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Comment by cedws | Hacker News Reader

Willing to have my mind changed on this: why should Apple be forced to allow sideloading?

A big part of the reason I use Apple products is that they protect not only me, but my family who don't know what the implications of sideloading are. I know that the apps my phone runs have been given the green light by Apple.

Is the 30% fee egregious? Maybe, but why shouldn't they be able to charge the fees they want? It's their platform. And for those who don't agree with it, like Epic Games, maybe they can go and develop their own phone?

Mandating Apple to allow sideloading is essentially saying "we have no hope of ever developing a competing open platform so we have to use law to force this American company to make us one." Maybe we need less bureaucracy and more building. Send some of that sweet EU funding towards companies building open source tech.

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> why shouldn't they be able to charge the fees they want? It's their platform.

Wrong. I argue it's my phone. Why shouldn't I be allowed to install what I want on it?

Why stop at app for 30% fees? It puts a lot of work into Safari too, why not 30% of every purchase made through safari?

> Mandating Apple to allow sideloading is essentially saying ...

that it should allow users do on their iOS devices what they can do on their macOS devices.

>Wrong. I argue it's my phone. Why shouldn't I be allowed to install what I want on it?

It's your phone that you bought from Apple with full knowledge of the restrictions beforehand. If you wanted a phone with more freedom you could have bought another device and voted with your wallet, but you didn't.

>that it should allow users do on their iOS devices what they can do on their macOS devices.

Software limitations are not exclusive to Apple. They're everywhere. For instance, manufacturers intentionally kneecap CPUs/GPUs so they can sell the same chips from the same wafer at different price points. Why aren't they targeted too? You bought the whole chip but you don't get to use it.

> If you wanted a phone with more freedom you could have bought another device and voted with your wallet, but you didn't.

Sounds like a "we should improve society somewhat" moment. https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/259/257/342...

If you have two choices and one is barely better than the other, you think people shouldn't be allowed to acknowledge the negative aspects of the thing they chose?

Overruling the world's premier phone-maker on questions of how to design a phone is not improving society. I'm giving Apple money specifically because they designed the phone. I don't want the EU trying to figure it out; they have a reverse-midas touch. Things touch ends up slumping. It is a very salient point that the reason they are issuing orders to a US company is because they "helped" all the EU companies make decisions until they were effectively forced out of the market with failed tech policies.

If you want a phone built by someone who doesn't know how to design a phone, I'm sure there are already lots of tiny and irrelevant players already in the EU that you can patronise. The phone probably won't be particularly good though, evidenced by the fact that most people with a choice prefer to let Apple make all the decisions. Or various Asian groups who have a knack for tech.

In a similar vein, I dislike forcing of the USB-C port. I think we are going to approach a wall (especially concerning foldables) where the thickness of the port is a limiting factor and it should be up to the user to decide if its worth going thinner with a proprietary port.

If customers choose to go with USB-C, a thicker phone, larger battery etc, that is all and well, I feel that will happen anyways. But it should be up to the customer & manufacturer, not the government.

> up to the customer & manufacturer

Yeah, no. In this specific topic, we've had plenty of time to establish that it is isn't the case. Power is not balanced between individuals and manufacturers.

USB is a horrible mess but for the first time in my life, I can travel with one charger that works with all the devices I take with me. I could even travel without a charger and be pretty sure I will be able to find one at the destination.

People around me seem as happy as me about this and it wasn't the case as long as manufacturers were not forced to use USB. Nobody complains about the port form factor. That's simply not a concern.

Yep. Whenever I travel, I bring a single 60W USB-C charger that charges my laptop, my phone, and even other random gadgets I might need to bring with me.

I have an older micro-USB Kindle that annoys me. Of course, for most trips I never need to charge it, as long as I charge it before I leave, so for all practical purposes it's fine.

My wife just bought an iPhone 16 to replace her iPhone XR, and if it weren't for her AirPods from a few years ago, she'd be able to avoid carrying around that extra lightning cable too.

This might feel like a minor, first-world problem, but it is annoying. And when you scale it up, there's so much waste with so many people needing two cables, one of which could have never been manufactured, had we all been using the same ports all along.

This feels like a really wild take on regulations to me. Are iPhones also worse because they have to meet consumer safety laws?

If they are changing the decisions that Apple makes? Probably. iPhones are a luxury item; Apple is not skimping and doesn't want to accidentally assassinate their customers. Reliability and safety are selling points to them. We're not talking about explosive Lebanese pagers here.

My expectation would be that Apple could quite easily design the phone independently of the safety regulations, then do a review and determine that they have effortlessly complied with them. Otherwise it is more likely to be a defect in the regulation than with Apple.

So your opinion is that it would be better for the world if Apple was not subjected to anything that causes them to do anything different than what they would naturally do? If a country passes a law to limit conflict minerals, and it impacts Apple, we'd all be better off if Apple was just allowed to keep using conflict minerals? Apple knows how to design phones, and if they think they need to use conflict minerals, we should just trust them.

I just don't think this logic works. It's basically advocating for self-regulation, and that's historically not worked that well.

> ...we'd all be better off if Apple was just allowed to keep using conflict minerals...

It makes me laugh because back in the day people would have been complaining about Apple assembling their phones in Chinese sweatshops. But in the intervening time it turned out that working hard generates lots of wealth and now the conversation is how to sabotage the Chinese to stop them getting too wealthy, technically advanced and powerful. Those sweatshops meant business.

But to your actual point, you feel a need to compare sideloading apps to promoting war and conflict on an international sale you might want to reset your sense of proportion. If the EU wants to focus on promoting global peace I would strongly advise that they go do that rather than trying to backseat design iPhones. There is a major land war in Europe right now that involves pretty much every nuclear power except Pakistan they might like to turn their attention to. Some might say it involves resource rights too.

> It's basically advocating for self-regulation, and that's historically not worked that well.

The EUs regulators aren't so crash-hot either historically speaking. They've managed a grand transition from unchallenged global power to a 3rd tier continent over the last hundred years. They're doing something wrong. Telling Apple how to manage a phone is the least of their problems, but neatly emblematic of their strategy of having people who don't know how to make things work overulling the people who do.

If your argument is basically "the EU has more important things to do than tell Apple what they can and can't do", I'm sorry, but that's a losing argument.

There is nearly always something more important to do, no matter what you are doing. That doesn't mean that what you're doing is a waste of time.

In this case what they are doing is beyond a mere waste of time, these bureaucrats are trying to make phones worse after more than a decade of real-world feedback telling them that what they do makes phones worse. While claiming enthusiastically that they're trying to help I expect.

> My expectation would be that Apple could quite easily design the phone independently of the safety regulations, then do a review and determine that they have effortlessly complied with them. Otherwise it is more likely to be a defect in the regulation than with Apple.

This statement is a bit much. I don't think we can really have a productive discussion about this with you, because it seems like you've put Apple on such a high pedestal that you won't accept any criticism of them.

The idea that if a company -- at least one you hold in high regard -- would naturally design a product that would violate some regulation, then that regulation must be wrong... wow, that's an incredible statement to make.

Exactly. These are the people that champion "small government" thinking it hurts regulation, not realizing that without regulation companies screw over consumers as much as they possibly can.

> you've put Apple on such a high pedestal that you won't accept any criticism of them.

Apple's market share is like 20%, 30% globally. There is clearly a lot to criticise; most people don't use iPhones. If you want to compare an Apple phone and a Huawei phone then Huawei has them beat on a number of things. One of them can probably makes a phone detectably safer than the other too.

The issue is the criticism being used to justify going from decisions being made in Apple (capable of getting double digit percentages of the world that they make the best smartphone) to the EU (incapable of convincing anyone they know how to make a smartphone & a track record of driving business out of Europe).

What if we let people who don't have a proven track record of gross incompetence make the decisions? I think that is a good starting point. Giving design decisions to the only group of people to have destroyed and bungled their own smartphone industry is a bad idea.

