So even though I wish iPhone would become more open, I find it strange that people are saying that we must break the iPhones App Store requirement to increase choice, even though that removes the choice to have a safer but locked down experience from the market.
Admittedly, the same problems exist on the App Store, but not to the same why-even-try level of anything goes.
The amount of kids apps, that are marketed as kids apps, certified as age appropriate, then contain ads for zombie gorefest horror was enough to make me give up trying with Android entirely.
I have every confidence Google will eventually address this (if they haven’t already in the intervening years).
In the meantime while I dislike how restrictive iOS is I’ve begrudgingly come to accept that I need it that way, at least until my kids are older.
That said, it's not clear if Apple will win or lose this Epic suit, so who knows what happens after that if they do?
From what I've seen, Epic's primary intention is to get Apple to publicly admit the compromises they make to maintain their ecosystem, and then use that to drive a wedge between the court's interpretation of the situation and Apple's defense.
The bottom line is that the internet is scary, and your kids are growing up faster than any generation before. The more you try to interfere with stuff like this, the more animosity they'll perceive in your relationship.
This is a false dilemma. You can have both.
That said, here's a challenge for everybody (including myself) who doesn't like Apple's app store monopoly and side-loading ban:
Apple now requires apps to ask for permission before tracking users. Facebook is _very_ unhappy about that. Imagine what would have happened if alternative app stores were allowed on iOS.
How long would it take before a Facebook/Google sponsored app store would emerge that would carry all ad funded apps? How would you prevent this from happening?
Very simply - enforce security permissions at the OS level, rather than the app store level.
There's no technical reason an app store also has to handle permissions. Leave the discoverability/reviews/curation functionality in the app store, and then just move the app installation functionality into the OS - the app store delivers an app package which the OS accepts, parses the manifest file, prompts user for permissions.
Put APIs behind a sane, capabilities-like model where the OS has to approve everything.
Facebook and Google can make their own app stores - but they still won't be able to spy on you by using privileged APIs without your consent.
(yes, they'll still be able to spy on you using data collection and aggregation - but then Apple's App Store privacy labels becomes a differentiating feature that build user trust and add value to the system, and Apple could add a warning when you install another App Store "privacy labels don't transfer, etc.")
In order to view your facebook timeline and newsfeed, we need access to your address book. Please allow access.
Allow/Deny"
There's no automated capabilities-based OS-level permissions model that can protect against this. Accessing the address book is a legitimate app request - just not for Facebook Inc. in my opinion. But they can gate access to your timeline and friends by demanding it. And I guarantee you that 9/10 smartphone users will grant it. This is why you need curation and app store rules.
I agree with you that permissions and a sandbox that actually works would have to be part of any solution.
But you can rest assured that Facebook wouldn't have made such a fuss if all that was at stake is losing access to IDFA and getting slapped with some unenforceable privacy warning.
What's creating a real problem for Facebook is the enforceable legal obligation that Apple has put in place as a precondition for being allowed on iOS devices at all.
It works exactly because it is not a technology based solution. It has created a choice that we didn't previously have.
So I wonder how we can keep this choice without making Apple this all powerful, rent seeking, patronising overlord that also happens to be an ideal attack vector for censorship happy authoritarian governments all over the world.
iOS malware authors tend to publish their binaries as unsigned dylibs and don't need Apple ID accounts so they aren't even banned when they're caught. instead they convince other developers to ship it in seperate apps (there are various ways, money, convenient APIs, both in the case of Facebook.)
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have an iPhone I can install anything on - but there is _no_ way I would ever install anything from the open internet on the same device use to read my email or log in to my bank.
iOS exploits are cheaper than Android exploits because iOS exploits are so plentiful[1][2].
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/14/zerodium_ios_flaws/
Nor is security just about "can the device be exploited or not?".
What are you trying to explain with these articles? How does the existence of iOS exploits support your thesis that Security and Openness can co-exist?
Hopefully if they lose this case (due to the market reality of being a duopoly) then they will be forced to at least entertain it.
Android's way of handling sideloading or multiple app stores is far from the only way to do it. I'm sure Apple could find a better middle ground between what we have now (incredibly locked down, anti-competitive, with arbitrary rules and Mafia-like enforcement of prices) and a total free-for-all.
Wage fixing aside, and that was years ago, the companies don’t appear to collaborate a lot anymore, much less conspire, other than the payments Google makes to retain its position as the default search engine.
Apple does all that for you. That's why they win. "General purpose computing" is for nerds -- ordinary people would much rather have an iPhone.
They're just asses about it.
[1] https://developer.apple.com/programs/security-research-devic...
Sure this would complicate things a bit (Apple would have to have different keys for different hardware revisions), but it would allow devices to be "officially" jailbroken after support ends.
Windows Phone is dead. And what happens if Android decides to be like Apple and lock down sideloading more? There is nothing forcing them to continue allowing this "freedom of choice" for consumers if they decide it would be better for their bottom line.
So, what would be the next best choice after Android in that scenario? Basically nothing, because smartphone operating systems are a duopoly.
> So even though I wish iPhone would become more open, I find it strange that people are saying that we must break the iPhones App Store requirement to increase choice, even though that removes the choice to have a safer but locked down experience from the market.
