I’m kinda late to this thread, so I hope many quoted and others viewing may take another point of view, from someone that’s not a developer, but has used various mobile phone platforms over the years - just about the start of the public smartphone era.
Side loading should be up to the end user. It doesn't compromise the security of the phone if the user knows what the hail he's doing. I've side loaded lots of apps on to my Android phone. Zero security issues. Best security is between the ears.
Apple needs to understand that not all users needs to be coddled. We're ready for the big boys pants.
Edit: Just state standard caveat applies. If you sideload and fecal matter his the air distribution device, you're SOL.
I fully disagree with this sentiment exuded by so many against Apple’s view about the App Store. While side loading is available on Android there are a LOT of caveats in doing so.
Enabling a root like account to do so opens up major security wholes within Android; there is a major reason it’s called “root”
- Mr. Robot Season 1 there is an episode where 1 executive, nafariously sneaks in a MicroSD card into an Android phone to circumvent root capabilities and extract data unbeknownst to the phone owner - when their not looking. Sure it’s a TV show but it actually highlights what is VERY capable - and now over an internet connection.
> many Android users whom claim ‘they know what the hell (not hail lol) their doing’ still run into ridiculous issues on their phone. Have look over at XDA Forums for all android phones
- so many loading ROMS getting screwed up always wanting to be hand-held through issues after ROM some apps or core services don’t work - native OEM apps will not run, bricking the phone. Heck we’ve seen this very early on with jailbreaking of iOS. Not to mention some custom ROMS don’t allow you to load the OEM rom back and you’re fubar’d when you need warranty from the manufacturer.
Android 12 was just announced yet ever wonder why Android, being a younger mobile OS to iOS, that Alphabet/Google has a team already working on a POSIX based OS for the last 2yrs?
Disagree. macOS security isn’t “destroyed” by allowing side loading. There are ways of allowing apps from outside the AppStore in a secure fashion.
What he really meant to say is that it’d destroy App Store revenue and entirely eliminate the embarrassment that is apple arcade.
this excuse might fly over certain peoples heads but anyone with even a modicum of technical knowledge will roll their eyes reading that headline
Uggh. Every time I read this, I sigh because it shows someone doesn’t really understand the major differences between macOS and iOS. Sure they share major components but comparing kernel to kernel there is a enough differences. and each layer up, where side loading on macOS would not work the same way as on iOS.
MacOS does have a way to download and install apps outside the AppStore and always has prior to the AppStore - yet since then even end users on macOS that’s used it for years forgets after downloading and unpacking to:
go into preferences:
enable install from other sources,
enable the app to be allowed for installation.
Some apps once installed you need to allow to run from within Preferences (VPN apps especially).
Apple Arcade is not an embarrassment in any way - it’s doing VERY well; were is your evidence to the contrary?
HomePod OG, ,great product but it’s an embarrassment just like the original Apple Hi-Fi speaker that also lasted as long for sale being being discontinued. BTW some of the games within Apple Arcade are available for sale independently within App Store on iOS.
- Developers now have a choice to simply not do anything and allow their apps to run on M1 Mac’s or package a specific M1 Mac version of their apps and have different resolution, app/game size and pricing to reflect the Mac.
Do you know why most developers prefer the App Store? Because sideloading is not official and people would rather pay you for your app than pirate it.
If you were a developer I doubt you'd be happy to know that your app gets pirated so you can't earn money for your hard work.
Most developers that prefer the App Store for serveral reasons:
- Apple preferred credit cards for payment originally (opened up to VisaDebit as well),
- Apple pays ON-TIME and informs them of any dispute,
- unified development tools that can test the code directly in the UI or on the devices to get a real-world feel,
- consistent iOS support on devices that are in use for 4-5yrs!!
^ More critically their apps can remain in the store without an update for several years and STILL run still generate revenue.
- PER device install charging of your app, and if you’re sneaky per iOS versions of your app uploaded could help you force payment when users upgrade your iOS version. I’ve mentioned this to a specific app before by a specific developer , which is his right, he makes a great app. I may not believe in this practice but I cannot see his reasons/purpose that would disagree with my view on this So I’m mum to calling that app out specifically here. But it can be done. Is it any different than Adobe charging a recurring monthly/yearly fee for all their apps on all platforms? That’s an opinion that’ll be valid for anyone.
- Most importantly, proven year after year - iOS users tend to pay for apps a LOT more than any other mobile phone OS in history.
I am a dev but thanks for speaking on my behalf, even if you did it wrong.
the best way to prevent piracy is to make a good product that people deem worth the cost. If your stuff has been suffering from piracy well I’m sorry about that
You’re a developer - but for which platform(s) current and in the past?
