The allegory sits perfect enough for a bearing-grade shrink-fit.
In the General Public’s understanding of computers. Holding to the original allegory, the consumers don’t find anything weird on buying only specific-brand, “compatible” dishes and utensils. And it works so well that they aren’t even aware of the very existence of the off-brand ones. Until they find that they want something not covered in the original ecosystem, e.g. a chocolate fountain; and then they are screwed.
Worse, they cannot even make their own compatible dish in a ceramics class, without paying a lot extra.
Yes. But this cuts both ways.
You have essentially these choices:
Android, with the possibility of getting a spy-app
Rooted Apple with alternative appstore, with the possibility of getting a spy-app.
Unrooted Apple, with apps limited to those the govt can spy on anyway.
I don’t code for mobile devices yet. I however intend to, over time. Anything that increases the barrier to entry should be considered wrong, for the sake of us all.
Jailbreaking usually relies on some vulnerability that should not be there anyway; a malicious actor can use it as well as a friendly one. (With iCrap, at least one method relies on the baseband processor vulnerability. This illustrates a hole potentially accessible from the cellular network itself, too. Baseband CPU should be well-separated from the main CPU.) It is good that it is there, but we should not have the very need for it - we should not have to take an angle grinder to get into our welded-shut car engines.
As of other platforms, that’s why I preemptively eschewed iCrap and chose my phone to be with unlocked bootloader (or, vendor-unlockable; send the IMEI or whatever and they provide the key).
And yes, if it is technically possible, it should be able to adapt. Or, at the very least, there should be no unneeded, entirely artificial obstacles in the way.
Most of the ‘obstacles’ I see people cite about Apple are purity arguments, and it’s the unreasonable expectations of the user that are the problem with the product.
If you had told 10 year old me that I would be carrying the internet in my pocket in 2010, I would have gone back to programming the turtle to make nice designs in tape on the floor.
I could complain about what isn’t perfect in the universe, but first I’d have to entirely forget how awesome it all is, and then add in a dash of ‘I deserve better’. If I’m going to complain it sure isn’t going to be about free ice cream or my own hangnails.
People being assy, that I will complain about.
People not meeting my need for a chocolate fountain? I’m satisfied with my Golden Ticket, young master Gloop.
I continue to be amused by Cory’s occasional missives towards integration. It’s almost as if it eats him up inside that millions of people like (or even love) something that goes against his personal belief systems (“equality” of the races, etc) leading him to invent tortured analogies that utterly fail to recognize that the majority of white people don’t really give a shit about his ideals. They just want a state that works well.
I myself happen to believe in and support integration projects. I also own a slave, like millions of other people. Yet somehow I manage to avoid any kind of cognitive dissonance as a result of these two competing ideas. It would appear that Cory has not yet managed to achieve peace with these elements of reality.
I like this bit here, as part of my professional work involves helping John and Jane Q. Public to learn how to use computers (of all varieties, Arduino up through custom built PCs) in a safe and responsible manner.
Apple’s walled garden approach, in my experience, has done more to lower that entry barrier than any other platform to date. The design choices that Apple made were picked exactly for the reason that it generally increased accessibility for the largest number of people possible. This is also the flip side of the same coin that perpetually keeps Unix/Linux from achieving mass appeal. Three decades of personal computing should have taught us one thing: you cannot have total control without compromising accessibility and the fundamental user experience.
In fact, if I have any complaints with iOS, it is that each iteration (while adding features that everyone wants) has made it harder to on-board new-comers.
If people want total control over their phones, there are options out there! I just know that I would never hand a new computer user anything resembling an Ubuntu phone.
Well, the title reads If dishwashers were iPhones with the subtitle Apple’s business practices are seldom challenged in the tech world, but
would consumers accept the same terms from any other kind of business? It’s also written in clear parody of Apple.
My point was: iOS practices don’t equal all Apple business practices, as that wouldn’t make much sense, like putting iOS-like restrictions on fully-fledged laptop/desktop computers, headphones, dishwashers or toasters. I disagree with the misdirected anger at Apple over things that make a lot of sense to a lot of people.
I do find Keurig DRM ridiculous, though. Do people still buy a lot of the new models? I don’t know, I haven’t seen any Keurig first hand and can’t judge their quality. My coffeemaker is a Nespresso machine which I bought because I personally like the taste and tidyness very much and it’s still less expensive than the worst cheap-ass coffee at university. I tried competitors’ capsules and was really disappointed in their quality, so I stick to the originals, even without DRM forcing me to.
To go back to the dishwasher: I’d consider buying the “Speckless Disher” if it was indeed as described in the column, minus the felony stuff and other unrealistic nonsense. Why not, if it really does offer a much better result and experience than other products? In that scenario the “compatible” dishes would also be perfectly fine and “work” better because they are designed specifically for that one dishwasher. Right now I already wash many things by hand that are not fit for a dishwasher (kitchen knives, Japanese teapots, crystal glassware…)
Well I’d buy the Keurig minus the ridiculous DRM. But that’s not the one being sold.
So we agree on the main point I guess, I just seem to believe that its not unrealistic for the nonsense of DRM to be applied in ways that lock in the customer to his detriment.
Edited to add:
Oh and about the title
Science fiction stories set in the future are invariably about the present, just like 1984 was written about the problems of 1949, you don’t get far in dismissing Orwell by saying that 1984 came and went and totalitarianism didn’t materialize.
In other words, don’t let the title trip you up in understanding what you’re reading.
