I can't believe that I am actually defending Apple products from Apple fans on an Apple site but here we are. But if you are going to get upset over stuff like this: well Windows and ChromeOS beckon. You can run all the Android apps you want on a Chromebook or Chromebox, and with BlueStacks and its competitors running Android apps on Windows is easy too.
This, Also..
I have been an Apple user for a while now (my first Apple product was an Apple //c). And let me tell you, Apple has NEVER been big on having an open platform. The Apple //c had almost zero internal upgrade options. The first Mac was not really upgradeable, used proprietary screws, and could probably kill you if you don't know CRT safety. Apple has been working for decades to keep people from running their software on something other than the specified Hardware/Platform (See 5 Clones The updates to stop Hackintosh and Jailbraking, etc.). I tried making a Hackintosh once and stopped because the whole point of a Mac and macOS is the ease of use and benefits of a tightly integrated design. When I jailbroke my first iPhone it became an unstable mess. I have a PC I built for gaming, and I have VMs to run various versions of Linux, Android for x86, and other OSes so I can get my micro managing fix.
The point I'm trying to make is...just stop, stop it please. Stop trying to make Apple products into something they never were intended to be. Stop complaining about trying to run software that isn't optimized and will give you a crappy user experience. The "features" you keep thinking you want would destroy the current experience you have and make it as buggy, and as cumbersome to use as Android/Windows. Apple is doing quite well financially without these "features" you are asking for. Which means you are either a very small portion of the user base, or you don't take advantage of the option to use Apple's own official feedback channels. If there truly is a massive segment of the Mac user base that wants theses so called "features", and they actually took the time and provided that feedback, Apple might take it into consideration. Keep in mind that they aren't obligated to make those changes (especially if it violates existing distribution and licensing deals). When you buy a Mac or an app you are buying a license for the use of the software, not the exclusive rights to do whatever the heck you want with the software and it's source code, that has never been the case with software licensing (unless its open source). If that's unacceptable, then there are other platforms.
I don't understand the surprise and outrage over something that has been Apple's MO for decades. Don't act like you have been violated when Apple makes a change to something that clearly was never intended to be a "feature" in the first place.
If an M1 Mac can’t run iPad apps, but an iPad can run iPhone apps, that’s Apple being capricious.
Apple didn’t promise the ability to side-load apps, they specifically said Mac App Store would allow for apps developer didn’t opt-out of... so I’m so confused by the comments saying that loading apps was the reason you bought it.
Like it was stumbled upon by some developers, and Apple patched the edge case... because I’m sure they wanted to get the OS as rock solid as possible. Yes, it still has bugs, but if you’re running only Apple Silicon ready apps (not Rosetta), then you should be fine... you’re an early adopter, and things are going to happen...
And preventing people from side loading "your" (their, if they paid you something for it) [...].
We have a bad habit of thinking when we buy something, we own it. For apps, music, movies, TV shows, and most media, you’re not buying and owning it. You’re buying the *right to use* the media.
That agreement that pops up when you turn on any Apple device and everyone clicks Agree to without reading. It spells it out pretty clear. You’re getting licenses to use, not actual ownership to anything.
Different thoughts on this. You can still load iOS apps on Apple Silicon Macs from the App Store.
What is blocked is side loading of iOS apps developers didn’t intend to be used on Macs. These apps were developed for touch access and other iOS based UI features. In order to get these apps to run on the Mac, you had to do weird steps just to get it to run. The apps were just weird to run on the Mac, had sound issues, or just plain didn’t run at all. Then to update these apps, you had to repeat the steps you did originally to get them to run.
It is disappointing that more developers don’t allow the apps to be available on the App Store for Macs to run them. However I can understand that developers may not want people to complain about the problems these apps do have running on the Macs.
