Hacker News Reader

Comment by organsnyder | Hacker News Reader

I was at [IAPP Global Privacy Summit](https://iapp.org/conference/global-privacy-summit/) 2022, where Tim Cook gave a keynote. He started with highlighting all of the ways Apple protects its users privacy (many of which are great, and the reason I use Apple products!), but then he pivoted to make the case that Apple being forced to allow rival app stores would compromise their ability to protect users' privacy. This fell flat to many in the audience: why can't Apple continue to offer a privacy-by-default experience while allowing more competition?

View on HN

The app store rules and review process are essentially the only thing that prevents Facebook from tracking you across all applications that use the Facebook SDK. It probably isn't possible to prevent tracking in a purely technical way. Even if two applications can't share data directly, they can each share fingerprinting information with a server, that allows Facebook to track you.

This sort of tracking can work even if you don't have a Facebook account, because so many different applications will include the Facebook SDK for ad tracking purposes.

Nothing specific to Facebook here, of course, it works the same way for any company with a large ad network.

So if you don't install fb app from another place pr don't use fb at all, privacy will be preserved, gotcha

Wrong: Dont install any App which uses the Facebook SDK (1), which you have no (sensible) way of finding out, otherwise FB will track, combine, condense and analyze your data across multiple Apps without ever asking you.

(1) or any other tracking SDK

Exodus analyzes apps and shows the used SDKs: https://exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/

The fact that the data exists somewhere is small comfort if users cannot read the privacy implications in the app store itself when they're deciding whether to download an app.

It's just BS. Privacy and security are OS functions, not part of an app store. iOS has a good base here already - certainly much better than windows where every app can just arbitrarily read every file on the computer...

> Privacy and security are OS functions

Naive take. Network sockets, remote servers, and data brokers don't care about local file permissions and an OS won't be able to tell me if corp-surveillance.justbuyme.com might be a domain hosting a privacy-disrespecting service without some sort of human-mediated reputation service.

Then we can look forward to an exciting front in the arms race that is computer security. Surely Apple, for all of their engineering and design brilliance, are up to the challenge?

It's not too exciting. That front is capability-based operating systems (someday) and application whitelisting (a.k.a. an app store).

This is not a technical problem.

Because grandmas and scammers.

It took me a long time to realize that Apple is doing the right thing here.

Outside of our little bubble, smartphones are a means to an end. No one bothers to learn technology more than what they can get by in their everyday life. Technology needs to be as simple and intuitive as possible.

Now, if Apple were to let a person enter developer mode by solving some Leetcode puzzles or CS quizzes, I'd be all in for it. Though I can still see scammers scamming people even with this.

>Why can’t Apple…

Because not all users choose what goes on their phones.

Some users have it chosen for them by abusive family members.

Asked and answered.

It's like taking a rabid badger as a roommate.

You can in theory keep it cornered in its own room (sandbox), but there's no way to be 100% sure it'll stay there. You can be absolutely sure that it will never stop trying to get out.

App Store apps can be trusted to stick to a sandbox because they are vetted to a standard before being allowed there.

There's no reason for Epic-F-Droid-Store have their applications adhere to any kind of standards enforced by Apple. They can do whatever shitty manipulative tricks they want to try to escape any OS level sandboxing Apple tries to build.

Doubly so for 3rd party browsers. A browser has a huge attack surface and can also run code (javascript and WASM at the least). Keeping it secure and sandboxed is not a trivial thing.

Ok, so what, apple can still claim you have the same protection if you use just our app store. And I have the ability to use the alternative store where I can download a game without paying apple 30%. It's great.

It won't be an alternative store, the game will get pulled from the app store.

Now, despite the fact that I bought an iOS device to avoid having to deal with shitty third parties, I'm forced to use the epic store and whatever else.

yes, zuckerberg is literally holding a gun to you head, "INSTALL META OR ELSE!"

This sort of comment is incredibly low value and doesn't contribute to the discussion.

I'm not being forced to install Facebook, but I choose to install it on my device. When this changes happens, the choice isn't going to be "install Facebook from the App Store or the Meta Store", it's going to be "install Facebook from the Meta Store". That's not a choice to the user, it's a choice for meta.

A choice for the user is choosing to buy an iPhone with the knowledge that this is a limitation, and if I don't want that limitation, I can buy an android device.

