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iOS 17 will reportedly set the stage for sideloading apps on iPhone

techcrunch.com

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Re: iOS 17 will reportedly set the stage for sideloading apps on iPhone

#291

Post by wkat4242 »

yamtaddle wrote: post #147
jclardy wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the opposite, as looking at android, where do we see this? All big players are still in the play store, because the average user of those services doesn't want to be bothered going to a website, clicking scary looking buttons to enable third party installs, then manually update their own installed apps. Basically the risk would be someone like TikTok dropping out of the store, but I find that unlikely. Maybe at t…

> I'm the opposite, as looking at android, where do we see this? 1) Android hasn't made things as hard for malware vendors as Apple has, and 2) Android's not as lucrative a market as iOS Those together mean incentives are significantly different, so we might not see the same behavior on iOS as we have on Android, from companies that are upset about not being able to to distribute as-effective malware as they'd prefer…

Android is a much bigger market worldwide. Only in the US and a few other rich places Apple is still the #1.

Re: iOS 17 will reportedly set the stage for sideloading apps on iPhone

#292

Post by dublinben »

nightski wrote: post #113
Retric wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apps you trust is a really poor security mechanism for the general public. The Apple App Store is a dumpster fire, but there is a perfectly reasonable argument for locking down a device you’re handing to family members who aren’t security conscious.

I don't personally know a single person outside of developers that have side loaded apps on Android. Maybe I am an anomaly, but it just seems very rare.

It's probably just you.

Fortnite went sideload-only on Android in 2018, and had ~40m players on Android. Their userbase is 60% 18-24 years old, so you may not know many players. [0]

Leading drone maker DJI's app for Android is also sideload-only, and they've sold hundreds of thousands of drones to people, many of whom probably use Android.

[0] https://www.sportskeeda.com/esports/how-many-people-play-for...

Re: iOS 17 will reportedly set the stage for sideloading apps on iPhone

#293

Post by op00to »

josephcsible wrote: post #258
op00to wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running a "safety check" is not the same thing as the (admittedly opaque) Apple App Store review process. Based on the challenges developers have had with Apple getting certain apps approved, the Apple App Store review process is significantly more involved than Google's.

Is your argument that because Apple's review process has a lot of false positives, that it must be good? Consider a "review" process that consists of rolling two dice, and rejecting the app if you rolled snake eyes.

no, I did not say that. My intention of referring to the difficulties is that some rigor is required. The play store is a rubber stamp.

Re: iOS 17 will reportedly set the stage for sideloading apps on iPhone

#294

Post by smoldesu »

GeekyBear wrote: post #279
andsoitis wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but what I was emphasizing was that on iPhone such apps will likely not come pre-installed; neither by Apple (vs e.g. Samsung) nor by a carrier because I seriously doubt Apple would allow that. Instead, what Apple is doing is finding a new balance that appease those who are attacking the legitimacy of the App Store (and its toll booth) while in practice the vast majority of iPhone users will retain their pri…

> Perhaps, but what I was emphasizing was that on iPhone such apps will likely not come pre-installed; neither by Apple (vs e.g. Samsung) nor by a carrier because I seriously doubt Apple would allow that. If Facebook is willing to pay to have their app preinstalled, unremovable, and granted root permissions on Android, why in the world wouldn't they be willing to force users to sideload their app on iOS?

Why in the world does it matter? If Facebook wants to use the iOS sideloading scene to promote organ harvesting or whatever, we use that to sue them. From the outside-looking-in, it seems like another one of those hissy-fit scenarios where Apple's petty disagreement with other companies actively reduces the capability of their devices.

Re: iOS 17 will reportedly set the stage for sideloading apps on iPhone

#295

Post by jraph »

Many people here are afraid of being able to install apps on iOS from somewhere else than the Apple store because then Facebook will be able to be fully evil on iOS.

A relationship without trust and with fear of evil actions is called a toxic relationship. If you don't trust Facebook, don't install it. Even from the app store. There is no world in which you need the app.

First, if you use Facebook because of the network effect, don't stay passive. Advocate for using something else, like Signal, mastodon, anything.

Second (in the meantime), if you still need Facebook, I'm sure you can access it from a browser in private mode.

Get out of this toxic relationship now.

Get your news and your fun from somewhere else not amenable to a filter that suits a manipulative company.

We should be happy for such new possibilities. Of course it requires putting your time and money where your mouth is. But it's worth doing either way! Stop the dissonance!

Re: iOS 17 will reportedly set the stage for sideloading apps on iPhone

#296

Post by sixstringtheory »

alden5 wrote: post #157
browningstreet wrote: post #137

One upside I haven't seen discussed a lot about this: sideloading your own apps. I don't care, and don't really imagine, sideloading others' apps... but this could give rise to a hobbyist/customization wave again.

