Sounds like a "we should improve society somewhat" moment. https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/259/257/342...
If you have two choices and one is barely better than the other, you think people shouldn't be allowed to acknowledge the negative aspects of the thing they chose?
If you want a phone built by someone who doesn't know how to design a phone, I'm sure there are already lots of tiny and irrelevant players already in the EU that you can patronise. The phone probably won't be particularly good though, evidenced by the fact that most people with a choice prefer to let Apple make all the decisions. Or various Asian groups who have a knack for tech.
In this instance, you can still give Apple your money - NOT sideload anything - and live life exactly as before. People - lots of people - just want an option.
I love what the EU has done for standardising charging bullshittery. I hope it can make an impact here.
Indeed we did pay more. They bought Apple phones.
Some people want sideloading. Some people want "lock it down so I can't fuck it up".
They are just software options. Why can't we all just have what we want?
> Why can't we all just have what we want?
We have it. I compiled and installed an open source app on my iphone. There is a barrier which is just perfect because it means no matter how hard they try no one can manage to get my mom to install some shady app that abuses private apis and such in order to hack her unless they first get this app on app store
Making it an option would threaten safety and life savings of millions of people who don't give a flying duck about your or my undying love for full hardware ownership but will instantly become targets for mass hacking campaigns ("just press this button and OK 3 times to the red warning")
"if you really care about it, you can do it" is a fair state of affairs. If you are dead set on it just mentally map in your head the price of a 1000$ device to 1100$ and be done with it. If you care about these things and insist on using this brand then you can afford it
It seems we're actually in agreement here :)
You say that any option will be social engineered, and then you go on to explain an option that Apple has already implemented that you don't believe is susceptible to social engineering.
Grandma could theoretically install AltStore, and then proceed to install malicious apps from unknown sources, right now, if she really wanted to. But she won't, because it's too complicated.
I'm not asking for an easy way to sideload. I wouldn't mind if it was made even more difficult than it is now, in fact. All I want is an officially-supported option to do so that isn't prohibitively expensive. An example I provided on the website is Google's ChromeOS. They make it difficult enough to enable developer mode that it's practically invulnerable to social engineering attacks. It's much more difficult to enable sideloading on a Chromebook than it is on an iOS device.
> If you are dead set on it just mentally map in your head the price of a 1000$ device to 1100$ and be done with it
No, it's $100/yr, every year into the foreseeable future, and the cost could change at any time without prior notice. If you stop paying, your apps will stop working, so if you've grown attached to and have become dependent upon your sideloaded apps, it's quite unlikely you'll stop paying.
The Apple Developer Program is not intended as an option to enable sideloading on your device, and it never was. Apple only wants you signing up if you plan on submitting apps to the App Store, which is a benefit you're completely missing out on if you use it exclusively for sideloading.
> "if you really care about it, you can do it" is a fair state of affairs
I would 100% agree, if that were an accurate description of reality, but unfortunately it's not. If you can't afford $100/yr, then no, you cannot do it. It doesn't matter how much technical knowledge you have; you simply cannot do it.
> (I am a bit exaggerating the point but just because it seems like almost everyone is on the other side of the argument)
You and I must not be reading the same website? There is a very large anti-sideloading presence here on Hacker News. Most of it is based on strawman arguments and flawed assumptions, but it's there, and surfaces on almost every thread discussing the topic.
An option like "a toggle in settings" like the other guy suggested will be social engineered. But option like "a possibility" available with hoops to software engineers or tech savvy people can't be.
> Grandma could theoretically install AltStore,
Only in EU I guess? Hopefully it stays there
> No, it's $100/yr, every year into the foreseeable future
OK. Add couple more hundred bucks. Doesn't change the point.
> and the cost could change at any time without prior notice
Well it all comes back to "we are at the mercy of the maker of the product we buy". From my vantage point allowing easy sideloading and alt stores are changes I don't want
> There is a very large anti-sideloading presence here on Hacker News
Maybe we read different sites...
