They're currently in court arguing about how they make users safer by curating the available software. Issues like this don't reflect well on that argument.
They could fix the problem regardless of whether the app was downloaded from the app store, a third party store, or just sideloaded, so I don't see what you're getting at.
It sounds like you are saying this issue is irrelevant to the App Store.
So how can it reflect badly on their case?
The way it reflects well, is to notice that this is a small hole in their privacy measures which can easily be fixed, and the only reason we are talking about it is that for the most part their privacy controls work well. I.e. it demonstrates their seriousness about privacy.
Because these privacy violations are happening despite their locked down App Store.
> The way it reflects well, is to notice that this is a small hole in their privacy measures which can easily be fixed
Sure, it reflects well on Apple as a whole, but not on the app store. This issue is just as easy to fix for sideloaded apps because it's related to OS level permissions which sideloaded apps would still be subject to.
> Because these privacy violations are happening despite their locked down App Store.
That’s an obviously false comparison. You are comparing against a perfect world, not against the real world.
A valid comparison is against what privacy violations would be happening without the App Store.
As a simple example, we know for certain that Facebook would be a doing a lot more tracking without the App Store, because they have told us in public that they would.
Therefore the App Store is in fact protecting users against large categories of privacy concerns, and this easily corrected hole doesn’t change that.
> That’s an obviously false comparison. You are comparing against a perfect world, not against the real world.
No I'm not, I'm comparing against a world where Apple allows sideloading, and this privacy issue exists in both.
> because they have told us in public that they would.
Source? Apple's new add tracking opt-in thing is on the OS level the same way this location tracking issue is. It would still work if the Facebook app was sideloaded from what I understand.
Now that this vulnerability has been identified, they can fix it and solve the problem for their users.