Why is it for Apple to decide whether users want or don't want to have the hassle of running an unsupported app? There might be old, now undeveloped Intel apps that don't work well on ASi, but do still run with some tweaks, should Apple block anyone running those because they don't meet Apple's definition of how the ASi Mac should be used? How long until Apple blocks access to the CLI and the filesystem as a whole (it's already halfway there), because they want more control over their users? I spend a good proportion of my time fighting my way around Apple's overzealous restrictions. Tight security might be fine for my granddad, but as a power user, I am quite aware of what may be malware and what isn't, and I don't need Apple telling me what I can and can't do with my own machine.
Really Apple. When you buy a laptop you should be able to load whatever you want on it.
Er … not if the app’s developer doesn’t want you to.
Now if someone who has never read a software license agreement would jump in and say something dumb like “I bought the software; I can run it where I like” then we can wrap this up and all get an early night.
Please do show where in the SLA the clause that stipulates that IPAs can only be run on iOS? Because Apple decided without developer authorisation that iPhone apps should run on iPad OS. That's ok I suppose since it's Apple making up the rules to suit themselves?
We have a bad habit of thinking when we buy something, we own it. For apps, music, movies, TV shows, and most media, you’re not buying and owning it. You’re buying the *right to use* the media.
That agreement that pops up when you turn on any Apple device and everyone clicks Agree to without reading. It spells it out pretty clear. You’re getting licenses to use, not actual ownership to anything.
Would you feel the same way if you bought an Apple car and Apple starts stipulating that you can only drive it on the roads they have preapproved? No? Same thing here. As well as EULAs being essentially unenforceable in many courts, it has been tested before with Pystar. Pystar were profiting out of violations of the EULA, whereas people sideloading apps aren't. Apple eventually went after Pystar for trademark infringement more so than violation of the EULA.
Following up on my earlier post now that I might understand the issue better. I don’t care about running iOS apps on my Macs. Okay, if they work, it could be an extra option. But Mac OS should be separate from IOS and apps made specifically for Mac OS and the larger screens that people use compared to iOS. or am I wait off base and behind the times with that view?
Sorry -- but as I have been saying, the primary benefit of an M1 in a Mac is not its performance but how that Mac will be integrated into Apple's ecosystem.
Part of that ecosystem is the walled garden that protects BOTH users and developers and this is one of the steps in the process to integrate Macs into that ecosystem. While there will be considerable benefit to all from that integration there will also be trade-offs. But some will only want the benefits without the trade-offs and some just want to be able to do anything they want -- and both of those camps will be howling at the moon.
Following up on my earlier post now that I might understand the issue better. I don’t care about running iOS apps on my Macs. Okay, if they work, it could be an extra option. But Mac OS should be separate from IOS and apps made specifically for Mac OS and the larger screens that people use compared to iOS. or am I wait off base and behind the times with that view?
We are probably oldies in terms of how we see things but some interesting concepts are coming to the fore.
I've mentioned HarmonyOS a couple of times in this regard in other threads because it's real and being actively developed.
A system that takes advantage of a virtualised distributed bus. Devices can make their hardware available to other devices through the system and applications can run on different devices at the same time.
It blurs the lines between what we consider a 'siloed' system setup where each device (computer, tablet, phone...) has its own OS and apps that can communicate with each other.
In the demo I saw for an online teaching application, the same application was running on a phone and a TV at the same time and through one OS. The TV was being used as the big screen for board display and the phone was used as a writing device.
The app itself was developed for different GUI environments when it was created.
It's still early days but it's one road that can be taken and is actually real, not just a concept.
Different thoughts on this. You can still load iOS apps on Apple Silicon Macs from the App Store.
What is blocked is side loading of iOS apps developers didn’t intend to be used on Macs. These apps were developed for touch access and other iOS based UI features. In order to get these apps to run on the Mac, you had to do weird steps just to get it to run. The apps were just weird to run on the Mac, had sound issues, or just plain didn’t run at all. Then to update these apps, you had to repeat the steps you did originally to get them to run.
