I want to talk about this because of a conversation I had with a colleague on a lunch break a few days ago. I am a doctor, and I was talking to him about how angry I was (and still am) about the fact that the COVID vaccines, when they were first invented, were not made public, but instead were patented and sold. This basic fact made millions of people around the world suffer. I was rambling about how scientific information should always be free. How we should be able to use the internet as the greatest library our ancestors could have only dreamt of, instead of putting information behind paywalls. Even back in med school I was an avid user of sci-hub and I wasnāt ashamed of it one bit. I still use sci-hub to keep up with new researches so I can treat/inform my patients better. And I hate how some of my colleagues think that I am stealing othersā work.
Anyways, so I was rambling on and on. I sometimes do that. And my friend said something so strange and unrelated (in my eyes) to the conversation. He said āLook at you, defending open access to medical information for everyone, yet you only use Apple products.ā I was like, āWhat? What do you mean?ā He explained, āMan, all the things you use are made by Apple. Your laptop, tablet, phone, watch, earbuds or whatever, made by the company that is one of the main adversaries when it comes to right-to-repair and open source software.ā So you need to see here, Iām not a tech guy. Itās just not my field. My job only requires me to read textbooks and keep up with new researches in my field, which any device can do. So I was like, āIā¦ I donāt think I follow.ā So he briefly explained what open-source software is, and how itās related to my idea of free and open access to information for everyone, but this time itās not in our field but programmersā. And when I almost reflexively said āWell weāre not programmersā he said āI mean, when it comes to software, itās the programmersā and developersā thing. But free and open source is an idea. It applies to everything. And I think youāre supporting a company that opposes your views by buying their products.ā
We didnāt have much time left so that was the end of that conversation. And I have been thinking about it since. When buying tech products I mainly care about if they are integrated with each other or not. Like if I turn on Do not Disturb on my watch, I want my phone, tablet and laptop to go quiet as well. Or I like being able to answer a phone call on my laptop. And I love the aesthetics of Apple products, at least more than what other companies have to offer.
Every evening since that conversation Iāve been looking up stuff related to open source software. Linux, distros, the philosophy behind it all, Linus Torvalds, Steve Wozniak, Arch, āread the wikiā, terminal, GUI, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA my brain is filled with so many things at this point that I donāt understand anything at all.
So, TLDR; Iād love to hear your opinions about Apple. Most people (myself included) buy Apple devices because of the ecosystem, the design, privacy (?), consistent updates (especially on mobile), or for you might say, a lack of knowledge in the field of tech. Do you support Apple or are you against them, or are you indifferent? Do you think people who are not in the tech field as well should look into and use open source software? Leave your thoughts below! ^^
I donāt 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.
This is exactly my opinion. Theyāre not great in a lot of their stances; but they ARE better than most companies in most of their stancesā¦ and the open-source options just DO NOT WORK as well by far.
I want my software and hardware to enable my hobbies, not to BE my hobbies getting them to work and keeping them working as new versions come out.
Iāll preface this by saying donāt 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, āthere is no ethical consumption under capitalismā lol.
I think you should use open source software but I donāt think you should force yourself if good alternatives donāt exist for your use case. A good example is Photoshop. The open source version is GIMP. I use GIMP mostly because I donāt want to pay for Photoshop but from what Iāve 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, itās crazy!
If youāre 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 ālive USBsā to run it from the USB like a test drive (but it may be slow). Iāve decided my next computer I build Iām going to run Linux primarily but I havenāt got around to building it.
Just FYI vanillaOS is an awesome system to suggest to both new users and experienced ones. None of the snap BS but still based on Ubuntu. It also makes it really hard to mess up your system. Vanilla Gnome too. Check it out.
I suggest Ubuntu because it is so widespread and one of the ones that ājust worksā. Also I donāt want to introduce a newbie to the snap debacle. It wonāt affect them much to be honest.
Mint > Ubuntu if you really want to stay in the Debian space. Canonical is without a doubt the dodgiest Linux company, and Ubuntu is only being recommended because it became popular almost 20 years ago due to the easy installer wizard and free CDs.
Fedora and openSUSE are also amazing ājust worksā distros. And I donāt think Iāve ever seen proprietary software company provide a deb binary but not an rpm/dnf one.
