If security really mattered, every OS would run applications in a proper sandbox, but why bother with that when you can just point your Web browser at a program running on someone else's server? Oh, but consent to these tracking cookies first.
The huge difference is that's only a warning, and not a cryptographically locked-down system unlike Apple's.
And for most users that security warning is as good as a cryptographic lockdown anyways.
On the other hand, I find it ironic how a lot of "security professionals" will complain constantly about users accepting security warnings with no thought anyway (and they usually use this argument to justify their increasingly authoritarian measures of controlling them.)
Apple does the same thing with Notarization and Gatekeeper on macOS. If they choose to revoke your signing certificate, Gatekeeper will prevent your software from running on macOS.
That means if you do, say or compete with something that Microsoft or Apple doesn't like, they can prevent your apps from running on their platforms.
A generic answer to your question is that the software was signed by whoever compiled or distributed the software, which can include your own machine. Your own key is in your trust store or your app distribution method put their key in your trust store. Both macOS and Windows will treat software compiled on the same system it is run on as blessed to run without strict signing checks.
On macOS, ad-hoc certificates can be used, but the OS will treat those binaries as if they're radioactive. If you compiled code on macOS, the system will treat that software specially on that specific system and allow you to run it[1]. On Windows, certificates can be added to trust stores. Chocolately, for example, has their own signing certificate for all of the compiled open source software they have in their repositories, so Windows allows their software to run.
The biggest issue is what comes with software distribution itself, where your code isn't blessed by default by the system it was compiled on, or doesn't have signing certificates in the users' trust stores, and Gatekeeper and Windows Defender go out of their way to stop your users from running software with signing certificates they don't like.
Every browser I know uses the Mark of the Web to tell Windows that a file came from the internet. You'll have to store the file on a FAT32/exFAT drive to get rid of it. If a file comes from the internet, smart screen kicks in.
When a file is unsigned, smartscreen essentially prevents you from running the file. You can work around it, but I had to look up a tutorial myself.
If the file is signed, metadata will be extracted and submitted to Microsoft. If that fails or the exact binary hasn't been run on a certain amount of computers, smart screen will show a big scary warning despite your $500 a year digital signing certificate. This is something developers just have to deal with every time they update their applications, but most people won't be the first x to download the executable and applications using auto updaters download updated in the background can the necessary flags to work around smartscreen.
The restrictions are there, but they're not there for (most) development environments and for most users of popular software.
This is true and annoying, but only with regular certificates. The more expensive EV certificates bypass this “well known” check.
I learned long ago, and keep it clearly in my mind, that what AV considers "malware" and what the user considers malware are not entirely the same.
and if clearly false could be used in court.
I do wonder if Windows becoming adware, but then the built-in antimalware detecting possible "competitors'" adware and removing it, could be challenged in court as anticompetitive behaviour.
You, personally, can turn off Windows Defender, but your users probably have no idea why the app they're trying to run doesn't work when they double click it. They're also probably shown multiple scary warnings that discourage them from using the app and trick them into thinking it's broken or malicious.
It's a hurdle just to convince users such an app isn't malware, and then it's an entirely other hurdle to help them actually run the software by bypassing Defender.
Are there examples of Microsoft actually doing that?
Ability to prevent known malware from being run in the majority of PCs after detection seems like a useful feature from the Internet health point of view.
iOS has a full sandbox which would apply even to "side loaded" applications, which makes the arbitrary constraint even more ridiculous as a "for your own good" measure.
these OSes were designed decades ago, before we really had a good grasp on security. there were other significant concerns as well, such as performance
also, modern OS toolkits, such as on macos and windows 11, are moving towards a permission and API model that will allow sandboxing. In fact, macos is moving quite quickly towards this.
And lastly, there is a widely deployed OS that runs all applications in a proper sandbox: chromeos
I think it's understood at this point by everyone in the industry that sandboxing is the future, but it's taking a while to get there.
Not just that, but before we realised just how many people there would be trying to claw their way into any gap for all manner of dark purposes.
Early networked OS and protocol designers thought that people would, largely, cooperate with each other and share resources for the greater good.
I wish to live in their naively optimistic future, instead of the one with real humans :/
They realized that they need to change the platform for distribution, and hence this is why the web (post-chromium) is now what it is...with all its absurd redundancies of APIs and bloat.
