> If you don't know what you're doing and install apps from the app store without examining them closely

That's completely orthogonal though, because Play Store is Google's walled garden. What Google allow you to do, in addition to downloading things from their walled garden, is also side-load apps completely separately from the walled garden.

There's no evidence that the ability to side-load causes an increase in malware/crapware.

What would we do if we didn't have apple to protect us from our own ignorance?

Apple is fallible. If developers can break out of app review constraints by using carefully included bugs[1] then the only solution is actively monitoring what the apps are doing. If that's the case, what value-add is Apple's walled garden? Just keeping out crappy programs? I think there are plenty of solutions for discovering what programs are good or not, as we've been working on that problem for decades now for computers specifically, and centuries in the general case.

1: http://www.imore.com/researchers-sneak-malware-app-store-exp...

I think you and the downmodders are shooting the messenger. I do not like walled gardens any more than I like taxes or drunk driving checkpoints. I'm just explaining why they are there and why many users actually prefer them, and I'm doing so to let people know there's a problem worth solving. Pretending the problem doesn't exist doesn't help.

Computer security is just far too confusing and difficult for the non-tech-savvy. With walled gardens people can delegate their security to someone that, while not perfect, is much better at it than they are. For most people this is a huge win. This is what happens to most peoples' computers if they are "open":

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/99/259360546_504c726d0b.jpg

If someone has a better idea I'm all ears, but I don't know of one that could match the Apple Store for ease of use. Since user experience trumps everything, app stores are winning.

None of the security and privacy arguments require a walled garden though. The real benefit is the fine grained control over what an application can do on your system. A set of fine grained controls and a a good set of defaults, or better yet the ability to subscribe to defaults as recommended by third parties. I Apple had controls much finer than those presented by Android with a set of sane defaults, and to that I could add what the EFF's recommends as defaults, we would all be better off, because Apple's best interests and my best interests are not always aligned.

I'm going to repeat that last part, because I think it's very important. Apple's best interests and my best interests are not always aligned. Why should they have ultimate control over what can and cannot be run on my phone.

"why many users actually prefer them" - Android is more open and from the numbers it seems users prefer it more then Apple.

But in actuality users don't have much option right more so in iOS.They would use the defaults.

Drama.

Seriously, stop giving the media so much credit. You can trust the Play store as well as you can trust the App store.