Re: Install iOS 17.4.1 now to patch 2 new zero-day vulnerabilities

In comp.mobile.ipad Oscar Mayer <nobody@oscarmayer.com> wrote:

On Fri, 26 Apr 2024 22:11:04 -0000 (UTC), paul@paulglover.net.invalid
wrote:
 

The apple walled garden works fairly well for us. We are not trying to

 
Exactly. Nothing I choose to do with a tablet or phone is limited by
being within a walled garden. For those, I just want them to work

 
The pre-Galilean Pope decreed that the sun revolves around the earth.
 
There is nothing wrong with you thinking that the sun revolves around the
earth as long as it works for you, just as you seeming to be saying that
the infamous walled garden doesn't hinder your efforts with a tablet or
phone isn't wrong - as long as it works for you.

And yet, you're choosing an analogy in which one of the options is
very demonstrably wrong. The earth orbits the sun. Period. Anyone
who says otherwise is obviously crazy. Ergo, anyone who disagrees with
you must be crazy. Right? ;-)

Whereas in reality, what one person needs their tablet to do is very
different to another. Neither is actually wrong, unless they stubbornly
refuse to accept that a particular device has limits which make it
unsuitable for *their* needs.

Where they get very sideways indeed is when they INSIST that everyone
else should be upset because a device can't do something that only they
care about. Your experience is not theirs, and vice-versa. Most people
have quite limited use cases for a tablet device, and so never come
close to hitting the limits. They just don't care about the things you
care about.

But the fact you said it means you don't actually do anything with that
tablet or phone that Apple hasn't scripted for you because the walled
garden very much is debilitating if you did.

To be fair, you do have a point here. If I stubbornly insisted on trying
to use my iPad for things it isn't able or lacks the software tools to
do, it would be debilitating.

But I do not, because it's really about using the right tool for the
job and I have plenty of other tools that are suitable.

The thing you ignored here is that I was actually surprised at what I
*could* do with an iPad. As for the things I could not? Those mostly
came down to lack of storage space and lack of specific software tools,
not any apparent Apple imposed limits.

As far as I can tell, Apple wasn't stopping anyone from writing a
digital asset management tool for the iPad.

The only limit I did run into that was related directly to Apple policy
was emulating old computers (no emulation allowed). Didn't they just
remove that limit?

It's like someone who thinks the earth revolves around the moon isn't
actually ever going to get a spaceship to the moon thinking that way.

Not entirely sure what your point is here.

I suppose the real world version of that analogy is that, lacking an
iPad native digital asset management system written by someone else, I
should have just gone ahead and written my own so I could have used the
iPad for everything? Which I could not have done using just an iPad, so
I'd have been stuck, because this is all taking place in some fever
dream where I have nothing but an iPad and iPhone available?

No thanks. Someone else can take care of that sort of moonshot.

Because the number of rather useful things that everyone else can do but
which the walled garden prevents you from doing is absolutely astounding.

I'm genuinely curious what it is that you are trying to do which you
cannot because of the "walled garden". Or what you're presuming that
I've been limited from being able to do?

The list of things I've found which I could not adequately do with just
an iPad is not "absolutely astounding" at all:

1. Digital photo library management. IPhoto sucks at this. Flash storage
isn't enough for ingesting large cards full of images. Nobody has
written software to do this properly on an iPad.

2. Developing iPad software on the iPad. Except I don't have time for
this as a hobby now (after 30 years of programming for a living, the
last thing I want to do is more of the same in my spare time!) I have
Xcode on my Mac. I never use it. I could certainly see this one being
upsetting to some people, though.

3. Playing emulated classic games.

That makes three things I could not do. Three. One of which I didn't
really have time for anyway. I'm sure there are others, but if so, they
aren't things I personally needed to do.

What about things I *could* do on an iPad? Just a sampling:

Photo editing. Video editing. Thin client remote desktop to Windows and
Mac. Vector art. Page layout. Text editing. Anything I can connect to
with an SSH client (which includes the BSD VM running a copy of tin
newsreader that I'm logged into right now to write this reply to you).
Email, web, listening to music, reading e-books, planning an
astrophotography/stargazing evening, watching movies and TV shows,
doomscrolling through endless sponsored posts on Instagram, playing
games. Task management, calendar management. Additional display for the
Mac, with the ability to interact with Mac apps using an Apple Pencil (I
always wanted a graphics tablet which showed the content right there as
you edited it, now I have one.) Lots and lots of other things, because I
can't be bothered listing all of what I am able to do with this iPad.
It's a lot, and life is too short for that.

So excuse me if I don't feel limited by whatever it is you seem to think
Apple doesn't want me to do with their device. If that means I'm not
being ambitious enough for your liking, well... I don't care :)

--
Paul.