[jackewiehose]

> People love to hate on Apple for "not allowing them to install apps on their devices freely, therefore they don't own the device" but in reality what Apple is doing is controlling the mass distribution channel and you can actually distribute your apps without Apple's approval with some inconveniences to the users.

No, in the reality I know, Apple doesn't allow you to install apps on your device freely.

Or what did I miss?

[colejohnson66]

Yes, and no, in reality. It’s complicated, but you can set up your own enterprise certificate (for a cost) or just resign the app using your own developer license every 7 days. Cydia Impactor even allows you to do the latter on non-macOS devices.

So while it’s definitely not as “open” as, say, a PC or Android, it’s not as simple as, “no they don’t.”

[snazz]

You can also automate the resign-every-week process with iTunes Wi-Fi Sync and have it just work so long as you are on your home network at least once a week.

[swiley]

I haven’t been able to run iTunes on Linux.

[willstrafach]

https://www.libimobiledevice.org/

[snazz]

Run Windows or macOS in a VM? Bare-metal Hackintosh? I agree that it’s somewhat restrictive (and it would be great if iTunes ran on Linux, not that it’s surprising that it doesn’t), but it’s not horribly difficult to run your own self-signed iOS apps. If you can’t handle Windows or macOS, then you’ll have to plug your iOS device in to your Linux machine to use Cydia Impactor.

[vbezhenar]

3 apps per device only.

[skinnymuch]

Isn’t it per Apple ID? Not limited to 3 per device.

[vbezhenar]

So you're suggesting to create multiple fake apple accounts and use them to build apps for personal use? I think that Apple would find out and ban those accounts, because surely they made that restriction to restrict exactly this behaviour (abusing developer account to by-pass AppStore). Does someone use that approach?

[skinnymuch]

Fake accounts makes it sound like some “thing”. Just using a couple of different accounts for most any public-ish big service is pretty par for the course.

Not sure what “does someone use that approach” mean. I can just say Apple for sure does not do any sort of banning of any kind if you use a handful of accounts with one device.

There’s probably people in the sideloading and jailbreak community who have a dozen accounts linked to one device. I’ve never thought of it as anything more than just doing some simple relatively innocent thing to get around the 3 limit. No problems to the at this point probably dozen accounts I have.

[mrtksn]

No, if you are listening to angry hate boys, yes if you actually look into it.

The binary needs to be signed off but Apple does not require a review to sign your binary, only to distribute it through App Store.

So to run your code you create an account, the free version has a shorter validity time frame I believe which means you will have to re-install the app once it ends, set up your signing profile on your developer tools and you are good to install and run any code you want.

You can have a torrent client or app that messes around with private API or whatever. Your code is signed locally, Apple wouldn't know what you are up to.

Apple needs to pay off the influencers to spread the word I guess :) At least, I think they need to take some effort to break the "greedy Apple corporation vs the generaous Google charity" narrative.

[wool_gather]

Speaking as someone much much closer to a fan boy than a hate boy (I make my living on Apple's platform), this is...possible, but with a lot of caveats. It's nowhere near the level of control you have on a desktop machine.

- The signing expires every 7 days, meaning re-install once a week. The app just crashes on launch when it expires.

- There's a (low) limit on the total number of apps you can have installed at one time via this method. I believe it's 5.

- The Apple ID you're using to codesign the app has to be signed in on the device to which you're installing. (I may misunderstand this one -- been a while since I've done it and it may have changed somehow -- but I'm pretty sure about it.) The implication here is that to share the app to anyone else, you also have to share your Apple ID.

- You're still beholden to Apple. They can revoke your Apple ID and thus your signing privilege pretty much any time for any reason.

They've restricted this avenue enough that I think it's fair to say it's not functional as more than a teaser, for people just checking out iOS development.

[mrtksn]

Yep, the free accounts are quite restricted. Having a paid developer account makes things much better(I have some app builds installed god knows when that I was too lazy to remove and they are running just fine) but yes, there are restrictions.

I would guess that what Apple wants to prevent is being undercut by another app distribution platform by making unauthorized app installation a pain. It is a choice that brings some advantages and disadvantages.

It is true that Apple might cancel the access to your device but I am find with that as long as Apple is not in a monopoly position. If A day comes and for some reason(like an US embargo?) Apple no longer can serve me, I would just move to the platform that serves me.

There's really nor reason to be paranoid over Apple's grip on the system. I am much more worried about Google cancelling my Gmail account and cutting me off from my digital presence.

[skinnymuch]

I don’t think the Apple ID has to match what you’re signed in to on device. At least when using Impactor. Is the sign in account referring to App Store id or iCloud? I assume App Store.

[wool_gather]

The iCloud one, I thought. Guess I must be misremembering, or it's changed. Thanks.

[Terretta]

PSA: One can still distribute and allow installation of full open source HTML5 apps that can work offline and use a smattering of device APIs, without having anything to do with Apple’s app store, developer accounts, or signing.

Sure, it’s not a ‘native binary’, but for all kinds of utilities, both offline and online, that’s not really a problem.

Some big companies even use a web technology approach on purpose for a variety of reasons despite distributing through the app store. Slightly less ‘buttery’ feeling but generally not terrible.