All reasons I personally had for sideloading my iPhone went out the window when I bought a steam deck. Now I don’t really care what happens here.
Yeah I wish I could just run Linux on my phone too
Are there no phones that run Linux?
I can’t wait for the day when all it takes to install an app on an iPhone is to click a link and you’re done!
That way all it will take to infect my parents’ phones with malware capable of scraping copious amounts of my data will be normal phone usage that Apple can’t protect against!
And now that AI is capable of simulating voices reasonably well, a phone call from mom asking for sensitive information can be done through her phone by anyone!
You know there are other options between “instantly installing by clicking a link” and not being able to install anything.
Such as the option that is trying to be killed in this post.
But let’s be real, Epic does not want those other options and neither do the Android-using Apple-bad commenters on here and reddit.
They want to side load unsigned code that didn’t go through any Apple validation without going through the App store at all.
They want to side load unsigned code that didn’t go through any Apple validation without going through the App store at all.
Yes I do. And it’s insane that you’re trying to make this out as a bad thing. So many open-source developers that don’t want to make an iOS app because the only realistic way to distribute it is by paying Apple $100 per year. And when I mess around with app dev again I don’t want to have to resign it every week just to be able to continue using it.
It’s insane that you don’t see how this will affect the actual majority of Apple users and not the extremely minimal use-case of open source devs.
And seriously, if your open source app isn’t worth $100 to you or it’s users, maybe it’s not worth destroying the IOS ecosystem that people rely on?
Normal users are unaffected. Completely. A hundred percent.
People on Android don’t know they have this option at all (how many people are not using the play store?).
But sure, your ecosystem is going to be destroyed because a kid wants to try developing angry birds on his phone.
Kids already can do that for free. An non-profit open source devs can already get their fee waived so none of your arguments hold up in the current world we live in.
And you are wrong on the other side. I switched from Android to iOS when Amazon decided to launch their app store. I don’t want that horrible cludgey experience and neither do actual iOS users.
The reason this didn’t take off is because nobody pays for android apps. You would have to be naive as hell to believe that there won’t be many app stores and many malicious apps as a result of this change which will affect the actual users.
Having to pay a fee and then hope to have it waved is very different from what I’m saying. What about that hypothetical kid I mentioned, if his parents don’t care about paying that fee? Or if he doesn’t run macos?
And yes there would be malicious apps, that no one would ever install unless they wanted to.
Both of those have, again, absolutely zero impact on virtually the entire ecosystem and its users. The expections being the people actively looking to leave the garden.
So, I’ll ask again, do you have any actual argument to defend apple’s policies?
This is the thing I can’t stand about all the “Apple bad” people here. You just wanna turn the device by default into Linux and don’t understand the implications that has for so many other non tech savvy users. When you’re on the side of Microsoft and Meta you probably aren’t right…Apple’s not great but they are a far cry from those two.
The people who want a world where iPhones are like Linux by default don’t use iPhones; they use Linux phones.
The vast majority of us just want to have the ability to use our devices to run what we want when we want to. The App Store is a good, fine thing. I like that it exists and I don’t want it to go away.
But I don’t think it’s fair that Apple gets to tell me I can’t run emulators on my phone. It’d be like Ford telling me I can’t drive my car on an interstate or something. The whole concept is weird.
Let me own my device, please. I paid for this hardware; why am I not allowed to choose the software that runs on it?
Android handles this in what I think is a great way. By default, you can’t install 3rd party apps. You have to dig into your settings to enable that and then your phone is unlocked. I do think that’s bad for alternative app stores (but that’s a whole ‘nother problem) but the vast majority of people who seek apps that aren’t available in the phone’s App Store do so because they’re more technically minded and so don’t mind a more technical solution. If you go take a random Android user off the street, 9 times out of 10, they won’t even know you can install apps from outside of the App Store and that’s a good thing.
Apple loves to tout “security” and “efficiency” for why they don’t allow 3rd party apps and that’s so silly to me. If I want a less secure and less efficient phone so that I can use features Apple doesn’t like, that should be purely my decision to make. It doesn’t affect anyone else but me.
I literally buy iPhone mostly because of the walled garden. It’s by far the biggest value add they have, and they grew to the scale they are in large part because of the value that adds.
If you want to sell an app on iPhone, you have to follow their human interface guidelines. You have to respect users’ privacy (not enough, but as much as they can enforce). You used to be required to take payment through Apple’s payment methods that make it incredibly easy to track and cancel subscriptions. Courts taking the payment rules away makes my experience worse. A shitty law forcing Apple to allow apps to pull out of the App Store and do whatever they want would make my experience much worse. (Thank God I’m not in the EU or subject to that.) If I was in the EU, the government be stealing a large portion of the value of the phone I paid for from me, to be replaced by stuff I can already do if I really want to.
These laws aren’t giving power to the people. They’re taking away Apple’s power to protect people and giving the power to fucking China through epic.
