair, planned obsolescence, factory worker conditions

So yeah perfectly understandable to use all Apple-stuff today , but I'm optimistic for a future where more people are free from the big tech giants

I'll stop buying apple when I can get a multi-core arm machine that's not made of scrapbin plastic from a traditional PC manufacturer. I have two M1 machines running Asahi Linux and they're excellent computers.

Wait till you google Richard M. Stallman.

Whether it's biotech or software, there's always tension between creating incentives for innovation vs fostering wide availability and openness.

The Free Software / Open Source world exists on the openness side, and while some business (including Apple) have made a business while contributing to open source projects, there is sometimes a catch. For example, Google gives away the core of Android (the Android Open Source Project), but if an OEM wants Google Maps, Google Play, etc, they have to play by Google's rules.

Anyone who tells you it's just as easy to make a living selling free software (what GNU calls it) as it is selling proprietary software is full of shit. It's not as easy. It can be done, and Open Source can be a selling point, but it's nowhere near as straightforward as just selling a thing for a price. Copyrights, like the copyrights protecting iOS and macOS, let companies just sell a thing for a price. No bullshit.

Apple, like any corporate interest, has reason to support or oppose various laws. I'm an Apple fanboy as much as anyone, but I'll readily admit they're on the wrong side of history with right-to-repair. Apple's an excessively litigious company. They're bullies in some markets. But I still prefer their simple transactional value proposition, which is that you pay for goods and services. Software is a good.

Open Source software is great too, and often as good as the proprietary stuff, but a world without copyright (basically what he is suggesting) would have a very hard time promoting the useful arts. For that matter, Open Source licenses typically function through copyright law. The GNU GPL, for example, only works because it has copyright as a backstop if you refuse to accept the license.

Apple isn't super popular among the geeks for this exact reason. They make everything proprietary. Like, everything everything. They aren't willing to give up even their charging cables.

Yea they make stuff convenient for people who don't want to think about the tech at all, but you're giving up a huge deal of your freedom. And by extension even of other people, because by using Apple products, you're helping them strengthen their iron grip. See the bubble color debate regarding iMessage. Worse, they turn this into a trend that other companies follow.

Linux can be as complicated or as simple as you want it. Yea if you're a programmer or a nerd, you can use Arch and literally take it apart.

Or you can use Mint or Ubuntu and your experience will be as smooth and straightforward as using MacOS. True, nobody has as interconnected ecosystems as Apple but again.. It's not just money you're paying with.

The analogy of free access to information is indeed apt.

I'll preface this by saying don't beat yourself up for using Apple. You can be critical and still use their products. I am typing this on Windows 10 and have a macbook for work. Microsoft and Google are far from perfect in this space. As the saying goes, "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" lol.

I think you should use open source software but I don't think you should force yourself if good alternatives don't exist for your use case. A good example is Photoshop. The open source version is GIMP. I use GIMP mostly because I don't want to pay for Photoshop but from what I've heard from people who edit pictures professionally it is not even a competition.

Compare that to Audacity, my understanding is more people in the audio world use it. Or VLC Media player! It can basically open any format of video, it's crazy!

If you're curious to try a linux desktop operating system the choices will become overwhelming like you said. Ubuntu is the go-to suggestion usually. There are ways to create "live USBs" to run it from the USB like a test drive (but it may be slow). I've decided my next computer I build I'm going to run Linux primarily but I haven't got around to building it.

So Apple is obviously an evil, profit seeking company that exploits users and developers, maintains a monopoly and actively hurts efforts towards openness.

But bro, what else am I gonna use? Do you think Google is any better.

And, as you already noticed, most open source alternatives suuuck. (Man, I'm gonna regret saying this on an FOSS community) With some research you'll get a usable desktop OS for some use-cases, but phones such as Fairphone and Purism are another story entirely. Don't even think about watches or tablets. I love the Purism Firefox demo, where they enthusiastically say: "With Settings unusable in Portrait, it's time to switch to landscape mode".

The "you think ... yet you buy ..." argument is pointless, because it ignores the realities of monopolies and globalism. I'm sure his T-Shirt that day wasn't made from ethically sourced cotton or whatever.

I think Apple as a company is in the business of selling an overpriced lie.

A glued unswappable battery is not a beautiful design. Pricing casually diving into the 4 digits is not equality. Locked down software and hardware enforce the idea that technology is magic and not something that can be known and judged in context.

The alternative is not FOSS or Linux. That's the diametrical opposite path and as dumbed down as the Apple offer is, you can't ask everybody to wrap their head around what the fuck a Kernel even is.

As far as I am concerned there's a very healthy middle-ground that's plain old "boring" Android and Windows.

Your friend is right. Listen to him, read and understand. Don't feel obligated to necessarily change your habits. If you get the time and desire to make a change, that understanding and knowledge will inform your actions. ☺️

I haven't owned any Apple products since the ipod nano in 2005, and have only used Linux, specifically Ubuntu), since 2008 (then my sophomore year in college) for exactly the reasons your colleague spells out. I try to use open-source software whenever possible. Apple is the most closed-source vendor available to me, so I have no intention of ever using their products. When I was a teenager / early 20s I would espouse the evils of Apple to anyone who was nearby, whether they wanted to listen or not. Now, I cringe at the memory of that behavior and let people live their lives.

I do see why your colleague connected the dots between your two separate arguments, and I do see where they're coming from. The idea of Freedom of Scientific Information and FOSS do have many parallels, but I don't think you need to beat yourself up over using Apple vs more open-sourced software. I don't really think there's anything particularly wrong with Apple devices, and when my current laptop starts to go I might even consider one of their offerings. But my needs are simple enough that Ubuntu has always worked for me. As far as phones, I just like Android better (and more of it is open-sourced).

