Free and Open Source Software

Personally, I strongly agree with your colleague. If you truly believe openness is a good thing (and it sounds like you do), Apple's ethos is just about the direct antithesis. They only collaborate with the wider tech industry when they absolutely have to. Otherwise, they are greedy, secretive, controlling, and vindictive - oftentimes openly hostile to anyone who dares choose a non-Apple device/platform.

The best example of this is the iMessage "green bubbles" phenomenon. Some background: Apple's default texting experience is iMessage. This service has a bunch of nice, modern chat features - except they're only available when texting another iPhone. These "better" messages are indicated by blue bubbles. People who don't use iPhones (whether by choice or by necessity) are forced to use the ancient, insecure, feature-poor SMS protocol, reducing the privacy and security of everyone involved (including iPhone users). It's also extremely obvious when this happens, since the chat app will switch to green bubbles.

In places where this service has caught on (such as the US), Apple uses this separation to deliberately make texting non-iPhone users a significantly worse experience. This causes social effects, especially among teenagers, where those who don't use iPhone are bullied and shunned for being a "green bubble". The Wall Street Journal did a great expose into this phenomenon.

Now, to be clear, this is a totally artificial problem - Apple could fix this overnight if they wanted. For years, the wider tech industry has been working on replacing SMS with a much more modern standard called RCS. Every single other party in the mobile industry has moved on. Apple, however, is the lone holdout. They see kids bullying other kids into buying an iPhone as a good thing - more iPhone sales! In fact, Apple openly encouraged that narrative: when a journalist asked the (very reasonable) question of "how can I make texting with my Android-user mom better?", Apple CEO Tim Cook responded with "buy your mom an iPhone."

There's plenty more examples of this I could talk about, but this one is the most telling.

Of course, if you do choose to go all in with them, you won't see that side of Apple at all. They are frighteningly good at cultivating their image as the "good guys" among Big Tech, and, honestly, it's not unwarranted. They are good at what they do, and they do take care of their users. Their tech is great.

Ultimately, my take is that if you prefer using it over more open alternatives, don't change what you like! Just remember that they have a dark side. It is good to be aware of the wider tech ecosystem, and to make open technology choices where you can. By being active on the Fediverse, you're already doing your part 😁

Dont feel too bad about not knowing everything from everywhere, as you said you arent a tech guy, but lets get to your questions

1. Privacy thats...depending on how you see it, supposedly they don't sell to third partys but they do use it for you
2. I will never support them, not only are their prices disgustingly high compared to their quality, their walled garden and fucking tooth and nail fight to keep it that way isnt helping helping
3. While not required I do think they should at least look into all of it for a bit

Im the end, do whatever you wanna do

I dislike Apple due to their user-hostile business practices. They don't let you install alternate browsers or keyboards (TRULY alternate and not just re-skins of Safari and the iOS keyboard). They don't let you sideload (officially). They don't want you to interface with other phone manufacturers in an equitable way (see the whole blue bubble/green bubble drama). They don't want you to have the freedom to repair your own devices (see the whole right to repair movement).

And so on and so forth. They are nice products and do what they are supposed to with minimal friction. I just cannot support a company that is so blatantly user-hostile.

For all of their faults I admire Apple's commitment to product design a lot. They really seem to center the human use case and mold the technology around that. This kind of focus on design (not just aesthetics!) brings the benefits of technology to people that might not have been able to access them otherwise due to knowledge, time constraints, etc.

How does this relate to FOSS? Well to be blunt the UX on a lot of FOSS technology is bad. It conveys freedom and privacy to technologically inclined people like us who can make sense of it, but it does very little to liberate people who don't find this stuff easy or can't devote enough free time to it. Ease of use is not a weakness to be mocked. It can be an extremely powerful force if done correctly. Personally I would love to see more UX designers getting into FOSS development, but unfortunately I can't really help myself on that front.

I spent many years trying to be as FOSS as I could. I tried many different Linux distros, hunted for open source operating systems for my phone (at the time, none did even the basic things I needed it to do) until one day I decided I was sick to death of having to spend hours researching and trying multiple arcane cli commands to get even simple things to work (like WiFi). I realised that I was wasting an enormous amount of time being all-things-open-source.

