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From: Oscar Mayer <nobody@oscarmayer.com>
Newsgroups: misc.phone.mobile.iphone,comp.mobile.ipad
Subject: Re: Install iOS 17.4.1 now to patch 2 new zero-day vulnerabilities
Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2024 11:37:32 -0400
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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On Sat, 27 Apr 2024 12:43:04 -0000 (UTC), paul@paulglover.net.invalid
wrote:

>> There is nothing wrong with you thinking that the sun revolves around the
>> earth as long as it works for you, just as you seeming to be saying that
>> the infamous walled garden doesn't hinder your efforts with a tablet or
>> phone isn't wrong - as long as it works for you. 
> 
> And yet, you're choosing an analogy in which one of the options is
> very demonstrably wrong. The earth orbits the sun. Period. Anyone
> who says otherwise is obviously crazy. Ergo, anyone who disagrees with
> you must be crazy. Right? ;-)

There are those on this very newsgroup who claim there is no walled garden,
which is akin to claiming that the sun revolves around the earth, is it
not?

> Whereas in reality, what one person needs their tablet to do is very
> different to another. Neither is actually wrong, unless they stubbornly
> refuse to accept that a particular device has limits which make it
> unsuitable for *their* needs.

As I said, if you don't do much with your iOS device, then if it works fine
for you - then all the power to you for the happiness that it provides you.

But nobody sensible would equate the debilitatingly limited iOS platform to
that of a far more open platform such as Android when it comes to getting
useful things done in the real world (which includes more than only Apple).

> Where they get very sideways indeed is when they INSIST that everyone
> else should be upset because a device can't do something that only they
> care about. Your experience is not theirs, and vice-versa. Most people
> have quite limited use cases for a tablet device, and so never come
> close to hitting the limits. They just don't care about the things you
> care about.

The number of useful things iOS can't do compared to all other platforms
numbers in the thousands, such that even the most common of the simplest of
basic things people do on all other platforms is impossible to do on iOS.

>> But the fact you said it means you don't actually do anything with that
>> tablet or phone that Apple hasn't scripted for you because the walled
>> garden very much is debilitating if you did.
> 
> To be fair, you do have a point here. If I stubbornly insisted on trying
> to use my iPad for things it isn't able or lacks the software tools to
> do, it would be debilitating.

What if you simply wanted to use the web on iOS with the privacy of the Tor
Browser? You can't. Even the Guardian web site says you can't get that kind
of privacy on iOS. Why not? WebKit.

> But I do not, because it's really about using the right tool for the
> job and I have plenty of other tools that are suitable.

While I don't disagree the right tool for the job is what you use, what do
you do for the thousands of things you want to do that iOS can't do?

For example, what if you had wanted to, oh, say, use a YouTube app (not a
browser web page, but an app) for free without any advertisements and with
the concurrent ability to strip & download & anonymously subscribe, etc.?

It's trivial on Android. Impossible on iOS.

> The thing you ignored here is that I was actually surprised at what I
> *could* do with an iPad. As for the things I could not? Those mostly
> came down to lack of storage space and lack of specific software tools,
> not any apparent Apple imposed limits.

I didn't ignore that you feel everything you want to do you can do on the
iPad, but what if you wanted to do something as simple as hook it to a
random PC (say at a friend's house) and copy files back and forth over USB.

You can't. Android can. That's all I'm saying.

In addition to the lack of thousands of apps which makes iOS debilitating,
is the requirement of the unique AppleID which no other platform has.

Only iOS has that debilitating requirement hindering open file transfers.

> As far as I can tell, Apple wasn't stopping anyone from writing a
> digital asset management tool for the iPad.

Why do you think that Apple expressly doesn't allow a mock location app to
be installed on the iPad and yet every other platform easily allows you to?

> The only limit I did run into that was related directly to Apple policy
> was emulating old computers (no emulation allowed). Didn't they just
> remove that limit?

If that's the only limit you've run into, then all you're really saying is
you use the iPad as a mere slinky, or a Frisbee, or whatever toy analogy
you care to come up with. As a toy, the iPad is fun to play with. I agree.

But as a mobile device, the debilitating limitations of the iPad are so
onerous as to mark the device as merely a plaything for people who play
games.

For example, how do you graphically check all the Wi-Fi signals in your
home when you're setting up or debugging Wi-Fi? You can't. 

Every other platform easily does that.
Just not iOS.

>> It's like someone who thinks the earth revolves around the moon isn't
>> actually ever going to get a spaceship to the moon thinking that way.
> 
> Not entirely sure what your point is here.

If someone says the earth revolves around the moon, they're ignorant.
Same as anyone who claims the iPad can do what every other platform does.

There are thousands of things that the iPad can't do because Apple limits
what iOS can do. It's called the walled garden.

For example, how do you copy any file from your iPad onto someone else's
iPad with a different AppleID over USB like every other platform does?

You can't.

> I suppose the real world version of that analogy is that, lacking an
> iPad native digital asset management system written by someone else, I
> should have just gone ahead and written my own so I could have used the
> iPad for everything? Which I could not have done using just an iPad, so
> I'd have been stuck, because this is all taking place in some fever
> dream where I have nothing but an iPad and iPhone available?

The Apple mobile devices running iOS are so debilitating you can't even
choose your own default messaging app for sms/mms and yet Android has no
problem choosing any of hundreds of useful messaging apps as the default.

> No thanks. Someone else can take care of that sort of moonshot. 

What you're saying, rather clearly, is that you use the iPad as a slinky.
And that's fine. For you.  

In fact, you said only one thing you couldn't do, which means you actually
use the iPad mostly as a Frisbee to play games. And for that, it works
fine.

But try to set up a system-wide no-root firewall on the damn thing, which
is something every other operating system easily does, and you'll fail.

The iPad is nothing more than a toy that can only do what Apple wants you
to do and nothing else. 

Meanwhile, every other operating system works for you.

>> Because the number of rather useful things that everyone else can do but
>> which the walled garden prevents you from doing is absolutely astounding.
> 
> I'm genuinely curious what it is that you are trying to do which you
> cannot because of the "walled garden". Or what you're presuming that
> I've been limited from being able to do?

Try this.
I plug any number of random Android phones (by way of example) into my PC.
I copy any file I want to from the PC to those phones.
I copy any file I want to the PC from those phones.

No setup. No iTunes debilitating garbage. Nothing but a USB cord.
It doesn't matter whom the phone is "registered" to.
it doesn't matter what file I'm copying.
It doesn't matter where that file is located either.

It just works.

Can you do that with the iOS device you have?
The answer is no.

On the Apple mobile devices, you're severely restricted to doing only what
the Apple corporate hierarchy deems is what THEY want you to be able to do.

> The list of things I've found which I could not adequately do with just
> an iPad is not "absolutely astounding" at all:

Then you've done nothing.

Have you ever tried, for example, to put an app shortcut into two logical
locations? Or to change the name of similarly sounding installed default
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