It is disappointing that more developers don’t allow the apps to be available on the App Store for Macs to run them. However I can understand that developers may not want people to complain about the problems these apps do have running on the Macs.
Why is it for Apple to decide whether users want or don't want to have the hassle of running an unsupported app? There might be old, now undeveloped Intel apps that don't work well on ASi, but do still run with some tweaks, should Apple block anyone running those because they don't meet Apple's definition of how the ASi Mac should be used? How long until Apple blocks access to the CLI and the filesystem as a whole (it's already halfway there), because they want more control over their users? I spend a good proportion of my time fighting my way around Apple's overzealous restrictions. Tight security might be fine for my granddad, but as a power user, I am quite aware of what may be malware and what isn't, and I don't need Apple telling me what I can and can't do with my own machine.
It is likely that developers are complaining. Running of apps on the Apple Silicon Macs does meet apple definition of how the Mac should be used. Some people ignore that these apps are buggy and not intended to run on these new Macs. The problem is simply these people will complain, write negative reviews or negative posts about how these apps are buggy or not like real Mac apps. Either the developer doesn’t want to deal with it or is working on something better. Side loading of iOS apps was never a benefit. Side loading of apps is a work around. If Apple wanted side loading of apps, then it would be easy to do.
We have a bad habit of thinking when we buy something, we own it. For apps, music, movies, TV shows, and most media, you’re not buying and owning it. You’re buying the *right to use* the media.
That agreement that pops up when you turn on any Apple device and everyone clicks Agree to without reading. It spells it out pretty clear. You’re getting licenses to use, not actual ownership to anything.
Would you feel the same way if you bought an Apple car and Apple starts stipulating that you can only drive it on the roads they have preapproved? No? Same thing here. As well as EULAs being essentially unenforceable in many courts, it has been tested before with Pystar. Pystar were profiting out of violations of the EULA, whereas people sideloading apps aren't. Apple eventually went after Pystar for trademark infringement more so than violation of the EULA.
Nice spin on history.
Psystar was in violation of the EULA, but it was also got busted for selling a physical product, with Apple's proprietary OS. Psystar's argument was that it was "legally" purchasing the MacOS (OS X) CD, therefore it felt it could do whatever they wanted with it.
To my knowledge, Apple has not had any part of their EULA (yet) thrown out in any court. Apple has an entire army of lawyers to make sure every "I" is dotted and every "T" crossed to make sure it's iron clad.
Licensing digital media has been around for ages, and this is no different. Except in this case, I as a developer should decide what gets to run on iOS, iPadOS, or now MacOS. Not you the end-user.
And that Apple-car analogy? Give it a rest. That dead horse was beaten long ago.
I can't believe that I am actually defending Apple products from Apple fans on an Apple site but here we are. But if you are going to get upset over stuff like this: well Windows and ChromeOS beckon. You can run all the Android apps you want on a Chromebook or Chromebox, and with BlueStacks and its competitors running Android apps on Windows is easy too.
This, Also..
I have been an Apple user for a while now (my first Apple product was an Apple //c). And let me tell you, Apple has NEVER been big on having an open platform. The Apple //c had almost zero internal upgrade options. The first Mac was not really upgradeable, used proprietary screws, and could probably kill you if you don't know CRT safety. Apple has been working for decades to keep people from running their software on something other than the specified Hardware/Platform (See 5 Clones The updates to stop Hackintosh and Jailbraking, etc.). I tried making a Hackintosh once and stopped because the whole point of a Mac and macOS is the ease of use and benefits of a tightly integrated design. When I jailbroke my first iPhone it became an unstable mess. I have a PC I built for gaming, and I have VMs to run various versions of Linux, Android for x86, and other OSes so I can get my micro managing fix.
