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iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

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Re: iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

#571

Post by sirsinsalot »

mnd999 wrote: post #442
hurtuvac78 wrote: post #250

Apple being motivated by improving security are BS, and it pains me te see people in this forum falling for it or reapeating this. There is a great tool to increase security: the browser and its sandbox. You don't need to install anything fishy on your phone, and the sandbox rights coukd be sufficient for many apps. But as an example, Apple denies the full screen feature for websites and even PWA... only installed on…

Users don’t want crappy PWAs, they want something that follows the platform UI conventions. It’s good that Apple care enough about about UX to actually enforce this.

OK, so let people choose. They'll consistently choose native apps and PWAs will become second class.

It doesn't need Apple to white Knight on behalf of their poor, dim, uninformed users.

Because they're not.

Re: iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

#572

Post by Spivak »

xorcist wrote: post #387
jpalomaki wrote: post #180

I think Apple has also done good things with their strict app store policies (from my consumer point of view). Apple has been for example putting limits on data collection and tracking. The main mechanism is to kick apps out from Apps store if they don't play by the rules. I'm worried that side loading will be a step back here. Strong players, like Facebook, may just take their app away from the official store and di…

> putting limits on data collection and tracking You know who's really putting limits on data collecting? F-Droid. If that's actually your argument, that's what you should use. It's quite practical. > Strong players, like Facebook, may just take their app away from the official That argument really has to explain why this has not happened on every other operating system under the sun, including Android. They all suff…

Because the Play Store lets Facebook have the data they want, this isn't that hard.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/02/facebook-says-apple-ios-priv...

Re: iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

#573

Post by sirsinsalot »

nicce wrote: post #479
matsemann wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they want it, download the app then. Allow others to not download it and use a PWA if they'd like. Actually I believe you're wrong: if people actually preferred Apple's way of doing it, Apple would have no reason to restrict other ways. They restrict it because people prefer the other way, and that would harm Apple's profits.

Average person does not know what they want. They don’t know how technology works. They don’t even see difference between PWA and apps. If everything becomes PWA, there is no transparency for the apps. No indication what data they collect. No control for the quality of the apps. No moderation over malicious apps. PWAs need more permissions to provide the functionality people need, it is not just website.

I'm pretty sure "the average person doesn't know what they want" is a belief that powered everything from eugenics to genocide to our toxic culture around health, happiness and consumerism.

So it appears the non-average person doesn't have a clue what's right for the clueless masses either.

Liberty, choice, community and respect. That's all that is needed.

Re: iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

#574

Post by Terretta »

hooby wrote: post #143

I think the central question here is: .) whether you buy a phone as a piece of hardware and then own that hardware - which gives you certain rights regarding the usage of that owned hardware or .) whether you are just paying some sort of admission fee to a tightly controlled service, and are basically "lent" a piece of hardware that you have no ownership rights over. All the other stuff about walled gardens, monopoli…

See deeper comment below, but yes, a corporation should have a right to market a curated console experience to mobile device consumers who prefer the fully vertically integrated experience.

Especially thanks to other options and the small share Apple has by volume, it's no more appropriate to crack apart this appliance than it is to force PS5 or Xbox Series X to run PC games or support Steam.

Re: iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

#575

Post by sirsinsalot »

bookofjoe wrote: post #534
nicce wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Average person does not know what they want. They don’t know how technology works. They don’t even see difference between PWA and apps. If everything becomes PWA, there is no transparency for the apps. No indication what data they collect. No control for the quality of the apps. No moderation over malicious apps. PWAs need more permissions to provide the functionality people need, it is not just website.

This "average person"[non-techie] doesn't even know what PWA is/means/stands for. Truth.

Do they need to know what AAC or MP4 is to use Spotify?

The point is the experience, not the name of it.

Re: iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

#576

Post by pjerem »

wruza wrote: post #287
pjerem wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The mobile OS market is just not open and big enough to vote with my money. I don’t buy iPhones because I like being unable to side load apps. I miss it a lot. The point is that when I make my list of pros and cons of buying Android vs iOS, I still prefer iOS because, as much as I dislike Apple commercial policies and artificial lock-ins, I just loathe Google for what they are. And don’t even call me some…

iOS have a quantity of advantages I’m not willing to lose by going back What are these?

I don’t need to argue about this. Those are my personal preferences and that was not my point.

My whole point was that you are limited to only two platforms. So choosing one doesn’t mean that you accept all of its disadvantages.

Re: iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

#577

Post by malermeister »

simondotau wrote: post #563
malermeister wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "the government saving us from our own choices". It's us asking our democratically elected government to stop a giant corporation from telling us what to do with our own devices.

