5 ms·

On one hand, the developer in me agrees with you that it does make life harder. On the other hand, as a consumer I've found that I'd rather not trust developers

by orbz 5y ago

On one hand, the developer in me agrees with you that it does make life harder. On the other hand, as a consumer I've found that I'd rather not trust developers to write software however they want. I want them to have restrictions on how much of my stuff they can access, how they can update their software and how much of a blast radius there would be from messing something up.

echelon 5y ago
Life is hairy and complicated. Every day millions of Americans jump into death chariots and we expect them to mostly be fine. We should not err on the side of creating a locked down Fisher Price playpen for consumers. Not at the expense of our freedoms and the rest of our industry. Think about how much damage this has done to innovation because costs are redirected to Apple's coffers rather than putting more engineers behind novel ideas. Apple is sitting on mountains -- a continental shelf -- of opportunity cost. What a waste.
izacus 5y ago
Those two things are not fully related. Apple could (and to some extend does) design a system that keeps YOU in control without being an anti-competitive platform that prevents competition in non-OS / non-platform markets. Preinstalling and pushing Apple Music / iCloud (not to mention giving it private entitlements the competitors can't use) is not related to the iOS security model by itself. There's also no reason that the curator of your app store has to be the same entity that sold you your hardware - there are plenty of even more trustworthy organizations and people that could create curated stores which might be even more relevant than AppStore haphazard and inconsistent curation. Imagine if AppStore could just be a framework where you can choose curators you trust more than a Californian megacorp.
- judge2020 5y ago
  I don't think that's possible if your goal is zero (system-altering) malware - pretty much all (with the exception of checkra1n) recent iOS releases have had a jailbreak that works by chaining exploits to break out of the app sandbox and can be installed via just signing an IPA, gain root and install Cydia/other dpkg frontends. Without the app store you would see these making their way to things people can download, just in the form of 'free vbucks' or other illegitimate apps that silently alter the system to install system-wide adware that replaces ads in other apps with their own.
  - izacus 5y ago
    You're again mistaking security and software safety for anticompetitive business practices. Apple loves to mix this too - after all, their marketing is spending a lot of money persuading it that those two are related. They're not. Even currently, AppStore is not without malware, so they have failed at that goal and us users have paid too great of a price by distortion of no.1 tenement that makes capitalism a functioning and decent system to live in: competition. It's like an abused wife being afraid to run away from her husband because she thinks he's the only one that can protect her.
    - awillen 5y ago
      Don't trivialize domestic abuse with this kind of comparison.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - judge2020 5y ago
      I'm not mistaking those - surely the human aspect helps avoid most (if not all) system-altering malware, while 'malware' in general (which includes apps that trick users into subscriptions and such) is severely cut down with some apps avoiding it by hiding from Cupertino and such[0]. 0: https://youtu.be/tJeEuxn9mug?t=799 https://youtu.be/tJeEuxn9mug?t=799
Steltek 5y ago
You don't need control of the app store to do that.
jclardy 5y ago
> how they can update their software I agree on all your points except this one. The App Store update process has grown long in the tooth. It was fine for the first 5 years or so, then they added auto-update, great. But now 10 years in it is still all or nothing. Either the OS allows all apps to auto-upgrade, or you do it yourself. There is no way to "remove" an app from the update list if you want to keep an old version. There is no way to ever go back to an old version if you accidentally upgrade. Backing up an old version of an app requires a Mac to extract the binary. Each app already has it's own settings screen, why not add an "auto-update" toggle to each (And by default it gets your system-wide setting.) And from the developer side - no way to have paid upgrades, unless you release the "new" version as a separate app with a bundle discount alongside the old version. So instead you get either more apps moving to subscriptions, or more abandoned apps because the developer can't support free updates.
Drew_ 5y ago
> I want them to have restrictions on how much of my stuff they can access, how they can update their software and how much of a blast radius there would be from messing something up. The OS already does this for you, no software distribution monopoly (App Store) needed. This idea that an App Store is the only path to security is FUD. If allowing 3rd party app distribution on iOS actually did allow some sort of destruction of iOS user's privacy and security, then iOS is clearly garbage.

