[blub]

Many of the restrictions that Apple added along the years were reactions to abuse by app developers (which in reality nowadays are "legal malware developers"). Everything you can think of has been tried: from reading the installed list of apps, spying on the clipboard, scraping location data from pictures, fingerprinting phones based on camera sensor or motion sensor and many others.

Permissions represent one of two pillars of their strategy against legal malware developers. The second one is the rulebook associated with the AppStore, preventing publishing non-compliant apps and banning developers for breaking said rules. A classic example is Facebook misusing enterprise certificates to install "Facebook research" which allowed them almost unrestricted access to the data of the users. Apple revoked their enterprise certificate, which also affected internal applications that Facebook employees were using. Facebook relented.

If Facebook launches their own app store, the second pillar is completely circumvented. Additionally they will find ways around the technical limitations, be it through use of private APIs, tricking users into clicking confirmations or bribing them. Technical limitations are not enough when dealing with malicious actors.

[petre]

> If Facebook launches their own app store, the second pillar is completely circumvented

Meta be forced to offer their adware/spyware Facebook app through the Apple app store as well, as many people will not agree or won't have the technical knowledge to install more than one alternative app store. Apple will probably be forced to provide a list of alphabetically ordered app stores to choose from in the initial iPhone setup. It's quite convenient that their own app store starts with an A.