Apple Pressed by India to Pre-Install Government Apps on iPhones

[d5aqoëp]

The current Indian government might be tempted to add a few more apps for “national security” reasons. India has stopped being an imperfect democracy and has become an elective authoritarian regime.

Please don't talk off topic if you have nothing to contribute. At least give examples where you believe the government was authoritarian. I have explained the rationale behind such unusual request by the government. But hey!! you might be right and govt might be hell bent on spying on people's day today lives with those apps lol.

"elective authoritarian regime" This is nothing but mental gymnastics. Vote the current govt out after 4 years then.

 

[ArPe]

Their organized crime has infiltrated the highest sections of US and UK with money laundering and bribery, and that’s one of the reasons tech enshtification, crypto scams and unaffordable housing has occurred. They are living like kings in tax havens while draining money from everywhere.

Now their goal is to set a precedent for legalized spyware in one country so that other governments will follow.

Having even less device security is going to make them even richer and they will go from unofficial kings to official kings.

 

[sputnikv]

india sounds like one of the worst places on earth by every metric

 

[surferfb]

Brother.. give me an example it's an untrustworthy "regime"? The government was elected last year via a nationwide democratic electoral process. People do trust the government and have a chance to vote out the current party next election if they don't like it. This is not the case for governments in China, Russia, N. Korea and few other countries. Now no country will ever trust one another under any circumstance. But they don't go on calling each other untrustworthy lol.

The Modi government has been marching towards authoritarianism for years now, and while yes, the elections last year hopefully stopped the slide, Modi's re-election was in large part due to how he stacked the deck against the opposition. Had they been truly free and fair he wouldn't have won another term. Lots of examples of his authoritarian leanings in this article:

The world’s largest democracy is collapsing before our eyes

Narendra Modi’s war on India’s democracy, explained.

www.vox.com

 

[WilliApple]

Chat is this communism?

 

[JitteryJimmy]

I hate Apple for this.

If you truly hate these laws that governments enact, then perpetually act to counter the corrupt governments and the idiots in power.

Anything else is just a form of baby-crying.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I don't quite understand the discontent, especially among those people who are not affected by this in other countries. In Russia, when you first turn on your iPhone, at the setup stage, it simply offers to install a list of local Russian applications, most of which are actively used by Russian people. For example, local navigation maps, which are incomparably better than Apple maps, which do not work correctly in Russia. If you want, you install them; if you don't want, you don't. At the very least, it's convenient and you don't have to look for them in the App Store yourself later.

"The Camels Nose" is why

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

If the apps are of value to Indians to access government information or services, they will install them themselves. Forcing them to be installed does not lead one to believe they are innocuous.

You overestimate the abilities of some smartphone owners.

This is to help the grandparents who barely know how to take a picture or respond "K" to a text. Telling them to open the app store, sign up, search, find the right thing, and download it is way too many steps for them to follow.

If it's not too many steps and is no more inconvenient than if it were preinstalled, then you'd be fine with Apple just removing all apps besides the App Store and requiring every single one to be installed via that, right?

 

[itti]

This is simply horrible.

 

[gleepskip]

You overestimate the abilities of some smartphone owners.

If the phone owner is not savvy, how did they figure out how to acquire the phone in the first place? They got help from someone. That same individual can help them install the basic apps they need.

 

[sw1tcher]

Very bad idea from a very untrustworthy regime and would set a very dangerous precedent. Hope both Apple and Google push back hard on this.

The precedent was set for other countries when Apple gave in to Russia's demands of pre-installing government apps. Now India (and eventually other countries) will implement a law requiring handset makers and/or handset OS developers to do the same.

 

[Voyageur]

"The Camels Nose" is why

So what's the problem with the offer to install locally relevant apps?

 

[turbineseaplane]

So what's the problem with the offer to install locally relevant apps?

1. Offer to install ≠ Pre-installed

2. Users should not have to wade through any "offerings" anyhow -- it's a consumer hostile decision that is inescapably injected with bias

 

[apparatchik]

Please don't talk off topic if you have nothing to contribute. At least give examples where you believe the government was authoritarian. I have explained the rationale behind such unusual request by the government. But hey!! you might be right and govt might be hell bent on spying on people's day today lives with those apps lol.

"elective authoritarian regime" This is nothing but mental gymnastics. Vote the current govt out after 4 years then.

It's a known term among political scientists, democracy is not black & white, there are different shades of freedom and representation, of social life and discourse.