There are definitely reasons to not like Ubuntu but I still believe it is the best recommendation for beginners due to the massive community. Iām not saying Canonical is faultless. Mint has its problems too, in 2016 a hacker got an ISO with a backdoor onto the website (link).
I mean, how much of the Ubuntu info wonāt be applicable to mint problems? And how often is a Debian/Ubuntu derivative user going to need distro specific help in the first place?
A hack from 7 years ago is not the same thing as a company constantly trying to exploit its users. What other distro thought it was a good idea to sell user data to Amazon, show ads in the terminal, or team up with Microsoft to EEE Linux?
Most people arenāt going to distrohop all that much. So what they start with is going to be what they stick with for a while. Nobody should have to learn Linux in a snap infested canonical world.
Like I said, I donāt believe Canonical is perfect by any means, itās just that Ubuntu has the largest community and is easy to use. Thatās it. Iām not saying anything else youāre saying is wrong, I just find these things more important for absolute beginners. I agree with a lot of what youāre saying, I just believe different things are important for the absolute beginner is all.
My momās (mid 80s now) has been using straight Debian for well over a decade with no problem. Just stick with the real OG.
In wise words of Commander Data: āI 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 rewardsā
You now understand the importance of free software just like you already knew the importance of free knowledge. You donāt need to force yourself into shapes you donāt fit, but you can help move us all into a better future for everybody.
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, Iām gonna regret saying this on an FOSS community) With some research youāll get a usable desktop OS for some use-cases, but phones such as Fairphone and Purism are another story entirely. Donāt even think about watches or tablets. I love the Purism Firefox demo, where they enthusiastically say: āWith Settings unusable in Portrait, itās time to switch to landscape modeā.
The āyou think ā¦ yet you buy ā¦ā argument is pointless, because it ignores the realities of monopolies and globalism. Iām sure his T-Shirt that day wasnāt made from ethically sourced cotton or whatever.
Iām 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 thereās 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 doesnāt 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 thereās something Iām 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 āopen sourceā vaccines, that wasnāt 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 donāt know if it should be an expectation, just like cross-play in video games would be super nice, but shouldnāt be an expectation.
I do like tinkering with things though, and thatās really my main personal qualm with apple (I know theyāre a huge megacorporation, but they donāt 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 doesnāt scratch any of these itches for me, but thatās why I do both. I have the reliable mac for work and general computing use and I have my other devices for everything else.
Just wanted to piggyback off your comment, since I work in video-production too and feel like itās a niche that has been very closed-up up until very recently.
Regarding Apple ā their products and solutions are at times incredible tools for our work which have little to no competition. When I decided to buy a tablet I had the option to buy an android device which is basically a media consumption tool and has little to no software applicable in my line of work, or an iPad, which has a ton of useful apps in its library. I can monitor several NDI sources and put up waveforms to check the picture while working in live production, I can use at least two different editing solutions (lumafusion and resolve) to create a rough-cut of a video, I have a set of powerful tools to use for still image editing and vector graphics, I even have a tool to create storyboards with 3D assets. Oh and if I wanted to, I could create these assets on the iPad too. It is also probably the best portable display in the industry with a toggle to output rec709 (not perfectly calibrated, but good enough for most cases Iād wager). And there is pretty much none of that on Android. So of course I will choose the option which satisfies my professional needs, or more precisely professional whims, since they are not must-have, but surely belong in the āreally nice to haveā category.
On the other hand, I have been working on a Windows PC for the last 10 years, because Mac pricing was atrocious until M1. They were underpowered and/or overpriced so heavily. And now Iām thinking about switching to Linux at least partially, since my workflow does not involve Adobe heavily anymore. Even our industry, which has been historically so closed and focused on making people use the same tools for atrocious prices, is slowly moving towards more openness.
The main takeaway related to the topic is this ā sometimes you have an option to choose based on convenience, and in that case it always pays off to do research and compare different solutions. Some FOSS solutions can be state of the art, but less known because they have less marketing. But maybe an integrated closed ecosystem saves you precious time that could be spent doing something important, and thatās fine too. Sometimes you gotta choose based on necessity or approved working process, and then itās really not much of a choice at all. Iām not going to quit my job because I canāt use open-source tools. People donāt need to be shamed for using Apple products (or any other closed solution) if they make their lives undeniably better in some way. But it is always a good thing to be on lookout for FOSS solutions, and in time figure out if you can make the switch and be one of the straws that breaks a mega-corporationās back.
