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Apple could still have a "developer" mode you have to jump through a complicated technical process to enable...just like MacOS let's you disable system integrit

by dmix 4y ago

Apple could still have a "developer" mode you have to jump through a complicated technical process to enable...just like MacOS let's you disable system integrity protection by running a terminal command and rebooting into a boot disk then running another terminal command. It could void support plans so it's not Apple's problem. That wouldn't affect your kids and telling Grandma how to do that over the phone is very difficult. And at that point she could be handing over her credit card anyway.

api 4y ago
It’d be easy to gate this: require that the iOS device be connected to a Mac and a special app used to change “advanced” settings. These could include side loading, the ability to install alternate app stores, and low level OS access of various kinds. It would be very helpful to developers and debugging too.
- dmix 4y ago
  So why do you think Apple doesn't want that to happen? Surely a developer or ten has suggested the same thing by now? My guess is focus: they are 100% focused on being the best closed platform that is easy to use and everything is handled for the user. A lively sideloading and 3rd party homebrew scene would be a massive distraction for the Dev team and most importantly the support side with little direct business ROI (indirect could be big but a harder sell). Possibly harming brand reputation showing people what they could have absent the paid wall. When the alternative exposes people to risk, and they'd rather not have to explain themselves?
  - johnbellone 4y ago
    Revenue. Plain and simple. Everything you mention is the way they use to protect that revenue.
    - dmix 4y ago
      That's like say "why does cancer happen?" "because your cells will die" Well obviously that's the most basic reason why but that doesn't help us solve the problem. How exactly does it cause a loss in revenue? It's very possible the benefits that come from being more open improve the platform for everyone and increase sales. So it's valuable to be very specific on where the costs are.
  - root_axis 4y ago
    > So why do you think Apple doesn't want that to happen? lol i can think of a few billion other reasons why they don't want it to happen.
    - dmix 4y ago
      Such as...
      - nazgulsenpai 4y ago
        I think he means dollars.
somethoughts 4y ago
I think the issue with that scenario is that some hack of a Mac in developer mode will get reported in the media in big scary headlines as "All Macs finally hackable" - (which would technically be true but it'd be missing the fact that developer mode would have needed to be enabled). And then the flood of Grandma voicemail messages would startg.
- dmix 4y ago
  A single news cycle of a story full of misinformation would dissuade them? Sorry it has to be a far bigger problem than that. A very complicated easily communicated opt-in hacking risk is very very low on the totem pole.
wpm 4y ago
Ok. But now imagine that using Facebook or TikTok in the browser on your Mac is a terrible, pared down experience, full of banners pushing you to get the app. But the app isn’t on the App Store, where there are rules, it’s on their website. Just follow these steps! Do you not think people can’t follow step by step instructions to do something like that, if they had a very strong reward at the end? It’s not just little Billy and Grandma who shouldn’t be turning that mode on, it’s most people.
- dmix 4y ago
  I'm sorry... You think Facebook would start a mass campaign to disable the warranty/support contracts of millions of their iPhone users by walking them through a very complicated technical process... To achieve what exactly? Download an app the same person could get using the app store? The media would have a field day at Facebooks expense. Why would Apple even let them on the app store if they did something so stupid?
  - snowwrestler 4y ago
    Facebook already abused the limited side loading available on iPhones to trick teenagers into installing spyware. The media did have a field day, and Apple pulled their enterprise certificate. https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18203551/apple-facebook-blocked-internal-ios-apps https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18203551/apple-facebook-b... This isn’t even a hypothetical, it really happened. And yet people still have a hard time believing Facebook (and other companies) would abuse iPhone side loading if given a chance. Of course they would!
res0nat0r 4y ago
They could do that, but then would need to also immediately require a big [X] next to "the instant you do this you forfeit any and all support for any hardware or software issues on your device". Apple doesn't want to deal with a million hackers screwing with their devices and clogging up their support system, and also then having to deal with endless reports of terrible customer service because someone paid 1000$ for an iPhone and then Apple won't help them out when they brick it with the latest flashware they downloaded from usenet. Followed by the inevitable complaints that "Apple Customer Care is terrible". Easier just to control the entire ecosystem, and tell folks who don't like it, "cool, cya".
tpmoney 4y ago
I've told this story here before, but "we don't support that" doesn't go nearly as far as you think. When they released the intel macs and boot camp, boot camp came with explicit "we don't support this or problems you have with it". At the time I worked for Apple retail and one of my most memorable customers came in steaming mad. She wanted to return her brand new macbook because it was having all sorts of problems. The sort of problems that shouldn't even be possible on a mac, and the sort of problems that were addressed by a firmware update 6 months earlier. I managed to get her to agree to demonstrate what was going on for me before we did the return and as soon as she booted the computer, it booted right into Windows. It turns out she'd bought her new mac and given it to her "computer guy" nephew to help get it set up. Nephew apparently thought that what she really needed was not a mac, but an expensive windows computer instead. So he installed boot camp, shrunk the mac partition to it's smallest size and then configured the system to boot into Windows by default. As a result, she had a macbook that had been without any recent firmware updates to solve some issues (because firmware updates run through the OS update software, and not in windows) and hadn't even installed an anti-virus software (because "macs don't need it") and so had a number of malware infections going too. From Apple's written perspective, we would have been absolutely within our rights to say "well you've installed boot camp, we don't support that and you need to use macOS instead" and sent the customer on her way and denied the return... and that would have been a shitty customer experience. So we spent some time getting the customer's computer re-configured, moving some of their important info to the mac partition, showing them the new OS, explaining what the heck happened in the first place (which involved explaining to someone who barely knew how to use email what bootcamp was and why a mac running windows isn't really "a mac" in the colloquial sense) and convincing them to give it a try for a while before deciding they wanted to do the return. Now that experience in the end turned that customer into a very good and reliable customer, but it also meant that "we don't support that" was a meaningless boundary. It also meant that the issue wasn't that the customer did this to themselves. They didn't. Someone who understands the implications of developer mode isn't what Apple is concerned with. It's the people who don't understand that, who will never see the "here be dragons" warning because they didn't enter developer mode, their "computer guy" nephew did. Also, people already gripe about the fact that to "fully unlock" your mac these days, you need to disable SIP, and how that disables some things (but at least not your warranty). Do you really think the same people would be happy with "developer mode but no more warranty" on iPhones? Especially if someone like Epic or Facebook or Google insist that their apps need this unlocked mode and so the only way to use them is to void your warranty?