Speaking to your philosophy about ‘making a good product that people deem worth the cost’ you’re right to a degree. I’m sure you have to do research of your app you’re doing vs the time and effort and dedication to maintaining it to determine the cost ideal to you per device. This may conflict to some potentially customers on iOS, or elsewhere.
BUT I’m sure you recall Activation, EASports and a plethora of other major game developers that made great games, great apps for the Nokia S60 platform and most critically the N-Gage/N-Gage QD and mobile carrier partnerships with the likes of T-Mobile USA.
A refresher:
Nokia made tons of S60 smartphones: S60 2nd and 3rd edition being THE most popular smartphones globally across Europe/Asia and S.America for a few years. The N-Gage phones were designed primarily to be gaming phones with gaming as a primary focus, with the N-Gage QD, S60 3RD edition was used. The games came on MMC media cards and sold by carriers or on retail stores like EBGames (brick & mortar). I know this FIRST hand because:
1. I owned both the Nokia 6620 (which was too slow to run the games), and the 6620
2. Worked as Tier II support for T-Mobile USA and man the QD data pricing was awesome. The questions I’d get from a handful of S60 users: can this phone run QD games? Can my S60 phone use the data plan? (Y and Y).
After a few months I stopped, and I was late to the pirate game, the main damage was already done a year prior, and I was moving on to support BlackBerry OS and Sidekicks (another OS made by Andy Rubin of Google).
Unfortunately for game developers, yet fortunately for end users this same OS was used in Nokia 6620/6630 which had joystick navigation and button placements were ideal for gaming buttons an well hackers took full advantage of this with an App that allowed to run circumvented games. Forums like Symbian-Freak had forums where you can download the hack over the web, and game ROMS easily copied to a larger MMC/SD card for phones of the same OS and voila … it was a pirates cove of treasure.
2003:
Full range of N-Gage software appears online, and is seemingly playable on other phones
www.gamesindustry.biz
Claims that the new mobile gaming device's "security has been cracked like an egg" surface on the Web, raising the possibility that Nokia's games could be played on cell phones from other manufacturers.
www.wired.com
Nokia released the N-Gage on Oct. 7 with an advertising and marketing blitz that put it in nearly 30,000 stores in 60 countries. It is offered by wireless carriers including Vodafone, mm02 and, in the United States, T-Mobile.
The N-Gage features multiplayer game play on a tri-band mobile phone that supports Bluetooth wireless networking and includes an MP3 player and an FM radio.
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN -- Hackers claimed Tuesday to have cracked the security code on Nokia's new N-Gage, saying they could play its games on other multimedia-capable cell phones. The company said it was investigating the claims.
Several websites and online bulletin boards said the code that protects Nokia's proprietary software was broken.
If so, that could result in N-Gage games becoming available for handsets made by other companies that use the Series 60 operating system. It also means that pirated copies could be downloaded from the Internet.
"We are taking a look to see what has happened," Nokia spokesman Damian Stathonikos told The Associated Press. "We take it very seriously and we are definitely investigating this."
If the code-cracking claims turn out to be true, said Stathonikos, Nokia will move to defend its intellectual copyrights.
2004: a perfect overview!
This is a subject I've been avoiding for a while: Piracy on the N-Gage. It's more rampant than you can possibly imagine. Every single game that's out there now is available on some chat board, cracked and ready to load up on a big MMC to play on your N-Gage. Every single N-Gage user I know has...
www.russellbeattie.com
This is a subject I've been avoiding for a while:
Piracy on the N-Gage. It's more rampant than you can possibly imagine. Every single game that's out there now is available on some chat board, cracked and ready to load up on a big MMC to play on your N-Gage. Every single N-Gage user I know has at least some pirated games loaded. And I'd be lying if I told you that my N-Gage is pirate free. The temptation is just too great to snag a new game and pop it on to your deck to "just try out." Right, like I'm ever going to buy that game after it's sitting on my Taco.
The guys at the local gaming store know about the piracy (and sort of promote it). Any N-Gage gamer you talk to asks if you've grabbed the latest game.
Everyone who has a Series 60 phone who's any sort of hacker has messed with some of the Blizzard apps out there. It's nuts. It's beyond just being a dirty little secret at this point, it's actually almost a selling point of the system. I'm surprised you don't see banner ads on
EBGames.com saying "and don't worry abou the cost of games, you can get almost all of them free!"
