Apple Says Revised U.S. Sideloading Bill Would 'Undermine the Privacy and Security Protections' iPhone Users Rely On

Wildkraut said:
I have a M1 and without sideloading it would be a piece of ?

The AppStore will become what its users want it to become. If it become a ghost town, it just proves that it sucks and the majority of its users don’t like it, because they’ll jump to better alternatives. Yeah yeah that’s purpose of having competition. Apple have to compete and make the AppStore more attractive and lower the fees, which will benefit its users.

I say, if Apple don’t f’up and run out of ideas, the AppStore will become even better.
Click to expand...
Your M1 experience proves my thesis. It’s crap because of sideloading. Because of sideloading the Mac App Store is empty.

Apple would have to abandon fees and privacy rules for devs to offer apps there.

It may differ by slight degree but to get high participation from devs in the App Store once sideloading becomes possible means the App Store will more or less mirror the sideloading stores by dropping fees and standards.
 
rjohnstone said:
They said that about the Google Play Store a long time ago... didn't happen.
If what you say would come to pass, why haven't the big players already moved away from the Play Store?
Meta could have forced users to side load Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Why didn't they?
Because they know they would lose a huge chunk of their audience if it weren't available in a convenient location that anyone can easily use.
Forcing users to side load apps and subsequent updates is a non-starter for the big players. Simplicity is the key.
Sure smaller devs may try that route to avoid fees and other restrictions, but they will lose their largest available method of attracting users.
Having the option to side load has zero impact on security and privacy for anyone who choses to not enable/use this feature.
Apple is worried about another app store showing up and cutting into their revenue stream.
Nothing would prevent another app store from being just as secure (scanning apps for malware, privacy screening, etc) as Apple's.
Apple is worried about their bottom line... period.
Click to expand...
The App Store and Google Play Store are not analogus. They have very different purposes. To the consumer they seem like a store front but the different philosophy and business model of Apple vs Google shows they can’t be the same. (If these philosophies and models were the same, google wouldn’t have allowed side loading. But they do because it helps them to spy on their users.)

Google is set up for maximum intrusion into one’s private sphere.

I would imagine that the play store wouldn’t want to emphasize privacy in the apps because it would be pretty bad for their business model.

I don’t understand why this isn’t obvious to everyone but it’s extremely disappointing that it’s lost on our legislators.
 
Orange Bat said:
I’m a small app developed. I won’t leave the App Store if Apple allows side loading. I may put out a version of my app for side loading, but I imagine that my app will still get a vast majority of its downloads from the App Store. The largest developers may leave the App Store, but smaller developers will stay. The benefit of the App Store is that it allows an easy way for users to discover my app. Without it, my app would probably get zero downloads. Just like the Play Store, the App Store would stay relevant, even with side loading.
Click to expand...
That’s what advertising is for. Take the savings you get by not needing to pay Apple’s huge cut and put some of it into advertising for your own product. Currently you pay Apple money that they can use at their sole discretion to advertise your competitor’s app if they want to.
 
Robert.Walter said:
Your M1 experience proves my thesis. It’s crap because of sideloading. Because of sideloading the Mac App Store is empty.
Click to expand...
You keep saying the Mac App Store is empty. It isn’t, but the reason not every developer uses it is because there was a healthy eco system of downloading applications from the web long before there was a Mac App Store. Apps that were already popular don’t need the Mac App Store. Some applications are just big and well known and don’t need to offer Apple a piece of their revenue. But to say that the Mac App Store is “empty” is just flat out false.
 
Wait! This is "American Choice", pls have users have that choice, let Apple take a poll from all its users worldwide and see what the outcome is - in true democratic fashion.
 
"We created the iPhone and the App Store to be a safe and trusted place for users to download the apps they love and a great business opportunity for developers everywhere. The result has been an unprecedented engine for economic growth, which has enabled competition and innovation and made it possible for any developer with a great idea to reach Apple customers around the world."

That is the problem. Its not Apple customers, it's everyones customers as all of them use the devices to access digital services on the Internet.
 
Last edited:
Chaos215bar2 said:
Good point.

This is exactly why the Google Play store has been all but irrelevant for the last half decade at least. It’s become essentially impossible to find any Android app that doesn’t require sideloading in order to bypass Google’s policies.



See, someone else gets it. Just look at all those thousands of apps people are sideloading, stealing their data.

*Checks notes.* Oh wait… those apps come straight from the Play Store? And even Fortnight couldn’t convince people to sideload? Oops.
Click to expand...
So why go through all this then? If sideloading is virtually non-existent. Then why allow it? Rather why force it to be able to be? For the handful of people that actually want this, why are we bothering?
 
Wildkraut said:
I have a M1 and without sideloading it would be a piece of ?

The AppStore will become what its users want it to become. If it become a ghost town, it just proves that it sucks and the majority of its users don’t like it, because they’ll jump to better alternatives. Yeah yeah that’s purpose of having competition. Apple have to compete and make the AppStore more attractive and lower the fees, which will benefit its users.

I say, if Apple don’t f’up and run out of ideas, the AppStore will become even better.
Click to expand...
What you are forgetting is that MacOS can afford sideloading due relatively low market share which is below 8%. It’s not a big focus point for advertisers or hackers since it doesn’t have much return on effort.

iOS, on the other hand, has almost 28% of the global mobile market share and its highly lucrative for advertisers and hackers. Usage pattern is much different than MacOS which is a desktop OS.

If MacOS had the same kind of dominance as iOS, Apple would have much different stance in terms of their privacy and security implementation on their desktop OS.

