Mastodawn

Cassandra is only carbon now Mar 15

Everyone has a MacBook Neo take, so here's mine.

Apple has, in my opinion, been a net negative for computing, and to a stunning degree. They've normalized DRM for software so completely that it will possibly take decades to get back the rights that we lost. They've used that power to make life worse for queer folks and to cozy up to the Trump administration.

But. There's something fascinating about the Neo.

Cassandra is only carbon now Mar 15

@glyph made the point that the Neo is an implicit promise from Apple that macOS will run just fine on 8 GB of memory for the next 8 years.

But I think it goes farther than that: Apple made a reference device for application developers. They've never been shy about enforcing requirements on developers, and this is an interesting positive side to that: developers now have a huge incentive to make applications that fit within modest memory limits.

this is the company that sabotaged older phones with newer software releases. I have no reason to believe they won't spend a few years (re-)penetrating education and low-end markets, and then bring the ratchet back out. all your stuff is in icloud. pay up.

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@khm @xgranade I take it you're referring to batterygate? I think it's probably good that apple had to pay out a settlement there because I do think that they ought to be forced into a degree of transparency about what software updates are doing, but the actual meat of the lawsuit is about a tradeoff which, while it SHOULD have been explained to users, is also a setting which 99% of users really ought to have turned on

@khm @xgranade what the software update did was to change the behavior of the device from "when the battery is degraded to the point where it is no longer providing the necessary level of power to keep the phone running properly, instead of randomly shutting off at low-but-unpredictable charge % and losing the users' data, cap the CPU performance so it won't do that". The change would let most users keep their device *longer* and give Apple *less* money.

yes I also read their bullshit justification. weird how they're the only company who has to throttle devices to stop them from fucking themselves up, but I guess that's what it takes to convince people you're the best

between "we'll dry-gulch you behind the scenes" and "all third-party development stops when our xcode cert stack shits the bed" there's basically no combination of words that will convince me apple is anything but user-hostile

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@khm @xgranade not something I have any interest in convincing you of. the only reason I talk about this stuff is to try to help the free desktop community properly understand what you're up against. if the model of the world is just "apple is acausally evil and makes inferior products; people buy their devices only because they're stupid" then there's no hope of ever competing with them realistically

"competing" is the wrong model for free desktop / foss / open computing. the resources necessary to achieve technical competition do not exist, there is no physical logistics entity, and the marketing is toilet-grade diaper dumps.

free software is a political movement, not a market participant, and the way to achive success is to focus on making it politically impossible (via legislation or public opinion or both) for companies to rely on hostile hardware-based control mechanisms, so that people can run whatever software they want.

"apple is causally evil and makes inferior products; people buy their devices only because they're apathetic" is absolutely correct and the solution is to compel apple to stop making garbage. apple is hardly unique in this. in fact, they are not unique at all; they're just another garbage factory in a market that is rapidly ensuring that all remaining SKUs originate in the landfill. demanding better is the only path forward.

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Cassandra is only carbon now Mar 17

@khm @glyph OK, I even agree with some of what you're saying, but... how does that help?

Like, free software shouldn't have to compete, it shouldn't be the case that not only does free software avoid DRM, e-waste, AI, and whatever other fuckshit is going on in the tech industry, it *also* has to be easier to use and in an environment that's designed to be hostile towards free software.

But wow if saying how things should work got us there, I'd be a *much* happier person.

Cassandra is only carbon now

@khm @glyph Hell, my experiences trying to get Windows to do even basic end-user stuff makes me very firmly convinced that Linux is, on the whole, easier to use. But then Zoom ships broken software that doesn't work right on Linux, the whole world uses Word, and and and.

I haven't used macOS in six years or so, but I have the first Apple computer I've ever bought in the mail so that I can try and make cross-plat software. I doubt I'll find it easier to use, personally, but who knows.

Cassandra is only carbon now Mar 17

@khm @glyph So, like, I get it. Linux on the desktop is here, should work, and users even like it if it's called "Steam."

But it doesn't. fucking. matter. as long as the whole world revolves around the corporate OS duopoly (and don't even get me started on phones). So yeah, free software does have to compete, and having advice on how to do that is actually incredibly helpful.

I used linux exclusively for work in the federal government between like 2011 and 2026. only in the past month have I been required to use a non-linux workstation, and the experience is strictly worse. zoom, word, all that shit works fine in a browser, and has for years.

if the problem were linux, chromebooks would not exist. instead they very much do exist, and the only reason their proliferation wasn't a massive boon for linux as a workstation os is the stupid code-signing DRM shit embedded in both the hardware and the software, which reinforces my point that software licensing is completely orthagonal to market success. ease of use is also unrelated to market success, but that wasn't really the point I was making.

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@khm @xgranade what is your purpose in making this argument

Cassandra is only carbon now Mar 17

@glyph Eh, I just went on and blocked.

@xgranade I vaguely try to follow a rule of asking this question before a block, if the person in question isn't being _personally_ rude. but, you know, (taps the sign that says "don't make me change the rules")

Cassandra is only carbon now Mar 17

@glyph I try to be more diplomatic normally, but I am out of fucks right about now. Regardless, you're more patient than I am.

@xgranade not _that_ big a difference between a single fuck left to give and zero

Cassandra is only carbon now Mar 17

@glyph Ah, 202X.

I am unsettled by the amount of glad-handing Apple gets for making a laptop functionally identical to the rest of their product line but cheaper. The interpretation that their product expansion is from a sense of community-building or in service of accessibility instead of an actuarial result for penetrating a specific market is one I can't get behind.

I'm not one to tell people what to buy, but I get nervous about apologetics for what is demonstrably Just Another Corporation, especially when those apologetics veer into the political realm, especially when the corporation involved has donated a lot of money and paid a lot of lip service to specific political entities I consider harmful.

In other words, I'm not trying to tell people their opinions are wrong so much as explain why I don't share them and provide some context for how I got where I am with my interpretation. If I crossed some kind of asshole line in the process, I'm sorry. That wasn't my intention, not that my intentions matter if I hurt someone.

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@khm Thanks, I appreciate that. And I understand your perspective. I think it would be best to table this for now and have a longer conversation when there is maybe a little less bullshit happening in the world such that we are both better-regulated and able to deal with nuances.

Personally I find it kind of exhausting to have to include five paragraphs of qualifications about the harm that they do before every fact that I share about Apple, but I also understand why I need to.

the context that is top-of-mind for me is definitely not the context that is top-of-mind for others, and I definitely failed to account for that here. sorry again.