I have the choice of buying a completely controllable android device if I want to install mystery apps willy-nilly. I'm not interested in that, and there are millions like me. I want a locked-down device that keeps developers in check.

This situation is much like the browser nightmares of the past, where Firefox users complained that the browser was slow. People didn't really take into account that the slowness wasn't fault of Firefox, but of the zillion janky browser extensions people freely installed. Chrome came along, and people were wowed by how fast it was, not realizing it was 'fast' because they hadn't installed 47 browser extensions yet. Apple doesn't want to be Firefox, and I don't blame them.

I want my phone to be like a Nintendo, I don't really care about the freedom to install any random code I download (even though I really could if I wanted to install something I built locally with XCode). First and foremost I want developers to be terrified of getting their publishing privileges yanked if they step out of line.

The same applies for if the government said “you have a right to install apps of your choice”. Apple adds a setting in the settings menu. You still get your locked down device by default, and much like blind people, people who care about controlling their device are given that option, too.

What you’re arguing is akin to saying, “I’m not blind, so Apple shouldn’t ever even have a Voice Over option, because it’s not my preference, even if it’s just in the settings”.

There’s a false dichotomy - Apple can still keep it locked down by default. You still get your device just as safe and sound. And much like accessibility settings, most people wouldn’t bother to find the setting, and if they did, they would have a big warning (and of course Apple could have another big warning on every install, as well as keep all their sand boxing and permissions access rules active).

There’s no loser here. If grandma digs deep into the settings and ignores multiple warnings, it seems she is proficient enough to take on the risk. Forcing blind people to not have any voice over because grandma may accidentally turn it on and have a bad outcome is a weak argument.

I don't like the idea that the government can force you to build things you don't want to build. If I don't want to build a general purpose computing device, why should the government be able to force me to?

There's a compelling argument for requiring building in handicapped-accessible features, but that is relevant to the equal protection clause of the constitution. There's no implied constitutional right to general-purpose computing.

Oh but you do. Otherwise you'd choose to live in a country without a food code or electrical code or engineering standards for roads and bridges.

If you want to run a platform business, you'll need to be mindful of anti-trust law more than anything else. The Apple platform is perfectly capable of anti-competitive behaviour given it's market share, and doubly so given Apple and Google control 99% of the phone market.

There’s no reason the law couldn’t carve out a class of devices as “general purpose computing devices” which would exclude fine homemade / artisanal / hyper-focused kindles, gaming consoles, etc. of course these lines get moved around and tested in many ways. Much like how assault weapons are hard to define, and yet regulated in many places.

But laws like this exist all over, and many do great good for the common cause. Accessibility is one example.

If unlocking general purpose computing devices drove trillions in GDP and innovation, didn’t harm anyone, and generally improved consumers lives, I don’t see why we need a direct precedent. We have laws on return policies, lemons, telephone usage, and all sorts of consumer driven things. There’s plenty of indirect precedent.

If this was really such a boon, wouldn't the devices where you can already do this have a huge market advantage? If so then why are we talking about forcing it on consumers and manufacturers?

I’m certain there would be a new generation of startups especially focused on selling digital goods.

Further, you need to look at incentives. Apple would almost certainly respond by lowering their fees as a move to stay competitive. That extra cash trickling downstream would enrich many more people, who then would go on to create new things.

Not sure you have an argument that it would already have happened if it was so much better.

If the vast majority of devices already have this capability, what difference is it really going to make forcing it on the remaining 20%? Why hasn't Apple already been forced to lower their fees if they are the underdog in terms of market share? For that matter, why hasn't Google been forced to, given how easy it is to sideload?

Apple has dominance in many markets, like the US. In fact you could say the reason Android has such global market-share is because they commoditized their OS, ie, allowing for competition to drive down prices. So you're claiming the same forces wouldn't affect software? Android apps are generally cheaper, as well, though it's hard to pin why. The general principle of competition = lower prices applies here.

I'd rather debate on what's right for consumers not whether some technical definition of a monopoly applies or anything like that. But to be honest there's not much more to be said - if you are against the legislation, then fine, it's a perfectly valid opinion. I think legislating allowing more freedom on personal general computing devices would be a good thing with many benefits to society as I've enumerated already.

This seems on the surface to be the libertarian position, but imho it's subtly authoritarian - you weren't able to convince most people to use the freely available unlocked hardware you're advocating for, so instead you'd like to use the full force of the law to make all product designers create what you want them to create. If the benefits of unlocked hardware were so evident, surely the consumers would already be reaping the rewards on the unlocked hardware they can buy right now?

Libertarian philosophy is maybe the least compelling of them all in my opinion.

Safety and accessibility are human needs, and regulating markets to address those needs is a completely reasonable requirement.

Forcing product designers by legislative fiat to add a cool feature you want, on the other hand, is pretty authoritarian. Nothing is stopping you from buying a general purpose computing device right now, or building one and selling it.

You’d have been pro Bell I guess back in the day. “What’s stopping you from building a competing telephone service?” Oh only not having capital > all VC investments made in any given year.

Correct - and Google's very popular, but not dominant OS will already let you sideload whatever code you like, which is a big part of why you'd have a hard time competing. I'm sorry, running arbitrary code on your daily driver phone is just not the game-changing feature you're making it out to be.

And people just do whatever the app says since they assume Apple has vetted it.

Users will just flip it off for the first evil app they told to install by friends. Think about 95% of all users.

Not really relevant to your point, but Chrome was legitimately faster than Firefox for a long time. It wasn't just extension bloat, V8 was a huge leap in JS speed and Chrome optimized the hell out of rendering. Firefox wasn't able to bridge that gap until their recent Quantum initiative.

That's fine but how does from that statement follow that it's a good idea to let Apple do it to everyone? You don't want things, that's fine, don't get them. Nobody is asking to add anything to the things you already like, ruining them for you. People are asking for freedom of choice.

It's like saying you want to live under permanent surveillance, which you can do, you can have a security company install a camera in every room of your house, but why does that need to apply to the entire city block?

How are you worse off if Apple is required to say, allow third party app stores, which you don't need to touch? In the same vein, why was Firefox ruined for you by addons if you didn't need to install any?

