Mastodawn

Marco Arment

Are any of you still thinking Tim Cook is just doing what he "needs" to do, throwing his own reputation under the bus as a selfless act to protect a larger social well-being, rather than literally just *supporting* the Trump regime because the political favors he negotiates help his company make even more money?

Can we all finally see it now?

Would anyone bend over backwards so far to try to excuse this behavior for anyone else, or any other company, performing the same actions that Cook has?

Machiel Oct 3

@marcoarment people jump to the “he is just doing what he needs to do” argument because they don’t Want to believe it. They want to believe that Apple is somehow better and therefore Cook has to be somehow not evil too.

But no: he is supporting a fascist government, which makes him complicit.

@vmachiel @marcoarment
There’s also a segment of Apple fans who worship capitalism, and that includes some prominent Apple bloggers.

Thomas Oct 3

@marcoarment Who are you going to believe, Cook apologists or your lying eyes ?

David Gleich Oct 3

@marcoarment so what to do? Return iPhones? Cancel iCloud?

Magnus Ahltorp Oct 3

@dgleich @marcoarment Try to give as little money as possible, and divest funds investing in them. Talk about what they are doing so that others are at least informed. If you have subscriptions and think you need them, but not always, pay more attention so that you pause them as soon as you can. Unpause them as late as possible. Use bought products longer. Help others make their products last longer.

Bradley Oct 3

@dgleich @marcoarment it's a tough one for sure. Trying to get away from Google has been near impossible, I can only imagine it's harder for Applers who have been using the gear for years now

Edit: also there appears nowhere to go

David Gleich Oct 3

@bradley @marcoarment that’s the issue. There nowhere to go!

Calamity Jan 🐍Oct 3

@dgleich @bradley @marcoarment every once in a while I think about switching to Android and then I remember that I hate Google even worse because they ARE worse. I could buy a Linux box to do some dev work, I guess, but a Mac is still a better machine for less for my work. Hooray, I’m stuck.

@dgleich @marcoarment stop listening to podcasts about apple

TheEJJ 🇨🇦Oct 3

@marcoarment and yet you still support Apple in every way you can. When will you sacrifice to show them that they’ve crossed a line for you?

dtrain Oct 3

@marcoarment here’s to the cowardly ones

Jade Oct 3

@marcoarment Not to put too fine a point on it, but we live in a country with more guns than people and little interest in helping the mentally ill, and here is an app that shows where ICE agents and undocumented immigrants are likely gathered. ICEBlock should never have been approved in the first place.

d0mth0ma5 Oct 3

@marcoarment

Per Reuters - “Apple removed more than 1,700 apps from its App Store in 2024 in response to government demands, but the vast majority - more than 1,300 - came from China, followed by Russia with 171 and South Korea with 79.” The change is the US govt requesting it, not Apple doing it.

𝚎𝚒𝚗 𝚖𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚔 Oct 3

@marcoarment yeah it’s disgusting, … coming from Germany, we have seen it all. It was the same in Nazi Germany at the time.

How do you resist as a company because you’re always going to be based on the rules of the law/government. How are you going to act according to the law once the government itself became corrupt and illegal?

What are all of the other CEO’s doing in comparison?

What even is the way out?

Joe Alexander Oct 3

@Malik @marcoarment In Nazi Germany the people who didn't play along were killed - that's an important angle here

𝚎𝚒𝚗 𝚖𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚔 Oct 3

@joe @marcoarment I guess you have heard what the minister of war (!!) and the president told 800 high ranking generals just days ago? How long will it take for them to start actually shooting someone’s kneecaps?

Nazi Germany didn’t start with killings right away.

Joe Alexander Oct 3

@Malik @marcoarment They didn't - but everyone wants Tim Cook to be the hero and stand up for an app that shouldn't have made it past the first approval process. Does the app help people evade the law? Then why would Apple get behind publishing it in the first place? "Pedo picture finder" wouldn't be published. Not the same, but deportations are now the law of the land.