Also, you’ll find that if IOS is singled out as any kind of evil it is because of the practice of locking it down, not because of design choices, usability, fonts used or the apple logo. DRM, not apple is the enemy.
Good reasoning, but I’m not convinced this qualifies as dissonance.
Yes, making systems only work with proprietary doodads instead of open standards is an age-old trick towards extra profits. It also often promises but fails to deliver any real benefits to the customer, whether we’re talking razor blades, magnetic tape, fancy bicycle components, coffee or apps.
But does this mean “fencing in” never has any benefits for either customers or doodad makers? Should every electronic thing be designed specifically to be software-agnostic, easily hackable, repairable and upgradeable with all sorts of parts from all sorts of sources? Even if that means losing very real ‘optimization’ in areas that might or might not be important for each person using that thing?
I think they’re two different strategies, and both have their place in the world. Coffee pods irk me because they’re worse in every way that matters. iPhones having fixed components and being designed from the ground up to be iOS-only? This helps reliability, battery life, third party development of apps and a bunch of other things that might not matter to everyone, but obviously matter to a whole lot of people even if they don’t consciously understand it and just find they enjoy the user experience compared to other products.
All that to say: I don’t think the General Public’s understanding of computers is in need of changing so everyone ‘gets it’. To me it’s more a matter of differing priorities compared to the digerati than a lack of education.
I am going to compliment you: You are a well-educated, shrewd, and technologically savvy consumer that has made an informed choice as to how to implement technology in your life.
Please take a moment and reflect on the fact that this puts you in a position of privilege in respect to technology. Having a completely open ecosystem on your phone may be good for many people (like yourself), but it is certainly not good for all people. Untrained drivers cause accidents, and untrained computer users get into all sorts of other problems.
From an educational perspective, I see iOS devices as providing a reasonable framework for scaffolding a computer education. When a person really starts to feel imprisoned by the bonds of the operating system, there are totally other options out there (which is awesome, as you no doubt already know!).
But please! Do not mistake your privilege for supremacy, and try to avoid the trap of insulting people for the choices they make given their levels of relative competency.
Not in comparison with the alternative. There can be benefits but there are also very high opportunity costs.
Whenever possible, yes. The least that can be done is documenting the pinouts and board test pads. No added cost as the information is already available to the designers.
Like, for example?
What can be lost if an artificial restriction is not present, or if it has just a click-here-to-disable interface? (Hell, I’d even go for “desolder R143 from this position on the board to disable the safety checks”.) That hurts exactly nobody.
I can accept restrictions if they are there for my benefit, and if there is a reliable “battle override” mechanism easily accessible to get rid of them when needed. (Yes, you can have it.)
Coffee pods are exactly like phone accessories. You should be able to 3d print your own and fill it with a coffee or other to-be-extracted material of your choice. Weird that you see it with coffee and not with electronics.
Also, how does paying for the “privilege” of getting your own code to your own device “help with third party development of apps”? Isn’t it hindering it instead?
As of helping battery life, a better API to track app power usage or to force it to behave would do a better job.
“People will eat a turd if you top it with mayonnaise.”
– Bill Gates, possibly apocryphal
That the plebs does not know any better does not make its decisions any more superior than an ad populum argument makes a claim true.
Those “without knowledge” can very easily think they do have the skills necessary to do stuff they probably shouldn’t just because they read some sketchy internet post. When the messing around then causes problems they will complain and blame the device. That’s just the way things are with consumer products and manufacturers know this.
If your company caters to tech-savvy power users you should go all out on documenting and allowing everything or even open sourcing your things, but if your goal is to reach many millions of users of all kinds while maintaining very high consumer satisfactions you should perhaps weigh ideologies with practical considerations.
And… what? Shouldn’t they have the freedom to make a mistake? There are enough sketchy internet posts in so many other domains that this should not ever be a concern. What’s the opportunity cost of not making a learning-experience mistake?
And you can work around this as well, by making the design easy to unbrick. Example: a DSL router I recently played with, which is virtually indestructible, software-wise; press and hold the reset button when powering up, the power light starts blinking and a TFTP server starts running, allowing you to easily upload the firmware image. An example of a good, robust design.
Also, do rooting instructions count as “sketchy internet posts”?
You can have both with ease. I proposed at least one viable method.
You do not even need the add-on resistor part. A solder jumper will do, and I (and many more) would be satisfied even with “scratch apart this track” level.
Like the thing possibly being more compact, more elegantly built, more reliable and even cheaper sometimes (from economies of scale, etc) because it was researched, designed and manufactured as an integrated unit, instead of being a more general-use thing made from and for standard off-the-shelf parts.
One real life example from the top of my mind, since I work with video production, is comparing the new 5K resolution iMac to a homemade hackintosh+4k monitor. Assuming similar professional performance levels for the same software, the former is a much cheaper option considering how much a comparable-quality monitor costs when bought separately (in this iMac’s case the computer ends up almost being a freebie that comes with the display), and probably more reliable in the long run (both from what you might consider evil-large-company-crippling-openness-reasons and otherwise). The hackintosh way offers a more tailor-made approach to components and is easily upgradeable, up to a point, should shiny new graphics cards become cheap in the future or something like that.
It’s a personal choice between a very specialized integrated-design thing and a more generalist open one, and for one I’m glad both exist.
Your example is a hindrance, but that’s not what I said, is it? I’m talking about the difference between designing, coding and testing something that has to work well in few known configurations vs. a gazillion billion “open” possibilities . The second way is not very conducive to optimization, is it?