by orbz 5y ago

echelon 5y ago

Life is hairy and complicated. Every day millions of Americans jump into death chariots and we expect them to mostly be fine. We should not err on the side of creating a locked down Fisher Price playpen for consumers. Not at the expense of our freedoms and the rest of our industry. Think about how much damage this has done to innovation because costs are redirected to Apple's coffers rather than putting more engineers behind novel ideas. Apple is sitting on mountains -- a continental shelf -- of opportunity cost. What a waste.

izacus 5y ago

Those two things are not fully related. Apple could (and to some extend does) design a system that keeps YOU in control without being an anti-competitive platform that prevents competition in non-OS / non-platform markets. Preinstalling and pushing Apple Music / iCloud (not to mention giving it private entitlements the competitors can't use) is not related to the iOS security model by itself. There's also no reason that the curator of your app store has to be the same entity that sold you your hardware - there are plenty of even more trustworthy organizations and people that could create curated stores which might be even more relevant than AppStore haphazard and inconsistent curation. Imagine if AppStore could just be a framework where you can choose curators you trust more than a Californian megacorp.

judge2020 5y ago
I don't think that's possible if your goal is zero (system-altering) malware - pretty much all (with the exception of checkra1n) recent iOS releases have had a jailbreak that works by chaining exploits to break out of the app sandbox and can be installed via just signing an IPA, gain root and install Cydia/other dpkg frontends. Without the app store you would see these making their way to things people can download, just in the form of 'free vbucks' or other illegitimate apps that silently alter the system to install system-wide adware that replaces ads in other apps with their own.
- izacus 5y ago
  You're again mistaking security and software safety for anticompetitive business practices. Apple loves to mix this too - after all, their marketing is spending a lot of money persuading it that those two are related. They're not. Even currently, AppStore is not without malware, so they have failed at that goal and us users have paid too great of a price by distortion of no.1 tenement that makes capitalism a functioning and decent system to live in: competition. It's like an abused wife being afraid to run away from her husband because she thinks he's the only one that can protect her.
  - awillen 5y ago
    Don't trivialize domestic abuse with this kind of comparison.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - judge2020 5y ago
    I'm not mistaking those - surely the human aspect helps avoid most (if not all) system-altering malware, while 'malware' in general (which includes apps that trick users into subscriptions and such) is severely cut down with some apps avoiding it by hiding from Cupertino and such[0]. 0: https://youtu.be/tJeEuxn9mug?t=799 https://youtu.be/tJeEuxn9mug?t=799

Steltek 5y ago

You don't need control of the app store to do that.

jclardy 5y ago

> how they can update their software I agree on all your points except this one. The App Store update process has grown long in the tooth. It was fine for the first 5 years or so, then they added auto-update, great. But now 10 years in it is still all or nothing. Either the OS allows all apps to auto-upgrade, or you do it yourself. There is no way to "remove" an app from the update list if you want to keep an old version. There is no way to ever go back to an old version if you accidentally upgrade. Backing up an old version of an app requires a Mac to extract the binary. Each app already has it's own settings screen, why not add an "auto-update" toggle to each (And by default it gets your system-wide setting.) And from the developer side - no way to have paid upgrades, unless you release the "new" version as a separate app with a bundle discount alongside the old version. So instead you get either more apps moving to subscriptions, or more abandoned apps because the developer can't support free updates.

Drew_ 5y ago

> I want them to have restrictions on how much of my stuff they can access, how they can update their software and how much of a blast radius there would be from messing something up. The OS already does this for you, no software distribution monopoly (App Store) needed. This idea that an App Store is the only path to security is FUD. If allowing 3rd party app distribution on iOS actually did allow some sort of destruction of iOS user's privacy and security, then iOS is clearly garbage.