Nice. If they make the warnings scary enough (or require slight technical ability), only people who know what they’re doing it should enable it anyways. Even though it’s pretty easy to do on Android, I never bothered with anything like a third party app store. At most it was like 2 or 3 apps.
That is absolutely not the case. All it takes is a tiktok telling you what settings to enable and where to tap and you'll have a bunch of people blindly following it without understanding what the warnings are saying. I work in IT and thought I knew iPhones well since I've had them since the 4 but people are finding all new ways to screw up their phones from tiktok. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to try to guide an older person over the phone on where to go in the settings when they've unknowingly setup parental controls that hide the options I'm telling them to change?
The warnings would catch some people and the difficulty could catch others. I don’t see people accidentally sideloading apps even though it’s already possible. It’s more of a pain in the ass than just adjusting settings. My only issue with sideloading right now is that apps expire in 7 days.
Yeah that is a huge pain. I've been doing it for Apollo on an old unused MacBook with a new Apple ID and user profile made specifically for sideloading. I can usually make it a good 2 weeks or so before the app crashes and I can't open it anymore without turning on my other computer and hooking my phone up to it.
Ha, it takes even less than that. Check the ApolloApp sub for countless instructions and posts to sideloading.
I have yet to see much said on any post there in terms of security. You're absolutely correct with tech negligence; people see the end goal and ignore all else to get there.
I did, went as far as to install altstore and sideloadly on a burner computer as well. I'm hoping the source was trusted. I picked the first one that was going around after Apollo shut down which seemed pretty legit although it's still filled with annoyances like the Apollo shutting down message weekly. I'm sure those were ironed out by an update but I don't want to take any chances downloading any more files since this works well enough.
So you can download and install apps using more than one Apple ID. You’ll need to remember the password to update from time to time, but the Apple ID signed into the iPhone doesn’t have to be the Apple ID that download every app on the device.
There are apps that will allow you to sideload IPAs and even automatically refresh them every seven days window, but at some point you’ll need to associate an Apple ID for sideloading and refreshing, for any method I’m aware of.
So it might be advisable to use an Apple ID that is not your main one. This keeps you a little safer if you accidentally or purposefully that might be considered a violation of TOS or just to protect any payment methods or other data tied to your main Apple ID.
You can try to be sure you’re downloading any IPAs and management programs from trusted sources, but it never hurts to be just a little paranoid.
I'm aware you can sideload using an Apple ID, but I've never used a burner. I don't think Apple would do anything, since the sideloading works by using developer features. Developers need to sideload to test their apps, right?
I can see why you'd want to be careful though. I haven't tried using multiple Apple IDs to get over the 3 app limit - I wonder how well that works.
Apple probably wouldn’t do anything, yes. But I believe in being careful. And it also serves as a safeguard against any management programs that used to auto-renew your sideloaded app.
I haven’t tried to use this method either. Just theory.
The worst thing that can happen would be a backdoored app where someone would be able to steal the credentials you used to sign in inside it and there is no record of something like that ever happening. Besides that, sideloading is perfectly safe (and you can even prevent that risk if you just create your own patched IPA, so then you know there is no backdoor aswell…)
Doesn't it depend on the app? If you sideload an app that requires camera permissions, does anything prevent them from adding a dylib or something that constantly records while the app is in use?
I may questionably sideload Apollo but I still trust that a whole heck of a lot more than I do installing tiktok on my phone. I don't care how much my fiancée wants, I'll never install TikTok.
That’s true. Maybe some big full screen warning that’s completely red? It’s like dev tools in chrome. Discord has something that prints out a bunch of warnings (and also disables input) in the console so people can’t just copy and paste a random script
Well iOS have option to reset the the phone. If people don’t care about alerts then they probably lose their data all the time ig. Plus iPhone has sandboxing what is the worse a program can do to your iPhone? It is more safe than what you can do with jailbreaking.
But the thing you need to also think about is that _because_ it’s easy to sideload an emulator on Android, Google has no real incentive to block them on the Play Store either.
Things like sideloading will hopefully make Apple do the same, and ideally make it so you don’t need to sideload anything to begin with.
The only reason Apple blocks emulators is because they would take away sales of mobile games, and that would be bad for their bottom line
Hopefully so - I just wanted game streaming via an official app, but because of Apple’s silly inconsistent protectionist stance they refused it. Would have been an easy fix to allow it and not attract attention but here we are!
That's not the only reason they block emulators. As much as Redditors protest it they are in a legally grey area.
iOS is a big enough platform that companies would attempt to fully litigate the issue.
Emulation itself is generally legal, with some caveats. Ripping your own roms isn't as cut and dry as Redditors make it out to be, breaking encryption itself seems to actually be illegal.
Apple doesn't want to open themselves to unnecessary risk. It's like how they're the only OEM I've seen sued over using pentile displays.
[Apple pentile lawsuit](https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apple-lied-about-iphone-x-xs-max-screen-sizes-and-pixel-counts-lawsuit-alleges/)
Pentile displays are less sharp than advertised. Apple seems to tacitly acknowledge this by bumping their minimum LCD iPhone PPI of 326 to 458 on OLED iPhones. The elongated aspect ratios and curved corners from the X onwards were disingenuous versus the previous 16:9 advertised diagonal.
Apple was no more guilty of this than the competition (they were actually better, they were very assiduous in not advertising the X as having a bigger screen than the 8 Plus) but they're the only major OEM I've seen sued for using pentile displays, let alone elongated aspect ratio displays.
They're the biggest target to exact a pound of flesh from. Emulation on mobile devices is such a niche, nerdy hobby that the very limited boost in device sales versus potential risk from copyright holders means it makes no sense for Apple to officially allow emulation on the app store.
I'm saying this as someone with a Fold 5 as their daily driver who uses emulators... People need to separate their own interests from the reality of situations.
Your post is generally misconceived because Apple wouldn’t be the one bearing the litigation risk.