Overruling one of the worlds richest companies that produce one of the phoneOS duopoly, can absolutely benefit society.

In this instance, you can still give Apple your money - NOT sideload anything - and live life exactly as before. People - lots of people - just want an option.

I love what the EU has done for standardising charging bullshittery. I hope it can make an impact here.

Not so; I'd pay more to have my family using phones without the option. They don't know what they are doing. I don't want them to have options and neither do they.

Indeed we did pay more. They bought Apple phones.

Honestly, this just sounds like another option.

Some people want sideloading. Some people want "lock it down so I can't fuck it up".

They are just software options. Why can't we all just have what we want?

Edit: added commentary below

Other general purpose computers have Adminstrator/root vs standard user accounts. Why is this not a thing for phones?

Any option will be social engineered into enabling.

> Why can't we all just have what we want?

We have it. I compiled and installed an open source app on my iphone. There is a barrier which is just perfect because it means no matter how hard they try no one can manage to get my mom to install some shady app that abuses private apis and such in order to hack her unless they first get this app on app store

Making it an option would threaten safety and life savings of millions of people who don't give a flying duck about your or my undying love for full hardware ownership but will instantly become targets for mass hacking campaigns ("just press this button and OK 3 times to the red warning")

"if you really care about it, you can do it" is a fair state of affairs. If you are dead set on it just mentally map in your head the price of a 1000$ device to 1100$ and be done with it. If you care about these things and insist on using this brand then you can afford it

(I am a bit exaggerating the point but just because it seems like almost everyone is on the other side of the argument)

Hurr durr as if they can't allow you to attach your own Apple account to your grandparent's phone and put it into a supervised mode where you need to authorise for your grandparent to change settings like that.

Well most people don't have someone to do that for them... And even if I could do that for a relative I would rather they just had a walled garden device because I don't enjoy doing unpaid tech support

[Author of the site here]

It seems we're actually in agreement here :)

You say that any option will be social engineered, and then you go on to explain an option that Apple has already implemented that you don't believe is susceptible to social engineering.

Grandma could theoretically install AltStore, and then proceed to install malicious apps from unknown sources, right now, if she really wanted to. But she won't, because it's too complicated.

I'm not asking for an easy way to sideload. I wouldn't mind if it was made even more difficult than it is now, in fact. All I want is an officially-supported option to do so that isn't prohibitively expensive. An example I provided on the website is Google's ChromeOS. They make it difficult enough to enable developer mode that it's practically invulnerable to social engineering attacks. It's much more difficult to enable sideloading on a Chromebook than it is on an iOS device.

> If you are dead set on it just mentally map in your head the price of a 1000$ device to 1100$ and be done with it

No, it's $100/yr, every year into the foreseeable future, and the cost could change at any time without prior notice. If you stop paying, your apps will stop working, so if you've grown attached to and have become dependent upon your sideloaded apps, it's quite unlikely you'll stop paying.

The Apple Developer Program is not intended as an option to enable sideloading on your device, and it never was. Apple only wants you signing up if you plan on submitting apps to the App Store, which is a benefit you're completely missing out on if you use it exclusively for sideloading.

> "if you really care about it, you can do it" is a fair state of affairs

I would 100% agree, if that were an accurate description of reality, but unfortunately it's not. If you can't afford $100/yr, then no, you cannot do it. It doesn't matter how much technical knowledge you have; you simply cannot do it.

> (I am a bit exaggerating the point but just because it seems like almost everyone is on the other side of the argument)

You and I must not be reading the same website? There is a very large anti-sideloading presence here on Hacker News. Most of it is based on strawman arguments and flawed assumptions, but it's there, and surfaces on almost every thread discussing the topic.

> You say that any option will be social engineered, and then you go on to explain an option that Apple has already implemented that you don't believe is susceptible to social engineering.

An option like "a toggle in settings" like the other guy suggested will be social engineered. But option like "a possibility" available with hoops to software engineers or tech savvy people can't be.

> Grandma could theoretically install AltStore,

Only in EU I guess? Hopefully it stays there

> No, it's $100/yr, every year into the foreseeable future

OK. Add couple more hundred bucks. Doesn't change the point.

> and the cost could change at any time without prior notice

Well it all comes back to "we are at the mercy of the maker of the product we buy". From my vantage point allowing easy sideloading and alt stores are changes I don't want

> There is a very large anti-sideloading presence here on Hacker News

Maybe we read different sites...

Basically everybody is for sideloading and alt stores

1) big corporations who want to run their own stores and not pay Apple a cut for creating and maintaining the hardware and ecosystem

2) techie freedom maximalists

3) regular people who want to pirate apps and not pay small-time developers and don't realize security implications

Except for the second group I very much disagree with all of them and as I said the second group can already do it with some hoops

> But option like "a possibility" available with hoops to software engineers or tech savvy people can't be.

Okay, then the only disagreement we seem to have is that you think that everyone who sideloads should continue to give a yearly donation of $100 to Apple (which they don't need or want) for the rest of their lives?

That is a very strange perspective. Keep in mind that I would fully understand if you don't think Apple should be forced by governments to provide sideloading for free; that's a separate issue, and I don't explicitly advocate for it on my website. The EU legislation has already passed; I'm just explaining what it means for tech enthusiasts.

> Only in EU I guess?

I'm referring to the "classic" version of AltStore. The EU version only allows you to install Apple-approved apps and as such doesn't present any additional risk for malware. The classic version is available worldwide and it makes use of signing certificates from Xcode.

https://faq.altstore.io/altstore-classic/how-to-install-alts...

> OK. Add couple more hundred bucks. Doesn't change the point.

It absolutely does change the point. You claimed that anyone with the required technical skills can sideload, but that isn't true; they need to be able to afford and justify spending an additional $8.33 every month to access a feature which is free on every other mainstream computing device.

> From my vantage point allowing easy sideloading and alt stores are changes I don't want

I don't want that either, as I already said.

> 1) big corporations who want to run their own stores and not pay Apple a cut for creating and maintaining the hardware and ecosystem

I don't have any sympathy for Epic Games either.

> 3) regular people who want to pirate apps and not pay small-time developers and don't realize security implications

Sideloading doesn't inherently provide the ability to pirate apps. All iOS apps are encrypted and the binaries can't be accessed by other apps; the only way to obtain them is through jailbreaking, and that's something which probably won't exist forever. There's also of course unbreakable cryptographic measures such as remote attestation that Apple could employ if the problem grows into something too bad.

Okay, this view seems perhaps more nuanced than what I expect from a typical argument. Food for thought I guess. I don't fully get how sideloading won't enable piracy and ruin solo devs but I'll look into it.

> I don't have any sympathy for Epic Games either

Maybe it was astroturfing but when this was on the news HN discussion was basically back to back people supporting Epic, one reason I feel like it's lopsided here...

If your family is naive enough to be duped into ignoring several big scary warnings, then they are vulnerable enough to be duped into something worse. The problem here is not the magical walled garden tech but you not educating your family sufficiently.

> Overruling the world's premier phone-maker on questions of how to design a phone is not improving society.

I think it is! Certainly not on the level of eliminating feudalism, but it's an improvement.

You're also misusing the term "design" here. Apple's resistance to allowing sideloading has nothing to do with design. It's a business decision that helps them extract more revenue from their product.

And that's the real point: governments are free to restrict and dictate how companies do business. That's just how the world works.

> I'm giving Apple money specifically because they designed the phone.

And many people give Apple money somewhat grudgingly, because they know Apple offers a great experience, even though there are some things they don't like about it, and there's no reason -- aside from Apple's business model -- why those issues can't be fixed.

> If you have two choices and one is barely better than the other

I don't think "barely better" accurately represents the situation, since the other choice here literally allows sideloading. It's not barely better, it is better if you want to sideload apps. To paraphrase your meme, society has already been improved somewhat.

