Users were able to run apps on their Mac directly bypassing AppStore since forever. Why would it suddenly be a dreadful problem if Apple would allow app sideloading on iOS?
Take New York Times. Last I checked, you can sign up online, but to cancel your subscription, you have to call and subject yourself to a slick sales pitch and all sorts of questions. It's inconvenient and borderline immoral.
One solution is, heh, the free hand / competition, but we clearly see that doesn't work all that well. A much simpler solution is to identify such behaviours and straight up outlaw that stuff. Which hasn't happened yet and probably won't for the foreseeable future.
Here's the thing: __The app store is in some ways like a government, and brings laws__. As long as that subscription were to run via the app store, you _CANNOT_ hide cancellation behind a phone number. Apple won't let you ship an app that works that way; in fact, apple does the billing.
I'm pretty sure that benefit pales in comparison to the problems that apple's sole ownership and onerous Judge Dredd-ian (judge, jury, _and_ executioner!) control over the fate of your apps on the apple app store bring.
But you paint the argument as zero cost to allowing alternate app stores, and __that is not true__.
Once alternate app stores or other enforced reduction in apple's abilities to enforce and police app store policy are in place, a bunch of apps WILL go sleazy on you where they wouldn't have otherwise.
NB: Of course, in practice, netflix etc. just do signups online, you get the same total lack of protection against sleazy stuff, and now the apps you download from the app store don't even tell you what you're supposed to do because apple won't let you explain that you need to sign up online and not in the app. Apple's solution / the current status quo sucks; probably sucks more than having alternate app stores available. All I'm saying is that having alternate app stores, whilst it brings a lot of upside, does bring downside, and that is (presumably) what the defenders of apple are trying to warn you about: Those downsides.
We don't need to imagine that scenario, that's Android, and Google still definitely holds massive control with it's play store rules.
> All I'm saying is that having alternate app stores, whilst it brings a lot of upside, does bring downside, and that is (presumably) what the defenders of apple are trying to warn you about: Those downsides.
So go ahead and pick your examples from the Android world.
I think a tentpole of Apple is that the billing should all flow through one source, clean and uncomplicated, along with a set guidelines of program coding/behavior. It happens to make Apple the gatekeeper, and there are deeper questions thereof, but that is the constraint inherent in the App Store.
i.e. how civil rights/discrimination law identifies how all laws are discriminatory, but which categories (i.e. race, religion, sex) are "protected" categories from discrimination/differentiation.
They asked me why I was cancelling. I said I don't really have time to get enough out of it to justify they cost. The "slick sales pitch" was to offer me a discount. I said I really don't have enough time for even that to be worth it. That was it.
I then made sure to tell him I was only cancelling the paper, not my crossword puzzle subscription, and mentioned that I realized this means that when my crossword subscription renewed (it was out of phase with my newspaper subscription) the price would be doubling because I would not longer get the 50% discount that newspaper subscribers get.
He informed me that this was not the case. Once you get the 50% of deal for the puzzle, you keep it as long as you maintain the puzzle subscription. I'd only lose it if I cancelled the puzzle, and later resubscribed while not having a newspaper subscription. I was pleasantly surprised.
There is no law in US that companies need to have online cancellation if they have online signup.
NY Times loves to abuse this.
I don’t want Apple to act like a government. I want the government to act like a government. Why isn’t the government doing more to stop companies from employing shady sales practices? Why doesn’t the government do more to protect my 92-year-old grandmother? Why is it so hard to cancel a gym membership? We should be able to get together and say, “as a society, we want to forbid predatory sales practices.”
The Apple approach has limited efficacy anyway. Sure, my grandmother can cancel subscriptions purchased through Apple—or she could, if she knew how to make them in the first place. But no, that requires a password.
So she has free apps like Duolingo. Those apps have ads. She taps the ads. They bring her to websites. She enters her credit card number. Bam, new scam subscription that she can’t cancel.
But Duolingo carries on, displaying the same scam ads, unimpeded by Apple or any government. Duolingo probably doesn’t even know about those ads. And if they did, “that’s the ad network’s problem.”
Some people will argue that it’s difficult to write legislation that covers all the bases. Of course it is. But a private company’s contracts and guidelines are no different in that regard.
That's a valid point, but: the US will probably require membership cancellations to not suck eventually. EU will too, maybe even earlier then US.
Japan? Not likely. Here the enterprise is king and individual is not a priority.
