| > "Banned applications are not illegal"; that's an oxymoron. I don't follow your logic there, care to elaborate? Banning is done by Apple; legality is determined by courts, based on laws. Has any of these apps ruled illegal by court? Of course not. As I already wrote, company policies are not 1:1 map to laws, there's much more that goes into them, especially things like business interests and partnerships, but also things like ideology or subjective moral judgement. > Refer to Apple Developer Enterprise Program. [1] You can't be serious. So your grandmother is going to found a company, then get a DUNS number, so she can sideload an app? The second link says exactly nothing about sideloading. On contrary, it has big Apple Store button. > But it seems I won't be able to convince you since you cannot agree that a curated marketplace has value and that people desire this. For convincing, it helps to have valid, logical arguments. You don't seem to understand, that curated marketplace and sideloading are not mutually exclusive. Those, who want that marketplace, can choose from curated selection. Those, who want to sideload, can. In your model, where the curation is enforced on everyone, it is being turned into control for what's allowed and what is not. > Ultimately, Apple has to obey the law in China. The "wisdom" of allowing side-loading to sidestep public policy issues exposes a wide target that is prone to abuse and leads to bad outcomes. Ultimately, by allowing side-loading they are not responsible for whatever the user side loads at all, because they do not control this distribution channel. Just like Microsoft is not responsible for whatever you run on your Windows machine and Linus Torvalds is not responsible for whatever you run on your Linux machine. |
This is literally the third line of the article: "We have been notified by the Ministry of Public Security that a number of voice over internet protocol apps do not comply with local law. Therefore these apps have been removed from the app store in China."
>You can't be serious. So your grandmother is going to found a company, then get a DUNS number, so she can sideload an app?<
You said you can't side-load apps and that's the proof that you can. This is how companies deploy apps that are not on the App Store. And this has nothing to do with grandparents, it's two separate things. I remain unconvinced that it's easier to sideload an app from dubious sources than downloading from a sanctioned App Store.
>The second link says exactly nothing about sideloading. On contrary, it has big Apple Store button.<
The App Store is the official way to get into the Cardiaogram program. You can join the mRhythm study which is not offered on the App Store. They send you an email link and you tap on the link. Then you download the profile and the app. And that's how you sideload apps.
So I've provided 2 real-life examples of how side-loading is done on iOS.
>You don't seem to understand, that curated marketplace and sideloading are not mutually exclusive. Those, who want that marketplace, can choose from curated selection. Those, who want to sideload, can. In your model, where the curation is enforced on everyone, it is being turned into control for what's allowed and what is not.<
I agree that in an ideal world, having both a curated marketplace/walled garden and the option to sideload would be good. In practice, the closest to this idealized model is actually iOS and not Android, because Android even in its most "official" form is sponsored by a company whose business is to spy on its users (refer to earlier citation about being busted by Quartz). We can keep arguing in circles about "open source" and "code audits" but Ken Thompson pretty much shut that down with his Turing award lecture. [1] As of a few days ago, Google has consistently been shown to be untrustworthy.
[1] https://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thomp...