Apple 'like The Godfather' with new App Store rules | Hacker News Reader

Apple 'like The Godfather' with new App Store rules

bbc.com

48 pointstagawa27 comments

Compare it to the wild wild west of Android, Huawei and Samsung app stores my kid installed 2-3 games and suddenly his tablet is filled with ads poppin frequently out of nowhere (background). Ads that are sometimes contains adult themes.

This article is about the founder of AppValley, one of several app stores available for iOS that abuse enterprise signing certificates to work. If your kid had an iPad, they'd be installing pirated games from this, assuming you didn't give them a budget on App Store or something. Then you are right there in the same situation on a platform where supposedly this isn't a problem.

> the same situation

Yeah... installing pirated software with ads injected ads into the game is on the same level as ads injected into every part of the OS.

Android does not have ads in the OS itself. And apps on iOS can have ads just like apps from Google Play can have. It's either pay with your eyeballs or your wallet, this isn't different between the two platforms.

OP said:

> his tablet is filled with ads poppin frequently out of nowhere (background). Ads that are sometimes contains adult themes.

This would imply ads showing up when not using the dodgy apps in question.

Google has an article describing these potential symptoms e.g. "Your browsing seems out of your control, and redirects to unfamiliar pages or ads", "Alerts about a virus or an infected device", "Your contacts have received emails or social media messages from you, but you didn’t send the emails or messages". https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/9924802

Edit: also these:

https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2765944?hl=en&co=GE...

https://support.google.com/googleplay/thread/125807511/why-i...

two things can be true at the same time

It sounds like you're relying on Google's app store to be your child's device administrator.

Even if they were better at this, I would still think this is a bad idea.

I value Apple’s ‘tight fist’ around the iPhone app ecosystem and iOS in general. Android’s flexibility and Google’s focus on profiling consumers come with a risk of security and at a cost of privacy respectively. With more and more personal information stored on phones, I’ll accept the walled garden. Apple is clearly pursuing a business model where consumers will be comfortable storing sensitive information such as medical records on one’s device. This will require a tight fist to keep bad actors away.

I'd much prefer that tight fist came from the law rather than a private corporation. The DMA is acceptable in Europe in part because they already have GDPR.

It’s barely about security. It’s tough to do things like getting Firefox with an ad blocker on an iPhone.

There are official ad blockers for Safari on the App Store. Firefox and Firefox Focus on iOS have (ad-based) tracking blockers, and Microsoft Edge on iOS also has an ad blocker.

You’re talking about “strict tracking protection” that’s basically like browsing the web in incognito mode? That’s not really like Adblock origin. You know they only allow their own browser engine (WebKit) on iOS?

Apple has a set of APIs to allow third parties to write content (=ad/tracker) blocker extensions for Safari on iOS and distribute them on the App Store

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/cre...

User name most emphatically does not check out

Contrary to popular belief, even Franklin had the good sense not to fly a kite in a thunderstorm. There is essential liberty and there is stupidity.

There is nothing about the service of curation that requires it be done the particular way Apple does it. Their, and your, position is not supported by the given rationale.

I moved my 80 year old mother to iOS from Android because I was wasting too much time cleaning her phone after infections. She would install card games from the app store. So much malware.

Since the move not a single infection.

Or you just don't know, because there are no means on iOS to figure it out.

I doubt this. They would be tossing up ads, most likely. That's what the malware on Android does most of the time. She's not a target for nation states, after all.

Right on. I would also like Apple to decide what books I'm able to read and what foods I can eat, because users having control of these things comes with a risk of security and cost of privacy.

But seriously, if you want a walled garden, that's your right and other people having a choice does not infringe on it. You might actually like having alternate app stores—maybe one will be able to have even tighter controls on the privacy and security guarantees of the apps and avoid all the scams of the Apple app store: https://mjtsai.com/blog/tag/app-store-scams/

HN is in a scary place if any critical post of Apple is being astroturfed by obvious bad actors and nothing is being done about it.

Ironic that DMA forcing Apple to create a way for legitimate third party app stores to be established is leading to good press for shady app stores like AppValley and the like that abuse enterprise signing certificates to bypass App Store's "security".

It goes to show that Apple's whinging about the risks inherent with the DMA are unfounded when it's been possible to bypass the app store this way already.

The BBC piece is pretty fluffy, it's not clear how this person thinks they'll get approved without shutting down AppValley first.

There is no reason according to DMA under which this person shouldn't be allowed to run his own store. If blocked he can take the case to an EU court and win.

It is the fiefdom of the new age.

Good, I’m paying a premium on memory for a reason.

It’s interesting to see the downvotes pour in once the Europeans wake up.

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