A lot of people don't or aren't even aware of the dangers of walled gardens. Like it or not goverments job is to regulate and protect people and the economy: be it monopolies, user data or anti-competitive practices.

Libertarians aren't ios target, it's average casual tech ignorant people who'll blindly trusts the system because they don't care.

Companies producing specialized hardware/software couplings does not preclude another company developing open options.

I usually choose an open option for most of what I do but when it comes to some mindless gaming or my phone that I use for some sensitive matters I want them limited in their scope in a big way.

I don't understand this all-or-nothing argument that seems to be made when it doesn't reflect the reality of the situation.

Agreed. But they don't. I think this the point of government intervention to require or provide incentive to do something which benefits society even if it doesn't benefit the company.

Automobile safety and emissions limits comes to mind for me.

Nah, the capabilities can be limited, just not artificially so. I understand there is a bunch of nuance in that statement that we can get lost in discussing, but the brief salient point is "if the manufacturer can do something to my device, then they should not add restrictions for me to try to do it also". We don't need to get lost in the what-ifs that such freedom discussions often devolve into.

I would be comfortable with a high quality legal encoding of the Your Device principle:

"To the extent a device, or part of a device, behaves like a general purpose computer or could easily and reasonably be made to behave that way if not for artificial restrictions placed upon it by a vendor, the effective owner(s) of the device or part shall have the right to use and control the general purpose computer aspects as they deem appropriate."

"Effective owner means those using the device as if they own it, so where a device is technically rented or licensed from a vendor, the renter or licensee is deemed the effective owner for application of this principle".

Details of what that means in practice for non-obvious edge cases would be fleshed out by precedent and the courts I guess.

It would not limit what devices can be manufactured, but it would place a requirement of access and control on some kinds of devices.

There are going to be nefarious actors who still manage to bypass it, and there are going to be risks outside of a walled garden - and that's a meaningful choice we can provide users.

"Hey, you can stay inside the app store and get these promises, or you can install what you want and risk X, Y and Z."

Android does this.. decently well. There are issues with the google framework, but otherwise it's functional - my elderly family doesn't need me to reset their phones every month, yet I can sideload all my games and FOSS apps.

because you're only thinking of technical solutions. A comprehensive privacy framework that requires explicit user consent to data collection and gives user transparent controls accomplishes just that, without having to resort to user-hostile or complicated tech.

I’ve worked on games that have been copied outright. All assets and artwork, but a new name and “publisher” being sold elsewhere. It eats into profits.

When the walls come down, developers will be knocked off. This will hurt indys far more than larger companies, as “developers” opportunistically exploit the work of others.

Apple & Google are great at reducing and shutting down this kind of activity. If people can install the Pirate Bay store and install anything for free, many folks will.

If users can be coaxed into privileging an app, malware will control the majority of phones. People are still falling for the Nigerian prince scam.

I see actually many ways in which devs are impacted : - discovery is basically null, both on Android and Apple. You need to just pay ads if you want people finding your game. Steam is much MUCH better at it. - you can't really have a good mod environment or a hackable game, which is very important for a lot of indie games - you cannot do some kinds of game. Right now that include gore and sexual games (see kawaii killer for instance) but also some other things like a weed growing simulator. Who knows what it will be tomorrow - as Google is going into gaming, and who knows maybe Apple at some point, you are basically on the hands of a competitor many times your size with no alternative

That's a closer analogy.

For the vast majority of people, and iPhone is way, way better than a computer that can run any app, precisely because it can’t run any app they click on.

I’m a hacker, so I would love to be able to install any software I want on my iPhone, and introspect it in other ways.

Most users, however, would have a way worse experience using their phone if they were given this option, because a non-trivial percentage of them would follow the tutorials online provided to them by malware authors to install their malware.

This is precisely what happened to desktop computers. Has everyone forgotten about Bonsai Buddy?

People who want a general purpose, configurable device that can run any code they want on it have options. They’re big, clunky, out of date phones.

Apple is being punished for their success here. They happen to make the best phone hardware at the moment, and they bundle the best phone hardware with cryptographically-enforced editorial decisions about the best software that runs on it.

I think the real danger here is that of censorship: if the state commands Apple to delete (or actively remote-disable) certain apps, a huge problem exists. Today it’s WeChat or TikTok. What if tomorrow it’s Signal? iMessage’s encryption has already been backdoored for the feds in the default configuration via iCloud Backup (which is not end to end encrypted and backs up the entirety of chat history from the device to Apple each night). The state could literally command Apple to prohibit any type of secure communication from the device via this method and they’d have to comply, and iPhone-owners would have no recourse due to the DRM. That’s the real danger.

There’s a real argument to not allowing Apple to do this, but I don’t think “consumer choice” is it. Consumer choice chose the walled garden over the anarchy of Desktop Computer Malware.

There definitely are issues with Apple, but the user not having full access to changing their device isn't really one, and that's coming from someone who most definitely has the know how to do pretty much anything and still remain safe, I'd dread to see users be stuck having full root access to their phones without even knowing what the fuck that means.

There absolutely needs to be options for those that want to be able to hack away at their phone to their hearts content, but it doesn't need to be every phone, and Apple aren't criminals just because they don't offer that possibility and users happen to want their phones anyway.

Please don't give me root access to my iPhone, I do not care about it, I have no need for it, and I do not want it.

I'm precisely in this boat. I enjoy playing with electronics, but I want my microwave to just work. I also enjoy fiddling around with PCs with total freedom, but I want my phone to just work.

https://youtu.be/oiY_iKSpWLM

I actually have 3, two iPhones and one Android, and 3 iPads.

Once I gave up on private cross-device sync on iOS without iCloud (a bummer, to be sure), I started using the iPads as single-purpose devices instead of wanting every file on every screen all of the time. One is just for hacking (editors/ssh/browser), one is loaded with books and maps, one is for a special project.

The phones are split between primary/production, emergency backup (n+1), and hacking/testing/fun. I’ll probably end up with a fourth phone at some point (hacking * two platforms).

Then don't turn on root mode?

Nobody will force you to do anything, if I am given the option of easilu turning on root mode, and you can simply choose to not turn that on.