Russia? I don't even want to begin with this one.
And that's only 2 localities I had experiences living in, Apple & App Store probably operates in dozens of completely different jurisdictions, brining more or less the same rules everywhere.
And just like the laws made by the government some of those laws are unjust or even stupid.
Take the hemp prohibition as an example.
It is as stupid and useless as Apple's "law" which seems to make it impossible to provide open source apps in the app store.
Take a look at UTM: https://getutm.app/
Why on earth do you have to side load such a useful app? It does not make any sense.
The "we want your safety" statement is just useful for people who do not know any better. I do not want to be patronized like this as I am a professional user. As a person with some understanding about economics I know this is about money of course but I am very interested in the outcome of this behaviour towards professionals who will turn their back on Apple when they go on like this.
Now they even managed to further decrease the value of their desktop OS - starting an app with internet connection takes literally seconds whereas they started in the blink of an eye on older versions because of their background checks. Awesome job @Apple :thumbsup:
That said, I do think that 30% is excessive. Job's original announcement [1] suggested that the App Store's 30% was the cost of running the App Store; I don't believe that it is really costing that much to run now. Reducing the payment premium and/or allowing customer choice of paying the App Store rate, or the outside the store rate is maybe the least bad option here.
It's telling that there has been no substantive movement on margin from Apple or Google here. Steam is also 30% until you reach higher tiers, then it's 25%. Epic is only 12%. I think a lot of the current concerns would be allayed if the cut was only 12%.
It would benefit in some way (like being able to subscribe to Audible in the app) but also it could be less safe (because if Amazon can, anyone else also can, possibly without supervision)
I’m not saying the apple model is how I want things (far from it), but it certainly has been effective at controlling malware on the platform.
https://www.techradar.com/news/phantomlance-malware-breaches...
Dozens of malicious apps infected with the malware are being distributed via the Play Store and alternate app stores such as APKpure and APKCombo, often targeting users to spy on their habits and steal data.
According to security firm Kaspersky, this malware campaign has been live for over 4 years, and is likely the work of the OceanLotus advanced persistent threat (APT) group, thought to be based out of Vietnam.
From GP’s quote directly above.
https://www.cnet.com/news/just-as-critics-feared-fortnite-fo...
Iirc the issue was that they first downloaded a file and then ran it. Thus there was a short window of time where someone can tamper with the file before it's running. Far from being a security nightmare it was a subtle flaw, and fixed quickly.
A mac-like system for iOS would work just fine.
That's the impression Wikipedia seems to give:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-Droid
So, for my use case: I want to run some proprietary software, F-Droid will be insufficient.
Happy to be proven wrong.
You can add custom repositories in the fdroid app, as I understand it anyone can host a repo and put whatever they like on it.
I work with free software too so this was a very conscious decision for me.
Run open-source software everywhere else though.
I don't believe this issues you're facing come from android being open, but from google's poor design decisions like granting network access to apps by default.
Apple can do open platforms right if it wanted. It doesn't have to do them poorly like google.
It is a problem, there’s a bunch of malware on android.
You made the first choice, if the choice does not permit you to do what you want then you have made an incorrect choice. Apple did not choose you, you chose Apple.
I willingly bought my last iPhone knowing the restrictions of the App Store and it did not bother me. If it did I could have easily bought any of the Android phones or at the time Windows phones. If you bought an Apple device knowing the restriction why did you make the choice anyway?
Btw, another popular argument defending Apple is "Sideloaded apps will defraud users by tricking them into giving payment information and stealing funds" - but Apple already defrauded their users by selling them the device and next blocking them from using it in any way they want.
If a user wants to run an app on iOS device, and apps developer wants a user to run this app, it should not be Apple's business to stop them from doing it.
Which is of course possible, has been for a long long time, and doesn’t require Apple or AppStore approval. It’s even free to do if you don’t mind repeating your steps weekly.
It's not a choice when there are very limited handset operators available.
Market power is a very real thing.
I suggest that the overwhelming majority of iOS users would opt to be able to download apps out of the App store if this were an option.
not necessarily - I don't have an iPhone right now and I'd still attack Apple on that. Negating me this right would be the same that saying that as a french I couldn't go to protests against Guantanamo.
for a non-trivial amount of people because they or their peers use ios exclusive software already. There are only two major smartphone operating systems, and countless of walled gardens and exclusive features. So depending on circumstance, it's very easy to basically be forced to pick into an ecosystem.