My next purchase as a macbook as it was based on a *nix and I've come to realise that while Apple is a walled garden and in some ways is 'evil', it's less evil than Google is now, or Microsoft was back in the day.

I also like the way that the various Apple devices work really well together. But I hate the fact that it's harder to hack things to be the way that I want. Don't get me wrong, I still love open source software, but I have too few years left to waste them on modifying config.org files, or whatever they do now, so I'm much more selective with what I use. I tend to use FOSS applications on MacOS where the software works well enough.

Not trying to bash FOSS, just my 2 cents.

It is with high confidence and with a straight face that I can state my opinion that Microsoft is a better partner of open source software than Apple. Microsoft contributes back, Apple pretty much doesn't. They're better than AWS, but that's more a matter of damning with faint praise.

Apple's built up a vertically integrated market of disposable widgets which cannot be repaired or upgraded. Their sole positive is they're better than the other guys at keeping older software updated, but I'm sure they did the math on having their customers not getting hacked at the time.

I'm my opinion they're worth looking at for anti-trust.

I 100% agree with your colleague, though I don't agree with his purity test. You're allowed to feel the way you do about medicine and still use whatever products you want. But, yeah, I don't own or use and Apple products, though I would like to own and restore an Apple IIe.

To get the point since as you've stated your brain is filled.

Here's how I view Apple:

• anti consumer
• anti developer
• anti privacy
• anti right to repair

Well, there are many things to consider here. First off, let me say I really appreciate your "battle" for open science: I think that's what we should fight for, and I totally support that (I'm a PhD in computer science, but done with research). I don't think that the fact that you don't use FOSS makes your battle for open science any less legitimate, that is still super valid and you shouldn't feel hypocrite. That said, it is true that Apple does not support or contribute to open source at all (I believe CUPS is one of the few open source things Apple did, correct me if I'm wrong here).

Nonetheless, I totally understand the coziness of having such an integrated environment between all your devices: this is not gonna happen on Linux, or at least not at that level. I do believe that the Linux desktop experience has become much more user friendly (imo much more than Windows for instance), and there are also cool integration options such as KDE connect, but that's probably not as good and cool as Apple integration.

Committing to open source can be a time-consuming decision, and most people that advocates for FOSS still use or give their data to non-FOSS software (such as Google, Facebook etc.). So, my advice would be to embrace as much as you want of the open philosophy: you're already "fighting" for open science, maybe you can start using some open source software (maybe your email client? your pdf reader?). Little by little you'll judge by yourself what and how much you want to commit to the FOSS philosophy :)

Thank you for opening yourself up to the discourse!

First of all: I don't use any apple products, because I strongly disagree with the company on an ideological level.

My opinion on apple products, personal opinion that is, is that the walled garden approach has pros and cons. Meaning, they control everything within their ecosystem. You can't install a third party app without it being approved on the appstore first. This is good in the sense, that there is virtually zero risk of bad actors being able to access your systems. This is bad, because it allows apple to dictatorially allow/reject apps, and ideas that they don't agree with. I don't know if they have done this, but it would not surprise me.

Another large issue I have, as a nerd, with apple's approach. Is that having everything easily accessible and controlled by the company (here I mean things like, its more difficult to make changes to your computer as compared to linux, where you have full control) makes for a tech-illiterate public. Anecdotally, I have friends who are very skilled at tech, one is a space-tech student, the other a high-level games programmer, and both feel they can't switch to another phone than Iphone, because it is such a specific way of interconnectedness that exists when you have all apple products. It is so easy to airdrop, or screen share, cloud save etc etc. That it is a fundamentally different experience to use anything else. Now, that might seem like a pro for apple, but my issue is that this interconnectedness should be a priority between ecosystems too. Ideally I would like to have these features as a given on any system, like email can talk to email (fediverse hype), instead of being locked to a single ecosystem.

In conclusion: Apple is known for keeping their information under lock and key, and not allowing any interference with their systems. I think this is bad.

Thanks for bringing it up! And remember there is no right/wrong, except what you personally feel good about.

