Today, we hacked what we'd set out to hack: the iPhone
blog.calif.io718 points by pavel_lishin 8 hours ago
718 points by pavel_lishin 8 hours ago
It’s a pity we gave in to the “ecosystem” play by these huge companies.. even if I jailbreak my iOS and never let it update.. Apple can easily detect the jailbreak and lock me out of anything iCloud, and iMessage and such. iPhone would be one glorious iPod touch after that.. :-(
Seeing all these gives me the same energy of early days of jailbroken Android phones where one could become root and do whatever with the hardware… I stopped considering such tinkering because I got tired of finding those little tweaks and fixes on forums like xda every time something was updated. With the LLMs capable of automating that tool, I might find those old school way of mobile phones again…
Vote with your wallet. Fuck them.
You shouldn’t have to use LLMs to run your software.
Give it another 6-12 months until the big AI shops shut those capabilities down and running local ones becomes cost prohibitive.
> Vote with your wallet.
Apple is too big for that. Hard regulation is the only way out right now. Maybe breaking them up too.
> Apple is too big for that. Hard regulation is the only way out
Apple is not 'too big' for savvy customers to choose differently but all the Mag 7 tech companies are too big for regulation to be a 'way out'. They now all have 'Regulatory Compliance' divisions which are about compliance as much as the 'Ministry of Truth' is about truth. Instead they are filled with highly-paid former regulators, lobbyists and lawyers who use their inside knowledge to avoid, skirt or nullify regulatory impact.
Company strategies are now purposely designed at conception to be almost impossibly difficult to prosecute or enforce. It's been working so well over the last decade that when the size of the prize is big enough, mega-tech corps are increasingly willing to just overtly violate regulations knowing they can fight in court for years until the govt settles for a reduced fine that's less than the profit already made.
> Apple is not 'too big' for savvy customers to choose differently
Except that won't matter. The "savvy" user is such a tiny minority and only an even tinier minority will be willing to coordinate a boycott. Its a drop in the bucket even if you do get a boycott going.
There are other words for "savvy user":
- early adopter
- trend setter
- tastemaker
- that one family member who understands tech so everyone else in the family goes to them for tech advice
In other words, yes "savvy" users are a minority ... but they influence many more users.
I agree boycotting Apple will never matter. My main point was that calling for "regulation" is a cop-out because it no longer stops Mag7 mega-corp abusers.
I also pushed back on claiming Apple is "too big" because it's another cop-out those neck-deep in the Apple plantation parrot as if it somehow makes it slightly more okay they're enabling the worst of the Mag7 rapacious abusers. Buy Apple if you want, it won't matter. Just own your choices and spare us the fig-leaf rationalizations.
No, it is an acknowledgement of reality, and a plea not to pretend to be doing something when you're not. Apple is horrible, but are no worse than Google. Better in my opinion, because they never pretended to value freedom, and have a sense of ownership over their customers that is sometimes protective. Also, the phones are simply useful longer.
> My main point was that regulation is no longer a reliable check on Mag7 mega-corp abuses.
It is a bad point that was not made at all. The fact that corporations are effectively, and often literally currently unregulated is not proof that regulation is not "a reliable check on" abuses any more than my not wearing an oven mitt and constantly being burned is proof that wearing an oven mitt is not reliable protection against being burned.
Apple is too big to choose differently. There are two choices. Both are horrible. Eventually you will need to make a choice between one or the other to participate in banking, paying your utilities, buying things in stores, logging onto any internet site, maybe paying tolls, maybe even driving (your license might be issued to your phone.) To some extent, some of these things are true now.
Why would anybody owe you a "fig-leaf" excuse? Nobody is trying to placate you. They're just telling you what they think and why they are doing what they're doing, you should be grateful.
I'm speaking as someone who uses Debian on everything, who went from N900 to Firefox's phone to a $20 Android stuck on 8 that I've never hooked to the Google Play store because I don't have (and have never had) a "Google Account," only F-Droid - a phone that I refuse to browse the internet on or connect to my email (I don't have any social media except HN.) It is nothing to brag about, it is stubbornness. It does not move the needle in any way, and I would not have to make an excuse for not doing it, especially to you.
Anyway, I don't use coreboot, don't have a Linux phone anymore, and accept binary blobs in some of my packages, so am I really doing anything?
