However, we have Epic. No matter how deep the option is buried, they will try to get people to enable it so they can install their games without going through the app store. I wish I could agree with you, but the bad actors here are large corporations who are incentivised to make even those who want to be safe, unsafe.
“Will someone think of a children?!”
If every app you need requires sideloading; you’re going to enable it or be left in the dark.
And also - as a simple matter of fact, alternative app stores do exist and they haven't caused the collapse of the ecosystem. You can still stay in your walled garden if you wish.
So no, it's not about permissions or tracking users
And also - as a simple matter of fact, alternative app stores do exist
and they haven't caused the collapse of the ecosystem.
Based on the simple fact that nearly all companies care about the money first and foremost. 30% of your sales is a larger motivator than being or not being able to track your users(and I'm not even sure that argument even holds with Android 12 and beyond, it's been really reined in). Or would you disagree?
>>Sure, because the Play Store is already a colossal mess.
I'm not sure I understand how that's related to what I said. Again, corporation like Amazon has all the incentive to push you towards their own app store, yet it just simply doesn't happen at all. If they don't do it, why would smaller companies do it?
>>I begrudgingly use an iPhone but I don't want the Google experience in any way shape or form.
I get the impression reading these comments that people seem to think that if you are on android you just randomly go on the Play Store and install stuff almost without thinking? Yes it's a problem that malware sometimes slips through. But 30 million installs is nothing compared to the userbase. And most people just get a phone, download the regular set of apps they use every day, and then they never ever open the play store again - why would they? The existence(or lack of) of 3rd party stores doesn't matter to majority of people on the platform, because they just never install any extra apps at all.
Based on what I'm reading, this "high profile malware":
* Requests permissions to access a ton of information on your phone
* Uses those permissions to read and transmit the ton of information that you granted it permission to access
"This software did what I permitted it to do, but I'm not happy about what it did." is a complaint that's pretty solidly platform-independent.
I went to the Google play store and couldn't find Fortnight.
And as far as I can tell, this is what's borne out by observable results in places where there are options. macOS has preferences which let you choose between (a) app store only and (b) app store + signed apps from other channels -- and lets you override both choices if you really really want (as well as having a unix command line from which you can run arbitrary things and the ability to acquire dev tools by which you can build and run untrusted source). Some people take safety into their own hands and use those things. Some people don't. This hasn't eliminated the Mac App Store as an option for people who want to rely on Apple's curation. It exists side-by-side with independent but still signed/trusted distribution, and both exist side-by-side with free-for-all. You can walk freely between the well-patrolled walls of the fortified city, the ring of civilization just outside it, and the wild west outside that. None of them stops the other from existing.
Are there any platforms where that's happened? If macOS isn't a place where that's happened, why would it happen to iOS?
I don't mind having a hackable system, I think it should just be a little more complex than a hidden setting that Epic will try and get you to switch.
Perhaps a ROM which you have to download and wipe/reload your phone with, maybe it also removes the App Store so that it's obvious that you are moving to an unsupported model. I'm not sure, but just having a side loading toggle will lead to Epic abusing the matter.
Yes, they had the tool bars in Internet Explorer. Yes they had viruses.
I do not want a situation where I now have to support their phone because they followed some instructions to unlock side loading and installed Bonzai Buddy.
I suggested an alternative, something that would be just a bit too technical for idiots. A switch in iOS will generate support requests to Apple as the average user is an idiot.
> I'd think it's the manufacturer of the computer that doesn't let you use it however you prefer.
Are you this vocal on Sony for not letting you install your own homebrew on a Playstation or Nintendo on the Switch?
So you think the bad part is people being able to control their devices if they want to?
Of course the App Store seems to have significantly more stringent reviews and requirements than Google's store there might be more incentives.
OTH Apple can bundle some inherent limitations to side-loaded apps (just like Google did) to limit this.
As someone who has jailbroken iOS devices in the distant past, the conveniences and user interactions supported by Activator and SBSettings more than a decade ago are still not on iOS yet (and will likely never be). I believe there is a lot of value to have sideloading while also recognizing that there could be a higher chance of malware and the lost.
Maybe because getting a feature added for free that you won't need, and the presence of which would not impact you or anyone like you in any way, shape, or form, won't impact you or anyone like you in any way, shape, or form.
Just go "I'd never need that, but power to you if Apple ever adds it. Which we can be pretty sure of they won't". Don't hate on folks for wanting things that you don't want, but also won't affect your life in any way if they got it.
How do you know that allowing sideloading does’t effectively mean opening a bunch of backdoors on the device? What if the the tight grip over the hardware + software is the best way to ensure that millions of users stay reasonably safe? Isn’t this basically a way to prevent supply chain attacks? I don’t know… do you know? How can you say such things with so much confidence?
Because this is a technical forum, and we all know that this isn't how any of this works.
Will you be taking responsibility if there are unforeseen consequences to side loading?
There plenty of other phones out there that allow side loading. Go use one of those if it’s that important to you.
Last time I checked, you need to explicitly go and enable it on Android.
I really don’t get it. So this particular product doesn’t meet your wants. Big deal. They are millions of products that don’t mean my wants, you don’t see me crusading on the bloody internet asking for them all to be changed. I just don’t buy them.
Sorry, I didn’t see need to address paranoid fears.
> I really don’t get it. So this particular product doesn’t meet your wants. Big deal. They are millions of products that don’t mean my wants, you don’t see me crusading on the bloody internet asking for them all to be changed. I just don’t buy them.
I really don’t get why me wanting product improved mobilizes internet on a crusade against my valid complaints about absurd limitations of platform.
It's like someone told you you can only use an iPhone in a bungalow and you think some magic monster will appear if you let others use it in a house.
