I have no idea why so many of those commenters are anti consumer rights. Android proves that it’s not a security issue. Why are they so brain broken that they are actively against opening up their walled garden, like it compromise their apple product purchases in some way.
I’m an anti-Apple advocate and an Android user. And I’m against this law. What good does it bring? These are Apple’s devices; let them do whatever they want with them. Don’t like how Apple does business? Buy another brand. Advocate against Apple. Suggest alternatives. But do not force them to do things how you like. It’s just toxic. I believe that the most anti-consumer thing is when governments try to decide what customers want or need. I hate it when they take me for an idiot (I might often be, but let me make my mistakes and learn from them).
These are Apple’s devices
But that’s the thing - they aren’t. Not once they’re bought. At that point, they’re my device, or your device.
Surely you can see how having a single supplier can be a bad thing, right? That supplier has no incentive to deliver quality. Why would they?
If you want to start baking cookies and sell them, you need to beat several bakers in your town and several companies in the rest of the country if you ever want to be successful and profitable. This is because there are already several well-established suppliers who have proven they make great cookies - why would anyone buy from you?
On the other hand if you’re the only one selling - you can reduce cocoa content in half to save costs, you can replace quality ingredients with cheaper versions for the same reason, you can increase prices as much as you want - the cookie-seeking customer will still buy, because there are no other options.
Sure, you can also be the best baker in the world. You can put love and care into every cookie that leaves your shop. You can care about customers and make sure they get the best stuff, because you have a monopoly and you can enforce that view.
But in reality, what actually happens is that those decisions don’t belong to you. They belong to the soulless company that only has one purpose: maximize profits. And you can be the best person ever, but if you’re working for a publicly traded company you’re at the mercy of shareholders.
Why would you want this? Forget about apple, why would you want this in any field?
Smart human.
But that’s the thing - they aren’t. Not once they’re bought. At that point, they’re my device, or your device.
Well, you may want it to be completely yours, but in fact, there are many things that you can’t and sometimes don’t want to control on your phone. But Apple never claimed that you can control everything. Apple never advertised their phones as having many application stores; quite the opposite, actually. You don’t expect a satellite connection from a phone that doesn’t have it; you don’t expect a phone without water resistance to work underwater. I understand if some product does not meet your expectations, you’re frustrated, but in this case, you received exactly what you asked for. Want something else? Buy from another company. Why force this company to do things your way?
Surely you can see how having a single supplier can be a bad thing, right? That supplier has no incentive to deliver quality. Why would they?
Of course, I can see that having a single supplier can and will cause many issues. The problem for me is that I don’t believe in monopolies. Monopolies are very unstable. Firstly, for a monopoly to form, a few things with low probability should happen: in your analogy, there should be no other cookie provider (neither now nor in the foreseeable future), and customers should be willing to buy cookies that I produce at any cost. In reality, there’s always someone else who’s willing to (or at least can) produce more cookies, and customers are not complete idiots. If I increase the price or lower the quality beyond their limit, very quickly I will be left with full warehouses and a bad reputation and go bankrupt. Secondly, you always have a choice. Present me with a situation, and I will tell you which choices you have (they all may be bad, but whatever they are, they are options). In the case of Apple, there are obviously plenty of choices. They’re not the only company producing smartphones. And even on their phones, there’s Cydia. So, what monopoly does Apple have? Well, they’re the only corporation that can produce iPhones. Should we allow other companies to produce iPhones in this case?
Bill Gates would love you. Microsoft used its position to kill of Netscape. Could you imagine how rich they would be if they could strong arm everyone into only using their products?
To be honest, if Microsoft didn’t give a shit about anti-trust laws and if they just let Apple die instead of investing in them, we wouldn’t have Apple today. Which - to be clear: would be a great thing.
Maybe we should actually all strive to be more monopoly-oriented, the laws be damned.