And obviously I realize that this doesn’t go for everyone, and that’s completely okay. I just don’t think Apple should be forced to make their phones into full-on computers just because some people say they want the choice, when you could just as easily get a phone. If most customers really wanted to root iPhones Apple would probably have implemented it by now. I don’t believe for a second that Apple’s desire to unilateraly control their ecosystem trumps shareholder greed, why would it?

Not all phones are for everyone and I think that’s OK. More options and more modular devices means everyone will setup and use their device differently, like with a computer, this is fine for many, but I think it would adversly affect the streamlined nature of iOS (even if it is ‘just an option’), so I’m still against it.

what sucks is that in the big picture, there's really no viable option for someone who cares about security/privacy and is willing to pay for a premium device, but wants full access to their phone occasionally. the security update situation on android is still a mess except for the pixel line (which usually has subpar hardware) and a handful of other flagship devices. even if you're willing to pony up, you're still buying into an ecosystem that's designed to exfiltrate data from your device. it's frustrating because the iphone is so close to having everything I want from a device. if I could just have the ability to temporarily elevate privileges, even from some obnoxiously buried menu deep in the settings (or bootloader), I would buy one in a heartbeat.

Then don't turn on root mode? Is that really such a large infringement on you? The fact that there might be an option in your phone, to turn on root mode, and the mere fact that this switch exists somehow mind controls you and makes you turn it on?

If an easy switch in the phone exists that says "Allow competing app stores to be installed", why can't you simply not switch that on?

My previous bank forced installation of a rootkit in Windows and Mac, and required full permissions in Android just to open. Their website didn't even work in Linux because they didn't make a Rootkit.

I didn't really have an option at the time: this was before my government made a law allowing you to use any bank, so I needed the bank to access my salary.

I'm all for freedom of fully owning your own device, but the reality is that software developers and software companies will abuse this freedom.

Step 1: Open settings > Tap 'enable root mode'

Just like while we have people tricked into buying apple gift cards for scammers we still don't decide to ban those cards because they do offer utility.

No amount of luring is going to make somebody go through that only to have their device data completely wiped as the warning clearly says.

Root mode _is_ that dangerous. You wouldn't want to allow astronauts "root access" to their starship launcher; you don't want car drivers to have "root access" to tinker with the brakes in their car. You don't want patients on ventilators to have "root access". You don't want non-doctors to access their health data without a doctor's to walk them through it. Certain pieces of data left to mere mortals can have devastating consequences.

It's not a question of "don't turn on root mode". Or saying "don't re-jigger the brakes".

People (tech experts or otherwise) should not be allowed to mess with systems that can literally end their life by exploding in their pockets! That's how dangerous it is!

Sure, some of the consequences are that you can't tinker with your UI. But honestly, that's a reasonable price to pay because the software that controls the behavior of these systems can cause real-world damage, if not configured properly.

Heck, we've seen this in the recent 40 years. The whole freaking Metric vs Imperial system disagreement has caused unintentional rocketship explosions. Imagine, if some inane argument between a couple of high-schoolers or teenagers led to the same type of bug killing them because their phone exploded. All because someone with root access misconfigures a constants plist file to prove a point!

This is non-sense fearmongering.

Giving people the ability to install fortnite, on an official fortnite app store, is not going to cause people to die from phone explosion

It is just not going to happen. Fortnite is not going to blow you up.

The reason why I know this to be the case, is that half the US smartphone market, allows people to side load APKs, and install fortnite that way, and people aren't being blown up because they had fortnite on their phone.

> This is non-sense fearmongering.

I was referring to "Root access"; not the ability to install Fortnite. There's a difference.

People have the ability to install Fortnite. Do it through the Apple App Store.

They do not have the ability to install it through a competing Epic Games app store.

Allowing people to install fortnite, through an Epic Games app store, that is not approved by Apple, is not going to cause people's phone to blow up.

> not the ability to install Fortnite

In my post, I specifically said "on an official fortnite app store", but it seems like you ignored that for some reason.

That is what I am referring to. If you agree with me, that:

"Giving people the ability to install fortnite, on an official fortnite app store, is not going to cause people to die from phone explosion"

Is the case, then cool. You agree that there is not going to be a blowing up phone problem, if Epic Games, has an app store on people phones, that is run by Epic Games, and not Apple.

HN crowd wants something they can run sudo on. But people here have not got a slighest idea of how to run a device for close to a billion+ people.

Apple is among the worst offenders here, too. They expressly permit all sorts of embedded spyware in almost every single app in their App Store, and their view is that you agreed and consented to it when you accepted the iOS/App Store Terms of Service.

They could build platform security features like Little Snitch into the OS to allow users to prevent it, but they don't.

They could make App Store rules to keep apps from spying on you when you use them, but they don't.

They could end to end encrypt device backups, so the US military and FBI couldn't read all of your iMessage history whenever they want without a warrant or probable cause, but they don't. (In fact, they were going to, but then specifically stopped.[1])

The "Apple respects user privacy" story is just brand marketing, not reality.

[1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...

Can you provide sources for other claims in your comments? I want to read up more on what sorts things these apps do.

Apple is by far the best when it comes to privacy relative to the others. Would you trust Microsoft, Google, or literally any other company (even Canonical Ubuntu) more than Apple?

https://www.eff.org/702-spying

Any data you provide to any of those companies (or any others that have been added in the time since, which presumably includes Dropbox and AWS) that is not end to end encrypted should be considered compromised by the state, or able to be compromised by the state at any time the moment they want to look. (PRISM is not mass surveillance, they specify the accounts they want data for.)

As far as the other apps go, you can watch it yourself. Install the iOS app called Charles Proxy, and you can see all of the hidden connections that apps are making.

Alternately, install NextDNS, and make sure your custom configuration settings (on their setup portal) is set to retain logs for a few hours. You’ll be able to see all of the different hostnames to which your phone connects.

I have stopped using iCloud, and only use Google for YouTube (or corporate/work stuff, for which I have no special desire for privacy from the state). I give my clients the option, though, if they wish to use a different method of collaboration.

Also, Apple is putting encryption in hardware to prevent this sort of a thing. They don't have keys to the device.