I can honestly say I resisted until just a week or so ago. Everyone hates having to swap MMCs - it's like going back to the 80s - and I'm no different. So I first started using hacked games as a way of having all the games I purchased on MMC-ROMs available to me at once. And I've purchased more than few N-Gage games:
Tomb Raider, FIFA 2004, Tiger Woods, Spider-Man, Pandemonium, Super-Monkey Ball and Tony Hawk. Being able to have all of them on one 128MB MMC with plenty of room left over for an album or two of MP3s is great.
But then a few weeks ago the price started dropping on N-Gages, both QDs and the "Classic Taco" and more and more people started getting the decks and I started getting more and more pings from people with links to downloads for the latest games.
FIFA 2005, Asphalt GT, SIMs Busting Out and more. And since I'm on a gadget moratorium, I caved. My MMC is now loaded and it's great (especially since these "second generation" games are so much better than the first round).
It's the Napsterization of mobile games, and you know what? It's only going to get worse.
But you know, I have to think there's a huge opportunity being missed here. These games are all 8MB to 12MB in size and are a quick and easy download over DSL. Even Nokia is seeing huge responses to the two demo games that they've made available for download at N-Gage.com (
Call of Duty and
Asphalt GT). These games aren't even packaged as
.SIS installs! They're just a bunch of files you copy on to your MMC card. Tell me Nokia doesn't realize that piracy is happening already in huge numbers? This is exactly how the pirated games are being distributed as well - Nokia is just joining in the fun it seems. But my question is why stop there? Why not just provide the entire game as a downloadable app instead of messing around with the MMC cards?
I said something like this when the N-Gage was first launched, and now look: That distribution medium is being forged with or without Nokia's involvement. They might as well take advantage of it. Even
Sony is talking about distributing games to their new PSP over the wire - it's how things are going to be done. The pricing would need to change a bit, but I'd be quite happy to buy these games at half the price of the retail version online instead of pirating them. Look at the price of the pre-played games at EBGames... that's a good indicator of the "market value" of these games and they're all around $12 apiece. Perfect.
This all goes back to Steve Job's model for iTunes. His main idea years ago was that
people are fundamentally honest and that they would much prefer to pay a reasonable price for good-quality songs easily available online than mess around with pirating. This is exactly the case here. If every N-Gage game was available online, tied to my IMEI (I hate that, but you get the idea), and I could quickly and easily pay for it and download, I'd easily double my purchases and not have a single pirated app. This sounds like some sort of weird self-justification, but it's true: If I could download apps instead of being trapped using MMCs, I would never have loaded up a pirated game in the first place. But by sticking to an old, worn-out business model, Nokia has in fact encouraged piracy rather than protecting game developers from it.
2020: like really some are still wanting these games?
^ in honesty there are some great games that came out then that I still love …
Skyforce and Skyforce Reloaded by Infinite Dreams is available BOTH on iOS and also on Tesla’s!!
- trust me the graphics and sound is awesome even by today’s standards yet originally came out back then and looks VERY similar and sounds EXACTLY (just better on better speakers lol).
You could have huge warnings like they do now on the Mac where it won't event let you open an unverified app unless you right-click, choose open, and then agree to the warning (I'm still on 10.12 so that process may be different in the newer releases).
iOS kernel is not exactly like macOS and the stacks above it vary - it is different enough to not work simply how you want it to work like it does on macOS. That said I’m sure many want sideloading - but it’s not for choice of just having other apps from others stores … it’s most likely for piracy of apps and not wanting to pay for apps.
By the same logic your television should only be able to display content from a single official provider just in case you decide to pirate a film.
Well … your Television is:
- made by a single manufacturer (components made by various, but assembled by 1),
- your Cable provider IS your single official source of the content you watch (like Apps) - so Comcast, Rogers, AT&T etc are your App Store. The content creators that created the shows/sports/movies made for cable you wanted had FULL control of the ads you watched as well - which has lead us to freemium on apps.
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www.wepc.com
So by logic it’s EXACTLY that on mobile phones and by app creators. Just basically a different medium. I see Android as not just having the traditional cable connected to the TV but also the Satellite connection. Your Android TV box is basically aggregating more channels from various providers across the globe - but that box is still your single source for content you’re watching; unless you have CableTV and Satellite
"We've been focused on privacy for over a decade. We see it as a basic human right. A fundamental human right".....except in China.
China has many issues with human rights, disappearances, and capital punishment. The issues is solely within China … not Apple.
Apple‘s presence there, doing business yet forced to bend to China’s laws, although leaves a major distaste, may help in showing there is another way. ignoring and bowing out doesn’t help the situation either - but being present, that brand alone can stand for something if news gets there about Apple’s ideals or practices.