The user can choose to not install fb from another store if they care about privacy, simply as that, user decides what's in their phone

The user has that choice right now to not install it from the App Store if that's their preference.

yep, user can choose to do what they want, including installing apps from third party or viceversa - not installing an app that doesn't respect their privacy/values

You're deliberately avoiding my point and my preferences. I want to use Meta's services, play Genshin Impact, and use microsoft apps on windows. I want to manage my subscriptions via the app store. I bought an iOS device _knowing_ that was the setup.

We've seen this change with uPlay, battle.net, epic launcher on PC. Users don't get "more choice", we live with the rules the developer sets out for us. I _want_ to be on a platform where the developer sets standards for payment handling, authentication options. I don't want to have to provide my payment deatils to Genshin's app store, but I do want to pay them.

Stop telling me that I will have a choice when I have already made a choice, and _you_ want something different.

and now you're gonna have to live by the rules the law say. same as in any other circumstance.

Someone else can come and say "but i want to sideload meta and Y and Z, but still use an iphone!".

Sure, both are choices, and MAYBE mutually exclusive. I will then side with the one that is most free. In this case thankfully regulation seems to aswell

> This sort of comment is incredibly low value and doesn't contribute to the discussion.

We're 4 comments deep on a thread of people worried about Facebook being removed from the App Store. Reminding everyone that Meta is optional might be the most rational thing typed in response to this godforsaken article.

>Reminding everyone that Meta is optional

Installing Meta is optional, but somehow buying an iPhone isn't.

Buying an iPhone is optional, living in an anticompetitive digital market is not. I hope you and the European iPhone users can reconcile that.

you should be free to opt into a walled garden, but you shouldnt be forcing everyone to do so to play

That goes both ways - you shouldn't force other people to play by your rules ifyou want to play in their garden.

Don't know about elsewhere but in Sweden companies, and what's worse government funded organisations, outsource and demand the use of services by Google, Facebook etc. Otherwise you'll be treated like a second class citizen.

Epic will pull Fortnite off App Store at lightning speed.

It'll only be available on their own store where they get 100% of profits and can use any kind of predatory crap to get kids to pay for the next fancy skin.

yes and thankfully you have all the freedom to not buy it as its not in the walled garden.

Epic is not forced to put fortnite on ios as it is now, they choose to, but arent forced.

You should absolutely be free to opt into a walled garden if you want to, but do not force others to go into the garden to play

> but do not force others to go into the garden to play

I choose to live in the walled garden, and there is another option (android) for those who don't. You telling me the walls have to come down is you bringing your rules to the garden _I_ choose to be in.

clearly a great many iphone users would rather the non-walled garden, or they would just only install things that comes via it, and you have the best of both worlds?

perhaps your wish (of convenient limitations) just isnt the most popular?

I happen to largely agree that some of the walls apple puts up is for the best, but I would never presume to think I have the right to force that on others. Sure, keep their walled garden, if meta/epic/whatever does not want to play with that walled garden, well.. thats on them, and on their patrons to decide if they wish to patron

The walled garden isn't just what comes with the device, it's that plus the app store - knowing for example that any game I download will allow me to pay via apple pay, login with apple, manage my subscriptionz and cancel them in a sane way.

> thats on them, and on their patrons to decide if they wish to patron

This isn't giving the patrons a choice though, it's giving epic or meta a choice. The user has to accept whatever they do, and personally I trust apple to do that more than I do a random developer.

If the sandbox can be imposed on an OS level then apps on alternative stores will have to conform to the same baseline of security restrictions.

The issue is that "imposing the sandbox" isn't simple.

Apple themselves have "imposed a sandbox" for Safari since the first version appeared on iOS. Still we had multiple exploits, even though they owned both sides of the code.

Now imagine a situation where you're building a sandbox and the sandboxed application is using every trick possible to try to get out.

> Now imagine a situation where you're building a sandbox and the sandboxed application is using every trick possible to try to get out.

This hellish hypothetical you pose already exists. It’s called macOS.

I would equate it to a rabid badger that is behind a door behind another door with both having signs saying ‘beware of rabid badger’. If you want to play with the badger, go for it or just leave the doors shut and you never have to worry about it.

Yes, but in a world where people have been trained to ignore signs if they want to have nice things. No kid and most adults would think twice before clicking I agree even if the screen was flashing red and the phone was making klaxon sounds.

If there's any company in the world that can use UX to their advantage, it's Apple. If they can create text message social division simply through blue vs. green bubble, they can find a way to subtly make non-App Store apps unpalatable except to technical users who know what they're doing.

-4 points, really?

Argue with the premise, don't just tap downvote. This isn't Reddit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com