Is it that you love that they don't give you the choice of restricting or not restricting installs? Or simply appreciate that app vetting and security are services you're willing to pay for. It seems more like the latter, but you're expressing more like the former.
I can see the value in the vetting service to a lot of people, but I just don't understand the idea of embracing a forced restriction on other people that you happen to like yourself.
> I can see the value in the vetting service to a lot of people, but I just don't understand the idea of embracing a forced restriction on other people that you happen to like yourself.
Here are some benefits to the one-size-fits-all policy Apple uses:
* Developers are forced to comply with Apple's rules. Otherwise companies could develop shitty apps that use private APIs to work around Apple's restrictions and then force customers to open up their devices to use it.
* Apple and every 3rd-party support person/company/family member in the world isn't forced to deal with a steady stream of "Somebody told me to change this setting and now my phone has a virus" support requests.
* People aren't misled (more than they already are) about the safety of the iOS ecosystem by a steady stream of news stories about people who changed the setting and got their phone infected.
> * Developers are forced to comply with Apple's rules. Otherwise companies could develop shitty apps that use private APIs to work around Apple's restrictions and then force customers to open up their devices to use it.
This. Apple consistently chooses to make workaround options complex for the purposes of discouraging this sort of activity.
See:
* Deprecated APIs are actually obsoleted and removed; your app won't run in the new OS version and that means people buying hardware can't run your app.
* Right click has long been a hardware feature but off by default, so that apps wouldn't build in non-standard mouse 'gestures'.
* New ITP anti-tracking features in Safari have no off switch The solution to cookie issues is to change how your app works (such that you don't use hidden cross-domain redirects/frames)
* Side loading apps onto iOS devices is not possible without a business profile or the end user having a development environment - and misused business profiles are revoked.
* The option to turn off app signatures has been removed from the UI (not always the case - Minecraft for instance used to tell users to turn app signature verification off globally to work around their lack of app signing).
* Android has a list of permissions you must grant apps in order to install them. iOS on the other hand requires the application to prompt for individual permissions (location information, microphone access, etc), requires a description of why they want that permission, and per App Store guidelines must run with (reduced) functionality should the user say no.
You have a strange interpretation of that list. Additional privacy in web views, selective privacy controls for app permissions, how exactly are those developer enhancements and not user benefits?
Apple and people who buy into the apple ecosystem believe that it's actually better, and not that it's simply what they personally prefer.
Forcing a perceived "best path" means that the path is going to be the easiest / only way for everyone to follow, and therefore can receive the most attention / most bug fixes / most thought from executives & developers / etc.
Now of course, some people will still disagree about whether that was indeed the best path, and whether it should've been forced. These people strangely never seem to become Apple executives. :)
I'm fine with the restriction, given that the App store needs to vet all the apps coming through. I have never felt there wasn't an app for what I was looking for.
I can see the value in the vetting service to a lot of people, but I just don't understand the idea of embracing a forced restriction on other people that you happen to like yourself.