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Keep in mind that the demand for access to iOS users can be met through more traditional means such as the world-wide web. Apple has much less of a right to ma

Keep in mind that the demand for access to iOS users can be met through more traditional means such as the world-wide web. Apple has much less of a right to make demands of others there than it does on the hardware and software platform that they built, themselves. Similarly, since you are attempting to speak on my behalf, as an Apple consumer, I feel the need to correct you: I do not want Facebook to build an iOS app. They can keep that crap to themselves.

danShumway 5y ago
> I feel the need to correct you: I do not want Facebook to build an iOS app. They can keep that crap to themselves. So are you OK with Facebook moving their app to a 3rd-party app store? The downside of having sideloading on an iPhone is purely that companies would not be forced to target Apple's app store and that they might not release their apps on the official store. There's some very minor other concerns, but that's the big one. If you're OK with abandoning apps like Facebook and Fortnite, then you should be fine with sideloading being allowed. > can be met through more traditional means such as the world-wide web. iOS is lagging on the web right now, but I agree that putting more attention on Safari and making the web more capable would go a long way towards eliminating my concerns. Note that there is some irony in me championing the web, because the web works the same way. It's a platform that guarantees certain user freedoms and sandboxing, but that is so big that companies can't ignore it. And I'm very happy with that "monopoly". The only real difference is that the web's restrictions are more reasonable to me, that the web doesn't moderate content itself, that it's less controlled by a single company, it has more stakeholders and more input, and that it approaches security through different mechanisms that I think are superior to iOS's. But it's still a platform that I want companies to be forced to target, so I get where iOS users are coming from on this. I just disagree with the platform they want to win.
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y ago
  > So are you OK with Facebook moving their app to a 3rd-party app store? I am not ok with using legal force to induce Apple to allow a third party App Store, no. In the court of law, it might be able to be argued that there is no actual harm being caused by Apple having sole proprietorship over their custom development guidelines.
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y ago
  > If you're OK with abandoning apps like Facebook and Fortnite, then you should be fine with sideloading being allowed. I don’t follow that line of reasoning. Why should I be fine with increasing the security attack surface for my phone because I am fine with Facebook or Fortnite being ejected from the App Store if they ever violated App Store rules?
  - danShumway 5y ago
    > Why should I be fine with increasing the security attack surface for my phone Because you don't have to. The only reason why you would need to increase your attack surface is if you wanted to turn sideloading on for your phone, and the only reason you need to do that is if there are apps outside of the App Store that you aren't willing to ignore. If Facebook leaves the iOS app store and moves to a 3rd-party, and if you're willing to ignore Facebook, then you leave 3rd-party stores disabled and continue using your iPhone the same way you're using it today. The only reason this would matter is if there were apps outside of the App Store that you want/need.
    - 9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y ago
      > there are apps outside of the App Store that you aren't willing to ignore. Seems to be that the tables need to be turned: if there are apps that I can’t ignore, then they need to be required to be available on a common, accessible platform like the web, and not locked to any proprietary platform whatsoever.
      - danShumway 5y ago
        I want the Web to be a first-class app platform for mobile phones as much as anyone. Currently iOS is lagging on this front, and their lack of support for multiple browser engines is a problem, but honestly -- given the choice between sideloading on iOS or Apple devoting the resources into making their browser engine more capable, supporting things like push notifications, Bluetooth/NFC... I think I'd rather the Web just win. I'm not opposed to native, I write native software occasionally, and there are some very real problems with the web. But in terms of sandboxing, privacy, the controls baked into browsers are imo just a lot better than most native platforms, including iOS. So in the absence of a better alternative, I'm inclined to say that yeah, more apps should be moved out of the app store and onto the Web. I think a lot of it is just a matter of getting the Web to parity with the capabilities that native platforms provide. The big issues off the top of my head: - the lack of background scheduling/tasks. It's tough to make a website play a song in the background (even Android would occasionally just shut down the app last time I checked), or to do things like set alarms/notifications. - installation UX. - the lack of good, reliable offline storage. A major weakness of the web is that it is inherently tied very heavily to serverside code. This encourages every website to have user accounts, your data needs to be stored on some server someplace. It's a major step backwards. So we want to get filesystem support, and we want to get that in a form that the user can easily inspect and modify and copy files into an out of. And obviously we want that to be heavily sandboxed from the rest of the filesystem. We also want to lean more heavily into offline access for websites, and we want better user controls about managing what websites are cached, not just a button buried in browser settings. We want users to be able to do things like control when an offline website updates, or even whether it's allowed to connect to the Internet at all. - the lack of just general integration with things like intents, subscriptions, etc... Apple users want to be able to continue to use the same tools to manage things like subscriptions, parental restrictions, so it would be good to allow them to continue to do that with web apps. - the lack of just general access to phone features like NFC/Bluetooth. There's probably one or two other things I'm missing. I think iOS is supporting WASM now, so dealing with Javascript should become less of a problem for people in the future. Timer accuracy is still a problem as far as I know, which makes developing games pretty annoying, but not unsolveable.
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y ago
  > I just disagree with the platform they want to win. You are free to choose from a non-proprietary platform or proprietary platform. Unfortunately, there are currently no successful, widely adopted, non-proprietary phone hardware ecosystems.

