Because lots of people still think that if you own a piece of hardware, you should be able to run whatever code you want on it.
I say this with an unlocked and de-googled android phone next to me, and several hacked arm devices at home. I OWN THEM, with no doubt, so I agree with you in a different world.
But the terms of this license are by no means "protecting" users who voluntarily chose to install these apps for payment. A license can have multiple legitimate purposes, including protecting the business interests of the licenser. There's no need to pretend that Apple is protecting users in order to defend their actions here.
Apple found themselves in a position were doing "the good thing" aligned with business.
Do you?
And atm, you couldn't on a locked down device.
FTFY
There are quite a few Apple users who like the hardware, the operating system, apps which are iOS-only, and the integration with other Apple devices - some of whom also want to run their own choice of software as well.
There's no alternative which has equivalent benefits, if that's what you're looking for.
(NB, I don't use an Apple phone personally).
It's the golden cage that allowed them to do of course good things this time. This argument is the old one against a walled garden and it still stands.
that's the problem - why should this service exist in the first place? It's extortion to have to pay to distribute apps to people who want them, on devices they own themselves.
Except if they force Apple to nuke all of their apps, which would put Apple in a difficult position. But perhaps Apple could sandbox apps, and prevent them from doing stuff that violates ToS.
That's what Apple is doing here. Pushing iPhone as a commodity, not a replacement for your macbook. This way they get the benefits of controlling the experience as much as they want. (I am not saying it is right or wrong, just that many people are fine with commodity phones and don't care for the loss of configurability).
Now, _will_ I do that? Probably not, but my opinion is that as the owner of the device, I should have the ability to do so if I so choose.
And what about the manufacturer? Why should it be their legal responsibility to satisfy your whims for programmable interfaces?
Not to mention what you're mentioning that what you're suggesting will make the iPhone incredibly insecure.
Regarding security, that very much depends on your threat model and definition of "secure". Indeed, I see this general trend of decreasing user control over increasingly complex and connected hardware as a massive security threat where I am forced to trust multiple 3rd parties who may arbitrarily disrupt my life anytime new "features" or "policies" get pushed out.
It is perfectly possible to securely implement a tamper-evident "I know what I'm doing" switch/fuse that enables advanced control by device owners. However, I'm well aware that I'm in the minority on this topic, so I'm not holding my breath for such features to be implemented.
Yes. It is within my full legal right to install whatever programs I want on my washing machine.
Apple lost a bunch of lawsuits, when it tried to sue people for doing this. The courts proved that yes, you do have a legal right to do whatever you want with hardware that you own.
That said, I doubt washing machine microcontrollers use signed code. It's easier to modify them than your phone which is completely backwards.
But that's not what this is about. Apple has been enforcing these rules for years. F.lux tried to get around the App Store by reaching users how to sideload via Xcode. Apple killed it.
The big players should be subject to the same rules. If they want to run their own code, they can't just flagrantly ignore Apple's TOS.
I'm also onboard with the Nielsen metaphor but not for kids. And both were scummy in targeting kids (though FB was definitely worse judging from marketing materials).
Specifically, Apple killed it because f.lux decided to distribute their app in a really sketchy manner where they essentially pushed an opaque binary blob to the phone rather than compiling the app from source and installing the build product from that.
How do you protect against that backdoor being used by hostiles?
I sideload stuff on my phone quite frequently.
Xcode 7 and iOS 9, and yes, you can still do this.
(also, what Apple allows you to run on your own device is actually a different story, not related to this news)
XX% of Google employees are non-technical
XX% of Google employees don't use Mac as their laptop platform
XX% of Google employees have a locked-down Mac that isn't allowed to run XCode or locally-compiled binaries because their job role isn't in Engineering
Or stop abusing the terms of the enterprise certificates.
And know that Apple has your back when it comes to holding developers of the apps you use to their commitments.
There’s a clear benefit to the reputation of a vendor being on the line for the security and quality of their product and the services offered on it.
I mean, yes, we shouldn't buy iOS devices. But we should accept that things have ad hoc vendor-controlled "rules" just because someone baked them into the things, either.