The point I'm trying to make is...just stop, stop it please. Stop trying to make Apple products into something they never were intended to be. Stop complaining about trying to run software that isn't optimized and will give you a crappy user experience. The "features" you keep thinking you want would destroy the current experience you have and make it as buggy, and as cumbersome to use as Android/Windows. Apple is doing quite well financially without these "features" you are asking for. Which means you are either a very small portion of the user base, or you don't take advantage of the option to use Apple's own official feedback channels. If there truly is a massive segment of the Mac user base that wants theses so called "features", and they actually took the time and provided that feedback, Apple might take it into consideration. Keep in mind that they aren't obligated to make those changes (especially if it violates existing distribution and licensing deals). When you buy a Mac or an app you are buying a license for the use of the software, not the exclusive rights to do whatever the heck you want with the software and it's source code, that has never been the case with software licensing (unless its open source). If that's unacceptable, then there are other platforms.
I don't understand the surprise and outrage over something that has been Apple's MO for decades. Don't act like you have been violated when Apple makes a change to something that clearly was never intended to be a "feature" in the first place.
Thank you. With one small caveat: ChromeOS isn't buggy/cumbersome at all. Quite the contrary in fact. Well to clarify: ChromeOS as originally intended is an excellent experience in terms of ease, intuitiveness, stability and security. By "as originally intended" I mean so long as you primarily limit yourself to how the platform was originally designed: as a browser/PWA-based one to exploit SaaS, IaaS and PaaS products. You introduce the buggy/cumbersome stuff by extending it to add Android apps and ESPECIALLY by adding Linux (though TBF the Linux part is still in beta and even there if you are command line fluent that removes many of the Linux issues also). While Android is Google's most successful product - by a mile - ChromeOS is clearly their best one. ChromeOS went from basically nothing outside cheap standardized testing machines for cash-strapped schools to basically wiping out Windows at the low end in a little over 5 years for a reason. Had Google doubled down on ARM and promoted LTE and 5G for the platform - a cloud platform with optional Android and Linux capability running mostly on 2-in-1 form factors for maximum connectivity and mobility - instead of deciding to sidle up next to Intel to badly emulate Windows and macOS it would have grown even faster, though granted the Oracle lawsuit is why they chose that route.
Really Apple. When you buy a laptop you should be able to load whatever you want on it.
As a developer, I don’t want people to install my product on devices for which I did not license it to. Those apps were developed and licensed by developers for use on specific platforms. This is a valid scenario which Apple is right in blocking it. If you want something just get the right product for the device.
Interestingly, Cory Doctorow has this piece he wrote about the act of "copying" and how that's what a computer does. This prevention of loading on the Mac is a violation of sorts. It goes back to Apple's question around the iPad, "what is a computer?" - evidently, not a Mac, anymore.
As a developer, your greatest problem isn't piracy, it's obscurity. Only when you solve obscurity, do you even have to worry about piracy. And preventing people from side loading "your" (their, if they paid you something for it) - app on their computer contributes to your obscurity. Good going.
Yeah, I call bullshit on that. It doesn't matter how YOU feel about it. It's completely up to the developer, REGARDLESS of their reasoning, as it should be. Would I prefer the developer to allow it! Of course! Why wouldn't I? But I'm not ENTITLED to it, and neither is anyone else. Apple told developers they would have a choice. That choice was taken away when this loophole was discovered. It is Apple's responsibility to plug that and stick to what was originally promised; to allow developers to determine if they want their iOS app to run under macOS.
This seems like a lot going on lately with the new chip and the new Big Sur OS... I will have to research further what all this “side loading” lingo is. But clearly, I’m a bit concerned end users are losing some freedoms on what they can install after reading this. maybe I’m wrong and somebody can speak clearly on the issue as I find the article may be important but could be hard to understand, especially for casual Mac users who don’t care how it works, but just that it works. Still running Catalina that works great and starting to have second thoughts on upgrading, although I don’t have M chip Mac.
