I think Apple is right here — they’ve detected a breach of term and shut it down.
But I still think they are wrong for blocking 3rd party apps. I understand they believe it is for my safety and security, but there needs to be a happy medium. They should have a way for experts to side load apps.
I think you're missing the point. Experts do have a way to side load apps, through enterprise certificates and developer certificates. Facebook was distributing an app to consumers using the enterprise certificates, to collect data, in somewhat malicious terms, which is a direct policy violation of using an enterprise certificate.
I think jedberg is saying he wants to be able to load whatever software he wants on a device he owns. Is this really controversial? There's no good pro-consumer argument for making it impossible. It's OK to make it technically challenging to prevent malicious software from getting on lay people's devices, but blocking it full-stop? If I own a device I should be able to put whatever I want on it. It's mine. Ownership means something. I'm not licensing my phone's hardware. I own it. I can smash it to pieces if I want, why can't I change the bits inside?
So make iPhones like Pixels. If I want to root the device, make it simple, make it factory wipe the device, and flip a bit that opts me out of software support. (I know Google doesn't do this last one, but I'm not opposed, I know what I'm doing.)
But no. I have to buy a $1200 mini-computer and then accept the arbitrary whims of Apple on what code I can run when.
I don't think it's controversial to say opening up ways to load apps outside of the app store will make it far, far harder for Apple to make any performance, security and stability guarantees about their devices. So if you choose to bypass Apple's ecosystem, you are on your own and can't blame Apple for anything that goes wrong.
I did jailbreaking for a while. It means being on an old OS all the time because it takes time for the jailbreaks. And I shouldn't have to jailbreak to side load apps. There should be an officially supported channel.
> make it far, far harder for Apple to make any performance, security and stability guarantees about their devices.
You mean like my laptop? Somehow they manage to maintain guarantees despite the fact that I can load any software I want.
To be fair, you can sideload apps on to your iPhone, it just that if you are not part of the Apple Developer program you'll need to resign them every seven days.
I am an Apple Developer, but that still requires me to use open source apps, since I have to compile it myself. Also it's a lot of effort.
It would nice if I could just go to a web page, click a link, and say "load this app, I accept the performance/security risks this entails". Like I do with my laptop.
> I don't think it's controversial to say opening up ways to load apps outside of the app store will make it far, far harder for Apple to make any performance, security and stability guarantees about their devices
Why would this necessarily be the case? Apps on iOS are already pretty restricted as to what they can do - they can only access files they create (or have to ask for permission), they have to get permission to use the camera/microphone/etc, they're throttled pretty severly when they're in the background, and they can't modify any parts of the system UI. Even if you did install a malicious app, what would it be able to do?
> So you support apps like this Research one being made available to teens ?
I 110% support that. Freedom is good. Hopefully their parents are involved enough in their lives to have explained the dangers of such things to them. Or perhaps Apple provides a parental control to allow that, but at least it would be possible for the parent to allow.
The argument isn't whether specific parties should produce malicious apps. Obviously any rational person would say no, depending upon what your own definition of malicious is (many have argued that a consenting party being paid $20 per month in exchange for data collected from their device is not malicious).
The argument is whether Apple should be the arbiter of what is considered a proper use case for an app or whether an individual should be. This argument is as old as the hills. Should the government be able to dictate to me what the correct size of a soda at McDonald's is? This is roughly the same argument. Although in Apple's case I think the restrictions have more to do with creating a reputation for consistency and quality.
I can install most any software I want on my PC but because of that you could argue the overall experience on a PC is sub-optimal compared to an iOS device. It's all about what's important to you. Personally I think Apple should be able to enforce whatever restrictions it chooses for its apps and customers are free to pick a different device with fewer restrictions. The developers are the ones who don't have a choice in this because they have to make apps for iOS if they want to get the largest possible user base so they have to abide by Apple's rules. I think the antitrust case for developers against Apple is pretty strong at this point, but I think the argument that I should be able to install what I want because it's my device is pretty weak.
Yeah, Apple have to step in here - otherwise they risk Enterprise certificates being used widely to violate Apple's AppStore restriction (which is what FB was doing), which is clearly not in Apple's best interest.
> Experts do have a way to side load apps, through enterprise certificates and developer certificates
Only their own apps. You can't use that mechanism to distribute an app to other "experts", which makes it of limited use in practice. You can distribute as source and require them to build it, but then everybody who wants to install your app on their device also needs a Mac.
I meant I want to side load apps on my phone that I don't write that other people make that perhaps violate Apple's rules. Like one that replaces springboard for example. Without having to jailbreak.
I agree. I would like to see something like we see with Linux distros. Whether I'm using apt, yum or dnf I can add a third-party repo for my package manager to download and install from. When I was into jailbreaking my phone that is what this basically meant to me even though I had to go with a different package manager (I think it was called cydia).
They’ve also been expanding the reach of TestFlight apps through public invite links. There are some notable apps (iSH, a Unix terminal emulator, comes to mind) that are only distributed through TestFlight, since that sort of thing would never make it through App Review.
Yeah testflight distribution is a decent workaround, but the limit the number of installs. Also you have to pay Apple for the ability to distribute through testflight.
I want a way for a 16 year old kid to make an awesome app and then distribute it to whoever wants it. Like back in the shareware days.
like, the App Store? Is it just the $99/yr that you object to? Because you could offer some scholarships to promising programmers. The kid already has a Mac, I bet he can talk his parents into a developer account if he's made an awesome app.
FWIW, I have a few ssh clients on my iPhone (Termius, Prompt, iTerminal) that came from the App Store. Termius even offers mosh. Why wouldn't they be approved?
I know of a lot of apps that are attached to having an active patreon sub (via testflight downloads).
The only thing I can think of that would be a problem for that 16 year old kid (or alternatively, a sneaky black hat) is permissions. Maybe a color coded permissions model where green means can only access the most basic systems, yellow means could access some personal data, red being can access very important or practically all your data, you must trust them implicitly before installing.
Does iSH really run afoul of the App Store guidelines? Seems to me that it's effectively the same thing as the various iOS Python IDEs, just using the Unix stack instead of Python. In particular it's an x86 interpreter, not a JIT...
But I still think they are wrong for blocking 3rd party apps. I understand they believe it is for my safety and security, but there needs to be a happy medium. They should have a way for experts to side load apps.