“Sideloading is a cyber criminal’s best friend and requiring that on iPhone would be a gold rush for the malware industry,” according to Apple senior vice president Craig Federighi, who delivered a dramatic speech at Web Summit 2021 declaiming the security risks if Apple were required to let users sideload apps.
Federighi, who oversees Apple’s iOS and macOS software divisions, was specifically protesting the European Commission’s proposed Digital Markets Act, which, if passed, would require Apple to let users install apps outside of the iOS App Store. According to Federighi, the lack of sideloading is what separates Apple’s relatively low rate of malware on iOS from the “5 million Android attacks per month,” and that if Apple were…
