[us_and_them]

Apple dictates the apps can you use and restricts the OS. It's not a matter of signed packages and security, but of corporate domination of technology and restriction of use of a hardware device you legitimately own. Would you buy a PC that restricts what OS and software you can run on it? But when it comes to smart phone and tablets, we except this. Blocking nefarious apps is one thing, having absolute control of what your computer and or smartphone can run (yes smartphones are just portable computers)is a monopoly. We wouldn't except this in any other industry. If Ford decided that you cant modify, improve or repair their products based on a restrictive license you had to agree to on purchase, you probably wouldn't buy a car from them. In the tech or media industries this is acceptable. Why should we accept a "walled garden" on smart phones when we own the hardware? If it were any other industry, people would be outraged.

[gioele]

> It's not a matter of signed packages and security, but of corporate domination of technology and restriction of use of a hardware device you legitimately own.

It is a matter of corporate domination of technology and restriction of use through signed packages and security. ;)

[mattmanser]

You say on the one hand Blocking nefarious apps is one thing but on the other having absolute control of what your computer and or smartphone can run.

Which do you want?

The harsh truth is we've tried the 'run whatever you want' model and it sucks ass for the end user as they get infested with malware.

I say, which do you want?

[tikhonj]

That is a blatantly false dichotomy. You wouldn't use a browser that did not let you access potentially malicious pages at all, but you wouldn't want one that gave you no protection either. And so you run Chrome which gives you a scary warning page but lets you go see any page if you really want.

I really don't buy that Apple's absurdly draconian control is better than something akin to Chrome's warnings. You should make it difficult to install something potentially malicious by accident our without thought, but you should definitely not go out of your way to stop determined users from installing what they want either! Apple goes well beyond the reasonable and helpful and into the absurd.

[mattmanser]

There's nothing false about this dichotomy, you're just setting up a straw doll.

My point stands, we tried the run anything model and millions of machines are infested with malware as anyone with any basic computer experience can attest.The number of times I've had to clean friends or families computers I cannot count. There is a very good argument for these sandboxes.

[us_and_them]

The issue isn't security. The issue is control. The Debian project uses signed packages to ensure integrity but is open regardless. Of course there should be security and a reasonable expectation of utility but not at the cost of free use of something you bought and own. The tech industry is moving to a concept that you "rent", for lack of a better term, rather than own something you purchase. I have no issue with commercial software but all software is useless without the hardware to run it. If I have the hardware, I should be able to do what I want with it, just like an automobile. What's the difference? If a car manufacturer decided which highways you could drive on, based on a restrictive license agreement, you wouldn't buy that car, but you wouldn't buy a car without seatbelts. We wouldn't accept this concept in any other situation, why do we accept it in this situation?

[earl]

Empirically, you're wrong. In order to install random plugins, Firefox makes you click through a dialog that you're forced to read because the install button isn't active for a couple seconds. People fill their browsers with spyware anyway, because they want the {smilies, titties, stolen movies, etc}.

To tell the story again: my brother runs a cash intensive business that regularly moves hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. He narrowly escaped having a mid six figure sum stolen after his computer was hacked, and his solution now is to have a separate laptop that is only used for accessing the bank website and not a single other site on the internet. He's not stupid, he makes way more money than the majority of people reading this, and he finished a math undergrad with honors. And yet his computer got spyware on it that harvested the bank login. It's time to admit that our current security models have absolutely failed their users. At least on an ipad it's more likely than not that an application that will run is safe to run.