I like how you say that as though I hadn't already considered that point. Would it be too much to ask to perhaps give me the benefit of the doubt that I'm already aware of all of the major arguments for why Apple should allow sideloading? Yes it's your device, but it's not your software. You don't own the software. And it's the software which is stopping you from doing what you want. Really though I'm just saying tha…

I think if you own the device, you do own the software, or framed the opposite way, if you don't own the software, you don't own the device

What you're proposing is not really ownership of the device in any meaningful way, but just a license to use it on somebody else's terms.

I don't want a world in which I don't own the device I pay for, so neither Sony nor Apple should be able to dictate what I do with them.

It's like selling you a screwdriver and then saying you can only use it with one specific brand of screw.

Re: iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

#578

Post by alerighi »

canucker2016 wrote: post #106
superkuh wrote: post #14

Even if this is small progress the headlines and framing of the story are still doublespeak. Installing applications on your computer is the normal state of things. Walled gardens and not having control of your computer is the new weird thing. The word "sideloading" is a feudal concept and it's unquestioned use is dangerous for society. Properly stated this story title is, "Installing applications on iOS 17 might be…

From a personal-computer-user point of view, installing an app from any source is normal. For pre-iPhone cellphone users, your cellphone network operator controlled access to what apps were available for installation. This is was the most common, if not the only, method for cellphone app distribution. App makers (mostly java games) paid to get on that first page of downloadable apps. I'd add some references but Googl…

Pre-iPhone phones, for example Nokia phones with Symbian on it, did allow you to install applications. I remember when I was in middle school with a Nokia N70 exchanging games with Bluetooth with my friends. Who had internet at home (that was only a bunch of people) did download games from forums and then send to everyone else, as well as music and videos. Same for other models of cellphones, they all had some sort of application format.

Then the first Android devices arrived, with the Android Market (long before Google Play) that did allow you to download apps. But most people again maybe they didn't have internet, or more simply wanted pay apps but didn't want to pay for them, just exchanged .apk like it was the norm. (Pirating by the way was much more present than these days, for example I don't recall a single person having a PlayStation without the modchip, and burned PS1/PS2 games where the norm).

It's only with the arrival of the iPhone that this was no longer possible. In fact I recall that the criticism of the first iPhones, till the iPhone 4, was that it was an overpriced device and that it did lack of the possibility to install applications and exchange files with bluetooth, like everyone was used to do. The iPhone was a niche product that was not diffused (when I was at high school I recall maybe 1/2 people having iPhones, all other one Android devices).

The thing on cellphone operators is maybe an US specific thing, I don't recall having anything like that in Europe, more specifically in Italy. Quite frankly till 10 years ago using the cellphone network for internet was unthinkable, because the prices where so high. Then arrived the contract that give you 100Gb of data a month for 10 euros, but back in the day internet was expensive, to the fact that just by pressing the internet button on a phone it did consume all your credit. This is probably also the reason why WhatsApp become so popular (you could chat with your home internet connection that now everyone had without consuming expensive SMS)

Re: iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

#579

Post by palata »

jakub_jo wrote: post #454
mnd999 wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users don’t want crappy PWAs, they want something that follows the platform UI conventions. It’s good that Apple care enough about about UX to actually enforce this.

If users don't want crappy PWAs than they wont use them. It's common sense to let "the market decide" -- why not in this case?

Counter-example: I don't want crappy ElectronJS apps, but I don't have a choice. Discord/Slack don't have an open API that would allow a good third-party client.

If I don't like PWAs but WhatsApp stops supporting anything else, how can I use WhatsApp without the PWA?

Re: iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

#580

Post by aikinai »

wiseowise wrote: post #393
aikinai wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Installing whatever you want on your computer is not necessarily the natural state; it’s not even how the industry started and it’s not how any other industry or devices work. I also prefer to be able to do whatever I want with my own devices, but pretending like it’s an inalienable right, or a natural state, or has no disadvantages is disingenuous and not helpful to the debate.

> I also prefer to be able to do whatever I want with my own devices, but pretending like it’s an inalienable right, or a natural state, or has no disadvantages is disingenuous and not helpful to the debate. I own the freaking thing.

Sorry, I phrased that poorly. Actually you already can do whatever you want with it. As long as you’re not breaking other laws, you can do anything you want with your iPhone, including jailbreak it and install your own software.

What people are asking for isn’t the right to do whatever they want with their device—they already have that—they’re asking for the law to force Apple to design their OS in a certain way.

And again, maybe that law is the best idea and should be passed—there are certainly a lot of apparent advantages. But I’d ask people to be honest about what they’re asking for. It’s not granting the user any new freedoms; it’s taking away freedom from manufacturers.

It’s like copyright; most people (or at least a lot of people) consider it a good law that encourages more creative work and supports a healthy industry, but it too is a law that removes freedom rather than grants it.

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