[myrandomcomment]

We to be fair their argument is 100% valid. Apple is very successful in selling their HW as is without the feature certain users want. The reality is that adding that feature would have a great deal of cost behind it for very little growth on their already impressive numbers. Everyone here on HN likes to criticize Apple for not allowing 3rd party stores, but in general wants their HW. This community is self selecting for the tech people so they think this is reasonable. My wife and kid and my friends that are not in tech do not care about 3rd party at all, and when I have asked them the answer is "I buy Apple because it just works and I do not have to think about it. That would add complexity I do not want!" This is Apples market, not HN were this is the norm:

Me: "Great, do not buy an Apple protect." HN: "But I like their HW." Me: "Well then you have to deal with their SW restrictions." HN: "But I do not want to, why cannot they not just do this for me, it's just SW."

Wash, rinse, repeat on every story on AppleHW. I would really love to be able to read the comments on the interesting aspect of the story without 80% of the comments going back to this debate for once.

Apple is NOT a monopoly, therefor you cannot force them to change this. You can buy another device that allows you to install 3rd party stuff. Do that.

[swiley]

>Apple is NOT a monopoly... you can buy another device

They're a monopoly on imessage which most people who own iphones think is just more advanced text messaging. You'll get left out of groups if you do this.

All we want is to be able to run our own binaries, I can't believe this is even controversial especially on a forum full of software developers.

[myrandomcomment]

WhatsApp has 2B users vs. 1.6B for Apple. Of the 1.6B for Apple there is a group that would not use iMessage, but any other 3rd party application, like Whatsapp.

The fact that you are left of a chat does not make Apple a monopoly. The people in your group could choose to all switch to the same application, of which most of are closed source. I spent a ton of time in APAC and while each country has different most popular chat apps, the group of us that have spent years working together on and off at different companies all agreed on a common chat app. It's just not hard.

I have a few long term friend groups where a member has an Android and the text is green. No issues sending them text at all. The MMS stuff can be broken but that is not Apples fault.

Your argument is Apple once again the same as everyones else, and appeal to everyone be open because it is your philosophical view of things and it would make your life simpler.

Apple is a for profit company. They are not a monopoly on chat because they choose to offer their users a better experience over the standard SMS (which they supported).

I am frustrated with all the people that miss that distinction. They are a private entity and can do what they way within the outline of the law. You can vote with your pocketbook, or run for office and get the laws changed.

Also, the OSS vs non-OSS comment: you cannot take for granted that everyone here comes down on the side of the GPL 100%. There are a ton of us that work/worked at companies that did priority software because that is what made sense for the business model. We do not write software for free - ie, there has to be a method to pay our bills. I personally have major issues with GPL3 when it comes to creating works for a profit company. No major ones with GPL2, Apache, MIT, etc.

[threeseed]

There’s also a monopoly on Slack, Google Docs, Fortnite etc.

In fact by that ridiculous definition everything in life is a monopoly.

[swiley]

This is anti-trust (extreme abuse of the monopoly.)

Slack, Google Docs, and Fortnite don't force you to use their brand of computer to participate in group chats with your friends.

Slack and Google Docs even work on my pinephone.

If Google forced you to buy an Android if you wanted to use Google Docs with whatever group of people you need to work with you'd probably be upset too.