Yes. Trust in Apple as a provider of a fully secure OS would erode.
But you are wiser than the average person, knowing what steps to take to avoid the problems and sticking to your principles about it as well. In general, the population at large does not have your degree of acumen or self-control.
(and not using FaceBook is not an easy solution, as I could refute … easy solution, don’t use Windows … to anyone who raises a concern about the virus world that you enter with it)
We can devolve further into debates over libertarian versus progressive versus conservative approaches to the issue (software doesn’t kill iPhones, people kill iPhones). In essence, the decision will be made above our pay grade.
Someday perhaps you may get motivated to have a kickstart campaign for LambTracker iOS and be able to offer the app at a minimum / free rate on the App store. Let me know. I’ll be glad to donate straight up, especially if you offer prize pictures and stories about your farm animals to the first dozen or so donors.
I’m trying to follow this, and I’m wondering why you’d need to be able to sideload if you solved your Bluetooth issue…?
Regarding your response to @ChrisUpchurch’s comments, I’m inclined to “think different” from you. Requiring Bluetooth devices connecting to the iPhone to be FCC approved is a (seemingly) very reasonable measure. I don’t think Apple would drop their enforcement of tested Bluetooth devices, even if they opened things up to sideloaded apps.
I have been impacted by this requirement as a faculty member at a university.
I won’t argue on the problem that the computer becomes sluggish when the software is used. This is not a reason for university to be held to task.
The privacy concerns are a real issue. Also, the test proctoring software is not 100% effective (as rapidly as it was required, students figured out how to get around it). Finally, test proctoring software has been report to have issues with false positives.
All told, I believe the specific example of test proctoring software will be a short-lived, well-documented case of how universities are NOT to require students to install software on their computers.
My experience with a friend’s computer was that it caused the computer to be glitchy even when the software wasn’t being explicitly used. That laptop was never the same after the software was installed.
I hope so.
Universities will probably eventually wake up, smell the proverbial coffee, and find a different way forward. And in any case, universities only typically require the software installation on a laptop that you want to use for taking online tests and such.
But a number of other organizations won’t wake up, don’t believe in coffee, and will exert whatever control they’re allowed. I think that makes it important that somewhere it be officially decided that people have a basic right to prevent their employer, school, etc. from requiring them to install (effectively) spyware on their personal devices.
If you want to work on the code I’ll send you pictures of sheep and some stories about them. Cocoa Puff and Claire and their escapades come to mind. Smart sheep are not always a good thing.
I’m actually trying to write a job description for the type of coding help I need.
It’s not solved for all cases. Older official tags do not have data matrix codes. Tags in other countries do not all have data matrix codes, not all species official tags have data matrix codes but there is an international standard for EID tags and the readers and all the reader hardware uses bluetooth to send the EID tag number to the devices that then decide what to do with it. Ina full up LambTracker field system I’ve got an EID reader using bluetooth, a weigh scale using bluetooth, a bar code reader using bluetooth, and a printer using a local wifi hotspot to communicate with the device for different things.
Ah but it is legal to create and use an unapproved bluetooth device if it has a specific warning and you never sell or make any profit from it i.e. not commercial. So Apple prevents devices that are legal but have not been through the rather arbitrary and excessively expensive vetting process of FCC approval which in actuality does nothing to prevent interference which was the whole basis for the rules initially.
Wow! I didn’t realize that! But I totally agree with you.
You know, it is significantly harder to regulate private industry. If government agencies were to pry like that (which I’m certain they do) then people could sue. The right to privacy is not actually in the Constitution but it’s there… implied, I think.
Caroline Kennedy wrote a terrific book entitled “The Right to Privacy”. If you haven’t read it, I suggest you do. I read it severall years ago and never forgot it. And I just bought the ebook recently and started reading it again.
I had a non-Mac computer where I worked several years ago teaching. I literally went into the basement where all the Macs were awaiting the garbage. So the asst principal helped me sneak a perfectly good Apple computer out of the garbage! She thought I was taking it home. “No, it’s for the kids! They can go to town on the Macs.” I’d just train a few and they taught each other. I couldn’t do that on a PC with eight year olds.