Well, there are many things to consider here. First off, let me say I really appreciate your "battle" for open science: I think that's what we should fight for, and I totally support that (I'm a PhD in computer science, but done with research). I don't think that the fact that you don't use FOSS makes your battle for open science any less legitimate, that is still super valid and you shouldn't feel hypocrite. That said, it is true that Apple does not support or contribute to open source at all (I believe CUPS is one of the few open source things Apple did, correct me if I'm wrong here).

Nonetheless, I totally understand the coziness of having such an integrated environment between all your devices: this is not gonna happen on Linux, or at least not at that level. I do believe that the Linux desktop experience has become much more user friendly (imo much more than Windows for instance), and there are also cool integration options such as KDE connect, but that's probably not as good and cool as Apple integration.

Committing to open source can be a time-consuming decision, and most people that advocates for FOSS still use or give their data to non-FOSS software (such as Google, Facebook etc.). So, my advice would be to embrace as much as you want of the open philosophy: you're already "fighting" for open science, maybe you can start using some open source software (maybe your email client? your pdf reader?). Little by little you'll judge by yourself what and how much you want to commit to the FOSS philosophy :)

Ah my favourite topic to rant about lol

https://aus.social/users/ajsadauskas/statuses/110483562412884529 I saw this post the other day about apple and I left this comment https://sopuli.xyz/comment/137641

Wow, thanks for sharing, I didn't realise Apple has been doing this for so long

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/07/apple-geep-iphone-recycle-shred/

They sued a recycling company for reselling old iPhones instead of destroying them and now they force recycling companies to shred the phones so that they can't be reused.

Apple has fantastic marketing on a surface level they manage to convince their users that they are a green company but when you push a little bit and ask for more info they just shut you down.

Louis Rossman has shown how anti repair Apple is by not providing basic replacement parts for their Macs and how secretive they are about their clearly subpar repair program

Hugh Jeffreys has shown how anti repair Apple is by locking components like the screen and camera of new Apple devices to their motherboard so that even if you repair and iPhone screen, they take away features like true tone or certain camera modes for no reason.

Apple is trying its best to kill 3rd party repair of its products and at the same time try to convince people that they are pro repair by offering screen replacements for nearly the same price as a new iPhone.

Also if a user sells on their old iPhone but doesn't unlink the device from their Apple account, the new user won't be able to use the phone.

The only positive thing Apple has done for consumers is offer software updates for years longer than any Android OEM offers.

Android OEMs really lacks in software support but at least with some phones, less in more recent years, users have the option to install custom ROMs to prolong the life of their devices. Projects like LineageOS, GrapheneOS and DivestOS are so important from delaying phones from becoming ewaste.

Unfortunately, Apple pushes the limit of what they can get away with in the name of the environment and other companies follow suit.

Bare minimum after market support is the name of the game and every company in the industry is happy to play.

Imagine how different the consumer electronic market could be if Apple had grown their relationship with Bob and extended that to people like him all over the world. We could have had a much better ecosystem.

But like I always say, you can't become a trillion dollar company without exploiting everything and everyone you possibly can in the name of profit

When it comes to privacy, Apple has attempted to block other companies like Facebook from tracking iPhone users, they say its because they care about their users privacy but really all Apple cares about is controlling their users data and monopolizing on it.

They also have wanted to implement scanning software to scan their users files for CSAM, again marketing it as protecting their users and children but I'm sure they'll figure how to monopolize that too.

Apple has been trying to prevent 3rd party app stores and side loading of apps on iOS for years, they say its because its a security risk, but in reality they're just calling their users stupid while attempting to keep complete control over the software you can use on the device you paid way too much money for. Recently the EU has forced Apples hand on this and they can no longer prevent users from doing it, or at least when the law comes into place.

Apple is also being forced to switch to type-C chargers, I think next year, by the EU because it is more consumer friendly and helps to prevent e-waste, which is something Apple's marketing loves to claim they are by removing chargers from phone boxes and forcing its customers to buy over priced chargers that come in more packaging...

I always say this, You can't become a trillion dollar company without exploiting everything and everyone you possibly can in the name of profit.

Apple doesn't care about you or its workers or the environment, the only thing Apple cares about is profit. It does everything it can to lock down its products, force its users into its ecosystem and block any other companies from even attempting to function and profit within its ecosystem, Apple is ruthless and will not stop until they have squeeze as much money out of everything they possible can.

Apple is the epitome of capitalism and parasite on society, it offers nothing of value for a premium price.

Like you, I agree the internet should be open and the wealth of knowledge that humans have accumulated shouldn't be locked behind paywalls.

A lot of scientific research is publically funded but then its locked behind a paywall so the public has to pay again. For people that think you are stealing others work by using sci-hub, tell them to email one of the authors of the papers and ask them if they can get a copy. The majority of authors would be happy to send them one.

I think it's a bit of a mixed bag. Their ecosystem may be good and all but they deliberately don't interoperate very well with others. Example: if I plug my iPhone into my windows laptop, it will only expose the gallery, unlike with Android where it will allow me to transfer non image files. I have to download another app (iTunes, and now the Apple Devices App which is currently in preview) in order to be able to transfer files via cable (KDE Connect or Localsend are also good options for this). Then there's their sticking with their own cable when everyone else is going to USB C, and their refusal to implement proper messaging with Android users/integrate with RCS - granted, RCS has its own set of issues, but still. And of course there's their refusal to allow sideloading, which has led to governments being able to censor apps from the app store. It doesn't help that App Store review isn't the best at catching security issues, as scam apps slip through from time to time. The EU seems to be trying to fix this with their new regulations, but it's now speculated that Apple will be petty and region lock sideloading.

Their hardware is nice and performant, but unfortunately they're against upgradeability as well as right to repair. I don't watch him much, but I think Louis Rossmann's youtube channel is recommended for learning about this.

I don't have strong opinions on their hardware/software design and aesthetics, it works for me, but I can see why others don't like how opinionated they are. I don't like how Android phones have been getting bigger, but it's not the end of the world for me should I switch to a Pixel.

