ranson

Hedware said:

Somehow everybody gets asked except for consumers. As a owner of Apple products,  I do not want my privacy and security compromised because some lazy developers want to have open skies. They should attempt to build some decent apps. 

I fail to understand how this compromises YOUR security. It's very simple. If YOU don't want to use a third party store or sideloading to have access to an app, then YOU don't have to. See, no security problem for YOU. But others, who want to put software on their phone that Apple has declined to list in their App Store, should have that opportunity, given it is their device that they own.  None of that compromises YOUR security in any way.

I hear the argument that "well, there are apps that will move to their own stores instead of Apple's, and then we can't trust the app maker to not do nefarious things."  Fine, then don't install the app. If you can't trust their product because it's not in Apple's Store, then frankly, you can't trust the app at all and should not use it. Note that numerous scam apps are in the Apple Store already (see this AI article from just this morning), and popular apps like Tik Tok and Facebook actively track you in spite of the tracking transparency options. So again, if you think you wouldn't be able to trust them outside of the Apple store, those apps being in the Apple store is really no different. It's a completely false sense of security.

So nobody's security is unwillingly compromised here. We are adults, and we can make informed decisions about what apps to install, even when it runs counter to Apple's opinion. This harms no one except those who choose to go down that road and make bad choices.

KTR said:

This is like building a Mac clone.  Apple legal shut them down.  But we see

I doubt Apple could shut this down. Since the APK can be sideloaded onto Android, it could continue to be distributed outside of the Play store. If their app is perfectly mimicking the API client of iMessage on an older iOS version like 13 or 14, it would be very difficult for Apple to distinguish between the unauthorized client and a geniune iDevice and extremely difficult to block, since they no longer update those OSes.

genovelle said:

Considering the keys to Apple’s iMessage encryption lives on the device in the Secure Enclave I’m curious how this would work. Unless it intercepts text messages that have too much data and makes them more accessible and iMessage like. 

Most (if not all modern) Android devices include a secure enclave as well. When the user signs in to iMessage for the first time on the device by authenticating with their iCloud credentials, that is when the client generates the encryption keys, stores the private key in the secure enclave, and registers the public key with the iMessage server.  So long as they have fully rerverse-enginered the API protocol from sign-in to sending/receiving messages, then it is pretty straightforward and largely identical to the iPhone workflow for the same operations.

bloggerblog said:

That’s could become a controversial move since Tesla is a public traded company and Twitter is his private company. So borrowing employees from a public company can get weird. 

Not controversial at all. They will likely be paid as independent contractors by Twitter and receive a 1099 next year for tax purposes. One's original employer (Tesla in this case) cannot bar or punish the employee for simply working a second job unless it violates a non-compete or causes issues relating to performance at the original job.

"If the rumors of the new cutouts for Face ID and other systems are true, it will mark five years since Apple switched to the notch."

?? So if the rumors are false, it won't mark 5 years?  WTF is this sentence even trying to say?  No matter what happens, they switched to the Notch 5 years ago.

Alrescha said:

Roderikus said:

If you can’t maintain a virtual store while upgrading, you shouldn’t be in the online business.

“It’s a common failing, and it’s been with the race as long as it has had social organization. A little business man thinks his tiny business is as complex and difficult as the whole government. By inversion, he conceives himself as competent to plan the government as the chief executive. Going further back in history, I’ve no doubt that many a peasant thought the job of the king was a simple one and that he could do it better if he only had a chance. What it boils down to is lack of imagination and overwhelming conceit”  --Robert A. Heinlein. “Beyond This Horizon.” (1948)

Except this is not what it's about. As another poster pointed out, of course Apple could just update the store items without taking the whole store down first. They're a 12-figure company with a rather small selection (compared to stores like amazon or walmart) of high-quality items. But taking the store down for a bit is not dissimilar to how manhattan nightclubs work. They hold the line to get in to make it artificially longer, even when there is plenty of capacity, to create a sense of exclusivity that everyone then wants to experience. The difference with Apple is with you leave with some awesome tech instead of a $400 bar tab and a hangover.