App Store

Some people want Apple to let users download sideloaded apps. These are apps that can be installed outside of the App Store, like the current situation on macOS. One counter argument is security:

“It’s not that iOS is full of holes,” he said, but that “the App Store is a natural second layer that [Apple] can filter through and decide if something would be harmful.” He agreed it wasn’t foolproof, but that it can help screen out “undesirable” apps.

My worry with sideloaded apps isn’t about the device security itself. It’s that Apple probably couldn’t control what goes on inside these apps, like SDKs that harvest our data, or developers only letting people use non-private logins like Facebook and Google. I want to use technologies like Sign In with Apple and Apple Pay, because I trust Apple with my data. To be fair, App Store apps already use trackers. As a side note, I’m linking to Apple News because of Engadget/Verizon’s new consent form when you visit the website.

A controversy over the past few days has been about an email app called Hey that was initially approved by the App Store review team, then rejected later. Phil Schiller spoke about the issue in an interview.

One way that Hey could have gone, Schiller says, is to offer a free or paid version of the app with basic email reading features on the App Store then separately offered an upgraded email service that worked with the Hey app on iOS on its own website. Schiller gives one more example: an RSS app that reads any feed, but also reads an upgraded feed that could be charged for on a separate site. In both cases, the apps would have functionality when downloaded on the store.

My opinion is that Apple could stand to reduce its cut from 30% down to 15-18%. But we definitely don’t need other proposals, like downloading apps from outside the App Store like you can on the Mac.