Privacy and security wise they overmarket too much but they do have some advantages:

• No OEM bloat/telemetry. With Samsung phones for example, you'll have to put up with Samsung telemetry and Google's data collection. With Apple, you only have Apple nonsense to put up with.
• iOS devices tend to get updates for longer, and they backport critical patches to older devices. While Android is more modular (allowing Google to update certain parts of the system through google play services), and the situation is improving (newer Google Pixels get 5 years of security updates now), iOS still has a slight edge.
• For Macbooks, I'll just quote the Asashi Linux documentation:

It would be remiss not to briefly cover where these machines stand in terms of user control and trustability. Apple Silicon machines are designed first and foremost to provide a secure environment for typical end-users running macOS as signed by Apple; they prioritize user security against third-party attackers, but also attempt to limit Apple's own control over the machines in order to reduce their responsibility when faced with government requests, to some extent. In addition, the design preserves security even when a third-party OS is installed.

...

From a security perspective, these machines may possibly qualify as the most secure general purpose computers available to the public which support third-party OSes, in terms of resistance to attack by non-owners. This is, of course, predicated on some level of trust in Apple, but some level of trust in the manufacturer is required for any system (there is no way to prove the non-existence of hardware backdoors on any machine, so this is not as much of a sticking point as it might initially seem).

• Lockdown Mode, which apparently has somewhat protected against zero click exploits.

• For iOS Safari (no clue on Mac), they allow adblocking without having to grant the extension privileged access to the page. This includes cosmetic filtering. (Somewhat hit and miss on Youtube tho). Malicious extensions and filter list exploits are a problem, and while Google is attempting to fix this somewhat with Manifest V3, it's not perfect. From my experience with Ublock Origin Lite in Edge, you don't currently get cosmetic filtering without granting privileged access, which defeats the point. Otherwise, it appears to be as effective as DNS blocking.

• The App Privacy Report makes it super easy (provided you're not connected to a VPN) to see what domains an app connects to. I can check the entry for my offline password manager for example, and see that it isn't pinging anything other than inappcheck.itunes.apple.com. I think this is used to query the in app purchase status.

For disadvantages:

• Telemetry: even with everything opted out of, Apple still collects hardware data, local MAC Addresses (for their location services database, this is also noted in their documentation). Also, for some reason they insist on tying collected click heatmaps in the app store/books/stocks app directly to the Apple ID. (This is just off the top of my head, I may be missing something). I don't personally consider this a deal breaker (Apple already knows what apps I download), but I can understand why they've been raked over the coals for it given how much they market privacy.

• While iMessage is touted for being end to end encrypted, the defaults have it backing up unencrypted to the cloud, which defeats the point. There is Advanced Data Protection now, but both sides of a conversation would have to turn it on.

• VPNs on iOS leak. This is different from Android where it can be argued that connectivity checks are a good thing and don't send personal data, but with iOS certain system apps appear to just straight up bypass it.

• Without sideloading, it's basically impossible to use an iPhone without logging in.

• Some stuff such as the gyroscope still doesn't require a permission to access.

• Allowing carriers to do this.

Some other points I'd like to make:

• Being proprietary does not mean that something is an insecure, unverifiable black box. Security researchers scrutinize Apple all the time for vulnerabilities.

• They don't appear to be conducting CSAM scanning despite some FUD about it

• I looked through my GDPR Apple Takeout some time ago, and iirc it was about 11 mb in size due to me opting out of everything, and didn't contain majorly sensitive information.

I use Apple Watch, phone and iPad because they just work. For my computer, I use Linux. Don’t overthink it.

From a practical perspective, even using open source takes some time and effort. I suspect many people gravitate towards apple is because they nail the basics and have a great out of the box experience.

I'm against Apple in principle, but that doesn't mean I didnt get an M1 air when I had to upgrade a year or something ago - it was simply the best in the market for the price at the time.

Also apple does not respect privacy nearly as much as they love to tout. Open source in general has a much better track record with privacy because of the people building the tools don't have as much profit incentive or government oversight.

I'd highly encourage everyone to use more FOSS stuff. Think of it this way, you believe all information should be free and open, what if every technological advancement was too. How far could we go?

Right now Apple got big and bad because they made the best stuff and worked real hard to isolate themselves from everyone else so they could build a walled garden. What if your first introduction to a computer was one that started open and free? What if the brilliant minds that integrated the Apple ecosystem did it openly so everyone could enjoy it going further? Also, what if every harmful technology had been done in the open so watchdogs could tell you if some software was harmful to you?

I think the world would be far better off. You could prove things are good and bad, you wouldn't have so much driven by greed but by the good intentions of good people.

FOSS, sometimes has all the features if you know where to look. There is an awesome Linux app called KDE connect that almost bridges the gap between phone and Linux. It can't do calls, but that's because unlike apple it can't reroute them. It can do texts, send links and files back and forth, control media, run arbitrary command from your phone, and it does all that not just between phone and computer, but also computer and computer, all devices you connect to it. It's amazing what good people with brilliant minds can do with so little. They didn't even need millions of dollars to do it, just some creativity.

I love the philosophy and have so believed in it because there are small places where you can get a glimpse of what incredible things we'd have if we just stopped being entitled and greedy.

Ethical consumption is nearly impossible to actually achieve which is why the best way to solve corporate bad practices is a healthy dose of regulation and government. It never hurts to, if you can, avoid doing business with certain bad actors if you'd like but often times you're trading one bad actor for another in a different way.

Personally though I'm not a fan of Apple products. They can be well made and their silicon is incredible. Very fast and energy efficient and for a few years it was far ahead of other arm offerings and in terms of efficiency is still ahead of mobile x86 offerings(though the gap isnt that gigantic anymore it does still offer far better single core performance per watt at low levels). Their software manages to be well designed and whether I agree with it or not manages to get certain features in the mainstream.

