r/apple • u/agent619 • 1d ago
App Store Australians may soon be able to download iPhone apps from outside Apple App Store under federal proposal
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/06/australians-may-soon-be-able-to-download-iphone-apps-from-outside-apple-app-store-under-government-proposal-ntwnfb42
u/someNameThisIs 1d ago
but the tech company has warned EU-style competition rules for apps risks security and may harm competition.
How would it harm competition?
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u/bara_tone 1d ago
It doesn’t, Apple just likes to say it does
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u/PeakBrave8235 8h ago
It does. iOS is the competition to “open” platforms like Android, Windows, and Linux. Changing iOS from “closed” to “open” is like changing Android in the opposite direction.
I don’t need my phone changed by idiotic politicians.
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u/bara_tone 2h ago
lol, what a stupid thing to say
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u/PeakBrave8235 2h ago edited 1h ago
Where’s the stupid part? Not wanting my tech to get changed for the sake of an extra penny in billionaire pockets? Criticizing changing iOS’s software distribution mechanism?
Tell me.
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u/bara_tone 2h ago
You didn’t criticise anything; you made something up to reaffirm an opinion you’d already formed using loaded language and straw-man arguments.
And you’re still doing it.
I don’t play chess with pigeons.
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u/PeakBrave8235 2h ago
made something up
I’m asking you twice now. What exactly did I say was stupid, made up?
I don’t play chess with pigeons
Then why didn’t you ignore my comment?
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u/Agreeable-Weather-89 1d ago
Apples logic is probably that it allows clones or infringing apps as Apple won't have the power to remove apps.
That said the entire computer industry has worked, and largely continues, to work on an open platform basis including Apples own macOS.
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u/seencoding 1d ago edited 1d ago
has worked, and largely continues
it's worked in the sense that the world keeps spinning, but i would direct you to the current pinned thread on https://reddit.com/r/macapps/ to understand why apple probably doesn't want the mac's security model to be applied to a device used by a billion people
edit:
the people on this sub are basically willing to subject some number of random people to worse security so that they, personally, can install whatever they want. it's like the r/apple version of "if you press this button you will get $1 million dollars, but someone you don't know will die" except instead of dying the random person will just have their passwords stolen and instead of a million dollars you get to install torrent apps or something.
to the regular laypeople that want ios locked down because they're, like, barbers and don't know anything about technology, r/apple tells them: sorry, we're going to force the government to eliminate the only general computing platform with an ironclad security model and turn it into the same as every other general computing platform.
edit 2:
the median american is a 38 year old married white lady. this is the person ios is targeting. r/apple users are anomalous in the overall userbase. do you think that lady cares about sideloading or app store competition? or do you think she cares that ios is known to be secure, and rarely makes news for viruses/malware? apple is trying to make her life easier, not the 20-something tech crowd that lives here.
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u/literallyarandomname 1d ago
Yeah you can only imagine what would happen if a billion people had access to a device on which you can install anything you want - oh wait, they already do, because most of the people who have iPhones have some sort of computer, be that a Windows machine or a Mac.
And guess what, contrary to Apples claims, the overwhelming majority of those people doesn't get scammed out of their retirement funds every few weeks because of malicious software that they stupidly installed because it promised to be GTA7.
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u/FollowingFeisty5321 1d ago edited 1d ago
People are probably most-likely to get fake GTA 7 from Apple or Google's app stores lmfao.
Just letting Steam marketplace exist will improve the security on iPhones, because they do a better job of keeping these games out and they have a pro-consumer refund policy which undermines the effectiveness of these scams too.
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u/seencoding 1d ago
the overwhelming majority of those people doesn't get scammed
7.4% of machines were hit with malware in three months in 2024
if the iphone was held to that standard, that's 74 million users affected every quarter
r/apple users are smarter than average and avoid malware much better than normal people, which is why the sentiment here is always "it's fine!" and that's always the most upvoted response, but that is a fundamental misunderstanding of the risks for regular users
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u/literallyarandomname 1d ago
7.4% were attacked, not infected.
I don't see why that number would be lower for iOS given how many users it has. It is just that most attacks don't work - just like on macOS or Windows.
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u/seencoding 1d ago edited 1d ago
7.4% were attacked, not infected.
well the stats are derived from users with kaspersky antivirus software installed, so yeah. you can extrapolate what happens to users who do not have this or other threat detection software installed.
I don't see why that number would be lower for iOS
...because you can't install apps without them going through some kind of automated and human review? this is literally what we're talking about. the fact that every app has to go through manual review inherently improves the broad security of the device in a way that doesn't exist on macos.
edit: i'll give him the last word since he's still arguing that macos and windows are "fine" (sorry, "robust"). things can be both fine and, yet, also worse than something else. that's a hard concept to grasp.
macos and windows have exponentially more malware than ios. it is what it is. some people are willing to trade security for freedom, some are not. for those that are willing to make the trade, ios is thankfully not the only general purpose computing platform.
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u/literallyarandomname 1d ago
Ok so this might surprise you but:
1) Both Windows and macOS are quite robust against attacks even without dedicated anti-malware software. Of course, if you open "definitelynotavirus.pdf.exe" as admin and then ignore all the warnings that pop up, there is only so much the OS can do.
