s.metcalf

Why the weirdly defensive tone of this whole article?

The problem with behemoths like Apple is they know few can afford to defend their rights in court so they exploit that to their advantage constantly.  Apple is a bully, just face it.  Pretty much always has been, even (or especially) under Jobs.  Microsoft and Google are still worse though.

No way I’m paying anything for Apple’s service.  I like how even John Oliver mocked it in his latest episode.  I don’t mind Paramount+, but it lacks some truly big drawcards.

Xed said:

So a previously unavailable feature is now Apple's responsibility even after 3 years of offering the service for free? This reminds me of how stalking was all of a sudden Apple's fault if an AirTag was used even though Tile and other small trackers had existed for over a decade with no anti-stalking features in place to help people.

It’s called progress.  Things are supposed to advance and get better.  It’s a highly marketable capability that Apple can and has used heavily in promotions and advertising to boost sales.  Also consider the cost of the service wrapped up in the cost of the device.  This is more than reasonable considering Apple’s extraordinary tax-dodging ability.

These are life-and-death situations we’re talking about, not some entertainment service like Apple Music.  Other service providers build the cost of their infrastructure into their products.  Yes ithey require maintenance, but I just think it’s a bad and immoral look for Apple to lock people out of emergency help if they need it.

Put it this way: if you’re out of mobile/cellular coverage and need emergency help, you can hardly go online to subscribe to the service, can you?

Be nice if when removing functionality on the basis of security they could replace it with something equivalent but secure instead of just making macOS less compatible and capable.  macOS has been getting increasingly difficult to work with (mainly thanks to security) for a while.  While I applaud the security efforts, there need to be alternatives to needed functionality.  Why do I get the feeling Apple would ditch Terminal altogether if they could?

I'm also more confident in Apple managing security in macOS than most 3rd parties, but this will force people to switch to third-party alternatives, which seems like a backwards step.  If they don't want us to use postscript, they could at least let us keep the binary that allows us to move away from it: i.e: ps2pdf.  How much of a threat has ps been on the Mac anyway given all their developments in SIP and encryption and the like?