They're not just lying, they're killing the hopes of other independent browsers to take the reigns and the attention of the FOSS community. Mozilla is incredibly cancerous from this perspective: it's Google-backed controlled opposition.
As soon as you open the door to side-loading, you'll have scammers and data-siphoners force all their users to side-load so that they can completely bypass Apple's privacy controls and security features. The entire iOS ecosystem is built on the App Store review process as a gatekeeper for entitlements and the capabilities they grant (through API access).
How do you solve that problem for side-loaded apps?
Sideloading, AKA "installing software on your device", is something PCs have been handling just fine for decades. It's fine to warn the user when they're going off the beaten trail, but do not lock them in a cage to prevent them from doing so.
If they ignore the warnings and get scammed because they are unable to identify reputable software from disreputable software, they learn a life lesson. Life goes on. There should be no societal expectation that everyone is prevented from ever taking an action that could bring themselves harm, by preventing them from taking actions at all.
There are entire classes of people who have simply given up on PCs and only use a phone, so I would call that substantial evidence that PCs have NOT "been handling [it] just fine." For these folks, PCs are a total failure; a dead end. A danger zone to be avoided at all costs.
If you have a citation that droves of people are abandoning PCs for phones specifically because PCs allow them to install software of their choice, rather than other reasons like the convenience of a computer that fits in their hand, I'd be interested in seeing it. Because that sounds like an absolutely outrageous claim to be asserting as a fact to me.
You can Google it yourself. There are tons of studies showing a decline in technology literacy among younger generations (Z and alpha). Millennials were the peak.
This shows that younger kids aren’t using traditional PCs, at least not to the same degree. They just use phones and tablets. At best they may play games on their PC by installing via Steam. Very few of them are becoming proper technologists (able to install and use any software, script the computer, or write their own software).
No shit. That's completely different from what you claimed, though, which was specifically that people were giving up PCs to become smartphone users because they appreciated the lack of choice that smartphones gave them.
The phenomenon you're talking about now is so completely in another universe that it's insane you would conflate the two. I actually can't finish typing this response properly because it's hurting my head every second I continue to think about your argument. To sum it up really shortly: smartphones universal, required to even participate in society, people now given smartphones from early age, multi-functional as phones, cameras, etc, they fit in your pocket, more than sufficient for normie use cases and in fact more suitable for many use cases that don't entail sitting at a desk at home, computers are specialised tools for specialised functionality that many people have no need for. There are 100000000 reasons why smartphone usage displaces PC usage that aren't because they explicitly abandoned PCs for the crime of allowing them to choose what software to install, which was your claim. Not even having mentioned that globally, 75% of smartphone usage is Android which doesn't lock its users in the cage (for the time being).
I think you overstate how bad said situation was, and to the extent it was a problem I doubt it had any meaningful impact on PC usage rates, and I have not the slightest doubt that such a situation would have had minimal bearing on smartphone adoption. People are drawn to things that offer utility to them, regardless of any downsides. That's why people will happily hand over the entire details of their private life to any internet service that asks it of them, and why the market does not punish any company that has security breaches and loses hundreds of millions of people's personal information. Security and privacy are at the very bottom of a normie's list of concerns in practice, even if they might say they care in surveys. If something is useful to them, they will use it regardless of security and privacy flaws.
Edit: It's also telling that you need to go back to XP to make your case. It's 2025. Security practices have improved a ton to give people more protection from themselves without outright taking away their freedom to make choices.
Also, let's again re-iterate that Android usage outnumbers iOS by three-to-one, so it is clear in practice that people are in fact willing to adopt a phone that allows them to make mistakes (if they try very hard to).
Now you have a multibillion-dollar supranational corporation playing judge jury and executioner for any of your choices.
E.g. App Store prohibits adult content (which is not illegal). Prohibits emulators (which are not illegal) [1]. Prohibits or hinders the use of better alternatives to pre-installed apps (Photos, Camera, Maps, Siri) [1]. Removes any and all apps if there's a hint of displeasure from wannabe dictators.
Basically, you don't have your range of choices. You have Apple's range of choices.
[1] Some of these choices are now better on iOS precisely due to Apple losing the fight against governments. They finally allowed emulators after they lost a battle against alternative app stores. They finally gave options to change some default apps (but not all, and not in all countries, see e.g. https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/03/14/dma-compliance-default-ma...)