Apple already lets you sign your own apps, but i will admit the 1 week expiration is very quick and a $99/year developer subscription for 1 year signing is way too expensive for most hobbyists. It'll be great to see all the neat little apps that macos has come over to ios

I wonder if there will still be two classes. I imagine sideloadable apps will need notarization like they recently implemented for macOS apps delivered outside the mac app store. They can require a developer account for that, or make it behave differently for the separate classes.

Re: iOS 17 will reportedly set the stage for sideloading apps on iPhone

#297

Post by rickdeckard »

GeekyBear wrote: post #254
rickdeckard wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta is collecting data from people using its products to create targeting-models for advertisement. An Advertiser can then buy ads targeting a specific audience. Companies really want the individual user-information to cut out Meta, but Meta is not sharing it to the advertiser, they have to go through Meta to reach their audience based on Personas they curate. Now Apple owns the underlying Hardware and tracks usage…

> Meta is collecting data from people using its products to create targeting-models for advertisement. Meta has been creating shadow profiles of people who don't even use their products for over a decade now. https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17225482/facebook-shadow-... Google, literally, buys a copy of everyone's credit/debit card transaction data so they can spy on your bank account and not just your online activ…

Glossy Magazines sell Ads to people interested in those glossy magazines. The Magazine-content defines its target-group. This doesn't work for platform-based advertising, the platform needs to offer ways to select the target-group to address.

Google purchased transaction data to connect online behavior to the real world and refine their Persona profile. Apple doesn't need to do this, because they already collect data from their users' behavior in the real world via their Apple Pay / Apple Card purchases. In 2017 Google didn't know whether you actually have money to buy a new TV, they only saw that you kept looking at TVs online. So they thought it's a good idea to buy this data to refine their Ad Personas. In 2023, Apple already owns sufficient data to know if you can afford a TV or not. They curate your persona from your Apple ID and your Apple Pay transactions and even know whether you went to BestBuy recently.

Putting you in a matching advertising cluster for that isn't a legal privacy violation, your private data will never be shared with anyone. Just like Google and Meta don't share your private data with anyone.

I don't like any of those practices, but let's not buy into the illusion that Apple is doing anything different to Meta/Google. They all create and refine Personas to allow targeted marketing, and protect the underlying data to be the gatekeeper.

Re: iOS 17 will reportedly set the stage for sideloading apps on iPhone

#298

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

askafriend wrote: post #176
jmull wrote: post #93

Having "side loading" -- also known as regular app installation on non-phone platforms -- hasn't caused chaos on desktop platforms or android. No reason to think it will on iOS either.

You’re giving away your age with this comment. Of course it has caused chaos on desktop platforms, especially Windows in the early 2000s, late 90s. Since that era, it’s slowly dug itself out of that hole.

What's bad about age that someone should be hiding it? Your proud boomer.

Re: iOS 17 will reportedly set the stage for sideloading apps on iPhone

#299

Post by kaba0 »

TexanFeller wrote: post #10

I'm dreading this. I want privacy hostile companies like Facebook to have to comply with the app store rules and respect system settings relating to privacy. As a user, I'm thrilled when Apple wields its big stick to stop big tech companies from overreaching. Before there was a bit of a compromise, I could use evil apps with some peace of mind that they wouldn't do something egregious. Now I suspect evil apps just wo…

You do realize that the sandbox won’t seize to exist, right? Apple does jackshit at censoring the App Store, they run some routine checks on the code and disallow upload if it has “porn” in the title, the real security is the sandbox.

Re: iOS 17 will reportedly set the stage for sideloading apps on iPhone

#300

Post by rched »

kyriakos wrote: post #287
TexanFeller wrote: post #10

I'm dreading this. I want privacy hostile companies like Facebook to have to comply with the app store rules and respect system settings relating to privacy. As a user, I'm thrilled when Apple wields its big stick to stop big tech companies from overreaching. Before there was a bit of a compromise, I could use evil apps with some peace of mind that they wouldn't do something egregious. Now I suspect evil apps just wo…

Apple (and Google) blocks all sorts of apps from their stores that even though legal in nature are not allowed for some arbitrary reason that helps their bottomline. E.g. things like gambling, crypto, adult etc are all blocked. On Android you have the choice to side load them on iOS you can't. For this reason alone allowing sideloading will be a generally good thing. For the average user there will be zero impact and…

How does blocking gambling, crypto, and adult content help their bottom line? Seems to me like these would be a lucrative source of income if they allowed them on the store.

The risk to the average user is that an app they want is removed from the App Store and only available via sideloaidng.

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