Apple does not implement end-to-end encryption for their backups, which is why I’m “dinging” them. The iCloud device backups that happen each night on the device are backed up with Apple keys, which means that Apple can decrypt your entire message history for the device, without the device. iCloud Backup is on by default for every iPhone and iPad, which it is not inaccurate to describe as an effective cryptographic backdoor in iMessage’s end-to-end encryption, because it escrows the iMessage keys (as well as the complete message history) to Apple with Apple keys, each and every day. They don’t need any “keys to the device”.

This is well documented in Apple’s KB article about iCloud encryption: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

Apple’s on-device hardware encryption has nothing to do with this problem. This is a software design issue that Apple chose. Google chose a better, safer way to do it.

The fact that it’s a problem with the US government is a red herring. There are still good and bad choices in cryptographic system design.

Please do read the linked URL. Apple was on track to fix this glaring issue, and then, according to Reuters, Apple Legal shut down the project. Whether it was done specifically on FBI request, or proactively by Apple to butter up the FBI, is irrelevant: the FBI has no legal basis to command Apple to drop this project, so the decision not to safeguard user data from government snoops rests solely with Apple.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...

Additionally, the phone that Apple famously refused to unlock is irrelevant: Apple had already provided all of the related account’s iCloud data (presumably including a full device backup) to the FBI. It’s not in Apple or the FBI’s interest to draw attention to this detail.

I wonder if perhaps the news story about how “Apple vs FBI for user privacy” was an FBI reciprocation to aid Apple’s privacy brand narrative in exchange for Apple not encrypting backups (so Apple can always provide all of the device data to the FBI without the phone).

The vast majority of people you're talking about don't realise they're having their prices jacked up with taxes or their options curtailed by Apple. They just assume the App Store is where you get the apps because it's been programmed into them over the last 12 years.

Allowing third party app stores doesn't change the API or permissions system already baked into the OS. If Epic wants to start an App Store with lax policies then if you and Apple are right about the value of their policies then that'll become apparent quickly enough and will still be a selling point of the App Store.

This is nothing like what happened with desktop computers, where the security model had to be welded on after the horse had already bolted. Windows (just as an example) wouldn't allow blanket admin permissions to software if there was a way to stuff the legacy software genie back in it's bottle. Unfortunately fixing permissions retrospectively would break a multitude of legacy software that hasn't been updated in years, in some cases decades.

Apple is not being punished for success, and you don't understand the problem or the legal case, which is entirely not at all related to Apple protecting or not protecting their users from pop-up ads.

Consumer choice didn't chose anything. Most phone users don't even understand that they are in a walled garden.

tldr; This isn't The Beach, it's The Truman Show.

It does precisely that. Apple invests huge amounts of money into people and infrastructure to ensure that exploit code (that can subvert platform security) never makes it into the store or gets signed by Apple. If it does, they can immediately revoke it.

Third parties providing app downloads would not invest the anywhere near same level of care, for the most part. Platform security can only do so much if you can run any code you want to try to attack it.

No one part of it is bulletproof, as we saw with CVE-2020-3883.

I think Apple fans exagerrate when they say that most users are so "inexperienced" to get taken advantage off.

- this number of completly inexperienced user is not proven to be as large, if you look at Android or OSX you don't see 51% of users having malware on their machine

- with the amount of money Apple has they could afford to improve the security by adding more sand boxing and making unlocking of the phone by "tricked incompetent users almost impossible"

- I assume apps and websites can use your microphone and camera on your phone, it is under soem popup/permission prompt, why do you trust the "inexperienced users" with the camera permissions some bad person could trick them.

- "protecting" an unknown small number of users by limiting the rest makes no sense, what makes more sense is MONEY, Apple makes more money by locking things down and getting 30% from apps, subscrip[tions and the much hated lootboxes

> "protecting" an unknown small number of users by limiting the rest makes no sense, what makes more sense is MONEY

For creating policies 51% is a bad measure. Its inherently biased to be regressive. Setting policies at 51% disproportionately hurts the bottom 1%, 10% and 25% of the populations that need our help the most. This is true of all policies and especially laws.

Meanwhile, if you've ever helped your grandma or parents with their computers, you'll realize just how much malware they have already downloaded. I also remember what I was like on Limewire and Kazaa as a kid. There is/was an entire industry built around it for Anti-virus and Malware protection.

iOS doesn't require anti-virus or malware protection because Apple builds protection and privacy into the product as a core feature. Sadly, built into Android is malware but even Android is less susceptible to malware from unknown entities.

- they are gullible , so bad people can trick them to ignore OS security warnings,create some extra account or security key to unlock the device (Apple can do it hard enough it must not be just 1 click)

- at the same time this users are not that gullible to paste their credit card in random websites or on Apple approved chat messages

- at the same time this users can be trusted with the app permissions for files,contacts, camera, location

For me if I intersect all this sets of users I get void and your argument should be that everything should be locked down, no permissions allowed for this users, there should only Apple approved websites, apple approved contacts, Apple should scan your messages not to send your card details or do stupid things. This people should use an iOS version made for children and adults could use the unlocked version.

I work at a pretty big company, where we are trusted to make a lot of important decisions but as I understand it even small companies have trainings to identify "phishing, clickbait, social engineering, etc". Every relatively big company also pre-approves devices that can connected and access the internal network. Installing software needs to be pre-approved. Even my browser Firefox or Chrome settings are pre-selected to ensure no compromising behavior can occur.

I know from past-experience, friends and colleagues that my current company is not unique. Because all humans (even the smartest sets) are gullible, it just depends how time constrained, sleep deprived or drunk they are.

Additionally, preventative protections on devices are used often even in personal contexts. When I help my mom set up her computer I pre-install everything and she doesn't have the admin password. This is the general recommendation for and by anyone helping someone under-educated about technology and abuse vectors. I've asked if she would rather me teach her and she just prefers using the computer without worry. Neither her, not this situation is unique.

That said, I have previously and do agree, Apple should make it easier to boot non-iOS iPhones. However, Apple should only provide that to the registered adult owner of the device, in person at an Apple store after delivering the caveats that the device will no longer be supported by Apple (regardless of resale) and any warranty is void.