The problem is you have to make a trade off, and for no reason. You might like iPhones in quite a few ways better than you like Android phones, but also really want to sideload.

So what do you do? Well, you have to compromise. And not for a real technical reason. You have to compromise because Apple's business model depends on being able to extract more money from customers and developers by being a gatekeeper.

Whenever a company's business model prevents me from doing something I want with a product they might sell me, I think twice about buying that product.

Why do people get upset about the limitations on Apple, yet happily accept that their Nintendo system will not play whatever they want to install, nor any other console system?

Yes, it's a powerful computing device that is probably much more capable and can be made to do more things than the intended purpose. That's fine to be curious about, and if you are feeling adventurous enough to fight against the system to get it to do more, go right ahead. However, I see no reason why Apple should be forced into helping you do that. It's not an OSS system.

The first part of this comment is a bit of a straw man, but I'll bite.

The reason is that the discussion is nuanced, a smartphone plays a very different role in someone's life than a Nintendo Switch. For better or worse, a smartphone has become a requirement for critical services that we all rely on.

> The reason is that the discussion is nuanced, a smartphone plays a very different role in someone's life than a Nintendo Switch.

That doesn't really align with the arguments people actually put forth for sideloading on iPhones. "It's my device, I should be able to run whatever I want" is the most common, and doesn't leave room for the nuance you're referencing. Like it or not, most people arguing for iPhone sideloading are using arguments that also demand sideloading on game consoles. It's not at all a straw man.

Nintendo should have to open up their system (all consoles should), Apple just a higher priority because of how common their devices are.

> Why do people get upset about the limitations on Apple, yet happily accept that their Nintendo system will not play whatever they want to install, nor any other console system

Many people can get upset and complain about many things at the same time. For me I have a smartphone and it is essential to have one for everyday life now. Gaming devices are not playing the same role in people's life.

But in principle I would agree that people should advocate for more control over all their devices.

I think it's also worth noting that the Nintendo Switch and I think many of their previous consoles have been jailbroken to high heaven. So there's an overhead of maybe not being able to use Nintendo networked services, but you are able to "own" the device more. People have gotten Ubuntu running on a Nintendo Switch IIRC.

This is not an optimal solution, but it is more of a solution than, for example, the (maybe I'm wrong) lack of jailbreaks for iOS that are usable (eg. tethered jailbreaks are more work to maintain).

And people have jailbroken iDevices. so what's the difference?

Like I mentioned, tethered jailbreaks are not restrictive and from what I've gathered and require specific hardware and iOS versions (https://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/comments/1go8wy4/what_is_...). Sure, you can maybe jailbreak the latest iOS on specific devices, but it's a lot more restrictive in selection, and various devices have various levels of being able to be untethered.

Meanwhile, old Switches have a hardware vulnerability [1] and all newer ones can be jailbroken to their fullest with a modchip. Such pervasive coverage doesn't exist for iDevices to my knowledge.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/comments/1go8wy4/what_is_...

[1] https://switch.hacks.guide/user_guide/rcm/entering_rcm.html

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/SwitchPirates/comments/13n1smv/plea...

What exactly do you want to sideload on your Nintendo system? Is there a large, frustrated demand for unauthorized Nintendo software?

The game console business model is an historical anomaly. In the beginning, all console games were produced in-house by the console manufacturers. The consoles weren't "platforms" at all. However, 4 Atari programmers got wind that the games they wrote made tens of $millions for Atari while the programmers were paid only a relatively small salary. When Atari management refused to give the programmers a cut, they left and formed Activision. Thus Activision became the original third-party console game development company.

Atari then sued Activision for theft of trade secrets, because the Activision founders were all former Atari programmers. The case was settled, with Atari getting a cut of Activision’s revenue but otherwise allowing Activision to continue developing console games. I suspect this was because the 4 programmers were considered irreplaceable to Atari (albeit too late, after they already quit).

> there a large, frustrated demand for unauthorized Nintendo software?

Ironically, yes, from people who don’t like paying for things. It’s a booming market on Android.

And yes, I absolutely believe that saying Nintendo and Sony are allowed to make a locked down device, but Apple is not, is an arbitrary double standard, setting up a potential legal victory for Apple.

> Ironically, yes, from people who don’t like paying for things. It’s a booming market on Android.

Can you be more specific? I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to.

> And yes, I absolutely believe that saying Nintendo and Sony are allowed to make a locked down device, but Apple is not, is an arbitrary double standard, setting up a potential legal victory for Apple.

What are you replying to? I didn't make any such claim in my comment. I wasn't defending the console business model, just explaining how it came about, which is very different from most computing platforms.

A. Unlocked devices foster piracy. Piracy is also the biggest reason people complain about locked down devices and game consoles. It is also a fact that a pirated binary, stripped of identifying information, becomes easy to sideload.

B. The law makes no distinction between a game console and a computing platform, nor should it. There is also no such thing legally as a “general purpose computer” like I’ve seen some people try to define iPads as, so as to somehow justify iPad sideloading but not Switch sideloading.

C. I don’t buy the 30% cut argument, because we have a counter example: Steam on PC. How many companies sell their games directly outside of Steam? How many give you a 25% discount on top of that? Nobody.

> Piracy is also the biggest reason people complain about locked down devices and game consoles.

I can't speak for game consoles, but this is absolutely false with regard to iPhone lockdown.

Believe me, I would bet $1000 right now, that if unfettered IPA installation was added to iPhone, piracy would be more than 90% of installs. Some game developers have experienced as high as 98% piracy rates on Android through APK sideloading.

Why do you think mobile games are so full of ads? In part, because ads stick around and are profitable, no matter where you got your app. As long as sideloading files is so heavily connected to piracy, we’ll be lucky to see alternative app stores, but never direct installation on iOS.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/5hozvo/absolutely_...

"Or do we go waste our time trying to piracy protect our Android apps?"

So they have no copy protection at all? Well, sure, if you rely on OS lockdown as your sole copy protection, and the OS is unlocked, then of course you're open to piracy.

Yes, they do need to "waste their time", as it were, protecting their own apps. This is something desktop developers figured out ages ago.

Feels like victim blaming.

That's not what that term means.

So what? I'm not responsible for other people's business models.

It's funny, because I remember computing in the 80s and 90s, when most software came in a box and was bought from a store or through mail order. Piracy was a problem then, and companies tried to invent all sorts of copy-protection schemes. Some of them worked decently well, but most (all?) were eventually defeated. That didn't stop the world from having a healthy market for software.

Phones are no different. If Android developers have a piracy problem, they should develop strong copy-protection schemes. Sure, none of those schemes will be perfect, but they generally have the effect of moving piracy further out to the margins.

Otherwise: tough shit. If people pirate your app, explore avenues through the legal system to get them to stop. If that doesn't work, that's just a cost of doing business.

> Why do you think mobile games are so full of ads?

Because most games are not games, but clones of other games purely as vehicles to show ads. The goal is to show ads more than it is to be a game.

> How many give you a 25% discount on top of that? Nobody.

Because they are not allowed to sell the game cheaper elsewhere if they also want to sell on Steam. Their dev ToS require that.

You seem to be saying all people are the same. Plenty of people get upset about Nintendo (and other consoles) being locked down. Plenty more people don't care and happily buy them (and Apple devices).

Well, two things:

1. There are lots of people who get upset that their Nintendo won't let them install other things. There are hacker/homebrew communities that have formed around pretty much every console.

2. Phones are general-purpose computing devices. Consoles are not, even though modern consoles have hardware that is more or less the same as what you might find in a general-purpose computer.

> However, I see no reason why Apple should be forced into helping you do that.

It's the opposite problem: the default is to just let people do that. Apple has instead gone to the effort and work to lock down iOS to prevent sideloading. So no, Apple shouldn't be forced to help people sideload, but they should be forced to stop hindering people from sideloading.