Only because Microsoft can't keep their shit together.
Apple is more complicated, because despite the absolute control they've established (no other browser engine / JIT compiler process allowed for whatever made up reasons) they did not face the European courts that forced Microsoft for the exact same thing to allow to install other Browsers.
And now we are stuck with Safari, repeating the loop, because Apple can't keep their shit together.
It really wasn't. It wasn't normal to install arbitrary applications on the computers in your fridge, dishwasher, game consoles, flip phones, washing machines, etc. Platforms have varied over time in how open they are to having other people developing for them. iOS is an example of a more closed platform and has shown that closed platforms can be successful. You can see Windows as a more open platform in comparison which was also successful. How open a platform is comes with different trade offs.
You just use these words wrong. Let me correct you: fridge, dishwasher, washing mashine -> ARM; flip phone -> J2ME; game consoles -> x86 (probably);
Now your sentence sounds like a bullshit which in fact it is: "it wasn't normal to install arbitrary applications on ARM, J2ME virtual machine, x86, etc". Stop speaking like that please.
What flip phones? They were all locked down on the carrier side.
You're still not installing arbitrary applications on game consoles even now that they're running x86.
Stop speaking like that please.
You seem to have missed the, admittedly brief, period where Java games on phones were extremely commonplace.
If more than 1 percent of Java-capable handsets ever had third party software downloaded onto them post-purchase, I'd eat my hat.
I wonder if even 1 percent of iPhones manage to get used without ever having at least one app installed from the App Store.
In many countries, including China, all phones are unlocked by default.
You know, like things that were before iPhone and Android? That were running J2ME? Jar files?
Your response sounds like a bullshit which, in my opinion, it is. Stop speaking like that please.
For example, a smartphone replaces a PC for a lot of people. I even know some people in their 20s that don't own a "normal" laptop/desktop and they do most of their general purpose computing on their phones. In the meantime, nobody uses a Nintendo Switch or their dishwasher to do a quick edit of an excel sheet or access their bank account even if they are technically capable of doing so.
It is successful despite being closed, not because of it.
First search in Google.
https://source.sheridancollege.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...
Also, from my own discussion over the years with different people, security topic popped up only when iOS fans tried to diss Android users.
It does mention that "perceived security" was a factor.
It's trivial to get something past app review (eg. look at casino apps that were disguised as games)
On the Mac, staying on the Mac App Store makes sense because it is the easiest way to enforce you only install sandboxed apps.
On iOS, that's not going to be necessary, because every app on iOS is sandboxed.
As an aside, I do believe you can use sandboxd with apps outside of the App Store, someone just has to write security policies for them.
This page suggests that Apple might want to deprecate use of sandboxd in favor of just the App Store[1], though.
Yes, you can, it's trivial to do so. However, Apple does not make it easy to find out if an app is sandboxed or not, or what permissions it has.
The warning that macOS shows when opening an app not from the Mac App Store does not differentiate between sandboxed and non-sandboxed apps.
When we forgo real system safety in favor of gatekeeping corporate revenue, that isn't security. In fact, such a scheme is responsible for mass distribution of malware. Apple's App Store is responsible for distributing over half a billion copies of Xcodeghost to iPhone and iPad users[1], and that's just one piece of malware.
[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7bbmz/the-fortnite-trial-is...
You are justifying why a monopoly app store is bad by showing a hack that resulted from downloading an app (xcode) from a source other than the app store.
Security firm Palo Alto Networks surmised that because network speeds
were slower in China, developers in the country looked for local
copies of the Apple Xcode development environment, and encountered
altered versions that had been posted on domestic web sites. This
opened the door for the malware to be inserted into high profile apps
used on iOS devices.
> I think you are also ignoring that apples app store position made it possible to authoritatively reach out to all who were effected as well as enact other remediation efforts.
Microsoft is able to do the same thing with Windows Defender without using the App Store model at all.
I think the app store is a tool and I think it is a powerful and useful tool. Can the tool be used for good? of course. Can it also be used for bad? most definitely. Can it be wielded poorly? yes.