by dmix 4y ago

api 4y ago

It’d be easy to gate this: require that the iOS device be connected to a Mac and a special app used to change “advanced” settings. These could include side loading, the ability to install alternate app stores, and low level OS access of various kinds. It would be very helpful to developers and debugging too.

dmix 4y ago
So why do you think Apple doesn't want that to happen? Surely a developer or ten has suggested the same thing by now? My guess is focus: they are 100% focused on being the best closed platform that is easy to use and everything is handled for the user. A lively sideloading and 3rd party homebrew scene would be a massive distraction for the Dev team and most importantly the support side with little direct business ROI (indirect could be big but a harder sell). Possibly harming brand reputation showing people what they could have absent the paid wall. When the alternative exposes people to risk, and they'd rather not have to explain themselves?
- johnbellone 4y ago
  Revenue. Plain and simple. Everything you mention is the way they use to protect that revenue.
  - dmix 4y ago
    That's like say "why does cancer happen?" "because your cells will die" Well obviously that's the most basic reason why but that doesn't help us solve the problem. How exactly does it cause a loss in revenue? It's very possible the benefits that come from being more open improve the platform for everyone and increase sales. So it's valuable to be very specific on where the costs are.
- root_axis 4y ago
  > So why do you think Apple doesn't want that to happen? lol i can think of a few billion other reasons why they don't want it to happen.
  - dmix 4y ago
    Such as...
    - nazgulsenpai 4y ago
      I think he means dollars.

somethoughts 4y ago

I think the issue with that scenario is that some hack of a Mac in developer mode will get reported in the media in big scary headlines as "All Macs finally hackable" - (which would technically be true but it'd be missing the fact that developer mode would have needed to be enabled). And then the flood of Grandma voicemail messages would startg.