There's nothing more annoying than this purist faux-radical attitude I hear from people so much dirtier than I am. Are you sure you're not using Apple just so you can lecture people who do? Is that the real sin that Android is committing by closing up and becoming indistinguishable from Apple on policy?
Nobody will cry for a second about you not using Apple or Android except for you. The only way to stop this is through regulation.
It will matter for yourself and for the companies that support user freedom. Sent from my Librem 5.
Right up until you send someone with an iPhone a text message or email someone with a Gmail account...
It doesn’t actually matter, because your phone is only working as a coincidence. Every website and app is tested for Google phones and iPhones. If you lose the ability to do something one day, the chances of you getting that functionality back without major effort from your phone manufacturer or the kindness of bored people working for free, is essentially zero.
My phone runs a desktop GNU/Linux OS with desktop Firefox (or Chromium if installed). If Firefox on desktop stops showing websites correctly, we will have a larger problem than an unsupported niche phone.
Then you’re not using a phone. You’re using a computer which happens to have phone capabilities. Surely you can see how this isn’t particularly useful for most people?
I think that it is necessary a radical political change in the US, akin to a revolution, to be able to pass and enforce meaningful regulation against big tech companies. It's the same as going against the military-industrial complex or big finance. They integrated themselves to this power structure that guarantees their interests come first not only in internal policy, but also in foreign policy. Big tech is a limb of the US empire.
Did you see how much flak Lina Khan got for pushing in that direction?
This issue was on the ballot and will be again.
> Apple is too big for that.
I think you're wrong, but even if you're right, why wouldn't you vote with your wallet anyway?
You alone might not hurt Apple much, but it could certainly help whatever upstart competitor you choose to support.
No it's not. You can vote with your wallet right now. Nothing is stopping you.
I'm blind. Apple has explicitly said they wouldn't consider the "bloody ROI" of accessibility (will fund it no matter what). This is important to me. Software freedom is also important to me. What am I to do?
Choose an alternative. Plenty of non-Apple phones out there.
I stopped buying Apple phones years ago.
> What am I to do?
Pick your priorities. There will never exist enough products to check all of the boxes that all of the people say is important to them. There is someone out there who would much rather have a product cost some amount less at the cost of accessibility features but they think a device that 'just works' is important so they buy the iPhone anyway.
The point is that your conclusion here is both the correct/obvious one, and that it ensures one explicitly cannot vote with their wallet. They have priorities too significant to be able to take part in the protest. They are invisible to the company they WANT to vote for.
Perhaps what allows Apple is to be better at certain things like that or security for average consumer is indeed at odds with some aspirations? At least in practice, not utopian dreams, that seems to be the case.
So you vote with your wallet for accessibility despite freedom and the rest of hacker news do the opposite and it all works itself out.
> What am I to do?
Support NGOs fighting for your freedom like https://eff.org.
You grab an Android phone anyways because Android accessibility is very much on par or even better than whatever slop Apple is putting out with VoiceOver these days, and developers also somewhat care about it more on Android.
You're also going to benefit from European mandates to have accessible mobile apps anyways, it's coming for free to you.
> You're also going to benefit from European mandates to have accessible mobile apps anyways, it's coming for free to you.
Not true, the EU tried to become a regulatory superpower and largely failed to export its rules to the rest of the world. Instead, Apple and Google just aren't bringing new features to the EU anymore.
What features are missing in the EU, though?
Encryption comes to mind. That was the UK I think, but the EU isn't far behind.
If you know of any company that would bother to spend days making accessibility improvements, yet for some reason decide to not bring those to the US release, they're the dumbest fucking company in existence.
The EU accessibility mandates will be followed by apps, not by platforms. I don't care if Apple Music wants to keep being trash, Spotify, Deezer and Tidal will improve and lift everyone with it.
What if I want to vote against both Apple and Google but still be able to do my banking business?
What banking business? Use a web browser, or just bank in person like everyone did not long ago. Carry a credit card instead of Apple/Google Pay. That's what degoogled Android users do and it's a very minor inconvenience anyone with a little bit of maturity should be able to accept. Also, cash is much better for your privacy.
