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Comment by theshrike79 | Hacker News Reader

A single human is smart, people are stupid.

They’ll install ANYTHING, no matter how hard it is and how shady the site is. They can’t help themselves.

Then their phone is rooted by a bad actor and spreading malware. Who do they blame? Themselves? The shady site? The creator of the trojan?

Nope. Apple. They’ll shout from the rooftops how Apple ruined their life and business and remand restitution.

The easiest and most reliable way to prevent this is to lock people in a walled garden and make sure they don’t poke themselves with anything sharp. Yes, it sucks for the smart ones who know that shart things hurt, but that’s the way it’s gotta be.

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So what I am hearing is that if I were to put a warning label and process around something that is potentially dangerous, it is no longer enough of a disclaimer for some arbitrary reason.

How is the process for enabling side-loading on Android unsuitable for consumers of Apple products? It is off by default. I don't think anyone is advocating for allowing iOS users the ability to run arbitrary executable images found in Safari without going through some process first.

People can “sideload” on mac os x and nobody is making a scene about their mistakes of mac os x being insecure.

Different market, different historical reasons, and typically a much smaller user base for MacOS than the iPhone.

Also, “sideloaded” apps on MacOS are most certainly suspect in Apple’s eyes, so much so they put opt-in requirements around them. While I do see that as an argument for allowing iPhone sideloading with similar opt-in requirements, you can at least understand the market is considerably different for iPhone users than for Mac users, even if there is an overlap between the two.

iPhones also, from a support perspective, are an order of magnitude (or close to it) greater than that of MacOS. Seems reasonable to me for them to keep their appliance locked down in this way.

A walled garden doesn't stop the fact that iOS exploits are cheaper than Android exploits because there are an abundance of iOS exploits, and many of them use Safari to gain root by visiting a website.

That's hyperbole. People can sideload Android apps for a decade now and I have yet to see someone complain that sideloading did something bad let alone blame the OS for it.

That is such a rare case that I have a hard time trying to justify the loss of freedom.

There are dozens of Android manufacturers. If an Android phone breaks, people complain about the manufacturer or maybe the telco they bought the phone from.

Apple is a singular target, unlike anything in the Android ecosystem.

That sounds plausible but I've never seen it happen. Maybe you could provide some examples to back up your claim?

Yeah that's my point. Never seen it happen. Surely can't be enough to justify the loss of freedom.

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