gatorguy

davidw said:

blastdoor said:

beowulfschmidt said:

Soon to be: India will pass a law making it a crime to report on such hacks.  Apple will, of course, comply with all local laws and regulations.

Exactly. Apple is doing the right thing here because they can. As bad as the Indian government is (and it’s very bad), India is still more free and democratic than China. 

Apple really needs to figure out how to manufacture products in more democratic countries. 

About the only product Apple manufacture is the Mac Pro. Which they manufacture in TX. 

Something about the manufacturing changed for the current Mac Pro, which is now marked "Product of Thailand" for the 2023 models. In small print it does say "Final Assembly in the USA". (It used to be worded "Assembled in the USA")
Could just be a technicality, or something more.

tmay said:

Presumably, there is data available to the effect of how many Android OS smartphone consumers actually side load apps, and how frequently, but I surely haven't been able to find it via Google Search.

IMHO, consumers aren't going to be all that interested in side loading, but sure, alternate apps stores want a piece of the action. 

https://www.news18.com/tech/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-warns-people-about-sideloading-apps-on-android-8663804.html

Risk vs reward seems pretty high for side loading, vs App or Play Store.

Regarding sideloaded apps, it's been a couple of years since I've seen it reported, but this is from one of my old saved links:

"Wandera reports that 5.8% of iOS and 1.1% of Android devices had at least one sideloaded app. For iOS, that’s up from the 3.4% of devices in 2018 that had at least one sideloaded app, with this growth potentially due to the increased presence of BYOD deployments. Meanwhile, the percentage of Android apps having at least one sideloaded app is very low and at odds with Zimperium's data which says 48% of Android devices were found to have at least one, compared to 3% of iOS devices. Quite a difference from Wandera’s data, with Zimperium noting that for their customers, “users are the admins of mobile endpoints,” where they have the ability to download apps themselves without requiring an admin’s permission."

So I suppose it depends on where your device is managed, and how it's used, whether the owner has any side-loaded apps.

So what to do about those who stray outside the official first-party stores? Should they be left to fend for themselves as punishment for going against the company's wishes?

While it's probably not widely known here at AI, Google has long had safety protections built into Google Android which help guard all users whether they sideloaded an app from a 3rd party or got it from official Google Play. Over the past few weeks, that protection mechanism has been upgraded with more capabilities.
 https://security.googleblog.com/2023/10/enhanced-google-play-protect-real-time.html

I don't know of any reason Apple could not do the same with iOS. Of course, Google doesn't include Chinese users since the company's OS is nonexistent there. I don't think Apple would have that same issue, being omnipresent in their marketplace, but perhaps there is some subtle code/OS difference between iOS in China and iOS for the rest of the world. 

As I'm reading through it, Apple may delay adding it until sometime late spring/early summer 2024, which pushes back Google's complementary version as well.

FWIW, Google began the rollout months ago, with millions of people already using it, but promising not to activate the cross-platform tracker detection portion until Apple was ready to do the same.  Protect Apple users as well. Kudos.

That also means the Bluetooth trackers developed in multiple form factors, some cross-platform and waiting to hit the market since mid-year to compete with Airtag tracking, still won't be permitted either.  PR-value and Profit!

I would like to be wrong.

Breaking.... Beeper isn't going to continue fighting Apple's blockade

https://blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-moving-forward

auxio said:

Really makes me wonder who's funding them. To generate this kind of media hype and political interest in something so insignificant reeks of well-connected investors.

It could be a grass-roots effort.
https://www.reddit.com/r/beeper/comments/18fx8su/email_your_senator_to_voice_your_concern_about/