I've used windows, linux, apple, and android, and I like Apple's environment the best. That environment is a consequence of apples choices. Apple limits my choices and I like that. I like having less choices. I don't want to have to think about software security, I want to think about how to spend time with my friends, and apple is a an environment that lets me think about how best to spend time with friends instead of thinking about software security.
Apple's restriction of my choices benefits me. I want apple to restrict my choices. I want there to be only one way to get apps on my device. That simplifies my life. I will pay more to have a more simple life. I will pay someone else to make better choices than I can make with my limited time. I want to do that.
If you don't like that, then don't use Apple. There is a perfectly working alternative to apple that you can use if you want to experience other choices. Apple has a monopoly on apple devices, but apple by no means has a monopoly on smart phones. I'm not sure there are even any major apps exclusive to apple. Apple is better because apple has more money to spend.
> Microsoft is able to do the same thing with Windows Defender without using the App Store model at all.
If apple scanned the apps I side-loaded and reported information about them to their servers that would upset me, that feels like a privacy violation.
Apple's bullying of companies with monopoly power to force privacy labels won me over greatly. They have a lot of good will for that. If apple continues to do things like that, I will continue to support an app store monopoly.
How does this conflict with other users having a developer mode? Because you want Apple to have more unilateral authority over what other businesses are and aren't allowed to do?
It sounds like you have left the domain of "what's right for the market" and headed into the realm of "what I prefer". That's fine and decent anecdata, but completely useless to regulators who's job is to save the market. If Apple is stifling innovation or competition, even for a good cause, then we must codify the goodness and end the monopoly. That's progress, arbitrary corporate grudges are not.
If you like Apple telling you what to do, fine. Choose only from their menu.
Apple products are the consequences of Apples decisions, you want what Apple produces but reject their decisions.
What if Apple's phone is better because it is a closed ecosystem?
But not for a lack of trying. Windows has tried to retrofit their App Store, just less successfully. One good example is the code signing racket, where it’s pay to play to avoid useless warnings that scare off people who don’t know better.
Look, you can somewhat reasonably prove the origin of a piece of software, but a domain name x509 cert would be better (only difference is validity needs to handle longer time ranges). The issue is all the “trusted” yadda yadda. Doesn’t matter if it’s an App Store, a holy enterprise certificate trafficker or the pope himself doing the blessing, it just doesn’t hold up. Maybe they could have a herd-protection like VSCode extensions: “50M+ users” so when I see an executable called “Facebook” with “35 users” I can stop and make my own judgment that it looks fishy. But that’s about UX for checking the vendor matches who you think it is, not blessing it.
> Similarly, if OSes don't implement real security that's independent of the App Store model, users will continue to be exploited in this way.
Spot on! Here’s the thing: sandboxing software on any of the big operating systems wasn’t there from the beginning, and that’s the billion dollar mistake. Sandboxing is the only real game changer in end-user security with iPhone/android over desktop, not the monopolistic app stores. Tbf, Apple at least has tried really hard to bring sandboxing to desktop but even they are not there yet. These mega corps should imo have seen it coming a decade earlier, when the web became vastly popular platform, much thanks to sandboxing.
If apple's billion dollar app distribution monopoly money hose results in security problems for people, then their billion dollar app distribution monopoly money hose will be in jeopardy since it's justification comes into question.
So what you see as a problem is what makes me feel the best about it. Apple is aligned with only secure apps on their store and apple is very unaligned with insecure apps.
To apple security is not just a cost center, but a pillar of the justification for their monopoly position.
Maybe part of it is this security alignment issue, but upon scrutiny it's clearly a small and solvable piece of the puzzle. Imagine if Keurig tried using user safety to justify a 30% cut off every K-cup sold. Such an ecosystem is doomed to fail, especially at-scale and with completely arbitrary enforcement.
I don’t think the world got better because we got more channels on Tv, and I even think some of them might be dangerous and harmful to life…
It's because you want the consequence of Apple's choices, but to not pay the cost of Apple's choices. You want to benefit from apple's incredible profit, but you don't want to participate in the system that allows their extravagance.
People like me.
You are literally talking about stealing my money. To me.
And this doesn’t seem strange to you?
Did you ever publish to appstore ? The amount of bullshit you have to go through so that an alternative payment method isn't reachable from mobile is insane, and they want % of a lot of things, not just sales/subscription - a lot of business ideas are unviable because of the policy.