That said I prefer the more open way of doing things. Like for example take moving files into and out of an iphone. Pre-airdrop you had to use all kinds of syncing software in order to move files out whereas on android I could just plug it in and navigate my files like a usb. Post airdrop, well airdrop only works on apple products as a means of keeping you locked into the ecosystem. I dont think a good chunk of the way they do things is necessarily better, and they rarely do things first, and worst of all when they do it's often a proprietary way that is not compatible with other devices and OS.

While it’s true that Apple doesn’t contribute anything to being open there’s always a cost-benefit trade off. “Bad guys ™️” made chemo, but we still use it. If you’re such a big proponent of openness and you use Apple - donate some cash (as able) to an open source project. It doesn’t have to be all or none.

I think Apple is as bad as Microsoft or even worse. Their products are not even remotely as good as their fans claim to be either.

I had to use a macbook for work once and it honestly sucked and I really tried to like it even contributed to major user space programs through out my 2 year adventure. It's a bad platform of blind leading the blind.

I don't like Apple... refuse to elaborate further

I hate the current state of Apple with a burning passion. At some point I had tried using their devices. They treat me like I am severely mentally impaired and need saving from myself. But if you like their interface, the interconnectivity and the workflow, more power to you. I myself have bought windows keys from shady websites for like 10% of the price (I am a gamer and linux wasn't ready for gaming at the time). I have stripped the OS of all the tracking bullshit, used third party tools to disable everything I don't like, uninstalled Edge (painful), installed tools to disable licensing checks in programs (sketchy), etc. I have never bought an iPhone. When I switch phones, I root the old one for shits and giggles. I use only open-source software and everything I publish (files for 3d printing) are openly accessible too and never paywalled. But not everyone can live like me. I have, at one point in my life, spent 18 hours at my PC screwing around with the registry in windows, to disable some slimy POS tracker. I do not have a problem with anyone choosing convenience over cheapness or open-sourceness. But I hope more people make the leap. Because your coworker is right. The problem is absolutely the same. I hope open-source gets more convenient to use. For example gaming on Linux is finally possible. You can't change the whole world, you can only change yourself. And you won't do it overnight, you have to wake up in the morning and make a conscious effort of making a change in your routine. I convinced my SO to at least try an Android phone after she was done with her iPhone. Now she can never go back. Now she has a Laptop with Windows on it. A custom PC, which she wouldn't trade for a top of the line MacBook. In any case, OP: if you want to make a change, do it one step at a time. Don't overload yourself. I was introduced to linux by my dad, where he helped me follow a tutorial on how to make a bootable usb drive for Ubuntu. It was fun and not complicated at all. Once you have that USB, try booting off of it, play around in Linux. Have some fun. It is closer to MacOS than Windows. It just doesn't stop you from being dumb and doing dumb things :). And after that, if you like it, do some more research, try some more things. Be the change you want to see in the world.

Edit: removed and replaced the R-Slur. Apologies.

What you are looking for is the Free Software movement, not Open Source. You can watch a short introduction here: https://youtu.be/Ag1AKIl_2GM

You can then understand why it was created and why it's important to society. According to the values of Free Software, Apple is an unethical company, because it restricts users freedom and their right to control their own devices. Doing that lets them abuse users by for example taking away their privacy or adding unskippable updates that might slow down their system or do other harmful things.

Free Software fixes this by giving you the freedom to study the program, modify it and distribute it. Just like the scientific knowledge is available to everyone and anyone can improve upon it.

Guy was just converted into a FOSS nerd. Give it a few months and he'll own a thinkpad with a custom i3 rice and be saying "I use arch btw".

Jokes aside, I think apple is a terrible company. Sure, their products are amazing but they're grossly overpriced and not FOSS or compatible with anything else.

The iphone 14 pro max costs $464 to make and retails for $2000. That's not innovation, that's grifting. Besides, the main difference between the Iphone 11 and 14 is the price (no, the camera is not that much better, i don't care what you say).

Apple also intentionally gatekeeps their products (Vender Lock-in) making the experience worse for everyone who doesn't own Apple products. They could adopt the open standard that all other phones use for texting (MMS I think it's called) but instead they use imessage to make your experience worse when texting people with Androids. This also makes it hard to switch to an Android even if it's better. And don't even get me started on the charger situation.

Also, they use privacy as a branding statement but we have no way to verify that claim. They could be selling all our data and be well within their rights. If they were open source we would be able to verify that claim.

I can't really talk though because I own a (refurbished) Iphone. I do this because a) the messaging system and b) my whole family is in the apple ecosystem (with no way out) so I get benefits of our family plan like tons of storage.

Check out https://www.eff.org/

Maybe this isn't contributing much, but I'm trying to put myself out here to keep the community active. I always would hesitate before commenting my opinion on reddit, lol.

My job borders on the tech industry (environmental modelling, so we use a lot of the framework that programmers do but most of my work is environmental work), but I've always had a really great interest in tech and gaming.

I had a couple of different Android phones, like I really tried - some LG phone but also a Samsung Galaxy S3 - and I felt like they aged quickly. If I installed one too many weird apps it would start running slow like the PCs I used to pirate on in the 2000s. That has literally never happened to me with an iPhone. The ease and seamlessness of messaging and facetiming with other iPhone users (80% of people in my life) is great enough that I can kind of shrug my shoulders and say 'There's no ethical consumption under capitalism anyways.' Plus the seamlessness with the Apple Watch and being able to keep my phone in my bag and know if anything important comes up by looking at my wrist? Honestly has helped me kick the phone habit.

I had a Mac for a while also, but ended up selling it when I felt so limited in the games I could play and apps I could use. I find that Apple's computers are pretty worthless to me, but if I had the money to spend and wanted a reliable, fast browsing and general computing experience, I'm sure I would gladly spend the money on it. But this is coming from someone with a $3000 beast of a home machine lol

These are probably more related than you think. I believe we were on track to work together in a global Open Science initiative until Bill Gates stepped up to bankroll most of the biggest initiatives under the agreement that the results were proprietary.

