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> The App Store is the world’s safest and most vibrant app marketplace Anyone else love how no company can tell you “hey we don’t distribute through the App St

by jakear 7y ago

> The App Store is the world’s safest and most vibrant app marketplace Anyone else love how no company can tell you “hey we don’t distribute through the App Store, you’ll have to sideload and run this totally closed binary blob with 0 third party auditing to use our product”? I’m always seeing people on HN complaint that Apple doesn’t allow sideloading. I think it’s brilliant.

OkGoDoIt 7y ago
I can appreciate how safe iOS is, I think that’s a great default stance. It’s actually one of the reasons I’m in the apple ecosystem after hacking around on Android for years. In our sad reality of apps being more worried about monetizing then about respecting the user, it’s nice to know iOS has my back. But I really find the lack of being allowed to sideload apps frustrating and limiting. Sure, make me jump through hoops, but don’t tell me I can’t do it at all. Apple’s policy might be fine in the bass majority of contacts, but there are in fact situations where a user should be able to say “I understand your concern, but I know what I’m doing, and I want to do this for whatever personal reason” There are plenty of things you can’t do for reasons beyond safety. I can’t easily load emulation apps for example. Apple doesn’t allow it because of copyright concerns, and there’s no way around that. There are apps that Apple doesn’t allow for business reasons. And regardless, apps which use system APIs can absolutely be dangerous, but they can also be super useful or interesting or fun, and I should be allowed to make my own judgments rather than simply being told I’m not allowed to try something that might potentially possibly be dangerous.
- jakear 7y ago
  The problem is that the second you add that escape hole, every company that wants to do shady things can ask their users to use it. To me it's analogous to asking for backdoors in software: "Please just let me get around the security procedures you've set in place. I promise I'll only use it for good and nobody ever will use it for anything malicious"
dangus 7y ago
On the contrary, macOS proves that you can implement security measures like code signing and granular app permissions without forcing developers to give Apple 30% of their revenues. You can absolutely implement all the security features of a centralized app store without running your own monopoly software store. The security features of the app store are independent from the business model. Basically any desktop Linux distribution will show you how trusted software repositories can work in practice.

by jakear 7y ago

OkGoDoIt 7y ago

I can appreciate how safe iOS is, I think that’s a great default stance. It’s actually one of the reasons I’m in the apple ecosystem after hacking around on Android for years. In our sad reality of apps being more worried about monetizing then about respecting the user, it’s nice to know iOS has my back. But I really find the lack of being allowed to sideload apps frustrating and limiting. Sure, make me jump through hoops, but don’t tell me I can’t do it at all. Apple’s policy might be fine in the bass majority of contacts, but there are in fact situations where a user should be able to say “I understand your concern, but I know what I’m doing, and I want to do this for whatever personal reason” There are plenty of things you can’t do for reasons beyond safety. I can’t easily load emulation apps for example. Apple doesn’t allow it because of copyright concerns, and there’s no way around that. There are apps that Apple doesn’t allow for business reasons. And regardless, apps which use system APIs can absolutely be dangerous, but they can also be super useful or interesting or fun, and I should be allowed to make my own judgments rather than simply being told I’m not allowed to try something that might potentially possibly be dangerous.

jakear 7y ago
The problem is that the second you add that escape hole, every company that wants to do shady things can ask their users to use it. To me it's analogous to asking for backdoors in software: "Please just let me get around the security procedures you've set in place. I promise I'll only use it for good and nobody ever will use it for anything malicious"

dangus 7y ago

On the contrary, macOS proves that you can implement security measures like code signing and granular app permissions without forcing developers to give Apple 30% of their revenues. You can absolutely implement all the security features of a centralized app store without running your own monopoly software store. The security features of the app store are independent from the business model. Basically any desktop Linux distribution will show you how trusted software repositories can work in practice.