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Rethinking the App Store

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Re: Rethinking the App Store

#91

Post by bluesign »

guytv wrote: post #53
bluesign wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having 3rd party stores will be net negative for me as a user. Currently I have trust to Apple, if I am or my kid charged wrong or tricked into some subscription etc, I have proof with experience that Apple will fix it. Now let’s say if we have many stores, some stores will try to be smart, will make exclusive deals, force people to install their stores to maybe play a one popular game. As a user I will end up with 1…

Exactly. That's the price of freedom. Are you willing to pay it? or sacrifice your freedom for convenience? Most people, I suspect, will choose the latter.

There is nothing wrong to sacrifice your freedom to convenience, it is like living in the city and delegating protection to police, or living in the wild and taking care of yourself.

Re: Rethinking the App Store

#92

Post by secretsatan »

joking wrote: post #27
supermatt wrote: post #13

I am of the opinion that the only fair option is to allow 3rd party stores with the same permissions as the official app store. Apples curation isn't (as they suggest) preventing malware, theft of information, etc - this if verifiably false given recent history with apps like tiktok stealing clipboard content. The ability to change content of payment screens post-approval (as epic have just done) also means that cura…

I'm on the same opinion, once the device is mine I should be able to install whatever I want. What would happen if I couldn't install the software I want on a desktop device? I really don't get how apple has survived so long with such a tight leash on IOS.

Because you think of it as a computer? Where as most of their think of it as a smartphone and don't give a thought to a root user or wonder why they need it. Eliminating a huge security risk that has been a bane for general computers for all time.

Re: Rethinking the App Store

#93

Post by fauigerzigerk »

lloeki wrote: post #42
supermatt wrote: post #13

I am of the opinion that the only fair option is to allow 3rd party stores with the same permissions as the official app store. Apples curation isn't (as they suggest) preventing malware, theft of information, etc - this if verifiably false given recent history with apps like tiktok stealing clipboard content. The ability to change content of payment screens post-approval (as epic have just done) also means that cura…

> Apples curation isn't (as they suggest) preventing malware, theft of information, etc - this if verifiably false given recent history with apps like tiktok stealing clipboard There are many things that go wrong with the App Store, but you have to realise this is a ludicrous assertion. Pasting from clipboard is an entirely different class than rootkits, backdoors, trojans, and other malware that have a vanishingly s…

>Without review, publishing an app with a sandbox bypass, or simply abusing entitlements, becomes trivial.

A sandbox that can be trivially bypassed is simply broken.

Granted, it's not easy to define what apps should and shouldn't be able to do within the sandbox. Permissions systems are difficult to get right. But whatever the rules are, they must be enforceable.

Re: Rethinking the App Store

#94

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

nodamage wrote: post #88

This quote is relevant: The problem for Epic — and, I suppose, for me — is that to this observer it seems exceedingly likely that Apple is going to win this case, last night’s decision notwithstanding. Current Supreme Court jurisprudence is very clear that businesses — including monopolies — have no duty to deal with third parties, and if they do choose to deal with them (or are even compelled to), that they can choo…

> A judge ruling that Apple must allow third-party in-app payment systems is a somewhat realistic outcome, whereas a judge ruling that Apple must permit third-parties to run their own app stores is probably a non-starter.

I gather judges really don't like to impose technical requirements - especially in a fast-moving industry like this. Ordering Apple to make the extensive changes required to allow for some kind of secure (as opposed to insecure, like Cydia) third-party App Store on iOS would be a massive undertaking that would probably cost the company north of a billion in total, especially regarding testing and security point.

...whereas ordering Apple to simply allow what is already possible (namely: permitting apps to collect payment details themselves through their own processors) is a good path forward. How would Apple respond to that though? In the event that Apple is required to allow third-party payment-processors that skirt the Apple tax, I think it's reasonable for Apple to introduce some kind of "app support fee" (beyond the annual $99/developer fee) - but Apple would be hard-pressed to negotiate a reasonable amount of that per-app. Perhaps $1 per app-download per year? Interesting times...

I'm also interested in potential legislation regarding forcing Apple to permit third-party web-browsers and other banned software categories - Apple's technical arguments may have had some merit back in 2007-2012, but now that my phone has more RAM and processing power than my previous laptop (which still runs the infamously RAM-hungry Chrome 84 fine!) this isn't an argument that holds water. I'd love to be able to run "real" Firefox on iOS, for example (there is an argument about how Apple can only trust their own build of Webkit to have executable memory pages for the JavaScript JIT - that's going to be interesting). We should compare Apple to Microsoft of 1998: Microsoft was convicted of monopoly abuse by simply bundling Internet Explorer with Windows (granted, this includes integrating it into the shell too) - while Apple doesn't just bundle Safari with iOS, they outright ban any kind of proper competition - Microsoft was convicted for far less, so why should Apple be given a free-pass?