This logic makes literally zero sense
Because Apple and Android are a duopoly and virtually a global one. And you throw all the pro-consumer laws at monopolies and duopolies, to strip them of any leverage they might have over consumers
But why though? I’m serious. People willingly want to be customers of this. They know that *polies are going to have leverage on them and still buy their product. Why should we say, ‘No, we’re not going to let you do that’? Or maybe you think that people are just not informed enough and don’t understand the consequences of their actions? Then maybe we should educate them instead of trying to control?
In this case, the government isn’t forcing the customer to do anything at all. If you don’t care about it, then absolutely nothing will change for you. The only thing it does is provide more options for people who want more options.
I definitely like my computers (including my phone) being open to me, and I love having f-droid on Android.
Even so, I think there’s a genuine case for security of a walled garden, even though I prefer the alternative.
Having the option to install 3rd party is another attack surface, and gives a chance for the market - or authoritarian control - to to veer towards not being vetted by that walled garden.
I.e. if a popular enough developer chooses not to publish through the app store, you either accept their personal guarantees or refuse to use that software. If your job or school decides not to… then what can you do, even if your school is not competent to keep up to date the security of their lowest-bidder bespoke app store?
But if you can’t side-load, there is no option, which makes them use Apple’s one with its protection.
I agree, that hasn’t turned out that way on Android… except for phones that don’t support Google Play. I hope it never does…
That would mean there’s no malware on closed stores, which is simply not true. Besides, you can allow more than one store and still have high security. More to the point Apple doesn’t care about protecting your rights, but their margins. More stores means lost profit and that’s the only thing Apple cares about.
Also, assuming big companies are more capable of doing proper security is just flawed way of thinking. Just look at Sony whose hacking and leaking credit card numbers is approaching annual levels. If anything I’d say some security nut will do a significantly better job than Apple, because no company does something if they really don’t have to, especially Apple who will opt to glue piece of shoe rubber to push on GPU chip instead of losing a penny on changing soldering paste. And it’s not an isolated case either, on iPhone Max series they removed a single drop of adhesive which made sure chips were strengthened when phone bent slightly. They saved pennies there but that caused user’s phones to lose touch on displays.
Just repeating their PR statement doesn’t mean that’s the correct way to go.
Fair point, but,
assuming big companies are more capable of doing proper security is just flawed way of thinking
Well, Apple and Google have a pretty good track record on that, as records go. Sure, a security nutjob might do better; and the FOSS community has done some amazing and well-trusted things, but not every contender is the same.
As a bit of a oblique example, I have games in Epic store. Now they (Epic) want to install kernel-level drivers, which I’m not sure I’m willing to accept. If they simply weren’t able, they’d simply do without. I’d rather have Microsoft’s malware than Microsoft’s plus Epic’s. (Side note, apparently I can use an alternative FOSS launcher so that’s great!)
And still, I prefer it this way - I’d like to have kernel level control on my computer than for Microsoft to ‘protect’ me by disallowing it. But my non-techie friends? I’m not always sure. Especially those in more hostile environments.
(As another aside, anything that matters on my computer is in Linux and encrypted; but the recent exploit using a bios splash image opens up interesting new inter-platform vulnerabilities.)
Track record is all that matters. Not a guarantee but a good indicator. Still, Apple is opposing this not because of security but greed.
Having the option to install 3rd party is another attack surface, and gives a chance for the market - or authoritarian control - to to veer towards not being vetted by that walled garden.
Authoritarians are always going to be prefer authoritarian app stores where any app that threatens them can be swifty removed.
Authoritarians rule in part via suppression of information. All governments can mandate that specific things be or not be installed on devices, it’s typically only authoritarians that are afraid of unknown things being installed on devices.
You’re forgetting that authorities don’t always work together. Authority sometimes threatens authority.
It’s true that Apple can swing their weight around in some markets. However, in places where the government is able to govern as they wish, e.g. China, the CCP gets their way every time in the end… And that’s pretty much how it goes with private companies vs governments. You either play by their rules or you seize to be a business in their jurisdiction.
I wish I could simply tell you that you are ignorant and you would think for a moment and recognize it. It’s not my crusade to educate you, and people don’t like realizing they are wrong, but now it’s out there for you to see, perhaps there is hope.
