Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

541–550 of 587 posts

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

#541

Post by blueyoda »

tristor wrote: post #323

I have mixed feelings about this. I'm exactly the type of person who used to jailbreak my iPhone to run Cydia, and I used to build my own custom Android ROMs and spend hours on XDA-Developers before that. Now though, I appreciate how locked down iPhones are, and I keep it as locked down via Apple Configurator as possible, because the mobile web and mobile application space are fraught with peril. The vast majority of…

A nice solution to this would be a new Parental Control setting. If I fear a parent may end up installing malware, then I would configure their phone to disallow 3rd party stores.

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

#542

Post by HWR_14 »

smoldesu wrote: post #538
HWR_14 wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the technology that enforces something like "apps are not allowed to degrade the user for denying permissions, except for features that actually use that permission". Or however Apple wrote the exact rule that prevents apps like FB from saying "give us access to all your contacts or we won't work at all". As one example.

Nothing. Just like the technology that enforces something like "apps cannot record from the camera and train it on AI off-device" or the technology enforcing well-written and clear EULAs. When an app on my phone asks for contacts access to work, I don't use it. The system works as-intended. Edit: > So Apple users can use FB on their phones According to your logic, this is a net-negative. Is Apple trying to help or hu…

And when you don't use FaceBook, then Mark Zuckerberg personally feels sad!

No wait, no one cares.

Meanwhile, Apple says "if you try that, you won't get access to all our customers". And FB and Mark Zuckerberg listen to that threat. So Apple users can use FB on their phones, deny access to location tracking and their contacts and feel safe that FB won't ever say "add them back or we'll stop working".

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

#543

Post by [deleted] »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #449
roamerz wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm the opposite You already can side load apps. Just buy an Android device. I liken this to people who buy a house near an airport then lobby to get the airport closed because they do not like the noise. I bought into IOS because of the walled garden and without it some app that I would prefer to get through the sanctioned app store will now only be available by side loading.

> I liken this to people who buy a house near an airport then lobby to get the airport closed Well, no, in this case it’s the government going to see the pseudo-monopolist and telling them: "Party is over. There is going to be some competition there from now on." Something I most definitely cheer for.

[deleted]

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

#544

Post by rovr138 »

boring_twenties wrote: post #421
rovr138 wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing they're looking for the users they can steal the most from in the least amount of time. Aka, the most lucrative. Apple's ecosystem means that most of the devices are up to date, or close, and because they control the full pipeline, things behave better. This means that targeting ios is easier (since they'll be on closer versions and behave uniformly) and that because they spend more money, which they hav…

> This means that targeting ios is easier I don't think so? Android devices are much more likely to be vulnerable to well-known exploits. Stealing keys and passwords of course is much easier if your app can get root on the device.

Finding vulnerabilities on both will be complicated.

But targeting when there’s less device variances will make it easier, yes.

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

#545

Post by crossroadsguy »

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 is only trying to open up how the apps can be distributed to the phone. It’s not removing restrictions around how an app tuns on the phone. From what I guess (reading around so far) these apps might as well have it tougher because the sandbox for these could be more restrictive.

However there could be things like — e.g. TrueCaller might refuse to work without contact permission and call log etc (just like on Android; on iOS it works just fine) but when side-loaded these could demand all those permissions to run. Well that is something we may have to see how such changes pan out.

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

#546

Post by [deleted] »

harold_b wrote: post #495
zamadatix wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On some things but not others. E.g. OS protections don't limit against things like "Displaying targeted advertisements in your app based on user data collected from apps and websites owned by other companies." as it's not something the OS can really know is happening, just that there are ads being loaded.

The OS can control the data the app has access to for fingerprinting, with enough restrictions apps like Facebook would still have to rely on guesswork to do so

[deleted]

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

#547

Post by zamadatix »

harold_b wrote: post #495
zamadatix wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On some things but not others. E.g. OS protections don't limit against things like "Displaying targeted advertisements in your app based on user data collected from apps and websites owned by other companies." as it's not something the OS can really know is happening, just that there are ads being loaded.

The OS can control the data the app has access to for fingerprinting, with enough restrictions apps like Facebook would still have to rely on guesswork to do so

The OS can only stop fingerprinting of the hardware while the app is generating a fingerprint of the user. The latter is more valuable anyways since most users use more than 1 device and change those devices over time.

You can't solve a behavior problem with OS controls. It's not about what bits on the device are readable it's about what happens with the identity information shared with 3rd parties.

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

#548

Post by dlubarov »

roamerz wrote: post #536
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I liken this to people who buy a house near an airport then lobby to get the airport closed Well, no, in this case it’s the government going to see the pseudo-monopolist and telling them: "Party is over. There is going to be some competition there from now on." Something I most definitely cheer for.

> There is going to be some competition there from now on. there already is competition- it’s called Android based phones. This is more akin the government telling Walmart they have to freely give shelf space away to anyone and everyone to sell anything they want.

In this scenario Walmart is one of only two stores in the country, and while Walmart usually pays a few bucks for shelves, the merchants in question are happy to bring their own. They just need Walmart to get out of the way, not incur any real cost.

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

#550

Post by firecall »

HeckFeck wrote: post #239
Vespasian wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your concern and share some of them. However the solution to overreaching unaccountable private cooperations cannot be to hand all the power to another private unaccountable company. Apple is venturing into advertising and that'll tempt them to weaken privacy protections sooner or later. Additionally their app store rules went far beyond enforcing security and privacy. They gave themselves an advantage a…

> the free market failed to implement a meaningful competition for central app stores. I don't want every component of my phone OS broken apart and subject to what some legislator or lobbyist thinks is 'competition'. The competition is between Apple and Google making mobile platforms and we already had a choice. I chose Apple's approach after a few years with Google. I miss the headphone jack, but having no tacky tra…

I’m onboard with the sentiment.

However my Google Pixel dev phone is upsell and Ad free, as far I’ve noticed.

Post reply on HN