Now if you want to criticize Apple for doing business in China I have to ask you:
what computer,
what smartphone,
what smart watch,
what TV,
what monitor,
what Dock or eGPU,
what cables,
what headset(s),
do you use and whom are those brands?
I’d wager a friendly bet that 8 of those are from manufacturers that make the products you use made and assembled in China. I wonder if you’d feel as sassy about those products you use as you are above about Apple? Hmm.
You can sideload all you want with a developer account.
Personally I feel sideloading should be allowed for everyone. Put it behind a switch, and multiple warnings. Mark side-loaded apps on the home screen. Require that the user accept the developer's certificate, like you already have to do for Enterprise distribution. Apple can still revoke certs that are used to sign malware, etc, much like they do with MacOS.
It's really not that big a security issue. The apps still run in the iOS sandbox and only have access to resources that you give them. Most people will still stick to the app store, including myself. Personally I'd use sideloading only for apps that aren't allowed in the app store, such as emulators.
It may end up this way … BUT:
Adding more and more warnings for every app you side-load can be a real pain, or worse when you run them.
Also consider the core OS once opened up may leave holes for:
- secure enclave being circumvented (credit card payments, health data, certificates for HomeKit appliances, and now digital IDs like driver’s licenses, health cards, and birth certificates ~ Ontario is going to have this later this year).
I think the calls for side-loading is coming from people originally that want to circumvent this data because its a GOLD mine of raw data that can purely emulate someone anywhere they go - NOT just the internet. I’m not sure if this is available on Android or how secure there it is or if an effort to hack there is underway or not; but you can bet that data is super juicy vs web browsing and knowing what you opened in email. I feel those that re-iterate side-loading just doing so verbatim because it’s what their used to on 2 other platforms and just want Apple to follow because of Apple’s huge success from being a complete underdog Almost out of business to being a trillion dollar company in less than 24yrs!! many company are sour about that because Apple made products they use, and their users enjoy and continue to do so and has great brand loyalty they envy. So to destroy that take em down.
Why don't you just educate customers and let them make their own choices?
lol, you‘ve never worked in IT support have you?
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve taught users in Win10 how to search for an app when launching start menu without having to look for a search bar, or how to download Teamviewer from a simple corporate hosted site in Chrome that they use EVERY DAY (Chrome) and still don’t realize the download is happening - yet stare at a stating site that says “your download has started” lol.
Educating customers is one thing, showing them, routinely has much better effect. So many using Windows don’t know what to do when an app crashes.
What’s better than educating customers how to use a system, is make it incredibly intuitive that their own discovery educates themselves:
proof in case:
how many videos have you seen of a 3yr old trying an iPad the first time begins to navigate at their own choice in less than 15mins. I’ve not seen more than 2 of those for a 3-5yr old on an Android tablet, or Windows, or macOS.
Letting users run through the land of OZ to enjoy and keeping them out of the poppy fields or keeping out wicked witch of the west prevents them from going down a rabbit hole they cannot come out of or have terrible experience to abandon their devices.
Oh wow, impressive huh? Wonder how gaming did throughout its history before Apple. God Bless Tim Bird.
LOL. I wish I could find the data prior to iOS but lets just say the trending data shows it was small peanuts compare to today.
Gaming on iOS has surpassed revenues of GameBoy, Nintendo Wii, Switch, PS3/4 and XBox many years ago.
Gaming revenue in 2022 is dominated by the mobile gaming segment. Mobile games are set to account for half of annual gaming industry revenues.
www.statista.com
Find the latest statistics and facts about video games. Action, sports and shooter games are the most popular in the U.S., and video games generally enjoy stable sales figures.
www.statista.com
Video games are a billion-dollar business and have been for many years. In 2020, the
revenue from the worldwide PC gaming market was estimated at almost 37 billion U.S. dollars, while the
mobile gaming market generated an estimated income of over 77 billion U.S. dollars. What is significant nowadays is that the first generation of gamers is now grown up and has significant spending power at its disposal. Despite the high
average daily time spent playing games among kids, the hobby can no longer be considered solely child’s play. In fact, it was found that video gaming is gaining popularity among parents across the world as well, with a fairly even split in terms of the
gender distribution of video gaming parents worldwide.
Some of the major players in the video gaming industry are
Tencent,
Sony and
Apple, each generating billions of dollars in revenue every year, making them some of the
most successful public companies in terms of gaming revenue. Sony’s PlayStation 4 is the bestseller among current generation consoles and, in 2020, the
unit sales of the PlayStation 4 reached more than 112 million units.
And that is just the USA in the direct quote above.