danShumway 5y ago

> I feel the need to correct you: I do not want Facebook to build an iOS app. They can keep that crap to themselves. So are you OK with Facebook moving their app to a 3rd-party app store? The downside of having sideloading on an iPhone is purely that companies would not be forced to target Apple's app store and that they might not release their apps on the official store. There's some very minor other concerns, but that's the big one. If you're OK with abandoning apps like Facebook and Fortnite, then you should be fine with sideloading being allowed. > can be met through more traditional means such as the world-wide web. iOS is lagging on the web right now, but I agree that putting more attention on Safari and making the web more capable would go a long way towards eliminating my concerns. Note that there is some irony in me championing the web, because the web works the same way. It's a platform that guarantees certain user freedoms and sandboxing, but that is so big that companies can't ignore it. And I'm very happy with that "monopoly". The only real difference is that the web's restrictions are more reasonable to me, that the web doesn't moderate content itself, that it's less controlled by a single company, it has more stakeholders and more input, and that it approaches security through different mechanisms that I think are superior to iOS's. But it's still a platform that I want companies to be forced to target, so I get where iOS users are coming from on this. I just disagree with the platform they want to win.

9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y ago
> So are you OK with Facebook moving their app to a 3rd-party app store? I am not ok with using legal force to induce Apple to allow a third party App Store, no. In the court of law, it might be able to be argued that there is no actual harm being caused by Apple having sole proprietorship over their custom development guidelines.
9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y ago
> If you're OK with abandoning apps like Facebook and Fortnite, then you should be fine with sideloading being allowed. I don’t follow that line of reasoning. Why should I be fine with increasing the security attack surface for my phone because I am fine with Facebook or Fortnite being ejected from the App Store if they ever violated App Store rules?
- danShumway 5y ago
  > Why should I be fine with increasing the security attack surface for my phone Because you don't have to. The only reason why you would need to increase your attack surface is if you wanted to turn sideloading on for your phone, and the only reason you need to do that is if there are apps outside of the App Store that you aren't willing to ignore. If Facebook leaves the iOS app store and moves to a 3rd-party, and if you're willing to ignore Facebook, then you leave 3rd-party stores disabled and continue using your iPhone the same way you're using it today. The only reason this would matter is if there were apps outside of the App Store that you want/need.
  - 9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y ago
    > there are apps outside of the App Store that you aren't willing to ignore. Seems to be that the tables need to be turned: if there are apps that I can’t ignore, then they need to be required to be available on a common, accessible platform like the web, and not locked to any proprietary platform whatsoever.
    - danShumway 5y ago
      I want the Web to be a first-class app platform for mobile phones as much as anyone. Currently iOS is lagging on this front, and their lack of support for multiple browser engines is a problem, but honestly -- given the choice between sideloading on iOS or Apple devoting the resources into making their browser engine more capable, supporting things like push notifications, Bluetooth/NFC... I think I'd rather the Web just win. I'm not opposed to native, I write native software occasionally, and there are some very real problems with the web. But in terms of sandboxing, privacy, the controls baked into browsers are imo just a lot better than most native platforms, including iOS. So in the absence of a better alternative, I'm inclined to say that yeah, more apps should be moved out of the app store and onto the Web. I think a lot of it is just a matter of getting the Web to parity with the capabilities that native platforms provide. The big issues off the top of my head: - the lack of background scheduling/tasks. It's tough to make a website play a song in the background (even Android would occasionally just shut down the app last time I checked), or to do things like set alarms/notifications. - installation UX. - the lack of good, reliable offline storage. A major weakness of the web is that it is inherently tied very heavily to serverside code. This encourages every website to have user accounts, your data needs to be stored on some server someplace. It's a major step backwards. So we want to get filesystem support, and we want to get that in a form that the user can easily inspect and modify and copy files into an out of. And obviously we want that to be heavily sandboxed from the rest of the filesystem. We also want to lean more heavily into offline access for websites, and we want better user controls about managing what websites are cached, not just a button buried in browser settings. We want users to be able to do things like control when an offline website updates, or even whether it's allowed to connect to the Internet at all. - the lack of just general integration with things like intents, subscriptions, etc... Apple users want to be able to continue to use the same tools to manage things like subscriptions, parental restrictions, so it would be good to allow them to continue to do that with web apps. - the lack of just general access to phone features like NFC/Bluetooth. There's probably one or two other things I'm missing. I think iOS is supporting WASM now, so dealing with Javascript should become less of a problem for people in the future. Timer accuracy is still a problem as far as I know, which makes developing games pretty annoying, but not unsolveable.
9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y ago
> I just disagree with the platform they want to win. You are free to choose from a non-proprietary platform or proprietary platform. Unfortunately, there are currently no successful, widely adopted, non-proprietary phone hardware ecosystems.