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Apple Claims App Store Security Features Prevented Over $2 Billion in Fraudulent Transactions in 2022
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Exactly, it would equivalent to invalidating AppleCare for MacBook's, because you've installed Blender, FL Studio, Maya, etc. All just "side-loaded" Apps.
No, it wouldn’t. Because those are all supported apps. It would be more like saying if you disable gatekeeper, we won’t provide software support.
I hear you but I wonder if that is just a "saying" based on current behavior.
- I buy from the App Store - except for things like MS Office or Adobe Acrobat, I investigate what I want before I make a decision. I feel safer doing that.
- I buy from the Play Store - except for things like MS Office or Adobe Acrobat, I investigate what I want before I make a decision. I feel safer doing that.
- I buy from the 3rd Party Stores (Android) - except for things like MS Office or Adobe Acrobat, I investigate what I want before I make a decision. I feel safer doing that.
- I buy via side-loading - except for things like MS Office or Adobe Acrobat, I investigate what I want before I make a decision. I feel safer doing that.
Add in 3rd Party for iOS/iPadOS and it will be the same.
Allowing a single gatekeeper is basically one step closer to "the company" vision of the future. In my opinion, it's in society's best interest that platforms, the airwaves, the internet, etc. remain as open as possible. No one company or person should have his or her thumb on something that impacts billions of people so profoundly.
I also don't think anything changes for App Store customers if Apple allows other stores or sideloading. The experience for those who stay within the walled garden is unchanged by what happens outside it. I have yet to hear a compelling argument for how the App Store user will suffer if sideloading is allowed. There's a lot of catastrophizing and a lot of nonsensical scenarios are thrown around, but I haven't read anything cogent that made me rethink my position. iOS is the outlier. All other major platforms are pretty open, including the Mac, and this open model has worked for many decades. Where's the evidence that a single gatekeeper model is better for anyone...besides the gatekeeper?
Where does Apple officially state that Blender, FL Studio, Maya are supported Apps?
What about brew.sh or Firefox?
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Either you trust the App creator or you don't. In reality, outside of marketing, Apple has very little impact on scam or not. This article is just a preemptive strike against side-loading and it means nothing in reality. Apple allows all kinds of scams and nefarious actors in the App Store.
That’s the number of apps rejected.
I’m talking about the number of apps which were approved, collected a bunch of money from users, and then were later removed for being scammy.
Has any person ever argued that Apple should be responsible for people who download potentially harmful apps to their phone?
What about anti-competitive removals?
Hmmm no numbers! 🤔
Or did they include them? Probably!
The bitter lawsuit hanging over the Apple Watch’s new swipe keyboard
Apple’s head of keyboards stands accused of trying to crush competition
www.theverge.com
I know that it’s difficult to read through all posts before posting, but here was Ny reply to another user on this thread…
Everybody mistakes who has the "option" if side loading is allowed. The option is not for the end-user but for developers. Developers will have the opportunity to distribute their App via the App Store or side loading. I suspect many large developers will move their apps from the App Store and build their own distribution mechanisms...
I hear you, big dawg! "But they didn't do that on Android, which permits side loading!" ... that's correct, but I argue that's BECAUSE Apple didn't allow side loading. If the market dynamics change and both platforms allow side loading (especially the more profitable app platform), Meta, Adobe, Microsoft, Sony, etc. will be incentivized to bypass both default app stores to create their own!
I think there's a real argument that some apps might leave the App Store, but I think this argument is also overblown. What I can imagine happening is major services and apps like Facebook, Adobe, etc. leaving in favor of selling direct to their customers. I can also imagine many of them staying and/or making their apps available through multiple channels.
Makes sense.
My country recently reported on a number of scams where the victims were tricked into scanning fake QR codes and installing android apps from outside of the App Store. Based on reporting at least, this seems to be an issue confined to android handsets for now, since iOS doesn’t yet support sideloading (even the police advisory expressly calls this out).
No doubt Apple stands to benefit from users staying within the App Store, but this doesn’t mean it’s not for the benefit of its end users as well.
It’s pretty clear where the EU stands on this matter - they are choosing to side with developers and businesses over end users, and I feel this is the nuance a lot of “you don’t have to sideload apps if you don’t want to” arguments tend to gloss over.
In a way, I hope Apple doesn’t make sideloading too convenient for users, and forces them to jump through a number of hoops in order to do so, so as to make it harder for scammers to get their way.
My country recently reported on a number of scams where the victims were tricked into scanning fake QR codes and installing android apps from outside of the App Store. Based on reporting at least, this seems to be an issue confined to android handsets for now, since iOS doesn’t yet support sideloading (even the police advisory expressly calls this out).
No doubt Apple stands to benefit from users staying within the App Store, but this doesn’t mean it’s not for the benefit of its end users as well.
It’s pretty clear where the EU stands on this matter - they are choosing to side with developers and businesses over end users, and I feel this is the nuance a lot of “you don’t have to sideload apps if you don’t want to” arguments tend to gloss over.
