Apple has released a scaremongering, self-serving warning aimed at the Australian government, claiming that Australians will be overrun by a parade of digital horribles if Australia follows the European Union’s lead and regulates Apple’s “walled garden.” The EU’s Digital Markets Act is a big,...
I respectfully disagree.
If I’m out at a restaurant with app-based ordering, or my Real Estate agent requires payment through their gateway, or to track my utilities usage, or am required to use any other number of niche apps that become only available through alternate app stores? Then I very well risk being put in a situation where I am otherwise forced to.
Let alone the headaches that will inevitably come from the older, less technologically savvy, and more vulnerable having their default app stores highjacked, and spoof apps stealing their credentials/credit cards.
Then we get into the more general issues of allowing unsigned code to be loaded and run on our smartphones - it will lead to the era of viruses, Trojans and ransomware.
I am reminded of this piece that Last Week Tonight did on Encryption, which is quite cogent given the topic at hand.
Best security practices involve minimising the number of places your sensitive (financial) data is stored. If a website doesn’t accept a known and reputable intermediary like Apple Pay, PayPal or a BNPL provider - I would refrain from using it.
If this is something that you want - then go ahead and Jailbreak your iPhone, or get an Android - more power to you; but please stop trying to enshittify iOS.
What you want is basically a recipe for the web turning into an exclusively corporate wasteland. Lack of installation freedom doesn’t provide security from anything when the A/G app stores are already full of malware. Real security - security for users - lies in our ability to exercise choice - to use a FOSS app, or to pay conventionally via the web instead of having to put up with creepy opaque vendor portals (or worse, an app)
Phones are generic computing devices. We must able to operate and maintain them however we wish.
If this were to happen it would have happened on Android a long time ago but it didn’t.
Banking Trojans have hit millions of Android devices in 2025 — here are the biggest threats and how to protect yourself
Just because you aren’t aware of it, it doesn’t mean it’s not happening already.
I was talking about the point you made in your first paragraph. Where businesses would suddenly start providing their apps only in third party stores.
Again, I can understand where you come from, but it’s been proven, time and again, that using apps from the main app store (ios or Android, doesn’t matter) is not inherently safer or more dangerous than getting apps from other stores. The problems are the apps not the stores. Additionally, I have yet to see any company, institution or organization publish apps exclusively in alternative app stores,which means that, as far as I’m aware, every app “needed” will be in the platforms own store, which means that nobody has to get an alternative app store if they don’t want to.
These facts render your arguments to block giving owners of devices options completely invalid.
Yes, if you feel safer with the platforms’ default stores, you’re free to remain there and avoid anything else, as this is your device, and therefore your choice. But these arguments you bring take away CHOICE for absolutely no good reason.
How has it been “proven” that all app stores are equally safe?
Heck, just comparing Google Play and Apple App Store - every article over the past year covering malicious apps (including the recent cross-platform SparkCat) mentions at some point or another that these occurrences are significantly rarer on iOS given Apple’s stricter policies and guidelines. Policies that could not otherwise be enforced on 3rd party app stores.
Realistically, no one who purchases an iPhone is doing so under the assumption that they aren’t going to be within the wider Apple ecosystem and ‘walled garden’. Those that do want that additional freedom, and associated risks, have Android and other FOSS options available to them already.
Think of it this way: There are plenty of Android-based devices that are faster, better or have unique features that iOS doesn’t; Apple’s USP is iOS. We were ‘free’ to choose this ecosystem, and by trying to impose your own definition of freedom onto us, you are instead depriving us of our own.
If you choose not to see the inherent risks associated with this, so be it - but I am wary enough to know that if/once the genie is out of the bottle, there is no ability to go back when the shit inevitably hits the fan.
Don’t think of me as a blind Apple fanboy, either: I think there are plenty of valid criticisms of Apple’s handling of the App Store that legislation would be much better suited to targeting - namely their egregious fees and arbitrary policies regarding directing users to their own websites for alternate payment methods.****
Wao, did you not read what I said? No app store is inherently safer or more dangerous than any other. They all require some level of trust, plus trust in the devs of the apps available on each store.
About freedom, nobody is taking anything away from you, other than Apple. Again, if you want to remain in their ecosystem exclusively, nobody is going to force you to use alternative app stores. However, your argument does go entirely against choice, the same choice you claim I am soiling with my comments.
We do agree on 1 thing, when someone buys an Apple product, there’s a very good chance that they want that walled garden. Then there’s those that did not buy from Apple, but had no option other than an iPhone, some of those I can guarantee that they hate being controlled by the company that manufactured what is supposed to be theirs.
If you can’t do everything you want with what you bought and paid for, is it really yours?
I suggest that you look at the current status of technology in the world right now. You do not own your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Same with most Android devices and Windows computers. They force shit into the users, to the point that you will lose functionality if you were to disable most of what’s in the devices.
Sure, Android is a bit more flexible, but other than GrapheneOS, CalyxOS or LineageOS, it’s the same crap as iPhone, locking you to have apps forcibly, whether you like or use them or not. The only difference is that in Android you do have the ability to use other stores.
Enjoy your locked iPhone, and let those who want more choice just have the choice.