> So no, Apple shouldn't be forced to help people sideload, but they should be forced to stop hindering people from sideloading.

Now you sound like FBI director "we need backdoors for the good guys". By allowing a mechanism for side loading weakens the security of the device. If a good guy can use it, so can a bad guy.

At the end of the day the proposition is very simple, there's no need to go into those backdoor analogies.

No device manufacturer should have more control over that device's code execution than the end user of that device does after the sale.

> It's your phone that you bought from Apple with full knowledge of the restrictions beforehand. If you wanted a phone with more freedom you could have bought another device and voted with your wallet, but you didn't.

This is an unfair argument. No consumer can be expected to do hours of research on every purchase they make and understand the implications of everything. Manufacturers can say almost anything they want as "marketing" and can/do change the terms at anytime they wish.

> Software limitations are not exclusive to Apple. They're everywhere. For instance, manufacturers intentionally kneecap CPUs/GPUs so they can sell the same chips from the same wafer at different price points. Why aren't they targeted too? You bought the whole chip but you don't get to use it.

Yes and motherboard manufacturers have also offered BIOS options to bypass those kneecaps. I remember having fun unlocking the fourth core on my AMD Athlon II x3 455 and getting the "whole chip".

It's not quite the same scenario though. Some of those CPUs/GPUs have hardware issues such as an unstable core and the company is making the best of it by selling them as lesser models instead of trashing them.

> No consumer can be expected to do hours of research on every purchase they make and understand the implications of everything.

And yet you expect them to do that research for EVERY APP someone on the phone tells them to install?! That is how scammers walked my grandma through installing a fake banking app on her android phone, and stole all her money. Luckily iOS stops that!

I'm not the one blaming consumers here.

Sorry to hear about your Grandmother but just because someone has an Iphone doesn't mean the scammers will give up. They'll just pick another attack vector.

So far, they give up when they hear that it is not an android. I'll take it.

> And yet you expect them to do that research for EVERY APP someone on the phone tells them to install?!

No, we're expecting people who don't want to do that research to only install from an official, vetted source, like the Apple App Store.

> That is how scammers walked my grandma through installing a fake banking app on her android phone, and stole all her money.

That genuinely sucks, but I don't think keeping people from fully owning their devices is the answer to that problem.

Put another way, if this is your position, then you should also support the idea of Apple also locking down macOS so it will only run apps installed through the Mac App Store. And Microsoft should do something similar with Windows. But I sincerely hope you wouldn't support that... that's just absurd.

The funny thing is that directing people to malicious websites is generally a lot easier than getting them to sideload a malicious app. If Android were to suddenly start disallowing sideloading, I'm sure the people who tricked your grandmother would have based their scam on a malicious website instead. If she trusted some rando on the phone to download and install a malicious app, I'm sure she would have been tricked by that same rando directing her to a malicious website.

But I guess we can just ban web browsers too, right?

>Luckily iOS stops that!

So you're just ignoring how the app store regularly has outright scam apps in it like : https://blog.lastpass.com/posts/warning-fraudulent-app-imper...

Apple's limitations demonstrably are not protective.

I bought my iPhone after it was ruled Apple must allow side loading to comply with EU law.

> If you wanted a phone with more freedom you could have bought another device and voted with your wallet, but you didn't.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that we don't have much choice. iPhone or Android. That's it. Someone can very reasonably want the sideloading ability of Android with the stronger privacy stance of an iPhone.

Someone who has Macs might like Android's sideloading abilities, but also value the iPhone's integration with macOS and the larger Apple ecosystem.

Sure, your stance can be, "too bad; you still have to make a choice, knowing the pluses and minuses of each platform". And yes, that's where we are today. But we don't have to be, and there's mostly no reason (aside from Apple's business model) that we can't have more choices and more freedoms.

> full knowledge of the restrictions beforehand.

Yes, and I and plenty of others are arguing that these restrictions are anti competitive and anti consumer, and should be illegal.

Nothing about the hardware benefits, longer term software support, and aesthetic qualities of iPhones requires these restrictions.

> voted with your wallet, but you didn't.

Instead I’m voting with my vote.

> are not exclusive to Apple

And they are as much of a problem there as they are here. There are lots of right to repair laws being put forward to try to stop this shitty behaviour.

You are allowed to NOT buy that phone? You are allowed to buy a phone that allows the use case you look for. Why should your use case be forced on rest?

We may want to start thinking about smartphones as infrastructure.

It’s not practical to run five sets of power lines to each house so that utility companies can compete in a free market. Thus utility companies are heavily regulated.

But it’s also not practical for each person to carry five smartphones. So, maybe we need to regulate this space as well?..

This makes sense but is twisting the arms of the infrastructure companies the way to go? Can't we just encourage free market dynamics? If open platforms are what the consumer wants, manufacturers will sell phones with open platforms and the consumer will decide what they want to buy. EU funding can help rebalance if needed by helping develop new competitors.

EU voters decided to use regulations instead of the market. That’s their right. There’s no reason to give the market some magic position as the only way to do things.

> the consumer will decide what they want to buy

Except people don't actually buy in a way that's consistent with enlightened self interest, making the free market at best a poor approximation to reality.

Consumers buy what's advertised, what's 'influenced', what their friends have and what's shiny, ahead of what might actually be useful for them. Micro-level decisions people make rarely take into account macro-level consequences.

This is not to say I think regulation is an amazing solution to everything, but more that I think there is a religiosity to free-market proponents that credits market participants and markets themselves with more than their due.

> Can't we just encourage free market dynamics?

The free market is a myth. We have a smartphone OS duopoly, and neither one needs to provide what customers actually want in order to be successful.

A new company entering this market will have essentally no chance of being successful.

We don't have a healthy, competitive market here. If I want to buy a new couch, I have hundreds of manufacturers to choose from, with a wide variety of styles and colors. I can pretty much find my perfect couch, given enough research. And if for some reason I can't, I can hire someone to make me a fully custom couch.

Obviously furniture and phone OSes are not the same thing, and it isn't feasible to expect there would be a market for hundreds of different phone OSes. But the principle is the same.

> Can't we just encourage free market dynamics?

1) It's not a simple thing to do.

2) The opening of platforms can be considered a way of encouraging free market dynamics.

The argument to force side loading is the argument that Apple are using market position in phone hardware sales to control, and profit from, the adjacent market of software that runs on phones.

Yes, you can run software on phones via a web browser. But Apple largely control the features of the web browsers that run on phones, too, and arguably limit those features so that browser apps are never quite as good as native apps.

This is "gatekeeping" and while it isn't illegal in all jurisdictions, it is anti-consumer, hence the consumer backlash.

If you don’t like it buy a “fair phone”. There is some freedom of choice here too. I want the freedom to choose a locked down phone for my family and myself to use without worrying about it being hacked.

I write this as someone who is a major open source contributor and advocate. There are somethings I just want to work, and my primary phone is one of them. I have other play devices.

I haven't checked in some time but why don't you just jailbreak your iphone if you want it to be "yours".

> without worrying about it being hacked

Are you implying that iPhone isn't "hackable"?

Under normal usage the answer is extremely rarely. I can't say the same for the myriad of various Windows and Android phones me and my family have had hacked over the years.

I can totally imagine "side loading" meaning, my mother gets scammed into installing some malware and losing her savings.

> maybe they can go and develop their own phone?

You don't like the phone system? Maybe you can go and make your own phone network. You don't like this forum? Go start your own forum.

Do you see the problem here?

Network monopolies are pretty much impossible for a newcomer to compete with, even for a rather resourceful entity, like Microsoft and their phones.

You supposedly "own" the iPhone that you purchased. Why shouldn't you be able to install the software you prefer?

