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Tim Cook Delivers Speech Emphasizing Apple's Opposition to Sideloading
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Your method is also true if you want to allow an app to install unknown source app manually. But the process is hardly complicated. The system will automatically prompts you if you happen to run a downloaded APK, and it's just a tap away. So it's easy for nefarious actors to fool people into downloading apps.
Heck, even my government has apps not in the Play Store, so they are teaching the public to do this as if it's something typical.
On that we would have to disagree. The instructions to install outside the Play Store are not difficult. However to be used to "trick"? Very limited in use at best. Matter of fact, if this was an easily implemented security issue, it would be widespread within the Android world - it isn't. Phishing via text or email is far simpler, far more lucrative, and far far more prevalent.
If Apple goes this route, I suspect we will see the same.
Even more lucrative and apparently easy to get away with is submitting the cons right through App Review in the current system.
It's staggering how much outright "theft" is in the store right now.
It's hilariously laughable that Apple is holding up the current system as "secure" and "safe".
It's not about tricking per se. It's about making the idea as "normal" without actually teaching the public about the risks. Big companies will simply want people download their apps and teaches the public how easy it is to side load. Even kids in my country are side loading pirated games and hacked Whatsapp clients. But nobody is teaching them about the risks because nobody has the incentive to.
Therein lies the issue and why, imo, the ios app store will become a garbage dump. Sure the system isn't perfect, but it will become a dumpster fire if apple is forced to allow sideloading. Tim Cook has a point. Perfect is the enemy of good as the saying goes.
Nothing to do with Google?
That's like German's saying "Hitler had nothing to do with us, he was Austrian!".
Google controls Android and Google controls the Play store. They could enforce a rule on Play, like Apple did with App store, requiring apps submitted to allow the user to chose to be tracked or not. They haven't because they are the grand duke demon of tracking themselves. Android is "free" because you are the product, not the customer.
They're worlds apart, I know, but Tim Cook is pulling some Vladimir Putin level gaslighting - "Only I can protect you from the scary world beyond our borders!"
B!#$&, please.
B!#$&, please.
Well, then let’s start seeing Apple make some progress toward “good” for something other than their bottom line.
Make the App Store the safe and secure place to download apps by eliminating scams and fake reviews, as well as investing actual time into app review. Sure, it’s easy to rag on the $9/week calculator apps that Apple happy allows (and collects their commission on…and sometimes even features) until some developer or journalist musters the courage to call the biggest company on the planet on their **** via Twitter in spite of fears of retaliatory behavior. But there also exist apps which cosplay as something innocuous until the app is live on the App Store, at which point it turns into something totally different and not innocuous (most notably illicit gambling).
Of course, Apple will often grant refunds to users who request them, but I’ve yet to hear of Apple proactively refunding users who fell victim to a scam app on the supposedly safe App Store. I know we’re deeply concerned about stupid and/or tech-illiterate people on this website, so where’s the concern for folks who are too ignorant to know that they need to go find the tiny “report a problem” link in their iTunes receipt email if they got duped into paying some scammer $7 and Apple $3 weekly for a $10/week fart button app?
Apple makes an insane amount of profit on the App Store while refusing to invest more than the bare minimum (if that) of that mountain of cash back into the platform on users’ and developers’ behalf — in other words, they’re trying to have their cake and eat it too. I’ve said for years that Apple would prefer to fix this before governments fix it for them, and Apple continues to decline to do so. They’ve been given ample opportunity to fix it their way, so now governments are going to step in with their one-size-fits-all hammer.
Perfect (for Apple) really does get in the way of good, doesn’t it?
There is nothing Apple could have done that would have staved off the inevitable lawsuits, because the competition is not interested in any of these.
Companies like Epic and Match want their own app stores on iOS. They want to be able to sidestep Apple’s 15/30% cut (effectively expecting Apple to operate the App Store out of their own pocket). They want their apps to not be subject to App Store Review or to features like ATT (remind me again how this is a good thing?). They want what Apple currently has with the App Store but without having to invest a single cent in the related technologies and platform.
