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As a general rule, if a corpo is against something the EU does, it means your government should do it too because it's a good thing.
Except breaking end-to-end encrypted messaging. That’s the one sore spot.
and also introducing hardware backdoors, courtesy of Going Dark
The EU like any large government is filled with people of varying quality. Some of them are absolutely amazing at their jobs and some of them can barely operate at light switches.
Normally whenever some dumb tech related regulation comes in you usually find it's being pushed by the idiots. You can usually tell by reading the text of the legislation and by the end of it you will have come up with about 300 problems.
A good example of this is reading the Tracking Cookies legislation (bad) and the GDPR legislation (good), the difference in the size of the text of the bill is visually apparent.
some of them can barely operate at light switches
Here's a short story for this fact.
I have sold coffee machine on Monday. Next day got a message that it doesn't work. I ask what is up with it and she told me it won't start. I asked if she turned switch in the back in ON position? 1h later she writes me that it works!
I mean yeah, there is a switch in the back and a big ass ON button on the front. But I totally think that basic troubleshooting would solve this enigma before shooting the gun at me for selling a faulty device.
We used to have a poster up at work in the IT room that had a picture of a person scratching their heads and looking blankly at their laptop and the text "I've tried nothing, and I'm all out of ideas".
Some people have zero troubleshooting skills and don't even try. Their immediate reaction is to try and make it someone else's problem.
This is brilliantly stated. Thank you for sharing the light.
If you pay for a device, you should be able to do whatever you want with it. Apple having so much control over it means that you don't fully own it.
But… something something security and something something not a monopoly… am I doing this anti-consumer white knight thing right?
No no no apple knows whats best because they made it. did you make a phone? no? didnt think so. checkmate.
(Pay no attention to the fact that it took apple 14 years to add t9 dialing, one of the simplest features a 'dumb' phone could have.)
I was always surprised by that (t9 dialing). Surely there was some legal reason for that. It felt so - primative.
As an Australian, do I have anything I can do to help make sure that these regulations are implemented?
Tell your rep(s) you're in favor of it, and if you have a time, visit in person.
We are, it's near ubiquitous. I'd suggest as high as 80% of us. Those folks will still use anything but the store anyway.
Being generous, most people are overwhelmed with choice .... in matters of no inportant (walk down the ceral aisle) , it's just with matters of importance they are given little choice.
That said I use Android becase I can sideload, some 50+60% of the apps I use regularly are sideloaded, stand out that aren't are banking and government. To have that taken off me would be shitty.
That said, I'm bemused at people that complain of a wall garden but also enable it to occur by being part of sipping at the kool aid.
My biggest gripe though is governemnt doing it, using Windows, MS Office etc etc and communicating using closed protocols. Maube like Demark and Germany we'll also move off that toxic shit.
I am too stupid. This is true. Too stupid to buy an iPhone too.
I want to hard agree with Apple that people are, in fact, too stupid to choose their own apps, but not following Apple's greedy logic.
Look at the top apps and sites people use. The tech billionaires. It's stupid as hell
Same. I agree that people are too stupid to know what apps they should use. But that also includes those using some of apples closed down, limited apps and features haha
Apple has always said this about their users. Too stupid to allow choices outside of a few curated options.
Yeah, it's a messed up position. It's made more complicated by then being half right. People do often like having fewer choices. Making a streamlined OS that doesn't allow them access to the kernel or crucial components, that they literally can't break by accident, that is indeed an appealing feature to many. But it's not appealing because they're stupid, it's appealing they're rational.
This has always been Apple's method, make everything intuitive, easy to use for anyone and their mother. And a big part of that is removing all the extra clutter from the interface, all the options users would rarely if ever use. This is also the contentious part, removing the advanced options that power users might want access to.
But at least initially, they understood that the reason for doing all this, their goal, was to make their products better. These days it seems like they're less clear on that goal. The idea that they're "dumbing down" their products and controlling everything because their users are too stupid, this is a new attitude, and it shows a misunderstanding of the principals their company was built on. Apple was only successful because they made very good products which were comfortable to use. They certainly never won popularity through competitive pricing or having the most powerful machines...
Personally, I think it's a foolish move to be this controlling over their iOS ecosystem. This is really making the product inferior. Sideloading apps will not destroy their walled garden, it just gives power users the options they want. Apple should be afraid of losing more market share, they don't have all that much to lose...
As an Australian, my government can go for it. None of the tech companies have appreciated the Australian government's attempts to regulate them ~~(e.g. trying to make Google and Meta pay for using our journalism).~~ (edit: not a good example)
That said, we have had idiots in power from time to time that definitely have worked against us, usually arguing the "security over privacy" nonsense (metadata collection laws, encryption backdoor legislation, etc.).
Happy cake day!
I'd be happy for the Australian government to take them to task over this one. But I'm afraid you've fallen for Murdoch propaganda with the journalism thing.
They weren't "using our journalism". They provide a direct benefit to the news organisations. It's a mostly symbiotic relationship, with people going to Google and Facebook because it's a good way to find news that interests them, and news organisations being funnelled traffic directly to them for free. But honestly, if money should be flowing in any direction, it's to Google and Meta. The financial benefit for news organisations of the existing relationship is far greater for news organisations than it is for Google and Meta. People would still be Googling things and sharing on Facebook even if news didn't make up part of that.
Jeff Jarvis is a great thinker and communicator in this space, and he moderates a great discussion on the topic here. About 34 minutes into the video they hear from a QUT professor who is pretty scathing towards the NMBC.
Thanks.
Really appreciate you taking the time to explain that. Unfortunately the journalism issue is one of those that I haven't had a chance to look into. I like to think I'm aware of the Murdoch propaganda (and the other major "news" outlets here) but there's still clearly some topics which don't register as problematic until I dig into them.
Yeah I think this one became particularly tricky and wormed its way into a lot of people's minds even who would otherwise be wary of it, because even Labor and the Greens stood in favour of it (with some minor tweaks), due to poor tech literacy.
Apple "opinion" -> discarded.
It's the "Apple Way"
I choose the highway.
Is there a way to send and receive SMS and send/receive phone calls through a computer? Like if I wanted to ditch a phone for a cyber deck could I? And just use like a mobile hotspot for Internet?
I used this service breifly a while ago. Not enough to say whether it's good or not, but I remember it working just fine.
This is dope. I live in Scotland, but I'm from Canada, and having a cheap local number for recieving texts from stuff like my bank would be super helpful.
EFF has been fighting the good fight for decades. I signed up for their newsletter in the 90s when I was a teen and still didn't understand enough about the world to be confident that I properly understood what they stood for, concerned that I might have picked the wrong side. I occasionally check their job listings. But they need lawyers and legal experts and I'm trying to run their IT infrastructure. At some point, if I check enough times, maybe they'll need the skills I have. I'd drop any job to work for them.
Unpopular opinion, but if I wanted multiple app stores (and all the associated benefits and risks) then I would have opted for an Android.
The walled garden approach works for me, and I don’t want to be inconvenienced and my data put at risk because a particular, necessary app is only available through a 3rd party platform.
Now, Apple being forced to reduce the % of app sales down from 30% to a more reasonable number I am all for.
As much as I dig at Apple, this is a fair observation. However I will say that I have Android and have never actually used a 3rd party app store or felt the need to.
If Apple cashes in less than 30% next iPhone will be like:
Sorry, we can’t include a box OR wire for ~~savings~~ the wellbeing of the environment
Have they looked at their own app store?
this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
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