Some of you folks really need to look at this on a deeper and more analytical level. The app download patterns are WAY different on desktop OS than mobile OS. That changes a lot of things.
 
mikethemartian said:
That’s what advertising is for. Take the savings you get by not needing to pay Apple’s huge cut and put some of it into advertising for your own product. Currently you pay Apple money that they can use at their sole discretion to advertise your competitor’s app if they want to.
Click to expand...
People always give this answer. It’s just not always the best option for an individual small developer. Where should I advertise? How many ad systems should I be on? How much should I spend, out of my own pocket, to advertise? And how much time do I need to put into advertising? 10 hours a week where I’m not working on my app? And should I hire a graphic designer to make my ads? How much will that cost? At that rate I won’t make a dime from my app and may even lose money for a long time.

Advertising is not a magic bullet that guarantees discoverability. Apple does not take “a huge cut”. It’s fair for the services provided to a small developer. The App Store is a great choice for small developers, and Apple offers relatively hassle-free advertising in the App Store. I don’t have to spend a ton of money for it and I get exposure right where the users are. For small developers, it can be a godsend.
 
iOS was created as an intentionally closed system right? And was then slightly opened through the App Store, a single doorway to the closed system which was heavily monitored by Apple, and explicitly so from day one.

Why now, that outside options exist, do people feel the need to say "things have changed" just because their closed system became such a popular option? Nothing's changed, just the size of the user base, and everyone involved is getting a piece of the action. No two pieces are identical, but as the old saying goes, life isn't fair. If you want a bigger piece, work for it; don't cry about something being unfair because someone got there first and laid the groundwork for you to make your fortune.

Feel that's the core problem nowadays. Everyone wants to make a buck, but few actually want to invest the time and resources into infrastructure. So when someone does that legwork, they immediately want to mooch off it as soon as it gets big enough and cry monopoly if they don't get their way.
 
I7guy said:
So now Apple will be known as company who has porn, vape and whatever else on their app store. The very thing they have been avoiding? And if you view this as a good thing, we are definitely on opposite sides of the fence.
Click to expand...
I was thinking more along the lines of features, not app categories. I don’t think that many people are advocating for porn apps in the App Store.

But on the subject of vaping apps, I think it’s silly that if you want to use ANY specialized (not keyboard or headphones) bluetooth accessory with iOS, Apple NEEDS to approve it. There’s little reason that non-MFi game controllers shouldn’t be used on iOS, for example.
 
I’d rather see legislation aimed at breaking down some of the huge vertical monopolies that have been allowed to happen over the last few decades: telecommunications and content providers. None of them have resulted in any savings for the consumer.
 
Wish I could remember the user ID of the American guy who said a few weeks ago that Apple should pull out of Europe because the EU was basically saying the same thing. I'd sure love to tag him right now and say "ok your move"
 
H2SO4 said:
Not sure I buy this. If that was the case, anything you REALLY needed for work would be made available by your employer and they'd likely go to Apple to get it signed.
You make a reasonable point though.
Click to expand...
If your company uses gsuite you won’t find your company going through that effort. More likely is they’d require your phone to be connected to their system and load it there. The downside is they can manage and monitor and control your device without your knowledge.
 
ipedro said:
You mean the Play Store that allows apps to collect data from their users and that is natively owned by Google, the world's largest data collector whose entire business relies on data collection?

Jesus... people here just keep confirming that walled gardens with curated experiences and built in protections need to exist to protect some folks from themselves. 🤦🏼‍♂️

Don't want a walled garden? Go to Android. That's the choice.
Click to expand...
The App Store also allows apps to collect plenty of data (I assume you mean surreptitiously) from their users, but in either case, that’s not what was asked.

Is there a major app (again, other than Fortnite) which decided to leave the Play Store but remain in business on Android and did so successfully? That is, an app that left and didn’t lose users/engagement such that it managed to avoid irrelevance and/or shutting down?
 
Smearbrick said:
Complete BS. It would hurt their bottom line. That’s the only thing it would undermine.
Click to expand...

Profitable for Apple doesn't always mean bad for the user. I for one got iOS devices for many of my family members partly because the convenience and safety of the walled garden after malware issues with some of their Android devices. I don't care if governments force Apple to lower their cut of the sales but I want to keep the current system around.
 
ipedro said:
You mean the Play Store that allows apps to collect data from their users and that is natively owned by Google, the world's largest data collector whose entire business relies on data collection?

Jesus... people here just keep confirming that walled gardens with curated experiences and built in protections need to exist to protect some folks from themselves. ??‍♂️

Don't want a walled garden? Go to Android. That's the choice.
Click to expand...

Spot on. Some people refuse to find happiness and just need to whine.
 
zorinlynx said:
So tired of Apple whining about this. The bill means you have to allow sideloading. Nobody is being forced to do it.

They don't want to lose the tight control they have of the platform.
Click to expand...
It's not whining - Apple has built a business on the promise that they provide better security on their platform. Whether you believe it or not is up to you, but millions of folks who have bought into the Apple ecosystem obviously do. You say "nobody is being forced to do it [sideload]" but that is an extremely naive point of view. By giving that option, Apple not only would weaken security for those who opt to side load, but also for those who don't! Example scenario: parent and child with same Apple ID. Parent doesn't side load anything because he believes it makes hacking their account easier. Child doesn't know better and accidentally side loads a malicious app that then goes about exploiting both her phone and the family's Apple-ID based data.

As Tim Cook said: if you want side-loading, buy an Android device! Don't retroactively try to tell Apple how it should run its business!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Back
Top