And I am amazed that there are actually people cheering them on every step of the way.
What? Because the app store isn't perfect, doesn't mean it's bad or terrible and Apple is clearly entitled to be paid for use of it's assets.
Sure make it 100% safe, 99% safe, 98% safe? Who decides the percentage and what does safe actually mean?
All of this is a harbinger to what will come in the future if Apple is forced to allow sideloadintg.
How do you know. Do you have some proof of this?
It boogles the mind that there are those who think that Apple isn't doing enough to make the app store safe, and by extension ios safe, and yet there are those who want to open the floodgates to allow this issue to multiply unchecked. Go figure.
The total dependency of any customer on a single vendor for apps for their device is by definition unsafe. Is like having a single fire escape.
There is little data pointing to that … pure speculation. In fact, there is little data pointing to the fact that users are safer opting for a sole seller of their digital goods and services.
All the usual suspects of pushing user privacy out of the window as well as fake news are the usual players in the App Store … and pay nothing for the service. Except Google that pays a billion for being the default search engine.
Those with some insight can see what will happen by allowing unchecked and unvetted apps into an app store.
For some data, look at windows. Hackers will stop at nothing.
It's only fake news to dismiss the concerns.
True. Those that are on the wrong side of this want to pay nothing for using apple ip and infrastructure. And it is true, that google thinks the ios platform is lucrative enough to pay an advertising fee, which is totally customizable by the end user.
During the Epic v. Apple trial, Epic called an expert witness who cited nonpublic data in a claim that the App Store had a 78% profit margin in 2019 and about $22 billion in commissions, up slightly from 75% in 2018. Apple objected to the claim but refused to specify its own number in place of it. When pressed, Phil Schiller declined to even state that the App Store is profitable, saying the topic of the App Store’s profitability “doesn’t come up,” which of course is laughable. If it’s damn near a nonprofit like they seemingly want people to believe, they’re fiscally irresponsible in not caring about the ongoing profitability of one of their biggest Services offerings, or else whatever the number is, they know it’s so high that they know it’ll likely never be unprofitable.
At that point, it’s no longer Apple’s problem if users install software that hasn’t been reviewed by Apple (with the caveats I’ve mentioned previously that app review is a joke and the App Store itself distributes harmful/illegal software) in spite of system-presented warnings and get bitten. It’s the user’s problem, just like on big-kid computers. What a concept.
The amount of investment into the app store is not known. There is only conjecture about what it makes and what the reinvestment amount is.
Sideloading ( Imo)will turn ios into a garbage dump. That bad image is what apple is fighting. You're right to want sideload doesn't trump my right to want to not allow sideloading. Now the legality of the laws and potentially ensuing lawsuits will be interesting.
No one is talking about letting unchecked and unvetted apps into the App Store. That is not sideloading. Again you seams to have moved the post ever so slightly off … just enough to blur the issue.
Without understanding what sideload actually is, and is not that, I wonder what insight you are talking about.
On Windows … also look at macOS … look at Linux backing up most of in Internet.
Wrong side? I thought we were discussing privacy and security … but I guess it depends who on pays and in what coin.
I guess users installing apps on their devices is not a private matter as far as Tim Cook is concerned. Yet notes on planning criminal activities can be even with a warrant… case in case FBI vs iPhone/Apple case.
Now you of course are entitled to think that iOS with the App Store along with means of users privately and at will installing apps they want without asking even more $permission$ to Apple would be garbage. Others can disagree.
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I get that point however I would think that unless iOS users are inherently more trustful because it is an iPhone or iPad (that in itself is a concerning thought) we will see it end up like Android in terms of misuse.
For items like hacked Whatapp clients, that is something that all the effort in the world won't change: kids. You try to teach kids however peer pressure is far more forceful. Just make sure their phones are setup properly. Maybe Apple adds alternate install block as a child device setup?
