4 ms·

The main problem is that users can be tricked to do it. Used to happen to my parents all the time on Android. They'd install random apps and the website will "g

The main problem is that users can be tricked to do it. Used to happen to my parents all the time on Android. They'd install random apps and the website will "guide" them how to install this app by going to settings and enabling "untrusted developers". This is my issue with all these devs screaming at apple. Your customers chose a product for whatever reason. Don't like it? I don't care - respect their choices. It speaks volumes to me how much they will respect me and my privacy when they want to optimise for their own profits instead of my XP and privacy.

DavideNL 4y ago
> "The main problem is that users can be tricked to do it." That's because the GUI is badly implemented; On macOS, your parents would never disable SIP (system integrity protection), because it's quite cumbersome to disable and there are enough warnings and hurdles. This is already has been reality for years: it is simply not an issue.
dingleberry420 4y ago
What happened to personal agency? Let people make mistakes, you don't need to infantilize them.
- bun_at_work 4y ago
  People are easy to manipulate at scale. The idea that people are rational agents who can make educated decisions as consumers is deeply flawed. Yes, people _can_ make educated decisions, but more often than not, they don't have the requisite knowledge to make an informed decision. Letting those consumers get scammed because they aren't technical enough isn't a good solution to complicated problems.
  - dingleberry420 4y ago
    - oblio 4y ago
      There are middle points in there, before your extreme.
      - thrown_22 4y ago
        What extreme? Letting people decide what permissions on their apps is the middle ground. The extremes are letting Apple decide what you can and can't run on your phone, or letting apps decide what you can or can't run on your phone. That some people are too ignorant to set phone permissions is their problem. We still sell sharp knives even though people cut themselves all the time. Demanding Apple protect us is the digital equivalent of banning anything sharper than a butter knife.
        oblio 4y ago
        There's a ton of regulation for knives and everything you can think of, and where there isn't, we call it "the Wild West" and it's not a compliment.
        thrown_22 4y ago
        You must be British to think that licenses for knife buying are normal.
        oblio 4y ago
        I'm guessing you're American? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knife_legislation#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knife_legislation#United_State...
  - kaba0 4y ago
    With the same logic, setting sane defaults and putting “dangerous” options behind enough GUI options will give you the best of both - no (statistically) people will be motivated enough to press n menus deep for a setting, while the few that want full access to a very expensive device they supposedly own get to use it to its max.
- aljungberg 4y ago
  So many people in this thread seem to be arguing I should not be allowed to choose Apple’s model as it is today, “for my own good”. The article is about explicitly outlawing parts of their model. How’s that for personal agency and not infantilising me?
  - car_analogy 4y ago
    > “for my own good” No, for the common good. We are all harmed when Apple or Google can decide which businesses will succeed or fail, which apps get censored and which are allowed.
    - aljungberg 4y ago
      Can us common people get to decide what the common good is, or is that exclusively your choice? Censorship is something governments do, not private companies selling an optional product. If the greater good is a free for all app store, then let the greater populace decide that by choosing that product, not by outlawing the alternatives.
      - car_analogy 4y ago
        > Can us common people get to decide what the common good is, or is that exclusively your choice? This legislation is the result of democratic process - i.e. decided by the "common people", if indirectly. > let the greater populace decide that by choosing that product "The only legitimate power citizens have is that of consumers, not voters." - shall we also decide to only buy from companies that don't use child labor, and don't put toxic chemicals in food, and don't pollute, or are those areas something where legislation is legitimate, while reigning in anti-competitive practices for some reason is not okay?
