Comment by overstay8930
2 years ago
> There is a plethora of evidence that this is not the case.
Do you have actual evidence for this claim? Because it's pretty widely accepted that the App Store has higher standards and quality, and you just cited a single case.
Just recently from HN: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39685272 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33797623 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14526156
10 malicious apps (2022) https://www.macrumors.com/2022/09/26/ios-app-store-ad-fraud/
7 malicious apps (2022) https://lifehacker.com/great-now-the-apple-app-store-has-mal...
18 malicious apps (2019) https://www.wired.com/story/apple-app-store-malware-click-fr...
Up to 4000 malicious apps (2015) https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34338362
Are you seriously implying Apple catching 17 malware apps in 2022 means the App Store isn’t safer than being able to download whatever you want from the internet?
No, I just provided more examples as requested in an attempt to reduce confusion over which parts of the ecosystem are actually providing security. Apple app store is plagued by malicious apps as much as any other place on the internet, but what's making the difference - why these malicious apps are primarily engaging in ad fraud rather than stealing all of your personal data, is OS-level security.
All Apple can do is revoke app certificates and pull the app from the store after someone else discovers their malicious nature. That's a very low bar that can be met by nearly every app store in existence and it would be a reasonable security requirement for anyone who's operating an alternative app store on iOS.
The rest of it is just theater as there's no security-focused special sauce that Apple is providing in this area, despite prevailing beliefs. This is further demonstrated by their acceptance of an obvious impersonator like "LassPass".
App review is a kid in China with an iPad playing with the app for 3-4 minutes. That's not worth a 30% cut of all app proceeds.