No. There's NO reason to worry. This has NOTHING to do with installing whatever software you want and the people who claim it is don't know what they're talking about. This is not about "side loading" in general. That is still allowed and always will be. You can download and install Mac applications from anywhere.
This side loading of apps was never something Apple even alluded to being an option. They have always said they would leave it up to the developer to decide if they wanted to make their iOS app available on macOS. The discovery of being able to side load an iOS is a loophole. Just as being able to jailbreak an iOS device is. Apple is constantly plugging those holes as well.
If you want to download and run an iOS app on macOS, it should be left to the developer decide and it should be done from the App Store as Apple originally explained.
So I get why people are annoyed by this, but it seems that this is just Apple respecting the developers’ wishes. You can load anything you want onto your computer, but not apps from the iOS App Store unless developer allows it. I’m not sure why that is such a crime.
I guess I am just an old school developer who things that people who buy something should be able to use it however and wherever they want be it a phone or an app.
No reason for me to buy a new Mac now. Apple you’re stupid doing this! Keeping my 2013 MBP then.
That doesn't even make sense. Your 2013 MBP can't run *any* iOS apps in any way. What precise scenario, what functionality, is this keeping from you? Nothing.
I guess I am just an old school developer who things that people who buy something should be able to use it however and wherever they want be it a phone or an app.
If you like open architecture - and regular screwdrivers -- you should probably stick to Windows and Android.
Different thoughts on this. You can still load iOS apps on Apple Silicon Macs from the App Store.
What is blocked is side loading of iOS apps developers didn’t intend to be used on Macs. These apps were developed for touch access and other iOS based UI features. In order to get these apps to run on the Mac, you had to do weird steps just to get it to run. The apps were just weird to run on the Mac, had sound issues, or just plain didn’t run at all. Then to update these apps, you had to repeat the steps you did originally to get them to run.
It is disappointing that more developers don’t allow the apps to be available on the App Store for Macs to run them. However I can understand that developers may not want people to complain about the problems these apps do have running on the Macs.
Why is it for Apple to decide whether users want or don't want to have the hassle of running an unsupported app? There might be old, now undeveloped Intel apps that don't work well on ASi, but do still run with some tweaks, should Apple block anyone running those because they don't meet Apple's definition of how the ASi Mac should be used? How long until Apple blocks access to the CLI and the filesystem as a whole (it's already halfway there), because they want more control over their users? I spend a good proportion of my time fighting my way around Apple's overzealous restrictions. Tight security might be fine for my granddad, but as a power user, I am quite aware of what may be malware and what isn't, and I don't need Apple telling me what I can and can't do with my own machine.
Whether an iOS/iPad app is available for a Mac is up to the developer - their app & their code. Don't blame Apple for this.
I guess I am just an old school developer who things that people who buy something should be able to use it however and wherever they want be it a phone or an app.
So, if hypothetically, there were a Windows app similar to Rosetta that allowed your macOS app to be run on a Windows box, you'd be OK with that? If I was a Dev, I wouldn't be.
Whether an iOS/iPad app is available for a Mac is up to the developer - their app & their code. Don't blame Apple for this.
And don't blame the developers for this. They haven't committed any crime. They design an app for a platform/OS as they choose. That's hardly a cause for blame.
Comments
I have been an Apple user for a while now (my first Apple product was an Apple //c). And let me tell you, Apple has NEVER been big on having an open platform. The Apple //c had almost zero internal upgrade options. The first Mac was not really upgradeable, used proprietary screws, and could probably kill you if you don't know CRT safety. Apple has been working for decades to keep people from running their software on something other than the specified Hardware/Platform (See 5 Clones The updates to stop Hackintosh and Jailbraking, etc.). I tried making a Hackintosh once and stopped because the whole point of a Mac and macOS is the ease of use and benefits of a tightly integrated design. When I jailbroke my first iPhone it became an unstable mess. I have a PC I built for gaming, and I have VMs to run various versions of Linux, Android for x86, and other OSes so I can get my micro managing fix.