Basically everybody is for sideloading and alt stores
1) big corporations who want to run their own stores and not pay Apple a cut for creating and maintaining the hardware and ecosystem
2) techie freedom maximalists
3) regular people who want to pirate apps and not pay small-time developers and don't realize security implications
Except for the second group I very much disagree with all of them and as I said the second group can already do it with some hoops
Okay, then the only disagreement we seem to have is that you think that everyone who sideloads should continue to give a yearly donation of $100 to Apple (which they don't need or want) for the rest of their lives?
That is a very strange perspective. Keep in mind that I would fully understand if you don't think Apple should be forced by governments to provide sideloading for free; that's a separate issue, and I don't explicitly advocate for it on my website. The EU legislation has already passed; I'm just explaining what it means for tech enthusiasts.
> Only in EU I guess?
I'm referring to the "classic" version of AltStore. The EU version only allows you to install Apple-approved apps and as such doesn't present any additional risk for malware. The classic version is available worldwide and it makes use of signing certificates from Xcode.
https://faq.altstore.io/altstore-classic/how-to-install-alts...
> OK. Add couple more hundred bucks. Doesn't change the point.
It absolutely does change the point. You claimed that anyone with the required technical skills can sideload, but that isn't true; they need to be able to afford and justify spending an additional $8.33 every month to access a feature which is free on every other mainstream computing device.
> From my vantage point allowing easy sideloading and alt stores are changes I don't want
I don't want that either, as I already said.
> 1) big corporations who want to run their own stores and not pay Apple a cut for creating and maintaining the hardware and ecosystem
I don't have any sympathy for Epic Games either.
> 3) regular people who want to pirate apps and not pay small-time developers and don't realize security implications
Sideloading doesn't inherently provide the ability to pirate apps. All iOS apps are encrypted and the binaries can't be accessed by other apps; the only way to obtain them is through jailbreaking, and that's something which probably won't exist forever. There's also of course unbreakable cryptographic measures such as remote attestation that Apple could employ if the problem grows into something too bad.
> I don't have any sympathy for Epic Games either
Maybe it was astroturfing but when this was on the news HN discussion was basically back to back people supporting Epic, one reason I feel like it's lopsided here...
My expectation would be that Apple could quite easily design the phone independently of the safety regulations, then do a review and determine that they have effortlessly complied with them. Otherwise it is more likely to be a defect in the regulation than with Apple.
I just don't think this logic works. It's basically advocating for self-regulation, and that's historically not worked that well.
It makes me laugh because back in the day people would have been complaining about Apple assembling their phones in Chinese sweatshops. But in the intervening time it turned out that working hard generates lots of wealth and now the conversation is how to sabotage the Chinese to stop them getting too wealthy, technically advanced and powerful. Those sweatshops meant business.
But to your actual point, you feel a need to compare sideloading apps to promoting war and conflict on an international sale you might want to reset your sense of proportion. If the EU wants to focus on promoting global peace I would strongly advise that they go do that rather than trying to backseat design iPhones. There is a major land war in Europe right now that involves pretty much every nuclear power except Pakistan they might like to turn their attention to. Some might say it involves resource rights too.
> It's basically advocating for self-regulation, and that's historically not worked that well.
The EUs regulators aren't so crash-hot either historically speaking. They've managed a grand transition from unchallenged global power to a 3rd tier continent over the last hundred years. They're doing something wrong. Telling Apple how to manage a phone is the least of their problems, but neatly emblematic of their strategy of having people who don't know how to make things work overulling the people who do.
There is nearly always something more important to do, no matter what you are doing. That doesn't mean that what you're doing is a waste of time.
This statement is a bit much. I don't think we can really have a productive discussion about this with you, because it seems like you've put Apple on such a high pedestal that you won't accept any criticism of them.
The idea that if a company -- at least one you hold in high regard -- would naturally design a product that would violate some regulation, then that regulation must be wrong... wow, that's an incredible statement to make.