Apple's control of your iPhone hardware is not a natural state. They maintain that control through the power of copyright, granted by the government. Modifying iOS and iPhones to allow running arbitrary software is feasible, but distributing such modified copies is illegal due to Apple's copyright, enforced by the courts. If anyone could copy and modify iOS at will then they would soon lose that control.

Copyright is not an inalienable right like the right of ownership of real property. It is a monopoly granted by the government for a specific purpose. If it is being exploited in ways that are contrary to that purpose, or otherwise undesirable, the government should be looking at whether the copyright that they granted should be limited or rescinded.

> why shouldn't they be able to charge the fees they want? It's their platform.

Why shouldn't a country's people, through their government, be able to make rules about how Apple's products should work in their country? It's their country.

They think it's good for consumers for Apple's ecosystem to be more open to independent developers. I think it's easy to understand that, fears of Grandma loading a non-Apple approved app notwithstanding.

> A big part of the reason I use Apple products is that they protect not only me, but my family who don't know what the implications of sideloading are.

All iPhones contain developer mode settings that can be activated with a little song and dance and compromise security. There is zero chance any of your relatives will accidentally turn off these settings if they are not actively looking to do so. Sideloading could easily be put under this mantle.

Potential counterargument:

"What if my nephew falls for some sideloading phish scam when trying to download hacks for COD mobile? Then he would be encouraged to follow any list of steps to compromise his security"

Response:

If someone is going that far out of the way to compromise themselves no amount of bubble wrap is going to fix it.

No, the counterargument, and why Apple will never do it, is this:

Take an IPA (iOS Packaged Application). Remove the identifying markers, digital signature, change the bundle ID. Lo and behold, it’s indistinguishable compared to an app you developed yourself. Install and pirate away.

On Android, it’s pretty well documented the majority of APK installs are piracy. Possibly over 90%.

Apple will almost certainly, if necessary, allow 3rd party App Stores if the law requires - but direct IPA installation is a pirate’s dream, let alone the actual malware bundled with. Unless the law deliberately and specifically requires it, it’s not happening; and with the strong piracy connections, it’s very unlikely the law will ever specifically require that feature.

That's a great reason why Apple (absent regulation) will never do it, but that's not really the point. I don't particularly care what Apple does or doesn't want.

Software piracy is a fact of life. Attempting to protect against it, and eating whatever (possibly imagined losses) are costs of doing business. That's been that case as long as there have been personal computers.

> On Android, it’s pretty well documented the majority of APK installs are piracy.

How many of those would actually lead to a sale, though? This is the same argument the music and movie studios always trotted out, and it's just as invalid now. Many people just won't pay for things, and will otherwise do without.

There's a certain irony that IP protection would be valued so highly when the entire AI field (which Apple participates in) is built on IP theft.

Does nobody in you family own MacOS or Windows? Because there you can install malicious apps so your point is selective. Also there were many malicious apps approved by apple - this days they do a lot of checks automatically so nothing prevents to do it (kind of like virus or malware scanner that would check something before installation).

If you worry about your family why apple cannot provide some similar but simpler tooling like parental control where (non-tech savvy) family will have to ask you for confirmation? In his situation you would be some administrator or guardian but will much less permissions.

Why bother? It's win win for user and developer because they can offer you something cheaper. They can advertise you that if you buy subscription from 1st hand it will be cheaper.

It would also allow different business model - instead of monthly / yearly subscription you can charge for app one time and then maybe for big upgrade every few years.

But it's not only that about the cost. You would be allowed to have apps that are not possible because would be rejected or cannot use private API that apple apps have. It would allow to have browser that support fullscreen mode, push notifications like android, better PWA support, WebGPU support. Faster cross platform apps (react-native) that allow access to JIT. 3rd party keyboard that allow much better voice transcription even locally (all 3rd part keyboard have it kind of broken right now because of API limitation) and the list goes on.

> Does nobody in you family own MacOS or Windows? Because there you can install malicious apps so your point is selective.

macOS doesn't allow that by default, though unlike iOS it is possible to social engineer users to launch shady apps

> apps that are not possible because would be rejected or cannot use private API that apple apps have

The range of spyware that will become possible is much bigger than potential new apps that somehow can do a good thing with a private API. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43197091

As I said shady apps are/were also in App Store. Today they are not able to manually really review and detect all malicious apps. MacOS is still more open and the world didn't collapse. At minimum they could provide similar mechanism like MacOS but on iOS.

1) apps still notarised so if app later detected to be malicious it can be remotely uninstalled

2) if it's you grandma/grandpa phone - allow to setup iphone as more limited parental control that only other from family can install apps

3) do automatic apps scanning before installation to detect app is malicious - revoke developer certificate in this case or ask them for clarification

> MacOS is still more open and the world didn't collapse

the world didn't collapse because the world is not using laptops/desktops as dominant computers for many many years.

Ordinary people use phones. Anyone using laptop is to a degree professional especially in any third world country. Somebody who mostly abandoned using laptop literally yesterday told me "I got a new laptop from work but I'll just get a virus in a week won't I". This is the adversarial reality the rose-eyed takes about freedom of computing are contending with. Maybe most of them live in the past when computers were used by tech literate and blackhat hacking was in intancy.

Laptop and computers still is used as dominant for writing software including for mobile - you know software that could be infected. Still no collapse. Smartphones were not main device 10 years ago and people did bank transfers on laptop and world didn't collapse 10 years ago

> Laptop and computers still is used as dominant for writing software including for mobile

Yes and infected Xcode and various SDKs you get on your laptop are actually the biggest threat to iOS security (other than just literally malicious devs). Devs torrenting an xcode and then infecting their users is a thing.

> Smartphones were not main device 10 years ago and people did bank transfers on laptop and world didn't collapse 10 years ago

See blackhats in infancy part...

> Yes and infected Xcode and various SDKs you get on your laptop are actually the biggest threat to iOS security (other than just literally malicious devs). Devs torrenting an xcode and then infecting their users is a thing.

Would it happen as often if the tooling was free?

...

Xcode is free

So why are you talking about people torrenting it? Am I missing something?

> they protect not only me, but my family who don't know what the implications of sideloading are

1. The app review process is largely ineffective. The idea that it protects anyone is a myth encouraged by Apple to feed their profit margins. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/06/apple-a...

2. If Apple ever allows sideloading, it will inevitably involve installing Xcode, connecting your phone to your laptop with a USB cable, running obscure shell commands and clicking through scary warnings. Do you really think your grandparents are capable of doing this, let alone being tricked into it?

> A big part of the reason I use Apple products is that they protect not only me, but my family who don't know what the implications of sideloading are. I know that the apps my phone runs have been given the green light by Apple.

The malware my family is most exposed to nowadays have names: Onedrive, iCloud, Google Drive. They are all designed to collect all the user's data, are all opt-out, opting out is filled with dark patterns. And regarding dark patterns, having recently gone through the motions of downloading all my data and then deleting my X, Facebook, Instagram, Microsoft, Google and Apple accounts, I can confidently say that Apple is by far the _worst_. Yes, when it comes to exercising one's rights, Apple is worst than even _Facebook_.

Users are much less exposed to non-branded malware nowadays, as the incentives to torrent random crap have mostly disappeared, and protection against spam/fishing has improved.

What's so bad about giving people the choice to do something to a device they bought? If they want to have the option to circumvent the walled garden that does not have any effect on you who resides inside those walls. Mandating a hardware vendor to make its products useable outside of the hardware vendor's control is just common sense and it is the way things tend to work after the resistance of colluding vendors has been broken down. Car vendors are not allowed to block car owners from using third-party parts but do not have the obligation to service those parts. White goods vendors similarly are not allowed to lock in white goods owners into using only 'certified' consumables and spare parts. Why do you feel compelled to try to justify these attempts by this vendor to be treated differently? If you feel happy inside the walls they built you why do you insist others remain inside as well?