Appstore has been the only app store on IOS for nearly 2 decades. And you are saying IOS has been a perfect safe zone, and you cannot lose any hard-earn money on IOS for 2 decades? What a joke.
> There are entire classes of people who have simply given up on PCs and only use a phone
Which actually makes the case for "Apple cannot control what people install on their devices or demand that apps pay them and can't even use other payment providers"
The same can be said about alcohol, yet all you need to do is reach alcohol age in the country you live in, no "license to drink alcohol". Why PCs should be treated differently?
Thank you for your concern, but I need a phone, not a device to manage dementia. I don't see why nobody should be allowed to have the former just because a few people need the latter.
Search for your preferred PC brand and list of CVEs.
I’ve had Windows / malware roll back a BIOS update to a previous version that had a know (published CVE) remote code execution vulnerability complete with published proof of concept.
There was some point around 15 years ago when it was nearly impossible to download and install Windows software without getting some extra adware and etc. This was true even for 'legit' vendors like Sun and Adobe. (Plus Google would offer up wrapped installers for Firefox, OpenOffice, etc.) Honestly if you thought "things were fine", you were ignoring the Linux/Mac people laughing about it.
"Nearly impossible" is quite a stretch. While it was certainly shameful that it ever became as mainstream as it did, it was a matter of unticking checkboxes in the adware installers, and there was plenty of software out there that did not engage in that behaviour to begin with. At any rate, I didn't say anything about operating systems. You can also install software of your choice on Linux or Mac. I'm not really sure what point you were driving at there.
Point being the only real difference between Windows and Mac was marketshare. (Linux doesn't have an ABI, software predominantly comes from the 'store'.)
The PC app ecosystem is a tiny fraction of the App Store's, outside of, notably, Steam's locked down closed ecosystem.
Having a single way to pay, subscribe, cancel, browse apps, beta test versions, and update apps, proved to be a huge game changer for making software accessible while also minting millionaires around the world in terms of small development teams.
In 2024, computer software generated around $373b in revenue while mobile apps generated around $522b. Given that smartphone usage is significantly higher worldwide than computer usage (around 2 to 1 ratio), the stats do not really support your thesis that locking down software access to the whims of a monopoly hegemon results in a massive financial boon to application developers. Even if it did, it still would not justify the harm to the end user entailed, but it also just doesn't do what you say it does to begin with.
Incidentally, while looking this up, I discovered that 2/3rds of that $522b in app revenue comes from in-app advertisements. And here somebody was trying to mock Windows for being adware friendly circa 2005. Good lord.
> computer software generated around $373b in revenue while mobile apps generated around $522b.
What percentage is consumer vs corporate spend in each category? How much of that 373b is SaaS revenue vs local installed apps?
> And here somebody was trying to mock Windows for being adware friendly circa 2005.
The adware in 2005 was actively hostile and infested entire systems. It replaced browsers, search engines, and even injected itself onto every webpage you viewed. In contrast mobile ads are interstitials during game play.
Credit card and location data is one thing. If we opened up these devices to the Wild West we’d have spyware that tracks every single thing you do on the phone in real time (and logs all your conversations and everything else). We’d also have malware that gets root access to the phone and breaks into your bank accounts.
The context here is mobile. Everyone understands that you're free to break/install things as you wish, in macOS, if you disable the "dumb user" safeguards.
As if the App Store had any sort of those guarantees. I know of people have been scammed via WebView wrappers that purported to be some benign app to pass app store review, which were then pointed at fake exchange websites afterwards. GitLab which was hosting their C&C mechanism took action faster than Apple or Google did to take down multiple scam apps across multiple different developer identities, but the scammers spun up new apps the next day.
WebView wrappers don't have any more ability to siphon data out of the phone than any other app. Scammers can always scam users if they can trick them into entering data into a website. There's nothing anyone can do about that (besides blocking web access).
The point is Apple isn't really helping with the problem because the weakest link is people. If you can get someone to install malicious software how much more difficult is it to have them willingly give it via phishing?
I don’t see how going back to the Wild West of the PC era is supposed to help these nontechnical users be safer. The App Store isn’t perfect but it’s far, far safer than that.
I have vivid memories of loads of relatives in the Windows XP era with browsers laden with toolbars that spy on everything they do and slow the computer to a crawl. Those users see something like the iPhone as a massive breath of fresh air. Nothing you install on the App Store can inject adware into the rest of the operating system like that.
> Nothing you install on the App Store can inject adware into the rest of the operating system like that.
