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I think some people need a walled garden. Genuinely - the reason why I gave my Mum a MacBook was because I was fed up of having to deal with the mess of the Win

I think some people need a walled garden. Genuinely - the reason why I gave my Mum a MacBook was because I was fed up of having to deal with the mess of the Windows machine every time I went home. What would be better is is if in the device settings I was able to say "I know I downloaded this, and I know it's not signed, and I'm OK with running it", just like I do on macOS and have done for some time. The walled garden approach was there for some time because of carrier concerns initially, but now it's purely commercial: Android has shown a more liberal attitude with better security around key pieces of hardware can still protect the carrier network from malicious attack. Apple now have such huge value-add in terms of the app store - Apple Pay, discoverability, ratings and so on - that most developers would happily pay to be there. However, yes, it would be nice if I could choose what goes onto my device if I agree it's on me if something goes "wrong".

DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
I doubt carrier concerns were the motivation for the Apple iPhone App Store - they'd have mandated some kind of AT&T and Sprint App Store (with $2 ring-tone and wallpaper downloads...). Besides, Windows Mobile, Nokia and Blackberry all had their own respective ecosystems long before Apple - I say this as a user of PocketGear since 2001. I hate to say it, but Apple is right: the use-cases for truly unlocked computing on constrained mobile devices are very limited and, given our experience with the Windows tech support scammers a massive liability for everyone: if non-expert users have any access to a button on their phone that will drain their bank accounts, no matter how clearly labelled, then there will be rampant attacks to make them press it; the only solution, therefore, is to make it completely impossible to both run unsigned code, and for code to execute outside of a sandbox. In the early days of iOS - there was a much stronger justification for jailbreaking because iOS was just so aneamic - useful features like a Widget Dashboards or "Today" summary screen, data tethering, and ad-blocking were all conspicuously absent. But now we've got them and since iOS 8 or 9, it's been perfect for me.
- mikeash 9y ago
  The fact that all the same restrictions still apply to the iPod Touch and the WiFi-only iPads shows that Jobs's infamous "Cingular doesn’t want to see their West Coast network go down" excuse was bullshit.

DaiPlusPlus 9y ago

I doubt carrier concerns were the motivation for the Apple iPhone App Store - they'd have mandated some kind of AT&T and Sprint App Store (with $2 ring-tone and wallpaper downloads...). Besides, Windows Mobile, Nokia and Blackberry all had their own respective ecosystems long before Apple - I say this as a user of PocketGear since 2001. I hate to say it, but Apple is right: the use-cases for truly unlocked computing on constrained mobile devices are very limited and, given our experience with the Windows tech support scammers a massive liability for everyone: if non-expert users have any access to a button on their phone that will drain their bank accounts, no matter how clearly labelled, then there will be rampant attacks to make them press it; the only solution, therefore, is to make it completely impossible to both run unsigned code, and for code to execute outside of a sandbox. In the early days of iOS - there was a much stronger justification for jailbreaking because iOS was just so aneamic - useful features like a Widget Dashboards or "Today" summary screen, data tethering, and ad-blocking were all conspicuously absent. But now we've got them and since iOS 8 or 9, it's been perfect for me.

mikeash 9y ago
The fact that all the same restrictions still apply to the iPod Touch and the WiFi-only iPads shows that Jobs's infamous "Cingular doesn’t want to see their West Coast network go down" excuse was bullshit.