Your friend is right. Listen to them, read and understand. Don't feel obligated to necessarily change your habits. If you get the time and desire to make a change, that understanding and knowledge will inform your actions. ☺️

While it’s true that Apple doesn’t contribute anything to being open there’s always a cost-benefit trade off. “Bad guys ™️” made chemo, but we still use it. If you’re such a big proponent of openness and you use Apple - donate some cash (as able) to an open source project. It doesn’t have to be all or none.

So Apple is obviously an evil, profit seeking company that exploits users and developers, maintains a monopoly and actively hurts efforts towards openness.

But bro, what else am I gonna use? Do you think Google is any better.

And, as you already noticed, most open source alternatives suuuck. (Man, I'm gonna regret saying this on an FOSS community) With some research you'll get a usable desktop OS for some use-cases, but phones such as Fairphone and Purism are another story entirely. Don't even think about watches or tablets. I love the Purism Firefox demo, where they enthusiastically say: "With Settings unusable in Portrait, it's time to switch to landscape mode".

The "you think ... yet you buy ..." argument is pointless, because it ignores the realities of monopolies and globalism. I'm sure his T-Shirt that day wasn't made from ethically sourced cotton or whatever.

I don’t like Apple because of their anti-user, anti-third party policies, but their quality, interoperability, and privacy make me pick it over google for my phone, tablet, and watch.

Granted, it I could replace those things with FOSS alternatives that worked as well as Apple products do, I would in a heart beat.

A concept shared by both of these examples is that of the commons. You believe in an information commons, specifically as it pertains to medicine. A lot of users in the FOSS space believe in a technological commons.

I'm not going to delve too extensively into the political and philosophical definitions around the commons; there's a wealth of economic and political anthropology dissecting the successes of the commons, how they tend to operate, and their potential place in future economies of the world. If you want a very brief primer, David Bollier's Think Like a Commoner is a good start; it's quick, inexpensive, and there's an audiobook if that's your jam.

Apple isn't super popular among the geeks for this exact reason. They make everything proprietary. Like, everything everything. They aren't willing to give up even their charging cables.

Yea they make stuff convenient for people who don't want to think about the tech at all, but you're giving up a huge deal of your freedom. And by extension even of other people, because by using Apple products, you're helping them strengthen their iron grip. See the bubble color debate regarding iMessage. Worse, they turn this into a trend that other companies follow.

Linux can be as complicated or as simple as you want it. Yea if you're a programmer or a nerd, you can use Arch and literally take it apart.

Or you can use Mint or Ubuntu and your experience will be as smooth and straightforward as using MacOS. The only issue is being spoiled for choice. True, nobody has as interconnected ecosystems as Apple but again.. It's not just money you're paying with.

The analogy of free access to information is indeed apt.

I think Apple is as bad as Microsoft or even worse. Their products are not even remotely as good as their fans claim to be either.

I had to use a macbook for work once and it honestly sucked and I really tried to like it even contributed to major user space programs through out my 2 year adventure. It's a bad platform of blind leading the blind.

You should look in to openstreetmap.org . It's open and free map data. Having a single giant company (Google) control all the maps is not good for the commons.

I'm so glad Wikipedia exists as a non-profit organizations. Imagine if Facebook or Google owned The Encyclopedia

Speaking of, there is something called the https://creativecommons.org/ mostly known for the Creative Commons family of non-comercial Licences. It's used by creators to licence and freely share their work, similar to how programers use FOSS software licenses

There are a number of ongoing FOSS projects that will hopefully culminate in an ecosystem experience comparable to Apple. There are already some laptops being sold with Linux pre-installed, guaranteeing hardware compatibility (HP, Dell, System76, Slimbook, Tuxedo, Starlabs). KDE Connect integrates your phone and computer. Nextcloud can do much of what iCloud can do. Various phone projects are making the Linux phone possible, like Librem Purism, Pinephone, FOSH, KDE Plasma Mobile. And degoogled Androids like /e/ project / LineageOS and GrapheneOS. There's the PineTime smart watch.

Things often move slower in the FOSS world compared to literal TRILLION dollar companies. But when FOSS solutions get a foothold there's no going back. FOSS projects are also virtually immune to enshitification

While the Apple ecosystem is nice, it's also the epitome of Vendor Lock-In. They deliberately make their products hard to integrate with other products (charging cables, green text bubles etc). As well as everything else people have mentioned here about right-to-repair, planned obsolescence, factory worker conditions

So yeah perfectly understandable to use all Apple-stuff today , but I'm optimistic for a future where more people are free from the big tech giants

Wait till you google Richard M. Stallman.