Apple's market share is like 20%, 30% globally. There is clearly a lot to criticise; most people don't use iPhones. If you want to compare an Apple phone and a Huawei phone then Huawei has them beat on a number of things. One of them can probably makes a phone detectably safer than the other too.
The issue is the criticism being used to justify going from decisions being made in Apple (capable of getting double digit percentages of the world that they make the best smartphone) to the EU (incapable of convincing anyone they know how to make a smartphone & a track record of driving business out of Europe).
What if we let people who don't have a proven track record of gross incompetence make the decisions? I think that is a good starting point. Giving design decisions to the only group of people to have destroyed and bungled their own smartphone industry is a bad idea.
If customers choose to go with USB-C, a thicker phone, larger battery etc, that is all and well, I feel that will happen anyways. But it should be up to the customer & manufacturer, not the government.
Yeah, no. In this specific topic, we've had plenty of time to establish that it is isn't the case. Power is not balanced between individuals and manufacturers.
USB is a horrible mess but for the first time in my life, I can travel with one charger that works with all the devices I take with me. I could even travel without a charger and be pretty sure I will be able to find one at the destination.
People around me seem as happy as me about this and it wasn't the case as long as manufacturers were not forced to use USB. Nobody complains about the port form factor. That's simply not a concern.
I have an older micro-USB Kindle that annoys me. Of course, for most trips I never need to charge it, as long as I charge it before I leave, so for all practical purposes it's fine.
My wife just bought an iPhone 16 to replace her iPhone XR, and if it weren't for her AirPods from a few years ago, she'd be able to avoid carrying around that extra lightning cable too.
This might feel like a minor, first-world problem, but it is annoying. And when you scale it up, there's so much waste with so many people needing two cables, one of which could have never been manufactured, had we all been using the same ports all along.
I think it is! Certainly not on the level of eliminating feudalism, but it's an improvement.
You're also misusing the term "design" here. Apple's resistance to allowing sideloading has nothing to do with design. It's a business decision that helps them extract more revenue from their product.
And that's the real point: governments are free to restrict and dictate how companies do business. That's just how the world works.
> I'm giving Apple money specifically because they designed the phone.
And many people give Apple money somewhat grudgingly, because they know Apple offers a great experience, even though there are some things they don't like about it, and there's no reason -- aside from Apple's business model -- why those issues can't be fixed.
I don't think "barely better" accurately represents the situation, since the other choice here literally allows sideloading. It's not barely better, it is better if you want to sideload apps. To paraphrase your meme, society has already been improved somewhat.
So what do you do? Well, you have to compromise. And not for a real technical reason. You have to compromise because Apple's business model depends on being able to extract more money from customers and developers by being a gatekeeper.
Whenever a company's business model prevents me from doing something I want with a product they might sell me, I think twice about buying that product.
Yes, it's a powerful computing device that is probably much more capable and can be made to do more things than the intended purpose. That's fine to be curious about, and if you are feeling adventurous enough to fight against the system to get it to do more, go right ahead. However, I see no reason why Apple should be forced into helping you do that. It's not an OSS system.
The reason is that the discussion is nuanced, a smartphone plays a very different role in someone's life than a Nintendo Switch. For better or worse, a smartphone has become a requirement for critical services that we all rely on.
That doesn't really align with the arguments people actually put forth for sideloading on iPhones. "It's my device, I should be able to run whatever I want" is the most common, and doesn't leave room for the nuance you're referencing. Like it or not, most people arguing for iPhone sideloading are using arguments that also demand sideloading on game consoles. It's not at all a straw man.
The game console business model is an historical anomaly. In the beginning, all console games were produced in-house by the console manufacturers. The consoles weren't "platforms" at all. However, 4 Atari programmers got wind that the games they wrote made tens of $millions for Atari while the programmers were paid only a relatively small salary. When Atari management refused to give the programmers a cut, they left and formed Activision. Thus Activision became the original third-party console game development company.
