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

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.

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

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’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.

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 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.

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 adopted it. 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 😁

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.