Tim Cook Defends Removal of Hong Kong Mapping App From App Store in Leaked Memo

[ericgtr12]

Sure, Apple cares... Support LGBT all the way, but people being brutalized by their government in HK, nope! We'll kiss China's a$$ over doing what is right. Thanks Tim.

When people try to gather in Hong Kong to protest

The last time there was a political gathering for the LGBTQ community

 

[KnighsTalker]

Come on now... Apple is all in on China. China has Apple by the testicles. If they piss off the Chinese government, they will at a minimum hobble if not shut down Apple in China. Apple had no choice but to remove the app. The handwriting's on the wall. First China pressures Apple to acquiesce who's next the UK or the US or both?

 

[JT2002TJ]

Apple as a company is not responsible for setting foreign policies. Apple is a company, and does what is best for the company. China is where the products are made, they have the largest population in the world (India is closing in very quickly), if they aren't allowed to sell their products in China it will be a big hit for the company.

This is a discussion for US foreign policy/leadership. It is THEIR responsibility to address human rights violations in China, not a private company. If US leadership wants to take a stand and prevent US products from being sold in China due to human rights violations and Apple continues to sell its products then we have room to criticize Apple.

If Apple or it's employees (Tim Cook is an employee), want to take part in parade, or come out against anything that is up to them. If they want to make an app available or unavailable in the app store that is up to them.

If Apples actions led to US citizens getting injured/killed, could you imagine how that would play? We do have US citizens living and working in China. We can't have Apple taking a stand (keeping the app in the store) at the possible expense of US citizens over there.

 

[cocky jeremy]

According to the authoritarian HK police who wanted the app removed in the first place. The apps are identical. They do the same exact thing. Waze can be used to target police too. Apple bowed to Chinese pressure. Plain and simple.

It’s a sad day for Apple. I’ve been an Apple fan my entire life since my first Apple II. I’ve been a member of this forum for 12 years. This is the first time in my life I’ve vowed to not spend another dollar with Apple. I had been planning to upgrade my phone and was thinking of subscribing to both their TV and Arcade service. Now I’m going to cancel my Apple Music subscription in favor of Spotify. I really hope Apple reverses course. This is sad.

Can be used for that and has been used for that are two totally different situations.

 

[manni]

Tariffs don't actually work very well as primary trade tools. You can use them on the periphery, but thinking a tariff is going to solve your trade problems has no basis in reality. Just look at what is currently going on with China: tariffs have been in effect for multiple years with no effect beyond raising prices for U.S. consumers, spending tens of billions on bailouts for U.S. farmers, and also recently putting the U.S. manufacturing industry into an official recession.

What you write is the classic theory and one I largely agree with.

Nonetheless over the past couple of decades manufacturing has been badly hit in western nations. And a lot of that is down to the better regulations and wages there. One option is to slash our rules and wages. Another option is to push China to improve theirs. I consider the first one bad and the second one unrealistic and beyond our control.

So where does that leave us? In the past a "level playing field" was easier to see because transport costs from a distant land always gave some benefit to something local. But that has disappeared now. If a consumer goes online and sees two similar products and one is 5% less expensive he will likely buy that - though the other one might be from a country where wages are 15% higher and freedom of speech protected - said consumer has no idea.

Maybe I've just had an idea for a new app. But if the Chinese communist party tell Cook to ban it he would!

Especially in cases where the government has made the costs higher I can see an argument for trying to impose a related tariff on an import. An example would be from nations that have no animal welfare protections - it is cheaper for them to produce meat and undermines the whole point of our legislation. Another is where they use people on contracts that we would deem illegal in order to keep their wage costs down. If an American company had the chance they would do the same of course - see how many employ illegal aliens - but by and large they obey the law. This puts them at a disadvantage to Chinese firms.

I suppose it really is a complex issue!

 

[cocky jeremy]

There have been numerous kidnappings, murders and rapes that involved facebook twitter and the like, so why are they still on the app store. You can use any of these apps to target basically anyone you want. He is a hypocrite plain and simple and by the way **** china.

The apps you mention only give your location if YOU choose to give up your location. The now banned app didn't work that way. Other people give your location.