We shouldn't be yelling at Apple - we should be doing better up front. We shouldn't be making stuff like this iOS only, that's stupid. The app sucked too, everyone was bashing the author not long ago. Being an app is actually kind of useless for most people. It should have always been a web service. Even more, it shouldn't be on an American host and it likely should be a TLD that's harder to seize.

You set out to go up against a fascist government, it wasn't ever going to work as some Apple app.

I get it, be outraged - demand better from Apple... but don't be surprised, and demand better from these newly rising vanguards. It was always a dumb risk to make this an iOS app (DO MIGRANTS EVEN CARRY IPHONES)

𝚎𝚒𝚗 𝚖𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚔 Oct 3

@joe 100% agree. I’m in Germany here so I am never saw the app but I was wondering why it’s not a PWA in the first place. I’ve just learned it was iOS only on top of that.

Joe Alexander Oct 5

@Malik I really wonder how many migrants are carrying the $1,200 iPhone anyway - I'm finding it hard to believe this app was doing that well.

𝚎𝚒𝚗 𝚖𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚔 Oct 5

@joe by far not everybody has or needs a new phone. It’s not a problem getting a five-year-old phone for a little money, still works fine. Change the battery for $30.

iPhone has a huge market share in the US.

Here in Germany, a lot of low income folks carry iPhones as a status symbol, cc debt is a think, rate pay etc.

Either way, the app has been downloaded many times

Roch Ripley Oct 3

@marcoarment I don’t have any special grievance with Cook. I just lump him with most of these other big tech leaders who are complicit (or worse).

Chad Marriotti Oct 3

@marcoarment I still think you’re grossly overreacting. Like I’ve always said, this is how you handle business under a corrupt, authoritarian leadership. Other asshole CEOs can be ignored and stood up against. But when the leader of your country can make a decision that can literally end your existence (see Colbert) this is how you have to operate.

jaredrfrancis Oct 3

@Cmarriotti @marcoarment this point. The entire corporate class has decided that appeasement is the best strategy to protect their bottom line. I’m not sure why we think it’s the responsibility of corporations to be the bulwark against authoritarian overreach. There is very little public mobilization at this point, which is much more concerning.

Juri Pakaste Oct 3

@jaredrfrancis @Cmarriotti @marcoarment there exist perfectly reasonable ways to organize software distribution on computing devices, ones in which Tim Cook isn’t the bottleneck that the government can squeeze.

Apple has consistently attacked any suggestion they adopt any of those. They want to be the tool of the people in charge.

jaredrfrancis Oct 3

@juri @Cmarriotti I think we’ve seen is that the government is capable of squeezing any individual or corporate actor.

Would it be better if well resourced organizations pushed back on the Trump administration? Sure. But government pressuring companies isn’t new or unique to the current authoritarian goons. Corporate resistance isn’t a substitute for popular mobilization.

Isaac Freeman Oct 3

@Cmarriotti This is how you handle business under a corrupt authoritarian leadership… if you believe you have no power to oppose them, or if you do but don't care.

Apple clearly has power to resist here. They have many lawyers and vast resources to pay them. They could say “So sue me”. They could insist that they will not remove an app that helps people protect their neighbours from being illegally rounded up and shipped to concentration camps by masked thugs. They are clearly capable of making this very difficult, very expensive, and very public before they're actually forced to comply. There's every chance that Trump would cave or lose interest, and they would win.

The leadership of Apple presumably aren't ignorant of their position, so it's reasonable to assume that at best they don't care enough to try.
@marcoarment

Chad Marriotti Oct 4

@isaacfreeman here’s the difference. Trump could apply a 1000% tariff on all Apple products. Or force his FCC to declare iPhones cause undue stress on our networks and should be disabled. Trump literally has the power to end Apple if he thinks for a second they aren’t falling in line.