Mandating Apple to allow sideloading is not at all like saying there is no hope of developing an open platform - a silly statement given the dominance of such a platform on the world market. It is like telling Ford they can not force car owners they're only allowed to use Ford fuel, use a Ford navigation system, use Ford tyres, Ford oil, Ford customisation parts, Ford anything. It is like telling Chevrolet they do not get to syphon off 30% of the revenue a cab driver earns when he uses his vehicle to transport customers. It is like telling GM they're to refrain from mandating drivers only to shop at GM-approved stores, taking 30% of the revenue generated. That they only can have their vehicles serviced by GM dealers. Many of these things have been tried on the market, tried in court to be forbidden by law. Owners of these products still can choose to use only 'genuine' parts and consumables, only buy service from vendor-approved providers just like you would still be able to remain inside the walled garden even if others prefer the freedom outside of those walls.

Why defend the indefensible?

Modern phones are more like general purpose computers than game consoles. The console argument from Apple is disingenuous and gets far too little pushback from courts. Same goes for their argument that developers who don't like the App Store rules should make web apps — but limits Safari support for PWAs and limits third-party browsers to an older, slower JavaScript engine.

From a different angle, corporations are not people; they do not inherently deserve the same consideration as people. Sideloading provides actual individuals the option of more flexibility in how they use the device they purchased with their hard-earned dollars. Sideloading also provides the freedom to continue to install apps that might be removed due to government pressure. "It's their platform" holds absolutely no weight as an argument in my mind; it's reflects excessive deference to corporations.

Apple should be forced because the real-world use of devices they make is broader than they argue in court, because it is a company not a person, and because other actions it takes restrict the ability of developers to take advantage of the alternative Apple itself promotes.

Less bureaucracy is the solution yet the United States, famously lazy about regulating tech, has managed to support only two truly viable mobile operating systems. Not even Microsoft wants to be in the game. This indicates that the bar is much higher than "they should just go make their own" and therefore we can expect more of the behemoths.

For those complaining about not allowing 3rd Party JIT engines for 3rd Party Browsers. Please consider the vulnerability track records for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Safari:

I'm taking the best year for all of these (2024) - there are far worse years in the past 5 that could have been picked.

Chrome had 107 vulnerabilities that were Overflow or Memory Corruption. That is a vulnerability every 3.4 days. [0]

Mozilla had 52 vulnerabilities that were Overflow or memory Corruption. This is a vulnerability about every 7 days. [1]

Safari had 10 vulnerabilities that were Overflow or Memory Corruption. This is a vulnerability about every 36 days. [2]

Sources:

[0] <https://www.cvedetails.com/product/15031/Google-Chrome.html?...>

[1] <https://www.cvedetails.com/product/3264/Mozilla-Firefox.html...>

[2] <https://www.cvedetails.com/product/2935/Apple-Safari.html?ve...>

How many of those vulnerabilities were related to JITs? How many were actually feasibly exploitable, and not just theoretical? How many would have resulted in something actually dangerous (code execution, privilege escalation) and not just something annoying (denial of service)?

How many people are actively doing security research on each browser? Is the number of finds per browser more a function of how many eyeballs are on it than how many issues actually exist?

I don't doubt that there are actual, real differences here, but presenting context-free stats like that is misleading.

Your criticism is valid. Adding context is very subjective. Getting objective metrics to some of these questions is an open issue for the software world.

I don't think it matters if the vulnerabilities are JIT related - a process that can JIT can create code, so any exploitable (controllable) overflow or memory vulnerability CAN be pivoted into arbitrary code execution.

The problem with CVEs is that it is not required to prove exploitability to get assigned. It can take a lot of effort (single or multiple people) to prove exploitability. Earlier this week someone quoted "weeks" to me for each bug. They were quoting numbers for some of the Chrome bugs. These researchers said it was not possible to keep up with the number of bugs being found.

I believe (but cannot back it up) that security bugs follow a bathtub curve for each change set. If you've got a lot of change in your code-base then you'll pretty much be on a high bug point of the curve for the whole project. It also probably matters quite a bit about what sort of changes are being made. Working to get high performance seems (again a feeling) to increase the chance of creating a security vulnerability.

The level of public research is a tough metric. The reward / motivation factors are not the same. There is also an issue with internal research teams. They will find bugs before they are released, so they never really "exist". Does measuring the number of CVEs issued indicate the quality or level of internal research? What is a "good" metric for any of this?

I'm with you until the fees part.

I like the fact I can more or less assume security. I really like the fact that my mum can. Any way of unlocking your phone for sideloading seems almost bound to be an avenue for scammers to talk people into installing malware.

But when a platform is so widespread, I don't think "they can charge whatever they like" is necessarily great.

It's difficult because you want the market dynamic (if they charge too much, we'll just take our app elsewhere and people will move to that platform) to be present in at least some way, but at the same time the real world isn't that simple.

> why should Apple be forced to allow sideloading?

Because it's unreasonable for any manufacturer to have that much control over how end users use their devices.

> A big part of the reason I use Apple products is that they protect not only me, but my family who don't know what the implications of sideloading are.

You can still use devices in nanny mode if needed. If your relatives can be talked into sideloading an app and bypassing the inevitable big scary warnings, they can be talked into other stuff equally as dangerous.

Car manufacturers have total control over how users use their devices. If you want to change any of that, you have to start making hardware changes. You can do that with an Apple device also, if you have the skills. But why?

Nobody has those skills because of how hostile they've made it to modification. That's the problem. And the more car manufacturers do similar things, they more they become the problem too and laws need to get involved.

> That's the problem.

That's not their problem.

If they want to do a sale rather than a rental, it should be their problem.

> Car manufacturers have total control over how users use their devices. If you want to change any of that, you have to start making hardware changes.

Cars are not phones, and your analogy here is missing the point.

No one should have to make hardware modifications because they want to put code on their computer without paying Apple for the privilege.

It's not more complicated than that. As I said, you can still have your device in nanny mode if you need it.

Step one: Bore out one of your cylinders.

Step two: Your car breaks down, because everything in the engine is connected and finely tuned by the microsecond to function as one integral unit.

Step three: Blame Toyota and petition the EU to force Toyota to help you bore out your cylinder.

That's pretty much the equivalent. You hackers already have hundreds of Linux distros that are destroyed-on-deilvery because of the endless tinkering and programmer-first mindset. There's Android, Windows, and a plethora of other systems for you.

Why can't we have at least one computer (Mac) and one phone (iPhone) that is not destroyed by FOSS and corporate people, and is actually useful for normal people who want to get things done?

I don't get it. Why don't you direct your efforts into fixing Linux or Android? Then you wouldn't have to think about Apple and their devices.

> That's pretty much the equivalent.

No, it isn't. Your example is not analogous at all.

No one wanting to sideload is talking about blaming Apple for anything, this is purely an invented argument because your excuse of vulnerable family members doesn't hold up.

> You hackers already have hundreds of Linux distros that are destroyed-on-deilvery because of the endless tinkering and programmer-first mindset. There's Android, Windows, and a plethora of other systems for you.

Irrelevant.

An iPhone is a computer, a far more general purpose computer as opposed to something like a playstation (although I believe that should be open enough that people can put Linux on it as with the PS3).

It's simply unacceptable that a manufacturer dictates the code we can run on hardware we paid for. That's it.

> Why can't we have at least one computer (Mac) and one phone (iPhone) that is not destroyed by FOSS and corporate people

Giving people extra freedom isn't 'destroying' anything. Your concerns are incredibly misplaced.

> and is actually useful for normal people who want to get things done?

Your iPhone won't be any less useful if people can sideload apps on it. Your concerns are incredibly misplaced.

> I don't get it. Why don't you direct your efforts into fixing Linux or Android? Then you wouldn't have to think about Apple and their devices.

People are not just randomly wanting to tinker, they want to get full functionality out of the hardware they already paid for.

