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Comment by johndubchak | Hacker News Reader

> I strongly support some government action to change the current state of affairs with regards to the App Store being the only way to get apps on iOS

A very slippery slope that will not end well for anyone, i.e. Apple, end users, and developers included. This is something I wouldn't advocate for personally and I'm not an Apple fanboi. I don't particularly care for the closed ecosystem but it does create security advantages and Apple is making efforts to protect users more so than greedy Corporate interests when it comes to data and privacy rights.

My $0.02

*edit: formatting of quoted text.

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> A very slippery slope that will not end well for anyone,

An anti-trust case against an established monopoly is a slippery slope? I'm having trouble understanding the fear here.

> I don't particularly care for the closed ecosystem but it does create security advantages

Anyone can claim "security advantages" from their walled garden, there's nothing particular about their implementation that grants them any additional security. Further, there are plenty of instances where Apple has had to remove malware and violating apps well _after_ they had been released to the store so it's not entirely clear what the true advantage for the consumer is here.

> and Apple is making efforts to protect users more so than greedy Corporate interests when it comes to data and privacy rights.

Do you believe this is the only model? Why should the manufacturer of my computer have any reason to be "protecting my privacy." Why are they involved in that discussion in the first place?

There is no established monopoly.

> Anyone can claim "security advantages" from their walled garden, there's nothing particular about their implementation that grants them any additional security.

This is just not true. Apple does tons of stuff to keep users protected from third-party software distributed through their app store.

Sometimes those things are frustrating and get in the way of app developers, like me. But I see why they are doing them, and I see THAT they are doing them, and I am, in the end, happy they do. Because of that, the computing platform I use that I feel is the most secure is by far iOS. I can trust it far further than I can any desktop system on the market today.

Im not clear what security advantage is offered to anyone by the oligopoly that is mobile app stores right now. To me it actually suggests iOS must be incredibly insecure if their security is so reliant on the Apple approval system. Can you even imagine where node.js would be if only microsoft could approve modules?

Can you be concrete about what security vulnerabilities you think it would introduce if Apple were forced to deal fairly with people? I don't think anybody's advocating for Apple to put viruses on the App Store.

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