Not to mention that your competitors don't have to pay the same, big players get special deals and exemptions, and Apple has first party advantage on the platform.
Yes.
> The amount of bullshit you have to go through so that an alternative payment method isn't reachable from mobile is insane, and they want % of a lot of things
You say insane, but you don't say why. Revenue-sharing is the best for content producers; I would definitely not want to go back to the retail model. What exactly are you trying to do?
> a lot of business ideas are unviable because of the policy.
A lot of business ideas are unviable without slavery! So what? I don't want that, and I hope you don't either! So what is it you actually want?
> Not to mention that your competitors don't have to pay the same, big players get special deals and exemptions,
I don't compete with "big players". If Apple didn't make an iPhone and I didn't make an app to put on it, I wouldn't get that money, and pretending otherwise won't make it so. The people I am competing with are in the same situation I'm in, and if they're getting success and I'm not, I think I should worry about what I can do.
Did you just compare freedom to choose alternative payment method to slavery? What a bizarre world, I don't know why I've even bothered to reply to your comments, lol.
> I don't compete with "big players". If Apple didn't make an iPhone and I didn't make an app to put on it, I wouldn't get that money, and pretending otherwise won't make it so. The people I am competing with are in the same situation I'm in, and if they're getting success and I'm not, I think I should worry about what I can do.
You're dictators wet dream.
"Don't care about unfair system, dig within yourself! If competitor is doing good under dictatorship it means the problem is within you!"
Not at all. I said some businesses should not be viable and gave the simplest possible example I could think of.
And you did not agree.
Shame on you.
> You're dictators wet dream. "Don't care about unfair system, dig within yourself! If competitor is doing good under dictatorship it means the problem is within you!"
You're still not saying what you want to do and why it is good for society, just that the "dictator" is stopping you from doing it. "Alternative payments" can mean all sorts of things from money laundering to easier-to-steal, and I can't support those things.
There's a Ukrainian saying
> Хрін з ним, що своя хата згоріла, головне у сусіда корова здохла
Which literally translates to "Who cares if house is burnt down, the most important is that neighbors' cow is dead" - that's you. Ever thought that maybe you and/or your comptetitor shouldn't have to pay in the first place or that shares are unfair?
No actually. I won't ever enter any other kind of business-relationship with a larger company unless they have real competition that affects price because my experience is that larger company will try to mess you up if there's any chance at short-term gain. A joint-venture is ideal protection, but with Apple my size makes that unlikely. Revenue-sharing is a fine alternative to me, and if my product becomes worth more than my share I can always renegotiate, even with a big company like Apple, because we both want the revenue to continue. That's the point.
The pure-play alternative is much harder for small companies and individuals because they need cash up-front to get into the market, but I do understand the advantages for big pockets who don't create value though -- I just don't have any intention of being a company so big that my only purpose in life is to group-together smaller companies that aren't good enough to survive on their own.
It only comes under jeopardy, if there are reasonable alternatives the Apple app store (not move to Android).
Otherwise, it's easy for Apple to say - we are now taking step x, y and z, and "trust us".
I don't care about 'regular users'. I care about myself.
If you own an iPhone, it's actually very practical to also have a Mac.
> run a specific software at least once a week, and limited to like 3 apps.
What?
The most common way to make all this signing a bit more bearable is to have AltStore installed on your mac, which will automatically re-signs the select few apps you want in some hacky way (needs your Apple id and password).
Don't you find it ridiculous that the "common" way to run software written by you on a $1k device that you bought is via buying $2k machine and paying 99$ yearly?
As much as you and I don’t like it, what Apple is doing is perfectly legal. And as much as you or I might support a change in the law, you’re not going to get my support if the legislation is truly universal and not just a narrow-band targeting of a single company for developing an ecosystem which resonated with a large number of people. Write some legislation which applies to ALL platforms which run software and maybe I’ll take it seriously.
> what Apple is doing is perfectly legal
Not in the EU starting this summer!
Although I agree with the second point: game consoles being general purpose computers should be treated the same.
That's a great argument. I have even a better one:
Don't dictate what and how people use their devices that they paid for with their hard-earned money.
