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I don't get this argument. How can an alternative app Store affect the quality of the Apple app Store ? The alternate app Store is not gonna come installed by d

by rdedev 5y ago

I don't get this argument. How can an alternative app Store affect the quality of the Apple app Store ? The alternate app Store is not gonna come installed by default. No one is gonna mistake the alternative app Store for the apple one. Apple is gonna make sure of that. Apple can even put up loads of warnings and dark UI stuff when installing an alternate app Store to dissuade the "noob" users.

0xEFF 5y ago
Suppose you install a messaging app to talk to your friend. How do you know they installed their copy from the good App Store and not the bad one?
- yosito 5y ago
  Your friend's messaging app is not installing apps on your phone, so it doesn't matter (to you).
- rdedev 5y ago
  Most messaging apps are centralized. Some form of server side checking can be easily added to make sure the client is legit and not tampered with. Same form of checking thing if it's P2P but it would be very cumbersome. Now it is possible that someones has cracked the encrypted messaged payload and figured out how to fool the client authenticity checking part but at that point you are probably dealing with a state actor and even apple with their secure app Store cannot save you.
  - w7 5y ago
    That's not state actor level of effort. Kids do that stuff for video games.
- Sargos 5y ago
  Why do you care what software your friend runs? Why do you feel the need to dictate what software someone else runs? This is especially weird because your username is 0xEFF which initially made me think Electronic Frontier Foundation but it's definitely not that.
  - 0xEFF 5y ago
    I don’t feel the need to dictate anything, but I care because my messaging app exchanges my personal data with my friends messaging app so there’s value knowing their copy is authentic.
merrywhether 5y ago
Hypothetical progression: Epic sets up alternative App Store which becomes the only source of Fortnite 2.0, which is popular enough to drive installs of new alt store. Some other newly-popular viral app comes along (probably a social app that causes its users to exert pressure on their social group to join) and gambles on going with the Epic store only, piggybacking on Fortnite’s beachhead. Repeat. This process normalizes an alt store, forcing iOS customers to have to choose between trusting a new source vs missing out on apps. They can currently miss out on Android-only apps, but at least currently 99.9% of apps that run on iOS come from the single “trusted” store. Another maybe-more-realistic version of this would be if some business software used their power over line workers to install things (since end-users are not really the customers in corporate software sales). Microsoft sets up their own store as the only source of Office Redux, and millions of iOS users are forced into this store via their employers. Same process as above: beachhead, gamble, dilution of Apple’s store. It’s not hard to see how the process could snowball, though it’s certainly not guaranteed as there must be the right combination of events.
- rdedev 5y ago
  Another comment mentioned this. The fragmentation issue that comes up with multiple app stores. I agree that it is an issue that can come up. Pretty sure epic is trying for something like this in android. But it dosent take away from my point that an alternative store does not affect the quality of apps in the main store. As for an alt store becoming normalized I feel that users will only install the necessary app from the alt store and not anything else. A lot of alt stores tried to set themselves up in android but didn't succeed. I think it mostly comes down to incentives. Apple can easily change them to make sure no other store gets the upper hand
  - sciprojguy 5y ago
    "I feel that users will only install the necessary app from the alt store and not anything else." Have you ever had to wipe a relative's computer to get rid of the malware-infested browser toolbars they installed, not knowing any better? Or worse, pay a ransom in bitcoins to unlock the billing systems that help control a gasoline distribution pipeline? You may be somewhat overestimating the sophistication of users when it comes to technology.
jodrellblank 5y ago
> "No one is gonna mistake the alternative app Store for the apple one" You've never heard any stories like "I put FireFox/Chrome on my parent's desktop and next time I went back they were using IE and said they didn't notice"? Or same with apps installed from an App store between real and imitation? > "Apple can even put up loads of warnings and dark UI stuff when installing an alternate app Store to dissuade the "noob" users." Why would they need to do that if "no one" is gonna mistake them?
- rdedev 5y ago
  As I said in the next sentence, apple is going to make sure that no app Store looks like theirs. It's pretty easy to do it too. Make sure app stores are only available to install from the Apple app Store. That way apple can look for any possible imitations. The dissuading stuff was not needed. I was just frustrated with the line that some users are not tech savvy so all users must be equally restricted. It just seems unnecessarily black and white
  - lanstin 5y ago
    It is tricky. Most people are pretty trusting of things they don’t understand. But a world where you walk into a cafe and 80% of the devices around you are malevolent is worse than one where only 5% are malevolent. I would like root on all my devices and also I would like to be able to run apps that want more permissions than I want them to have and they just get fake data when they call get location or whatever. But I don’t want to have to security assess all the apps I might like. To be sure mostly my apps are like the browser, the like doe reader, and find my iPhone. But I do have a weakness for solitaire and free flow and similar games. It seems very hard to get the open source versions of these and the other ones seem to display questionable ethics and to be ad revenue driven (where as I would happily pay a bit for new levels etc).
    - tolbish 5y ago
      > Most people are pretty trusting of things they don’t understand. [citation needed]
czzr 5y ago
If a major app moves to a different App Store, people will install the second (and third, and fourth, etc.) No one will say “oh, well, I want Instagram because all my friends have it but I’m not going to install Facebook’s store to get it because I want to keep my phone secure.” The problem is that security and privacy benefits are somewhat intangible and hidden, so they are not enough to convince people to weight them heavily - this is the same reason why people download random software off the net and why the web is such a mess of trackers. Apple’s approach tries to remove the need for users to think about the issue at all. Of course, it has downsides as well, but don’t underestimate what the ecosystem would be giving up once the door is opened to multiple stores.
- mthoms 5y ago
  Developers won't leave the App Store if Apple are offering good value to them and their customers. If Apple stops offering good value (fair policies, commissions), then Apple should be "punished" by losing business. Offering competing stores provides a strong incentive for Apple to make theirs even better. Developers would win and consumers would win. The only "loser" would be Apple (at least as far as short term financials are concerned).
  - llukas 5y ago
    Facebook, instagram or any ad-backed app users are the product not the customer.
    - mthoms 5y ago
      Granted. But the underlying principle is the same, no? If Apple is offering better discovery, consumer protections, policies and support, then they should have the better store experience. For the record, I think they are offering the best experience at present (by a long shot). That isn't guaranteed going forward though, and I believe competition here would be healthy.
paulmd 5y ago
OP did not say that it would affect the quality of the Apple app store. The specific quote was: "Apple has vested interest to keep apps made available to be clean and not going to compromise iPhone". Allowing third-party app stores effectively means providing a vector to bypass the official app-review process, which is the cornerstone on which the permissioning system rests. If you allow third-party app stores, then any sufficiently-popular app can create their own "app store" and demand that you give it full permissions, which they will turn around and use to scrape data. It will become a race to the bottom, permissioning systems cannot stand if the app-review process does not exist, and the app-review cannot exist if third-party stores exist as a mechanism to let anyone publish anything. Facebook has already gotten their hands slapped for exploiting sideloading to mine user data, and if they could spread it to the general user-base then they will do so immediately. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-offered-gift-cards-for-root-level-access-to-ios-users-data/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-... So your question about "how can an alternative app store affect the Apple app store" is a red herring, and not at all what OP said - what OP said was "allowing third-party app stores will degrade the experience of iOS users" and that is absolutely true, Facebook has already tried to do this before and this will allow them to take another turn at the ring.