For me, security is really the only question here. If you want to, you can find a way to sideload things. But once you have an entire app store out there, suddenly a whole new avenue of attack has appeared that didn’t exist prior.
Android already has had this for many years and it is not an issue. We don’t need to deal with hypotheticals here, Android has put these things into practice for a long time already, and it’s a non issue.
LOL this is not a hypothetical. there are already bad apps in the regular app store. now you have two.
also Android has nothing on the security posture of Apple.
So you admit having a walled garden doesn’t protect you from malicious apps, but you still want on to…protect you from malicious apps?
I just want you to envision a moment where the opportunity for two bad things happening is worse than one.
Honestly I really don’t get the anger here except that everyone has decided that opening the floodgates is the only way forward.
So then… continue using exclusively Apple’s store then?
If you consider Apple to be the gold standard for security, you have just keep going as you are.
I don’t see how giving other people the freedom to choose infringes on your security.
No you fool! Don’t you see that because Wish exists buying from Best Buy is also a scam?!
Honestly I don’t get people like this. Are they trying to protect other people? I’ve never seen it framed that way, but it’s the only reasonable explanation.
what are you smoking lol
Less than you I guess?
You really need to explain this to me. Assuming apple provides a security benefit, then the same benefit still exist if you do not use the sideloading, except for apps that do not want to get checked by apple. But you only want apps that are secure also that are checked. How is the ability to get (maybe) less secure apps a danger to you, given thst you will still use the app store.
I can install any app I want on my Mac. How is this different?
except it is a security issue for those not tech savvy I had to enable parental controls on some family members phones cause they enabled side loading somehow and managed to royally fuck up their phone
Security is not there to safeguard you from stupidity.
Not really, it’s not much of an issue on Android. iOS will probably do the same, but on Android if you sideload an app that could be malicious, the Play Store has play protect and scans malicious apks like an anti virus. But also phones are much better sandboxed and secured then desktop, so their security against malicious software is much stronger.
While not impossible, you have to try fairly hard to fuck up your phone like this. I’d be actively impressed if your story is true (particularly as you used the plural), and if so I’d like to know what they were specifically trying to install that fucked up their phones.
It’s just statistically more likely they downloaded a malicious app from the Play Store than had any chaos side loading.
The plural is I just do it now cause i don’t wanna have to deal with it again and I don’t trust them but it was a obvious scam they clicked on and guy over a phone talked her through it
Splitting store in two won’t get them around the regulation though if both stores have same parent company. Perhaps it will delay EU from punishing them, but they won’t get around the issue. EU is not forcing multiple stores without reason. Competition if always good for end users and results in overall better quality of product. Apple doesn’t want that because they want to be able to charge whatever they want and you can take it or leave it. Also it has absolutely nothing to do with security or privacy or whatever the excuse people are coming up with. It’s just money, the only thing Apple still cares about.
That’s not what the article said they meant.
An EU split that can comply, and a rest of the world split that continues to monopolize the iPhone.
Competition if always good for end users and results in overall better quality of product.
Except in the case of ports…
I think instead of leaning on absolutes, you should just acknowledge that more options are good in this case. From a practical perspective, end-users do not benefit from Apple restricting the app stores allowed on their phone.
Damn it. The UK is not in the EU. 😂
The never ending cascade of problems Brexit still drags us slowly through.
I would rather have a “all users must have root access to their devices” or all software must be user replaceable integrated into the law. We let Apple do their own thing, but adventurous users could try installing android and such on the iPhone (similar to how the asahi project is making Linux on M series macs a reality)
As shown with Android, even if you have root it’s not enough, as it won’t let you indefinetly support the device when the firmware and drivers are still secret. Freedom of choice for whatever OS you like (meaning that any OS can make a port) would be safer and more liberating, I thing.
Also, to hell with Android, I want to install Linux on this thing and finally be able to backup all apps, configurations and files via simple “rsync” command or when the screen/touch/battery die install TV-centric OS to at least repurpose this expensive device as new smart TV box :).