Apple doesn't dictate what software runs on your iPhone, any more than a toaster manufacturer dictates whether you can use it as a space heater, or Toyota dictating whether your car can function as a boat, or Epic Games dictating whether Fortnite can be used to prepare your taxes.
No, Apple isn't going make the process of running your own software easy, but you are legally entitled to break whatever barriers you like and replace the OS with a Linux distro. No, you shouldn't be legally entitled to force Apple to make their operating system do whatever random thing you want it to.
Then don't enable side loading.
And what Apple is doing is actually not perfectly legal. That's the entire reason they're changing their policies. It's not like they enjoy having to compete with app stores that offer other payment providers or allow things like emulators.
Sure, maybe Epic can be trusted. But perhaps Meta decides that the latest/most desirable versions of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp have to be side-loaded. Now it's commonplace. Now everyone's phone has sideloaded apps installed.
Sure, maybe Meta can be trusted. But perhaps some new future TikTok-esque craze besets the mainstream, and it's in the form of a sideloaded app, made easy because sideloaded apps aren't unusual, and the company who makes this viral app is dodgy as f***.
But sure, it's always the user's choice.
It's us asking our democratically elected government to stop a giant corporation from telling us what to do with our own devices.
Yes it's your device, but it's not your software. You don't own the software. And it's the software which is stopping you from doing what you want.
Really though I'm just saying that I resent arguments that fail to provide anything resembling a modicum of consistency around this. As far as I'm concerned, as long as Sony is allowed to keep the PlayStation locked down, Apple should have equal right to keep the iPhone locked down. And if you, the consumer, doesn't like it, don't buy a PlayStation. I realise this comes across as a trite, throwaway thing to say, but I absolutely mean it. It is, in my opinion, a slam dunk argument.
What you're proposing is not really ownership of the device in any meaningful way, but just a license to use it on somebody else's terms.
I don't want a world in which I don't own the device I pay for, so neither Sony nor Apple should be able to dictate what I do with them.
It's like selling you a screwdriver and then saying you can only use it with one specific brand of screw.
Ownership of software is clear-cut under the law: unless you hold the copyright, it's not yours. You have been granted permission to use the software under the restricted terms of a license. In practice though, the legal perspective isn't a useful one. It's another bad analogy, useful only because it's the one backed by law. What actually matters is what you can do.
It doesn't matter who "owns" it, you don't have the code needed to recompile the OS from source. Much less than sideloading apps, there are thousands of nominally trivial aspects of the OS which you cannot change without source code and a working build environment. Without this you don't have any ownership over the software in any useful sense.
You do own your piece of physical iPhone hardware, and it's yours to muck about with as much as you wish. But don't expect schematics or the ability to manufacture your own parts, or the ability to sideload more processing cores into the A14 chip, or replace the camera with a different module.
I'm sure that now that the EU has finally woken up, gaming platforms will be under scrunity too. Mobile phones are a much more critical part of people's lives than game consoles, so it made sense to target them first.
Well, not in EU now
So you think it's better asking companies to save us from our own choices? And that doesn't strike you as even more ridiculous?
Most of the noise in the community is from people who just enjoy seeing Apple squirm and probably aren't even an Apple customer anyway. Meanwhile the entities spending real money to lobby governments on this issue actually only care about getting around Apple's increasingly consumer-protecting app review process — they tolerated the 30% fee right up until the very same month that Apple started forcing developers to inform users if they were tracking users between apps.
They want side-loading so they can track you, not so they can extract more money from you. Because they know they won't. Yes, entities like Epic might be able to sell apps with a lower marginal cost (not a lot lower, as they'll be handling stuff like fraud and refunds themselves, and Apple is still entitled to a software license fee) but the simple act of requiring consumers to enter their credit card number into an app is going to reduce transaction completion rates. I'd be willing to bet by at least 30%.
AppStore checking is waaay overhyped as anything meaningful.
Others are right, sandboxing is the real saving grace (and only if apps dont ask for a bajillion permissions which users will just click through so it will work). Apple is slowly trying to isolate apps even more, like they were in the early iOS days.
Uhuh, sure.
"Shut your mouth, pay and be happy"
This is pure nonsense... giving user more choices is never a bad thing.
