Fukui
macrumors 68000
well... they gotta make money somehow... and clickbait is the shortest cut to it!
Phil Schiller Lays Out Apple's Case for Cracking Down on Screen Time Monitoring Apps
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Apple_Robert
Contributor
I did read the article and was aware of it before MacRumors posted on the front page. I did read about the developers mentioned. Read my post again. I said the article was poorly written and slanted, which it was. Poorly written does not equate to not mentioning any facts nor does it equate to me glossing over the possible fact that Apple wasn't clear to the affected developers. Given the construction of the article, I don't know if those sections are wholly accurate as represented.
You called me a liar (which I do not appreciate) and you are proven wrong.
You called me a liar (which I do not appreciate) and you are proven wrong.
Apple_Robert
Contributor
Almost any app in the store can be abused and or violate Apple policy. The issue is abuse. Apple stated the various removals had nothing to do with competition.
If you don't believe Apple's statement, you might as well sell all your Apple products and move to a different brand, because there really is no logical point in staying with a company you believe lies to you and seeks to tear down other businesses just because it makes money with similar apps.
Fcub32
macrumors newbie
Also makes sense that Kaspersky, a firm that the US government has shown distrust for, has filed anticompetitive complaints. It appears they are also victimizing themselves; Wonder how many people installed Kaspersky MDM profiles.
gnasher729
Suspended
MDM should only ever be used on a phone owned by your company. It should never be used on your own phone. It might be a nice feature if a phone used for private and company use could have a switch that 100 percent separates both.
iPhysicist
macrumors 65816
misread as MDMA software...
theFly
macrumors member
While we would like to think that the App Store rules are fixed for every possible use case, it turns out that rules are always evolving.
Apple may have never considered the idea that apps may use MDM in ways that it’s being used. That’s not to say that every app removed was doing something bad or outside of what the app said it was doing, but if you allow some apps to do it then you’re opening the door to others using the MDM for other purposes and in the end, that’s not what MDM was designed for.
So, once they looked into it, they changed the rules. Developers may not like it, but that’s the way it works. In the end it may be positive for the consumer although in the short term, negative for Apple on the PR side.
Doubtful it’s just to prevent competition. Apple has a calendar app, but that doesn’t stop a proliferation of 3rd party calendar apps from being successful. Same for email, browsing, etc.
The one negative I wish Apple would change is to give the user the ability to select which Calendar or email app they want to use by default.
gnasher729
Suspended
If MDM integration is removed, the developer can submit the app again.
[doublepost=1556442953][/doublepost]
MDM is not a "privacy threat" - the user willingly installs MDM on their phone and gives up their privacy, for example when a company pays their bills. What Apple didn't foresee that APPS would use MDM for nefarious purposes, and people who don't know what they are agreeing to install MDM when the shouldn't.
[doublepost=1556443186][/doublepost]
No, Facebook published "enterprise apps", which is a different thing. As a company, you can get an "Enterprise" certificate from Apple, which allows you to create apps that are not reviewed by Apple, ONLY for distribution in your own company. So Facebook was allowed to create any app and distribute it _to Facebook employees only_. They also published a VPN app without telling people it was made by Facebook - when no sane person would use a VPN created by this privacy hoover.
The information about the use of MDM is in the NYT article though I agree it has a generally critical stance.
ascender
macrumors 603
Makes sense and as is often the case, the devil is in the detail which doesn't make for a good bit of clickbait.
But, I do wonder how many features Apple are holding back from Screentime because they aren't in keeping with their views on privacy. As a parent, there's a lot of features offered by third party apps which I'd much rather Apple offered in ios.
But, I do wonder how many features Apple are holding back from Screentime because they aren't in keeping with their views on privacy. As a parent, there's a lot of features offered by third party apps which I'd much rather Apple offered in ios.
Kabeyun
macrumors 68040
Agreed. No idea about the scam. I have no problem with someone trying to charge a fortune for an app, but there’d better be transparency about it.
SoyCapitanSoyCapitan
Suspended
Earlier today, a report from The New York Times highlighted Apple's removal of a number of App Store apps that had allowed users to monitor usage of their devices or those used by their children. The report suggests that Apple's move to pull the apps is related to having rolled out its own Screen Time feature in iOS 12 that competes in some ways with these apps, raising concerns over anticompetitive behavior.
The report quotes several developers who had their apps removed, including one who says the removal came "out of the blue with no warning." Apple is facing several complaints related to the moves, with a pair of developers filing with the European Union's competition office and Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab filing an antitrust complaint in that country.
The New York Times shared a brief statement from an Apple spokeswoman saying that Apple treats "all apps the same," including ones that compete with Apple's own features like Screen Time. The spokeswoman stated that the affected apps "could gain too much information from users' devices."