I fully agree with everything you said. Unfortunately Iām stuck in the Adobe world for now because one of my clients require it, not that Avid is much better when it comes to expensive barriers to entry. I do need to learn how to edit in resolve because Iāve heard some great things about the process, though the thought of rewiring my brain for new keyboard shortcuts seems like a massive ordeal.
Mega corporations exist on massive stilts, propped up off the work of very talented people who arenāt paid nearly enough for what they do. One tiny silver lining of having design language pushed so hard by a company who uses it to sell more products is that good design language can be copied and implemented into FOSS options with enough work. Of course, I donāt know anything about how strong apple goes after their design language patents, but before the iphone, no phone to my knowledge looked like a black glass rectangle (for better and for worse). I wonāt be buying appleās recently announced VR option, but I am excited to see what their design language does for the VR landscape as a whole (even if I donāt buy any of those either).
All this being said, I think thereās a couple good things, but thereās also a lot of bad things about apple as a whole. I figure most companies Iāve heard about are contributing toward the world becoming a worse place, but at the same time, I have to exist in this world, and being more comfortable while being stuck here is pretty important to me personally. Iāll just continue to try to seek out people to vote for who are vocally (and historically take actions) against monopolies, anti-consumerism, and promote strong regulations.
Resolve is actually one of the tools which has allowed me to think about daily-driving Linux. And while itās not FOSS it still feels much more open with the support for OFX plugins. There is also Natron which is FOSS and pretty competent as a compositor. And then blender. Iām learning CG in hopes of branching out as a generalist and blender is a prime example of FOSS being competitive with closed-source, industry-standard software.
Also since ML has become a part of my working process (speech recognition mostly at this point, but also had some projects with speech generation, audio clean-up, rotoscoping and other stuff) it sometimes feels like a part of my process is already easier in Linux. Iām no programmer, so setting up all the things for ML work might be challenging and letās just say on Windows it doesnāt feel that intuitive. Always a step missing, a dependency which is outdated or incorrect etc. Working in Linux feels more streamlined and straightforward even though I know powershell better than terminal.
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 Iāve come to realise that while Apple is a walled garden and in some ways is āevilā, itās 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 itās harder to hack things to be the way that I want. Donāt 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 Iām 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.
@Bluetreefrog
@IronTwo
Iāve got to say, Linux and FOSS in general has really come a long way just these few last years. For me it has gone from tedious and problem-ridden to mostly frictionless. But the times that I do stumble unto an issue, it still takes a while to figure out a solution š So, not perfect yet, but a looot more user friendly these days! š
@IronTwo
Appleās ecosystem works well for itās users, but it screws over anyone else not completely consumed in their ecosystem.I agree. This is not only limited to the users, but also intentionally makes life difficult for those trying to develop multiplatform products and services.
Locking down the publishing routes and development tools for apple platforms is not such a big issue for parties that develop solely for apple products, but that is often not the case. Instead apple users often make up a minority of users, but maintaining and testing applications, websites and services so that they also work on apple devices can take up a disproportionately large amount of development time and effort.
I think itās a bit of a mixed bag. Their ecosystem may be good and all but they deliberately donāt 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 thereās 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 thereās their refusal to allow sideloading, which has led to governments being able to censor apps from the app store. It doesnāt help that App Store review isnāt 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 itās now speculated that Apple will be petty and region lock sideloading.
Their hardware is nice and performant, but unfortunately theyāre against upgradeability as well as right to repair. I donāt watch him much, but I think Louis Rossmannās youtube channel is recommended for learning about this.
I donāt have strong opinions on their hardware/software design and aesthetics, it works for me, but I can see why others donāt like how opinionated they are. I donāt like how Android phones have been getting bigger, but itās 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, youāll have to put up with Samsung telemetry and Googleās 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, Iāll 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 Appleās 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.
ā¦
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).
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Lockdown Mode, which apparently has somewhat protected against zero click exploits.
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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, itās not perfect. From my experience with Ublock Origin Lite in Edge, you donāt currently get cosmetic filtering without granting privileged access, which defeats the point. Otherwise, it appears to be as effective as DNS blocking.