Do you honestly think that anything will change if iOS is opened to sideloading, for someone who never wants to leave the walled garden?
Because the answer is no. On Android any App that wants to have any shot at gaining mainstream success (aka 99% of Apps) HAVE to be on the Playstore because 95% of users get spooked if they have to download an APK, toggle some settings in settings App that warn you about this being a bad idea.
The only thing that changes is that the 1% of users who know what the fuck they are doing, can do so on a device they payed good money for.
Facebook/ten cent/etc have literally zero reason to stay off the play store. Google encourages them to be malware, and doesnt curtail their bad behavior is any way.
Apple doesn’t. They might not leave while they think they can also destroy the security of iOS in the US, but it is a complete and utter certainty that the literal day any similar law takes effect in the US that Facebook and all their apps leave the App Store completely. They absolutely can trivially walk people through the steps from their website and the apps that are already installed, and they already have the monopoly to force their users to deal with it.
Apple isn’t Reddit, building a market by claiming to be open then locking it down. They built their market because the walled garden is a massively better product.
None of this would change. Congrats, you talk about a topic you don’t understand
Yes, it would.
They don’t leave the play store because, and exclusively because, Google allows them to do anything they want. Apple does not. The literally exact day a similar law goes into effect in the US, it’s an absolute guarantee Facebook leaves the App Store with every single app they have. There’s not even the slight possibility they stay there.
It’s an echo chamber just like any other.
These Randoms on the internet desperately want Epic Games to make more money off of Fortnight at the expense of actual Apple product users that they know in real life; their literal friends and family will be made to have a worse product they don’t want, just because it sticks it to Apple.
Bruh, nobody is taking away your precious App Store. If you don’t want to sideload there is simple fix : Just don’t do it.
That’s not how parents work.
And yall could just stick with your androids and or just jailbreak an iPhone. Why does this require legislation?
That way all it will take to infect my parents’ phones with malware capable of scraping copious amounts of my data will be normal phone usage that Apple can’t protect against!
Um… What? iPhone apps run in a sandbox. They can’t access anything. They can’t even run at all unless the user launches the app or interacts with a notification. Background running is strictly limited to things like music playback with very few exceptions (exceptions which are taken away if the user never launches the app).
And for the record, I don’t own an android phone and never have.
…do you know what enforces all of that?
The App store…
Specifically it limits what APIs can and can’t be used by apps and forces the use of entitlements to access features of the hardware.
Downvote if you want, but entitelements are part of the code signing process which this article is trying to avoid. And jailbroken apps already don’t have the protections you’re talking about.
It’s not uncommon for people to datamine not public API all over Apple’s frameworks and the only thing preventing the usage is App Store policies and static analysis tools.
…do you know what enforces all of that?
The App store…
Umm… no? The phone operating system (iOS) enforces sandboxing. You can not run anything outside the sandbox without some exploit, at which point we have a completely new discussion.
Look up code signing and entitlements. This is a compile-time thing and an App store validation thing.
Regardless, what are you even arguing?
All of the sandboxing and entitlements stuff boils down to asking the user for permissions to access the data I described.
An app designed to look exactly like Facebook or Tik-tok, installed from a nefarious or less secure app store would reasonably expect to access contacts, the mic and camera, the username and password for that app, and a lot of other data that it can send to a server and use in ways that will negatively affect lots of people.
Maybe people should learn how to use their stuff responsibly and not install every funny looking app they come across
Or they can buy iOS products and not Android ones?
Then why not boy some training wheels why you are at it?
That’s not a gotcha. It’s literally what people want in iOS and already have an alternative available that they can choose.
Apple-bad people want to remove the choice.
Apple-bad people want to remove the choice.
I don’t get it. Obviously apple is the one that’s removing choice everywhere they can
I, and almost all of Apple’s user base, chose the walled garden for very real reasons. We literally paid extra for it. The choice between Apple’s walled garden and Android or other alternatives comes at a premium that we want.
The destruction of that walled garden through ill-conceived EU regulation and lawsuits by actually evil corporations, removes the choice. There will only be the shitty android-like experience that we chose to avoid in the first place.
Apple is a “it just works” ecosystem that we bought into because we prefer it. Privacy and security are paramount with Apple products. This Apple-bad crew doesn’t give a shit about actual Apple customers.
Dear Apple, please just dump the EU. If they hate your products so much don’t sell them there and let them ‘enjoy’ android instead. M
Yeeeaaaaahh let’s just dump 450 million potential customers 🤡
I mean I will never buy anything from them.
Good for you? lol
Yes.
Fuck Apple. Fuck every corporation, god I hate this world.
There’s no way to live an ethical life. Even fucking OpenAI outsourced their most vile shit to Kenya, so not even AIs are trained without hurting the third world. Fuck this.
In the nicest possible way, you sound like you need to speak to a professional.
World is a great, big place.
If only :(
