[HHad3]

I would welcome if this global legislative push would end up in a more open app ecosystem for iOS overall.

BrowserEngineKit is a thin wrapper over XPC and iOS' extension system. The system would be so much better to develop for if XPC was an open API, and JIT for isolated sub-processes was permitted without Apple's blessing.

* Messengers could have separate sub-processes for preprocessing untrusted inputs -- iMessage already does this, third-party messengers are single-process and cannot.

* Applications could isolate unstable components for better user experience and crash recovery.

* Emulators, e.g. for retro systems, would benefit from speedy emulation.

* WASM would become useful in iOS.

* Browser could use XPC without special-purpose API wrappers such as BrowserEngineKit.

But alas, all of this would make it easier to load code that runs at native speed into an iOS app after a store review happened, and as we all know that'll be the end of the world.

[yupyupyups]

>and as we all know that'll be the end of the world.

I'll enjoy seeing all the accounts on MacRumors clawing their eyes out when that happens.

It would be naive to think that Apple isn't funding sites and narratives on the internet to serve their economic interests.

One of the most outlandish one being that freedom to use your phone however you want would necessarily compromise security and privacy for everyone. It's such a bizarre and indefencible take, and yet it's repeated over and over again on those Apple-worship platforms.

[Arainach]

>freedom to use your phone however you want would necessarily compromise security and privacy for everyone.

For a large enough definition of "everyone", it would. "Everyone" has a Meta app installed. We've seen them pull evil tricks over and over to suck up data 24/7 - most recently running a local server on Android that their websites could talk to to bypass anonymization - and the moment a crack appears in the walled garden Meta will say "go install the FB/Instagram app from our app store with no privacy policy reviews" and a large enough definition of everybody will be much the worse for it.

[thewebguyd]

> One of the most outlandish one being that freedom to use your phone however you want would necessarily compromise security and privacy for everyone.

I suppose in a round-a-bout way, it could, more specifically around iMessage, which is Apple's baby in the US and a big part of their lock in effect for US users.

Right now, you can reasonably assume that using iMessage with another iPhone user that both ends are reasonably secure and private. Break open the walls of the garden and now you could say that you can't trust that the other end you are communicating with hasn't installed some random crapware or malware that's scraping their messages, or recording the screen during a facetime call, thereby compromising your own privacy by interacting with a bad devices.

In that instance, Apple is correct - but what Apple doesn't tell people is that all other forms of digital communication are open to the same risks so they aren't special.

[nuker]

> ... freedom to use your phone however you want

I want to use my phone locked down hard and apps reviewed by Apple. I sleep better with things as they are. I suspect 99% of normal users are in the same boat.

[resource_waste]

I remember when HN would literally shadowban you for suggesting they do this.

Now with 'troll farms'/'reputation management' being so ubiquitous, we'd call Apple irresponsible to not be doing this.

[fennecfoxy]

The security thing is BS anyway; Apple aren't perfect at security and having only one option can make this worse.

Google's Project Zero uncovered quite a few 0 days in Apple's "perfect" operating system. They're not magical wizard cult gods over there, they're just a buncha developers same as 'em all. And given the quality of what's been coming out of Apple _and_ Google recently sometimes I wonder if someone's dug a pit under their supposedly high bars they held in the 2010s. Even just Youtube is a disgustingly buggy app nowadays.

[didacusc]

On iOS, I can trust that pretty much everyone in my family won't download something silly that then creates a security hole in their devices. Not sure how you could guarantee that if you could load code post-review. What would be the point of the review, then? Wouldn't the App Store be littered with trojan horses in waiting?

[Angostura]

You know what I got my parents an iPhone? To avoid having to worry about stuff.

Now I have to worry about the inevitable phone call from ‘Apple Technical Support

[loa_in_]

Freedom to use your phone however you like would make bug tracking on Apple's side more complicated and therefore more expensive and therefore it damages their profit bottom line. They would happily freeze development altogether if it was a feasible option.

[sneak]

This also shifts a tremendous amount of the burden for preventing system-level malware onto the app sandbox, which today is only one component of a multi-layered defense-in-depth system of notarization, entitlements, app review, etc.

To be clear I support letting people run whatever apps they want, but let’s not pretend that this won’t make the median iPhone more prone to have a malware infection (like Android). There are reasons other than anticompetitive greed that Apple does things this way (although I am sure greed is the primary motivator).

[mathiaspoint]

Apple doesn't instrument apps when they review them. That burden is already there, they've just convinced you otherwise.

[prmph]

The browser itself is some kind of app store, and we run app from it all the time without Apple's review. Given this, I'm not sure why Apple and its fanboys make so much of this supposed security of the AppStore

[skeezyboy]

thank fuck i dont have to deal with that shit

[devinprater]

Not only speedy emulation, but more efficient too, since it doesn't have to struggle so much through interpretation. That would help battery life and keep phones from heating up just playing a game from 2008.