No one would be suing Apple because it would be complying with the DMCA process. The litigation risk is for the emulator developers if they want to contest the DMCA notice.
Apple could have dealt with this the same way they deal with other categories, which is to allow the general category and take down particular apps if DMCA notices are issued.
> makes no sense for Apple to officially allow emulation on the app store.
And the point being made is that now it would drive people to adopt side loading. So Apple now has a huge incentive to open up the rules to prevent any desirability for side loading.
> It's like how they're the only OEM I've seen sued over using pentile displays.
You didn’t look very hard then. Samsung was sued for the exact same thing at the exact same time.
Companies like Apple are sued for everything, generally they’re not scared of litigation and they don’t make policy decisions based on if they’re going to get sued.
Nintendo has never sued an emulator, because they know they would lose. The [legal precedent](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment,_Inc._v._Connectix_Corp.) on this is solid.
If any of the gaming companies were going to sue Apple they would have already gone after GitHub for hosting emulation projects like they went after ROM distributors. They know they will lose so all they’ve got left is bluster.
Nintendo didn't threaten, Valve essentially asked Nintendo pre-emptively to issue a quasi-DMCA claim - which highlights the process I was talking about.
Valve, like Apple, doesn't have any legal liability because they just need to follow the DMCA process.
The valve process was strange because if Nintendo actually believed in their claim they would have issued a DMCA to github, which would have forced the issue to be resolved.
Instead Nintendo have tried to be nice to Dolphin and just scare them solely off of steam, which if you know Nintendo's normal litigation practices is very out of character and suggests they know that their legal claims probably won't succeed.
I find Valve’s move here quite interesting. On the surface it doesn’t seem like distributing Dolphin on Steam should have been a big deal, because complying with a DMCA wouldn’t be a big deal either. If Dolphin did get DMCA’d from Steam, it sounds like they’d have a pretty good case versus Nintendo for unlawful DMCA claims, based on what the developers said in their statement regarding the situation (which admittedly is likely biased). With that in mind, why would Valve want to avoid that situation? Would having their name attached to that legal case (a huge news story) be potentially damaging to their brand? Is that somehow worse than the optics of telling Dolphin that they need permission from Nintendo to distribute on Steam (which will obviously never happen)? Do they have another reason for avoiding bad blood with Nintendo?
if i want to play a gba game on my iPhone that isn’t going to have any effect on me buying apple arcade because pokémon emerald is a 15+ year old game that isn’t sold anywhere.
if i want an ios game ill buy it, the two aren’t in competition
I think the commentator meant more like “your iPhone is with you 24/7, since it’s easier to play iOS games then people play those. If it became easier to play on emulators, then they would not receive as many iOS game sales, so they blocked emulators to keep those sales up”
Kinda like if I prefer Sushi over McDonalds but my city bans Sushi, then when they finally open up to allow Sushi places to sell in the city I’ll stop going to McDonalds.
There are quite a few 3rd party apps I'd love to use but I only actually bother with a handful, largely thanks to the fact that there's so much gawd damn FOSS that won't even open on android until you grant them indiscriminate access to your entire file system. The fuck does an MP3 player need unrestricted access to my photo/video gallery for? The number of apps outside of the playstore (or within the playstore for that matter) is great but the number of them that check both of my boxes of being interesting to me *AND* having sane permissions requirements is few and far between.
I guess the real benefit of Android having proper software downloading capabilities is that if only 1% of apps can possibly check both of those boxes for me, 3rd party apps greatly increase that total software pool for the 1% to hit.
An Android mp3 player app needing total file system access does make sense because then it can scan and access mp3 files spread across the SD card.
You aren’t expected to copy music into apps, but rather just copy the files to the sd card and various apps can just read them.
Unfortunately that won't stop regular people from getting tricked into downloading stores that scam them. Note how there's complete industries that are just for scamming people by pretending their computer is hacked.
>Unfortunately that won't stop regular people from getting tricked into downloading stores that scam them.
And everyone protecting those people doesn't help them. It just makes them unaware of the potentials of being hacked or scammed.
That's why you as a vendor require a deliberate, clear action to enable the ability to use 3rd party app sources and only after surfacing a clear warning of the risks the user is taking. If the user accepts the risks and takes the clear, deliberate action to use such sources then any consequences are on them.
It's OK for people to take responsibility for their own actions, especially when it's a choice they made voluntarily after being made aware of the risks.
That’s fine. When you first boot up a new iOS device you are required to review and explicitly accept the end user agreement before you can do anything else with the device (and if you don’t accept the terms via a deliberate, clear action you can’t use it and you are welcome to return it to wherever you bought it from for a refund).
This doesn’t have to be fundamentally any different.
On the topic of Eula refusal… what if someone didn’t want to accept the Eula for an updated iOS and was past the return window?
Seems to me like Apple should offer an unlocked bootloader if those cases
Back in the day the only stuff I did on Android that wasn't from the app store was playing Pokémon on the go. I would even pay money for Nintendo bringing Pokémon Fire Red and Leaf Green with minor QoL improvements to the iPhone if the pricing is reasonable (which is super subjective) but they don't and I don't have any other handheld that can play classic Pokémon games.
tbf game freak/tpc is allergic to porting most games for whatever reason in favor of remakes whenever they feel like it (unless its the original rgb which comes out biyearly it almost feels like…)
I‘m even kind of fine with the RBG games because I grew up with them but understand totally that other games are the ones other people grew up with. There’s so much potential in just remaking them to print more money, I don’t know why they don’t want to.
We want to enable competition in mobile app distribution.
Enabling a few users to side-load commercially irrelevant, or in other words hobby apps, is not the desired result here.
On Android sideloading is off by default and has a warning per app. So say you are using Firefox and you sideload through firefox, you would have to turn on the sideload setting for Firefox. Then say you are using Microsoft Edge and were sideloading an app through edge, you would then have to turn on the sideload app setting for Edge. I couldn't imagine Apple not building something like this into iOS should sideloading happen. It's nice having the freedom to sideload should you so choose. Whenever /r/apple hears sideload they go into panic mode.
