syxApple Just Lost Me
I found this to be a very odd and strange rant. The author's three issues with Apple are:
1. Gatekeeping. OK, fine, but at the very least this has been Apple's stance for a very long time now (the author talks about faxing credit card details), so it's not like it's something new. If you wanted full unfettered installation rights, Apple was never the company for you. And while I think it's fine to argue against Apple's stance, I find most of the arguments are less than honest about the pros of things like developer verification for the end user.
2. mac OS26. I totally agree that this is a total fiasco from a design perspective, and liquid glass is unqualified shit. Still, I see Apple at least somewhat moving in the right direction by getting rid of Alan Dye.
3. Apple had a bug in their age verification protocol. Again, valid point, but Apple needs to follow UK law. I've seen a lot more missives arguing against requiring things like driver's licenses and other government ID, and so it seems like Apple is at least trying to go the least restrictive route by choosing credit card verification.
To emphasize, I'm not apologizing for Apple here. In particular, much has been written about how Apple has lost their way regarding the "it just works" philosophy. But it seems like the author's main beef is against Apple's level of control, and this is just a fundamental difference in Apple's stance that has existed for about 2 decades.
When I got the prompt it just said "your account age is old enough to prove your age" and didn't ask for any further info.
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What's odd and strange about this? Author clearly specifies this at the start:
> To summarise for yous there are three main issues for me and the last one happened today and is what pushed me through the threshold.
The compounding led to this, not that individual issues existed (and have been a problem) for a while.
Author here. Thanks for engaging is such gentle way, this is rare these days. Let me address some of your comments and maybe you'll understand my position a bit better even if you don't agree.
> 1.Gatekeeping. OK, fine, but at the very least this has been Apple's stance for a very long time now (the author talks about faxing credit card details), so it's not like it's something new. If you wanted full unfettered installation rights, Apple was never the company for you. And while I think it's fine to argue against Apple's stance, I find most of the arguments are less than honest about the pros of things like developer verification for the end user.
Apple been tightening that control over time. For a long time on MacOS X you could simply run apps. Then came notarisation, but you could still disable it. Now, even with a certificate, it still shows a dialog. I wish that apps that went through notarisation would simply run like the ones from the app store without a dialog showing.
> 3. (...) the least restrictive route by choosing credit card verification.
But not everyone has a credit card. Those are not something you're born with or required to have or even required to have them issued from the same country you're living in. That is not the least restrictive, that is a very large assumption. What I would have liked to have seen is them providing you with options: "do you want to use credit card verification? National ID? Passport? Credit check? Etc" and then it is up to each user to decide on their risk profile and what they are okay with.
As of now, my only way to verify it is by literally ordering a credit card from my UK bank when I'm pretty happy with my debit cards already.
I am in the same situation. French citizen living in the UK. I never owned a credit card and I have no use for it.
I can't pass the age-verification. I am 49.
This alone is quite irritating, but the overall developer-hostility of Apple and the quality drift of their software is convincing me to never buy an iOS device again.
And I'll probably not release any software on their platforms either.
Are you ruling out sending a photo of your driving license?
It's absolutely nuts that you have to. But it's an option?
that's the thing, it is not an option. The only option is credit card, that is what drove me nuts. If it had other options, it would still be bad, but I'd have a way to solve it even if made me angry. Now, the only way to solve this is literally to order a credit card from my bank and then use it. Which is bonkers.
Apple has shown a warning on downloaded-from-the-internet apps since Mac OS X Tiger. That's the only reason it's being shown, there is no scary warning that users need to step-through in some basement in System Settings as they would for a non-notarized app. The popup even says "Apple has checked this application for malware". It is the smallest of friction present to get apps to run, as I'd argue that the sandboxing requirement for App Store apps and the need for a sign-in make the App Store a worse experience.
And I say this as someone more or less utterly in the same boat as you. I bought a used Thinkpad last June after seeing the first Tahoe beta. It's clear Apple is not the platform for us anymore.
> Apple been tightening that control over time. For a long time on MacOS X you could simply run apps. Then came notarisation, but you could still disable it. Now, even with a certificate, it still shows a dialog.
Notarisation is just proof that the app went through an automated malware scan.
Windows, Mac, and Android have all adopted measures intended to warn and attempt to protect users from malware.
As far as age verification goes, this is a restriction being forced on companies by governments.
Apple previously allowed parents to set age restrictions on their children, or not, as they saw fit.
> but Apple needs to follow UK law
The Online Safety Act does not require device manufacturers to enforce age "verification" at the OS level. If Apple had not implemented this, it would still be in compliance with UK law. Apple is displaying anticipatory obedience here, which is the opposite of good citizenship.
Two things stand out from this fiasco:
1. Apple, and those who praise them for what they just did, don't appear to have learnt from history. Anticipatory obedience used to be known as "vorauseilender Gehorsam" during a particularly dark period in the history of a country a few hundred miles southeast of the UK. It was one of the factors enabling the darkness.
2. The UK is a small enough market for Apple to treat it as a test bed. Which it probably is in this case, and which means that removal of anonymity aka "OS-level age verification" is coming to a lot more devices in a lot more countries soon. See also the uncanny coincidence of lots of OECD countries pushing for online age verification at the same time.