> hardware we paid for.

> the hardware they already paid for.

There's no rule saying you are only allowed to have one piece of hardware. You can also buy an Android phone for cheap for your uses where you find iOS lacking.

There is always an assumption here on HN that you are only allowed one of anything, and that you have to stick to that for life. Whether that is software or hardware. I have Android devices and Apple devices, because even though Android is destroyed as an operating system, there are some hardware features that Apple doesn't offer.

I assume you've already heard the argument that nobody is forced to buy Apple hardware, so I'll skip that. Just remember that you can have two phones if you want, or as many as you please.

> There's no rule saying you are only allowed to have one piece of hardware. You can also buy an Android phone for cheap for your uses where you find iOS lacking.

I. Don't. Care.

If I have an iPhone, I should have the right to run whatever the hell I want on it. I own it. That I can buy other phones is completely irrelevant - the point is all hardware for devices like this should be unrestricted to the consumer, period.

You've yet to give a convincing counter-argument as to why.

So far your attempts have consisted of:

- My naive family member might be tricked

- Claiming allowing sideloading will ruin the platform for 'normal' people

- Now claiming it's not an issue because I can buy an alternative

Do you have any argument that can actually defend why someone shouldn't be able to put whatever OS or apps they want on a computer they bought?

> I. Don't. Care.

What are you going to do about it? Are you going to kick Tim Cook's ass?

> - My naive family member might be tricked

That was probably somebody else, I didn't say that.

> - Claiming allowing sideloading will ruin the platform for 'normal' people

The proof is in the pudding: Every other platform is destroyed, because they are made chiefly for corporate and for programmers. Since there is one platform that is actually good, among hundreds of alternatives, they probably know what they're doing and should continue doing that.

> Do you have any argument that can actually defend why someone shouldn't be able to put whatever OS or apps they want on a computer they bought?

You can put whatever OS or apps on any device from Apple, if you have the skills. If not, buy something else. Or try to kick Tim Cook in the ass.

> What are you going to do about it? Are you going to kick Tim Cook's ass?

No, just wait for the EU to force Apple to do something since the US is too busy failing at more basic things.

This is also a really weird response. I was just pointing out your previous reply was a red herring, not any kind of actual argument.

> That was probably somebody else, I didn't say that.

Nah, it was you, right here[1] where you said "A big part of the reason I use Apple products is that they protect not only me, but my family who don't know what the implications of sideloading are."

> The proof is in the pudding: Every other platform is destroyed

Far from it. What a ridiculous claim.

> You can put whatever OS or apps on any device from Apple, if you have the skills.

No, because Apple makes it too hard. There has to be a specific kind of vulnerability and there isn't always.

> Or try to kick Tim Cook in the ass.

Or root for the EU. And honestly users like you are more of a problem than Cook will ever be.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43200668

That's another user you are quoting, not me. This is a public message board, not your email inbox.

You're right, I apologize for the mixup. I'll be gracious and ignore your snark, realizing it comes from a place of frustration for not having any reasonable arguments in support of your position.

I was typing a more comprehensive argument, but had to cut it short to drink beer with my neighbour.

The reason I inquired for your intentions regarding Mr Cook's backside is that in all these comments, you sound exactly like Steve Jobs shouting down his dictation.

> The reason I inquired for your intentions regarding Mr Cook's backside is that in all these comments, you sound exactly like Steve Jobs shouting down his dictation.

Not in the least.

I said I don't care in response to your saying I could but an alternate phone. That's not an argument in response to what I said, it's a red herring, a distraction, a whataboutism, and a completely irrelevant point. That's why I said I don't care, and why you asking "what I was going to do about it, kick Cook's ass" is just silly and irrelevant.

You mentioned Cook's ass because you lost track of the context of the conversation and didn't have any actual argument. Aside from the one you cut short to drink beer that I didn't get to see, I guess.

I've never wanted to sideload an app until recently. I discovered that the recent generations of iPhones and iPads can achieve native performance with the Dolphinios GC/Wii emulator, but the app can only be sideloaded. Apple doesn't have a problem with emulation in general (there are NES/SNES/etc emulators available for download in the App Store), but they do not allow JIT compilation for security reasons which these newer generation emulators require.

Currently sideloading is a pain so I still haven't done it. If it becomes as easy as Android I personally would be pretty happy just for this use case.

Ironically I'm a bit disappointed by how powerful the hardware is getting these days because of the software limitations. Don't get me wrong, I fully admit my days of running custom OSes is over, I only use my iPad as an entertainment device and am happy to keep it very simple. I just feel power users should be able to sideload an app or two without needing to use an Xcode debugger or whatever.

> Willing to have my mind changed on this: why should Apple be forced to allow sideloading?

It's not about forcing Apple to do anything, it's about not preventing consumers from doing what they want with a device they bought.

why should you have to ask apple for permission to run software on your device?

Because it's not a self-contained product.

Should ISP decide what websites are you allowed to visit? It's their platform. And for those who don't agree with it can use another ISP.

An analogy:

Imagine you bought a house from HomeCorp but if you want to buy furniture or anything else that goes in your house, food, toilet paper, etc, it has to be from HomeCorp, and they take a huge cut.

Furniture prices will be higher. You can expect everything that goes in your house to cost more.

If you find a cool couch from IKEA, you can't put it in your house. You're not allowed because HomeCorp says so.

There's no reason why IKEA can't just ship you a couch but HomeCorp says they haven't tested it so they don't know if it meets their standards. But they don't even LET YOU make your own decision about what goes in your house.

IKEA could technically build their own house selling operation but that's a massive undertaking and is incredibly expensive.

Not only that but homes built by HomeCorp have all these features that suck unless you use HomeCorp for other things like your car, or your job. Your car just works a little less well if it's not a HomeCorp car - but only if you have a HomeCorp house, otherwise it's totally fine.

If your friends don't have a HomeCorp house it's clunkier to have them over, they have to jump through hoops or get a worse experience. They can't send you videos in high definition. Because HomeCorp wants them to have a house from them.

... Honestly I just convinced myself. They make it so inconvenient to use any other option that you're strongly pressured to use them. Then because you are, they force decisions on you that you might not want, and take a massive cut of money. It's all shady business practices that are incredibly unfair and result in less economic freedom.

> why should Apple be forced to allow sideloading?

From the perspective of software makers, to fight oligopsony: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopsony

> why should Apple be forced to allow sideloading?

Because it is too large in terms of market share. In an ideal world, there would be so many alternatives, that I could just choose whatever ecosystem I want. However, we can't really reach that state of affairs easily. Without interference, the gap between the phones that support software freedom and those which do not will increase.

The "Apple should be allowed to set whatever terms" argument sounds like this: "We shouldn't impose any food safety or agricultural standards. If you care, you can just grow your own crops and cook your own food"

I think the argument I'd like to make is that when there is a oligopsony, regulators should intervene to add more competitors to the sell side. In other words, fund competitors, instead of using law to directly twist the arms of companies.

EU is already on a back footing. We are too reliant on American technology, and we don't have any players in the smartphone market. If consumers want something we should build it.

>A big part of the reason I use Apple products is that they protect not only me, but my family who don't know what the implications of sideloading are. I know that the apps my phone runs have been given the green light by Apple.

This argument always reads like satire, but comes up a lot. You're essentially arguing freedom is dangerous because some people aren't smart enough to handle it.

Apple could always do what Android does and gate it behind a hidden setting. No one is arguing your web browser should be allowed to auto install apps at will, or whatever it is you may be picturing.

>Mandating Apple to allow sideloading is essentially saying "we have no hope of ever developing a competing open platform so we have to use law to force this American company to make us one."

I'm confused on this argument, do you not know Android exists? The issue is that if you want to reach the majority of the public, you have to also support Apple devices, and you have to bend over backwards to their 30% cut and arbitrary rules.

