What does Apple gain by leaving off the setting to choose whether or not to open Apple Music? Surely their pro audio users don't want it popping up just because they connected headphones.
Less "engagement" in the Music app. Sure, most of that engagement is fake to begin with but why would a project manager intentionally ever admit to that?
Same reason ads remain in inconvenient places that are highly prone to accidental clicks even though it would be better for everyone involved if accidental clicks were reduced.
Huh? My working assumption is “all clicks are click fraud” and whenever you see an advertising supported site where the content jiggles aloud (Anandtech) it is no accident that you were trying to click on a link and the ad moved to be right under your finger at the last moment.
I don't think you need to infer that Apple believes they own every device.
You don't need to infer anything, really. You just need to observe that every corporation will engage in rent-seeking behavior whenever they're in a position to get away with it.
Apple is far from the first mobile device maker to try to make it difficult or impossible to install software through alternative channels. That practice has been in place since before the invention of the smartphone. Google likely would have done the same thing with Android, had it not been far more profitable for them to take a different tactic. Heck, in the USA, back in the analog landline phone era, the Bell system famously did functionally the same thing until regulators stepped in.
On that note, I'm annoyed that Apple does it, but I'm even more annoyed that, in the USA, we are absolutely toothless about regulation because we can't shake the pollyannaish belief that we should be able to expect corporations to play nice purely out of the goodness of their nonexistent hearts.
> Google likely would have done the same thing with Android, had it not been far more profitable for them to take a different tactic.
I don't think that's fair. You have to consider the culture at Google and pre-Google Android. It might be the case, but at the time it felt like a very natural way for them to go.
> On that note, I'm annoyed that Apple does it, but I'm even more annoyed that, in the USA, we are absolutely toothless about regulation because we can't shake the pollyannaish belief that we should be able to expect corporations to play nice purely out of the goodness of their nonexistent hearts.
Agreed, though I think this is a cultural problem more than a regulatory problem. We humans are suckers for good marketing, as Apple has masterfully demonstrated over the years. Some of their real life PR/marketing lines are indistinguishable from parody, yet people's faith and trust in Apple is at or near a religious level of devotion. They love the products and they desperately want to believe in the goodness of the creator.
Unless/until we figure out how to pull the curtain back so people see through the spin, they will stay powerful. Once we do that, the regulation will follow naturally.
I've used to excuse such behaviors, saying that Apple has better integration between their products, cares about UI design more than anybody else, or that such integrations are new and don't have proper APIs yet.
However, years have passed, and Apple has been systematically giving preferential treatment to their apps and services, while dragging their feet on APIs for 3rd parties.
They keep using genuinely useful aspects of the App Store as a shield for anti-competitive abuse and petty rules (only in Apple's imagination allowing apps to mention other platforms is the same thing as allowing malware).
They've been spreading FUD and presenting false dichotomies that it's either exactly Apple's way, or chaos and malware. Instead of creating safe and efficient APIs for 3rd party browser engines, they chose not to have competition for Safari instead. Instead of creating APIs for easy centralized subscription management, they conveniently kept it exclusive to their own subscriptions, with pricing that can only be sustained in a duopoly.
Apple had plenty of time, and lots of chances to ease off their worst anti-competitive behaviors to keep regulators away, but instead they've doubled down on owning the platform and their users, and are now throwing tamper tantrums and malicious compliance.
I appreciate the more thoughtful comment! I agree with some of it, and disagree with some of it -- which isn't possible when you try and boil it down into a one-liner.
There are literally thousands upon thousands of comments debating both topics ("owning" an apple device & app store stuff) on HN alone. Let alone everywhere else from reddit to governments.
If it was so simply one-sided, there wouldn't be such lively debate.
I don't think we need to rehash those thousands of comments to agree that the debate can't be settled in a single blanket statement?
I don't really have the same impression that you have had when it comes to discussions about Apple's approach to HN.
This linked comment (which I randomly found on HN's search) summarises what I've seen here:
"The way these discussions usually go is that a bunch of Apple users complain about the restrictions, a bunch of Apple users say they like them, and a few Android users like myself remind the complainers that there are, in fact, other options that don't involve forcing Apple to take away the rules that most iOS users appreciate having."
I do recall a few users opposing allowing alternative app stores (which is the debate that is freshest in my mind) because they prefer to stick to Apple's, and the common rejoinder from the community that nothing is being taken away from those who prefer to stick to Apple's store but that other users who want something different have more choice.
I'm still curious about what additional nuance you have in mind, since I honestly can't remember seeing it.
You cannot summarize thousands of comments (there's nearly 4000 comments between [1] and [2] alone) in sentence or two and pretend like it is representative of the entire debate and everyone's opinion.
Even so, your quote and further commentary proves there is more nuance to be had -- some Apple users are complaining, some Apple users are defending, others are suggesting compromise! The nuance can be found when you examine how those separate groups of people came to their opposing opinions. To say there is no nuance, yet give an example of a more nuanced argument is almost funny.
While I have absolutely no interest in debating it, the example that first came to my mind regarding the "Apple thinks they own every device" comment was the nuanced debate around security, especially in relation to the target market of the devices.
Thanks; I didn't see that debate on security and I can see it being a valid point, especially with the burden of a technically-inclined person having to fix others' (family/friends) devices.
I was trying to point to the opinion of the majority that I've seen and what I have seen from most of the community when security is mentioned is that Apple needs stronger security from a technical standpoint rather than controlling what and what is allowed on users' devices. I think both opinions hold validity, and you may be right that there is more nuance.
Pro audio users aren't using the play button on the keyboard (the space bar is the industry standard to toggle playback), nor using bluetooth headphones (way too much latency to do anything meaningful)
Probably umpteen thousands of customer support queries about why Music now isn't starting when they connect their headphones after someone toggled it and forgot (or someone else toggled it and didn't tell them or an MDM profile toggled it or...)
To keep a McBook from falling asleep when you close the lid, you need to buy and use a dummy HDMI connector that makes it believe it is connected to an external display.
It's funny how everyone acts like this stuff works, but then I try to log in and it's asleep. If it were easy, there wouldn't be a thousand ways to do it that are all incapable, it would just be a setting.
Jesus, that's such a feeble, dull, uninspired way to make product decisions. I'm squirming from second-hand embarrassment just thinking that some developer has to live this nightmare.