        aljungberg 4y ago
        > This legislation is the result of democratic process - i.e. decided by the "common people", if indirectly. Do you know that for a fact? The EU is famously opaque to its voters. What is being done in the name of the voters is likely for the most part entirely unknown to said voters. Very likely many more EU citizens have “voted” on this issue in a more direct fashion by buying Apple products. Should we disregard their opinion in favour of the opinion of a few bureaucrats four levels removed from the common people? > shall we also decide to only buy from companies that don't use child labor, and don't put toxic chemicals in food, and don't pollute, or are those areas something where legislation is legitimate, while reigning in anti-competitive practices for some reason is not okay? Ehr, yes? Shouldn’t we decide to avoid bad companies? Reminder that this subthread is about not infantilising people. I do believe people make such choices all the time, to avoid child labour and what not. What’s more democratic than a vast majority of people making such choices without coercion?
- katbyte 4y ago
  young children don't know any better. hell many teens don't. older people get dementia and go senile. Not everyone is tech savvy. And selfishly I don't want to have to continually be on guard with my phone and worry about "making mistakes". Don't go forcing your world view on a product i have selected in large part because of the restrictions it places on developers, especially when you have the larger android ecosystem giving you it.
  - mixedCase 4y ago
    You can ask Apple to give you the tools to easily manage permissions, same goes for their parental blocks.
    - katbyte 4y ago
      The problem is the older, senile or tech illiterate folk who can be coached into disable the blocks and installing spyware. You don't like it buy an android its literally that easy to avoid if you want the freedom.
  - lenkite 4y ago
    Enable the setting to block third-party app stores - something which will 100% guaranteed to be there - and be happy while the rest of us who want consumer choice can also be happy. Win-Win.
    - katbyte 4y ago
      that doesn't help the tech illiterate or senile parents who can be coached into disabling it to install spyware. And right now you can just not buy an apple device and have your choice while the rest of us can continue buying apple for our parents: win-win.
      - lenkite 4y ago
        You can already restrict apps with a unique passcode today. Will work for senile parents or children. However, as a sane, functioning adult, I don't have my choice on the iOS platform - I cannot use native Firefox. I cannot make my apps without paying the Apple dev tax. I cannot distribute to my circle.
sedatk 4y ago
Apple has a harsher review process for such practices.
cafxx 4y ago
Not sure I buy the argument. By that logic, Apple should only allow phone calls from callers they consider trusted, because any call originating from a non-trusted phone number may be a scam phone call, and someone may fall for it. Do scam phone call exists? Yes. Do people fall for it? Yes. Does apple block all untrusted phone calls, with no opt-out, as a result of this? (AFAIK) No. (I could also make the same or similar arguments for web pages, music, podcasts, books, movies, or even apps on their other OS and so on... but phone calls seemed the simplest one to present succinctly.)
- chrischen 4y ago
  That was ground already lost by the time Apple introduced a phone. Sort of like how they can’t lock down macOS in the same way. But given iOS was a fresh start they locked it down from the start so they didn’t have to claw that locked down experience back.
theshrike79 4y ago
This is why I've bought my mother in law and my mother (both retirement age) an iPhone SE. Zero support calls since then. I don't have to worry about them installing some spyware crap on their phone, Apple is taking care of that. All I actually need to do is to educate them not to click on any link in any message, email or SMS. And not to buy anything over the phone.