Whether it's biotech or software, there's always tension between creating incentives for innovation vs fostering wide availability and openness.

The Free Software / Open Source world exists on the openness side, and while some business (including Apple) have made a business while contributing to open source projects, there is sometimes a catch. For example, Google gives away the core of Android (the Android Open Source Project), but if an OEM wants Google Maps, Google Play, etc, they have to play by Google's rules.

Anyone who tells you it's just as easy to make a living selling free software (what GNU calls it) as it is selling proprietary software is full of shit. It's not as easy. It can be done, and Open Source can be a selling point, but it's nowhere near as straightforward as just selling a thing for a price. Copyrights, like the copyrights protecting iOS and macOS, let companies just sell a thing for a price. No bullshit.

Apple, like any corporate interest, has reason to support or oppose various laws. I'm an Apple fanboy as much as anyone, but I'll readily admit they're on the wrong side of history with right-to-repair. Apple's an excessively litigious company. They're bullies in some markets. But I still prefer their simple transactional value proposition, which is that you pay for goods and services. Software is a good.

Open Source software is great too, and often as good as the proprietary stuff, but a world without copyright (basically what he is suggesting) would have a very hard time promoting the useful arts. For that matter, Open Source licenses typically function through copyright law. The GNU GPL, for example, only works because it has copyright as a backstop if you refuse to accept the license.

Ah my favourite topic to rant about lol

https://aus.social/users/ajsadauskas/statuses/110483562412884529 I saw this post the other day about apple and I left this comment https://sopuli.xyz/comment/137641

Wow, thanks for sharing, I didn't realise Apple has been doing this for so long

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/07/apple-geep-iphone-recycle-shred/

They sued a recycling company for reselling old iPhones instead of destroying them and now they force recycling companies to shred the phones so that they can't be reused.

Apple has fantastic marketing on a surface level they manage to convince their users that they are a green company but when you push a little bit and ask for more info they just shut you down.

Louis Rossman has shown how anti repair Apple is by not providing basic replacement parts for their Macs and how secretive they are about their clearly subpar repair program

Hugh Jeffreys has shown how anti repair Apple is by locking components like the screen and camera of new Apple devices to their motherboard so that even if you repair and iPhone screen, they take away features like true tone or certain camera modes for no reason.

Apple is trying its best to kill 3rd party repair of its products and at the same time try to convince people that they are pro repair by offering screen replacements for nearly the same price as a new iPhone.

Also if a user sells on their old iPhone but doesn't unlink the device from their Apple account, the new user won't be able to use the phone.

The only positive thing Apple has done for consumers is offer software updates for years longer than any Android OEM offers.

Android OEMs really lacks in software support but at least with some phones, less in more recent years, users have the option to install custom ROMs to prolong the life of their devices. Projects like LineageOS, GrapheneOS and DivestOS are so important from delaying phones from becoming ewaste.

Unfortunately, Apple pushes the limit of what they can get away with in the name of the environment and other companies follow suit.

Bare minimum after market support is the name of the game and every company in the industry is happy to play.

Imagine how different the consumer electronic market could be if Apple had grown their relationship with Bob and extended that to people like him all over the world. We could have had a much better ecosystem.

But like I always say, you can't become a trillion dollar company without exploiting everything and everyone you possibly can in the name of profit

When it comes to privacy, Apple has attempted to block other companies like Facebook from tracking iPhone users, they say its because they care about their users privacy but really all Apple cares about is controlling their users data and monopolizing on it.

They also have wanted to implement scanning software to scan their users files for CSAM, again marketing it as protecting their users and children but I'm sure they'll figure how to monopolize that too.

Apple has been trying to prevent 3rd party app stores and side loading of apps on iOS for years, they say its because its a security risk, but in reality they're just calling their users stupid while attempting to keep complete control over the software you can use on the device you paid way too much money for. Recently the EU has forced Apples hand on this and they can no longer prevent users from doing it, or at least when the law comes into place.