Apple historically was the first company to sue for software copyright infringement. As many other have posted in this thread, they haven't gotten better over time.

Apple products are great if you're already in the ecosystem. As someone who's only Apple product was an iPod nano, I never understood the hype. Yes, they make nice looking devices, but Apple products are all so... Locked. If you want to run Adobe Premier on your new M1 MacBook, great, it does it amazingly well. If you want to run a half dozen virtual machines on the same M1 (which has more than enough power to do it), then you're totally out of luck.

It's the "walled garden" approach that I don't like. Computers, and by extension, smartphones and smart watches, are capable of so much more than what we ask of them, but if we're not allowed to even try then why would I dig myself further into an ecosystem that says "here's what you're allowed to do" rather than "here's what you can do".

Apple has it's place; if you like it, great, but it's not for me.

I'm a huge open source advocate and developer. I used Linux for many many years, but these days I'm Apple all the way. I'm too old to hack around with everything, I want my commodities to Just Work, so I can focus on the stuff I want to do with it. Also, Apple are the only big company I remotely trust on privacy.

Apple is the worst... and they make it really hard to break out of their walled garden once you made the mistake to enter it. But don't throw away everything, just don't give them any additional money and try to somehow escape from that prison over time. But it will be hard as Apple intentionally breaks interoperability with things that are not Apple.

Having languished for years hoping for new updates of android and being hampered by carriers or phone makers, I greatly enjoy the long term support apple gives to its devices.

On then computer front I’m a huge fan of Linux distros. If I could I’d move on from windows.

The FOSS and open ecosystem is a deep rabbit hole to jump down. Its an important one to be sure, but its also important to know that there is no really feasible way for lay folks to fully pass any sort of purity test without swapping to Linux, using a nonstandard mobile OS, etc. These are all achievable things to do, but they come with significant tradeoffs that require people to be very tech savvy.

I'd say it would be good to learn more about open source as an idea, and then take consistent, small measures to wean yourself out of the totally closed Apple ecosystem. But dont beat yourself up - the most important change is the one upstairs...IRL impacts will flow from that over time.

My view: I could not, even if it would safe my own life, explain my 69 year old luddite mother how to operate and navigate an Android smartphone, but I was able to teach her how to use an iPhone 7 Plus without much trouble. She's 73 now and scrolls Twitter and Instagram like the best of them. Replies on emails are still full of typing errors but hey we communicate just fine.

Apple is the symbol for a walled garden that feeds it's inhabitants overpriced crap and they love it.

When buying tech products I mainly care about if they are integrated with each other or not.

A lot of people do. That's why apple made sure you can only use apple devices with other apple devices. Bluetooth allows users to share files between any two devices? Better make sure an iPhone can't connect to anything that doesn't have an i prefix in it's name. You like our earbuds, buy an iPhone if you want the buttons to work. Sure, you can play music over the radio from your phone while driving, oh you don't have an iPhone, get fucked.

And it's an effective strategy. You start off with a phone, add a watch and earbuds to it, and the next thing you know you're buying a $1k stand for a $5k monitor to work with your $7k cheese grater of a tower. Because what are you going to do, give up on connectivity, throw away all of your apple devices, or go all the way in on the apple koolaid?

Don't even get me started on the quality of their overpriced crap, or the fact that they've been fighting tooth and nail to keep making ewaste instead of allowing the users to repair and upgrade their devices. Watch any video on the topic from Louis Rossmann.

Tldr

Fuck apple

Just had a lunch conversation today as well and a colleague's iPhone got stolen. I mentioned how the problem of being able to do everything on the phone makes it a single point of failure (back in the day when I traveled I needed internet cafés to login into my brokerage account to sell off some stock. Now I just do it with my phone.). We discussed a bit more how he was stuck and frustrated as all things are done with the phone now (Uber, 2-factor authentication etc.).

But, it was an iPhone, so Apple allowed him to completely shut down and erase his old phone together with all payment info and all other personal info. And then just enter his Apple ID on his new phone (paid by the insurance) and he was back in the game.

If I had my Fairphone stolen, I'd have to somehow recover some parts of my data from my personal backup and the installation process of any new device would take some time. Also, who knows what the thief could've done with my phone?

So yeah, I'm completely opposed to my device being controlled by a corporation to the point they can lock, erase and move all data (including app data) somewhere else, but I do see the advantages.

You touched upon quite a few interesting topics, so I’ll try to summarize a few things quickly (i.e. prepare for a wall of text).

Generally speaking, citizens of various countries around the world pay taxes, and some of that money gets turned into science. Theoretically, those papers should be accessible to all the citizens because they paid for the experiments to be made and the papers written.

However, the story doesn’t end there! Usually, those papers go through a bizarre system where the scientist pays for them to be published in a journal and then the readers also need to pay to read them. IMO this part of the system is very broken, and open access seems like a way to fix it.

If you feel like it’s all just a big scam, then using sci-hub doesn’t really have any ethical problems. If you feel like the system is contributing something important, then paying for it shouldn’t be a problem either. I’m open to both interpretations, but I’m also reading from sci-hub, so I’m not entirely neutral.

I wonder if you friend would argue that scientific journals are a scam and Apple is also scamming people in a way. If that’s the case, it’s a social justice thing, isn’t it?

It’s true that Apple is pretty bad when it comes to right to repair or FOSS. If you believe that more things should be FOSS, then you probably would be using Android products instead. However, that world comes with a long list of problems too, such as privacy, but that’s a story for another wall of text.

However, as far as the philosophy of open source is concerned, Android is slightly better than iOS. If you’re all about supporting open access and open source, it would make a lot of sense to use Android and avoid all Apple products.

Obviously there are other ways to look at this subject. Personally, I would love to use a 100% FOSS electronics, and as far as laptops are concerned, you can go pretty far in that direction. Mobile devices are a very different story though, but that’s a story for yet another wall of text.