DavideNL 4y ago

> "The main problem is that users can be tricked to do it." That's because the GUI is badly implemented; On macOS, your parents would never disable SIP (system integrity protection), because it's quite cumbersome to disable and there are enough warnings and hurdles. This is already has been reality for years: it is simply not an issue.

dingleberry420 4y ago

What happened to personal agency? Let people make mistakes, you don't need to infantilize them.

bun_at_work 4y ago
People are easy to manipulate at scale. The idea that people are rational agents who can make educated decisions as consumers is deeply flawed. Yes, people _can_ make educated decisions, but more often than not, they don't have the requisite knowledge to make an informed decision. Letting those consumers get scammed because they aren't technical enough isn't a good solution to complicated problems.
- dingleberry420 4y ago
  - oblio 4y ago
    There are middle points in there, before your extreme.
    - thrown_22 4y ago
      What extreme? Letting people decide what permissions on their apps is the middle ground. The extremes are letting Apple decide what you can and can't run on your phone, or letting apps decide what you can or can't run on your phone. That some people are too ignorant to set phone permissions is their problem. We still sell sharp knives even though people cut themselves all the time. Demanding Apple protect us is the digital equivalent of banning anything sharper than a butter knife.
      - oblio 4y ago
        There's a ton of regulation for knives and everything you can think of, and where there isn't, we call it "the Wild West" and it's not a compliment.
        thrown_22 4y ago
        You must be British to think that licenses for knife buying are normal.
        oblio 4y ago
        I'm guessing you're American? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knife_legislation#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knife_legislation#United_State...
- kaba0 4y ago
  With the same logic, setting sane defaults and putting “dangerous” options behind enough GUI options will give you the best of both - no (statistically) people will be motivated enough to press n menus deep for a setting, while the few that want full access to a very expensive device they supposedly own get to use it to its max.
aljungberg 4y ago
So many people in this thread seem to be arguing I should not be allowed to choose Apple’s model as it is today, “for my own good”. The article is about explicitly outlawing parts of their model. How’s that for personal agency and not infantilising me?
- car_analogy 4y ago
  > “for my own good” No, for the common good. We are all harmed when Apple or Google can decide which businesses will succeed or fail, which apps get censored and which are allowed.
  - aljungberg 4y ago
    Can us common people get to decide what the common good is, or is that exclusively your choice? Censorship is something governments do, not private companies selling an optional product. If the greater good is a free for all app store, then let the greater populace decide that by choosing that product, not by outlawing the alternatives.
    - car_analogy 4y ago
      > Can us common people get to decide what the common good is, or is that exclusively your choice? This legislation is the result of democratic process - i.e. decided by the "common people", if indirectly. > let the greater populace decide that by choosing that product "The only legitimate power citizens have is that of consumers, not voters." - shall we also decide to only buy from companies that don't use child labor, and don't put toxic chemicals in food, and don't pollute, or are those areas something where legislation is legitimate, while reigning in anti-competitive practices for some reason is not okay?
      - aljungberg 4y ago
        > This legislation is the result of democratic process - i.e. decided by the "common people", if indirectly. Do you know that for a fact? The EU is famously opaque to its voters. What is being done in the name of the voters is likely for the most part entirely unknown to said voters. Very likely many more EU citizens have “voted” on this issue in a more direct fashion by buying Apple products. Should we disregard their opinion in favour of the opinion of a few bureaucrats four levels removed from the common people? > shall we also decide to only buy from companies that don't use child labor, and don't put toxic chemicals in food, and don't pollute, or are those areas something where legislation is legitimate, while reigning in anti-competitive practices for some reason is not okay? Ehr, yes? Shouldn’t we decide to avoid bad companies? Reminder that this subthread is about not infantilising people. I do believe people make such choices all the time, to avoid child labour and what not. What’s more democratic than a vast majority of people making such choices without coercion?
katbyte 4y ago
young children don't know any better. hell many teens don't. older people get dementia and go senile. Not everyone is tech savvy. And selfishly I don't want to have to continually be on guard with my phone and worry about "making mistakes". Don't go forcing your world view on a product i have selected in large part because of the restrictions it places on developers, especially when you have the larger android ecosystem giving you it.
- mixedCase 4y ago
  You can ask Apple to give you the tools to easily manage permissions, same goes for their parental blocks.
  - katbyte 4y ago
    The problem is the older, senile or tech illiterate folk who can be coached into disable the blocks and installing spyware. You don't like it buy an android its literally that easy to avoid if you want the freedom.
- lenkite 4y ago
  Enable the setting to block third-party app stores - something which will 100% guaranteed to be there - and be happy while the rest of us who want consumer choice can also be happy. Win-Win.
  - katbyte 4y ago
    that doesn't help the tech illiterate or senile parents who can be coached into disabling it to install spyware. And right now you can just not buy an apple device and have your choice while the rest of us can continue buying apple for our parents: win-win.
    - lenkite 4y ago
      You can already restrict apps with a unique passcode today. Will work for senile parents or children. However, as a sane, functioning adult, I don't have my choice on the iOS platform - I cannot use native Firefox. I cannot make my apps without paying the Apple dev tax. I cannot distribute to my circle.

sedatk 4y ago

Apple has a harsher review process for such practices.

cafxx 4y ago

Not sure I buy the argument. By that logic, Apple should only allow phone calls from callers they consider trusted, because any call originating from a non-trusted phone number may be a scam phone call, and someone may fall for it. Do scam phone call exists? Yes. Do people fall for it? Yes. Does apple block all untrusted phone calls, with no opt-out, as a result of this? (AFAIK) No. (I could also make the same or similar arguments for web pages, music, podcasts, books, movies, or even apps on their other OS and so on... but phone calls seemed the simplest one to present succinctly.)

chrischen 4y ago
That was ground already lost by the time Apple introduced a phone. Sort of like how they can’t lock down macOS in the same way. But given iOS was a fresh start they locked it down from the start so they didn’t have to claw that locked down experience back.

theshrike79 4y ago

This is why I've bought my mother in law and my mother (both retirement age) an iPhone SE. Zero support calls since then. I don't have to worry about them installing some spyware crap on their phone, Apple is taking care of that. All I actually need to do is to educate them not to click on any link in any message, email or SMS. And not to buy anything over the phone.