Comment by purplehat_
1 day ago
Can you elaborate on "fairly well documented exploit tactics"? My impression is that most of these are either social engineering, for which we need to hire better designers, or complicated chains of hard-to-find primitives only accessible to state actors.
There's definitely problems but the solution isn't to make the iPhone a general purpose computer. We definitely need to defend the existence of general purpose computing at a time where regulation is likely to begin encroaching on it, but the promise of the App Store is "pay a 30% tax and any app you download here will be safe." In my mind, at least, that's the promise, and perhaps one solution to the situation would be to erect consequences to breaking that promise.
It came out in the Epic trial that 90% of App Stors revenue comes from shitty pay to win games and loot boxes - cry me a river for them.
Most of the other revenue that companies make from mobile are using the app as a front end to services where payments never go through the App Store
> the promise of the App Store is "pay a 30% tax and any app you download here will be safe."
Apple, who revealed in court that they enjoy a 75% profit margin on that fee, is being sued for that promise being false advertising on account of the crypto scams they keep approving.
https://9to5mac.com/2025/06/19/class-action-suit-app-store-c...
Stemming from the case where Apple revealed their 75% profit margin on these fees, Apple was referred for criminal investigation for illegally forcing everyone to pay that fee violating a court order to ensure they get it and then lying to a judge about it.
https://daringfireball.net/2025/04/gonzales_rogers_apple_app...
They are also being questioned in the EU to ascertain whether they are doing enough to stop the proliferation of scams on the App Store.
https://9to5mac.com/2025/09/23/apple-under-legal-scrutiny-in...
They are even facing a RICO case for their role distributing and profiting from illegal gambling apps.
https://readwrite.com/apple-google-rico-lawsuit-sweepstakes-...
A 30% tax and no freedom to install what you want better come with protection from state actors lmaooo. Otherwise what could be worth such a heavy-handed (and under a rational state, illegal) method?
Especially when the app store is nos filled with gambling apps and social media built to exploit children....