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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

#481

Post by GeekyBear »

rickdeckard wrote: post #372
GeekyBear wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we talking about something like Amazon having a record of things I have purchased from Amazon? Or are we talking about Google buying a copy of my credit card transaction data? Because one of those is a perfectly normal part of any business relationship, and the other is absolutely not normal and not acceptable. I mean, Amazon stopped mailing receipts with line items of your purchases to Gmail customers because Go…

We talk about all of this, yes. I'm not defending either of these practices, I'm asking how it is any different to what Apple does. So Apple forcing all third parties on the iOS platform to use Apple's payments APIs to process payments and thus being able to track what you've purchased inside of any third party app they have nothing to do with, is that comparable to what Google does on the Gmail platform?

> I'm asking how it is any different to what Apple does.

How is a first party business relationship with your own customer different than buying a copy of people's credit card transaction data, spying on receipts emailed by other businesses, turning on location tracking by default, paying children to give root access to their device (Onavo), setting up user tracking on a huge swath of websites (Google Analytics, Facebook Like Button), and the other sorts relentless spying tactics that we have seen from companies with a surveillance capitalism business model?

> Since 2016, Facebook has been paying users ages 13 to 35 up to $20 per month plus referral fees to sell their privacy by installing the iOS or Android “Facebook Research” app. Facebook even asked users to screenshot their Amazon order history page.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/

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

#482

Post by GeekyBear »

rchaud wrote: post #479
GeekyBear wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple is venturing into advertising It's not the advertising part that is problematic. It's the part where you relentlessly spy on everyone to make selling ads more profitable.

Advertising isn't profitable without spying. It's an arms race with little regulation. If you are not spying, you're ceding ground to those that are.

Advertising has been profitable without spying for many, many decades.

Spying just makes it more profitable. Most of the world would be fine with Larry, Sergey and Mark only being able to afford one mega yacht apiece.

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

#484

Post by isthiseasymode »

realusername wrote: post #269
isthiseasymode wrote: post #242

I predict that this will probably be irrelevant to the majority of users. There’s no way apple makes side loading easy enough for anyone outside of HN to use.

That's going to end up the same way as Android if I have to guess yeah, as complicated as it gets for a normal user to activate so that nobody uses this outside of tech workers. Then they can just say that it's technically "there" for the courts.

Hot take: that’s how it should be. After fixing laptops for less technical people, I don’t think the average person can be trusted to protect themselves against malware.

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

#485

Post by dvzk »

_fzslm wrote: post #364
vbezhenar wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power users can already sideload anything on iPhone. It's not even hard. I guess the whole talk is about making side-loading easier.

what you’re seeing in the iPhone sideloading space is a product of a lot of hard work by many different people over many years. AltServer and the like (what I assume you’re referring to) are the best solutions we have, but come with significant downsides - iOS updates breaking the software, limits on how many apps you can install (last time i checked, you could only install 3), time constraints (need to ”re-sign” app…

When I first looked into this, free Apple developer accounts also could only use limited app entitlements: so no network extensions, VPN profiles, Apple push notifications, or other capabilities. NetworkExtension is basically the only reason I’m interested in iOS development at all, so a paid account was not optional.

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

#486

Post by Aachen »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #318
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…

Has everyone forgotten that bit where Facebook sent representatives out to college campuses and paid students twenty bucks to install their VPN app (distributed via Apple's beta or testflight or whatever)? Apps like Instagram are popular enough that, if Meta wants to move them to their own app store (possibly incentivized via exclusive new features), people _will_ follow. And the VPN thing shows that there's no depth…

You're phrasing that as though paid market research is on the order of living through war. If we don't all remember that continuously in the context of how dangerous app installs are, it might not be warranted.

I kinda like being able to install open source software without agreeing to anyone's terms of service. I'm typing this from an open source browser going through an open source firewall that blocks trackers which both came from an app store that I contributed to, for example. That's a lot more benefit than letting a bigcorp from another continent with a very different culture decide the rules about everything you can do with every unit sold.

There are paths where you can prohibit businesses you deem evil from paying people to study their lives that don't involve letting your device's content rules be set by an undemocratic and profit-oriented company.

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

#487

Post by filoleg »

smoldesu wrote: post #294
GeekyBear wrote: post #279

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. 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.

Sue them for what? Gathering user data that users gave an explicit permission to gather?

Previously, the app devs wouldn't be able to, for example, lock out the entire app from being used, just because you didn't give them permissions for something that isn't vital for the app to function (e.g., location tracking or photo gallery). App Store rules prohibit that behavior, and those apps get rejected.

Sideloading would allow FB and others to do that and more, since they won't need to follow App Store rules anymore. And I don't think there is anything illegal about them doing it.

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

#488

Post by andai »

op00to wrote: post #223
andai wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I certainly align with powerful entities taking away some semblance of freedom for protection: 1. I am a citizen of a country, so I give some freedoms away to have a military, police force, etc. 2. I work for a company, so I give some freedoms away to gain economic security. 3. I am part of a family, so I give some freedoms away to ensure my family is stable and secure. 4. I drive a car, and I give the freedom to not…

Nobody's forcing you to do these things, though (except arguably paying taxes). Of course, nobody's forcing me to use an iPhone either. I just picked the least crap option I could find given my personal preferences.

What I object to is the idea that I'd be better off with more totalitarianism (in this instance, a corporation dictating which computing I am allowed to perform on my pocket computer) rather than less. I prefer as little as possible.

Again, I sacrifice some freedom and privacy (too much, I'm afraid) for convenience. But I certainly won't go ahead and say, "I wish I'd sacrificed even more."

Though I can understand that this is very common, and appears to be an adaptive mechanism that maintains mental health by minimizing cognitive dissonance.

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

#489

Post by malermeister »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #244
scarface74 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They gave themselves an advantage and removed competitors for commercial reasons. Which competitor has been “removed”? > Regulate tightly what apple/google are allowed to do with their stores (e.g. like a common carrier) So there shouldn’t be any rules are quality controls on what should be allowed? > The elected EU legislative took some points from both approaches AFTER the free market failed to implement a meanin…

The reality is simply that the EU is just not competitive in pretty much any of these industries. I'm actually struggling to think of any industry at all where EU has produced the market leaders.

In Software, I can think of Music Streaming and ERP.

Outside of Software, aeroplanes and luxury goods come to mind.

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

#490

Post by rchaud »

GeekyBear wrote: post #482
rchaud wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising isn't profitable without spying. It's an arms race with little regulation. If you are not spying, you're ceding ground to those that are.

Advertising has been profitable without spying for many, many decades. Spying just makes it more profitable. Most of the world would be fine with Larry, Sergey and Mark only being able to afford one mega yacht apiece.

> Advertising has been profitable without spying for many, many decades.

So was the horse drawn carriage. Where is that industry now?

George Orwell could not have conceived a time where everyone was voluntarily carrying an electronic billboard in their pocket. But we are in that world, and that world no longer has room for the Mad Men/Ogilvy/Chiat Day era of ad agencies creating one-size fits all campaigns. Google and Facebook took them out over the past 15 years.

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