Apple is also being forced to switch to type-C chargers, I think next year, by the EU because it is more consumer friendly and helps to prevent e-waste, which is something Apple's marketing loves to claim they are by removing chargers from phone boxes and forcing its customers to buy over priced chargers that come in more packaging...

I always say this, You can't become a trillion dollar company without exploiting everything and everyone you possibly can in the name of profit.

Apple doesn't care about you or its workers or the environment, the only thing Apple cares about is profit. It does everything it can to lock down its products, force its users into its ecosystem and block any other companies from even attempting to function and profit within its ecosystem, Apple is ruthless and will not stop until they have squeeze as much money out of everything they possible can.

Apple is the epitome of capitalism and parasite on society, it offers nothing of value for a premium price.

Like you, I agree the internet should be open and the wealth of knowledge that humans have accumulated shouldn't be locked behind paywalls.

A lot of scientific research is publically funded but then its locked behind a paywall so the public has to pay again. For people that think you are stealing others work by using sci-hub, tell them to email one of the authors of the papers and ask them if they can get a copy. The majority of authors would be happy to send them one.

I think it's a bit of a mixed bag. Their ecosystem may be good and all but they deliberately don't interoperate very well with others. Example: if I plug my iPhone into my windows laptop, it will only expose the gallery, unlike with Android where it will allow me to transfer non image files. I have to download another app (iTunes, and now the Apple Devices App which is currently in preview) in order to be able to transfer files via cable (KDE Connect or Localsend are also good options for this). Then there's their sticking with their own cable when everyone else is going to USB C, and their refusal to implement proper messaging with Android users/integrate with RCS - granted, RCS has its own set of issues, but still. And of course there's their refusal to allow sideloading, which has led to governments being able to censor apps from the app store. It doesn't help that App Store review isn't the best at catching security issues, as scam apps slip through from time to time. The EU seems to be trying to fix this with their new regulations, but it's now speculated that Apple will be petty and region lock sideloading.

Their hardware is nice and performant, but unfortunately they're against upgradeability as well as right to repair. I don't watch him much, but I think Louis Rossmann's youtube channel is recommended for learning about this.

I don't have strong opinions on their hardware/software design and aesthetics, it works for me, but I can see why others don't like how opinionated they are. I don't like how Android phones have been getting bigger, but it's not the end of the world for me should I switch to a Pixel.

Privacy and security wise they overmarket too much but they do have some advantages:

• No OEM bloat/telemetry. With Samsung phones for example, you'll have to put up with Samsung telemetry and Google's data collection. With Apple, you only have Apple nonsense to put up with.
• iOS devices tend to get updates for longer, and they backport critical patches to older devices. While Android is more modular (allowing Google to update certain parts of the system through google play services), and the situation is improving (newer Google Pixels get 5 years of security updates now), iOS still has a slight edge.
• For Macbooks, I'll just quote the Asashi Linux documentation:

It would be remiss not to briefly cover where these machines stand in terms of user control and trustability. Apple Silicon machines are designed first and foremost to provide a secure environment for typical end-users running macOS as signed by Apple; they prioritize user security against third-party attackers, but also attempt to limit Apple's own control over the machines in order to reduce their responsibility when faced with government requests, to some extent. In addition, the design preserves security even when a third-party OS is installed.

...

From a security perspective, these machines may possibly qualify as the most secure general purpose computers available to the public which support third-party OSes, in terms of resistance to attack by non-owners. This is, of course, predicated on some level of trust in Apple, but some level of trust in the manufacturer is required for any system (there is no way to prove the non-existence of hardware backdoors on any machine, so this is not as much of a sticking point as it might initially seem).

• Lockdown Mode, which apparently has somewhat protected against zero click exploits.

• For iOS Safari (no clue on Mac), they allow adblocking without having to grant the extension privileged access to the page. This includes cosmetic filtering. (Somewhat hit and miss on Youtube tho). Malicious extensions and filter list exploits are a problem, and while Google is attempting to fix this somewhat with Manifest V3, it's not perfect. From my experience with Ublock Origin Lite in Edge, you don't currently get cosmetic filtering without granting privileged access, which defeats the point. Otherwise, it appears to be as effective as DNS blocking.