Atari then sued Activision for theft of trade secrets, because the Activision founders were all former Atari programmers. The case was settled, with Atari getting a cut of Activision’s revenue but otherwise allowing Activision to continue developing console games. I suspect this was because the 4 programmers were considered irreplaceable to Atari (albeit too late, after they already quit).
Ironically, yes, from people who don’t like paying for things. It’s a booming market on Android.
And yes, I absolutely believe that saying Nintendo and Sony are allowed to make a locked down device, but Apple is not, is an arbitrary double standard, setting up a potential legal victory for Apple.
Can you be more specific? I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to.
> And yes, I absolutely believe that saying Nintendo and Sony are allowed to make a locked down device, but Apple is not, is an arbitrary double standard, setting up a potential legal victory for Apple.
What are you replying to? I didn't make any such claim in my comment. I wasn't defending the console business model, just explaining how it came about, which is very different from most computing platforms.
B. The law makes no distinction between a game console and a computing platform, nor should it. There is also no such thing legally as a “general purpose computer” like I’ve seen some people try to define iPads as, so as to somehow justify iPad sideloading but not Switch sideloading.
C. I don’t buy the 30% cut argument, because we have a counter example: Steam on PC. How many companies sell their games directly outside of Steam? How many give you a 25% discount on top of that? Nobody.
I can't speak for game consoles, but this is absolutely false with regard to iPhone lockdown.
Why do you think mobile games are so full of ads? In part, because ads stick around and are profitable, no matter where you got your app. As long as sideloading files is so heavily connected to piracy, we’ll be lucky to see alternative app stores, but never direct installation on iOS.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/5hozvo/absolutely_...
So they have no copy protection at all? Well, sure, if you rely on OS lockdown as your sole copy protection, and the OS is unlocked, then of course you're open to piracy.
Yes, they do need to "waste their time", as it were, protecting their own apps. This is something desktop developers figured out ages ago.
It's funny, because I remember computing in the 80s and 90s, when most software came in a box and was bought from a store or through mail order. Piracy was a problem then, and companies tried to invent all sorts of copy-protection schemes. Some of them worked decently well, but most (all?) were eventually defeated. That didn't stop the world from having a healthy market for software.
Phones are no different. If Android developers have a piracy problem, they should develop strong copy-protection schemes. Sure, none of those schemes will be perfect, but they generally have the effect of moving piracy further out to the margins.
Otherwise: tough shit. If people pirate your app, explore avenues through the legal system to get them to stop. If that doesn't work, that's just a cost of doing business.
Because most games are not games, but clones of other games purely as vehicles to show ads. The goal is to show ads more than it is to be a game.
Because they are not allowed to sell the game cheaper elsewhere if they also want to sell on Steam. Their dev ToS require that.
This is not an optimal solution, but it is more of a solution than, for example, the (maybe I'm wrong) lack of jailbreaks for iOS that are usable (eg. tethered jailbreaks are more work to maintain).
Meanwhile, old Switches have a hardware vulnerability [1] and all newer ones can be jailbroken to their fullest with a modchip. Such pervasive coverage doesn't exist for iDevices to my knowledge.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/comments/1go8wy4/what_is_...
[1] https://switch.hacks.guide/user_guide/rcm/entering_rcm.html
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/SwitchPirates/comments/13n1smv/plea...
Many people can get upset and complain about many things at the same time. For me I have a smartphone and it is essential to have one for everyday life now. Gaming devices are not playing the same role in people's life.
But in principle I would agree that people should advocate for more control over all their devices.
1. There are lots of people who get upset that their Nintendo won't let them install other things. There are hacker/homebrew communities that have formed around pretty much every console.
2. Phones are general-purpose computing devices. Consoles are not, even though modern consoles have hardware that is more or less the same as what you might find in a general-purpose computer.
> However, I see no reason why Apple should be forced into helping you do that.
It's the opposite problem: the default is to just let people do that. Apple has instead gone to the effort and work to lock down iOS to prevent sideloading. So no, Apple shouldn't be forced to help people sideload, but they should be forced to stop hindering people from sideloading.