Which is why I’m saying all software must be replaceable. If Apple can update firmware, so should the users be able to
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It may not, but that doesn’t stop me wanting it.
Every hacker and law enforcement agency in the world would love your user root access idea
I seriously doubt law enforcement agencies want that, or they would make it law.
Why are you simping so hard for corps 💀
Doesn’t the App Store already have separate markets?
Yes, but for Apple’s own profit, not the customers. It’s the good old ‘divide et impera’ strategy
Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
` Divide and rule policy (Latin: divide et impera), or divide and conquer, in politics and sociology is gaining and maintaining power divisively. Historically and presently, this strategy was and is used in many different ways by empires seeking to expand their territories; however, it has been hard to distinguish between the exploitation of pre-existing divisions by opponents, and the deliberate creation or strengthening of these divisions implied by “divide and rule”. The strategy, but not the phrase, applies in many ancient cases: the example of Aulus Gabinius exists, parting the Jewish nation into five conventions, reported by Flavius Josephus in Book I, 169–170 of The Jewish War (De bello Judaico). Strabo also reports in Geographica, 8.7.3 that the Achaean League was gradually dissolved when it became part of the Roman province of Macedonia, as the Romans treated the various states differently, wishing to preserve some and to destroy others.Elements of this technique involve:
creating or encouraging divisions among the subjects to prevent alliances that could challenge the sovereign and distributing forces so that they overpower each other. aiding and promoting those who are willing to cooperate with the sovereign fostering distrust and enmity between local rulers encouraging meaningless expenditures that reduce the capability for political and military spending `
Wow, that’d be a really cool name for bureaucracy if it applied here!
however, it has been hard to distinguish between the exploitation of pre-existing divisions by opponents, and the deliberate creation or strengthening of these divisions implied by “divide and rule”.
In this case, it’s “the exploitation of pre-existing divisions”. It’s not like Apple lobbied for “the European nation” to be split.
I’m pretty sure it was also for compliance with local laws.
I’m pretty sure it was also for compliance with local laws.
I really don’t know if they have separate app stores between north and south Korea :-)
For all the rich “western” countries, there is only the one legal-cultural difference between (former) British empire and the Latin influenced world. All other law differences are minor.
Apple can’t even sell to North Korea, so no they have no North Korean App Store.
As for legal differences, I think maynarkh said it much better than me.
There absolutely are big differences. Civil vs. common law is about the judicial, and compliance (if it’s lucky) deals mostly with the legislative.
The EU itself has been created partly to synchronize legal frameworks across member states, so companies like Apple can operate more smoothly and uniformly. Just think about stuff where Wolfenstein games either didn’t release or had separate editions just for Germany. Or just the existing different tax systems in the EU where they are not just different by value but by structure.
By country, yeah.
Moves like this always assume that location equals citizenship. As an EU citizen living in North America, a move like this means that I would not get the remedy that Apple legally owes me (or would owe me if I owned an iOS device)
The main thing I’ve been sideloading on Android for a decade is a fan implementation of the Dominion card game called Androminion. It was trademark cease and desist removed from the Play Store a decade ago, but you can still get the apk on Github
There’s a couple other things. One big gap in both the Google and Apple stores is the complete absence of adult content. I’m amazed there’s not more of a clamour for adult apps among either userbase, given that most people don’t own a normal computer. Sideloading could plug that gap
Just change country/region. No location required. If you do it through iOS you might need a payment method, which you don’t need if you’re changing it on the web.
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Somebody seems triggered.
He’s just a troll, or a shill. Don’t give him attention or he will feel important
That’s what actual Apple fanbois sound like though. I believe it’s a specific case of Stockholm Syndrome.
Excuse me. As an Apple fanboy, I’ve seen that both Apple fanboys and Apple haters are as worse as each other on average. Don’t fall prey to enemy mentality and think in absolutes from the worst examples you’ve seen.
I haven’t seen this for any other corp though.