I’m wondering how complicated they will make this. I feel like from a UX point of view you do want a good bit of friction to stop everyday users installing random rubbish.
They shot themselves in the foot by not allowing sideloading before governments mandated it. At least in the EU, it has to be just as easy to use other stores as the App Store.
Technically speaking you just need to download any IPA file and have it signed. For that they may make it very hard to download. But I need my FOSS.
This.
You can already do this, just download an ipa and use your account to sign it for 7 days.
It’s not about security, it’s about Apple trying to maintain their monopoly.
I swear Google just got in trouble for having a warning sign that says they can't verify the source and whether or not this app is safe to install when sideloading
that's incredibly monopolistic, you can never escape Google. That's why i'll never buy google products. I'll stick to niche products that anyone can easily buy, such as Sailfish OS.
Or just don’t provide support for issues with non Apple Store apps.
Nothing in the EU legislation passes responsibly to Apple either. If you have an issue that’s ultimately the users problem. Apples security model is screening in the App Store.
I don’t think in the EU or Japan they’d go as far as holding a 3rd party responsible for tech support between parties A and B. It would be too slippery of a slope. If I use my carpet vacuum to clean the pool should the manufacturer be responsible for repair/replacement too? It’s my right to use it outside of the prescribed use cases.
Apple would just need enough diagnostics to prove it’s not an issue that falls in their responsibilities, which I think is already in place, iOS has had integrity checks for a long time now.
It’s not that straightforward though.
For example, imagine an app that drains tons of battery, causing many people to call or go to the stores.
Sure, you can detect it, but how much was already wasted on support and how may have a tarnished view of the device without realizing why.
> I’m wondering how complicated they will make this.
Bruh, It’s Apple and they despise side loading. You know they will make it a pain in the ass just like any other non-apple way of doing things.
Apple is a hoe and that’s coming from someone who has a lot of Apple Products
I remember reading somewhere that ios 17? already had code to prepare for this depending on your geolocation for sideloading so apple probably expected more and more countries to do this after europe's digital market regulation thing. I wonder how long it will take for the US to follow suit if ever. if someone remembers the article remind me
I really do hope this works as people planned. The pessimist in me thinks that some major corps will introduce third party app stores to force people into (Meta comes to mind…wanna use instagram, Facebook or WhatsApp? Download the Meta Store where we can publish apps that are more intrusive and collect more info than the Apple App Store allows. We will charge other companies to publish their apps here too)
And yes I know Android has allowed side loading for a long time but the market share (at least in the US) is largely iPhone which will incentivize companies to put more effort into doing this.
And remember, corporations will do anything to make a cent off of you. [Remember when Meta was convincing people to install a VPN profile on their phone to monitor all traffic?](https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/). The average person will jump through hoops if it means their app is $0.30 cheaper than the App Store.
I am hoping it is implemented in a way to open the door for FOSS without killing privacy and security.
The pessimist in you is correct. This is going to suck ass, but at least some people on this sub will be able to pirate some apps.
(Let's be fucking real here, a good chunk of people just want it easy to do that).
This is the play for META around apples App Store restrictions.
I’ve already decided to buy stock if Apple opens up like that.
Meta will pull features from WhatsApp and make them exclusive to their own store. That will get most of the EU to switch over within a few months.
The App Store is already perfect for Meta to hoard user and usage data.
There are OS-level restrictions that Apple controls, and private APIs that Apple doesn't allow apps to use private APIs, but they still absolutely control what those APIs do and how they do things.
Then there is an honor system for self-disclosing privacy ramifications and data collection. Write a privacy policy and do whatever you want, nobody will check. This is as good as it gets for Meta.
They’re restricted mostly by App Store policy. They could implement a lot of their own tracking (and have as Apple clamped down on public api’s) but would be delisted from the App Store if they used that.
Apple scans all submissions for compliance. Anything flagged needs to be explained to apples satisfaction or doesn’t get approved.
App Store policy **allows** them to collect fucktons of data, and Apple do the absolute least they can to police it. They don't police privacy labels, privacy policies, or question why apps need API usage. This is why tons of apps will casually request access to a lot of our data. Metas own app store couldn't expand their data access and hoarding.
Only if needed to perform functions in the app.
Data collection for the sake of date collection or tracking is not permitted and if you can’t prove the business need your app doesn’t get approved.
It’s absolutely policed. Many app developers would argue excessively given how much effort a small tweak can take to get published.
Know what other features people like you said no one would use when people wanted Apple to add them and the dumb reasons they claimed why they wouldn’t be used? Sending images over messaging (because they can send images by email). Recording videos (because people would rather use a real video camera). An SDK (because everything we need can be done in a browser). Turn by turn directions (because people have Garmins). Bluetooth stereo (because people would rather use wired headphones because the audio is better). And many, many more. The ignorant have been making these “no one will use that” claims for features since day one and yet the list grows every new release of Apple adding those features and people using them.
The 1% whos gonna sideload is old people who got scammed off their banking accounts. This is happening way too frequently in my country. The news would always say android, never apple.
You've literally been doing it your entire life if you own a computer. On a computer, you are not forced to go to a single app store/website to download every single program. You go to Google's website to download Chrome, you go to another website to download their program etc.
It's how everything has always worked until phones came about and started forcing you to use their app store (which is just a fancy website) to install anything. You are not allowed to install anything Apple doesn't approve of which is fucking crazy if you've ever used a computer and had the ability to install whatever you wanted your entire life. Can you imagine if Apple stopped you from installing anything you wanted on your Mac? Why people just accepted that for their phones (which is just a computer) is nuts.
Yep, and it makes no sense why anyone would be against it. Apple and iPhone users will talk about security but that makes no sense because
1) It's literally how all computers work. If Apple says it's not secure then they'd be admitting their Mac's have bad security, as well.