by rdedev 5y ago

0xEFF 5y ago

Suppose you install a messaging app to talk to your friend. How do you know they installed their copy from the good App Store and not the bad one?

yosito 5y ago
Your friend's messaging app is not installing apps on your phone, so it doesn't matter (to you).
rdedev 5y ago
Most messaging apps are centralized. Some form of server side checking can be easily added to make sure the client is legit and not tampered with. Same form of checking thing if it's P2P but it would be very cumbersome. Now it is possible that someones has cracked the encrypted messaged payload and figured out how to fool the client authenticity checking part but at that point you are probably dealing with a state actor and even apple with their secure app Store cannot save you.
- w7 5y ago
  That's not state actor level of effort. Kids do that stuff for video games.
Sargos 5y ago
Why do you care what software your friend runs? Why do you feel the need to dictate what software someone else runs? This is especially weird because your username is 0xEFF which initially made me think Electronic Frontier Foundation but it's definitely not that.
- 0xEFF 5y ago
  I don’t feel the need to dictate anything, but I care because my messaging app exchanges my personal data with my friends messaging app so there’s value knowing their copy is authentic.

merrywhether 5y ago

Hypothetical progression: Epic sets up alternative App Store which becomes the only source of Fortnite 2.0, which is popular enough to drive installs of new alt store. Some other newly-popular viral app comes along (probably a social app that causes its users to exert pressure on their social group to join) and gambles on going with the Epic store only, piggybacking on Fortnite’s beachhead. Repeat. This process normalizes an alt store, forcing iOS customers to have to choose between trusting a new source vs missing out on apps. They can currently miss out on Android-only apps, but at least currently 99.9% of apps that run on iOS come from the single “trusted” store. Another maybe-more-realistic version of this would be if some business software used their power over line workers to install things (since end-users are not really the customers in corporate software sales). Microsoft sets up their own store as the only source of Office Redux, and millions of iOS users are forced into this store via their employers. Same process as above: beachhead, gamble, dilution of Apple’s store. It’s not hard to see how the process could snowball, though it’s certainly not guaranteed as there must be the right combination of events.

