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Comment by kennywinker | Hacker News Reader

I've used iOS for over a decade without needing to install apps outside of the app store. I would guess that the vast majority of iOS users share that experience. I understand you might be frustrated by those limitations, but to say "hold off on this until it's fixed" seems pretty reasonable.

It's pretty ironic to hear a complaint about the walled garden, when the only apparent way to solve this "0day" is probably going to be to put up another wall.

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You don't know what apps you're missing if you can't see what apps would exist without the restrictions.

That's like saying "I've rented from Blockbuster Video from over a decade without needing to view videos Blockbuster doesn't carry"

Completely agree. It's also the view that people held regarding blackerries pre-iphone.

A hardware keyboard was essential because the alternative was not an option.

As someone who used to jailbreak, I've definitely found tools in the past in the jailbreak store that were lovely, and a large chunk of those have now wound up in iOS by default too.

I've also since determined that the tradeoff (less security, more features) isn't one I'm still happy to make anymore, so have given up and accepted that I can do what Apple permits, and that's it.

It's not the ideal solution, but the ideal solution doesn't currently exist, and this is the least-bad in my view of the tradeoffs involved.

But we know what's possible because other platforms like android exist.

No, they make it hard on purpose even for hobbyist developers with cumbersome signing process and 7 days limit, as a way to bank on the 99$/year registration.

$99/year is peanuts, that's less than 1 hour of developer time. All it does is prevent spammers from creating a shitload of free accounts.

You're not thinking of programmers from developing countries. It can be several days wage there.

> $99/year is peanuts, that's less than 1 hour of developer time

lol, I wish.

There's a difference between your salary, what you cost to the company, and how much they charge the customer for your time.

Well ... it might not be what a developer is paid, but it's the value a developer creates for a business (experience and training withstanding of course), if you catch my drift.

99 cents a year would stop spammers creating a ton of accounts too

Making it harder also heightens the bar so low-quality or malicious apps don't get in.

"hold off on this until it's fixed" is definitely reasonable. However, that's not what OP said. OP said, "Dont install apps outside the app store." That reminds me of the kind of apologetic advice I get from the Microsoft community when dealing with Windows' strange behavior and anti-user choices.

> It's pretty ironic to hear a complaint about the walled garden, when the only apparent way to solve this "0day" is probably going to be to put up another wall.

You're conflating two separate issues. Microsoft has a certification program for Windows programs, Linux has extremely nuanced permissions, SELinux, etc.

This has been solved elsewhere but the walled garden of iOS is deliberately ill-designed and is not a robust solution.

For me the walled garden of iOS attracts me to the platform. Its apps are relatively safe, stable and curated. Sure, these restrictions might suck for you as a power user. For me, someone who makes phone calls, chats with family, takes pictures and reads the news this is just perfect. I don't need to think a lot about security because the platform thinks about it for me. For you it feels like prison, for me it feels like one thing less to worry about. For you it's ill-designed, for me it's designed for me the consumer.

I'm curious what your definition of robust is.

Not the person you were responding to, but: implements security with fine-grained and system-enforced permissions, not human approval for apps.

One of these methods has a much better track record than the other.

It sucks for me as a power user because I prefer Apple's corporate ethos, but their increasingly quirky UI and no recourse for things like alternative launchers make it an automatic no-go because I can't stand Apple's interfaces. It seems silly to most people but I get physical anxiety from interfaces which don't behave consistently or make me feel claustrophobic, and I've grown tired of relearning iOS every few years. To the point where I'm using hole-ridden Android devices with bags of telemetry by default, but with a consistent launcher I've used for many years and know how to navigate. No hidden UI tricks.

If Apple would allow people like me to control the devices we buy, I would finally have a home in the mobile market.

>but I get physical anxiety from interfaces which don't behave consistently or make me feel claustrophobic

I feel terribly for you. I can't imagine being in my own way so much that Apple's UI would give me physical anxiety.

It's not "in my own way", it's some kind of physical disorder where I legitimately get a sense of panic if things aren't responsive for more than a couple hundred milliseconds when they should be, a great example would be when explorer.exe jams up in Windows and everything severely stutters.

I wish I didn't deal with this but a little sensitivity towards users like me would be nice instead of ironically writing us off as close-minded. I have diagnosed OCD and it's just a facet of that. It can be quite frustrating at times when I'm trying to use an interface and, say, intrusive thoughts lead me to repeating body movements like clicking or picking up and dropping my mouse and next thing I know my browser is closed and I've opened up another program without even realizing. Like it happens all day while I'm working and the more invisible my interface the better. It's not easy to overcome these physical impulses and reactions. I still deal with vocal tics and stuff like that.

That doesn't really sound like an issue with the interface, though. Again, I'm sorry you have to deal with that but you're basically saying that companies need to account for the possibility that someone who clicked the "X" to close a window may not have intended to close the window. That's just crazy talk.

No, that's not what I said. If you want to have this discussion in good faith then let's not mince words.

I said a proper platform allows user control and customization over the interface, providing a way for users to continue using interfaces that make sense to them even if some young engineer at Apple finds a clever new way to shove some functionality into a screen gesture.

This isn't crazy talk. It's exactly how my Linux-based computer and Android-based phone operate and I've been using the same window manager / launcher for over a decade, while the mainstream default ones like Gnome 3 continue to make the strangest and most anti-user design decisions. I just bought a MIUI phone and if I couldn't flash my own Paranoid Android ROM in the coming weeks I would have to return this phone because the UI is bonkers.

As a technical user, I share in your frustrations. iOS may be more secure out of the box, but it's an all-or-nothing solution. Either you take what they give you and put your faith in the almighty Apple, or you break out and have no protection at all.

Unlike other platforms, where there is a range of options to us, where if we work hard enough, we can make our platform more secure, while still maintaining our freedom to do as we please, because we know what we're doing.

That said, I remain grateful that there's at least one mass consumer facing platform that is secure by default and user friendly. For the vast majority of the world, this is more valuable than the ability to tinker.

For me personally, it ends up being a toss up. I lament my restrictions, but I'm grateful for the significantly reduced amount of technical support I'm required to do now compared to the (good|bad|^$) old days when a PC / laptop was everyone's primary computing device.

There's such a simple solution: don't buy an iPhone.

They're not hiding anything from you about their walled garden.

> There's such a simple solution: don't buy an iPhone.

Is there a platform that gives me the freedom to run what I want, provides a decent security model, doesn't spy on everything I do, and if you squint just right, 'just works'?

If not, there is no simple solution, there's just different tradeoffs in a huge pile of poop.

Yeah, I don't understand why this position needs defending. Both Google and Apple's app stores have major problems, and they could learn a little from each other.

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