“Now apps from both the App Store and the internet can be installed worry-free.” | Hacker News Reader

“Now apps from both the App Store and the internet can be installed worry-free.”

apple.com

27 pointskeleftheriou14 comments

I have beachfront property in Arizona to sell anyone who actually believes Apple's position on sideloading is about security.

You’d have more takers over on Twitter

Behind the times, man. Now all you need is an NFT of a beachfront property in Arizona.

If that headline were about iOS, it'd be a big deal, but it's about macOS.

Why can’t this also hold for iOS?

> Now apps from both the App Store and the internet can be installed worry-free. App Review makes sure each app in the App Store is reviewed before it’s accepted. Gatekeeper on your Mac ensures that all apps from the internet have already been checked by Apple for known malicious code — before you run them the first time. If there’s ever a problem with an app, Apple can quickly stop new installations and even block the app from launching again.

Because you can only get iOS apps through the app store, not "and the internet."

Right, but why can’t this also hold for sideloading on iOS?

Because Apple won't allow you to sideload :)

>but why won't Apple allow me to sideload if this is secure enough.

My observation is that no one would buy a computer as locked down as iOS, so Apple has been slow walking MacOS into the iOS model, not the other way around. iOS won't become more useful, MacOS will only become less useful over time.

Because 30% is way too lucrative for Apple to ever voluntarily give up.

It makes you wonder, though, why apps from the internet are only worry-free on macOS. What is it about the security of iOS that makes apps from the internet more worrisome on that OS?

If past experiences are an indicator, the security model itself doesn't matter - apps will simply request the widest permissions they can get away with, and users will be hammered with them until they give up and comply; eventually your calculator has access to your contacts, data, usage history and network. The only thing stopping this is the review process. Most app publishers do not have their incentives aligned in the users' direction.

I think the point is that Apple have been asserting that it would be a bad thing on iOS but then saying the complete opposite about macOS.

sounds like a whitelist? I wonder how much it costs to be added to it

$100 per year. I pay that to be able to release signed and notarized binaries for Lunar (https://lunar.fyi/)

You’re kinda forced to do that if you have a large enough user base as an app developer. Otherwise people will get the scary Gatekeeper alert of “unidentified developer” and “can do harm”

Work computers might even refuse to launch the app altogether if they have a stricter policy.

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