P.S. My pet theory why Apple is so controlling about what kind of apps are allowed is to prevent “embrace, extend, extinguish” tactics. Imagine if MS created dev tools for iOS that produce apps that use a specific runtime and it gets super popular. Now MS has a say in iOS’s ecosystem, Apple has to maintain compatibility with that runtime (and will need MS’s cooperation) and if MS decides to cripple support for those dev tools it will impact iOS app creation.
Not argue on the internet about the way things should be.
Don’t make it sound that Android is “iOS without walled garden”. I want ecosystem without bloat, that doesn’t spy on me and where I’m not the product that’s not the state of Android at the moment (unless you’re willing to bother with custom ROMs).
I’ve paid 1,5k for this thing and have every right to complain.
But the companies involved show no signs of changing, and you keep handing them money and your complaints are toothless. And you won’t support a project that is more aligned with your goals.
Are they? EU will force iOS into getting sideloading, like they forced them into adapting USB-C.
I agree that removing freedoms from the users is unethical and counterproductive. But at this point the only reasonable action is to give money to companies intentionally respecting your freedom.
Sent from my Librem 5.
Our household is pretty much Apple exclusively.
Have you ever paused to consider why your mobile unicorn doesn't exist?
I’m not sure this is an argument.
You’ll find that virtually everything you buy does not meet your exact specifications. If you are not filthy rich your home will not be to your exact specifications, your furniture, your clothes, your car, your luggage, your kitchen.
What most people do is work out what they can afford, prioritise features, and try to buy they can afford and maximises the features they want the most. Maybe they decide, it’s not worth it and get nothing at all.
Same thing with your phone, you may be forced to buy something, but you can get the minimum thing to get by. Maybe you are a rich tech worker and you can run a separate phone that aligns best with your needs and wants.
What will 100% not get you what you want, is complaining, giving the company you don’t like $1500, and then giving the company that might one day live up to your dreams $0.
Allowing side loading on iOS doesn't seem like it would impact anyone that doesn't side load. (?)
If I had a well designed bank vault I still wouldn't want would-be burglars unrestricted access to probe the lock design which could then be used to exploit other vaults of the same design. In this model, I would put a cage or bars or say, a walled garden around the lock mechanism to prevent unwanted hacking or characterization.
Yeah, I'm not aware of any good way to counter that kind of fear unless Apple wants to do so.
Unfortunately, countering that fear is 100% the opposite of what Apple want, so they're likely going to try and amplify it to the maximum extent instead.
That's actually a good thing.
Security by obscurity has been debunked for decades. This is not an acceptable argument for anyone who actually cares about security.
Information about nuclear weapons are kept obscure and I'm pretty sure the US government cares about security.
Defense in depth is a thing.
I can purchase an iPhone and a developer account and find the same exploits I could if sideloading was enabled. The "obscurity" doesn't exist to begin with.
Obscurity DID exist - you said yourself that you have to get a developer account. That's a barrier to entry, which is defense in depth. Dev accounts are a tiny proportion of iOS users.
Also, if alternate app stores were permitted, any exploits discovered via sideload could be deployed at scale. By not having alternate app stores the risk is reduced.
As well, assuming no alternate app stores exist and you managed to deploy your 0-day in an app on the original App store, Apple could discover it and have the means to remove the app quickly to mitigate damage. If alternate app stores existed, it adds additional red tape to get the exploit app removed and potentially allowing more damage to occur.
Defense in depth matters.
Maybe script kiddies wouldn't, but they're not the kind of thing to be worried about anyway.
"Want the Facebook app? Follow these three easy steps to sideload our app." -> Now the rest of the iOS users lose the nice payment rails that Apple setup which result in higher privacy and lower fraud.
"Want to play Fortnite or any other Epic game? Get it in 3 simple steps."
It seems that companies don't want to risk users not install their apps because the installation is complicated.
If there is really a fear of this, make it so you can only sideload apps if the development mode is enabled, which requires a few steps.
This alone would it make it so most users won't use it for e.g. facebook, instagramm.
1. Epic. 2. Unlike Google, Apple each year pours thousands of hours of developer effort into making it harder for Facebook to track users without their consent. The difference between "what is allowed in the store" and "what is possible on the device" is greater on iOS.
I do think that it is a rare case that a company decides to not use the official appstore and the risk of all companies switching to their own appstore is minor.
Android does restrict more and more things you can do and there seems to be no strong movement to alternative appstores, which makes it difficult to know what impact the strong privacy settings on ios would be with an alternative appstore.
I kind of agree that less privacy protection this is a concern, but I think that should be solved by additional privacy laws.
The claim wasn't that nobody was sideloading for privacy settings. The claim was "Facebook doesn't use sideloading on the android platform, neither does any of the other big companies."
>I kind of agree that less privacy protection this is a concern, but I think that should be solved by additional privacy laws.
Oh, that's a great idea. We should definitely rely on laws alone for this. VC-backed technology firms are well-known for willingly abiding by the spirit of laws—especially privacy laws. They definitely aren't filled with people whose entire job is finding the slimist things they can get away with.
Or—and I'm just spitballing here—we could have both the additional privacy laws and also a competitive marketplace where at least one vendor decides to use privacy as a market differentiator while leaving people free to choose to buy from other vendors with other priorities.
You should have multiple options, but third parties should not be required to provide you with an option that gives you 100% of what you'd like to have.
"I get to choose" does not mean "I get to have a bespoke solution."
That's an interesting point. I wonder what other levers Apple would then adjust to keep them in? Maybe lower the Apple tax a bit, maybe something else. Probably a few possibilities that we haven't thought of too. :)