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Sideloading has worked well for Android. Users are not idiots and there are enough warnings so they know that they should not sideload an application unless th

Sideloading has worked well for Android. Users are not idiots and there are enough warnings so they know that they should not sideload an application unless they really know what they're doing. Apples argument serves Apple's 30% interest in iTunes revenue and removes the choice from the user.

grawprog 5y ago
That's how they get you. First you sideload one app, you think you can stop with just one, then next thing you know you've got F-Droid on your phone, your sideloading left and right. Then before you know it, all your money now belongs to a Nigerian Prince and hackers are ransomwaring your grandma. Yeah kids sideloading might seem fun, but it's a gateway to disaster. Just say No to sideloading.
- frumper 5y ago
  It sounds like we need to get the hackers to ransomware the Nigerian Prince's grandma.
  - grawprog 5y ago
    Nah, better to just stick to the walled garden and let Almighty arbiters of all that is safe to install guide us.
- cyanydeez 5y ago
  hey man, sideloading is just the start, next thing you know theyll be saving progressive webapps and never leaving their browsers!
threatofrain 5y ago
Something troublesome to people who worry about privacy would be FB asking people to side-load, which in a sense they did when they bought a VPN and asked kids to grant all access to network traffic [1]. Kids will ignore warnings, and they are thought to be savvier than their folks. Kids are the ones who will download games that basically train you to love ads. And Apple doesn't collect revenue from FB, but FB is probably the heaviest in its weight class. If FB asks, parents will say yes. If Fortnite asks, children will say yes. [1]: https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/
- rektide 5y ago
  it's amazing to me how much imagination & concern people put in to 0.000001% of side loading cases. if a computer is a bicycle for the mind, these people insist we go out fully padded, with front & back training wheels, walk our bikes up & down hills. never exceed 10mph or your eyeballs might pop out. building a smarter culture able to avoid dangerous & bad forms of computing seems much more like the end I think we should spend time promoting. give people choice, visibility, and an ambient social network that can help provide background & discussion around the tech you've started dabbling in, that can warn you.
  - throwaway3neu94 5y ago
    So, how much do you know about pharmaceuticals, building safety and cows? We tightly regulate all those industries precisely so that people can rely on vendors and not get hurt, even if it might be more profitable to substitute a few components in a vaccine, skip the earthquake retrofit and ignore whatever animal disease popped up. And this is without getting into the issues of oligopolies, network effects, vendor lock in and user manipulation/deception by vendors. The companies dedicate entire specialist teams worth of effort to this. The average person doesn't stand a chance without help. IT in general is really not so special that it should be exempt from governmental consumer protection efforts. Especially since it is one of the most profitable sectors by far, so you really can't argue that there isn't room for tighter controls. Apple and Facebook specifically are two of the most profitable companies in the world. They can afford it. And if they drop to "merely" being in the fortune 500, that is still completely fine with me. And if some exploitative business models become unprofitable, that's fine as well. That's kinda the point. And before you argue that it would kill innovation: there is ample precedent for regulations that depend on the size of the company or the customer base.
    - rektide 5y ago
      I still see a computer more as a tool for freedom & exploration & less as a consumeable commodity or domicile. we use our will every second of our interactions with the computer, we pilot the tool through the information. the premise that this experience must be built into a completely failsafe environment where the user has no possibility to ever do any harm to themselves is foolish. a pen if wielded improperly can hurt someone. but we don't regulate pens to make them utterly safe. and pens don't regulate what they will write. the consumer does need protection, though, for sure. I don't see it as desirable that apple be the sole arbitrator of how their computers may be used though, as reasonable determiners of what parts of the internet we might connect to.
cyanydeez 5y ago
it serves their entire ecosystem, what next, users loading PWA and bypassing their entire ecosystem? heave fordbid! apple is like the malevocence of hardware software walled garden, they make it easy to do what makes them tied to the platform and e erything else a struggle.

grawprog 5y ago

That's how they get you. First you sideload one app, you think you can stop with just one, then next thing you know you've got F-Droid on your phone, your sideloading left and right. Then before you know it, all your money now belongs to a Nigerian Prince and hackers are ransomwaring your grandma. Yeah kids sideloading might seem fun, but it's a gateway to disaster. Just say No to sideloading.

frumper 5y ago
It sounds like we need to get the hackers to ransomware the Nigerian Prince's grandma.
- grawprog 5y ago
  Nah, better to just stick to the walled garden and let Almighty arbiters of all that is safe to install guide us.
cyanydeez 5y ago
hey man, sideloading is just the start, next thing you know theyll be saving progressive webapps and never leaving their browsers!

threatofrain 5y ago

Something troublesome to people who worry about privacy would be FB asking people to side-load, which in a sense they did when they bought a VPN and asked kids to grant all access to network traffic [1]. Kids will ignore warnings, and they are thought to be savvier than their folks. Kids are the ones who will download games that basically train you to love ads. And Apple doesn't collect revenue from FB, but FB is probably the heaviest in its weight class. If FB asks, parents will say yes. If Fortnite asks, children will say yes. [1]: https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/

rektide 5y ago
it's amazing to me how much imagination & concern people put in to 0.000001% of side loading cases. if a computer is a bicycle for the mind, these people insist we go out fully padded, with front & back training wheels, walk our bikes up & down hills. never exceed 10mph or your eyeballs might pop out. building a smarter culture able to avoid dangerous & bad forms of computing seems much more like the end I think we should spend time promoting. give people choice, visibility, and an ambient social network that can help provide background & discussion around the tech you've started dabbling in, that can warn you.
- throwaway3neu94 5y ago
  So, how much do you know about pharmaceuticals, building safety and cows? We tightly regulate all those industries precisely so that people can rely on vendors and not get hurt, even if it might be more profitable to substitute a few components in a vaccine, skip the earthquake retrofit and ignore whatever animal disease popped up. And this is without getting into the issues of oligopolies, network effects, vendor lock in and user manipulation/deception by vendors. The companies dedicate entire specialist teams worth of effort to this. The average person doesn't stand a chance without help. IT in general is really not so special that it should be exempt from governmental consumer protection efforts. Especially since it is one of the most profitable sectors by far, so you really can't argue that there isn't room for tighter controls. Apple and Facebook specifically are two of the most profitable companies in the world. They can afford it. And if they drop to "merely" being in the fortune 500, that is still completely fine with me. And if some exploitative business models become unprofitable, that's fine as well. That's kinda the point. And before you argue that it would kill innovation: there is ample precedent for regulations that depend on the size of the company or the customer base.
  - rektide 5y ago
    I still see a computer more as a tool for freedom & exploration & less as a consumeable commodity or domicile. we use our will every second of our interactions with the computer, we pilot the tool through the information. the premise that this experience must be built into a completely failsafe environment where the user has no possibility to ever do any harm to themselves is foolish. a pen if wielded improperly can hurt someone. but we don't regulate pens to make them utterly safe. and pens don't regulate what they will write. the consumer does need protection, though, for sure. I don't see it as desirable that apple be the sole arbitrator of how their computers may be used though, as reasonable determiners of what parts of the internet we might connect to.

cyanydeez 5y ago

it serves their entire ecosystem, what next, users loading PWA and bypassing their entire ecosystem? heave fordbid! apple is like the malevocence of hardware software walled garden, they make it easy to do what makes them tied to the platform and e erything else a struggle.