Your second quote conveniently chops out the main point of the article, which is that Apple abuse their dominance to force developers into having no choice.
Because dev experience isn't what my post was about. I don't agree with some of the ways Apple treats developers, but I mostly agree with how they treat users and I genuinely like (MacBook) or at least understand and respect (iPhone) their products.
What happens when Apple stops being on fire, and you are trapped in their ecosystem and can't get out? I won't argue that Apple makes the nicest and most comfortable golden cuffs, but in the end they're still chains.
> What happens when Apple stops being on fire, and you are trapped in their ecosystem and can't get out? I won't argue that Apple makes the nicest and most comfortable golden cuffs, but in the end they're still chains.
What are the options in the smartphone landscape? Please elaborate in a way that my elderly mother could use without 24h tech support from family members.
Android? And have instead of golden handcuffs a straight-out chain to serve the ads landlord? Yeah there's only a "choice" between the comfortable golden cuff of Apple and the being actively exploited by google. I know what to choose.
Obs. For anyone suggesting giving a de-googled lineage phone to my mother, just, please, don't.
> For anyone suggesting giving a de-googled lineage phone to anybody who isn’t a technologist or doesn’t have days and days to spend tweaking a poorly-supported-outside-certain-jurisdictions device, just, please, don't.
ftfy. I get a bit fed up with seeing these things promoted. I’m from New Zealand, not the US or Europe. Where do I get one? Who fixes it when it buggers up? Why does it cost so dang much? Why is it such a slow piece of crap compared to my iPhone 11? etc.
You are the one to judge what’s right for you. Now your grandmother would probably be fine with a Pixel phone, you are the one opposing it on principle. Same as how Chromebooks work well if basic tasks are your bread and butter.
To me Apple stopped being on fire for a while now, in particular as we switched from broken keyboard laptops to wonderful ARM laptops only available in small sizes with 2 usb ports. Also on principle Apple barring third party browser engines and game streaming are two huge no-go, in continuation to the selective ban on interpreted code which almost kills the editor ecosystem. Those handcuffs are not that golden, really.
I think I could easily pull all my data out. Files are, well, files; contacts and calendars can be exported in standard formats; photos are stored as JPEG or raw; music is MPEG-4; e-books are epubs; whatever.
Sure, I'll lose some features, but that's because other platforms don't offer those features, not because Apple is heinously putting extra effort into locking up my data.
Not sure actually, I realised I have never bought a book from Apple. The books I have in Apple Books are all epubs though. So, the program can deal with that format, but not sure what format purchased books have.
That's an easy one. To answer your question you need to do to things.
- Try to export your photos from Google Photos
- Try to export you photos from Apple Photos
Let us compare those two, shall we?
Google Photos:
- stored in cloud
- no _synchronisation option_
- export exists but you loose metadata unless if you do it through API so third-party sync is not possible as well
Options to get your data back:
- Manually select all the photos in web ui and click download.
- Use google takeout option.
Apple Photos:
- Synchronisation. Go to settings and click checkbox "download everything to this Mac". Same for iPhone. Offline ready, your data is on your device.
- Export - just go menu and click "Export originals". It will conveniently organise your photos into files and folders. No internet connection required because the data _is already on your computer under your control_.
So, to answer your question. If Apple stops being on fire, I export my data in a single click and move it somewhere else if there's any option. But it will be sad day because I'm afraid that there will be no option, besides Apple the market is filled with liquid shit that treats users as cattle.
P.S.
The example of photos works for everything else - my music library is synchronised and downloaded locally on multiple machines. If you've got Apple Music subscription you can drop anything in there and it'll upload it. Basically dropbox with UI of iTunes and Spotify on a side.
Same for iCloud Drive - it is downloaded locally.
Heck, everything is downloaded locally, stored on my Macs and backed up with time machine. My data is under _my_ control when I go with Apple.
I don’t see the abuse here. Sign In with Apple is only required if you already support Facebook or Google or another third-party social sign in. If you support only email and password, that’s fine. If you do support social sign in, presumably you do so because then you don’t have to worry about passwords and stuff. Well, this is exactly the same. I don’t see why it makes a difference.
The abuse is that Facebook won't refuse updates to your customers' devices if you choose not to opt into their SSO, but Apple most certainly will.
The problem is not the social sign in aspect, but that fact Apple forces you to implement it if you use their competitors' service.
Had Sign in with Apple not been mandatory, but merely something customers would ask developers for, then I'd consider the framework to be fair game. This simply isn't that.
the rule seems somewhat orthogonal to developers getting emails. Developers can still request login by the old school email-and-password with (or without) sign-up verification by email. On the other hand, some third-party logins don't give developers their users' contact information (just a token to verify that they're on their platform with no authentication permissions, or a dev can request that this be so else the third-party will inform the user that the dev is requesting their contact info).
They are using their app store monopoly to gain a foothold in the single sign-on business. You could try to claim that there's no business there but look at how Microsoft got spanked for giving away a free browser. Now the Apple has over half the phones in the United States, I'm looking forward to them getting spanked very soon hopefully.
Oh? Microsoft got in trouble for using the Windows monopoly to 1.) gain market share for their free browser and 2.) forcing OEMs to not sell alternative operating systems so they could keep their Windows monopoly. You can read all about that here [0]
That's exactly the kind of behavior that Apple is exhibiting here.
It's pretty easy to come along and say that I'm "ignoring the basic facts of the case" though without presenting any facts of your own to back that up. So let's hear your take now.
If Apple is perfectly happy with other sign on, then privacy is certainly off the table. Otherwise, they wouldn't allow apps in their store offering any other sign on (extreme analogy would be apps with virus in it). Then why force developers to add Apple sign on even they don't want to, instead of just encouraging? They can easily do so by telling developers that "apps with no Apple sign on are allowed, but are placed low priority queue so the review process will take longer".
It is pretty standard "embrace, extend, and extinguish" strategy. Similar to what's happening in the browser market. They are waiting for majority of the apps to have their sign on and majority of users use Apple sign on, then update the policy to disallow other methods.
I mean I don't have any issue of Apple doing these in their own ecosystem, but at least don't be so hypocritical or naive when defending them.
> Why then should Apple have monopoly on harvesting emails?
They don't, and aren't trying to. They are trying to disrupt the Google/Facebook duopoly in the SSO space. Devs are free to require new accounts that they have the email for, just not outsource it to FB/Google.