• The App Privacy Report makes it super easy (provided you're not connected to a VPN) to see what domains an app connects to. I can check the entry for my offline password manager for example, and see that it isn't pinging anything other than inappcheck.itunes.apple.com. I think this is used to query the in app purchase status.

For disadvantages:

• Telemetry: even with everything opted out of, Apple still collects hardware data, local MAC Addresses (for their location services database, this is also noted in their documentation). Also, for some reason they insist on tying collected click heatmaps in the app store/books/stocks app directly to the Apple ID. (This is just off the top of my head, I may be missing something). I don't personally consider this a deal breaker (Apple already knows what apps I download), but I can understand why they've been raked over the coals for it given how much they market privacy.

• While iMessage is touted for being end to end encrypted, the defaults have it backing up unencrypted to the cloud, which defeats the point. There is Advanced Data Protection now, but both sides of a conversation would have to turn it on.

• VPNs on iOS leak. This is different from Android where it can be argued that connectivity checks are a good thing and don't send personal data, but with iOS certain system apps appear to just straight up bypass it.

• Without sideloading, it's basically impossible to use an iPhone without logging in.

• Some stuff such as the gyroscope still doesn't require a permission to access.

• Allowing carriers to do this.

Some other points I'd like to make:

• Being proprietary does not mean that something is an insecure, unverifiable black box. Security researchers scrutinize Apple all the time for vulnerabilities.

• They don't appear to be conducting CSAM scanning despite some FUD about it

• I looked through my GDPR Apple Takeout some time ago, and iirc it was about 11 mb in size due to me opting out of everything, and didn't contain majorly sensitive information.

@IronTwo
Apple's ecosystem works well for it's users, but it screws over anyone else not completely consumed in their ecosystem.

I use Apple Watch, phone and iPad because they just work. For my computer, I use Linux. Don’t overthink it.

I'll stop buying apple when I can get a multi-core arm machine that's not made of scrapbin plastic from a traditional PC manufacturer. I have two M1 machines running Asahi Linux and they're excellent computers.

I'll preface this by saying don't beat yourself up for using Apple. You can be critical and still use their products. I am typing this on Windows 10 and have a macbook for work. Microsoft and Google are far from perfect in this space. As the saying goes, "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" lol.

I think you should use open source software but I don't think you should force yourself if good alternatives don't exist for your use case. A good example is Photoshop. The open source version is GIMP. I use GIMP mostly because I don't want to pay for Photoshop but from what I've heard from people who edit pictures professionally it is not even a competition.

Compare that to Audacity, my understanding is more people in the audio world use it. Or VLC Media player! It can basically open any format of video, it's crazy!

If you're curious to try a linux desktop operating system the choices will become overwhelming like you said. Ubuntu is the go-to suggestion usually. There are ways to create "live USBs" to run it from the USB like a test drive (but it may be slow). I've decided my next computer I build I'm going to run Linux primarily but I haven't got around to building it.

I think Apple as a company is in the business of selling an overpriced lie.

A glued unswappable battery is not a beautiful design. Pricing casually diving into the 4 digits is not equality. Locked down software and hardware enforce the idea that technology is magic and not something that can be known and judged in context.

The alternative is not FOSS or Linux. That's the diametrical opposite path and as dumbed down as the Apple offer is, you can't ask everybody to wrap their head around what the fuck a Kernel even is.

As far as I am concerned there's a very healthy middle-ground that's plain old "boring" Android and Windows.

I don't like Apple... refuse to elaborate further

I'd highly encourage everyone to use more FOSS stuff. Think of it this way, you believe all information should be free and open, what if every technological advancement was too. How far could we go?

Right now Apple got big and bad because they made the best stuff and worked real hard to isolate themselves from everyone else so they could build a walled garden. What if your first introduction to a computer was one that started open and free? What if the brilliant minds that integrated the Apple ecosystem did it openly so everyone could enjoy it going further? Also, what if every harmful technology had been done in the open so watchdogs could tell you if some software was harmful to you?

I think the world would be far better off. You could prove things are good and bad, you wouldn't have so much driven by greed but by the good intentions of good people.