I know many people (including Apple) prefer the iPhone ecosystem to be more locked down, but given the market realities (monopoly) it seems like a compromise would make more sense than forcing everyone to pay 30% and lose out on things like cloud gaming, emulation, "objectionable" content, etc. to cater to the lowest common denominator.
A few possible compromises that Apple likely will never agree to without being forced to via regulation:
- Apple could probably keep the singular App Store model, but lower their fee to closer to cost, add more types of parental controls and/or special "expert only" areas of the store. This way they are more of a neutral hosting platform that still enforces security via app review (frankly, if they had done this to begin with, people probably would have let the whole singular App Store thing slide).
- Apple could allow alternate payment processors and let the user decide if they want the convenience of Apple Pay vs alternatives. This would let the market dictate the real value of their IAP infra. (Hell - at least let subscription apps link to their web site to purchase if they don't want to do IAP! This seems highly anti-competitive.)
- Apple could allow federated third party app stores to enforce certain levels of spam and security prevention (even off the App Store) - if one of these trusted third party app stores falls short in terms of security they get removed.
- Apple could just go the Android route and allow sideloading, but put it behind a ton of warnings etc. Continued investment in app sandboxing and permission prompts for each and every app would already do a lot to cut down on straight-up malware. Phishing, scams, etc. are already an issue for iPhone users in the browser or email clients (plus we've seen these kinds of things on the App Store as well), so user education on how to deal with these things is already unavoidable.
I think it's fair for us as consumers to demand more from Apple and want both security and freedom with reasonable tradeoffs.
And I'm not even talking about transforming an iPhone into a potentially open computer, but here too the same principle can be applied: if it is optional, it is something more, not less. The UX can be made good enough to actually have your cake and eat it, see Chromebooks.
The same could apply with app stores—if a company, school, or other requires that you use an app that is only available on a less privacy-friendly or perhaps more intrusive app store, that doesn't sound like an optional/risk-free alternative to me. Once you open the walls there's no going back.
"Your iPhone is out of date. Tap here to install the latest security tools to stop hackers from stealing your bank account"
By default Apple devices phone home and collect data on you, and this is not optional, and they will hand that data to law enforcement. They also have the ability to change their data handling policieson a whim since there is nobody holding them accountable. THIS IS NOT PRIVACY.
Not that windows or android devices are better as they come out of the box, but at least any computer that runs windows can run linux where you have full control, and certain android phones can be rooted/unlocked and flashed with custom roms without google or run firewall apps to block outgoing data.
Niven stuff like iCloud leaks, and Apple bending over to appease China by removing the protest app from the app store (which completely makes it unable to be installed on any non jailbroken device btw), I personally don't really see a reason to trust them any more than Facebook or Google.
Proof: go into settings and disable every tracking options, and then capture traffic from the device through a router with openwrt running tcpdump or wireshark on a computer with a bridge setup with ip forwarding and iptables rule.
Did this experiment already twice to prove to people that Apple device do phone home plenty. Then I repeat the same experiment with my rooted android phone running a custom rom, and people watch the sparse wireshark trace with the only packets being sent are dns then ntp to the android ntp server.
What data are you claiming Apple is sending ?
Doesn’t Apple ask you whether you want to enable this when you set up the device?
They also ask during setup and regularly after major updates. I know because I refuse every time. Also, quite often it is opt in, with the box to send information unticked by default.
Yes, Windows and Android devices give users more control. But that is because their business models are totally different. We all know that Google is primarily an ad-tech company, and that Android is how they collect the data for those ads. And while a technically savvy person may be able to lock down their devices, that's just a minority of users we're talking about.
Apple's data collection is a murmur compared to the deafening screech of that of Google.
"Yes, Apple devices do collect some data" should be the end of that sentence. Any data that is collected on the device and sent to apple is not private. It doesn't matter if Apple doesn't share it with other advertisers. Apple does advertising itself. There is no difference between it an a 3d party advertiser in terms of data they have access to.
Once you get past that point and accept that there is no privacy, then its just a matter of how much you trust companies with your data. If you wanna claim that you trust Apple with your data, that is your own personal choice.
As far as what Apple does or doesn't with that data, it's laughable that the argument for privacy is them refusing to unlock a phone. Security isn't determined by what computers/users/companies do or don't do, its determined by what is possible. And when it comes to data, its very possible, as proven by real life events, for them to turn over your data to law enforcement.
Again, whether or not you care, thats a personal choice. But saying that Apple cares about privacy is just dead wrong, you have either ironically fallen victim to the Apple adverting about privacy, or you have an intrinsic bias towards Apple because you like their products which leads you to discount basic facts.
Please providence evidence of this claim and specify which data is not private.
Apple uses differential privacy and removes PII which has been documented in the iOS Security Guide.
Indeed, most people understand that their iPhones collecting anonymized diagnostic data and sending it to Apple is not some gross violation of privacy, and that it sure as shit doesn't mean Apple does not care about privacy. If that's the hill you want to die on, that's your call, but you should perhaps realize that blaming me of bias towards Apple is not the winning argument you think it is.
Is Google a worse example, sure. But plenty of us have been around long enough to remember when Google was restructured into Alphabet and the “Don’t be evil” motto was wiped from their corporate code of conduct. All it takes is a new CEO or a change of leadership and all of these corporate platitudes aren’t worth the paper they are printed on.