Choice is a reasonable argument on the laptop market nowadays, the smartphone market fundamentally lacks choice and competition, at least at the ecosystem level.
If the guidelines are actually good for the end user, why does Apple violate so many of the app store guidelines in their own apps?
Or the browser: there is no technical reason for stopping alternative browsers from getting onto iOS, but it would make Safari commercially irrelevant.
I love the subjective memory / interpretation here. Apple didn’t block f.lux, there was no API available on iOS for it to work. Apple decided rather than provide a public API method, they’d just provide the feature itself. Sucks for f.lux, but far less than it did for LumaDisplay and Sidecar.
> there is no technical reason for stopping alternative browsers from getting onto iOS
1) alternative browsers exist on iOS. Chrome for example! Sure, you’d be fair to say “not real Chrome”, but then see point 2
2) the technical reason you claim doesn’t exist very much does. Web browsers require the ability to have dynamic code execution from untrusted sources. Look at all the OS compromises historically from browser bugs and you can potentially understand why Apple wants to try to exert control there. The counter argument of course is that Apple has also failed here, there’s been multiple jailbreaks which could be triggered by visiting a webpage, but I see Apple using that to justify their actions further (if even we can’t get it right always, no way others will). I’m not claiming that parenthetical mentality is justified, but it likely plays a part in what Apple thinks.
As for the browser: dynamic code execution is a red herring - there are plenty of runtimes like python available on the appstore, and they execute all sorts of crap just fine. Modern browser engines are sandboxed so hard, they are equivalent to (or better than) anything you find in an OS. The security angle nowadays is just a flimsy excuse to keep Safari (the IE6 of our times) from becoming utterly irrelevant overnight.
> they used a private API not allowed in appstore
So how did I have selective memory again?
(Will not reply to this thread further as it appears you aren’t debating in good faith)
On the other hand, if Apple would limit MacOS in this way I would be livid.
They're well on their merry way to doing exactly that.
Some people are easier to exploit and exploiting them online can be easy. My mother is in that group. It’s a very good feeling knowing I can tell her „just do it, as long as it is your iphone”.
We can have different edition of phones for both iOS and Android. One could be unlocked and allows side loading while the other doesn't.
Seems like an easy enough solution?
Mark the phones visibly so there is no way someone could mistake one for the other.
All iOS Devices allow side loading currently. You don’t even need the source to the app, you can sign any app binary (compiled yourself or from another) using a free Apple developer ID for 7 days. Don’t want to refresh every 7 days? Pay $100/year and not only can you run non-Apple approved apps for a year now, you can do the same for friends.
There’s even MacOS apps to make this trivially simple to do, even for lightly technical users.
If your mother is not that "technical" do you think Apple is so incompetent they could not make the enabling of side loading complex enough so is hard for this group of people to activate it? I am just 1 person and I am thinking at possible ways to do it for 1 minute and I have some solutions, Apple could do better.
Apple could create a "kid mode" that you can enable on your less technical family members, it could require someone else to authorize "unsafe" activity. There are solutions and is obvious that if the solution is for Apple interest is always found if the solution is against Apple interest is never found.
Other solution is to allow side loading only in EU, let EU people have the choice to be scammed or tricked to install apps that use the evil GPL but keep the US citizen "safe". Apple has done a lot of things to sell in China so doing different things for different markets is not something new for them. If this happens we can also then see the numbers and determine how stupid or not are the EU citizens that unlocked their phones but I have a permonition that even if things go well in EU I will see the comments that US is special, in US it will not work.
Interestingly, Apple already has 99% of this in place on iOS - if you have a "child" device in a family share account (maybe not the right word?), the "parent" has to approve even free app installs on iOS. Child hits install, it triggers a push message to the parent account to authorise the install (via touch ID/PIN).
So while it isn't quite there for authorising all unsafe activity (in fairness, maybe it is, perhaps I didn't find the options yet), but it certainly lets you control app store installs. In essence it feels like a personal version of lightweight MDM.
It would be straightforward for this to be extended to "Name wants to enable installing apps from outside the app store. This means you won't be able to approve what they install. Allow this?"
To me, if Apple were to allow sideloading, it would be controlled via this route, and manageable by MDM policies as well (so managed work devices can't run sideload apps).