After reading the article, MacRumors reader Zachary Robinson emailed Tim Cook to express concern over the situation, and earlier today he received a thorough response from Phil Schiller outlining that Apple's removal of these apps is due to their use of Mobile Device Management (MDM) technology to monitor everything that happens on the user's phone.
Schiller notes that MDM technology is intended for enterprise users to install on company-owned devices, giving them easy access to and control over those devices for management purposes. The alternative usage of MDM technology by third-party developers for screen time monitoring or parental controls raises significant privacy and security concerns, however, and Apple has moved to address those issues.
The full email from Schiller, which appears to be authentic based on our examination of the included headers:Apple's dedication to privacy and security is well-known, so it's unsurprising the company took steps to address concerns related to how these apps were monitoring device usage. But for some users who had come to prefer the capabilities of these apps such as cross-platform compatibility with Android devices in their households and more robust app controls, Apple's Screen Time feature feels like a step backward.
Article Link: Phil Schiller Lays Out Apple's Case for Cracking Down on Screen Time Monitoring Apps
Thats a superb response from Schiller. We have to remember when Steve Jobs addressed this situation about "bozo" developers trying to game the store's rules and violate customer privacy.
It's smart business for the IT folks of a company to use MDM, not every user on the company network is smart enough to maintain the updates and proper settings on their device to maintain good cybersecurity practices. If the user doesn't want an MDM profile on their device, then their device shouldn't be permitted access to the company network...pretty simple.
A switch would be nice but it would require the end user to have enough integrity to turn it on during business hours and society has shown it can't be trusted. (ex. delivery truck drivers disabling tracking devices on their vehicles to waste company time and corporate espionage)
Last edited:
So firstly this apparent email is only ‘presumed’ to be genuine but really their is absolutely no way of knowing. And if it did come from Apple I seriously doubt Schiller wrote it!
And secondly, they have given a utterly bogus response, saying it’s for privacy because they don’t like one of the very tools designed for the job. Doesn’t really answer for their actions does it?
Never mind if Apple continues this path of forcing devs to change their apps because they want to promote their own so be it, the more complaints raised to the EU commission, the bigger it’s case file and actions it takes against Apple will become. It’s Apple choice here, the EU is NOT afraid of any corporation and will happily rip them to pieces.
And secondly, they have given a utterly bogus response, saying it’s for privacy because they don’t like one of the very tools designed for the job. Doesn’t really answer for their actions does it?
Never mind if Apple continues this path of forcing devs to change their apps because they want to promote their own so be it, the more complaints raised to the EU commission, the bigger it’s case file and actions it takes against Apple will become. It’s Apple choice here, the EU is NOT afraid of any corporation and will happily rip them to pieces.
SoyCapitanSoyCapitan
Suspended
I don't think you read the email properly. Jobs said the same things when he was alive. MDM shouldn't be used in any consumer application. The privacy-centric EU would agree.
I did read it, it’s balony mate, Apple is more then happy to let anything ride on the App Store so long as it’s making money from it, as soon as the tech used comes into the public domain as bad, all of a sudden Apple the knight in shining armour comes to save us all..... despite allowing said tech to be in its store for years sometimes!
Perhaps one day someone should ask Apple exactly what is it’s stance of all those freemium app devs data mining all its users, particularly freemium games:
http://toucharcade.com/2015/09/16/we-own-you-confessions-of-a-free-to-play-producer/
Read the article, it’s posted on Touch Arcade which is the sister site to Mac Rumors and was set up by Arn, the owner of this site. Apple is more then happy to talk how bad these actions are in one side of its face, yet is more then happy to let games devs mine you with the other side of their face. So.
It makes it very hard to believe anything Apple says about your security on the App Store... this story is public image damage control, and a way to self promote its own app.
Yeah- Apple is hurting itself with its App Store review process. It claims to have this thorough review process (to give customers comfort and to charge developers their cut) and then they suddenly discover there are whole classes of apps that blatantly break the rules. While NYT did a bad job getting Apple’s side here, there wouldn’t have been a story if apple never approved these apps in the first place.
SoyCapitanSoyCapitan
Suspended
Or maybe the full story is more complex than the simple narrative you have above. If Apple does take action against many malicious apps and as we have seen there are always some conspiracists who jump on the story to scream "oppression!" and "double standards!".
Jobs addressed this topic about unpublished APIs and malicious developers starting at 56 minutes through this conversation.
Donfor39
macrumors 68000
Can;t believe I've forgot name of Playstation classics game!
[doublepost=1556453148][/doublepost]
Well done!
I was thinking Wipeout and had to remember via google search.aghhhh
gnasher729
Suspended
You can use MDM to allow access to a network (usually a password would be required, and that could be available through MDM only), so the user doesn't need any integrity - in "user" mode they can't get on the network, in "company" mode they can.