According to screen time on iOS, I use Safari 2x more than all my other native applications combined. Including to play games. Especially with "Login with Apple", and "Apple Pay" I find that most websites are as easy to use as native applications.

As I've posted elsewhere:

I agree, Apple should make it easier to boot non-iOS iPhones. Even provide some tools to write custom OSes for the iPhone hardware. However, Apple should only provide that service to the registered adult owner of the device, in person at an Apple store after delivering the caveats that the device will no longer be supported by Apple (regardless of resale) and any warranty is void.

this kinda misses the point. I don't want to write my own OS for the phone or run ubuntu or someone else's jailbroken iOS image. I just want to run normal iOS, get updates, and also have the ability to escalate privileges from time to time. why is there not an amount of money I can pay for this?

also, does apple distribute any third party drivers in iOS? if so, they might not be able to make non-iOS iphones possible, even if they wanted to. not as familiar with the apple world but IIRC, this has been a longstanding issue for true alternative OSes on android phones.

If you want to keep iOS as well... at that point, I do feel Apple is also in its right to remove all trademarked content from the phone running an iOS-like OS. AppStore, applications, remove all reference to words like "iPhone". So it would be a very bare-bones iOS-like.

Because otherwise it could negatively impact their brand. Their brand is built on the premise they build amazing products for customers who want those products. If someone looks at your "modified, uncurated iPhone" and thinks it "feels janky" or "poor UX" or "bad battery life" or ..."" that could result in that person not buying/recommending an iPhone.

Apple clearly values its brand highly and I can see why they would want their brand to be distanced from the type of device you would like.

Maybe we can stop pretending that the lock is in place to protect the users, most Android users do not root their devices or install random evil applications and then complain to Google about it, can't we just be sincere and say , "yeah is the way Apple keeps control on things for financial reason" . we could focus on the correct stuff then like how we can protect the small set of very gullible users from bad apps(that can be in the store) or bad webpages or evil messages.

While this is of course still possible, the store model allows you to disable the app and remove the store listing to prevent further distribution of the bad app. You would be giving this up ability if you allowed third-party distribution. The fact that review is necessary in the first place also serves as a deterrent, and if a bad actor is caught their developer account can be banned to prevent them from submitting any more apps.

> Maybe we can stop pretending that the lock is in place to protect the users

Not sure why you think this is a pretense. In 2019, Android devices were responsible for 47.15% of malware infections compared to 0.85% of iPhones (https://onestore.nokia.com/asset/205835). There is a clear security benefit to the locked-down store model.

You do not need a store to blacklist a known bad application, you can have the OS do what OSX is doing now(I read on HN about this, I don't run any newer OSX versions) check an app when it starts against a blacklist.

I agree that a review will catch low level effort of malware and I am not advocating for no official store if is possible users should use applications from the sore or on Linux from the official repositories but if some application is not in the store/repo (maybe you live in one of those countries that ban apps) you can have the option to side load the application.

The statistics for malware on iOS vs Android could be problematic if you don't compare equal user groups, Like a rich kid will buy the games from Steam or Apple store, some poor kid will try to get some free games so IMO we should compare similar population.

> The statistics for malware on iOS vs Android could be problematic if you don't compare equal user groups, Like a rich kid will buy the games from Steam or Apple store, some poor kid will try to get some free games so IMO we should compare similar population.

Even within the Android platform Google has reported an 8x difference in malware between devices that use side-loading compared to devices that use only the Google Play Store (https://source.android.com/security/reports/Google_Android_S...). In other words, it is specifically side-loading and third-party app stores that cause the biggest problem.

We've already seen this same story play out on Windows. Why would we expect it to be any different here?

Can you explain? Side loading apps won't disable the sandbox so the app won't have access to your files, sensors or peripherals without permissions. The OS could be even more privacy focused by allowing power users to enable an option to fake private data like contacts,photos,location etc for apps that would refuse to run without this permissions.

Second thing, what extra privacy a manual review of a guy would add to an app that can't be done better on the device by sandboxing and code?

Side loading would be used by power users most of the time or people in countries with censorship. We will not repeat the Windows story , we would repeat the Linux story where we always had trusted apps on trusted repos and only power users would "side load" stuff, on Windows the story wad different, you needed something you used google and run the first thing you find.

At least with an app review policy you can say this type of behavior is not acceptable and you will be banned if you abuse it. I'm not saying that will perfectly catch all abuses but at least it serves as a powerful deterrent that otherwise would not exist if all apps were directly distributed with no oversight.

> Side loading would be used by power users most of the time or people in countries with censorship.

Not sure why you think this but it simply doesn't match existing statistics. Side-loading and third-party stores are quite common in certain countries and it leads to large numbers of regular people getting infected by malware. For example, Kaspersky reports that 60% of mobile users in Iran and 38% of mobile users in India have been attacked by mobile malware. (https://securelist.com/mobile-malware-evolution-2019/96280/)

The guy that reviews the Apple Store has no idea if the developer sells the data to a third party, the chances that somehow Apple finds this out in time to help you is minimal, it would help if Apple would let you give this people fake data or more granular data (like I want to give them a first name, 1 picture, and a city location but not much more details). Many existing apps are using FB SDKs, other advertising related library in the apps, loot boxes and other dark patterns and Apple is not blocking this because they have a financial interest.

If you consider the US alone you're still looking at ~17 million malware infections last year on Android devices.

> The guy that reviews the Apple Store has no idea if the developer sells the data to a third party, the chances that somehow Apple finds this out in time to help you is minimal

The fact that they can ban these developers serves as a deterrent. What you're suggesting is the equivalent of saying there's no point in having laws against stealing because some people will steal anyway. What you should be considering is the net effect of the rules against the overall frequency of the problem, not whether it prevents them 100% of the time (which is impossible anyway).

> Many existing apps are using FB SDKs, other advertising related library in the apps, loot boxes and other dark patterns and Apple is not blocking this because they have a financial interest.

Now imagine how much worse it would be if Facebook (and every other app) was directly distributed and had zero oversight whatsoever.

Is the same statistics shit Apple fanboys use when they want to show that Apple can't be a monopoly/duopoly the use a world wide stat(where in fact in US Apple and Google are around equal (iOS appears on top on this source but who knows how credible it is https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-sta...)

About laws, it is more like because someone is getting hurt with his power tools then we ban power tools and we allow only children friendly tools. This is not how it is sone, we can ask for safer tools but if someone injures himself with his power tools it is his fault. (and now I expect the argument about "Apple branding needs to be protected" dude Apple shipped bad keyboards and refuse to aknowledge the issue until a a lawsuit, Apple fucked witht eh battery behind the users back and a lawsuit had to happen for this to be shown, Apple branding is not something as a user you need to care about because it promotes antiuser behavious.

No one is advocating banning power tools. There are plenty of power tools (Android devices) out there for people who want to buy them. What you're advocating is that Apple shouldn't be allowed to sell their own, safer, tools to people who want to buy those instead.

- if Apple wins vs Epic then Google and Microsoft have precedent and they can lock down their platforms , previous legal precedent was with IE bundling

- because Linux exists that does not mean the Microsoft can do whatever they want, similar because at this moment Android devices exists and some power users can side load and an even small umber of users can root them does not mean that others can lock things down.

Your statistics are misleading and you are avoiding to compare apples to apples. Show me how much malware is on OSX because that platform was not as much locked,

Bundling IE with Windows was never established to be illegal in the United States, the issue was overturned by the appeals court and precedent was never set. What was found to be illegal was forcing other companies (like OEMs) to include IE on computers they manufactured as a condition of obtaining Windows licenses.

> - because Linux exists that does not mean the Microsoft can do whatever they want, similar because at this moment Android devices exists and some power users can side load and an even small umber of users can root them does not mean that others can lock things down.

The difference is Microsoft had 95% of the market during their antitrust case. If they had 5% of the market the outcome would have been very different.

> Your statistics are misleading and you are avoiding to compare apples to apples. Show me how much malware is on OSX because that platform was not as much locked,

Are you unaware that Mac malware is a growing problem?

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/02/11/malwarebytes-mac-malwar...

30 million adware detections on Mac last year kind of puts a hole in your theory that only poor people get malware, doesn't it?

It is also my expectation that Apple will file a suit for damages, and help a legal firm file a class action suit against the developer on behalf of the victims.

If you are right and this isn't happening yet, I hope Apple starts doing it.

With sideloading allowed, an application/appstore that is actually a trojan horse could request permissions once to "download X" where X is innocuous. Later the trojan auto-downloads other applications to your phone to mine bitcoin, run a bot net, etc. Basically selling your hardware, bandwidth and battery life to the highest bidder.

With sideloading, alternate APIs could be scraped together into a "new std lib". These APIs would just be some C/asm lib that is a part of any application and accesses hardware without any permission management. At that point every possible bad thing can happen. "Sandbox it!" sure... but that is what Apple is currently doing... its just also auditing source code to ensure no one is maliciously trying to break out of the sandbox. With enough time, people will break the sandbox or people will complain the sandbox is too limiting and not "true sideloading".

All this said, is Apple's auditing system a 100% guarantee? No. But at least I know once the bug/issue is found Apple will close the hole. Meanwhile, its in a company like FB or GOOG's best interest to force ever more tracking onto users, and they know people will continue to use their services regardless of the complaints (like what happens today).

You might argue, "this is where government should step in". I agree! The problem is that the government isn't doing a good enough job protecting users from digital abuse (arguably might make it worse with weaker encryption). So in the meanwhile, I'm happy that at least Apple currently is trying to protect users.

The thing is nobody would force the normal users to side load things, the number of applications for Android that are not in the store is small and I think only Fortnite was one with popularity and the number of people sideloading it was not that big.

Have you actually looked up the statistics? According to Kaspersky (https://securelist.com/mobile-malware-evolution-2019/96280/) mobile malware attacks in 2019 affected: 60.64% of users in Iran, 44.43% in Pakistan, 43.17% in Bangladesh, 40.20% in Algeria, 37.98% in India, 35.12% in Indonesia, etc. These are not small numbers.

> - with the amount of money Apple has they could afford to improve the security by adding more sand boxing and making unlocking of the phone by "tricked incompetent users almost impossible"

Sandboxing can protect against system vulnerabilities but does not help protect privacy in the same way App Store review guidelines do. (For example, by disallowing user tracking in games designed for children.)

> - I assume apps and websites can use your microphone and camera on your phone, it is under soem popup/permission prompt, why do you trust the "inexperienced users" with the camera permissions some bad person could trick them.

Temporary access to a microphone or camera is nowhere the same level of security risk as allowing third-party applications to install other applications on your phone.

> - "protecting" an unknown small number of users by limiting the rest makes no sense

Again, these are not small numbers of users, nor are they unknown. Android malware routinely infects millions of devices:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/this-android-malware-has-infec...

https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/10/20688885/agent-smith-andr...

doesn't follow. people buying a thing despite flaw X just means don't consider X a dealbreaker, not that they actually want X

If they weren't, it would be a dealbreaker.

If it’s not a dealbreaker then you’re okay with it.

How many different ways do you want to twist this?

If any of this mattered to anyone outside this echo chamber then Apple wouldn’t constantly come at #1 in customer surveys.

Did the majority of the app revenue end up flowing through the Apple by chance or did the rules that setup facilitate that system? As you said, consumers who spend money have largely chosen the Apple walled garden.

You can jailbreak device, Apple still will have to respect the guarantee but they don't have to support you whatsoever.

Sure, Apple patch it, but then those are true vulnerabilities that are used to jailbreak it. Maybe they should just have a switch somewhere that would go "enable unsupported mode" that'd show a lot of angry texts at you before allowing you to do that.

That'd solve most of the coalition claims probably. Epic can always put their software on Cydia...

Consumer behavior is not intelligent.

But why? If sideloading requires explicit user action and acknowledgment of danger, why would this affect their brand of safety and privacy in any way? The users who want a safe controlled environment can easily choose to stay in that environment. I just do not understand this argument.

You can see this sort of thing in an old post by Joel on https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost...

This references an even older blog post (that has been lost to time) which was quoted:

> Look at the scenario from the customer’s standpoint. You bought programs X, Y and Z. You then upgraded to Windows XP. Your computer now crashes randomly, and program Z doesn’t work at all. You’re going to tell your friends, “Don’t upgrade to Windows XP. It crashes randomly, and it’s not compatible with program Z.” Are you going to debug your system to determine that program X is causing the crashes, and that program Z doesn’t work because it is using undocumented window messages? Of course not. You’re going to return the Windows XP box for a refund. (You bought programs X, Y, and Z some months ago. The 30-day return policy no longer applies to them. The only thing you can return is Windows XP.)

This is the same sort of thing that Apple faces with iOS. If an application breaks when the system is upgraded, it is the system's fault - not the application (at least in the minds of many consumers) and it is also considered to be the responsibility of the operating system vendor to fix the problem.

(This is part of why the Catalina upgrade was such a big deal because it was known that they'd break a lot of things in doing that)

If someone gets an app from a hypothetical 3rd party vendor store, and it breaks on an update of the operating system (or allows you to download an app that doesn't run) - its seen as company that wrote the OS's fault even though there is nothing that the company that wrote the OS can do about it - they can't even refund the app.

At a minimum it seems like the system is designed around the lowest common denominator of user at the expense of more power users.

I feel (especially in today's world) that people are too willing to accept risks that put themselves and others in danger without being informed of the implications or that they maintain a "yea, it will never happen to me" attitude.

That willingness to take risks is especially prevalent in younger demographics. With respect to fortnight when Epic was doing a "disable this check and load from another site" there were numerous copies of the software with malware installed because people were ignoring the risk and looking at what they have. https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/aug/10/fortnite-on-an...

If you are a power user, and want those features, jailbreaking the phone and doing whatever you want to it is an option. Or maybe, not using an iDevice and going with something that is more open.

There are a lot more people out there that want the training wheels on their technology experience than there are power users.

Personally, after having a linux system that I built myself and compiled kernel patches for back in the day - I'm glad I have the experience and I'm quite happy to let Apple do that now and not have to spend time on that level of verification of software and administration of my own devices.

On the phone itself - I've got lots of personal information, credit cards tied into NFC, email, and IoT controls. And while I'm not going to take risky actions with my phone, I am confident that others will take those risks. As part of Apple's brand identity is privacy and security - allowing people to take those risks works against that brand identity.

One of the frequent comments on HN in the past is "HN may not be the targeted demographic."

I saw a similar comment here before that made sense to me: "The more Apple distanced itself from power users, the more money they made".

Considering that even developers are not too understanding, it's no wonder people assume non-tech people will react the same way.

I really don't see a good solution for that. Even if Apple open sourced Carbon, I doubt Carbon users would be able pick up the slack, since they had 12 years to update but couldn't (or 20 if you consider Carbon was always marketed as a stopgap/compatibility solution).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21164005

The vast vast majority of users don't consider anything except the marketing. And apple is good at marketing. So people want iOS devices.

If marketing was all that mattered, and Apple's products were actually disappointing, they would not have repeat customers or high satisfaction after the purchase:

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/09/22/apple-tops-customer-sat...

and please, stop speaking for a "vast vast majority" of people, as if you're an authority on why other people do what they do.

Which is why I absolutely reject Epic et al’s position.

They want to be part of a small exclusive group of store owners who get to share in the benefits of Apple’s investments.

Very different from the device freedom you are calling for.

It must also be said that device freedom cannot come at the cost of security and trust.

I and presumably you, have the capability to make good decisions about what software to trust.

Most people must delegate this to a trusted third party.

I would support a legal requirement for iOS devices to have a bootcamp equivalent.

That way Epic and whoever else wants to build their own platform would be free to do so.

Exclusive? Why can't I write an app store?

You’ll be competing with multi-billion dollar corporations who have exclusive content and nobody will bother with your store.

What does me building a store have anything to do with its adoption? I build lots of low/no-adoption software for fun or for small/personal use. This line of thinking, that if you can't be a top-level player in a competitive market, you can't build anything is foolish. You shouldn't confuse the building and marketing concepts, especially not to support disallowing the former.

All manner of well-funded corporations would be able to start app stores on mobile, and several (Epic, Valve/Steam, Microsoft) would start app stores the second they were able to.

They'd also be competing for software - as there's a lot of fat that can be trimmed in those 30% margins.

The competition, which would be fierce, is more than enough to solve the issue of price fixing.

They also wouldn’t have to offer the same terms to every developer. All they would need to do would be to lock in some exclusive popular apps. ‘Competing for developers’ doesn’t mean making things better for all developers. It just means securing enough exclusives that people can’t ignore your store.

This will not be true of the stores that Epic, Facebook, and Google, and Amazon et al would start up on iOS.

https://www.businessofapps.com/news/amazon-app-store-vs-goog...

Interestingly, there appears to be more revenue made per user on the Amazon store than on Google Play:

https://www.mobilemarketer.com/ex/mobilemarketer/cms/news/re...

Note that as per Epic’s other lawsuit, the Amazon App Store is working at a severe disadvantage to Google Play.

People seem to be buying into Epic's own claims of self-importance. They may be the ones to have finally advanced grievances against the App Store to the lawsuit, but they do not- nor should they- have the ability to frame the entire discussion. Their standards for openness are debatable.

Android just isn’t a model for what would happen on iOS. Obvious really, because Android has never had anything like the same success in app sales.

(Note: I believe Google's absolute numbers are significantly underestimated due to the poor performance of Google Play Protect compared to other malware detection tools, but so far they are the only source I have found that publishes relative numbers between the Play Store vs side-loading.)

As some high profile examples:

- HummingBad infected 85 million devices primarily via direct-download on malicious adult websites. (https://www.zdnet.com/article/this-android-malware-has-infec...)

- Agent Smith infected 25 million devices primarily via a third-party app store. (https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/10/20688885/agent-smith-andr...)

As to how the Android users keep acquiring malware, I have no idea whether it’s from the Play Store, or if they download free apk files of paid apps, or if they download it through ads or from emails or whatever. I just know I have to help fix them regularly, and if iOS is forced to open up then iPhones will suffer from the same malware issues that you see with OSX/Windows/Android.

> They want to be part of a small exclusive group of store owners who get to share in the benefits of Apple’s investments.

Can you clarify what you mean by this?

Consumers will have to deal with them all, as will developers.

There will be a small group of store owners.

First of all, that is not true at all.

And second, even if it were true, it'd be a far better situation for developers than the current status quo.

There were no guarantees with any of the stores. Many didn't even host stuff they sold. So you'd buy from the "App Store", download from the developer's site, and then deal with whatever license system the developer used. Since there was no standard way to work with the store there was no standard mechanism of distributing licenses. Signing was also a joke as there was no good way to let end users validate, in a usable way, the signatures of apps or even that the signing entity was who they claimed to be.

Piracy was rampant because stores sucked, prices were onerous, and cracking the software or just sharing licenses was too easy. The current App Store model developed as a response to a broken market for mobile apps.

Hate on the App Store model all you want but it solved significant problems that plagued the industry for years.

Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Apple already have my CC number. If I could buy all my apps through (ex:) the Microsoft store that exists on PC, Android, and iOS I could delete my CC info from Google and Apple. That's a win in my book.

Maybe the competition would force all of them to innovate a bit. Wouldn't it be nice if you could give your CC number, but set a hard limit on in-app purchases? Ex: Here's my CC, but you're not allowed to charge more than $50 / month to it. I bet there are a lot of people that have gotten multi thousand dollar IAP bills that wouldn't mind a better system for some of that stuff.

Epic is suing Google too over this.

Android app stores other than google play aren’t remotely on a level playing field with the Play store.

False.

Epic made very clear, early on, IN THEIR COURT FILING that their case was an attempt to legally force Apple and Google to allow for third party app stores to exist equitably on iOS and Android.

Does that benefit Epic substantially? Of course it does. They want a mobile Epic Games Store on both platforms. But it would also break the stranglehold duopoly that Google and Apple have over the mobile software marketplace.

Example to prove the point: Nothing in Epic's proposals or court filing would prevent Steam Mobile or the Microsoft App Store from launching on iOS and Android on the same terms that Epic prevailed on in court. That's about as far away from anti-competitive behaviour as this court case could possibly hope to be.

I said a small group, not just Epic. That group would be made up of the usual suspects - Epic, Amazon, Google, Facebook, various other TenCent properties etc.

Nothing about it would make it either developer friendly, nor consumer friendly.

That doesn't sound too bad to me from either side TBH. As a developer, it would be useful to have a choice between multiple publishers with the advantage of only needing to deal with one at a time instead of three. I also think competition in app stores would spur a bunch of innovation.

As a consumer with an Android phone, a Windows PC, and an iPad as a tablet, the idea of buying all my stuff from one company's app store and having the licensing work across all 3 devices is extremely appealing.

I think one of the biggest fears of Apple, Google, etc. is that it's very possible someone will come along and build a better app store with better policies for both developers and consumers.

Here's a concrete example of "better". Judging by this [1] apps in iOS 14 can specify a DoH resolver to use for DNS.

> Apps will be able to specify a DoH resolver that will override the DNS resolver set by DHCP or RA for queries made from their app.

Guess what that means? Apple is going to let developers override MY choice as a network admin and DoH is going to be used for un-blockable ads. Why should they be able to do that? I would absolutely buy into an app store that forbid that behavior and forced apps to observe DHCP settings over app settings.

I'd also be fine with an app store that didn't force the use of sign in with Apple or Apple Pay. And that's where the problem is for Apple. Forcing developers to use Apple technologies isn't benefitting anyone but Apple. You might argue that it's better for consumers, but if those are features wanted by developers' customers, developers will add them without being forced to.

If each one commands a significant percentage of user attention, you’ll have to deal with them all.

People don't buy luxury jeans because they are better jeans than Levi's. People buy luxury jeans because of marketing. The same applies here. Consider how many people in the HN comments say they like iPhone because of privacy even though it is so clearly worse for privacy (can't install an app on your device without telling Apple, can't get your GPS location without telling Apple, etc.).

Also you seem to be just wrong. iOS doesn’t inform Apple when apps make GPS location requests.

You are wrong about GPS location requests:

"By enabling Location Services for your devices, you agree and consent to the transmission, collection, maintenance, processing, and use of your location data and location search queries by Apple and its partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based and road traffic-based products and services."

It will also send your location to Apple when no app is requesting your location:

"If Location Services is on, your iPhone will periodically send the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple, to be used for augmenting this crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower locations."

Unlike on Android, you cannot get your location without sending this data to Apple:

"To use features such as these, you must enable Location Services on your iPhone"

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT20705

You seem to be ignoring these important words:

“...in an anonymous and encrypted form”

Apple doesn’t end up knowing where you are.

Even though colloquially we can say they ‘send your location’, they don’t actually learn where you are.

This invalidates support for your claim about how iOS privacy is worse than Android.

This is not so hard to reverse given that Apple also has your location tied to your identity from other Apple services you use. Once you match that location to the encrypted user, who is often seen requesting their location data from work or home, you get the encrypted user's location data identified.

Compare to Android, where you don't have to send your location data anywhere to get your GPS location. iOS location privacy is strictly worse.

You also ignored the fact that every app install gets reported to Apple tied to your identity, which is arguably even more egregious.

I'd rather an iOS app have location listed as a capability in the manifest than have Android send my location to Google for the purpose of selling advertising based on store visits.

I also think it's crazy that IAPs are viewed as anything more than a simple payment that would incur normal payment processing fees. You'd never find anyone willing to argue that VISA or Mastercard should be able to charge 30% for payment processing because of the infrastructure they provide for merchants.

Visa and Mastercard only provide payment processing, they don't provide the equivalent of the iOS SDKs, Xcode, the App Store, etc., to their merchants.

For most cellular basebands the PHY is more powerful and capable than the regulations would normally allow. They only get certified for consumer use because the firmware bounds the operation to the regulated envelopes.

No devices would ever be allowed to be sold on the consumer market if end users could go tweak the firmware or run uncertified firmwares. They shouldn't be allowed to be sold. The difference between a transmitter and jammer is a pretty fine line.