There are even democracy rankings and different levels of freedom of the press, respect for dissent and for minorities, etc. From tyranny and fascism through competitive or elective authoritarian regimes, etc.

There are elections in both, North Korea and Russia, but that doesn't make them democracies.

And I think is fully on topic regarding forced pre-installed apps into your personal device by a repressive undemocratic government.

 

[Voyageur]

1. Offer to install ≠ Pre-installed

2. Users should not have to wade through any "offerings" anyhow -- it's a consumer hostile decision that is inescapably injected with bias

1. There is no talk of pre-installation. in Russia they also said "pre-installation", in fact it is a pop-up menu during the first setup with an offer to install 10-15 local applications if you need it.

2. Who said should not? It's easy to say from the States, where all built-in services work correctly, but in Russia, most of Apple's native applications are not relevant. From unprocessed maps to non-working and sanctioned services. What claims of bias can there be if the Social and medical applications from the state have no analogues in principle, but everyone uses them in Russia? What you are talking about is the oppression of freedom and local norms, and you are trying to decide for others.

 

[MilaM]

There is only one solution to fight this. Give users better tools to analyse and tweak the operating systems of the devices we use daily.

 

[CapitalIdea]

If the apps are of value to Indians to access government information or services, they will install them themselves. Forcing them to be installed does not lead one to believe they are innocuous.

Whether I live in India is irrelevant. I want freedom from government overreach for everyone.

Then go move to India, run for office, and make your argument there. It’s none of anyone else’s business and it’s not Apple’s nor America’s place to tell a billion people how they should run their own nation.

 

[CapitalIdea]

1. Offer to install ≠ Pre-installed

2. Users should not have to wade through any "offerings" anyhow -- it's a consumer hostile decision that is inescapably injected with bias

Consumers ≠ citizens, and this is a government app with government resources, that their elected government says their citizens should have. It’s up to them, and we don’t need to play savior.

 

[Hildy]

Brother.. give me an example it's an untrustworthy "regime"? The government was elected last year via a nationwide democratic electoral process. People do trust the government and have a chance to vote out the current party next election if they don't like it. This is not the case for governments in China, Russia, N. Korea and few other countries. Now no country will ever trust one another under any circumstance. But they don't go on calling each other untrustworthy lol.

Some consider assassination of individuals within another country’s sovereign borders untrustworthy.

 

[DFZD]

I am an Indian and all I can say is they want to do this for surveillance of their opponents mostly. No other reason like national security or anything. Few years back they bought Pegasus from Israel and Apple informed all the victims so they want to avoid that from now on.

 

[kryptticAZ]

It could be worse…. at least it’s not a U2 album.

 

[wbeasley]

well is Apple and Google dont want to, I can't see how forcing them with some silly law will do much.

Both can stop selling phones there and watch the masses rise up against the officials who want it.

If these apps are so necessary, user should WANT to download them.

Carrot and stick...

More likely the app contains tracking and shares data with government and people are wary.

 

[leicaman]

Of course as India moves to a fascist Hindu government they're going to want to make sure their people comply with whatever they want them to.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Of course as India moves to a fascist Hindu government they're going to want to make sure their people comply with whatever they want them to.

Ouch… Swap out the country and government description and this hits a little close to home right now

 

[DeepIn2U]

that's awful act definitely

Indeed!

Give a Monster a cookie and he's gonna want, ask, then demand MILK!

I hate Apple for this.

Money > Everything, absolutely everything.

Exactly.
Apple pandered to India due to the 1 billion users, right after Chinese market. Look what's happening to Apple in BOTH now!

How is it NOBODY at Apple saw this nor spoke up about this to executives?! Oh yeah .... fear of being reprimanded or fired.

Apple Executive's have some serious SHORT-sighted minded greed!
Now it's back to bite them in the derriere!

ney? It's not about money at all, it's about legislation. They have to comply with local leg

^ You must be limited in your thoughts there.

Wrong.

The article and the TOPIC is about legislation being imposed. Both Apple and Google got here in the first place due to MONEY! Now the Indian government wants money and thinks it can strong arm like the USA. When Google and Apple pull out and stand FIRM and they SHOULD

Indian government will have to look locally for a new solution and to be frank it'll not compete with the likes of USA and Chinese enginuity for a few years ... and when it does I highly doubt the global market will be interested in their own hardware and software and OS. Not casting hate or shade ... just don't think the smoothness and advances would be able to catch up, not rapidly enough.

we'll see though.