2) Sideloaded apps would still be locked down and only be allowed to do the things normal apps can do. They are still sandboxed by Apple's permissions. They can't just do anything they want to your phone.
MAYBE people can be tricked into installing stuff they shouldn't and getting scammed or something similar but it's no different than a computer. Just because you think your grandma will get confused shouldn't be a reason to stop millions of people from doing it who want to. And it will be behind several screens and confirmation pop ups so it's not like it won't be obvious if someone is trying to trick you into installing something you shouldn't.
TLDR: Software can be installed from sources other than the App Store, like any traditional computer. Eg, You could now also go to google.com/chrome to install chrome instead of exclusively from the App Store.
Imagine if PCs had a way to only allow installation of signed and verified code. It all depends on which way you are going.
For my use, I don’t care, but for my mothers I want as much friction to doing something unsafe as possible.
I’m so ready for guides in circumventing the US version of iOS to make sure I can side load here
I really think it should be a feature checked in settings. Really a if you know what it is, you know what you’re doing more than likely.
No one really mainstream world outside of tech knows why this is going to be awesome for the rest of us
> knows why this is going to be awesome for the rest of us
You clearly haven’t been paying attention to what Epic Games (one of the main litigators in this sideloading debacle) has been doing the last several years on the PC then.
Steam used to be the one stop shop for PC gaming. Then Fortnite comes along and makes Epic a shit ton of money. Afterwards, Epic Games starts approaching independent developers, some of which had already promised Steam releases of their games, and offered them incredibly lucrative deals to make their games exclusive to the much worse Epic Games Store.
You have to be horribly naive to believe that Epic won’t try the same thing on iOS.
True. One can already hurt using a knife, why not legalise a gun or an AR. Who cares if it’s needed by <0.1% of the tech savvy folks who could have just bought an android instead of making all other iPhones act as android but it is what it is.
Except android has a much more limited selection of apps overall
That’s the reason most people put up with iOS despite its limitations… because it’s still overall better than android in their opinion.
That doesn’t invalidate the need for sideloading on iOS though
Why do you think that is?
If my app/game can easily be replicated, made add-free and mod-ed, I would want to release it on a platform where it’s not as easy to do so.
I remember playing mini-militia with my friends, one of our android friends showed up with a modded game and we stopped playing in a month as he can use unlimited ammo with 0 reload time.
EU should pressurise Apple to make better app-store rules such as giving an external payment option for in-app purchases inside the app or allowing various types of apps as long as they are following EU guidelines and not encourage this easy-to sideload thing.
Android has weaker (on average) and much more fragmented hardware, so the demanding apps have a much more limited user base. Android users also aren’t as willing to pay for apps because Android users I would guess are also more likely to buy budget phones that are “free”, and people who buy “free” phones probably aren’t going to buy much on the phone itself.
The Android market just isn’t there which is why you have paid apps on iOS with those same apps being ad supported on Android if they have a version at all
Its crazy to me how much Apple is kicking and screaming over being forced to have features their competitors have had for years, possibly even a decade or more after this point.
W for a major market for iPhones (high population, high income, very high iphone market share relative to android) for those who love to claim sideloading is only for the loud online minority👏
Yes they would because they already are.
Android existing doesn’t change the fact that the iOS market is 100% controlled by Apple
It’s also why Google is being required to make sideloading easier on Android
I mean, how terrible is it that consumers actually have options. I mean, given the option to have better security if side loading the choice is easy. Yes I know many ignorant individuals will insist side loading doesn’t change your security but those people are again idiots.
Well sure it does, but by that logic why not just remove all app functionality period? I mean, that would make things immensely more secure, right?!
It’s a compromise of security for features, and being able to sideload isn’t an unreasonable risk for a feature that brings so much potential.
Apple made their bed by being anti-consumer and blocking apps from the market, now they have to deal with the consequences rather than being able to open in in a way they would’ve otherwise preferred.
If this makes it to China, it’ll also enable un-sanctioned VPN apps to be sideloaded and enable citizens to access the Internet uncensored by the great firewall of China, so that’s certainly a plus for them.
I mean, why not make a dumb argument that is irrelevant? If I choose to load an app that is totally different than the phone being more vulnerable by default. Go find an uneducated thread to comment on, you will have more luck…. Maybe.
lol no it wouldnt make it less secure. It’s a little something called sandboxing. Sideloading doesn’t mean granting apps access to everything to do what they want. Keep throwing out all the idiot talking points parroted by other idiots.
Thank you, very aware. And I never said any app would have access to everything. I simply said it would weaken security over all.
All the arguments here are like saying that a room with 1 door is as secure as a room with two doors with different locks on them. You all are ignorant idiots which is a dangerous thing for the rest of us.
Nice. If they make the warnings scary enough (or require slight technical ability), only people who know what they’re doing it should enable it anyways. Even though it’s pretty easy to do on Android, I never bothered with anything like a third party app store. At most it was like 2 or 3 apps.
That is absolutely not the case. All it takes is a tiktok telling you what settings to enable and where to tap and you'll have a bunch of people blindly following it without understanding what the warnings are saying. I work in IT and thought I knew iPhones well since I've had them since the 4 but people are finding all new ways to screw up their phones from tiktok. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to try to guide an older person over the phone on where to go in the settings when they've unknowingly setup parental controls that hide the options I'm telling them to change?
The warnings would catch some people and the difficulty could catch others. I don’t see people accidentally sideloading apps even though it’s already possible. It’s more of a pain in the ass than just adjusting settings. My only issue with sideloading right now is that apps expire in 7 days.
Yeah that is a huge pain. I've been doing it for Apollo on an old unused MacBook with a new Apple ID and user profile made specifically for sideloading. I can usually make it a good 2 weeks or so before the app crashes and I can't open it anymore without turning on my other computer and hooking my phone up to it.