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The App Privacy Report makes it super easy (provided youāre 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 isnāt pinging anything other than inappcheck.itunes.apple.com. I think this is used to query the in app purchase status.
For disadvantages:
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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 donāt personally consider this a deal breaker (Apple already knows what apps I download), but I can understand why theyāve been raked over the coals for it given how much they market privacy.
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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.
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VPNs on iOS leak. This is different from Android where it can be argued that connectivity checks are a good thing and donāt send personal data, but with iOS certain system apps appear to just straight up bypass it.
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Without sideloading, itās basically impossible to use an iPhone without logging in.
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Some stuff such as the gyroscope still doesnāt require a permission to access.
Some other points Iād like to make:
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Being proprietary does not mean that something is an insecure, unverifiable black box. Security researchers scrutinize Apple all the time for vulnerabilities.
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They donāt appear to be conducting CSAM scanning despite some FUD about it
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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 didnāt contain majorly sensitive information.
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
Your friend is right. Listen to them, read and understand. Donāt 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. āŗļø
Iāve 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 youāre 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. Iām sure that goes for Android now too, but at least it didnāt when I switched. The āecosystemā works incredibly well, everything can be sychronized and my AirPods connect instantly.
However since Iāve started going to university my mindset has changed. Now I value repairability over being āApple chiqueā, Iāve started becoming more and more attached to the open source philosophy (not only concerning software) and frankly, I donāt feel a need for Apple anymore so the drawbacks started weighing heavier. I swapped my MacBook for a ThinkPad running Linux. I donāt care about the cloud anymore either - Iām 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.
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. Itās a bad platform of blind leading the blind.
I found Mac completely unusable for software engineering. Additionally, I hate when coworkers use it because the Shell scripts get messed up
My workplace offers windows and mac machines to our developers, and since Iām a linux+KDE die-hard I thought āhey mac is supposed to be unix-y right? Iāll take that to be more comfortable.ā Oh man what a mistake. I tried to download the most basic software and I had to go to random websites to see that it costs $15 for a closed source application.
Iām so used to seeing something I donāt like and then looking for the config file to change it. I have zero control over my mac, to the point that I donāt think my employer had to lock down very much (I canāt even change keybinds?). At this point, Iāve hacked reasonable keybinds into all my programs and have resigned to a basic workflow, but Iām much more comfortable on my linux machine.
Linux > Windows >> Mac for software development in my experience. I know a lot of developers use macs, but I really struggle to see why. Is it a lack of experience with linux and windows? Windows terminal is real bad but itās probably easier to get cygwin and WSL going than to fix the rest of whatever mac has going on.
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 doesnāt. Theyāre better than AWS, but thatās more a matter of damning with faint praise.
Appleās built up a vertically integrated market of disposable widgets which cannot be repaired or upgraded. Their sole positive is theyāre better than the other guys at keeping older software updated, but Iām sure they did the math on having their customers not getting hacked at the time.
Iām my opinion theyāre worth looking at for anti-trust.
A good recent example of Microsoft supporting the open source community is Orca. Itās a LLM that was basically taught by ChatGPT (GPT3.5) and GPT4 instead of training on its own dataset by having the chatbot explain its reasoning step by step, ELI5, etc. And itās about to go open source.
Microsoft email address were collectively top contributers to Linux kernel patches for a few years, particularly as they were building out Azure and Hyper-V support. Theyāre contributed a service mesh to kubernetes. Visual Studio Code is open source. Theyāre backing GitHub. They developed typescript. Their developers are all over various GitHub repos.
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 FOSSā¢ 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. Appleās processes are extremely opaque, and the last thing they want to give users is any control over their products, itās 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, thatās their prerogative and thereās absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Apple is the symbol for a walled garden that feeds itās 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. Thatās 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 canāt connect to anything that doesnāt have an i prefix in itās 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 donāt have an iPhone, get fucked.
And itās an effective strategy. You start off with a phone, add a watch and earbuds to it, and the next thing you know youāre 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?
Donāt even get me started on the quality of their overpriced crap, or the fact that theyāve 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
Thanks for this post. I was trying to form my thoughts and abhorrence of Apple into a coherent thought, but you captured it.