Anyway, I used the PC which was connected to the Internet. I was helping a friend with hers and I asked “What is this lil Windows button for?” Rofl! It bypassed the network. At one point I worked for a real cretin. Anyway, they could never find out what I was doing on my PC! Only email.
The kids and I had a gas with the dancing hamsters!
Late to this I know but for the life of me I can not see why Apple can not do what it wants. It’s not a monopoly, there are plenty of alternatives, and users can choose to vote with their feet or wallets if they do not like it. They choose to follow a certain path why do people think they have the right to force them to do something else.
If someone told you you had to share your car with anyone who decided they wanted to drive it would that be OK as well? If you create something and through hard work, luck and good business sense it becomes a success why does anyone think they have the right to tell you to tear it down?
I think it also leads to the App Store being less vibrant and I have to get to different places to find apps.
This would make the general users experience less rich and cool apps would be less discoverable.
I want to use Apple devices to help my life. A big part of that is diminishing “decision pressure”. Apple decides and I trust them somewhat that gives me more energy to concentrate on my life goals which in the end generate more resources than I loose by paying higher prices.
A bit like in Nintendo games you normally can’t modify controls very much. They take that possibility from you, but you get the most polished controls of all gaming in return. I take that trade off any day. Always a bit shocked when I play non-Nintendo games and how shoddy they feel (looking at you GTA).
It’s like wearing the same type of clothes and having only one type of socks. Leaves more room for important stuff like family, career, hobbies and friends.
I had used Windows and IBM desktops and Dell, Compaq, and ThinkPad laptops for 25 years and then switched to Apple. I much prefer Apple’s more controlled and restricted ecosystem. I’m less exposed to viruses (I said less, I did not say none) and the integration of software, hardware and support is a vastly superior experience than having MS blame the hardware vendors and the hardware vendors blame MS when on a support call.
Additionally, I can run MS, Apple, and Google applications. If I am on a Windows machine I am limited to MS and Google. In this regard, I have more options. I also gain the deep integration of my phone, computer, tablet, watch, HomePods and Apple TV.
As to restricting/preventing sideloading on iOS, I don’t have strong opinion but I believe permitting sideloading of apps will likely lead to a less desirable, less secure, and less private experience for average users. Apple’s control helps ensure a better overall experience, convenience, privacy and safety for the average user. It is a trade off. It is one I made and I’m happy with.
Instead of relying on an option for users to side load, could you go sideways? Develop a LambTracker scanner app to run using bluetooth from a Raspberry Pi or Arduino. Then pull in the scanned data to the core app on whatever platform.
Sadly even this exciting enticement still only puts such a project at the bottom of my long (and growing) summer ToDo list.
No, you need the board form Australia that can read and understand the EID tags, it has to activate the tag, read the data from the tag and then format it and send it on. SO even if I made the LambTracker computer an Arduino I STILL run afoul of the FCC regs because you have to build your own tag reader.
Terrific case! Schools are the “nurseries of democracy”. Interesting wording! I’m happy they ruled in favor of the student’s freedom of speech. It figures that Clarence Thomas dissented. IMHO, he never belonged on the Court to begin with!
Does the process not prevent interference because interference no longer exists at all? Or does it not prevent it because (practically speaking) hobbyist tech is built on commodity BT hardware / software stacks that are good enough that they don’t cause the issue?
As best I can tell neither. There is a potential for interference. But FCC aproval does not guarantee thereis no interference either. There are lots of FCC approved devices that cause interference.
Also, any interference from an EID tag reader to anything other than the system its being used with is highly unlikely because the read distance on the type of ear tags we are using is about 2-3 inches at best. Now if we go to high frequency tags where the read distance is 30-50 feet it is more possible but still not likely to cause any harm.
Modern hardware does limit it but again all devices can cause interference and FCC approval does not mean no intererence at all.
Why on Earth would you spend valuable time doing that with specialized cutting equipment when that label is not detrimental in any way to the sleeping experience?
computer out of the garbage! She thought I was taking it home. “No, it’s for the kids! They can go to town on the Macs.” I’d just train a few and they taught each other. I couldn’t do that on a PC with eight year olds.