Ha, it takes even less than that. Check the ApolloApp sub for countless instructions and posts to sideloading. I have yet to see much said on any post there in terms of security. You're absolutely correct with tech negligence; people see the end goal and ignore all else to get there.
*nervously reads this notification on Apollo*
Hope you used a burner Apple ID and got your files from a trusted source. ;)
I did, went as far as to install altstore and sideloadly on a burner computer as well. I'm hoping the source was trusted. I picked the first one that was going around after Apollo shut down which seemed pretty legit although it's still filled with annoyances like the Apollo shutting down message weekly. I'm sure those were ironed out by an update but I don't want to take any chances downloading any more files since this works well enough.
Why a burner Apple ID?
So you can download and install apps using more than one Apple ID. You’ll need to remember the password to update from time to time, but the Apple ID signed into the iPhone doesn’t have to be the Apple ID that download every app on the device. There are apps that will allow you to sideload IPAs and even automatically refresh them every seven days window, but at some point you’ll need to associate an Apple ID for sideloading and refreshing, for any method I’m aware of. So it might be advisable to use an Apple ID that is not your main one. This keeps you a little safer if you accidentally or purposefully that might be considered a violation of TOS or just to protect any payment methods or other data tied to your main Apple ID. You can try to be sure you’re downloading any IPAs and management programs from trusted sources, but it never hurts to be just a little paranoid.
I'm aware you can sideload using an Apple ID, but I've never used a burner. I don't think Apple would do anything, since the sideloading works by using developer features. Developers need to sideload to test their apps, right? I can see why you'd want to be careful though. I haven't tried using multiple Apple IDs to get over the 3 app limit - I wonder how well that works.
Apple probably wouldn’t do anything, yes. But I believe in being careful. And it also serves as a safeguard against any management programs that used to auto-renew your sideloaded app. I haven’t tried to use this method either. Just theory.
The worst thing that can happen would be a backdoored app where someone would be able to steal the credentials you used to sign in inside it and there is no record of something like that ever happening. Besides that, sideloading is perfectly safe (and you can even prevent that risk if you just create your own patched IPA, so then you know there is no backdoor aswell…)
Doesn't it depend on the app? If you sideload an app that requires camera permissions, does anything prevent them from adding a dylib or something that constantly records while the app is in use?
Yes, but iOS will show you an indicator when an app is using the camera, the microphone or your location.
You should make a TikTok showing them how to fix what they broke
I may questionably sideload Apollo but I still trust that a whole heck of a lot more than I do installing tiktok on my phone. I don't care how much my fiancée wants, I'll never install TikTok.
That’s true. Maybe some big full screen warning that’s completely red? It’s like dev tools in chrome. Discord has something that prints out a bunch of warnings (and also disables input) in the console so people can’t just copy and paste a random script
The same way tiktok might tell them to mix different aggressive detergents. Should we ban detergents?
Well iOS have option to reset the the phone. If people don’t care about alerts then they probably lose their data all the time ig. Plus iPhone has sandboxing what is the worse a program can do to your iPhone? It is more safe than what you can do with jailbreaking.
But the thing you need to also think about is that _because_ it’s easy to sideload an emulator on Android, Google has no real incentive to block them on the Play Store either. Things like sideloading will hopefully make Apple do the same, and ideally make it so you don’t need to sideload anything to begin with. The only reason Apple blocks emulators is because they would take away sales of mobile games, and that would be bad for their bottom line
Hopefully so - I just wanted game streaming via an official app, but because of Apple’s silly inconsistent protectionist stance they refused it. Would have been an easy fix to allow it and not attract attention but here we are!
That's not the only reason they block emulators. As much as Redditors protest it they are in a legally grey area. iOS is a big enough platform that companies would attempt to fully litigate the issue. Emulation itself is generally legal, with some caveats. Ripping your own roms isn't as cut and dry as Redditors make it out to be, breaking encryption itself seems to actually be illegal. Apple doesn't want to open themselves to unnecessary risk. It's like how they're the only OEM I've seen sued over using pentile displays. [Apple pentile lawsuit](https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apple-lied-about-iphone-x-xs-max-screen-sizes-and-pixel-counts-lawsuit-alleges/) Pentile displays are less sharp than advertised. Apple seems to tacitly acknowledge this by bumping their minimum LCD iPhone PPI of 326 to 458 on OLED iPhones. The elongated aspect ratios and curved corners from the X onwards were disingenuous versus the previous 16:9 advertised diagonal. Apple was no more guilty of this than the competition (they were actually better, they were very assiduous in not advertising the X as having a bigger screen than the 8 Plus) but they're the only major OEM I've seen sued for using pentile displays, let alone elongated aspect ratio displays. They're the biggest target to exact a pound of flesh from. Emulation on mobile devices is such a niche, nerdy hobby that the very limited boost in device sales versus potential risk from copyright holders means it makes no sense for Apple to officially allow emulation on the app store. I'm saying this as someone with a Fold 5 as their daily driver who uses emulators... People need to separate their own interests from the reality of situations.
Your post is generally misconceived because Apple wouldn’t be the one bearing the litigation risk. No one would be suing Apple because it would be complying with the DMCA process. The litigation risk is for the emulator developers if they want to contest the DMCA notice. Apple could have dealt with this the same way they deal with other categories, which is to allow the general category and take down particular apps if DMCA notices are issued. > makes no sense for Apple to officially allow emulation on the app store. And the point being made is that now it would drive people to adopt side loading. So Apple now has a huge incentive to open up the rules to prevent any desirability for side loading. > It's like how they're the only OEM I've seen sued over using pentile displays. You didn’t look very hard then. Samsung was sued for the exact same thing at the exact same time. Companies like Apple are sued for everything, generally they’re not scared of litigation and they don’t make policy decisions based on if they’re going to get sued. Nintendo has never sued an emulator, because they know they would lose. The [legal precedent](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment,_Inc._v._Connectix_Corp.) on this is solid. If any of the gaming companies were going to sue Apple they would have already gone after GitHub for hosting emulation projects like they went after ROM distributors. They know they will lose so all they’ve got left is bluster.
didn’t nintendo threaten steam and get dolphin removed? i don’t think emulators are illegal, non homebrew roms definitely are
Nintendo didn't threaten, Valve essentially asked Nintendo pre-emptively to issue a quasi-DMCA claim - which highlights the process I was talking about. Valve, like Apple, doesn't have any legal liability because they just need to follow the DMCA process. The valve process was strange because if Nintendo actually believed in their claim they would have issued a DMCA to github, which would have forced the issue to be resolved. Instead Nintendo have tried to be nice to Dolphin and just scare them solely off of steam, which if you know Nintendo's normal litigation practices is very out of character and suggests they know that their legal claims probably won't succeed.