 

[s54]

Timmy is digging his own grave.

 

[Expos of 1969]

If you’re willing to share, curious to know to which tech platforms you’re switching. I’m presuming you’ve done some research on which companies you’d like to support due to their business practices.

For music streaming I have been using both Spotify and Apple Music for some time. I find Spotify much better at discovery and recommendations and Apple better at letting me manage my library. I will now just use Spotify.

I have been using Apple Photos but have always used Google Photo as a backup. Once I replace my iPhone SE with an Android it will be Google Photos only.

I have been using a Samsung tablet for the past three months. Perhaps not as fully featured as an iPad but much cheaper. Depends upon what one needs a tablet to do, if anything at all.

My 2013 MacBook Pro is from when Apple made quality laptops and is working well so I will not throw it away. Once it needs replacing I will investigate alternatives.

I am under no illusion that other tech companies are pure and don't engage in shady or unsavoury practices for the almighty dollar but I would rather not support Apple when Cook claims it to be so good and then caves in.

Millions will continue to purchase very high priced Apple products, possibly buy Apple Care to hopefully offset expensive repairs required as a result of the poor quality of some devices and carry on. It is an individual choice.

 

[cubedweller]

The apps you mention only give your location if YOU choose to give up your location. The now banned app didn't work that way. Other people give your location.

I love how you’re shifting the goal posts. Waze gives you other people’s location. Again, they’re identical from Apple’s prospective as the gate keeper for the App Store. Waze is used all the time for illegal purposes (so people can speed and avoid police while doing so). Your argument doesn’t hold merit. Apple can do what it wants; and people can choose to boycot them for being hypocritical and tryant-supporting. 🤷‍♂️ Again, very sad day for Apple and the world.

 

[manni]

When people try to gather in Hong Kong to protest
View attachment 868615

The last time there was a political gathering for the LGBTQ community

What a contrast! He's so woke, so keen on all the SJW stuff that one just has to laugh.

Somehow those sports clothing executives lecturing us all on morals about things like alleged police brutality while they have children whipped to produce cheap shoes and clothes in sweatshops are so obviously fake that it's easier to dismiss them. Cook has really tried to build a personal standing on this so it really hits hard with him.

 

[s54]

The apps you mention only give your location if YOU choose to give up your location. The now banned app didn't work that way. Other people give your location.

The question you should be asking yourself is this: did banning the app solve the issue at hand?

Answer: it 100% did not. Users can still go to the website and use it in the same exact way. And they do this using the iPhone's safari browser.

Therefore, we should definitely ban safari. It's been used by organized crime groups for over a decade now.

 

[Heineken]

The apps you mention only give your location if YOU choose to give up your location. The now banned app didn't work that way. Other people give your location.

It's a tool just like any other, it can be used for good or for evil. Ban all crowdsourced apps then? No? Ban live-streaming apps because they can be used to target crowds. The fact of life is he is a hypocrite, "morality" when it suits him and cost nothing. Just like blizzard dancing to tencents music or NBA. US of A ***** chinas ***. Just beautiful.

 

[emvath]

Money trumps ethics.

 

[Herrpod]

I trust Apple to do the right thing. The decision is justifiable and what a responsible platform owner should be doing.

I trust Google has done the same thing? If not, it's another knock against Android from me.

This is either really delusional, or it's brilliant satire. Tim doesn't give a rat's ass about the chinese people. He cares only about the Chinese money. Expected behavior from someone who just pays lip service to causes time and time again.

 

[gnipgnop]

Nonetheless over the past couple of decades manufacturing has been badly hit in western nations. And a lot of that is down to the better regulations and wages there. One option is to slash our rules and wages. Another option is to push China to improve theirs. I consider the first one bad and the second one unrealistic and beyond our control.

FYI: the manufacturing output of the U.S. today is more than double what it was back in the 1980s. The difference is that the number of jobs in manufacturing is 1/3 of the level in the 1980s. That means that automation and robotics have probably had as much of an impact on U.S. jobs as low wage workers in other countries. You also have to remember that retail prices per unit in the U.S. have very little correspondence to labor costs. Companies that moved manufacturing to low wage countries didn't lower their prices in the U.S. as a result. They continued to charge the same price and increased their profits.