> what Apple allows you to run on your own device is actually a different story, not related to this news
How so? It's not like Facebook and Google were hacking their way in here. They asked users "please run this software" and users had the option to do so. Seriously how is that any different than "please run my great jailbreak environment" or "here's a new OS for your iPhone"?
It was the behavior and marketing of these spyware things that we shouldn't like, not their mechanism.
Technically correct. But software running on "things" has terms. It's called a license. When you buy a movie, you don't own the film. You own the right to use that film in accordance with the license.
The question you're sidestepping is whether a license can say "you can't run your own software on your own thing". Obviously it can be implemented to do so given the way computers work, but it's not at all clear why that should be so.
BTW. I ignore that and even many large, respectable companies ignore that, but it's there ;)
IBM has had contracts for decades that govern use of your software on the hardware you bought from them. You buy CPU hours or the right to use a certain amount of the computer for a specific timeframe. One place I worked at had a mainframe that they could not use for production workloads unless a disaster declaration was made.
They’ve been litigated and are valid.
True, but you entered in a contract with the app developer and they are bound by one with Apple.
Apple’s right to act on iOS devices is in virtue of them being a service provider to google more than the company that sold you your phone
... wat? No, I didn't. It's easy to imagine I "must have", but in fact there's no signature, no negotiation nor in many cases any consideration.
Ah, but you say: I must have signed a contract to use the app store that I downloaded the app from, and that must constrain me to honor the terms of the app that I downloaded, which is constrained by Apple's contract with the developer.
Except, no, I didn't do that either. The whole thing is a house of cards. There is absolutely no principle behind this regime, it's just something we've all come to accept because it's technically possible and because "usually" the power granted to hardware vendors hasn't been abused.
But it has bad side effects too, and it's really important that we as a community not lose sight of the fact that locked down devices are really, really bad.
Do you have an Apple ID? You need an Apple ID to download apps from the App Store, and when you create the Apple ID, you accept their ToS. So, yeah, I think you did.
Though that ToS has absolutely nothing to do with anything we're discussing -- the ToS that matters here is the one between Apple and Google/Facebook.
> ...and that must constrain me to honor the terms of the app that I downloaded...
I don't think Apple's ToS with you constrains you to honors the terms of the app you downloaded. That seems strangely indirect. I think the app may or may not have their own ToS that they make you agree to at some point before permitting you to use their services.
Facebook and Google did sign it and distributed their software based on it.
> It's not like Facebook and Google were hacking their way in here.
They literally did (in the legal sense).
But of course, it's a battle of two evils here. Both sides can just nuke each other if you ask me, I won't miss them ;)
I think we're talking past each other here. I'm not talking about how Facebook and Google's spy kits were licensed to the end users or about their compliance with Apple's own vendor license.
I was pointing out that the principle here is that I (and Facebook and Google) should have the ability to write and distribute software for you (and me, and Facebook and Google and even Apple) to use on your iPhone. And that the fact we don't have that ability is bad.
And more to the point the fact that Apple's control over their platform was used to benefit the public by disallowing spy kits still does not make that control a good thing.
Free speech doesn’t allow libel and slander. Free assembly doesn’t allow riots. Without a framework for meaningful justice, the high minded principle is just a race to the bottom.
I should be able to have the freedom to choose a platform where I have some protection against the various bad actors out there. Without Apple, the only options we have is non-participation, believing the lies, and arbritration.
What? Very absolutely it does. It just doesn't protect from the consequences.
Sure they do. You want a gun? That comes with certain restrictions on what you can do with it. You want a car? There are certain restrictions on what you can do with it. Jet? Restrictions. Schedule 1 drugs? Restrictions. Knives? Restrictions. Fireworks? Restrictions. Cameras? Restrictions. Hell, even when it comes to a 2x4, there are rules about what you can and can't do with it -- you can't hit someone with it, or you'll suffer consequences.
There will always be the possibility that some company will ask users to their absolute freedom ability to give them absolute freedom. Which is basically exactly what happened in this case. The only difference is, in this case, Apple built in a mechanism where they can stop individual actors.
And, to protect their users, they used it.
They are anti consumer and anti developer, buying from them is bad capitalism.