FOSS, sometimes has all the features if you know where to look. There is an awesome Linux app called KDE connect that almost bridges the gap between phone and Linux. It can't do calls, but that's because unlike apple it can't reroute them. It can do texts, send links and files back and forth, control media, run arbitrary command from your phone, and it does all that not just between phone and computer, but also computer and computer, all devices you connect to it. It's amazing what good people with brilliant minds can do with so little. They didn't even need millions of dollars to do it, just some creativity.

I love the philosophy and have so believed in it because there are small places where you can get a glimpse of what incredible things we'd have if we just stopped being entitled and greedy.

I haven't owned any Apple products since the ipod nano in 2005, and have only used Linux, specifically Ubuntu), since 2008 (then my sophomore year in college) for exactly the reasons your colleague spells out. I try to use open-source software whenever possible. Apple is the most closed-source vendor available to me, so I have no intention of ever using their products. When I was a teenager / early 20s I would espouse the evils of Apple to anyone who was nearby, whether they wanted to listen or not. Now, I cringe at the memory of that behavior and let people live their lives.

I do see why your colleague connected the dots between your two separate arguments, and I do see where they're coming from. The idea of Freedom of Scientific Information and FOSS do have many parallels, but I don't think you need to beat yourself up over using Apple vs more open-sourced software. I don't really think there's anything particularly wrong with Apple devices, and when my current laptop starts to go I might even consider one of their offerings. But my needs are simple enough that Ubuntu has always worked for me. As far as phones, I just like Android better (and more of it is open-sourced).

Ethical consumption is nearly impossible to actually achieve which is why the best way to solve corporate bad practices is a healthy dose of regulation and government. It never hurts to, if you can, avoid doing business with certain bad actors if you'd like but often times you're trading one bad actor for another in a different way.

Personally though I'm not a fan of Apple products. They can be well made and their silicon is incredible. Very fast and energy efficient and for a few years it was far ahead of other arm offerings and in terms of efficiency is still ahead of mobile x86 offerings(though the gap isnt that gigantic anymore it does still offer far better single core performance per watt at low levels). Their software manages to be well designed and whether I agree with it or not manages to get certain features in the mainstream.

That said I prefer the more open way of doing things. Like for example take moving files into and out of an iphone. Pre-airdrop you had to use all kinds of syncing software in order to move files out whereas on android I could just plug it in and navigate my files like a usb. Post airdrop, well airdrop only works on apple products as a means of keeping you locked into the ecosystem. I dont think a good chunk of the way they do things is necessarily better, and they rarely do things first, and worst of all when they do it's often a proprietary way that is not compatible with other devices and OS.

Apple is a status symbol in my country. Everything that gets imported here costs triple what it costs in the US. And it offers nothing better or different than what I can get from my Android devices for free.

You kind of hit on the major tradeoff while thinking through it. That tight product integration (phone, watch, tablet, laptop) is a selling point for a lot of people to buy into closed tech ecosystems. It's easy and it just works. In exchange for those seamless integrations, you kind of lock yourself in to that family of tech products. There's also the fact that the owner of said ecosystem will happily monitor and monetize all your activity on those integrated products. Open source solutions allow you to strip out that corporate telemetry to a greater or lesser extent. You can also achieve some similar levels of product integration, but it does demand a little more effort and technical savvy from the end-user. I wouldn't claim that one or the other choice is explicitly wrong or evil, as people have different tech needs and different amounts of skill/time to devote to this stuff. That said, I personally have tried to be more thoughtful about what I do and do not control with respect to my digital life.

What you are looking for is the Free Software movement, not Open Source. You can watch a short introduction here: https://youtu.be/Ag1AKIl_2GM

You can then understand why it was created and why it's important to society. According to the values of Free Software, Apple is an unethical company, because it restricts users freedom and their right to control their own devices. Doing that lets them abuse users by for example taking away their privacy or adding unskippable updates that might slow down their system or do other harmful things.

Free Software fixes this by giving you the freedom to study the program, modify it and distribute it. Just like the scientific knowledge is available to everyone and anyone can improve upon it.

From a practical perspective, even using open source takes some time and effort. I suspect many people gravitate towards apple is because they nail the basics and have a great out of the box experience.