No Windows user cheers for Microsoft when they publish record revenue figures. They know, they paid for it.
No Android user defends phone makers if the new model has nothing new but costs 10-20% more.But there isn’t a thread or article about Apple without some commenters defending them. Regardless of the shit they pull.
I’ve never seen anybody cheer for Apple revenue figures. It’s just a bunch of boring numbers that always go up, unless the company is brave enough to stand against investors. I’ve seen plenty of people defend Samsung for what they do, and in China I’ve seen the most obnoxious Huawei fanboys. Both of these companies have on average the same amount of new features each year as Apple does, and none of them persistently increases the price; the new model costs more now because they’ve cut last year’s models’ prices. To say that DadeMurphy is representative of most Apple fans is certainly an exaggeration.
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Kinda like how the kind of people that buy a Rolex because it’s expensive will scoff at Seiko owners. On the other hand, the kind of people that buy Rolex because they admire its mechanical movements is probably own a Seiko as well.
I absolutely do see people simp for Microsoft
E.g. when Microsoft was buying Bethesda and Activision, threads were full of people saying it was great, and those who said otherwise got a lot of hate for it.
I’ve seen people fanboying over Windows too
We see it with Tesla
We see it with Nvidia
Apple is the posterboy of megacorps that people simp for, but they are far from the only one
Reading the comments from that article is a prime example of how a cult functions.
In reality this will have a 0,002% impact. Most phone users are tech-illiterate and have no idea how to use their devices. You expect these people to go to a different store? On Android you can have other app stores, why don’t you have? Because Play Store is default and all app developers want to be where most users are, not on a 3-4% user share store.
It will most likely be background noise in the first months and everyone will go back to the App Store. The only people that will use an alternate store will most likely be the same ones that use F-droid, so 0,002% of the users.
But hey, it’s better to scream how this whole thing is making their devices less secure, because Apple told them so.
It’s always about the minority. Just because something fits 99% should not mean this is the only thing in existence, when other ways do not disturb. And one not fulfilled minority there, one not fulfilled there and soon we realise that almost everyone fit in some unfulfilled minority that is not dealed with.
I think that’s exactly the problem. The real user benefit will be very small, but in order to enable those changes, functionality will be implemented on everyone’s phones to support sideloading. In my eyes, this increseas the attack surface against iPhones. Time and time again alt stores have been used to distribute fake apps and malware on Android, and the victims are often those users who haven’t asked for sideloading and are unlikely to use it intentionally.
Yes, maybe this will enable an F-droid equivalent on iPhone and it will be great to have direct access to open-source apps. But is this niche addition worth potentially reducing the security of all iPhones? I’m not convinced.
But here’s the thing - side loading, even on android, is an opt-in feature. The user has to actively go out of their way to sideload an app. Even if an app tries to do it behind your back, you must first enable its ability to do so.
Yes, this doesn’t exist when ADB is involved, but in that case you have to go out of your way to enable USB debugging (and be stupid enough to plug your phone into someone else’s computer). The vast majority of iPhones will never have sideloading enabled by their users. The EU isn’t grabbing their balls and saying that all users must have it enabled by default, otherwise they’d be going after Android too.
Sure, I get that. The issue is that as soon as you introduce the ability to install apps from outside the App Store, it becomes possible to trick unsuspecting users into clicking buttons they don’t understand. By designing a web page to look like an actual Apple page, a malicious party could convince users to “opt in” to outside sources, in a similar way in which phishing websites harvest users’ online banking credentials. Currently, this kind of attack is entirely impossible on iPhone.
Doesn’t this argument essentially boil down to “people are stupid and we should take away their freedoms to protect them from themselves”? I’m not going to say that most people would make use of being able to install 3rd party apps, or even that it won’t give malware more chances to get people. But people can get themselves hurt or compromise their electronic security in any number of ways taking away people’s choices until they can’t make bad decisions anymore just doesn’t seem worth it to me
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The title is fine. The trademark is “App Store”, Not “Apple App Store”.
