And literally none of it would be allowed on the app store, just like it isn't now. Again, it would change absolutely nothing. Scammers would sooner convince his 80+ year old mother to tell them her bank details than they would walk her through the process of installing a dodgy app through sideloading.
The incentives for people to trick grandma and anyone else into downloading malware would outweigh any benefit.
Frankly, Google and Facebook would probably be the first to release their own App Store apps and then use their platforms to tell everyone how this was safe.
And they were also free to install malware, viruses and had no means of micropayments. Customers are not going to willy nilly put their payment information on every random website.
If there was some innovative game changing idea that was prevented by app stores why don’t you see it on Android where you can side load?
How will that elderly and less tech savvy find and install another app store into their iPhone.
If they are not tech savvy enough to be able to decide something is scammy, they are not tech savvy enough to install a freaking app store in their phone.
So on every single thread about apple's walled garden when someone suggests that Apple should allow installation of 3rd party apps, everyone immediately goes "oh no, now my mother/father/grandma will install some dodgy app and it will steal their data".
To which I say....have you seen how complex the process is on android?? I can't imagine that that is going to be a problem. They will be just sent a dodgy website link that will steal their bank details, not some app that most people won't figure out how to install.
Apple lets people fuck their devices regularly with their app choices. The appstore doesn't protect anyone against malicious apps that pass validation. I don't see how its any worse than letting us sideload after tapping through a scary warning.
Re 1: In the case of the general public, I don't see this as such a bad thing -- so long as the app store is free of malware. The point is that they can sideload apps if they desire to do so.
Re 3: Sad, yes, but it doesn't prevent sideloading as far as I know.
But then all the app store gives people is a false sense of security. The willingness of people to trust arbitrary App Store apps should be condemned, not celebrated.
No, I'm making the point that you can't get something on the App Store that is a scam version of basically any reasonably well known product or company that is going to just phish data.
It will not get through the checks you're suggesting are 'not really for security'.
They wouldn’t have to. Just let people tap on links to .ipa files in Safari, pop up a huge and frightening warning dialog and let them then continue to install the app. No need to put anything into the app store they don’t approve of.
The argument is rather that the AppStore is not secure at all, but a) we still cannot sideload apps and b) legitimate apps get kicked off for no good reason, etc.
The problem is false security and false expectations.
Arguably it's easier for a user today to accidentally download a scammy app from the app store than it would ever be to do when sideloading. The latter would always come with the expectation and warning that it's not vetted by anyone, so the user and/or community will invest the time to make sure the download is legitimate.
> But this is hypothetical. In reality there is little motivation for apps in an App Store-like environment, which survive on customer goodwill, to want to do this.
Would anybody ever find out though?
It's clear that the App Store does no real checking of the apps they accept. Since the GUID use was banned, everyone has just switched to the just-as-unique MAC address to identify devices.
What makes this so much more complicated is the fact that the App Store is the only (legit) way to get apps on your device.
If there had been other ways to promote and sell apps besides the App Store, then it would have been wrong of Apple to cancel their developer license.
Then they could just have banned them from the App Store — for spamming it. Clearly, they are just spamming the App Store with 900+ apps that does basically nothing in the hopes of tricking a few people to buy it (there's no money back guarantee).
That's a model I'd love to see: the App Store reduced to a store with "safeware" apps approved by Apple.
But the way it is now, that joker certainly is spamming the App Store, his entire business is based on fooling people — he and his company should be banned from it. It is, however, too bad he can't continue to sell his spam apps on the web and promote them on his own.
Yeah. And that totally clueless person SOMEHOW found how to install a 3rd party app store on her phone and she was able to successfully configure it as well.
The argument doesnt make sense. The user is either tech savvy or not tech savvy.
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And even more: You people talk as if that doesnt happen today. Nobody will try to scam anyone by creating an entire freaking APP STORE while they can just phish them by sending them an email to get their credit card numbers and whatever data they can collect.
And further: Today anti-virus software is capable of detecting and preventing most of those scams already. We are not in mid 2000s. Anti virus software will not disappear with the appearance of 3rd party app stores. So the problem does not even make sense to be considered a problem.
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It just feels like some of you people (i mostly saw Americans) are SO mentally hostage to your corporations that you really defend the indefensible.
My dad had installed a QR code reader app on his iPhone that was a monthly paid subscription. He was wasting hundreds of dollars every year for something his phone already did automatically for free by just opening the camera. Apple will happily let scammers create garbage paid apps to do the same thing their phones already do for free. No side-loading to let viruses in required.
Imagine what average users will do after reading "This app does not support (Apple's) secure and private payments system". Clearly they would cancel the payment and probably uninstall the "insecure" app
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