Now there is another area Apple could reach into to help parents by making it far simpler than they currently have it.
That's exactly what sideloading is. The ability to load any app of your choice and bypass the app store.
Sideloading - Wikipedia
Ok. Let's move the goal posts ever so slightly to not discuss your original post. Typical internet arguing point. shrug.
Either you are lieing or is just plain ignorance. Either way your opinion became way less credible.
Sideloading is the practice of installing software on a device without using the approved app store or software distribution channel.
Sideloading is not the practice of accepting whatever App in an App Store as you described initially … moving posts ever so slightly … getting caught in the act … and moving it again back in pretending nothing happened.
These kinds of ways are the reason why theirs practice will be regulated. If one’s opinion has merit there is no need to mome posts.
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I get your point (store) however I think you missed mine.
Impact to ads on the iOS side involves Safari (Webkit). On the Android side, you can add to your browser to replicate this function. These browser changes are not Googles venue as Google does not directly control browser functionality like Apple does in iOS.
As to info use in applications in the App Store, I am not aware of Apple doing any broad verification of the claims the app developers post.
Or you're not reading posts in their entirety.
In your haste to respond, must have missed the link I posted for your edification.
Maybe it will and maybe it won't.
I read the post I initially responded to alright. Corrections after the fact that conflict with the initial observation than accusing people of not reading posts …
Why don’t you simply acknowledge that your initial representation of sideloading was just plain WRONG! Adding insult to injury … than proceeded claiming you had some kind of special insight on the subject that very few could grasp.
Just say … “I made a mistake. Inspite of that, I keep the same opinion I had because … etc etc etc”. It is simpler and more to the point you want to make.
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@I7guy,
Here is the drill. You believe that having a private expert in security and privacy, mediating Joe’s access to Apps provides him with a safer environment.
I agree with it … with one or two conditions also related to security and privacy.
This works well if such expert has no conflict of interests in the App market and Joe as the ability to choose when to “call” the services of such expert …. Otherwise the user properties are in theory at risk also.
Neither of this caveats are guaranteed by Apple policies. In fact on the first … the conflict of interests are all over the place. On the second … well the mediator policies speak for themselves.
How are users and businesses properties at risk?
Well if these two security measures aren’t in place, the power of such mediator goes way beyond advisory. It becomes a gatekeeper of digital commerce, a power that the mediator can use to leverage other positions unrelated to users security or privacy. A power that Apple has used before at the expense of device owners properties as well as third party digital businesses.
This needs to be regulated with all users security and privacy in mind by people that actually understand how multiple security threats can interplay. With the understanding what is being secured are indeed users properties that sustain peoples lives that go way beyond the use of a device. Not just by opinion makers or people desperate to take a selfie on the next golden smartphone.
This is serious stuff.
Here is the drill. You believe that having a private expert in security and privacy, mediating Joe’s access to Apps provides him with a safer environment.
I agree with it … with one or two conditions also related to security and privacy.
This works well if such expert has no conflict of interests in the App market and Joe as the ability to choose when to “call” the services of such expert …. Otherwise the user properties are in theory at risk also.
Neither of this caveats are guaranteed by Apple policies. In fact on the first … the conflict of interests are all over the place. On the second … well the mediator policies speak for themselves.
How are users and businesses properties at risk?
Well if these two security measures aren’t in place, the power of such mediator goes way beyond advisory. It becomes a gatekeeper of digital commerce, a power that the mediator can use to leverage other positions unrelated to users security or privacy. A power that Apple has used before at the expense of device owners properties as well as third party digital businesses.
This needs to be regulated with all users security and privacy in mind by people that actually understand how multiple security threats can interplay. With the understanding what is being secured are indeed users properties that sustain peoples lives that go way beyond the use of a device. Not just by opinion makers or people desperate to take a selfie on the next golden smartphone.
This is serious stuff.
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