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Comment by samcat116 | Hacker News Reader

Notarization has been enforced for all apps on the Mac for years. Would the DMA have an issue with requiring signed drivers? Seems a similar baseline. Personally I’m totally ok with that. I haven’t seen a single instance of them not notarizing something or revoking it for something that wasn’t actually malicious.

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> I haven’t seen a single instance of them not notarizing something or revoking it for something that wasn’t actually malicious.

Apple did threaten to cut off Epic's ability to notarize Unreal Engine[0], until ordered not to by the court[1].

[0]: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/17/apple-terminate-epic-de...

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/9/21492334/epic-fortnite-ap...

That's because Epic maliciously violated the terms of service.

In fact they did so deliberately to help them in their court cases.

Gatekeeper/notarization are intended to stop malware, which Unreal Engine is not. Apple may well have a valid business dispute (over another application on another platform), but it's an abuse of the system and control they have to obstruct a Mac owner from running non-malware software on their own computer.

Luckily the court stopped them retaliating in this case, but it gives me reason to be concerned about expansion of the "it's Apple's device and will always act in Apple's interests over the owner's" mentality from iOS towards Mac desktops.

Maliciously is a stretch. If a rule is unjust then violating is just IMO.

Not when you have signed a contract… come on this is law not Robin Hood…

Plenty of contracts include dubious and outright illegal things, depending on the jurisdiction. I'd say Apple is violating the public trust as they increasingly corner the market in apps and phones.

It’s not a stretch at all. The court explicitly found against Epic on this point.

They had to violate it to be able to sue. That's not malicious.

That’s simply a false statement, and it’s hard for me to believe you don’t know that, since it’s easily checked.

How would they have standing to bring a suit if they had not tried to challenge the Appstore rule?

Anyone can sue over unlawful contract terms without needing to breach the contract.

The one finding in Epic’s favor was that Apple violated California’s Unfair Competition law by preventing Epic from linking to an outside payment method.

Epic could have sued over that at any time.

No, notarization can be turned off on the Mac in ~15 seconds. Open a Terminal and type `sudo spctl --master-disable`. Enter your password and press enter.

You can also right click an individual unnotarization .app bundle and select `open`, then affirm your intention in the scary warning prompt.

P.S. The Mac also lets you disable SIP, install unsigned kernel extensions, and rewrite kernel memory to your heart's content. This is admittedly a bit more involved.

You could actually disable the notarization enforcement entirely on the Mac or selectively depending on the file. So I don't think it's that bad.

That would be crazy if it were true. The only thing that is enforced on Mac is a scary pop up window.

>I haven’t seen a single instance of them not notarizing something or revoking it for something that wasn’t actually malicious.

Do you think they would notarize a PornHub app?

...if it works like on Mac, then I would, yes. It's an automated process and I'm not aware of any content requirements.

>Through a combination of automated checks and human review, Notarization will help ensure apps are free of known malware, viruses, or other security threats, function as promised, and don’t expose users to egregious fraud.

I wouldn't be 100% confident there. I wouldn't be surprised if porn got through, but plenty of other companies have blocked such content under "security threats".

Apple doesn't care about porn on iOS devices, they just don't want it in the App Store. Unless a PornHub app is full of malware, it shouldn't have any problem getting notarized.

App Store Review = Content and Quality

Notarization = Safety and Security

Does Apple charge Mac developers a price per notarization? Because it sounds like that's effectively what they're doing here with iOS developers, since they require notarization and also require a fee per install for distributing outside the app store.

It's a protection racket - pay us and we won't flag your app as malware.

Not really. It’s a condition. You can also choose the old rules.. you can also chose to not develop for iOS. There is no gun to your head if you don’t develop for iOS

But the "old rules" were explicitly deemed illegal. Is there a limit to your logic? What if Apple had set the per-installation fee to $50 instead of $0.50? Developers have a choice! If they don't want to pay $50 per installation, they can choose the old rules. There is no gun to their head.

Where is the line? Surely at some point, the choice is so unreasonable that Apple has effectively forced developers into "the old rules," thus circumventing compliance with the new rules, which may as well not exist if no developers can afford to play within them...

Develop for other OS-es. Don't develop for a platform you dislike and have so many issues with.

I never write code for Windows and actively tell any client I have to not use it if they want my product. If they don't want it so much - there are plenty of alternative. If they really want it - they will use the OS I write the app for.

It is in plans though. I think EU should make alternative notarisation entities though, antivirus companies could do it. If we care about "privacy and security" here.

There's a $100 yearly fee if you want to Notarize apps.

You can install any app you want on the Mac, notarized or not. You might get some kind of warning, but that's irrelevant.

And Apple only allows certain kinds of apps through their notarization process. They can't have pornogrpahy, they can't allow things that could break copyright etc.

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