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Comment by josephcsible | Hacker News Reader

Why is everyone so worried that Facebook, etc. will pull out of the App Store and require sideloading on iOS just because it'll be possible, when they haven't pulled out of the Play Store or required sideloading on Android where that's already been possible all along?

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It's a talking point. I'm sorry that it is negative and it might not fair to the parent commenter, but it's obvious bs. It is a propaganda point that was placed somehow into the discussion and gets repeated again and again. In no world does it make any sense that an app like FB would not try to be in every big store, but here we are, having that "concern" repeated under every Apple sideloading discussion.

Propaganda is fucking awesome in how effective it can be. And equally dangerous.

The difference between the Play store and the Apple App store is that the Play store doesn't even pretend to protect against apps that do underhanded, unexpected, and intrusive things. There are numerous stories of iOS apps being pulled out of the store for using private APIs to bypass this or that protection.

That's not true. The Play store absolutely promises such protection, and Google adds more protection measures every year. The Android system even warns you when you install apps from other sources. Also see the related https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/2812853?hl=en.

Running a "safety check" is not the same thing as the (admittedly opaque) Apple App Store review process. Based on the challenges developers have had with Apple getting certain apps approved, the Apple App Store review process is significantly more involved than Google's.

Is your argument that because Apple's review process has a lot of false positives, that it must be good? Consider a "review" process that consists of rolling two dice, and rejecting the app if you rolled snake eyes.

no, I did not say that. My intention of referring to the difficulties is that some rigor is required. The play store is a rubber stamp.

The Play Store reviews promises more than a rubber stamp. It's okay to see it as such, but you said above the Play Store doesn't even pretend; If that were the case there would be no review process.

Google will this year address some of the data leaks that are still possible by limiting what apps can do. They introduced the limitations before, now apps will be forced to use the newer API targets that enable them. And that is done via the limitations the Play Store applies to apps (rule based + reviews) and the changed to Android's permission system.

All of that can be criticized in detail, but that they are doing nothing and not even try to project the image that they protect users is just wrong.

I’ll admit my opinion is out of date and wrong.

As an iOS user who doesn’t care to give my mobile device any thought at all, Google has a long way to go to overcome the perception that behind a thin shiny veneer, the Play store is like Mos Eisley.

That and seamless shared clip boarding keep me from leaving the ecosystem.

I wouldn’t call it propaganda. Facebook’s reputation in this regard hasn’t exactly been stellar because they’ve been caught red-handed spying on users at scale [1] [2].

And Apple was swift to limit the damage of their spying by banning [1] their app from the app store which is why the point the gp is making is sound. The app store is two things: a (heavy-handed) review process and a marketplace. Without the Apple app store review process, you’d end up with what looks like the Google Play store.

So it’s not hard to imagine Facebook disappearing completely from the Apple app store (to avoid being bogged down by Apple’s policies) forcing users to sideload the app directly from their website to “get their fix”.

1: https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/30/apple-bans-facebook-vpn/

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo

Why would the technical solution that solved the privacy issue not still solve it just because it is now sideloaded? It’s not like the sandbox will suddenly get disabled for sideloaded apps..

> when they haven't pulled out of the Play Store or required sideloading on Android where that's already been possible all along?

Has Android restricted spying as much as iOS has? I seem to recall Facebook freaking out pretty hard about iOS policy changes around tracking and blaming that for some serious revenue shortfalls, a while back, and have no such recollection about Android, but maybe I just missed it.

The only thing that Android doesn't do is zero out the advertizing ID unless the user gives explicit permission.

That's an OS thing on iOS though, not a user one.

Because Facebook announced publicly that Apple's privacy policy changes would cost them $10 billion[0], putting them on the record as having strong motive to avoid the App Store.

0. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/02/facebook-says-apple-ios-priv...

Isn't that about a technical feature of iOS that won't be bypassed just by installing an app from outside the App Store?

App Tracking Transparency is more App Store policy than technical feature, and even if Apple were stonewalling third party dev access by technical means, outside of the App Store there's nothing to stop Facebook from using a rotating set of holes to pull data through, turning the situation into an arms race which will only result in iOS being locked down progressively further, despite having sideloading.

Yes, Facebook has plenty of motive. Apple mandating that Facebook give users the ability to opt out of their tracking has made a major dent in their revenue, and Google never implemented an equivalent requirement for the Play Store.

Additionally, iOS users' attention has traditionally been worth more to advertisers than that of their Android using counterparts because they buy so much more.

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