Or work to change laws and punish unjust, predatory behavior by greedy corporations who feel entitled to own their customers. Thank you EU! Looking forward to the rest of the dominoes falling.
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iPhone App Sideloading Coming to Users in the EU in First Half of 2024
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I say buy the consumer product you want. Do your due diligence. Break the product if you must but don’t expect the manufacturer to support you.
No. All the info on my Phone is accessible on My Mac. If nothing else I can pull down by iPhone backup data to the Mac. But Apple makes it easy enough not to have to do that.
That said, the iPhone could be made VERY secure. It should be totally impossible to write "spyware" that could run on a iPhone. Apps can be 100% sandboxed to only see there own data with each app using a different encryption key. Apple just needs to get off their butt and implement a strong sandboxing system based in compartmentalized cryptography.
Computer companies used to offer a big cash reward if yu could write software that violated security or crashses the computer. Students would work hard at it for money and glory. Apple should offer $100K prizes. The rules would be you'd send your software source code to Apple, they varify it breaks security and send you $100K. Stuff would be discovered and fixed fast. This is how it used to be 30 years ago.
IOS and macOS are both UNIX. UNIX was designed 40+ years ago back when computers were so expensive they had to be shared with many people logged in and running their own apps, al at the same time. The security goal was that even if a devilishly cleaver use was directly logged in to the computer with "hands on" access he should not be able to affect the work of any other logged-in user. This is mostly true. The Mac and IOS should be able to run any "devilishly cleaver" app without impacting yur work. Computer scientists have been studying and teaching these techniques for decades, "everyone" (who has taken the right classes) knows how to do this. Apple is lazy.
Absolutely! I certainly would support a car that prevented me from driving off a cliff or into a pool.
Ah, ok, so much for people taking responsibility for themselves... That whole line of reasoning just evaporated with one comment.
Command economy it is for you, then?
Think for a moment.
This is no way, whatsoever, an example of a command economy, which dictates what and how many of goods and services are produced.. The EU is saying "Apple, stand-aside and the consumer decide." The EU isn't telling you want you can or can't install, Apple is.
There has always been things on the other side-- Android, primarily, but also other things. Now there are no walls and there is no other side.
Exactly. The EU has not outlawed the Apple App Store. You can still exclusively use it if you want, and most users will just do that.
Lol. What nonsense. As I've said in plenty of other posts, this is no different from energy regulation, telecom regulation, etc. We don't let phone companies decide who people can and cannot call. We don't let energy companies refuse to service certain customers. Etc. There are certain industries that basically forfeit the right to do whatever they want because these companies are so powerful, have such a widespread reach, and the public is dependent upon their services to function. In this day and age, computing platforms are no different.
If you like Apple's walled garden, stay in it. I don't understand all of the handwringing and sky is falling drama. Apple will still be vetting apps. You still have your illusion of security. Nothing has changed for you.
Of course there are walls. How does anything change for you if you continue to get all of your apps from the App Store? Please explain how someone else sideloading on his or her device impacts anything on your device.
Thinking...
Ok. The government dictated that the system I knowingly bought into and continued supporting because it provided useful functionality for me can be produced in a quantity of zero. The EU is saying, "the customer decided, Apple, but stand aside anyway".
You can not argue both that this legislation makes important changes, and that nothing has changed.
Is Apple going to stop supporting the system you bought? No. Are they going to stop selling iPhones and iPads? No. Is Apple going to stop offering and maintaining their App store? No. Do you have to buy/download/subscribe to anything outside of the App store? No.
I fail to see how your user experience will be any different. For you, and millions of others, absolutely nothing will change.
In this particular case. I think it's more about the direction Apple has been going in for some time.
They want to make it easier for the end user. Whether we like that or not can be debated. However, they seem to be doing a good job with this method.
That's not the right analogy. Editing Tesla's autopilot software is like giving you control over the 5G and WiFi modem's DSP firmware. The right analogy would be allowing third-party apps like games to be installed on a Tesla's entertainment system.
Does this law require that everyone offering their app for iOS must sell it through the AppStore? If not, I can guarantee that everyone will not be able to get all their apps from the AppStore.
Again with the "this law is important because it changes nothing" logic.
I agree with your take. Apple has always wanted to insulate/isolate the user from the underlying technology. But let's not ignore the obvious truth as well. This is about $$$. Pretty much every area of Apple's business is stagnant except for "Services". Services is the only area where, quarter after quarter, they are seeing impressive gains. They don't want the gravy train to end.
We have cases where Apple does much of the thinking for their users-- and many of us non-idiots who simply prefer to put our non-idiotic thought capacity to better uses appreciate it.
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This is exactly where the interests of users and Apple diverge big time. Due to the need to increase services revenue they will incresingly adopt user hostile policies, it's 100% guaranteed.
There have been reports showing that iOS users overall spend more on apps than Android users.
Yes, it's about money. The whole point of a market is to differentiate yourself from the competition to encourage people to give you their money rather than to the competitor. Apple was successful, despite being the minority player, because people value what Apple provides. Now there is less competition of ideas, less room to differentiate oneself.
No. That's called freedom. As a developer I can decide where I sell my app.
I love how you defend Apple's right to build a walled garden while simultaneously crapping all over the rights of developers to sell their apps how they wish. Or users to buy whatever apps they wish. In your world, Apple's rights are paramount and the rest of us should just suck it up I guess.
Platforms should be open. Period. It's in the best interest of society. The gatekeeper model that Apple is selling is an authoritarian nightmare waiting to happen. We've already seen what happens when China tells Apple to yank a bunch of apps from the App Store. Apple, being the good China bootlicker that it is, complies. So much for freedom. So much for those values they claim to hold.
No one entity should have a control over a platform that billions of people reply upon every day. That's why we regulate plenty of other industries, to ensure that one greedy pig of a corporation isn't abusing its position.
And alternative app stores could provide more competition and choices for users and developers, similar to the macOS environment. The answer here is not to maintain an artificial bubble, restrict competition, etc. Allowing more open competition and pushing companies like Apple to innovate by using their wealth, talent and resources to create a "stronger" product and better experience than others for BOTH those who choose to sideload or use alternative app stores and those who don't can be a better solution.
Apple is preventing iPhone users from being able to "vote with their dollars" by restricting their ability to buy an app through sideloading or alternative app stores.