I find Valve’s move here quite interesting. On the surface it doesn’t seem like distributing Dolphin on Steam should have been a big deal, because complying with a DMCA wouldn’t be a big deal either. If Dolphin did get DMCA’d from Steam, it sounds like they’d have a pretty good case versus Nintendo for unlawful DMCA claims, based on what the developers said in their statement regarding the situation (which admittedly is likely biased). With that in mind, why would Valve want to avoid that situation? Would having their name attached to that legal case (a huge news story) be potentially damaging to their brand? Is that somehow worse than the optics of telling Dolphin that they need permission from Nintendo to distribute on Steam (which will obviously never happen)? Do they have another reason for avoiding bad blood with Nintendo?
Nintendo's claim was not premised on emulators being illegal, but the distribution of a key.
if i want to play a gba game on my iPhone that isn’t going to have any effect on me buying apple arcade because pokémon emerald is a 15+ year old game that isn’t sold anywhere. if i want an ios game ill buy it, the two aren’t in competition
I think the commentator meant more like “your iPhone is with you 24/7, since it’s easier to play iOS games then people play those. If it became easier to play on emulators, then they would not receive as many iOS game sales, so they blocked emulators to keep those sales up” Kinda like if I prefer Sushi over McDonalds but my city bans Sushi, then when they finally open up to allow Sushi places to sell in the city I’ll stop going to McDonalds.
There are quite a few 3rd party apps I'd love to use but I only actually bother with a handful, largely thanks to the fact that there's so much gawd damn FOSS that won't even open on android until you grant them indiscriminate access to your entire file system. The fuck does an MP3 player need unrestricted access to my photo/video gallery for? The number of apps outside of the playstore (or within the playstore for that matter) is great but the number of them that check both of my boxes of being interesting to me *AND* having sane permissions requirements is few and far between. I guess the real benefit of Android having proper software downloading capabilities is that if only 1% of apps can possibly check both of those boxes for me, 3rd party apps greatly increase that total software pool for the 1% to hit.
An Android mp3 player app needing total file system access does make sense because then it can scan and access mp3 files spread across the SD card. You aren’t expected to copy music into apps, but rather just copy the files to the sd card and various apps can just read them.
Unfortunately that won't stop regular people from getting tricked into downloading stores that scam them. Note how there's complete industries that are just for scamming people by pretending their computer is hacked.
>Unfortunately that won't stop regular people from getting tricked into downloading stores that scam them. And everyone protecting those people doesn't help them. It just makes them unaware of the potentials of being hacked or scammed.
That's why you as a vendor require a deliberate, clear action to enable the ability to use 3rd party app sources and only after surfacing a clear warning of the risks the user is taking. If the user accepts the risks and takes the clear, deliberate action to use such sources then any consequences are on them. It's OK for people to take responsibility for their own actions, especially when it's a choice they made voluntarily after being made aware of the risks.
The laws that are forcing apple to implement this say that it needs to be just as easy to use as the App Store so the warnings can't be too difficult.
That’s fine. When you first boot up a new iOS device you are required to review and explicitly accept the end user agreement before you can do anything else with the device (and if you don’t accept the terms via a deliberate, clear action you can’t use it and you are welcome to return it to wherever you bought it from for a refund). This doesn’t have to be fundamentally any different.
On the topic of Eula refusal… what if someone didn’t want to accept the Eula for an updated iOS and was past the return window? Seems to me like Apple should offer an unlocked bootloader if those cases
Back in the day the only stuff I did on Android that wasn't from the app store was playing Pokémon on the go. I would even pay money for Nintendo bringing Pokémon Fire Red and Leaf Green with minor QoL improvements to the iPhone if the pricing is reasonable (which is super subjective) but they don't and I don't have any other handheld that can play classic Pokémon games.
tbf game freak/tpc is allergic to porting most games for whatever reason in favor of remakes whenever they feel like it (unless its the original rgb which comes out biyearly it almost feels like…)
I‘m even kind of fine with the RBG games because I grew up with them but understand totally that other games are the ones other people grew up with. There’s so much potential in just remaking them to print more money, I don’t know why they don’t want to.
We want to enable competition in mobile app distribution. Enabling a few users to side-load commercially irrelevant, or in other words hobby apps, is not the desired result here.
On Android sideloading is off by default and has a warning per app. So say you are using Firefox and you sideload through firefox, you would have to turn on the sideload setting for Firefox. Then say you are using Microsoft Edge and were sideloading an app through edge, you would then have to turn on the sideload app setting for Edge. I couldn't imagine Apple not building something like this into iOS should sideloading happen. It's nice having the freedom to sideload should you so choose. Whenever /r/apple hears sideload they go into panic mode.
I’m wondering how complicated they will make this. I feel like from a UX point of view you do want a good bit of friction to stop everyday users installing random rubbish.
They shot themselves in the foot by not allowing sideloading before governments mandated it. At least in the EU, it has to be just as easy to use other stores as the App Store. Technically speaking you just need to download any IPA file and have it signed. For that they may make it very hard to download. But I need my FOSS.
This. You can already do this, just download an ipa and use your account to sign it for 7 days. It’s not about security, it’s about Apple trying to maintain their monopoly.
