The alternative is Google / Android devices and OpenAI wrapper apps, both of which usually offer a half baked UI, poor privacy practices, and a completely broken UX when the internet connection isn't perfect.
Pair this with the completely subpar Android apps, Google dropping support for an app about once a month, and suddenly I'm okay with the lesser of two evils.
I know they aren't running a charity, I even hypothesized that Apple just can't build good services so they pivoted to focusing on this fake "privacy" angle. In the end, iPhones are likely going to be better for edge AI than whatever is out there, so I'm looking forward to this.
No, the alternative is Android devices with everything except firmware built from source and signed by myself. And at the same time, being secure, too.
You just can't have this on Apple devices. On Android side choices are limited too, I don't like Google and especially their disastrous hardware design, but their Pixel line is the most approachable one able to do all these.
Heck, you can't even build your own app for your own iPhone without buying another hardware (a Mac, this is not a software issue, this is a legal issue, iOS SDK is licensed to you on the condition of using on Apple hardware only) and a yearly subscription. How is this acceptable at all?
> No, the alternative is Android devices with everything except firmware built from source and signed by myself
Normal users will not do this. Just because many of the people here can build and sign a custom Android build doesn't mean that is a viable commercial alternative. It is great that is an option for those of us who can do it, but don't present it as a viable alternative to the iOS/Google ecosystems. The fraction of people who can and will be willing to do this is really small. And even if you can do it, how many people will want to maintain their custom built OSes?
the main reason the masses don't have privacy and security-centred systems is that they don't demand them and they will trade it away for a twopence or for the slightest increment in convenience
a maxim that seems to hold true at every level of computing is that users will not care about security unless forced into caring
with privacy they may care more, but they are easily conditioned to assume it's there or that nothing can be realistically be done about losing it
I, an engineer, am not doing this myself, too. There is a middle ground though: just use a privacy-oriented Android build, like DivestOS. [1]
There are a couple caveats:
1. It is still a bit tricky for a non-technical person to install. Should not be a problem if they know somebody who can help, though. There's been some progress making the process more user friendly recently (e.g. WebUSB-based GrapheneOS installer).
2. There are some papercuts if you don't install Google services on your phone. microG [2] helps with most but some still remain. My main concern with this setup is that I can't use Google Pay this way, but having to bring my card with me every time seems like an acceptable trade off to me.
WebGPU isn't standardized yet. Hell, most of the features people complain about aren't part of any standard, but for some reason there's this sense that if it's in Chrome, it's standard - as if Google dictates standards.
I’ve been using Firefox since the Quantum version is out. It feels slightly slower to Chrome but it's negligible to me. Otherwise I can't tell a difference (except some heavy web based Office like solutions screaming 'Your browser is not supported!' but actually works fine).
Meanwhile, Apple has historically dictated that Google can't publish Chrome for iOS, only a reskinned Safari. People in glass-walled gardens shouldn't throw stones.
Because as you described, the only alternatives that exist are terrible experiences for basically everyone, so people are happy to pay to license a solution that solves their problems with minimal fuss.
Any number of people could respond to “use Android devices with everything except firmware built from source and signed by myself” with the same question.
The yearly subscription is for publishing your app on Apple’s store and definitely helps keep some garbage out. Running your own app on your own device is basically solved with free third party solutions now (see AltStore and since a newer method I can’t recall atm)
Notice that parent never talked about publishing apps, just building and running apps on their own device. "Publishing on AltStore" (or permanently running the app on your own device in any other way) still requires a $100/year subscription as far as I'm aware.
> No, the alternative is Android devices with everything except firmware built from source and signed by myself
I wouldn't bet on this long term, since it fully relies on Google hardware, and Google's long-term strategy is to remove your freedom piece by piece, cash on it, not to support it.
The real alternative is GNU/Linux phones, Librem 5 and Pinephone, without any ties to greedy, anti-freedom corporations.
> No, the alternative is Android devices with everything except firmware built from source and signed by myself. And at the same time, being secure, too.
There are people who don't know how to use file explorer, new generation grows up in a world of iPhones without ever seeing file system. Any other bright ideas?
> Heck, you can't even build your own app for your own iPhone without buying another hardware (a Mac, this is not a software issue, this is a legal issue, iOS SDK is licensed to you on the condition of using on Apple hardware only) and a yearly subscription. How is this acceptable at all?
Because they set the terms of use of the SDK? You're not required to use it. You aren't required to develop for iOS. Just because Google gives it all away for free doesn't mean Apple has to.
Sure, as a SWE I'm not going to buy a computer unable to run my own code. A smartphone is an ergonomic portable computer, so I say no to iPhone and would like to remind others who didn't have a deep think into this about it.
Do you have a legal right to write software or run your own software for hardware you bought?