The point I'm trying to make is...just stop, stop it please. Stop trying to make Apple products into something they never were intended to be. Stop complaining about trying to run software that isn't optimized and will give you a crappy user experience. The "features" you keep thinking you want would destroy the current experience you have and make it as buggy, and as cumbersome to use as Android/Windows. Apple is doing quite well financially without these "features" you are asking for. Which means you are either a very small portion of the user base, or you don't take advantage of the option to use Apple's own official feedback channels. If there truly is a massive segment of the Mac user base that wants theses so called "features", and they actually took the time and provided that feedback, Apple might take it into consideration. Keep in mind that they aren't obligated to make those changes (especially if it violates existing distribution and licensing deals). When you buy a Mac or an app you are buying a license for the use of the software, not the exclusive rights to do whatever the heck you want with the software and it's source code, that has never been the case with software licensing (unless its open source). If that's unacceptable, then there are other platforms.
I don't understand the surprise and outrage over something that has been Apple's MO for decades. Don't act like you have been violated when Apple makes a change to something that clearly was never intended to be a "feature" in the first place.
We have a bad habit of thinking when we buy something, we own it. For apps, music, movies, TV shows, and most media, you’re not buying and owning it. You’re buying the *right to use* the media.
Please do show where in the SLA the clause that stipulates that IPAs can only be run on iOS? Because Apple decided without developer authorisation that iPhone apps should run on iPad OS. That's ok I suppose since it's Apple making up the rules to suit themselves?
I've mentioned HarmonyOS a couple of times in this regard in other threads because it's real and being actively developed.
A system that takes advantage of a virtualised distributed bus. Devices can make their hardware available to other devices through the system and applications can run on different devices at the same time.
It blurs the lines between what we consider a 'siloed' system setup where each device (computer, tablet, phone...) has its own OS and apps that can communicate with each other.
In the demo I saw for an online teaching application, the same application was running on a phone and a TV at the same time and through one OS. The TV was being used as the big screen for board display and the phone was used as a writing device.
The app itself was developed for different GUI environments when it was created.
It's still early days but it's one road that can be taken and is actually real, not just a concept.
Yeah, I call bullshit on that. It doesn't matter how YOU feel about it. It's completely up to the developer, REGARDLESS of their reasoning, as it should be. Would I prefer the developer to allow it! Of course! Why wouldn't I? But I'm not ENTITLED to it, and neither is anyone else. Apple told developers they would have a choice. That choice was taken away when this loophole was discovered. It is Apple's responsibility to plug that and stick to what was originally promised; to allow developers to determine if they want their iOS app to run under macOS.
No. There's NO reason to worry. This has NOTHING to do with installing whatever software you want and the people who claim it is don't know what they're talking about. This is not about "side loading" in general. That is still allowed and always will be. You can download and install Mac applications from anywhere.
This side loading of apps was never something Apple even alluded to being an option. They have always said they would leave it up to the developer to decide if they wanted to make their iOS app available on macOS. The discovery of being able to side load an iOS is a loophole. Just as being able to jailbreak an iOS device is. Apple is constantly plugging those holes as well.
If you want to download and run an iOS app on macOS, it should be left to the developer decide and it should be done from the App Store as Apple originally explained.
If you like open architecture - and regular screwdrivers -- you should probably stick to Windows and Android.
1. M1 Mac can run iOS apps by default unless developer explicitly disallows it.
2. Developer explicitly disallows it.
3. Backdoor is found to install app that developer explicitly disallowed.
4. Apple closes backdoor to honor developer's explicit request to not have their iOS app run on M15. Internet: Fake rage and nonsensical soapboxing
6. Another workaround is found - go back to step 4.
And don't blame the developers for this. They haven't committed any crime. They design an app for a platform/OS as they choose. That's hardly a cause for blame.