Re: Rethinking the App Store

#95

Post by easton »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #94
nodamage wrote: post #88

This quote is relevant: The problem for Epic — and, I suppose, for me — is that to this observer it seems exceedingly likely that Apple is going to win this case, last night’s decision notwithstanding. Current Supreme Court jurisprudence is very clear that businesses — including monopolies — have no duty to deal with third parties, and if they do choose to deal with them (or are even compelled to), that they can choo…

> A judge ruling that Apple must allow third-party in-app payment systems is a somewhat realistic outcome, whereas a judge ruling that Apple must permit third-parties to run their own app stores is probably a non-starter. I gather judges really don't like to impose technical requirements - especially in a fast-moving industry like this. Ordering Apple to make the extensive changes required to allow for some kind of s…

It shouldn’t cost a billion dollars at all. Third-party, officially sanctioned App Stores already exist on iOS: TestFlight and MDM providers (which can push enterprise created apps in a store interface). TestFlight is even shipped in the darn App Store! And Apple already made good security controls, allowing the user to press one button to nuke all of the apps that an MDM provider installed in the profile settings.

It shouldn’t be that hard, maybe a little bit of dev time to write some new warnings for end users about leaving the walled garden and how to revert, but that’s it.

Re: Rethinking the App Store

#96

Post by schoolornot »

throwaway13337 wrote: post #86
threatofrain wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's position is that if you want to deploy apps onto the iPhone, then you must provide a way for the user to signup with Apple as the intermediary. This actually increases user choices because for any app which has an existence outside the app store, users can now choose to either pay the conventional way or have Apple intermediate. Before users had to accept Microsoft's way or don't use Microsoft Office. I'm oka…

Leveraging a monopoly into requiring a specific sort of login practice that reinforces the monopoly is an absurd sort of consumer choice. If Apple was really benevolent here, they'd have an open login platform that could be decentralized and implemented by third parties. That would be a real beneficial choice to the consumer. Of course, that's not what they're doing because their goal is not to promote consumer choic…

The fact that Apple is requiring devs to add "Sign in with Apple" if the app supports any other social login is such a blatant overreach. I'm as much of a capitalist pig as the next guy but enough with the bullshit.

Re: Rethinking the App Store

#97

Post by pmontra »

dannyr wrote: post #56
bluesign wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having 3rd party stores will be net negative for me as a user. Currently I have trust to Apple, if I am or my kid charged wrong or tricked into some subscription etc, I have proof with experience that Apple will fix it. Now let’s say if we have many stores, some stores will try to be smart, will make exclusive deals, force people to install their stores to maybe play a one popular game. As a user I will end up with 1…

> Having 3rd party stores will be net negative for me as a user. Having 3rd party stores will not prevent you for using the Apple App Store exclusively. > As a user I will end up with 10 stores on my phone, each has my billing information, Imagine if there is only 1 store, e.g. Walmart? Only Walmart has your billing information and it's the only store where you can buy things. > Now let’s say if we have many stores T…

Or they sell but decide the price they buy from you. It's called monopsony.

This is not the case of Apple even if the OP made clear that Apple is making some business models impractical.

Re: Rethinking the App Store

#98

Post by scarface74 »

moooo99 wrote: post #71
lloeki wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apples curation isn't (as they suggest) preventing malware, theft of information, etc - this if verifiably false given recent history with apps like tiktok stealing clipboard There are many things that go wrong with the App Store, but you have to realise this is a ludicrous assertion. Pasting from clipboard is an entirely different class than rootkits, backdoors, trojans, and other malware that have a vanishingly s…

> Without review, publishing an app with a sandbox bypass, or simply abusing entitlements, becomes trivial. I don't think this would be trivial either. Given that iOS security has historically been rather good, I guess an attacker would need a reasonably new exploit or even zero day. Assuming an attacker has access to something like that, I'm 99.8% certain he'd be able to sneak past the review process as well. As For…

Fortnite has also demonstrated how sloppy third party developers are with respect to security.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/08/fortnites-android-vu...

And at least Epic wasn’t purposefully installing back doors. Unlike Zoom.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/zoom-defends-use-of-local-web-...

Re: Rethinking the App Store

#99

Post by scarface74 »

PikachuEXE wrote: post #35
willvarfar wrote: post #32

I'm divided. As a programmer, I'm as happy as a pig in mud in the low-level innards of my computers and operating systems, and like that I can get at them etc. That's why I have linux on my desktop. But 'open' systems don't work out well for 'normal' users. Remember the viruses and trojans and instability and all the rest of the Windows days, or Android? I want my parents and friends and everyone else to use an iphon…

Look MacOS They do block "unidentified" apps by default but you still have the option to run it anyway (after a series of warnings maybe) But you can still run them And I think it can be a start

And that worked out really well for Vista and UAC. People have become blindly accustomed to just clicking ok.

Re: Rethinking the App Store

#100

Post by scarface74 »

throwaway13337 wrote: post #31
neiman wrote: post #21

Fantastically well-written article. The "problem" with forming an opinion about Apple Store rules is that the users are willingly and knowingly putting themselves in the golden cage of apple by buying an iPhone. Under this view the problem is not with Apple, that created a framework that users want, and communicate accurately to its customers what they get - but rather with the app developers, who wants to reach Appl…

This is a bad argument that comes up over and over. You could use the exact same logical framework to argue against labor laws because employees willingly enter into the bargain. It's easy to see the ends of completely unregulated capitalism with company towns, company scrip, and the oppression that comes with it. We've had this history - we don't need it again.

And labor laws in California around contractors are making it harder for people who want to stay freelance/contractors like writers and some truck drivers.
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