Because it’s very easy to take away a right by erecting aritificial barriers, just like how you could discriminate by race at work, but pretend you are doing something else,
> Do you have a legal right to write software or run your own software for hardware you bought?
I've never heard of such a thing. Ideally I'd like that, but I don't have such freedoms with the computers in my cars, for example, or the one that operates my furnace, or even for certain parts of my PC.
So you bought "a thing' but you can't control what it does, how it does it, you don't get to decide what data it collects or who can see that data.
You aren't allowed to repair the "thing' because the software can detect you changed something and will refuse to boot. And whenever it suits the manufacturer, they will decide when the 'thing' is declared out of support and stops functioning.
I would say you are not an owner then, you (and me) and just suckers that are paying for the party. Maybe it's a lease. But then we also pay when it breaks, so it more of a digital feudalism.
> Do you have a legal right to write software or run your own software for hardware you bought?
No, obviously not. Do you have a right to run a custom OS on your PS5? Do you have a right to run a custom application on your cable set-top box? Etc. Such a right obviously doesn’t exist and most people generally are somewhere between “don’t care” and actively rejecting it for various reasons (hacking in games, content DRM, etc).
It’s fine if you think there should be, but it continues this weird trend of using apple as a foil for complaining about random other issues that other vendors tend to be just as bad or oftentimes even worse about, simply because they’re a large company with a large group of anti-fans/haters who will readily nod along.
Remember when the complaint was that the pelican case of factory OEM tools you could rent (or buy) to install your factory replacement screen was too big and bulky, meaning it was really just a plot to sabotage right to repair?
> Remember when the complaint was that the pelican case of factory OEM tools you could rent (or buy) to install your factory replacement screen was too big and bulky, meaning it was really just a plot to sabotage right to repair?
Yes, I do. That was and continues to be a valid complaint, among all other anti-repair schemes Apple have come up with over the years. DRM for parts, complete unavailability of some commonly repaired parts, deliberate kneecapping of "Apple authorized service providers", leveraging the US customs to seize shipments of legitimate and/or unlabeled replacement parts as "counterfeits", gaslighting by official representatives on Apple's own forums about data recovery, sabotaging right to repair laws, and even denial of design issues[1] to weasel out of warranty repair just to name a few.
All with the simple anti-competitive goal of making third party repair (both authorized and independent) a less attractive option due to artificially increased prices, timelines to repair, or scaremongering about privacy.
> Yes, I do. That was and continues to be a valid complaint,
No, it doesn’t - because you can simply not use the tools if you don’t want. You can just order a $2 spudger off Amazon if you want, you don’t need the tools at all.
It continues to be a completely invalid complaint that shows just how bad-faith the discussion about apple has become - it literally costs you nothing to not use the tools if you want, there is no downside to having apple make them available to people, and yet you guys still find a way to bitch about it.
Moreover, despite some “bold” proclamations from the haters… no android vendors ever ended up making their oem tooling available to consumers at all. You have to use the Amazon spudger on your pixel, and you will fuck up the waterproofing when you do your repair, because the android phone won’t seal properly against water without the tools either. IPX sixtywho!?
It’s literally a complete and total net positive: nothing was taken away from you, and you don’t need to use it, and it makes your life easier and produces a better repair if you want it. Apple went out of their way to both make the tooling available to normies who want to rent it or people who want to buy it for real. And people still bitch, and still think they come off better for having done so. Classic “hater” moment, in the Paul Graham sense. Anti-fanboys are real.
Literally, for some people - the pelican cases with the tools are too big and heavy. And that’s enough to justify the hate.
Again, great example of the point I was making in the original comment: people inserting their random hobby horse issues using apple as a foil. You don’t like how phones are made in general, so you’re using apple as a whipping boy for the issue even if it’s not really caused or worsened by the event in question etc. Even if the event in question is apple making that issue somewhat better, and is done worse by all the other vendors etc. Can’t buy tooling for a pixel at all, doing those repairs will simply break waterproofing without it, and you’re strictly better off having the ability to get access to the tooling if you decide you want it, but apple offering it is a flashpoint you can exploit for rhetorical advantage.
> Moreover, despite some “bold” proclamations from the haters… no android vendors ever ended up making their oem tooling available to consumers at all. You have to use the Amazon spudger on your pixel, and you will fuck up the waterproofing when you do your repair, because the android phone won’t seal properly against water without the tools either. IPX sixtywho!?
I think the dirty little secret here is that an iPhone is just about the only phone, apart from maybe some of the really nice Google and Samsung flagships, that anyone wants to repair, because they're bloody expensive. Which is fine and dandy but then do kindly park your endless bemoaning of the subjects of e-waste and non-repairable goods, when Android by far and away is the worse side of that equation, with absolute shit tons of low yield, crap hardware made, sold, and thrown away when the first software update renders it completely unusable (if it wasn't already, from the factory).
