Bitchat – A decentralized messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks

I've never understood this argument. Apple spends billions of dollars vetting their store for high quality apps. You can't even verify the build you get off Github was compiled from the same posted source.

As much as people want to be "leet" and run 3rd party software, it's inherently insecure and that's why Apple shuts it down.

This might sound crazy but some people want the freedom to use their belongings however they want instead of having artificial child locks placed on them by trillion dollar corporate daddies.

They shut it down because 30%.

There was a version of Apple at a point in time where I agree with your rhetoric. They have completely lost credibility to uphold that position IMO.

Apple definitely does not spend billions guaranteeing "quality". To prove my point, where does Apple even define what they consider "quality"? How can you quantify such an aubjecrive and ambiguous term?

They spend billions paying out the 70% they don't pocket.

Heck, They don't even adhere to their own HIG nor let us revert to past (objectively higher quality) versions of iOS.

> You can't even verify the build you get off Github was compiled from the same posted source.

You don't need to because you compile it from source yourself

But, sadly, as evidenced by apple’s share price, not enough people.

> You can't even verify the build you get off Github was compiled from the same posted source

Sure you can: build it and check the hash. If the maintainer prepared for such a check ahead of time it can be as simple as:

    wget https://github.com/owner/foo-project/releases/download/.../foo
    sha256sum foo                       # make note of this 
    nix build github:owner/foo-project
    sha256sum result/bin/foo            # it should match this

A pinky promise from a corporation can never be more trustworthy than something that we can all verify locally.

Of course there's still the should-you-trust-this-code part of the problem, but at least bad guys in that case must operate in public view, which is--once again--a stronger deterrent to shenanigans than anything that happens behind closed doors at Apple.

You obviously build it yourself.

IMO ultimate solution is for Apple to curate some sort open source store where they vet the source and builds "in public".

Also, the store is fulfilled with _billions_ of shitty apps.

That’s only because there is only one alternative that is more or less equally shitty (Android) and no room for any competition whatsoever.

It’s not like people really have options to choose when it comes to choosing a smartphone.

It’s easy to have a growing share price when you are a duopoly. You don’t have to serve your users.

The 30% also covers refunds, legal stuff (not stuff IN your app, but regarding the sale of it), taxes, GDPR and much more. The infrastructure running the app store probably also isn't cheap.

I'm not saying Apple doesn't profit from it, but they're not just pocketing every penny.

As for "quality", they mostly check that your app isn't using unauthorized APIs, or doing other scetchy stuff, like leeching all of your data. They couldn't care less if your app is bad, thats' between you and your potential users.

Does it work ? apparently so. Apple catches around 2 million apps every year that are rejected for those reasons. Android has about the same amount of apps, but there they're caught by Kaspersky (and others) after they're published.

That doesn't mean that malware isn't making its way through the App Store review, the damage will be somewhat limited if it can't use private APIs.

I should add that here in the EU, where we’ve had 3rd party app stores for over a year, nobody uses them. The absolutely biggest one, Epic Games, has attracted about 29 million users across both iOS and Android, out of a population of 450 million.

> Apple spends billions of dollars vetting their store for high quality apps.

Rofl. And citation needed.

OP was referring to apps downloaded from the app store.

you can't get a build hash from a downloaded app to then compare to a source build.

> the damage will be somewhat limited if it can't use private APIs.

That's a runtime feature, it has nothing to do with the App Store.

Android may be shitty but it allows you to install an APK you downloaded from god knows where, and that's enough of a deal-making feature for me.

I also own a Linux phone, but I don't use it. Maybe one day someone will create one that's actually usable...

App Store only allows apps not using those runtime features

...which is enforced at a system level. The App Store is not mandatory for giving users control over app entitlements.

That was not the point of the discussion.

I could answer "iOS may be shitty but it doesn't phone home every touch and your health data stays local". I really don't want to argue abour iOs vs Android. I used both. They are both shit made to lock their users in an ecosystem that solely benefits Google or Apple. I really couldnt care more about arguing which is worse, I would just want the market to allow something better than both for me, the user.