Isaac Freeman Oct 4

@Cmarriotti He could decide to do these things regardless of whether Apple complies in advance. Trump has a long history of turning on people who thought they'd gained his favour. When Apple does what he wants, he doesn't see them as a friend, he just sees them as weak.

Apple has spent decades building a brand that aligns them with liberal values. They're proudly based in California, they use diverse actors in their advertising, they invest in accessibility features, they sell rainbow watch bands. Their founders were pot-smoking hippies and their CEO is the most famous gay man in the world. They're going to be a symbolic target for fascists whatever they do.

I agree the situation is perilous, but they'd be safer adopting a position of strength rather than trying to appease a bully.

@Cmarriotti @marcoarment
Colbert is no hero. Look at his interview of Zohran Mamdani, and compare with his interviews of Kamala Harris and Elissa Slotkin.

Chad Marriotti Oct 4

@freediverx @marcoarment you have completely missed the point.

Nicolas diPierro Oct 3

@marcoarment How long before he compromises the podcast directory to remove voices the administration finds problematic?

SwampYankee Oct 3

@marcoarment Marco......That is Tim Cooks reputation.

@marcoarment for argument’s sake if some right-winger pro-life nut wrote an app that doxxes all women ordering abortion pills and doctors facilitating abortions, and the result of this app is that the women and doctors got harassed and threatened, and Apple removed that app because a Democratic administration forced it to. Would it make you that angry with Tim Cook?
The point of this exercise is to make you see that this, in the end, is about politics, not “the right thing to do”, and Apple’s stance (we follow the law and obey our government) may be grating, but it’s the most neutral and least controversial they can be

@Beirutspring @marcoarment
Do you really think those are two morally and ethically equivalent scenarios? Great job making a “both sides” argument in the middle of a fascist takeover of our country.

@freediverx @marcoarment before replying to you, I looked at your profile. We agree on Palestine, but you’re one of those “fascist everything” people like Kottke. I’m sure you’re a nice guy but I don’t think we can reach to any agreement. Cheers

@Beirutspring @marcoarment
I don't think Cook is a fascist. I think he's just another soulless corporate executive who worships at the altar of unbridled capitalism and shareholder supremacy.

The only reason so many are calling him out on his caving to Trump is Apple's historical positioning as a company that “thinks different”, a company that ostensibly prioritizes making great products over chasing profits—which us why we (naively?) hold them to a higher standard.

@freediverx @marcoarment Apple and Tim Cook have always —always!—, “followed the law” in authoritarian regimes, from China to Russia to S Arabia. What is upsetting you is not that Apple has changed (it has not), but that the US has become an authoritarian regime. This has nothing to do with Apple and Marco’s accusation that somehow Tim Cook became a different person is unfounded.

@Beirutspring @marcoarment
We’ve criticized Apple for kowtowing to authoritarian governments because we knew the same could happen in the US.

The “change” you refer to started w/Jobs' death & the company running on auto-pilot without its visionary (& highly flawed) founder.

The effects have been most noticeable in the decline of their software, but also in their politically meek & milquetoast executives.

Realistically, if Jobs were still alive I believe he would have betrayed us as well.

@Beirutspring @marcoarment
Such are the results of developing para-social relationships with corporations, and treating capitalism as a state religion.

@marcoarment
Also interesting to note which battles they do choose to fight. Contrast their capitulation to Trump with their relentless resistance and malicious compliance when it comes to EU regulations.

Chad C.Oct 4

@marcoarment Problem is 50% of the population would be on board with what he’s doing. You just happen to be on the wrong side of the politics this time.

laydros Oct 4

@marcoarment while I’m very much not happy with Tim Cook around this stuff, I’m still a little more in line with @siracusa and @caseyliss on it being disgusting bending over and greed more than malicious intent.

And it seems there were some clear issues with this app that opened it for abuse: https://mastodon.social/@joeress/115310489199198480