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Reasons not to use Apple

Censorship Spying Worker abuse Right to repair Tax avoidance Other reasons

Censorship

Apple reportedly had objections to what Jon Stewart said in his video program —itcanceled the show after he had criticized China, and something the article describes as "AI". (It could be that what he criticized was actually large language models, which may be an important issue but are not "intelligence".) We should protect the media from censorship by commercial interests by not allowing companies that make or sell other products to be involved in the business of making or distributing audio or video programs. I expect that Apple does much worse things than this in its distribution of video programs. For instance, I suspect it requires viewers to run nonfree software with DRM, compels them to identify themselves, and imposes an immoral "antisocializing" contract where you promise not to share a copy with anyone else. (Not coincidentally, this resembles the bad things that commercial e-books do.) My response to any disservice which asks me to accept of those forms of mistreatment is to invite it to jump in the lake. ● Apple imposed a new limit on file-sharing following a demand by the Chinese government. ● *Apple Suppressing Human Rights Critics* for China. ● Apple has blocked Telegram from upgrading its app for a month. This evidently has to do with Russia's command to Apple to block Telegram in Russia. The Telegram client is free software on other platforms, but no apps are free on an iThing Apple used its censorship system to enforce China's censorship by blocking distribution of the New York Times app. More about Apple's censorship of apps and other malicious functionalities in Apple software. Apple appears to be censoring all bitcoin apps for iThings. It should be illegal to make or distribute computers which are platforms for censorship. Apple demonstrates the arbitrariness of its censorship by blocking an app that tells people with text messages when US drone attacks kill civilians. The author said that this app was meant to raise awareness. I hope Apple's censorship of it raises awareness. ● Apple censors information about abortion providers. ● As of 2015, Apple systematically bans apps that endorse abortion rights or would help women find abortions. This particular political slant affects other Apple services. ● Apple's mail service silently censors the mail people send. ● Apple deauthorized a Wikileaks access application, using censorship to support censorship. Apple censors iTunes ebooks — banning all mention of Amazon. People should not do business with Amazon, which mistreats authors, publishers, its workers, and its customers. Ms Lisle's presupposition that the goal of success is all that matters is not admirable. However, that doesn't justify Apple's censorship. Of course, publishing in iTunes was already bad for other reasons, such as DRM, and requiring users to use nonfree software. ● Apple banned from iTunes the erotic novel, The Proof of the Honey, saying it was because of the cover. Apple censored a game for the iThings called Angry Syrians, which is a political parody of Angry Birds. Apple said it was﹃defamatory or offensive﹄— to the dictator Assad, apparently. Apple cut off access to the app store for Iranian users of iMonsters. The underlying wrong here is that Apple gave itself censorship power over everyone that uses those computers — power that we should not allow anyone to have. ● Steve Jobs used Apple's censorship power to impose prudery on the net, and this is part of why Stumblr is now deleting everything that won't be rated G. I tried to view a Tumblr page, but its contents did not appear. It seemed to be totally dependent on nonfee Javascript code. Whatever may disappear from Tumblr, I personally will not miss it. Nonetheless, I am concerned about this issue because creeping prudish censorship is dangerous in general; we should fight it in general. Let us therefore invite Apple to go fuck itself and post a selfie of that act on Stumblr. Apple has censored an application designed to help Hong Kong protesters communicate. Apple surely did this because of threats from China. (We are not supposed to suggest that a "good corporate citizen" would uphold freedom at the cost of profits.) But the reason Apple could do this is that it gave itself censorship power over applications for iMonsters, through the proprietary code of the operating system. Apple plans to require that all application software for MacOS be approved by Apple first. Offering a checking service as an option could be useful and would not be wrong. Requiring users to get Apple's approval is tyranny. Apple says the check will only look for malware (not counting the malware that is part of the operating system), but Apple could change that policy step by step. Or perhaps Apple will decide that helping Hong Kong protesters constitutes malware. As of 2020, Apple still censors for China — and acts as China's enforcer to make other companies censor for China. Apple is responsible for its actions, but one general problem that tends to encourage this behavior is the fact that companies are multinational. China will always find a way to censor companies that do business in China. And so will many other countries. I think we must limit a forum to doing actual business in one single country. It could allow people to post and read without asking them what countries they are in. This way, other countries would have no levers over the company, no way to make it censor anything. ● In 2021, Apple has been shifting more production to China.

Spying

Apple spies on its users, and helps others spy on them. If you carry a cell phone, it tells Big Brother where you are. Apple wants to hand out the information too. Using the lever of﹃You have a choice, but unless you say yes, your old activities will stop working﹄is something that Apple has done before, with malicious "upgrades". Apple ostensibly doesn't force people to accept the new nasty thing; it just punishes them if they don't. Apple left a security hole in iTunes unfixed for 3 years after being informed about the problem. During that time, governments used that security hole to invade people's computers. ● Apple's Capitulation to China's VPN Crack-Down Will Return to Haunt it at Home. ● Apple has outsourced its user data storage in China to a company controlled by the Communist Party of the province of Guizhou ●Apple's nonfree Safari browser spies on users for the Chinese company Tencent. Apple can track iMonsters even when they are suspended. This distributed bluetooth network is said to be "secure", but it is obviously not secure from Apple or from governments that can command Apple's obedience (such as the US and China). The new version of MacOS — and therefore the new generation of Macs — informs Apple of every time the machine launches a program. The Guardian press seems blissfully unaware of this spying. It even repeats Apple's claims to help users protect their privacy — but only some aspects of their privacy. Just as software developers have redefined "security" to mean "security against everyone but us", Apple is redefining "privacy" to mean "privacy from everyone but us." People might want to post comments there (be civil about it!) or send letters to the editor. I am sure there are dozens of publications which could use the same sort of response.

