Whose hands are your mobile apps in?
Another iPhone killer is here. DROID. Whether you’re a fan of either product, or you’re still thumbing away on your Blackberry or WinMo device, there’s one thing to be said. There are plenty of apps now. A couple years ago it was a pretty daunting task to get any sort of application on your device that wasn’t already on your carrier’s supported list. WinMo users have been the only real open crowd here as every version of Windows Mobile has supported most of the older apps since the Windows CE days. But with the rise of more and more applications comes the rise of the risks associated with these applications.
One of the top fought battles right now, and the subject of many people’s criticism of Apple’s app store, is their approval process. This in comparison to the open source community and what is now being found on Google’s Android phones.
History has shown that the open source community is actually pretty good at creating secure software. This is usually one of the defining factors behind a lot of the software. Users don’t agree with some of the decisions proprietary applications make, so they create their own and use the community to help secure it. But is this enough nowadays with the massive flood of applications hitting the mobile market?
What actually takes place during Apple’s app approval process is somewhat vague. Most would argue it’s simply to ensure Apple doesn’t lose money from a competing application, but I like to at least think they are doing some kind of security reviews against the applications, to ensure that the end user isn’t being opened up to some sort of attack vector.
So, with the rise of mobile applications, which do you think is the more secure venue for application distribution? Would you prefer your apps to go through a formal approval process (even if it is not known what that actual approval process screens for), or would you like to take the chance of having the open source community, with the ability to gather experts from many different fields, though not guaranteed, handle the approval process of your applications?
The debate is still open. Let’s hear your opinions in the comments.
Thanks XKCD
One thought on “Whose hands are your mobile apps in?”
Well, I guess it depends on what happens during the formal approval process. If they take a serious look at security, then I’d have a hard time choosing. If security is not really looked at, then I’d definately go open source.
The formal process does help weed out lower quality apps – which may not be as secure.
And on the open source side … it’d be nice if there was some kind of rating system where the community could vouch for things like security. So just like you’re deciding whether or not to buy a book on Amazon, you could make an informed decision based on the experiece of others.
Of course for typical end-users, maybe the formal process is good (if they look at security) since many people don’t want to do all the research and make an informed choice. They just want an app that does what it is supposed to do.
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