I was also reminded how in the past if you got your phone from Vodafone it would be SIM locked and after your contract expired you could not use the phone on other networks, you had to find a phone service to unlock it, I am not sure if it was a national law or EU law that demanded that unlocking should be easy to do when the contract is over(you should ask for it and you should receive a code for free). With Apple you pay for the phone, you own it but you are still locked, we need a similar law that if you own the phone you should be allowed to unlock it.
I think that Apple should allow apps to be installed from outside of the app store, but your argument is just a straw man.
As a consumer, I am 100% in favor of the way run the app store. I don't want to give random apps my credit card. I don't want to have 18 accounts to keep track of. I don't want to have to call telephone support to cancel my account. I don't want malware in my apps. I don't want apps to have my email if they don't need it. I don't need another middleman for content companies license and distribute. Everything Apple is doing is helping make a better app store for me.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24013658
I can add that he also doesn't want Chinese dissidents to run Signal or XMPP app to bypass wiretapping by the oppressive government.
Fairly certain user @spullara was talking about themselves personally.
> I'm very happy in my locked platform, I'm happy that my family are on a locked platform.
> If they (or I) want to be on a more open platform then that exists, just not for apple devcies; but for now I trust random developers less than I trust Apple.
They should at least allow optional sideloading on device versions they no longer support, e.g., "obsolete" iPhones and iPads. There should be an "official" way to "root" these devices that otherwise in effect can no longer use the AppStore (because most AppStore apps only work with the most recent iOS versions). Another idea would be to have an AppStore "archive" so older devices can still use an official AppStore.
Apple's "AppStore" is in effect a way to force obsolecence and mandate device upgrades.
Personally I like apple devices, I like that when I give them to my family I don't get a bunch of support questions like I do when I give them PC's or my old Android devices.
That said: I would prefer apple devices (and thus, their store) to be a minority market share, which pushes the play store to look at their own practices and increase the barrier to entry, or the standard to which applications are held.
Even my girlfriend (who is young and relatively tech savvy, though does not work in tech) has downloaded and executed virus' from the play store by mistake.
Or, maybe, you don't like the idea that you'll have to sideload the app you need because it isn't available in the AppStore? Hmm. Well, you'll feel a biiiiit like other people who don't have a choice under Apple's regime, with only difference that they can't run the app at all, and you can run it in a way that you don't like.
Sideloading is still possible and is free, but you have to know what you're doing. It's a tremendous barrier to entry (your keys even expire every few days so you have to keep re-sideloading) thus people don't bother with it.
Alternative appstore is basically same as sideloading, cause the latter is necessary for the former to function.
Btw important overlooked issue is not only sideloading per se, but unrestricted access to push notifications / subscribing to alternative push notification services. With restrictions on running in background iOS apps are next to useless without notifications - you won't get VoIP, email, chat apps working without capability to wake up on push.
I'm very happy in my locked platform, I'm happy that my family are on a locked platform.
If they (or I) want to be on a more open platform then that exists, just not for apple devcies; but for now I trust random developers less than I trust Apple.
If it becomes normalised to bypass the app store, then it's going to be very difficult to control the quality of software generally; and on a macro-scale will entice even large developers (like banks) to go the 'alternative app store' route, which will force everyone to be using applications which are not vetted in a reasonable way.
But why are you wording this as if AppStore will somehow vanish? I don't think it will be going anywhere even if some apps will start working without Apple's permission. Chances are, it'll get better if it has some real competition.
It's like buying an android phone then being sour that photoshop doesn't work, I think.
As for why I'm wording it as if the AppStore will dissapear, it's because of all the reasons I laid out.
Right now it's a gate or a fence; the great filter which all must pass through; but if there exists a cheaper/easier alternative that gives the same results, why not use that? It will become incredibly normal to run the alternative app store- to the point where a lot of software will be released only to run there (which is a stated aim) and if everyone has the alternative store, why bother with Apples?
Yes, for a developer or advanced user, walled gardens look bad. But we as a community need to accept that we are a small minority of users of Apple devices. I personally recommend iPhones and iPads to entry level users in my family because I know they can't mess up the device completely without knowing ... so, to be honest, because of the walled garden and the limited choices. And I accept that if I want more freedom, I have to get something else for me.
Therefore, the question isn't why someone doesn't want to give you the choice and freedom, but why you (and sometimes I, and a lot of people in our community) want to force a change to the majority of iPhone users that are perfectly happy with the current status quo. A status quo that was in place 5 to 10 years ago and was definitely in place when they bought their devices.