Now you sound like FBI director "we need backdoors for the good guys". By allowing a mechanism for side loading weakens the security of the device. If a good guy can use it, so can a bad guy.
No device manufacturer should have more control over that device's code execution than the end user of that device does after the sale.
This is an unfair argument. No consumer can be expected to do hours of research on every purchase they make and understand the implications of everything. Manufacturers can say almost anything they want as "marketing" and can/do change the terms at anytime they wish.
> Software limitations are not exclusive to Apple. They're everywhere. For instance, manufacturers intentionally kneecap CPUs/GPUs so they can sell the same chips from the same wafer at different price points. Why aren't they targeted too? You bought the whole chip but you don't get to use it.
Yes and motherboard manufacturers have also offered BIOS options to bypass those kneecaps. I remember having fun unlocking the fourth core on my AMD Athlon II x3 455 and getting the "whole chip".
It's not quite the same scenario though. Some of those CPUs/GPUs have hardware issues such as an unstable core and the company is making the best of it by selling them as lesser models instead of trashing them.
And yet you expect them to do that research for EVERY APP someone on the phone tells them to install?! That is how scammers walked my grandma through installing a fake banking app on her android phone, and stole all her money. Luckily iOS stops that!
Sorry to hear about your Grandmother but just because someone has an Iphone doesn't mean the scammers will give up. They'll just pick another attack vector.
No, we're expecting people who don't want to do that research to only install from an official, vetted source, like the Apple App Store.
> That is how scammers walked my grandma through installing a fake banking app on her android phone, and stole all her money.
That genuinely sucks, but I don't think keeping people from fully owning their devices is the answer to that problem.
Put another way, if this is your position, then you should also support the idea of Apple also locking down macOS so it will only run apps installed through the Mac App Store. And Microsoft should do something similar with Windows. But I sincerely hope you wouldn't support that... that's just absurd.
The funny thing is that directing people to malicious websites is generally a lot easier than getting them to sideload a malicious app. If Android were to suddenly start disallowing sideloading, I'm sure the people who tricked your grandmother would have based their scam on a malicious website instead. If she trusted some rando on the phone to download and install a malicious app, I'm sure she would have been tricked by that same rando directing her to a malicious website.
But I guess we can just ban web browsers too, right?
So you're just ignoring how the app store regularly has outright scam apps in it like : https://blog.lastpass.com/posts/warning-fraudulent-app-imper...
Apple's limitations demonstrably are not protective.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that we don't have much choice. iPhone or Android. That's it. Someone can very reasonably want the sideloading ability of Android with the stronger privacy stance of an iPhone.
Someone who has Macs might like Android's sideloading abilities, but also value the iPhone's integration with macOS and the larger Apple ecosystem.
Sure, your stance can be, "too bad; you still have to make a choice, knowing the pluses and minuses of each platform". And yes, that's where we are today. But we don't have to be, and there's mostly no reason (aside from Apple's business model) that we can't have more choices and more freedoms.
Yes, and I and plenty of others are arguing that these restrictions are anti competitive and anti consumer, and should be illegal.
Nothing about the hardware benefits, longer term software support, and aesthetic qualities of iPhones requires these restrictions.
> voted with your wallet, but you didn't.
Instead I’m voting with my vote.
> are not exclusive to Apple
And they are as much of a problem there as they are here. There are lots of right to repair laws being put forward to try to stop this shitty behaviour.
It's your phone that you bought from Apple with full knowledge of the restrictions beforehand. If you wanted a phone with more freedom you could have bought another device and voted with your wallet, but you didn't.
>that it should allow users do on their iOS devices what they can do on their macOS devices.
Software limitations are not exclusive to Apple. They're everywhere. For instance, manufacturers intentionally kneecap CPUs/GPUs so they can sell the same chips from the same wafer at different price points. Why aren't they targeted too? You bought the whole chip but you don't get to use it.