In wise words of Commander Data: "I realized, it is the struggle itself that is most important. We must strive to be more than we are, Lal. It does not matter that we will never reach our ultimate goal. The effort yelds its own rewards"

You now understand the importance of free software just like you already knew the importance of free knowledge. You don't need to force yourself into shapes you don't fit, but you can help move us all into a better future for everybody.

(Note that I'm not much of a tech wiz myself, so I only roughly understand the issue with the lack of privacy.)

When it comes to weighing the pros and cons between security versus convenience, it's hard for me to say that one tops the other. We live in a fast-paced world. At the same time, I hate the idea of people profiting off my data and trying to snoop. A lot of companies like Apple have an iffy reputation when it comes to data security, even though they say they protect your data and privacy. At the same time, many companies provide services which have become an integrated part in people's lives.

I have an Android because I love dabbling with FOSS apps. I never want to have a phone from Apple. However, I also have an iPad— and I'm planning on getting a MacBook. The iPad is good for taking notes and making digital art, while the MacBook helps me deal with industry standards in my future career field.

So for me, I'm not indifferent but... I guess a better way to word it is that I'm wary. On a day-to-day basis I prefer efficiency, but in the long-term I think it might bite me in the ass. Somehow. If it didn't already. (Probably did.)

I'm an Apple user, and have been since 2007 when I bought my first MacBook. I have an iPhone, a Watch, a bunch of Macs, and Apple TV. I have an iPad too, but the screen's broken, I can't afford to repair it, and honestly, I don't really have much use for an iPad these days.

While I like how much these devices sync with each other, and I love how well they're built, with every year that passes it sits less well with me how, if you can't afford the latest and greatest, you'll experience some level of OS-rot.

I mean, my iPad is new enough to support iPadOS 16, but too old to support Stage Manager. That I'm not really bothered by, but it's indicative of a problem. If the device is capable of running an OS, it should get all of the OS that its hardware will allow. Even more fundamentally though, say iOS 17 has some new additions to Notes.app that will also work in Sonoma, but your Mac isn't recent enough to go beyond Monterey; does that mean you can't view notes made on your iPhone on your Mac?

And yeah, that doesn't sit right with me.

I don't use Apple products myself, although I do have an old iPad. My main issue with them isn't a moral one though, it's that Apple seem to design their products to work as slickly as possible with their own ecosystem to the detriment of everything else.

If you use an iPhone, an iPad, an Apple Watch and a Mac then you're probably enjoying a great user experience. If you want to use an Apple device with anything else you're probably in for some amount of pain. I'm not against them, but they're not for me.

I do try and use FOSS software where I can, not least Lemmy and Mastodon, but my main devices are a Windows PC along with an Android phone and tablet. Windows is obviously closed source, and while Android itself is open source you can't say the same for all the vital Google stuff on top. I have a plan to get my hands on a high specced Raspberry Pi when they're finally back in stock and use it as my main home desktop for light use. If I had a laptop of my own I'd definitely be running Linux on it too.

I think everyone should absolutely look into FOSS hardware and software, although in reality I doubt most people would care. If anything it's just the "free" part they care about, but there's obviously a huge benefit in software and hardware being free for others to build on, fork and improve. I'd love nothing more than seeing everything work on this principle, but that's sadly not the world we live in.

The only Apple thing I ever enjoyed using was a ][e.

My main problem with Apple is they really only care about what you've done for them lately.

They have a tendency to obsolete things and force devs to come along for the ride. They killed PowerPC, they killed flash and they're in the process of killing x86. If devs are still around they need to work to catch up. If they aren't, the applications just won't work anymore. Compare this to the backwards compatibility of, say, Windows applications. I like when my applications continue to work.

I also wish they'd never inflicted smartphones upon the world, but I suppose that's a personal gripe.

I've been an Apple user now for several years now and I get why someone would choose an Apple product, disregarding their monopolous philosophy. Every device is extremely well made with attention to detail, feels almost worth the money you're paying for. The software is adjusted for every device, on iPad you (most of the time) get software that utilizes the space and not just upscaled mobile software. I'm sure that goes for Android now too, but at least it didn't when I switched. The "ecosystem" works incredibly well, everything can be sychronized and my AirPods connect instantly.

However since I've started going to university my mindset has changed. Now I value repairability over being "Apple chique", I've started becoming more and more attached to the open source philosophy (not only concerning software) and frankly, I don't feel a need for Apple anymore so the drawbacks started weighing heavier. I swapped my MacBook for a ThinkPad running Linux. I don't care about the cloud anymore either - I'm much more happy with having my own, decentralised, cloud. I also feel like I want some change. Apple has become boring to me - but that is a personal taste.

Really jumped in the deep end with your research, huh? :)

I guess a good place to start would be deciding what actually bothers you. Megacorp sucks because of [shitty capitalism, shady labor practices, locking down devices, privacy, insert other complaint]. Weigh those against the benefits you get.

My biggest concern is generally privacy and monetization of my data, but I still use an iPhone because my family wouldn’t get off my case about ease of sharing photos, videos. So I only have the iPhone. Don’t buy anything else from them. I turn off as much tracking and data collection as possible. I only have two outward-facing files in iCloud — my encrypted password keeper so that I can access it both from phones and mobile, and an encrypted file vault that can only be opened if you first get into the password keeper.

FWIW on the FOSS side, I still use Linux. I used to use GrapheneOS on a Pixel 5a that worked otherwise well.

I like to tinker. I don't buy apple products. I get that most people want a device that just works when they pick it up and integrates with the rest of their devices. Apple does this really well.

While I personally agree with your colleague, one must consider one's use case and the amount of time and effort it will take to replicate the things you like about the apple UX and ecosystem and make a judgement call. I have a Windows desktop, a Linux server, an Android phone and tablet and I spend a fair amount of time seeing them up and keeping them talking to one another to share data, but even then I can't get them to share settings simply like do not disturb.