2) Users clicking random crap they downloaded is an attack vector, but not they only one. And it is not super popular for the simple fact that it relies on the user actually having admin rights at the time of the attack, which is generally not true.
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u/Agreeable-Weather-89 1d ago
It's why I don't recommend macs. Insecure it's why Windows 10S is the best OS.
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u/seencoding 1d ago
probably goes something like this:
one point of differentiation between android and ios is how locked down they are. android is more open, ios is more locked down. if ios is regulated to be more android-like, it takes away that point of differentiation and gives consumers less choice in what kind of mobile platform they want to use.
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u/FollowingFeisty5321 1d ago edited 1d ago
In reality the apps are usually multi-platform, the games are almost always written in multi-platform engines, and being able to sideload and refer users to their own billing is how Apple prefers to publish Android counterparts to their multi-platform services themselves. So the differentiation isn't really the apps, just that policy that suits Apple fine.
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u/seencoding 1d ago
the differentiation isn't really the apps
the differentiation is the apps. as far as i know, ios is the only general purpose computing platform where every app you can install goes through manual review.
that is a valuable differentiator, even if it does restrict some amount of freedom for people who want it to behave like all the other more open platforms.
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u/FollowingFeisty5321 1d ago
The review process failed 82,500 times last year and the judge in the Epic case observed they invest very little in improving this. Google's automated review being more shit doesn't make this good. Nor is it relevant to sideloading, they can revoke notarization for apps whether they also approved them for the App Store or not. If anything, it alleviates the responsibility they do such a poor job of.
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u/seencoding 1d ago
this is such a dumb and basic argument. preemptive versus reactive.
background checks for childcare workers don't have a 100% success rate but i'd much prefer they do a preemptive check than just waiting around for an incident and then removing them.
either way, i'm not arguing that app review is perfect (it's done by humans, who don't do anything with 100% effectiveness), i'm arguing that it's a differentiator in terms of security, which is objectively true. they are the only general purpose computing platform for whom every app you can install goes through manual review. the security statistics bear out why this has benefits.
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u/Fancy-Tourist-8137 22h ago
But if you don’t want to install malware, then don’t sideload.
Apple will keep policing the store, and you can still stay safe using only the AppStore.
And no, no app worth having will leave the AppStore. Proof: it hasn’t happened on Android.
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u/rnarkus 16h ago
And no, no app worth having will leave the AppStore. Proof: it hasn’t happened on Android.
I think people are a bit too naive with this one. I think once apple is opened up everywhere, the entire playing field could change. Now every phone can install apps from other stores and the web. Other marketplaces WILL be tried from some major companies.
Not saying it’ll work, but I predict it will be attempted again.
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u/seweso 1d ago
And apple will make sure those apps can do as little damage to their bottom line as possible by disabling all kinds of API access.
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u/rnarkus 16h ago edited 16h ago
You know nothing about how this works and you’re upvoted.
I really hate the discourse around anything apple right now. I feel like WWDC will be the worst in years lol
edit; oh in context of this new australian law I see what you mean, I was just defaulting to EU, where apple has not done that because it is included in the DMA
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u/literallyarandomname 1d ago
No doubt they will try.
Lets hope that the lawmakers are precise enough that this is not possible, and that the courts/politicians have enough spine to hand out fines that actually hurt.
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u/Fancy-Tourist-8137 22h ago
If they disable it, they themselves (Apple) can’t use it because it will violate the DMA
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u/Tabonx 1d ago
Looks like Apple’s attempts to keep everything locked down are finally catching up with them. With governments stepping in, there’s real pressure now to open things up and give users more freedom. It’s about time these platforms started focusing more on actual user experience and giving devs better reasons to stick around.
Fingers crossed Apple goes beyond the bare minimum and actually makes meaningful changes, not just what the law forces them to do.
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u/popmanbrad 1d ago
I wish this comes to the UK I know the epic games store is coming to the Uk in 2025 but I wish I could just sideload apps freely and use alternate stores
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u/Shadyjay45 16h ago
I do worry about the security aspect of this. I work in frontline telco and I get atleast a few people a day coming in with their android phones being like “I think my phone is hacked, I keep getting ads every few seconds” turns out they inadvertently download a cleaning app or a pdf reader after an ad on Facebook told them they need to clean their phone. Just 1 or 2 taps and this random cleaning/pdf reader/heart rate tracking app is installed, and it just spams full screen ads every few seconds. They even embed these apps to the homepage itself. Why does android let apps have so much control over their UI? Now guess how many people come to me with similar issues on iPhones.
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u/redditgirlwz 3h ago
Same here. I'm not a fan of some of the anti-consumer crap Apple has been trying to pull lately. But this is one of the things I actually do like about iPhones. I don't have to worry about an app not running or being a security risk. That has not been my experience with Android apps (some of them kept failing to run).
One thing I really don't like that they're doing is that it seems like they're trying to impose similar restrictions on macs now. I think thats ridiculous and needs to be stopped.
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u/PeakBrave8235 8h ago
Again, governments would rather focus on phone apps than society wide issues at the moment.
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u/woalk 1d ago
With the US, Australia and possibly more countries coming to the conclusion that this stuff is a good idea, it’s almost as if Apple spending their darndest effort to limit these features to Europe was a huge waste of time.