Worker abuse

● Apple persists in disregarding the widespread blatant abuse of the workers that build its products. ● In 2015, the workers making Apple products in China are still mistreated. ● Apple uses sweatshops in China to build its products. ● Sweatshops are good for Foxconn (and for Apple), but not for workers. ● An undercover journalist reports on the horrible conditions in the Foxconn factory that makes iThings: still horrible in 2012. ● Foxconn closed schools and forced the students to work building iThings. ● Working conditions at Apple's other Chinese suppliers are even worse than in Foxconn. ● Today's Apple Pegatron sweatshops are even nastier than the Foxconn sweatshops it used before. Just because you're not pregnant, should that make it ok to require you to work 11 hours a day, 6 days a week? Apple is culpable if its products are made by people working a longer workweek than is allowed in the US. ● Mistreatment of workers making Apple computers continues in 2014. This is a general injustice, and will continue until the "brand" companies are made legally responsible for treatment of the workers that do their work, just as if they were direct employees of those companies. But that doesn't excuse Apple.

Tax avoidance

Apple practices tax avoidance using loopholes and lobbying. Apple pioneered techniques for avoiding the US corporate tax (even though it is far too low) in order to pay next to no tax. The loopholes that Apple uses would be closed, if not for the political power of business. "Free trade" treaties give business increased power to block such changes, so we must abolish them to break business's power. The Apple CEO met with the troll and said: "Tim Cook from Apple, I'm here to talk to the President-elect about the things we can do to help you achieve your stated goal." This text was transcribed from a video recording. I can't offer a reference because the web site requires nonfree Javascript code. Cook was angling for a big tax cut for multinational businesses. Apple Avoided $40 Billion in Taxes (by lobbying for a tax cut). Now It Wants a Gold Star?

Right to repair

● Apple Is Lobbying Against Your Right to Repair iPhones, New York State Records Confirm. Apple forbids recyclers of Apple computers from extracting any usable spare parts from them, by imposing nasty contracts. Apple's conduct should be forbidden by law so that no company can ever do this. The iPhone 7 has DRM specifically to brick it if anyone other than an authorized repair agent fixes it. The term "lock" is inadequate to describe this sort of malware. Let's use other words that show what's really going on. Apple faces trial in Australia for bricking devices because they had had an "unauthorized" repair. Apple machines are built with unusual screws that make it difficult for the owner to take them apart. Along with technical barriers, Apple lobbies against "right to repair" laws. ● Apple is campaigning against right-to-repair laws that weaken the unjust effect of the DMCA. Apple is putting DRM on batteries, and the system software turns off certain features when batteries are replaced other than by Apple. ● Reevaluating Apple's reputation for good design: design for nonrepairability is not good design.

Other reasons

Apple charges a high price for storage on "Apple's cloud", which turns out to be a cloudy thing: it farms out the data to other companies. Apple iThings pioneered a new level of restricting the users: they were the first general purpose computers to impose censorship over what programs the user can install. Apple practices Digital Restrictions Management in many other ways too. Ebooks with DRM won't work on an iThing that is jailbroken, due to intentional sabotage by Apple. E-books with digital handcuffs are products designed to attack your freedom, much like the iThing itself. Apple doesn't trust, or respect, those who use its products. Apple exploits the app developers mercilessly, aside from a few stars whose role is to give a misleading impression of what developers can expect. I can't sympathize much with those app developers, since they are making proprietary software. They all deserve to fail. However, that doesn't excuse the way Apple treats them. Apple lures people into the business of developing apps with visions of the great wealth that a few of them get. Most just fail, often losing a substantial investment. Anyone who intentionally develops proprietary software (i.e., does not respect users' freedom) deserves no sympathy, but that doesn't excuse Apple for luring people into it. Some of them would not have tried to develop proprietary software if not for Apple. ● Apple is a major patent aggressor. Here's a rather absurd patent that Apple will surely use against other mobile computers. This joins many other patents which Apple is already using to attack free software. Lots of iThing users complained that they did not want the U2 album "gift" that Apple stuck them with — and that it was hard to delete. These complaints focus on a superficial problem, reflecting the shallow thinking that Apple instills in its users. Ironically, though, this superficial problem reflects a much deeper problem that the complainers have failed to notice: the unjust power that Apple has imposed on whoever uses an iThing or iTunes. Apple turns a blind eye to environment in China. Although Apple has joined EPEAT again, it does not cover the iThings — only the Macintosh. ● Apple practices planned obsolescence for the iBad — in just two years. Apple store staff are taught twisted psychological manipulation. The mere practice of referring to service staff as "geniuses" is dishonest already. ● Apple stores are cunningly designed theater, somewhat like Disneyland. The employees are all young because people with dependents can't afford the low pay. Apple devices lock users in solely to Apple services by being incompatible with all others, both the ethical ones and the unethical ones. ● When Apple suspects a user of fraud, it judges the case secretly and presents the verdict as a fait accompli. The punishment to a user found guilty is being cut off for life, which more-or-less cripples the user's Apple devices forever. There is no appeal. The European Union wants to require small electronic devices to have a standard USB-C charging port. Apple is against it, because it profits from imposed incompatibility. Naturally, Apple cites "innovation" as a reason to sell incompatible power adapters. Our society systematically overstates the importance of innovation, because many businesses find that a useful excuse for mistreating users in various ways. Copyright (c) 2012-2018 Richard Stallman Verbatim copying and redistribution of this entire page are permitted provided this notice is preserved.