dmix 4y ago
A single news cycle of a story full of misinformation would dissuade them? Sorry it has to be a far bigger problem than that. A very complicated easily communicated opt-in hacking risk is very very low on the totem pole.

wpm 4y ago

Ok. But now imagine that using Facebook or TikTok in the browser on your Mac is a terrible, pared down experience, full of banners pushing you to get the app. But the app isn’t on the App Store, where there are rules, it’s on their website. Just follow these steps! Do you not think people can’t follow step by step instructions to do something like that, if they had a very strong reward at the end? It’s not just little Billy and Grandma who shouldn’t be turning that mode on, it’s most people.

dmix 4y ago
I'm sorry... You think Facebook would start a mass campaign to disable the warranty/support contracts of millions of their iPhone users by walking them through a very complicated technical process... To achieve what exactly? Download an app the same person could get using the app store? The media would have a field day at Facebooks expense. Why would Apple even let them on the app store if they did something so stupid?
- snowwrestler 4y ago
  Facebook already abused the limited side loading available on iPhones to trick teenagers into installing spyware. The media did have a field day, and Apple pulled their enterprise certificate. https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18203551/apple-facebook-blocked-internal-ios-apps https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18203551/apple-facebook-b... This isn’t even a hypothetical, it really happened. And yet people still have a hard time believing Facebook (and other companies) would abuse iPhone side loading if given a chance. Of course they would!

res0nat0r 4y ago

They could do that, but then would need to also immediately require a big [X] next to "the instant you do this you forfeit any and all support for any hardware or software issues on your device". Apple doesn't want to deal with a million hackers screwing with their devices and clogging up their support system, and also then having to deal with endless reports of terrible customer service because someone paid 1000$ for an iPhone and then Apple won't help them out when they brick it with the latest flashware they downloaded from usenet. Followed by the inevitable complaints that "Apple Customer Care is terrible". Easier just to control the entire ecosystem, and tell folks who don't like it, "cool, cya".

tpmoney 4y ago

I've told this story here before, but "we don't support that" doesn't go nearly as far as you think. When they released the intel macs and boot camp, boot camp came with explicit "we don't support this or problems you have with it". At the time I worked for Apple retail and one of my most memorable customers came in steaming mad. She wanted to return her brand new macbook because it was having all sorts of problems. The sort of problems that shouldn't even be possible on a mac, and the sort of problems that were addressed by a firmware update 6 months earlier. I managed to get her to agree to demonstrate what was going on for me before we did the return and as soon as she booted the computer, it booted right into Windows. It turns out she'd bought her new mac and given it to her "computer guy" nephew to help get it set up. Nephew apparently thought that what she really needed was not a mac, but an expensive windows computer instead. So he installed boot camp, shrunk the mac partition to it's smallest size and then configured the system to boot into Windows by default. As a result, she had a macbook that had been without any recent firmware updates to solve some issues (because firmware updates run through the OS update software, and not in windows) and hadn't even installed an anti-virus software (because "macs don't need it") and so had a number of malware infections going too. From Apple's written perspective, we would have been absolutely within our rights to say "well you've installed boot camp, we don't support that and you need to use macOS instead" and sent the customer on her way and denied the return... and that would have been a shitty customer experience. So we spent some time getting the customer's computer re-configured, moving some of their important info to the mac partition, showing them the new OS, explaining what the heck happened in the first place (which involved explaining to someone who barely knew how to use email what bootcamp was and why a mac running windows isn't really "a mac" in the colloquial sense) and convincing them to give it a try for a while before deciding they wanted to do the return. Now that experience in the end turned that customer into a very good and reliable customer, but it also meant that "we don't support that" was a meaningless boundary. It also meant that the issue wasn't that the customer did this to themselves. They didn't. Someone who understands the implications of developer mode isn't what Apple is concerned with. It's the people who don't understand that, who will never see the "here be dragons" warning because they didn't enter developer mode, their "computer guy" nephew did. Also, people already gripe about the fact that to "fully unlock" your mac these days, you need to disable SIP, and how that disables some things (but at least not your warranty). Do you really think the same people would be happy with "developer mode but no more warranty" on iPhones? Especially if someone like Epic or Facebook or Google insist that their apps need this unlocked mode and so the only way to use them is to void your warranty?