And if you require a one-time SMS code for purchase (which can be adjusted via their website, most likely), then you still have an option that is not Apple and Google. I use a dumbphone for "banking" (SMS)... and a credit card, and the website. Those are really all the 3 things I need to do banking, as you have said so correctly.
It’s not possible. Logging in to a banking website is becoming strictly speaking impossible w/o a phone.
Choose a different bank, then. I've gradually stopped using the phone apps, not really by design but just because I don't often feel like that works better than the real web site. Both USAA and my local credit union have perfectly good desktop web sites.
I've never really experienced that. Which banks?
Belfius for example of you have ever used itsme with them. Also Digi (a mobile phone company in Belgium) since it uses itsme for authentication. Itsme is strictly an Android and iOS app.
More info on this is going to come out, but banks are going through hell right now with AI agents accessing user accounts and even firing off transfers and other accounts activity, and their legal teams are losing their minds.
So a bank shutting down a website right now and the "forcing" some Google/Apple "verification" makes a lot of sense in that context.
Or instead of hamstringing your entire way of life and making things immeasurably harder.. we could regulate them too.
You can bank without Apple iOS/macOS or Google Android/Chrome.
You can also vote with your wallet regarding banking. Put your deposits in another bank.
When one party has a trillion votes and you have like 1000 or so, that is not voting. That is just exiling yourself.
Edit: exiling not exhaling
If an entity has a product that has a trillion people choosing it, the marginal benefit to society to build an entirely new product for 1000 people or so isn't worth it. The people whose time would be required to produce that second product for a very, very small 1,000 person market would better serve society by working on other goals.
Nor should those 1,000 people get to try to use the government to tell the other trillion what product they should have to buy.
Yes, I can vote with my wallet, but no, it doesn't make a difference. I've been voting with my wallet since day 1 by never buying an iPhone because of how closed it is, and unsurprisingly, this has done absolutely nothing to change how open the iPhone is.
It's called freedom. Many people choose Apple products, even if you personally don't like it.
This is also the same strategy as activists: use authoritarianism to get your way, instead of a real solution.
It really tells me who I never want with any sort of power over my life.
Voting with your wallet doesn’t mean you get to take away from others. It means choosing companies you want to support.
You and I have very different definitions of "take away".
I also think you might benefit from rereading the context here; someone said that government regulation is needed to make the iPhone ecosystem open, and someone else disagreed on the basis that voting with one's wallet is a viable alternative. I disagreed with that disagreement, arguing that voting with one's wallet doesn't produce the change that the original commenter said regulation was needed for; telling me "that's not what voting with your wallet does" is redundant, because that's literally what I was already saying. You're certainly entitled to disagree with my opinion that making the ecosystem more open is a desirable goal, but that's not a premise I introduced here, so if disagreeing with that is your intention, it's unclear to me why you picked out my comment as the one to express that when the original statement of that goal was several parent comments up from mine.
It's not redundant and he isn't disagreeing with your opinion about openness. He's saying that it's immoral to want to force your personal preferences about phone design on other people.
Buying a phone you like? Moral.
Trying to force every phone to be one you like? Immoral.
That's all it's about. Not a difference in definitions or confusing on his part, he's just saying you've got morality all wrong and need to reconsider your position.
Again, my comment that he responded to literally was just making a claim that the iPhone ecosystem is not going to become more open due to voting with one's wallet. Yes, I obviously also think it should be more open, and that's an opinion that someone can strongly disagree with, but that's not what I was saying in the comment he responded to, because whether an action is moral or not is irrelevant to the question of whether it would produce a certain effect.
My point in the comment you responded to is that if person A says "we need to eat more vegetables to be healthy", person B says "no, you will be healthy if you only eat meat", and person C says "I tried only eating meat and I was unhealthy, so I think that's evidence that meat alone might not make you healthy", it's a non-sequitur to respond to person C by saying "it's immoral for you to say someone else should eat vegetables". If you responded to person A saying that, it wouldn't be as weird, but to remain silent when person A and B are debating the health effects of vegetables but then suddenly take issue with person C trying to provide evidence about whether the claims for A and B are correct or when they didn't introduce the topic that you have moral opinions on is very weird.
That is like saying prosecuting murder is immoral because it is taking away the murderer and victims rights.
For a society to function there needs to be balance. ‘You can do whatever you want as long as enough people pay you to cover your bills’ gets bleak fast.