I'm against Apple in principle, but that doesn't mean I didnt get an M1 air when I had to upgrade a year or something ago - it was simply the best in the market for the price at the time.

Also apple does not respect privacy nearly as much as they love to tout. Open source in general has a much better track record with privacy because of the people building the tools don't have as much profit incentive or government oversight.

Edit: you'll never catch me dead with an iPhone or iPad though, Apple's mobile browsing experience has no ad block.

I tried explaining all of that to a friend and she said "well, you see, I like the a e s t h e t i c of Apple products, and then pulled out her iPhone which was covered in some kind of rubber condom making it impossible to see what the big deal was about the design.

I use a cheap Motorola with no protection at all and it has yet to break from being dropped on the floor several times. It looks like a rounded rectangle. So much for design.

As someone who went from FOSS -> Apple -> FOSS, I fully understand the love people have for the Apple ecosystem. In terms of proprietary hardware and software, they have a sheen and an inter-operation between their products that is genuinely unmatched.

That said, what ultimately pushed me out and back to Good Ole FOSS™ was the lack of any control, and the lack of any transparency. The idea of trusting a for-profit company with anything beyond my email address and sometimes phone number is just something I dislike doing. Apple's processes are extremely opaque, and the last thing they want to give users is any control over their products, it's an antithesis of what I desire from digital electronics.

As for if non-technical people should look into FOSS. I think FOSS can really give people a fundamental baseline of digital computing, and in the modern world such a baseline is extremely valuable. If they decide afterwards they prefer their proprietary ecosystems, Apple or otherwise, that's their prerogative and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Maybe this isn't contributing much, but I'm trying to put myself out here to keep the community active. I always would hesitate before commenting my opinion on reddit, lol.

My job borders on the tech industry (environmental modelling, so we use a lot of the framework that programmers do but most of my work is environmental work), but I've always had a really great interest in tech and gaming.

I had a couple of different Android phones, like I really tried - some LG phone but also a Samsung Galaxy S3 - and I felt like they aged quickly. If I installed one too many weird apps it would start running slow like the PCs I used to pirate on in the 2000s. That has literally never happened to me with an iPhone. The ease and seamlessness of messaging and facetiming with other iPhone users (80% of people in my life) is great enough that I can kind of shrug my shoulders and say 'There's no ethical consumption under capitalism anyways.' Plus the seamlessness with the Apple Watch and being able to keep my phone in my bag and know if anything important comes up by looking at my wrist? Honestly has helped me kick the phone habit.

I had a Mac for a while also, but ended up selling it when I felt so limited in the games I could play and apps I could use. I find that Apple's computers are pretty worthless to me, but if I had the money to spend and wanted a reliable, fast browsing and general computing experience, I'm sure I would gladly spend the money on it. But this is coming from someone with a $3000 beast of a home machine lol

Just had a lunch conversation today as well and a colleague's iPhone got stolen. I mentioned how the problem of being able to do everything on the phone makes it a single point of failure (back in the day when I traveled I needed internet cafés to login into my brokerage account to sell off some stock. Now I just do it with my phone.). We discussed a bit more how he was stuck and frustrated as all things are done with the phone now (Uber, 2-factor authentication etc.).

But, it was an iPhone, so Apple allowed him to completely shut down and erase his old phone together with all payment info and all other personal info. And then just enter his Apple ID on his new phone (paid by the insurance) and he was back in the game.

If I had my Fairphone stolen, I'd have to somehow recover some parts of my data from my personal backup and the installation process of any new device would take some time. Also, who knows what the thief could've done with my phone?

So yeah, I'm completely opposed to my device being controlled by a corporation to the point they can lock, erase and move all data (including app data) somewhere else, but I do see the advantages.

These are probably more related than you think. I believe we were on track to work together in a global Open Science initiative until Bill Gates stepped up to bankroll most of the biggest initiatives under the agreement that the results were proprietary.

Apple historically was the first company to sue for software copyright infringement. As many other have posted in this thread, they haven't gotten better over time.

I'm a huge open source advocate and developer. I used Linux for many many years, but these days I'm Apple all the way. I'm too old to hack around with everything, I want my commodities to Just Work, so I can focus on the stuff I want to do with it. Also, Apple are the only big company I remotely trust on privacy.