How many apps per week does your grandma need to install? It would be better if you set her up a phone with the apps she wants, and then disabled all app installation.

Because if someone is in that position, the unfortunate reality is that the official app store isn't safe either. The article gets into this in more detail, but there's enough malware on the official Apple Store to make it dangerous to randomly install apps. There are apps where their whole design is to set you up with big subscriptions in the background that you don't notice, there are malware apps that slip through Apple's review process, there are phishing apps.

Really, you should install the apps your grandma needs, and if she needs more later, then she can ask you about them (or someone else who's an expert). I think people look at the Apple Store as if it's perfectly safe and that opening it up would suddenly let in malware for the first time. But while the Apple Store might have comparatively less malware than Android, that's not the same thing as being perfectly safe, and it doesn't mean you can let a young kid or a naive adult go wild on it and install whatever they want. That's a recipe for disaster.

I've set people up on Linux and had zero support calls or malware problems with them, not because Linux has good security or perfectly curated software sources, and not because there aren't dangerous ways to get malware on a command line, but because they don't open the command line in the first place. Some people are safer and thrive in a computing environment that's set up to do the things they want and that doesn't change after that point -- but I don't think that has much of anything to do with alternative app stores, that's really a question of whether app stores should be allowed at all for those people.

Multiply this by tens of thousands of vulnerable users and you have the makings of a significant problem that will cost society a lot of money and lead to much misery.

With the locked-down Apple app store, it's very difficult for granny to install malware even if the trustworthy-sounding man in her inbox is being "helpful". But as soon as you allow a switch of any kind, it will be exploited.

I take care of Android devices used by elderly people, and they have just zero issues. Not anymore than they would have with iOS.

All this is nonsense talk trying to help the indefensible position of Apple. Most people also use Windows computers with no monopolistic app store and even though sometimes they are problems they almost always come from user errors. Most of the time it's poor choices, generally from greedy behavior (trying to get stuff for free without knowing much).

If a user doesn't know what it's doing, it can ask someone for help or stick with Apple's App Store if that suits him. Allowing other possibilities for more competent people doesn't change this fact one bit.

Everyone else will bypass protections and continue as before.

than "the general no tech-savvy population will have problems with malware and/or malicious apps they install without knowing what they are doing" (the problem the App Store is supposed to solve)

I feel like the thinking is that there must be an entity — somebody running an app store — who could be held legally responsible for any damage caused by malware distributed via their channels. Regular non-tech-savvy users cannot be trusted with such delicate software as apps running on their personal phones.

Likewise Apple is motivated to keep malware off the app store. Again it’s a bad reflection on Apple when they sneak through, but they do.

I just don’t see third parties being more motivated or having more resources than Apple or Google to police an app store. The malware is going to be worse on a third party app store, and they will quickly turn to dark patterns in order to maximize whatever they can squeeze out of the user.

I’m not opposed to opening up competition on app stores. Just don’t come back here to register your shock when the malware situation is kicked into overdrive.

As a bonus, they could make the app curation system extendable, so other groups could run vetting programs. By default your device would only have Apple as a trusted vetter, but as part of a management profile or something you could also trust apps vetter by some security research group, or Epic, or Valve, or whoever. That way security isn't all-or-nothing.

And of course, if anything slips through and your layman user OKs all the warnings and installs a malicious app, it's still operating in a sandbox, and can't do much more harm than clicking a shady link and ending up on a scam website can.