 

[ElectricPotato]

China has Apple by the testicles.

Xi keeps them on his desk to alert Tim to crises. Kind of like the Bat Signal, but with testicles.

 

[dan110]

Save it Tim. As many of us already knew, your virtue signaling was just that.

 

[rlhamil]

Oh yeah. Police never lie. Ever...

Police come in all flavors, good and bad, like everyone else; and no screening process can completely prevent that, although an ineffective one and/or bad leadership can certainly increase it.

Commies and authoritarians on the other hand (worse if both!) are just bad, period.

 

[dan110]

But who cares? Such terms are largely meaningless. Is the Chinese government left wing? It is officially communist though many western leftists now oppose nationalism; the Chinese government can’t be easily categorised. In many respects neither can Cook. He speaks like a liberal while he takes home $136 million p.a. while making sure Apple pays the lowest price possible for cleaners, keeps the tax bill as low as possible and locates manufacturing in a brutal tyranny that murders political dissidents to keep costs low. Much of his life is the caricature of the modern neo-conservative. But again, it’s irrelevant.

The point is that Cook’s principles are for sale, even if the price has been extremely high. But he clearly sided with tyrants for financial reasons. Many of us would do the same, frankly, for that sort of money. But Cook claimed that he and Apple were different and he got found out.

" the Chinese government can’t be easily categorised." .... snort ... Wow!

 

[djlythium]

For music streaming I have been using both Spotify and Apple Music for some time. I find Spotify much better at discovery and recommendations and Apple better at letting me manage my library. I will now just use Spotify.

I have been using Apple Photos but have always used Google Photo as a backup. Once I replace my iPhone SE with an Android it will be Google Photos only.

I have been using a Samsung tablet for the past three months. Perhaps not as fully featured as an iPad but much cheaper. Depends upon what one needs a tablet to do, if anything at all.

My 2013 MacBook Pro is from when Apple made quality laptops and is working well so I will not throw it away. Once it needs replacing I will investigate alternatives.

I am under no illusion that other tech companies are pure and don't engage in shady or unsavoury practices for the almighty dollar but I would rather not support Apple when Cook claims it to be so good and then caves in.

Millions will continue to purchase very high priced Apple products, possibly buy Apple Care to hopefully offset expensive repairs required as a result of the poor quality of some devices and carry on. It is an individual choice.

Yeah, sounds like you've definitely put some thought into this, which is what I think events like this should prompt us to do.

 

[blacktape242]

free Hong Kong

 

[frostiex]

Apple....that is a really poor choice.
Don't force me to jump ship. Because I DON"T STAND FOR THIS GARBAGE LIES!

The police brutality in HK is NASTY. They "LEGALLY" killing people. Commit crimes and blame them on the protesters and you side with them? Tim, I don't believe you DID NOT get forced into this by the Chinese government. Stand up for what is right and not stand down for the sake of $$$$$

 

[rtomyj]

If only you had been around in the 30s and 40s to tell everyone to keep their noses out of Germany and stop being hypocritical about the treatment of Jews. It would have saved everyone so much trouble. Not the Jews of course, just like the Uighurs and Hong Kong people, facing down a brutal tyranny.

And allowing even more immigration into America, a country already with tens of millions of immigrants, would solve the problem how?

China is a brutal military tyranny. There are times in life we have to just keep the peace and try not to start a fight - I get that. Tim Cook though has over and over again said he is all about principles and "doing what's right" and this episode shows he will quite literally take orders from a murderous tyranny if there's enough money on offer. That's all most people here are pointing out - nobody pretends even Apple can single handedly make China a free country. But we are quite within our rights to point out Cook's absurd hypocrisy.

Uh huh and allowing the Jews to immigrate would solve the killings. Look I get where you’re coming from but sticking American ideals in peoples face isn’t the right option.

 

[Jimmy James]

At least Americans don’t need to worry about this. The government tramples on your rights and the public doesn’t seem to care enough to do much.

 

[bflowers]

Can be used for that and has been used for that are two totally different situations.

True. A gallon of water can be used to hydrate a person, or to waterboard them. Clearly since something bad can be done with it, we should ban it.