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> You just can't? There's not a way to download an .ipa and run it on an iPhone. There are ways. > if they just let embedded an url in the package configurati

> You just can't? There's not a way to download an .ipa and run it on an iPhone. There are ways. > if they just let embedded an url in the package configuration from where the phone needs fetch the updates, that'd be enough. No, it’s not. In that model, every app can download something from anywhere on the internet at the discretion of the developer, modify itself, and then execute newly downloaded code. Having that process happen out of band from at least a semi-trusted location is much better. > If we're talking about safety, the safest place platform today in terms of security and privacy is still the web For gullible users (of which there are many), the web is incredibly dangerous. Yeah, stuff is sandboxed and such, but that doesn’t stop people from losing egregious amounts of money to scams. I can’t quantify this, but I would guess that the web is a substantially higher percentage of scams compared to the App Store. Anecdotally, I don’t know anyone who has lost more than a trivial amount of money to an App Store scam. I know multiple people who have each lost $50k+ just to romance scams.

realusername 5y ago
> There are ways. Let's just agree that those "ways" aren't exactly usable enough for normal users then. > No, it’s not. In that model, every app can download something from anywhere on the internet at the discretion of the developer, modify itself, and then execute newly downloaded code. Having that process happen out of band from at least a semi-trusted location is much better. That's if you believe that the app store process works for that purpose (I don't) > I don’t know anyone who has lost more than a trivial amount of money to an App Store scam. I know multiple people who have each lost $50k+ just to romance scams. The vast majority of revenue made on the app store by far are from casino-type gaming apps which are using tricks to make users pay. Out of those casino-type game players, only a small minority is spending all their money on those addictions. These poor people are losing a lot. That's not very popular in Apple's marketing but that's the real truth, the appstore as it is today has more in common with a casino than a respectable traditional software market. I run a personal budget app but I'm in the minority and more the kind of apps they use for PR purposes rather than where their actual revenue is coming from. I do get that they try as hard as possible to change that image since regulators would destroy them but so far, my analysis stays the same. In terms of privacy, there's a reason everybody asks you do download their apps, there's just much more data to gather compared to the web.

realusername 5y ago

> There are ways. Let's just agree that those "ways" aren't exactly usable enough for normal users then. > No, it’s not. In that model, every app can download something from anywhere on the internet at the discretion of the developer, modify itself, and then execute newly downloaded code. Having that process happen out of band from at least a semi-trusted location is much better. That's if you believe that the app store process works for that purpose (I don't) > I don’t know anyone who has lost more than a trivial amount of money to an App Store scam. I know multiple people who have each lost $50k+ just to romance scams. The vast majority of revenue made on the app store by far are from casino-type gaming apps which are using tricks to make users pay. Out of those casino-type game players, only a small minority is spending all their money on those addictions. These poor people are losing a lot. That's not very popular in Apple's marketing but that's the real truth, the appstore as it is today has more in common with a casino than a respectable traditional software market. I run a personal budget app but I'm in the minority and more the kind of apps they use for PR purposes rather than where their actual revenue is coming from. I do get that they try as hard as possible to change that image since regulators would destroy them but so far, my analysis stays the same. In terms of privacy, there's a reason everybody asks you do download their apps, there's just much more data to gather compared to the web.