Could you chill with the relentless insults? I'd appreciate it.
Perhaps you haven't noticed, but once you tally up overpriced parts together with their oversized, heavy, expensive rental of tools that you don't need, you end up with a sum that matches what you would pay to have it repaired by Apple - except you're doing all of the work yourself.
A curious consumer who has never repaired a device, but might have been interested in doing so, will therefore conclude that repairing their own device is 1. Far too complicated, thanks to an intimidating-looking piece of kit that they recommend, but is completely unnecessary, and 2. Far too expensive, because Apple prices these such that the repair is made economically nonviable.
So yes, I still believe that this is Apple fighting the anti-repair war on a psychological front. You're giving them benefit of the doubt even though they've established a clear pattern of behavior that demonstrates their anti-repair stance beyond any reasonable doubt - although you dance around the citations and claim that I'm being unreasonable about Apple genuinely making the repair situation "better".
Futhermore, I'm not a fanboy or anti-fanboy of any company. The only thing I'm an anti-fanboy of are anti-consumer practices. If Apple changed some of their practices I'd go out and buy an iPhone and a Macbook tomorrow.
The fact that I pointed out that Apple is hostile against repair does not mean that I endorse Google, Samsung, or any other brand - they all suck when it comes to repair, yet you're taking it as a personal attack and calling me names for it.
Excuse me? I'm clearly not the one who crossed into flamewar, please read the previous 1-2 comments.
edit: Describing others as "bitching", "bad faith", and "hater", runs afoul of half of the guidelines on this site. That comment somehow isn't moderated, but mine is called out for crossing into flamewar?
You were both breaking the site guidelines, and I replied to both of you in the same way.
Even if I hadn't, though, we need you to follow the rules regardless of what anybody else is doing, and the same goes for every user here. Pointing a finger at the other person isn't helpful.
I understand it can be difficult to have someone point out that you're not approaching a situation in good faith, but that's not exactly "relentless insults".
It can be difficult to handle the intimation that maybe there is the mirror image of the "brainless apple sheeple" too. Haters exist - people who are not able to approach a situation fairly and are just relentlessly negative because they hate X thing too. Negative parasocial attachment is just as much of a thing as a positive one.
And when you get to the point of "literally making the tools available is bad because the pelican cases are too heavy" you have crossed that rubicon. I am being very very polite here, but you are not being rational, and you are kinda having an emotional spasm over someone disagreeing with you on the internet.
Yes, if you want OEM parts and you rent OEM tooling it's probably going to come close to OEM cost. That isn't discriminatory, if the prices are fair+reasonable, and objectively they pretty much are. $49 to rent the tools, and have them shipped both ways, etc, is not an unreasonable ask.
Not having a viable business model for your startup doesn't mean the world is wrong. It means you don't have a viable business idea. And yeah, if you are renting the tools as a one-off, and counting your personal time as having some value (or labor cost in a business), then you probably are not going to get costs that are economical with a large-scale operator with a chain operation and an assembly-line repair shop with repair people who do nothing but repair that one brand. That's not Apple's fault.
What we ultimately come down to with your argument is "apple is killing right-to-repair by being too good at repair and providing too cheap repairs such that indie shops can no longer make a margin" and I'm not sure that's actionable in a social sense of preventing e-waste. People getting their hardware repaired cheaply is good. Long parts lifetimes are good. Etc.
Being able to swap in shitty amazon knockoff parts is a whole separate discussion, of course. And afaik that is going to be forced by the EU anyway, consequences be damned. So what are you complaining about here?
Actually to be fully clear, in many cases you have an anti-right: literally not only do you not have a right, but it’s illegal to circumvent technological restrictions intended to prevent the thing you want to do.
As noxious as that whole thing is, it’s literally the law. I agree the outcome is horrifying of course… stallman was right all along, it’s either your device or it’s not.
And legally speaking, we have decided it’s ok to go with “not”.
> better for edge AI than whatever is out there, so I'm looking forward to this
What exactly are you expecting? The current hype for AI is large language models. The word 'large' has a certain meaning in that context. Much larger that can fit on your phone. Everyone is going crazy about edge AI, what am I missing?
> Everyone is going crazy about edge AI, what am I missing?
If you clone a model and then bake in a more expensive model's correct/appropriate responses to your queries, you now have the functionality of the expensive model in your clone. For your specific use case.
The size of the resulting case-specific models are small enough to run on all kinds of hardware, so everyone's seeing how much work can be done on their laptop right now. One incentive for doing so is that your approaches to problems are constrained by the cost and security of the Q&A roundtrip.
Quantized LLMs can run on a phone, like Gemini Nano or OpenLLAMA 3B. If a small local model can handle simple stuff and delegate to a model in the data center for harder tasks and with better connectivity you could get an even better experience.