Apple has innovated on the user experience to the point where if I pick up an iphone I can't navigate around it because it relies on a soft touch, "intuitive", gestural interface. And therefore it's easy for me to shun apple products on principle. The real hard work is migrating off the platform you know. And for people that were raised in the apple touch ecosystem, I don't realistically see many of them ever leaving.

I use windows, Apple products and Linux. I prefer FOSS products and will go out of my way to use Ubuntu or arch on my desktop and laptops (going on 15 years) even if it’s harder to get working in certain situations (e.g., gaming). I have to use windows at work. I use apple products (iPhone, iPad, headphones, watch) for the same reasons OP stated, they just work. I need a reliable phone and don’t trust google or the other android manufactures so I see apple as the lesser evil.

Use whatever is best for your situation.

I have an iPhone, use a MacBook for work (only options are windows and Mac), but use Linux at home. I was an android user years ago, but one of the things that pushed me away is google treating android users as a data source. There were ‘bugs’ which caused the google services to run constantly in the background. In my opinion, Apple cares about users privacy lot more than google does. Use whatever tool suits you best.

I'm a software engineer who uses a lot of open source software and I use Apple devices whenever possible. Electronic devices cost a lot of money, so I want my money to count. With that said, every Apple device I've owned has lasted me for a very long time and are still working today; The longest one being a 2012 Macbook Air which is still alive and kicking today after 2 battery replacements.

Every iPhone I've ever owned have received major iOS updates for 5-6 years. Meanwhile, every Android flagship phone (which costs similarly to the latest and greatest iPhones) I've owned have stopped getting major Android updates after 2-3 years. People criticize Apple for planned obsolescence, but other brands have it worse.

Even if you do listen to your friend's advice and decide to go for another brand, which one actually advocates for the ideals your friend has shared with you? The direct alternatives to Apple products aren't better in any philosophical way. The ones that do either offer a completely difference experience or an inferior product.

Don't feel bad about what your friend is saying. He doesn't pay for your stuff.

I'm going to give a different and possibly controversial opinion to the others in here. To get started, I admit that I am a daily mac and ios user so there's definitely some bias there. That being said, I think there is a clear difference between the vaccine and information resources and using a mac or iphone. I think there is an incredible need for there to be a free and open source option that exists for everything (especially for public health and information), but not everything needs to be free and open source if a free version exists elsewhere (or even multiple viable free options). Just because I like going to libraries doesn't mean I dislike book stores. As a video editor, I very much disagree with my professional industry basically mandating ProRes, which forces Mac use (or at least it did for a long time), which institutes a costly and sometimes impossible barrier to entry for many people, which is lame because more editing friends in post is always better.

Maybe there's something I'm missing in the argument, but it seems like if a programmer or end user wanted to use open source software, nothing is stopping them, but if a government wanted to implement "open source" vaccines, that wasn't possible because of the patents. Sure, cross-integration would be super nice (airpods on an android, ipad on windows, imessage on everything, etc), but I don't know if it should be an expectation, just like cross-play in video games would be super nice, but shouldn't be an expectation.

I do like tinkering with things though, and that's really my main personal qualm with apple (I know they're a huge megacorporation, but they don't generally make my personal life worse for the most part). I was running a pretty beefy hackintosh for 7+ years before that computer decided to give up. Now I use that hardware for a home media server. I also love tinkering with little linux distributions on my raspberry pi. Apple really doesn't scratch any of these itches for me, but that's why I do both. I have the reliable mac for work and general computing use and I have my other devices for everything else.

I've decided that if I have to be in an ecosystem, it'll be Apple's. I currently have an iPhone, a Apple Watch, and I use the Airpods Pro daily.

I'm a programmer, and an engineer. I love to tinker with stuff. electrical, mechanical, software. Most of the time. But as I get older (now 26 so not too old, but old enough to remember my mom's tiny blue Nokia as the first cell phone in the house) and busier with life, I've realized that there's some stuff I want to just work. I don't care if I can customize it, I don't care if I have to spend a few minutes getting used to a new layout change that was "forced" on me.. For me, my phone isn't something to fool around with, hack, or mod out the wazoo. It's a business tool. My watch helps me keep track of my health, and all I have to do is put it on and keep it charged. The Airpods are so seamless to use it's silly. For this part of my life (phone, watch/health, listening), I want the absolute lowest amount of friction.

I can also defer software updates as long as I like, which is more than I can say for say Windows. I used the same OS from 2016 to 2020 because I didn't want to update to the new layouts. My iPhone would ask me to update every so often, but I'd just hit cancel and that'd be it until the next major update.

Apple is also a hardware company to begin with, as opposed to other companies with ecosystems, so with that I at least feel like they care a little bit less about making money off my data because they're already making money off me buying the hardware and iCloud.

I consider Apple to be one of the most evil corporations out there, but it appears that my interpretation of "evilness" seema to coincide with size a lot.
so maybe i just don't like (stupidly) successfull companies.

Anyway, I think Apple locks people in their very nice walled garden and in that garden uses a lot of public infrastructure (like open source software, but also other open services on the net), and gives comparatively very little back to the community.

and they do it, because they think it propably makes slightly more money.

Which is also the reason I don't trust their privacy promises at all, since they can't prove many of them.

Apple could be an enormous force for good, but to me it feels like they care more about making 0.5% more money to put into their hoard.

Terrible company, I do believe the world would be better if it vanished.

I think they both have their place and which you use will depend on your personal philosophy and interest level.

I'm not an Apple user although I did used to have a MacBook Pro and an iPad about a decade ago. They were good products and a joy to use and I imagine their products are still like that.

I don't know how much better they are than Samsung who have a similar eco-system now.

In theory you could set up all of those integrations and functionality yourself using free and open source software (FOSS) but I personally don't have the time to learn how to do all of that so I'd go for a more off the shelf solution. I am a techie at heart so Android suits me, I can tinker as much or as little as I want but then I could always jailbreak an iPhone and achieve much the same in theory?