rdedev 5y ago
Another comment mentioned this. The fragmentation issue that comes up with multiple app stores. I agree that it is an issue that can come up. Pretty sure epic is trying for something like this in android. But it dosent take away from my point that an alternative store does not affect the quality of apps in the main store. As for an alt store becoming normalized I feel that users will only install the necessary app from the alt store and not anything else. A lot of alt stores tried to set themselves up in android but didn't succeed. I think it mostly comes down to incentives. Apple can easily change them to make sure no other store gets the upper hand
- sciprojguy 5y ago
  "I feel that users will only install the necessary app from the alt store and not anything else." Have you ever had to wipe a relative's computer to get rid of the malware-infested browser toolbars they installed, not knowing any better? Or worse, pay a ransom in bitcoins to unlock the billing systems that help control a gasoline distribution pipeline? You may be somewhat overestimating the sophistication of users when it comes to technology.

jodrellblank 5y ago

> "No one is gonna mistake the alternative app Store for the apple one" You've never heard any stories like "I put FireFox/Chrome on my parent's desktop and next time I went back they were using IE and said they didn't notice"? Or same with apps installed from an App store between real and imitation? > "Apple can even put up loads of warnings and dark UI stuff when installing an alternate app Store to dissuade the "noob" users." Why would they need to do that if "no one" is gonna mistake them?

rdedev 5y ago
As I said in the next sentence, apple is going to make sure that no app Store looks like theirs. It's pretty easy to do it too. Make sure app stores are only available to install from the Apple app Store. That way apple can look for any possible imitations. The dissuading stuff was not needed. I was just frustrated with the line that some users are not tech savvy so all users must be equally restricted. It just seems unnecessarily black and white
- lanstin 5y ago
  It is tricky. Most people are pretty trusting of things they don’t understand. But a world where you walk into a cafe and 80% of the devices around you are malevolent is worse than one where only 5% are malevolent. I would like root on all my devices and also I would like to be able to run apps that want more permissions than I want them to have and they just get fake data when they call get location or whatever. But I don’t want to have to security assess all the apps I might like. To be sure mostly my apps are like the browser, the like doe reader, and find my iPhone. But I do have a weakness for solitaire and free flow and similar games. It seems very hard to get the open source versions of these and the other ones seem to display questionable ethics and to be ad revenue driven (where as I would happily pay a bit for new levels etc).
  - tolbish 5y ago
    > Most people are pretty trusting of things they don’t understand. [citation needed]

czzr 5y ago

If a major app moves to a different App Store, people will install the second (and third, and fourth, etc.) No one will say “oh, well, I want Instagram because all my friends have it but I’m not going to install Facebook’s store to get it because I want to keep my phone secure.” The problem is that security and privacy benefits are somewhat intangible and hidden, so they are not enough to convince people to weight them heavily - this is the same reason why people download random software off the net and why the web is such a mess of trackers. Apple’s approach tries to remove the need for users to think about the issue at all. Of course, it has downsides as well, but don’t underestimate what the ecosystem would be giving up once the door is opened to multiple stores.

mthoms 5y ago
Developers won't leave the App Store if Apple are offering good value to them and their customers. If Apple stops offering good value (fair policies, commissions), then Apple should be "punished" by losing business. Offering competing stores provides a strong incentive for Apple to make theirs even better. Developers would win and consumers would win. The only "loser" would be Apple (at least as far as short term financials are concerned).
- llukas 5y ago
  Facebook, instagram or any ad-backed app users are the product not the customer.
  - mthoms 5y ago
    Granted. But the underlying principle is the same, no? If Apple is offering better discovery, consumer protections, policies and support, then they should have the better store experience. For the record, I think they are offering the best experience at present (by a long shot). That isn't guaranteed going forward though, and I believe competition here would be healthy.

paulmd 5y ago

OP did not say that it would affect the quality of the Apple app store. The specific quote was: "Apple has vested interest to keep apps made available to be clean and not going to compromise iPhone". Allowing third-party app stores effectively means providing a vector to bypass the official app-review process, which is the cornerstone on which the permissioning system rests. If you allow third-party app stores, then any sufficiently-popular app can create their own "app store" and demand that you give it full permissions, which they will turn around and use to scrape data. It will become a race to the bottom, permissioning systems cannot stand if the app-review process does not exist, and the app-review cannot exist if third-party stores exist as a mechanism to let anyone publish anything. Facebook has already gotten their hands slapped for exploiting sideloading to mine user data, and if they could spread it to the general user-base then they will do so immediately. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-offered-gift-cards-for-root-level-access-to-ios-users-data/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-... So your question about "how can an alternative app store affect the Apple app store" is a red herring, and not at all what OP said - what OP said was "allowing third-party app stores will degrade the experience of iOS users" and that is absolutely true, Facebook has already tried to do this before and this will allow them to take another turn at the ring.