For one thing they might think of a phone as a fundamentally different thing from a 'computer' with a different role. In fact I strongly suspect this is the majority view.
Within that people probably think of an 'application' as fundamentally a pre-screened, pre-approved, piece of software to enable some function specifically on the phone and within the phone's ecosystem. Not as any arbitrary piece of software. In fact that might all be seen as a feature, not a limitation, in the majority of people's eyes. Again I strongly suspect that is the case.
I also prefer to be able to do whatever I want with my own devices, but pretending like it’s an inalienable right, or a natural state, or has no disadvantages is disingenuous and not helpful to the debate.
When was the last time you asked the builders association if you could remodel your kitchen?
When was the last time you asked Honda if you could put new mags on your car?
This whole idea that devices aren't owned when you purchase them is asinine and and insult to humanity.
Your counter arguments that it's new in the industry is simply due to the fact they thought they could get away with it. Not because they thought it was their right.
You don't see Klein putting limits on what nails you can use with a hammer but you can bet your ass they would if they could.
i’m sure you can find an o. s. that lets you do whatever you want. but will it be updated regularly with security fixes? will it support the latest connectivity technology like 5g? will it have built in support for the latest compression formats to take high res pics and videos? will it work anywhere in the world?
if it does sure. go use it. i don’t think this exists and i’m happy to pay apple for a new phone that does this and upgrade every 5 years
Er. Yes? To all of those? Trivially? Heck, Android does those, with the FOSS ROMs typically doing better than the closed vendor solutions.
I agree. But that's not the same as the right to install whatever you want. It's not illegal to jailbreak a phone if you can and want to, but it's also not illegal for Apple to lock it down if they can and want to. That is and should be the default state. And it's the same for everything else, your car, washing machine, game console, etc. If you want general computers to be explicitly defined to include smartphones and uniquely regulated to force more requirements on manufacturers and more rights to users, then that's great—I agree with that—but at least admit it's a new and unique regulation and not the default state.
It's weird you chose houses and cars as your examples since they're both highly regulated in the opposite direction you’re asking for computers. You're heavily restricted to what you can modify in either of those and, as far as I know, there are no regulations that specifically require manufactures to allow users to modify anything. You can swap out parts on your car if it complies with regulations, but there's no law that you have to be able to install software; it's locked down harder than smartphones. And just like smartphones today, you do own it and can do what you want (excluding other regulations), but there’s no right to installation; it's just a lockdown/jailbreak competition between you and the manufacturer.
I’ve jailbroken my phones for years and love to do all sorts of personal modifications to my computers and other devices. I think regulations to protect device freedom are a great idea; I just want people to be intellectually honest about the debate.
That's the problem, it should be.
> It's weird you chose houses and cars as your examples since they're both highly regulated in the opposite direction you’re asking for computers. You're heavily restricted to what you can modify in either of those and, as far as I know, there are no regulations that specifically require manufactures to allow users to modify anything. You can swap out parts on your car if it complies with regulations, but there's no law that you have to be able to install software; it's locked down harder than smartphones. And just like smartphones today, you do own it and can do what you want (excluding other regulations), but there’s no right to installation; it's just a lockdown/jailbreak competition between you and the manufacturer.
That's what OS is for, it prohibits your from installing bomb instead of kitchen appliance. Repeat after me: Store. Does. Not. Dictate. Your. Usage. Of. Device.
You can absolutely disagree with the trade off, but pretending like it’s purely greed is obviously disingenuous.
Is that so? https://lifehacker.com/great-now-the-apple-app-store-has-mal...
Which industry? The very earliest computers ran software written by end-users.
of course I can't install any other software on a CAT scanner, that's the equivalent of what computers were at the beginning, they were single purpose machines, but they could be programmed by the owners almost immediately after being invented.
The computer industry started with microcomputers in the 70s, by the mid of the decade they were cheap enough that individuals could own them and write software for them.
But starting from the 60s students had the chance of sitting at a computer station and programming them to do whatever they wanted them to do, according to their at the time limited possibilities.
I own the freaking thing.
What people are asking for isn’t the right to do whatever they want with their device—they already have that—they’re asking for the law to force Apple to design their OS in a certain way.