In a way, I hope Apple doesn’t make sideloading too convenient for users, and forces them to jump through a number of hoops in order to do so, so as to make it harder for scammers to get their way.
I don't understand why that's a problem. Let them create their own. They built the apps and services. Apple is the proverbial bridge troll demanding payment every time someone crosses the bridge. I get that Apple built the platform, but should that entitle them to control it like they do? I don't believe so. I think the gatekeeper model is a very bad precedent and I hope it's demolished before it becomes the norm and then starts to creep into other areas of our lives.
Your analysis misses an obvious point tho.. you know what all those OS platforms don’t have? A record breaking App Store economy while several times the amount of transactions happen by a larger percentage of the user base. App sales and subscriptions on iOS are several times the magnitude of previous app distribution models. The data suppprts this, but even anecdotally, we all know iOS users who regularly download apps on their iPhone who never installed any third party software on their Windows or MacOS computer.
The single store model and the ease of facilitating transactions with stored payment methods and user data privacy has arguably been the differentiator that had led to Apple’s App Store success.
I guess we’ll see if and when Apple is forced to change their business model for app distribution on the platform.
Data source: https://www.zippia.com/advice/mobil...ere are over 5.7 million,day and 30 per month.
i don’t care as much about protecting developers business model as I am about the user experience. Imagine all that will change if there were different app stores to download your most used apps. You’d have to create accounts at the Meta store to download Instagram and Facebook. And buy Microsoft points to download content from the Xbox store. Each App Store would have different policies for app updates and privacy requirements. User would have to manage their payment methods and subscriptions in various app marketplaces. The app distribution landscape will mirror the current morass of streaming video subscription and apps.
But even smaller developers should worry. When the large developers leave the App Store, it will ghettoize smaller developers in the App Store which will have less traffic since users won’t visit the App Store for the already established large app developers. Also, smaller developers benefit from the popular large developers being in the single App Store because it ensures that users will keep their payment methods updated. Smaller developers will suffer from increased attrition from users who no longer discover their apps or fail to keep their payment method updated in multiple places.
I can continue but the truth is successful marketplaces don’t happen by accident. Any pulling on a single thread has the potential of unraveling the entire market with various ripples in the pond. (Sorry for mixing metaphors there 😂)
It does still feel like the Wild West though - a lot of easily found Apps just shouldn't be there.
Let's say you sideloaded a nefarious app from one of the 428,000 developers that Apple previously terminated in 2022, due to fraudulent activity, and who is now in business on their own.
And that nefarious app you sideloaded from that vendor that previously engaged in fraudulent activity, bricked your phone.
Would you expect Apple to fix your bricked/damaged phone? I suspect Apple would refuse and point to their recently updated Terms of Service that came into place, which you agreed to with an updated iOS download.
Your recourse at that point would be to contact the vendor for assistance. Good luck.
The above is a relatively benign example. There are other scenarios that are far more nefarious, which Apple would also deal with in updated Terms of Service.
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I don’t care what their business model is or how much they make off of it. That doesn’t matter to me. What matters is do they have what I am looking for and display enough information that I can vette my proposed purchase.
You know what Apple’s business model for the App Store has done for me? Raised prices, artificially limited my choices, and pushed a purchase model that is designed to suck as much money as feasible. Apple has, IMO, gotten greedy and lazy.
Safe until a developers site is hacked and your data leaked or credit cards intercepted.
The bigger companies have the security infrastructure, but I'd guess thats there's going to be a lot of smaller companies that for whatever reason could not get their App approved in the first place that are going to be jumping on the side-loading bandwagon initially. They are the ones I'd worry about.
When it comes to the likes of gatekeeper warnings, I believe that most folk have become numb to them and will be ignored. Sad, but true. Hopefully there is something far more robust being put in place to prevent bad actors circumventing anything more than the location of the download, and for the developers sake something more than dragging and dropping a cracked .ipa onto a device.
Raised prices? ... guess we'll see. As to the sucking of money, it's not just Apple that was making it. If you are going to go to the trouble to set up the infrastructure to allow direct payments and downloads you may as well keep the prices the same as they were on the App store and pocket the 0/15/30% to spend on your marketing budget.
I didn't mean to suggest that was your concern; I just meant that I am focused on the user experience.
The App Store has not increased the price of mobile apps. Instead, developers argue that the App Store has artificially depressed the cost of mobile apps. Before the App Store, the price to users of mobile software was significantly higher.
I repeat that the choice for side loading is not to offer choice to end-users, but the choice to developers on where and how they want to distribute their app. End users will only have more options if most developers offer their apps on multiple app marketplaces. History suggests, however, that the opposite will happen; there will be App Stores designed around exclusive titles. For example, the user will not have more choice if Instagram has to be downloaded exclusively from a Meta App Store than solely from Apple's App Store.
Apple may indeed be greedy and lazy, but that does not negate that the App Store has been successful primarily because of Apple's single-store model and policies and not despite it! Changes to the App Store model will have unforeseen consequences; time will tell how much those changes negatively affect the marketplace's success.
Don't like the Apple way? Don't get an Apple device. Plenty of options.