Thank god this attitude wasn't around when Windows was taking off. I think we'd seriously have set back society if every Windows application had to pay Microsoft a 30% fee, and had to pass Microsoft approval.

> You're essentially arguing freedom is dangerous because some people aren't smart enough to handle it.

When it comes to mobile phone apps, 100%. My mum (77) can just about operate a phone, someone who gained her trust (and scammers are very good at that these days) could likely talk her into installing pretty much whatever, and she'd have no idea what was going on. Her only defence in such a situation would likely be giving up because she didn't understand how to follow the instructions. I also have family with learning disabilities.

The idea that we are all fully able, autonomous, powerful and informed at all times is a fantasy. For some people a locked device is pretty much a godsend.

I'm not saying the fees are reasonable, mind. And maybe there is an argument that apple should sell locked and unlocked versions of the phone or something.

You mums problem is not the phone. Her problem is random strangers being able to "talk her into" whatever and as an adult she is still responsible for her actions.

At some point, we have to accept that to operate things in mainstream society requires capability. It is sad when aging parents no longer meet that minimal bar, but it is part of aging for all of us if we live long enough.

At some point, we can no longer drive a car, we can hand over responsibility for finances, and medical decisions. We need a better way to manage old people on their phones.

Maybe sideloading AND "old person mode" should be options on all phones.

> You mums problem is not the phone. Her problem is random strangers being able to "talk her into" whatever.

You're right, the problem is not her phone, because she has an iphone.

> It is sad when aging parents no longer ...

Her problem is less to do with ageing and more to do with not being interested in or exposed to technology in general throughout her life. And it's not just old people, lots of people have issues in those sorts of directions, are we saying "throw them to the wolves" or even "my freedom trumps their safely own a phone at all"?

Personally, I would opt in to "old person mode" on my phone these days, if by that we mean the current state of the iphone ecosystem, as it's a tool and I use it just fine on rails. I think we need to get rid of this toxic idea that 'personal responsibility' is a solution to all things all the time, and that people need to be constantly on guard about scams

25 year-old me would be the opposite of course, attitudes do change, and I'd like to see both approaches accounted for. I agree wholeheartedly that monopolies are bad and that markets need to be managed for both people and economies to thrive. But I'm also perfectly happy with a walled garden for myself and my less capable family members.

> Her problem is less to do with ageing and more to do with not being interested in or exposed to technology in general throughout her life

We do all sorts of things in life (that have nothing to do with technology, even) where we are required to develop, at minimum, some sort of basic understanding of the safe way of doing those things. And then we take responsibility, and follow those safety guidelines. Or we don't, and then have no one to blame but ourselves if it blows up in our faces.

There certainly should be guardrails on phones that can be enabled for people who are aging and suffering mental decline, or just have developmental disabilities in general. Or, sure, for people who just don't care, and want someone else in their family to "deal with all that nerdy stuff" for them. But building systems for the lowest common denominator is rarely the right solution.

> 25 year-old me would be the opposite of course

I'm in my 40s, so I don't think my take on this has much to do with age.

> Or we don't, and then have no one to blame but ourselves if it blows up in our faces.

Actually we have scammers to blame, this is pure victim-blaming on your part. I find it pretty awful when this sort of attitude is displayed towards people who are the victims of crime.

One perfectly valid way to take responsibility for oneself is to choose a secured platform that precludes these sorts of problems happening in the first place. Given that people must use technology to interact with their government, and increasingly their finances, this seems a great way to go about things.

> But building systems for the lowest common denominator is rarely the right solution.

This is a moral viewpoint, not a practical one. Pragmatically, it clearly is a perfectly fine solution for a lot of people. Myself included.

None of this is to say you shouldn’t e able to buy an open platform if you want one, but not everybody does, and it’s not to everyone’s advantage.

> You're right, the problem is not her phone, because she has an iphone.

The problem is her. If she is gullible enough to be talked into sideloading she is vulnerable enough to be talked into worse. You don't need to sideload anything to make a bank transfer.

Yes, but at least one avenue of attack is cut off by using a walled-garden phone.

The problem is scammers. We have a lot of vulnerable people in this world, saying “well obviously they’re too stupid to participate in modern society” isn’t really a good answer.

> Yes, but at least one avenue of attack is cut off by using a walled-garden phone.

That doesn't really matter, and it may not even be a preferred method if they make the warnings sufficiently scary.

More importantly, the cost is too great to justify such a small and questionable benefit.

I think that has yet to be demonstrated, frankly.

No, it really doesn't. The people advocating for this limitation are the ones that need to justify it.

If that's really your stance, then I don't think there's a productive discussion to be had here. Your fundamentals are incompatible with mine.

But there are still solutions there: perhaps enabling sideloading should wipe the phone (like unlocking the bootloader does on Android). Or perhaps some sort of "parental controls" where it requires a PIN to enable, but people who set up phones for their parents can keep the PIN from them.

The solution doesn't have to be to lock it down for everyone, without any escape hatches. But Apple likes it this way, not for the safety it can provide, but because it's a part of their business model. But I don't care about their business model, and it's normal and right that governments regulate the kinds of things companies can do.

I absolutely see the nefarious, selfish, profit-driven side to Apple locking their phones down.

But proponents of opening it up need to realise that the status quo is a real, practical benefit to a portion of society as well.

By all means, let’s talk about ways it can work for everyone, monopolies are bad too. But while we’re doing it, let’s try not to blame or exclude people who aren’t computer-security savvy, or make their world worse.

I've been gradually forming this more general thought that we've massively neglected the value of review and maintenance of almost everything.

A new building or machine is reviewed once just like a scientific publication. A book or article might never get even a superficial review.

People are even offended if their things or things they want are critically examined and more so when others block it. Business Models that depend on monopolies on the right to review are possibly the most hilarious.

Edit: Search engines even rank things by quality without review.

I don't really understand the difference between the argument disallowing all sideloading to protect the elderly, and banning phone calls/the mail to protect the elderly.

Both can be used to scam the scammable.

Which is fine, you're not required to install sideloaded apps. You could even, for example, configure your phone to disable them in a way that can't be modified again without a factory reset.

But why shouldn't someone else who wants something else be able to do something else?

Notice that their ability to do it benefits you. Someone writes a crappy little open source app, without sideloading they don't even bother because the approval process is too much of a barrier. With it, they throw it up on github and then a dozen other nerds use it for a while and make contributions, until it starts getting popular and good. Then they have enough donations to pay somebody to push it through the approval process and you get to install it from the app store. But without that, it doesn't exist.

> Is the 30% fee egregious? Maybe, but why shouldn't they be able to charge the fees they want? It's their platform.

Corporations don't own you just because they sold you something.

> And for those who don't agree with it, like Epic Games, maybe they can go and develop their own phone?

Phone platforms have a strong network effect. Microsoft is a trillion dollar corporation that made a serious attempt to do this and failed, what hope does anyone smaller have? Two platforms that already existed when app stores became a thing (iOS an Android) still have a combined ~100% market share almost two decades later. "Just make your own phone" is like "just start your own phone network" in terms of viability for ordinary people.

> Mandating Apple to allow sideloading is essentially saying "we have no hope of ever developing a competing open platform so we have to use law to force this American company to make us one."

Okay, let's say you want to do that. The typical way to start a new platform is to create an abstraction over it that allows people to create apps that run on both your new platform and any incumbent platforms. Developers like this because they can use the new framework instead of having to create separate apps for each of the incumbent platforms, so they do, and then those apps also support your new platform and allow you to start building a network effect. Think Java, Qt, Gtk, HTML/JavaScript, etc.

Then all you need is the ability for users to side load the new apps independent of the platform corporation who is going to discourage that sort of thing (as, for example, Apple does by making features available to native apps that aren't available to web apps). Which is the thing being requested.

Tim Cook isn't gonna read this bro

Yeah, but Tim Apple might.

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