And again, maybe that law is the best idea and should be passed—there are certainly a lot of apparent advantages. But I’d ask people to be honest about what they’re asking for. It’s not granting the user any new freedoms; it’s taking away freedom from manufacturers.
It’s like copyright; most people (or at least a lot of people) consider it a good law that encourages more creative work and supports a healthy industry, but it too is a law that removes freedom rather than grants it.
Sad that it has to come to this messy stage where the law has to be enforced. But then Apple isn't the same Steve Jobs Apple.
Also, your proposed rewording isn’t correct either because installing applications is already allowed. You can debate the App Store all you want, but it definitely does let you install apps.
On topic: This is silly and Apple should allow sideloading. I don’t buy the security argument because the security comes from the sandbox, not Apple’s poorly-run approval process.
I have no idea how you came to this conclusion. It's obvious that I'm criticising the idea of "sideloading" not the word. You can call it some other arrangement of letters and the concept is still very dangerous.
And in this case it is also definitely true that apple does not let you install applications without someone paying them $100+ and their approval.
The way I came to that conclusion is I read what you wrote, which primarily discusses the language, not the idea. See your references to “doublespeak”, “framing”, “headlines”, and “the word sideloading”.
You claimed “Installing applications on iOS 17 might be allowed in Europe” would be a more accurate headline. It wouldn’t be, because you can install applications via the App Store. If you wanted your headline to be both accurate and to discuss the approval process and fee, you would need to include that, as the original headline does by mentioning “sideloading”, the word that you take issue with but does at least actually raise the issue you’re concerned with.
For pre-iPhone cellphone users, your cellphone network operator controlled access to what apps were available for installation. This is was the most common, if not the only, method for cellphone app distribution. App makers (mostly java games) paid to get on that first page of downloadable apps. I'd add some references but Google seems to have amnesia about anything cellphone app distribution pre-iPhone.
Apple didn't have an app store initially. How Apple convinced cellphone network operators to cede app approval/control, I don't know. Perhaps it was "apple's way - take it or leave it".
I think other manufacturers allowed that as well, but I could only use the "free wap browsing trick" on Nokia phones, so I never explored that.
Finding a .jar file that works on your phone was the biggest. Games often only supported a single screen resolution and so there were multiple .jar files for each game and you had to find the right one for your phone. Also sometimes even if you had the right screen resolution the .jar just crashed when you started it without any clue as to what's wrong (probably they needed more RAM or some platform specific code, but I was in high school back then so I didn't know much more about it)
In the early days, there was also the issue of how to get that .jar file to your phone. I distinctly remember old Nokia phones could download them through WAP (which was paid) or receive them through IrDA/Bluetooth, but themselves couldn't send applications through IrDA/Bluetooth (I think Sony Ericssons were the ones which could also send them....), This issue was later solved by microSD cards and USB cable transfers from PC.
Pirated JAR/JAD files were definitely hit and miss, but I don't think those are a great example.
Then the first Android devices arrived, with the Android Market (long before Google Play) that did allow you to download apps. But most people again maybe they didn't have internet, or more simply wanted pay apps but didn't want to pay for them, just exchanged .apk like it was the norm. (Pirating by the way was much more present than these days, for example I don't recall a single person having a PlayStation without the modchip, and burned PS1/PS2 games where the norm).
It's only with the arrival of the iPhone that this was no longer possible. In fact I recall that the criticism of the first iPhones, till the iPhone 4, was that it was an overpriced device and that it did lack of the possibility to install applications and exchange files with bluetooth, like everyone was used to do. The iPhone was a niche product that was not diffused (when I was at high school I recall maybe 1/2 people having iPhones, all other one Android devices).
The thing on cellphone operators is maybe an US specific thing, I don't recall having anything like that in Europe, more specifically in Italy. Quite frankly till 10 years ago using the cellphone network for internet was unthinkable, because the prices where so high. Then arrived the contract that give you 100Gb of data a month for 10 euros, but back in the day internet was expensive, to the fact that just by pressing the internet button on a phone it did consume all your credit. This is probably also the reason why WhatsApp become so popular (you could chat with your home internet connection that now everyone had without consuming expensive SMS)
Properly stated this story title is, "Installing applications on iOS 17 might be allowed Europe" which highlights the absurdity intrinsic in the practice of users not being able to install applications on their own computers as a default.