Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

> I can't play Quake

https://github.com/tomkidd/Quake-iOS

> or emulated games on it.

https://docs.libretro.com/guides/install-ios/

You can build and deploy IPAs yourself, or you can use AltStore and similar.

> Very sad, 15 billion transistors in my pocket and I can barely use them to their potential. What kind of future is this?

One where it is comparatively very difficult to drain your full store of data and your wallet by installing shitware.




You can't remotely compare how hard it is to get some things on apple hardware vs pretty much anything else. You can get emulators for pretty much everything on android, the same doesn't exist on iPhone.

I don't get the point you make about data retention. On android.i can install myriad blockers, browsers and apps to protect myself.on iPhone, I get whatever apple has deigned to grant their users.


Both require side loading. Ironic, isn’t it?

> One where it is comparatively very difficult to drain your full store of data and your wallet by installing shitware.

God forbid we treat other people with respect and not consider your average person is a complete idiot that’s being protected by dystopian big brother knowing better than you.


> God forbid we treat other people with respect and not consider your average person is a complete idiot that’s being protected by dystopian big brother knowing better than you.

Except that, in the specific case of operating and maintaining a computer system, they are complete idiots. People have other things to care about and computers only matter insofar as what they want out of them. If that includes (as it did in the 00s) screensavers that will keylog their hardware, they will download the keylogger. And to be clear that's not a value judgment; there are many things about which I am a complete idiot. I don't try to replace my own brakes in my car. I probably could do it. The cost of doing a bad job would be very high. So I stay within my lane.

In computer-related fields specifically, education rarely sticks. Ask anyone who's ever been tasked with educating users about technological opsec. In one ear, out the other. The only sane path forward is to default to high and thick walls. That doesn't mean that you can't opt out, with more or less difficulty. That is the signaler that yes, you have a clue and are prepared to deal with the consequences, and that's great if you are. People are, for the most part, not, and optimizing for you, while hanging the overwhelmingly outnumbering group of normal people in the breeze, is bad.


There's decades worth of software out there and I have to jump through hoops like this to even get a fraction of it working. A15 is probably the best mobile chip in the world, and I can run barely anything on it. The future is sad.


Exactly, sideloading! People just want this without the annoying restrictions that Apple puts on things like altstore: https://faq.altstore.io/how-to-use-altstore/your-altstore

Requiring a similar activation process would be beneficial, but once activated, the restrictions shouldn't be so onerous.


I'm OK with it being difficult because that weeds out people who lack the technical capacity to do it, and thus also almost certainly lack the understanding to critically evaluate the safety of it.

A below-average software developer is probably still a standard deviation above the mean when it comes to competence with computers, and we're not optimizing for developers here.


I agree. I'm just saying that once you've proven that you really want to do it you shouldn't have routine extra hoops to jump through.

TBH, even just requiring USB sideloading would eliminate most people's concerns in this thread.


Maybe, sure.

TBH, the case I am more worried than most about is that the actual, biggest use of this will be, not might but will, addiction-mongers in the games space suckering people into downloading apps that are uninhibited by even the relatively low walls that Apple puts into place. Even things as simple as "have a standard payment flow so people know when you are charging them for money" is then off the table, and that makes doing evil really, really easy.


This person gets it.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: