Apple lets you install custom apps on Macs, it’s just iOS devices where it’s a pain.

On iOS devices, you have to use a developer account to sideload the app and it only works for a short time, IIRC. I’m fuzzy on the details because the places where I’ve worked, it mostly just worked although the experience was way, way better on Android. At one point I was on a team that ran a system for deploying apps for sideloading, and for years I’ve been carrying both an Android and iOS phone, so I feel like I have a handle on these differences, but I also am missing out on some of the problems that our team already solved.

On macOS, you can download an app and run it. Depending on the provenance of the app and the security settings, you may get a message like “this app is from an unknown developer” with no apparent way forward. The solution is to right-click the app and select open from the context menu. When you open an app by right clicking on it, the OS gives you an option to open the app. This depends on security settings, but I think this is allowed by default.

There’s a lot of malware out there these days and I think it is good and correct that it should not be obvious how to run arbitrary software you downloaded. We know people will just click through dialog boxes to try and get where they’re going, which is way (for example) there’s no button to visit an HTTPS site with a broken certificate in most browsers these days. Some things should not come with instructions, because the risks are too great for unskilled users.

I believe the right click method for opening an unsigned app no longer works as of MacOS Ventura. It appears to work on your own computer but once someone downloads it and tries to run on a new computer, you can’t get around it through regular UI, I think.

It does still work, but you need to change the gatekeeper settings to allow it.

At the same time, almost everyone in my family over the age of 60 who uses a non-Apple device has their devices completely sodden with crapware (and probably worse), to the point where they periodically have to taken them in to some sort of computer "repair" person to have them serviced (i.e., the garbage removed).

Some people apparently need help making judgment calls about what is and is not safe to install on their devices. I feel like Mac OS might strike the right balance here: you can install anything you want, but the OS throws up speedbumps if the app doesn't have the right signature, is not from the App Store, etc. These protections can be easily circumvented, but they send a signal that you should think twice about doing so if you don't really know what you're doing.

I agree with you - MacOS is the correct model to follow.

Clearly not true. A lot of spyware and malware masquerades as legitimate software.

And literally none of it would be allowed on the app store, just like it isn't now. Again, it would change absolutely nothing. Scammers would sooner convince his 80+ year old mother to tell them her bank details than they would walk her through the process of installing a dodgy app through sideloading.

> If apple allowed you to install custom apps, it would change NOTHING for your 80+ year old mother. Literally nothing. Her device would still be just as safe and secure as ever before.

Not it would not still be as safe.

Malware and scams would come with instructions to install their custom bad app.

“Install this custom Deals app to save money”

>>Malware and scams would come with instructions to install their custom bad app.

I would love a single example of that happening(on android)

Exactly this. People forget that most of hacking is social engineering.

All I can figure is these notions that it'd be fine and exactly the same come from the generation after all of us who experienced the horror of removing 20 "search bars" from every single one of our relatives' computers... and repeating every few months. And that's when they didn't manage to get outright viruses on the regular, which many of them did. They simply haven't seen how awful Internet-connected computing was for most people, at exactly the time when most people finally started to use computers at home (in the US anyway), which was right around the year 2000.

Or maybe we have 80+ year old relatives using Android and not having these problems.