Apple’s head is clear. Following Craig Federighi’s intervention at the Web Summit in which the executive declared that “side loading destroys safety and puts the user at risk”, Tim Cook gave the same message as part of the New York Times DealBook event.
The important thing is that we can continue to choose
It has been said a lot that users should be given the option to choose to side-load. Tim Cook responds clearly by stating that we already have this choice right now: “users who want to sideload can use Android”.
“I think people have this option today Andrew, if you want to manage you can buy an Android phone. This option exists when you walk into the operator’s store. If this is important to you then you should buy an android phone. From our point of view it would be like I was a car maker telling you [a un cliente] not to put airbags and seat belts in the car. I never would have thought of doing that today. It’s too risky to do that. And so it wouldn’t be an iPhone if it didn’t maximize security and privacy. “
As Craig has commented before, the truth is that, far from adding a possibility of choice, having to allow sideloading on the iPhone and lowering the system’s security would make those of us who choose the flat ones. -Apple forms for their security and privacy would lose that choice. . The user is not favored to choose, conversely.
“Sideloading is a criminal’s best friend.”
Sideloading, cybercriminals’ best friend, according to Craig, would allow applications to bypass the protections of the system itself. We are used to the fact that apps cannot access photos without our permission. It’s something we take for more than just sitting. An application installed from the Internet or third parties can access photos, contacts, calendars, reminders and much more without our knowing it or being able to do anything to prevent it.
Something similar is happening with the transparency of app tracking. Now we can deny IFA access to apps. In doing so, we make it extremely difficult for apps to keep up with us. This mechanism would disappear completely in apps installed via sideloading.. In addition, they could even access other device hardware identifiers to be able to track us more efficiently.
Regarding this App Tracking Transparency and the report that users decided to stop giving data to companies worth $ 10 billion Tim Cook responded to the following:
“I don’t know the estimates, Andrew, so I can’t vouch for those kinds of numbers, but I think from our perspective, privacy is a basic human right. And the people who should decide to share or no data is the person themselves. What we did was empower the user. We don’t make the decision, we just ask them if they want to be tracked across all apps or not. And, of course a lot of them decide not they never wanted to be, they just didn’t have a choice before. i feel good and i get great user feedback on this option. “
Clearly, in the end, it all comes down to being able to choose. As Tim Cook says, if sideloading is important to us, we can choose platforms that allow it. Meanwhile, many of us will surely choose to continue at Apple, where something as simple as an app can’t access our entire library without our consent, is something we appreciate.
