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Comment by somerandom2407 | Hacker News Reader

Just a warning to any publishers who might want to force me into an alternative app store - I will stop using your app long before I'll install another app store.

I have a reasonable amount of confidence in Apple's due diligence around vetting apps on the app store. I can't think of another major brand that I would trust on this matter.

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>I have a reasonable amount of confidence in Apple's due diligence around vetting apps on the app store. I can't think of another major brand that I would trust on this matter.

You should try submitting an app on the app store just to prove to yourself how not true this is. Even in the AI era. They do vet, but it's not as substantial as you think

Maybe I missed the news on this but I have not heard of truly malicious apps on the app store (talking bricking your phone, exfiltrating your data or something of that severity).

that's the bare minimum for OS security sandbox and is not an app store feature.

Maybe it is, but in the current age of AI-Vulnerability research I am not going to trust that there are no obscure exploits that breaks that sandbox.

There are many such instances. Here’s one that made the News earlier https://www.kucoin.com/news/flash/apple-faces-lawsuit-over-1...

There's a word for the way you think about the entity which is holding your phone hostage: Stockholm Syndrome. You seem to think that your can appease the fruit factory by defending their racket but you're mistaken, they'll just fleece you harder.

The comparison doesn't really make sense. Stockholm Syndrome is a pop-culture term that has no medical recognition and is psychologically contested

It makes sense in that someone has rightfully pointed out there’s a prison and the door might be opening soon, allowing us to leave and the response was essentially “well, it’s safe here, who else could we reasonably trust?”

How is that unlike developing an attachment to/sympathy for your captors?

> I will stop using your app long before I'll install another app store.

m'okay bye.

Seriously, what are you trying to accomplish by saying this? Do you think you or app developers have any leverage with Apple? A corp that's the size of several countries?

We need choices and alternative options.

Android is right over there ->

Or hell, anybody from AU should really spin up a tech company or build a phone

> Android is right over there

Where? Apple and Google are a cosy cartel engineered to never let you out.

You sound so helpless as if apple and google are forcing you to buy their phones. Victim much?

Google and Apple aren't, but my banks and government services are trying their best.

You are in fact literally required to purchase an Apple or Google phone to participate in an OECD economy. Your employer will require it, your government will require it. Increasingly, your banks and doctors will require it. Unless you're telling people to live off the grid? But maybe we can have something between the two extremes of living in a fucking jungle or submitting to an enforced duopoly wherein two companies control what billions of people can publish and take a 30% cut from it all? No? That too unreasonable for you?

Literally can't do banking without them. Nor park my car. Nor interact with 99% of all businesses here.

Literally have never had a banking app on any phone. I must not be banking.

Or you're in a different country from me.

You live in a country that requires a smartphone to open a bank account?

Thank god for the US government who had Huawei start HarmonyOS so that long term there will be competition in the world

I would love to know of a water resistant phone of a different operating system, anybody know of one?

Epic will still be dissatisfied. They were dissatisfied when they had their android store. It didn’t turn out like they thought. They thought they were gonna be making bank but most people did not flock to their store.

Not OP, but I get where they're coming from. I see how for some people, having a phone where the only (reasonable) path to getting an app is to have it vetted is a feature, not a bug. It's not "restricting my choices", it's "restricting what developers can do to me".

I don't have a super strong opinion here. I lean a bit more towards thinking that the current status is better than the alternative: Based on what I see in news / tech news / in general it sounds like "the price of apps"* is less of a problem in today's day and age than "app _X_ tracks every thing you do and your location, sells that data and now [elections are skewed | supermarkets implement dynamic pricing | ICE can track you], etc".

* I am aware that is more than "price of apps", I'm simplifying a bit here. I'm not a fan of Apple imposing restrictions on how you can purchase stuff.

Weird reaction. I can't think of any publishers of Android apps that have forced users onto a different app store. Even in cases where they have an APK available for direct download, there's usually still a Play Store option.

Epic Games and Fortnite comes to mind as a counter example. From 2020 up to a few months ago, it was unavailable on the Play Store.

F-Droid on android was a far better app store than Google's.

An Open Source / Free Software Only app store on iOS which only allowed reproducible builds would be so much better than the iOS app store for security.

I would trust that so much more, and I feel like anyone even marginally technically competent would too.

If Mozilla made its own app distribution platform for Firefox and Thunderbird, I'd also naturally trust that.

At this point, I do not trust apple at all. The iOS app store sells ads. If I search for my bank's name, a different bank comes up as the first result.

If you search 'Ledger Bitcoin Wallet' on the app store, someone who pays more for the ad slot can present you with a crypto stealer (which has happened in the past! the app store review didn't catch that obvious bullshit).

The app store's "due diligence" and "vetting" all went out the window as soon as they started selling the top search spot to the highest bidder.

I never understand when people make this argument. Do you just blindly install apps from the app store? Don't you know what you're downloading? Why do you rely any third party like Apple to do "due diligence" in the act of you installing software on your computer?

Because its not realistic to do actual proper due diligence for this. Take the PHP fix from yesterday, I did not read the source of what they actually fixed, nor do i have the ability to understand it. I still installed it in my org because I have trust in the system that created it.

Its similar with apple, I have the reasonable assumption that whatever I install from the app store is not going to brick my phone, steal my data or be a giant resource hog that just runs in the background.

You trusted the PHP fix from the PHP devs because you trust PHP. That's my point. You didn't wait for Apple to bless it. It's not reasonable to consider Apple to be a universal arbiter of software.

But thats my point, I trust PHP in the same way that I trust the apple cert process. For the most part implicitly and by reputation.

Because with Apple refunds are easy and scammy subscriptions are easily terminated. Do other non first party stores provide that piece of mind?

I'm sure the vast majority of app developers are very much uninterested in leaving Apple's App Store if they have any interest in capturing an audience of any size, unless they themselves are a giant corp and have a Fortnite or similar on their hands.

However, the looming threat of that being possible, and Apple not being able to block it from happening, will hopefully prevent Apple from making the App Store experience worse than it needs to be, both from the user's perspective, and the publisher's perspective.

Good news! Apple is still permitted to vet apps for security reasons, even when they are distributed on alternative app stores. So you can keep downloading apps with confidence, wherever they come from.

What if Steam launched on iOS? Especially with AI being able to decompile, it might actually more feasible in 2026 to thoroughly scan even fully compiled binaries

No kidding. Having a separate app store is the default for pc gaming.

Same, but nonetheless, having more choice for whoever cares can’t be a bad thing.

Chances of my aging parents installing an alt store and getting duped are slim to none.

> I have a reasonable amount of confidence in Apple's due diligence around vetting apps on the app store.

AppStore is filled to the brim with scam apps. See https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2026/9/9.html

Impatiently waiting for mobileconfig settings to disable all alt appstores. same reason.

And none of this changes that

You have a CHOICE now

Google/Epic?

Yeah those are at the bottom of the list of companies I would trust

Yes, now say your prayers to daddy apple that he might protect you in the night.

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