The law says they have to allow the developer to freely contact the users of their apps and inform them of offers outside the store, not subject to the Apple payment system and its vig. So Apple puts up scare banners to try and scare the users into not following the links, and they want to have their 15/30% of all sales from users who followed those links, for anything they spend at the developers website for the next couple of weeks!
For me, putting up a banner to the effect of, “ooh, be careful, you are about to go out onto the dangerous Internet, bad things could happen to you out there, are you really sure you want to enter this dangerous area, wouldn’t you much rather stay here, in our protected garden?” is not allowing the developer to “freely” contact the user and allow them to redirect them to their website.
Likewise, whilst the payment no longer goes through Apple Pay, they still want their vig from all sales on the developer’s website for products bought by the user who went there from the app, for weeks afterwards! That certainly is weasling around what the law says.
It’s not just a fight between billionaires and millionaires, it’s also about users. If I buy an iphone i should be able to install whatever software on it i want. Apple has created this paternalistic relationship where they get to decide what software i run on my computer. Surprised they haven’t done this to the mac yet.
What, in allowing 3rd party apps stores, prevents you from continuing to enjoy that curation? Nothing requires you to buy an app from a 3rd party store.
And what leads you to believe that other app stores cannot have good curation as well?
Yeah, and it sucks. I have to regularly scan QR codes with my iPhone when I am trying to watch something just to sign in to yet another account. I wish that they would allow me to sign in with my Apple ID and be done with it.
I would argue they are not great stewards of their own store. Search stinks. The ads are a bad user experience as well as sucks for devs. Tons of crap apps (like $8/wk for wallpaper). They often don’t fix bad rejects or approvals until there’s press coverage. We pay for a premium product but it is not a premium experience (on both sides).
A core principle of cybersecurity is to minimize the attack surface. An OS built to allow third party app stores will be to some degree less secure than one that does not. Also, for those of us who provide tech support to our friends and family it is one more avenue for scammers to take advantage of.
I find it difficult to believe that a system that allows multiple methods for installing apps cannot be made secure.
The key is to describe in technical terms what makes the process secure. Just saying that it’s made by Apple is insufficient. That alone does not guarantee security. There has to be a technical component that ensures the security. Something like minimum encryption, and so forth.
And, respectfully, the inconvenience of friends and family is not enough of a reason to prevent 3rd party stores.
This sounds exactly like the argument government makes for adding backdoors to OS’s. In that case the tech community said any system with a backdoor is less secure than one without.
I am unclear how specifying certain standards, like minimum levels of encryption for transactions, is similar to the government’s argument of allowing backdoors (i.,e. encryption to be circumvented). However, I respect that you have a different opinion than I do.
Reasonable people can certainly disagree but isn’t an alternate App Store a back door? Some third parties have the keys to install software on iOS. This is inherently less secure than Apple controlling a single App Store. It may be a trade off many want to make but the security analogy that a wall with a locked door is less secure than a solid wall applies here as well as to the back doors that government wants.
Pretty sure Apple still keeps control of the app distribution and installation process even if you are using 3rd-party app stores, so they don’t have the keys to install software.
The apps still have to be signed by Apple to get loaded onto the system, whether they come from the Apple Store, a 3rd Party store or side-loaded. The only exceptions being developer beta-channels, or “test flights” as they are called in Apple parlance.
But those test flights have severely limited numbers.
Everything else has to be notarised by Apple. That said, Apple is far from infalible, there have been countless times over the years, where they have let spyware or malware through their app store.