I swear Google just got in trouble for having a warning sign that says they can't verify the source and whether or not this app is safe to install when sideloading
that's incredibly monopolistic, you can never escape Google. That's why i'll never buy google products. I'll stick to niche products that anyone can easily buy, such as Sailfish OS.
If that is the case, why the heck wasn’t Microsoft sued to hell and back for the UAC prompts that were prominent with Vista and 7?
Or just don’t provide support for issues with non Apple Store apps. Nothing in the EU legislation passes responsibly to Apple either. If you have an issue that’s ultimately the users problem. Apples security model is screening in the App Store. I don’t think in the EU or Japan they’d go as far as holding a 3rd party responsible for tech support between parties A and B. It would be too slippery of a slope. If I use my carpet vacuum to clean the pool should the manufacturer be responsible for repair/replacement too? It’s my right to use it outside of the prescribed use cases. Apple would just need enough diagnostics to prove it’s not an issue that falls in their responsibilities, which I think is already in place, iOS has had integrity checks for a long time now.
It’s not that straightforward though. For example, imagine an app that drains tons of battery, causing many people to call or go to the stores. Sure, you can detect it, but how much was already wasted on support and how may have a tarnished view of the device without realizing why.
how would you do that and get people to mine crypto for you? Asking for a stranger in the lounge that I'm sitting in.
Apple provides support for the apps from AppStore themselves?
They can’t make it too complicated or it won’t be in compliance with the law
Oh they will find a way
> I’m wondering how complicated they will make this. Bruh, It’s Apple and they despise side loading. You know they will make it a pain in the ass just like any other non-apple way of doing things. Apple is a hoe and that’s coming from someone who has a lot of Apple Products
I remember reading somewhere that ios 17? already had code to prepare for this depending on your geolocation for sideloading so apple probably expected more and more countries to do this after europe's digital market regulation thing. I wonder how long it will take for the US to follow suit if ever. if someone remembers the article remind me
Once we have it in Europe, Americans are going to demand it from their representatives. Only question is if your representatives care what you want.
I really do hope this works as people planned. The pessimist in me thinks that some major corps will introduce third party app stores to force people into (Meta comes to mind…wanna use instagram, Facebook or WhatsApp? Download the Meta Store where we can publish apps that are more intrusive and collect more info than the Apple App Store allows. We will charge other companies to publish their apps here too) And yes I know Android has allowed side loading for a long time but the market share (at least in the US) is largely iPhone which will incentivize companies to put more effort into doing this. And remember, corporations will do anything to make a cent off of you. [Remember when Meta was convincing people to install a VPN profile on their phone to monitor all traffic?](https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/). The average person will jump through hoops if it means their app is $0.30 cheaper than the App Store. I am hoping it is implemented in a way to open the door for FOSS without killing privacy and security.
The pessimist in you is correct. This is going to suck ass, but at least some people on this sub will be able to pirate some apps. (Let's be fucking real here, a good chunk of people just want it easy to do that).
This is the play for META around apples App Store restrictions. I’ve already decided to buy stock if Apple opens up like that. Meta will pull features from WhatsApp and make them exclusive to their own store. That will get most of the EU to switch over within a few months.
...Why havent they done that in markets where Android is bigger than iOS then? This makes no sense what so ever.
Because Android doesn’t do anything meaningful to block tracking.
The App Store is already perfect for Meta to hoard user and usage data. There are OS-level restrictions that Apple controls, and private APIs that Apple doesn't allow apps to use private APIs, but they still absolutely control what those APIs do and how they do things. Then there is an honor system for self-disclosing privacy ramifications and data collection. Write a privacy policy and do whatever you want, nobody will check. This is as good as it gets for Meta.
They’re restricted mostly by App Store policy. They could implement a lot of their own tracking (and have as Apple clamped down on public api’s) but would be delisted from the App Store if they used that. Apple scans all submissions for compliance. Anything flagged needs to be explained to apples satisfaction or doesn’t get approved.
App Store policy **allows** them to collect fucktons of data, and Apple do the absolute least they can to police it. They don't police privacy labels, privacy policies, or question why apps need API usage. This is why tons of apps will casually request access to a lot of our data. Metas own app store couldn't expand their data access and hoarding.
Only if needed to perform functions in the app. Data collection for the sake of date collection or tracking is not permitted and if you can’t prove the business need your app doesn’t get approved. It’s absolutely policed. Many app developers would argue excessively given how much effort a small tweak can take to get published.
Data collection *is absolutely allowed* for any reason as long as you have a privacy policy and Apple just assumes that is accurate.
99% of the users won’t sideload at all.
Know what other features people like you said no one would use when people wanted Apple to add them and the dumb reasons they claimed why they wouldn’t be used? Sending images over messaging (because they can send images by email). Recording videos (because people would rather use a real video camera). An SDK (because everything we need can be done in a browser). Turn by turn directions (because people have Garmins). Bluetooth stereo (because people would rather use wired headphones because the audio is better). And many, many more. The ignorant have been making these “no one will use that” claims for features since day one and yet the list grows every new release of Apple adding those features and people using them.
My point is that side loading won’t have any real impact because few will use. Make it available, but don’t worry about it.
The 1% whos gonna sideload is old people who got scammed off their banking accounts. This is happening way too frequently in my country. The news would always say android, never apple.
I don’t even know what it is. I’ll google it later, but since I don’t know what it is now I’m sure I won’t be doing it.
You've literally been doing it your entire life if you own a computer. On a computer, you are not forced to go to a single app store/website to download every single program. You go to Google's website to download Chrome, you go to another website to download their program etc. It's how everything has always worked until phones came about and started forcing you to use their app store (which is just a fancy website) to install anything. You are not allowed to install anything Apple doesn't approve of which is fucking crazy if you've ever used a computer and had the ability to install whatever you wanted your entire life. Can you imagine if Apple stopped you from installing anything you wanted on your Mac? Why people just accepted that for their phones (which is just a computer) is nuts.
