31–40 of 125 posts
Apple will soon require 3rd party app stores to remit 27% of all revenue.
How can they? If you can sideload they have no way to enforce this.
Side loading will likely still require a business agreement with Apple and “App Review” to get a cert that allows your app to run.
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Game consoles are very far from general purpose.
So are phones?
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On the other hand the Play store is not being policed for days tracking and many apps are stuffed to the brim with tracking libraries. So they really don't have a need to do this. Apple can still make it difficult for them though. They can just remove the forbidden APIs and sandbox apps better. If they do this they don't even have to bother to review as thoroughly anymore. The big benefit is that Apple no longer gets…
The sandbox is enforced by App Store review. I don't mean the runtime enforcement, but rather the sandbox that apps opt into. It is the App Store that rejects apps when they have attempted to include sandbox entitlements that they have no business having. Access to your photos, contacts, device identifiers, etc are all gated on sandbox entitlements, and if you remove the App Store review process then you remove the g…
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No talk of extending it to cover consoles though, despite them also being general purpose
What general purposes do game consoles serve, other than being multimedia centers? Do users use the browser and other internet features on consoles extensively? Can you make payments, hail a ride, order food with them? Can you contact emergency services with them? Can they save your literal life?
Then I hope Apple allows an option to enable an opt out for these third party stores
Android has an explicit opt-in for allowing sideloading, and a whopping 0.06% of users currently utilize it. I really don't know why this issue is causing such a big fuss in the iOS ecosystem.
(I have only dabbled in Android apps, my impression of the Apple situation is very much that, an impression.)
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The sandbox is enforced by App Store review. I don't mean the runtime enforcement, but rather the sandbox that apps opt into. It is the App Store that rejects apps when they have attempted to include sandbox entitlements that they have no business having. Access to your photos, contacts, device identifiers, etc are all gated on sandbox entitlements, and if you remove the App Store review process then you remove the g…
Perhaps Apple can just hardcode such restrictions into the operating system itself
The OS cannot decide when it should or should not trust the entitlements, because the whole point is that an app has some modicum of trust.
Then I hope Apple allows an option to enable an opt out for these third party stores
The problem is when some critical app forces you to use their store. I hope at the very least apple can mandate that the additional app stores enforce the same privacy and safety rules, or would the EU consider that allowing people to not be spied on be to much of an infringement of the rights of business?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30280457
Such a move is basically mutually assured destruction- they would be taking their critical app off the official Apple App Store, and in doing so inviting huge customer backlash. Besides the negative press, at least a fraction of users will not migrate over- both HN power users technical and ideological enough to reject entering a user data harvesting shady app store, and the less technically adept users who can’t figure out how to enable such a store. Not to mention, everyone who is sick and tired of having to manage yet another user account forced upon them by a tech giant. It’s guaranteed that not 100% of existing users would transition, and even if it’s not a huge amount, it would be upsetting the apple cart and damaging the brand.
There’s more considerations beyond that I mentioned previously- the difficulties of these companies now having to create their own parallel iOS app ecosystems- again, ask Facebook how their own platform’s app community is faring these days, let alone every smartphone app market that isn’t iOS or Android.
And it’s debatable that these tech giants can even successfully create a sufficiently compelling alternate app market from a product or business perspective. It feels like all of the giants are at a point where they’re engaged in side projects- cloud gaming, Clubhouse clones, Snapchat stories clones, Libra- that don’t really have staying power, as far as new products go. Creating a parasitic clone iOS App Store would yet be another boondoggle, and committing to it, as I mention, is MAD- Apple loses their apps, and these companies are forever tied to having to maintain and work on their 3rd party app stores. In fact, one can easily imagine a Meta pulling back and resubmitting Facebook, Instagram, etc. back to the official App Store after initially removing them. And it’s incredibly easy to imagine Google resigning an iOS Play Store to the Google Graveyard before you can say Stadia.
Smartphone software has been around a decade now. I don’t think it’s so easy to woo users over with your own carbon copy that offers nothing. Not to mention, perhaps these companies might invite regulator antitrust attention as well if they keep truly “critical apps” away from the official App Store. There’s a lot of possible implications.
I think the prospect of tech giant data-harvesting third party iOS app stores is a fascinating prospect that hasn’t been examined in detail. Too often it’s used as a bogeyman, “Facebook will take away their app and track you!” against sideloading. The reality is probably more complex that that, and I would argue that opening iOS to alternate app marketplaces and sideloading might actually increase business opportunities and vectors of positive innovation for Apple. But that’s the subject of another comment.
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Perhaps Apple can just hardcode such restrictions into the operating system itself
That’s what the sandbox is for. Without specific entitlements an app can’t access any data outside of its container. The OS cannot decide when it should or should not trust the entitlements, because the whole point is that an app has some modicum of trust.
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This is a silly argument. Nobody is checking their bank account on their Xbox. We can acknowledge that iPhones are needlessly closed platforms while also acknowledging that there are legitimate purpose-built computers in various form factors (gaming consoles being a good example.)
That is exactly the point. There is nothing inherent in an Xbox that prevents it from running a web browser. Only our collective acceptance of the practice of denying users control of their devices, and letting these arbitrary restrictions contribute to e-waste.
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That’s what the sandbox is for. Without specific entitlements an app can’t access any data outside of its container. The OS cannot decide when it should or should not trust the entitlements, because the whole point is that an app has some modicum of trust.
Apple could always enforce a more restrictive, hardened security model for non-official App Store distributed apps. Again, they control the platform- they could change it at will to accommodate new use cases.