That has literally fuck all to do with the app store. That's called sandboxing - the app store has nothing to do with sandboxing. They are different things.
Point me to an Apple document that says they'll reimburse me if I'm scammed by an App Store app. If Apple cannot offer a guarantee, that means they don't trust their App Store to protect me and if they don't trust their App Store to protect me then they can hardly claim in court that they deny user choice to protect users.
Apple has literally zero "security features" that rely on the app store.
They do not review source code. There is malware on the Apple app store, because they do not review apps for malware. Because they do not review source code.
Theanine is calming. For example, pure theanine and magnesium are the only two substances Huberman recommends as sleep aids.
There is a minor complication in which if the brain is in a very stimulated state, then theanine can add to the stimulation, but that has happened to me only once in hundreds of times of my using theanine at bed time, and is extremely unlikely to recur now that I know about the complication.
> So execute it for China alone. The issue is that these blanket actions are lazy at best and exclusively populist.
Same argument. If there's a country that doesn't get tariffs, that country will very quickly become the leading global exporter to the US. It's the same thing for the "penguin island" that everyone mocked: if you put high tariffs on every place but penguin island, it will soon be Penguin Island Logistics Center.
Setting aside judgment of the tariff policy and the chaotic implementation, it does make sense to make them blanket actions. Much of the byzantine nature of our existing supply chains is due to gaming of international tariff policy.
> If there's a country that doesn't get tariffs, that country will very quickly become the leading global exporter to the US
No it won't lol, that's not how international logistics work. You don't just flick a switch overnight. Maybe measured in the order of years... in which case the policies can be adjusted. They clearly think this works for taxing Americans given how huge the tax code is.
> same thing for the "penguin island" that everyone mocked: if you put high tariffs on every place but penguin island, it will soon be Penguin Island Logistics Center
Penguin island was stupid because it reflected how lazy the policies they applied are. It clearly showed that the Trump administration doesn't fundamentally understand what trade deficits are nor does it have an actual, well thought out plan. The only thing Penguin island has in common with this is that both actions are incredibly lazy and superficial. The Trump admin needs to get serious.
> No it won't lol, that's not how international logistics work. You don't just flick a switch overnight.
I didn't say "overnight". But if you don't think it would happen, you haven't been paying attention: it has been happening for decades. It's not a crazy thing to consider when establishing a tariff policy.
> Penguin island was stupid because it reflected how lazy the policies they applied are. It clearly showed that the Trump administration doesn't fundamentally understand what trade deficits are nor does it have an actual, well thought out plan. The only thing Penguin island has in common with this is that both actions are incredibly lazy and superficial. The Trump admin needs to get serious.
Flinging names ("lazy", "superficial") is not an argument. You've obviously decided that these actions are stupid -- maybe they are! [1] -- and nobody is going to convince you otherwise, but I just gave you a plausible reason that you'd choose to do it this way.
[1] I don't personally like these policies, but I'm willing to admit when something I don't like as a whole makes sense in part.
If I post something from Denmark to Canada, they want to know the origin of the goods. If it's China, the China tariffs (if any) apply rather than the Denmark/EU ones.
If the declaration is incorrect, the goods can be siezed or returned.
Penguin Island is a nature preserve (the whole thing), no one is building anything.
The words you're looking for are "substantial transformation" [1].
Exporters in country A (with high tariffs on exports to USA) ship partially completed products to country B (with no/lower tariffs to USA), and then do some manufacturing step. Country B then exports completed products to USA.
China was doing this extensively via Mexico under the USMCA [2]. It's not a matter of debate.
Not really. You need a visa (or equivalent) to enter most countries. This can take months to apply for and receive. And you can stretch that period out even longer by claiming that you don't have a passport and need to apply for one first.
In Germany, if a company want to hire some talent from a foreign country, this problem is solved by the general rule "The employment starts as soon as the visa problems have been resolved, and you are in Germany." Big companies often have a department that helps with visa problems.
So, if you stretch the period, the employment simply starts later.
It gets worse -- the person leading the negotiations with the US was one of the targets:
> Ali Shamkhani has been severely injured in a strike targeting his house and hospitalized. Mr. Shamkhani is currently spearheading nuclear talks committee appointed by supreme leader and is former secretary of National Security Council
Not even close. Try to travel in Latin America or something and go to a bathroom. You won't find toilet paper or a toilet seat, or even free bathrooms in many cases.
What they should have done instead is just take hundreds of millions of dollars from Google, like a non-sketchy browser.