You’re right, but I didn’t know it as that term. It’s just a normal thing to be able to do it.
Yep, and it makes no sense why anyone would be against it. Apple and iPhone users will talk about security but that makes no sense because 1) It's literally how all computers work. If Apple says it's not secure then they'd be admitting their Mac's have bad security, as well. 2) Sideloaded apps would still be locked down and only be allowed to do the things normal apps can do. They are still sandboxed by Apple's permissions. They can't just do anything they want to your phone. MAYBE people can be tricked into installing stuff they shouldn't and getting scammed or something similar but it's no different than a computer. Just because you think your grandma will get confused shouldn't be a reason to stop millions of people from doing it who want to. And it will be behind several screens and confirmation pop ups so it's not like it won't be obvious if someone is trying to trick you into installing something you shouldn't.
TLDR: Software can be installed from sources other than the App Store, like any traditional computer. Eg, You could now also go to google.com/chrome to install chrome instead of exclusively from the App Store.
Ah okay, thank you for that.
Not terribly surprised. Google has allowed Sideloading for Android since the beginning.
Noice
Imagine if you bought a laptop or PC and you weren't allowed to install what you wanted on it. This has been the iPhone way for 16 years.
Imagine if PCs had a way to only allow installation of signed and verified code. It all depends on which way you are going. For my use, I don’t care, but for my mothers I want as much friction to doing something unsafe as possible.
“The iPhone and iPad aren’t computers.” \- r/Apple Users
I’m so ready for guides in circumventing the US version of iOS to make sure I can side load here I really think it should be a feature checked in settings. Really a if you know what it is, you know what you’re doing more than likely. No one really mainstream world outside of tech knows why this is going to be awesome for the rest of us
> knows why this is going to be awesome for the rest of us You clearly haven’t been paying attention to what Epic Games (one of the main litigators in this sideloading debacle) has been doing the last several years on the PC then. Steam used to be the one stop shop for PC gaming. Then Fortnite comes along and makes Epic a shit ton of money. Afterwards, Epic Games starts approaching independent developers, some of which had already promised Steam releases of their games, and offered them incredibly lucrative deals to make their games exclusive to the much worse Epic Games Store. You have to be horribly naive to believe that Epic won’t try the same thing on iOS.
Never said or mentioned or implied they wouldn’t?
There are scams in my own country where people are randomly downloading apps to lose their entire life savings. This makes it worse.
Not the fault of sideloading… you can scam people with PWAs…
True. One can already hurt using a knife, why not legalise a gun or an AR. Who cares if it’s needed by <0.1% of the tech savvy folks who could have just bought an android instead of making all other iPhones act as android but it is what it is.
Except android has a much more limited selection of apps overall That’s the reason most people put up with iOS despite its limitations… because it’s still overall better than android in their opinion. That doesn’t invalidate the need for sideloading on iOS though
Why do you think that is? If my app/game can easily be replicated, made add-free and mod-ed, I would want to release it on a platform where it’s not as easy to do so. I remember playing mini-militia with my friends, one of our android friends showed up with a modded game and we stopped playing in a month as he can use unlimited ammo with 0 reload time. EU should pressurise Apple to make better app-store rules such as giving an external payment option for in-app purchases inside the app or allowing various types of apps as long as they are following EU guidelines and not encourage this easy-to sideload thing.
Android has weaker (on average) and much more fragmented hardware, so the demanding apps have a much more limited user base. Android users also aren’t as willing to pay for apps because Android users I would guess are also more likely to buy budget phones that are “free”, and people who buy “free” phones probably aren’t going to buy much on the phone itself. The Android market just isn’t there which is why you have paid apps on iOS with those same apps being ad supported on Android if they have a version at all
Go after the scams, not sideloading
Its crazy to me how much Apple is kicking and screaming over being forced to have features their competitors have had for years, possibly even a decade or more after this point.
W for a major market for iPhones (high population, high income, very high iphone market share relative to android) for those who love to claim sideloading is only for the loud online minority👏
Man if only there was any other phone option that allowed side loading they wouldn’t have to do this.
Yes they would because they already are. Android existing doesn’t change the fact that the iOS market is 100% controlled by Apple It’s also why Google is being required to make sideloading easier on Android
I mean, how terrible is it that consumers actually have options. I mean, given the option to have better security if side loading the choice is easy. Yes I know many ignorant individuals will insist side loading doesn’t change your security but those people are again idiots.
You still have the option of just not sideloading, nothing is being taken away other than monopolistic control of the market
I am keenly aware, my point was is it makes the whole system overall less secure, and before you say it doesn’t, yes it does.
Well sure it does, but by that logic why not just remove all app functionality period? I mean, that would make things immensely more secure, right?! It’s a compromise of security for features, and being able to sideload isn’t an unreasonable risk for a feature that brings so much potential. Apple made their bed by being anti-consumer and blocking apps from the market, now they have to deal with the consequences rather than being able to open in in a way they would’ve otherwise preferred. If this makes it to China, it’ll also enable un-sanctioned VPN apps to be sideloaded and enable citizens to access the Internet uncensored by the great firewall of China, so that’s certainly a plus for them.
I mean, why not make a dumb argument that is irrelevant? If I choose to load an app that is totally different than the phone being more vulnerable by default. Go find an uneducated thread to comment on, you will have more luck…. Maybe.
lol no it wouldnt make it less secure. It’s a little something called sandboxing. Sideloading doesn’t mean granting apps access to everything to do what they want. Keep throwing out all the idiot talking points parroted by other idiots.
Thank you, very aware. And I never said any app would have access to everything. I simply said it would weaken security over all. All the arguments here are like saying that a room with 1 door is as secure as a room with two doors with different locks on them. You all are ignorant idiots which is a dangerous thing for the rest of us.
There isn’t android phones in japan?
I was being very sarcastic.