Not sure the FOSS argument applies to Apple and their hardware as much as it does to something like Reddit vs Lemmy. The equivalent might be Apples MacBooks vs the framework laptop but then that's more about right to repair which is different again.

There are open source programs to replace Apple's programs but you would likely be hard pressed to find a professional film editor who would use an obscure FOSS program instead of something like Final Cut or Davinci Resolve. I could be wrong here, it's my area.

For me the appeal of Apple is that 'it just works' and it looks nicer than everything else so you pay more for it. I'm personally happier to put a bit of work in to learn how stuff works, have a more customisable experience and save some cash but I'd recommend Apple stuff all day to my non-techie friends / family if they would get value from it.

FOSS is however in my opinion the right approach in terms of sharing knowledge and keeping the internet open. Having open source and self hostable solutions means the internet belongs to it's users and not corporations. We live in a capitalist society though so if you have a good idea, shouldn't you be allowed to monetize and profit from it rather than give it away for free? Where the future of our species depends on it though I agree the knowledge and inventions should be 'open-sourced' and not patented like in your COVID vaccine example.

Sorry for the rambly wall of text. Enjoyed your post.

i dont like apple, but i understand why people do. the ecosystem seems convenient, the promises of privacy, etc. but as a techy person i dont like to use them, it feels too constricting and overpriced. and they havent innovated in a long time (with the exception of vision pro, which although i find ridiculous, at least they finally did something innovative)

Apple is just about the worst offender out there in terms of desire to maintain a closed ecosystem.

• They only adopt open hardware standards when forced to by law

• They scrupulously enforce price controls on their resellers, ensuring that you can't usually purchase prior generations at a discount

• They intentionally degrade performance on older generations of devices through malicious software updates to force users to upgrade

• They aggressively combat open source and cross platform integration. E.g., Apple TV can't be cast to a Google device, etc.

My amateur opinion: Apple makes beautiful and thoughtful devices that are tightly integrated into a system of services that work well. But I don't use them, mostly because of the closed nature of that ecosystem, and also because they are consistently more expensive. Back when you could jailbreak and sideload apps on iPhones, I had a series of iPhones and they were pretty good phones, although iTunes always sucked. While they were around, iPods were clever. But I preferred to buy music from a variety of places, I wanted to install apps that I wanted and not what were available on the App Store, and I really didn't like the user-hostile decisions Apple made to sell more hardware. Getting rid of the headphone jack was one of the worst decisions to me, as was Apple's dogmatic refusal to use USB-C until European regulators recently forced the change.

Ethical consumption is nearly impossible to actually achieve which is why the best way to solve corporate bad practices is a healthy dose of regulation and government. It never hurts to, if you can, avoid doing business with certain bad actors if you'd like but often times you're trading one bad actor for another in a different way.

Personally though I'm not a fan of Apple products. They can be well made and their silicon is incredible. Very fast and energy efficient and for a few years it was far ahead of other arm offerings and in terms of efficiency is still ahead of mobile x86 offerings(though the gap isnt that gigantic anymore it does still offer far better single core performance per watt at low levels). Their software manages to be well designed and whether I agree with it or not manages to get certain features in the mainstream.

That said I prefer the more open way of doing things. Like for example take moving files into and out of an iphone. Pre-airdrop you had to use all kinds of syncing software in order to move files out whereas on android I could just plug it in and navigate my files like a usb. Post airdrop, well airdrop only works on apple products as a means of keeping you locked into the ecosystem. I dont think a good chunk of the way they do things is necessarily better, and they rarely do things first, and worst of all when they do it's often a proprietary way that is not compatible with other devices and OS.

Your friend is right about open source as an idea and companies like Apple being antithetical to that idea. However, unless you have the time and determination to make a hobby out of it, just keep using whatever tech works for you. I say this as a Linux and Android user who really dislikes Apple's walled garden. Your choices as an individual consumer will only significantly matter to you.

I like your scientific way of looking at things i am a software developer and i know few people who are using apple laptops and phones and they are defending everything that company make or say or do even it is a very anti-consumer decition like their implementation of right to repair so i am glad that not every apple user is also in their cult

@IronTwo Yep. I don't use Apple primarily because their ecosystem is too closed and you gotta register and buy a programming license from them to do any programming.

Screw all that, I'm staying where the ability to program my devices is guaranteed and I can load and run free software if I want and I don't have to get permission from mega-corp to change the apps I run.

I'll admit I'm not the biggest FOSS evangelist, so this comes with a grain of salt. From a right to repair standpoint, I don't care for Apple's policies at all. But from a security and (perhaps counterintuitively) user experience standpoint, I agree with Apple's walled garden approach, locked down OS, and single app store. We see the alternatives in Android, and we see how much worse its security is.

I think FOSSS shouldn't be some kind of religion, if you like Apple, great, go for it. However if you truly value privacy (while beeing better than Microsoft, Apple still collects some of your data) and freedom it certainly won't hurt to try out some alternatives. If you like them better it is a win-win situation, if not switch back.

Things you can do if you are interrested in FOSS, that don't necessary need you to change everything:

• Try some software alternatives for programms you are using (LibreOffice instead of Word, Gimp instead of Photoshop etc.) This lets you search for alternatives.
• Spin up a Linux VM and try it, or try to install linux on an old laptop. -And when you do that, look into KDE Connect as it offers connectivity between devices, that even Apple does not offer in some cases.
• If you are truly into it, you can even contribute to FOSS, to make them as good as Apple products.

I tried explaining all of that to a friend and she said "well, you see, I like the a e s t h e t i c of Apple products, and then pulled out her iPhone which was covered in some kind of rubber condom making it impossible to see what the big deal was about the design.

I use a cheap Motorola with no protection at all and it has yet to break from being dropped on the floor several times. It looks like a rounded rectangle. So much for design.