[doobeeus]

Given how Apple allows side-loading on Mac and obviously the 2 other dominant consumer platforms (Android & Windows) do as well with no significant consequences, it's pretty disingenuous for Apple to engage in these privacy/security scare tactics to maintain platform control and profits.

Add to this the fact that they only really started this campaign more than a decade after they launched the iPhone just compounds Apple's loss of credibility on this.

[imiric]

Bryan Lunduke recently made some good points about sideloading[1,2].

It's difficult to rationalize Apple's stance on this as anything but anti-competitive. They invented a new term they can use in their scare tactics that would obscure their goal of being the only company to profit from software sales on their platform.

Apple loves to market the iPad as the "modern computer", yet the ecosystem is so controlled and locked down that it can barely function as anything other than a media consumption device.

Good on the EU for pushing back on this.

[1]: https://www.lunduke.com/2021/06/apple-sideloading-is-the-dev...

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mXExBK0SnQ

[musicale]

> Apple loves to market the iPad as the "modern computer", yet the ecosystem is so controlled and locked down that it can barely function as anything other than a media consumption device.

The iPad is an incredible device for creating digital art (Procreate + Apple Pencil) and electronic music (Korg Gadget and literally hundreds of great synth, DAW, and effect apps.)

[imiric]

That's pretty much the only productive work you can do with it. And even that is crippled. Can you export the files you create to an external hard drive and import it on a PC? Can you hook up an external monitor that doesn't just mirror the iPad display? A real Photoshop port has been promised for years and is still not available. I would like to do some real programming that doesn't require SSH or VNC. Why can't I run virtual machines?

So, yes, you can do some creative work in this limited environment. But it's nowhere near the flexibility a real computer would offer. And that's a shame given how powerful the actual hardware is.

[macintux]

Personal computers aren’t nearly as personal as our smartphones. My laptop has no clue about my heart rate, exercise level, how much I’m spending at the grocery store, where I am any time I leave the house, etc.

It’s not unreasonable to argue that a smartphone requires more security than a laptop.

[saagarjha]

Amusingly, my iPhone often gives that information to my Mac.

[Jcowell]

Apple allows sideloading on computers because that’s how computers have always been. Introducing a Computer back then that had no means of getting needed software would be suicide for any computer. It had to open because computers for the most part were always open and Apple didn’t have the leverage or starting position like they did with the iPhone.

Something like a Chromebook would have absolutely failed decades ago. A lot of things done today would have failed decades ago and vice versa.

[TedDoesntTalk]

> Something like a Chromebook would have absolutely failed decades ago

Video game consoles existed decades ago, were locked down systems, and succeeded tremendously… starting all the way back in the 1970s with Atari 2600.

> because that’s how computers have always been

Phones before the iPhone allowed any app to be installed. J2ME. There was no precedent to do what Apple did with a lockdown like that, as far as I remember. Glad to be corrected but don’t forget to include the J2ME landscape in your analysis.

[srtjstjsj]

Video game consoles were extremely limited, as well as being cheap enough that people could buy several, as well as being completely inessential luxury toys, not tools for running businesses and lives.

[vlozko]

The scope and utility of a piece of technology is a weak argument in anti-trust debates, in my opinion. You have a similar set of issues with game consoles, too. Why should publishers like EA have to fork over 30% of their PS sales to Sony but Naughty Dog doesn’t have such a restriction? And have you even read about the onerous requirements that Sony imposes to allow for cross-play? And why can’t MS offer a streaming Game Pass on a Sony console? Being extremely limited does not make one not subject to anti-trust scrutiny.

[shkkmo]

Most (modern) Chromebooks allow you to run any linux software you want.

Just because you have the ecosystem lock-in to force something new down the throats of users doesn't justify doing it.

[Jcowell]

Yes but we’re not talking about us we’re talking about general consumers and the useful of a tool for general consumers. The general consumers is not is talking Linux or using Linux app. The closest they’ll ever touch to Linux is Unix via MacOS.

We can write 100 things for Linux but it means Jack nothing to a consumer who will never do that to the Chromebooks. I.e School IT’s for student use.

[shkkmo]

I'm not really clear what your point is.

Sideloading apps on MacOS, Android and ChromeOS all require taking a few additional steps. It's unlikely that most average consumer will ever take these steps, but it is easily doable for those consumers if you follow online instructions (and so some do.)

iOS really is unique in the level of difficulty involved in sideloading apps.

[rtsil]

I had the first gen Chromebook and the first thing I did with it was install Crouton and access Ubuntu.

[shkkmo]

These days you can turn on a system setting and launch Debian.