> If a small local model can handle simple stuff and delegate to a model in the data center for harder tasks and with better connectivity you could get an even better experience.
Distributed mixture of experts sounds like an idea. Is anyone doing that?
Sounds like an attack vector waiting to happen if you deploy enough competing expert devices into a crowd.
I’m imagining a lot of these LLM products on phones will be used for live translation. Imagine a large crowd event of folks utilizing live AI translation services being told completely false translations because an actor deployed a 51% attack.
I’m not particularly scared of a 51% attack between the devices attached to my Apple ID. If my iPhone splits inference work with my idle MacBook, Apple TV, and iPad, what’s the problem there?
Using RAG a smaller local LLM combined with local data (e.g. your emails, iMessages etc) can be useful than a large external LLM that doesn’t have your data.
No point asking GPT4 “what time does John’s party start?”, but a local LLM can do better.
This is why I think Apple’s implementation of LLMs is going to be a big deal, even if it’s not technically as capable. Just making Siri better able to converse (e.g. ask clarifying questions) and giving it the context offered by user data will make it dramatically more useful than silo’d off remote LLMs.
In the hardware world, last year’s large has a way of becoming next year’s small. For a particularly funny example of this, check out the various letter soup names that people keep applying to screen resolutions. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_resolution_standards...
Google has also been working on (and provides kits for) local machine learning on mobile devices... and they run on both iOS and Android. The Gemini App does send data in to Google for learning, but even that you can opt out of.
Apple's definitely pulling a "Heinz" move with privacy, and it is true that they're doing a better job of it overall, but Google's not completely horrible either.
Yeah, I was thinking of their non-local model like Gemini advanced though.
In any case iPhone probably don't have enough memory to run a 3.25B model? e.g. 15 pro only have 8 GB (and Gemini Nano seems to only work on the 12GB Pixel 8 Pro) and 14 has only 6GB, that hardly seems sufficient for even a small LLM if you still you want to run the full OS and other apps at the same time.
Care to cite these subpar Android apps? The app store is filled to the brim with subpar and garbage apps.
>Google dropping support for an app about once a month
I mean if you're going to lie why not go bigger
>I'm okay with the lesser of two evils.
So the more evil company is the one that pulled out of China because they refused to hand over their users data to the Chinese government on a fiber optic silver plate?
Google operates in China albeit via their HK domain.
They also had project DragonFly if you remember.
The lesser of two evils is that one company doesn’t try to actively profile me (in order for their ads business to be better) with every piece of data it can find and forces me to share all possible data with them.
>Google operates in China albeit via their HK domain.
The Chinese government has access to the iCloud account of every Chinese Apple user.
>They also had project DragonFly if you remember.
Which never materialized.
>The lesser of two evils is that one company doesn’t try to actively profile me (in order for their ads business to be better) with every piece of data it can find and forces me to share all possible data with them.
Apple does targeted and non targeted advertising as well. Additionally, your carrier has likely sold all of the data they have on you. Apple was also sued for selling user data to ad networks. Odd for a Privacy First company to engage in things like that.
Google has been around for 26 years I believe. According to that link 60 apps were killed in that timeframe. According to your statement that Google kills an app a month that would leave you 252 apps short. Furthermore, the numbers would indicate that Google has killed 2.3 apps per year or .192 apps per month.
>As for the subpar apps: there is a massive difference between the network traffic when on the Home Screen between iOS and Android.
Not sure how that has anything to do with app quality, but if network traffic is your concern there's probably a lot more an Android user can do than an iOS user to control or eliminate the traffic.
> Google has been around for 26 years I believe. According to that link 60 apps were killed in that timeframe. According to your statement that Google kills an app a month that would leave you 252 apps short. Furthermore, the numbers would indicate that Google has killed 2.3 apps per year or .192 apps per month.
Most of the "Services" on that list are effectively apps, too:
VPN by Google One, Album Archive, Hangouts, all the way back to Answers, Writely, and Deskbar.
I didn't touch hardware, because I think that should be considered separately.
The first of 211 services on that site was killed in 2006.
The first of the 60 apps on that site was killed in 2012.
So even apps alone, 4.28 a year.
But more inclusively, 271 apps or services in 17 years is ~16/year, over one a month.
You need to remind yourself of the site guidelines about assuming the worst. Your comments just come across condescendingly.
The alternative is Google / Android devices and OpenAI wrapper apps, both of which usually offer a half baked UI, poor privacy practices, and a completely broken UX when the internet connection isn't perfect.
Pair this with the completely subpar Android apps, Google dropping support for an app about once a month, and suddenly I'm okay with the lesser of two evils.
I know they aren't running a charity, I even hypothesized that Apple just can't build good services so they pivoted to focusing on this fake "privacy" angle. In the end, iPhones are likely going to be better for edge AI than whatever is out there, so I'm looking forward to this.