Tim Cook on Wednesday participated in a remote interview as part of the Viva Tech conference, Europe’s “biggest startup and tech event.” During the 30-minute “fireside chat,” Cook said that side-loading apps would “destroy the security” of the iPhone and discussed Apple’s commitment to privacy, the future of AR, COVID-19, and more.
Cook reiterated today that he believes GDPR has laid crucial groundwork for privacy regulation to protect users. “GDPR was a good thing for Europe, and it should be standard around the world,” Cook said in the chat. “We support going further with GPDR as there is still work to do in the privacy world.”
Cook also said during the interview that the proposed Digital Markets Act in Europe would not be “in the best interest of the user.” This legislation, which was first unveiled last December, could lead to major changes for the App Store and pre-installed first-party applications on the iPhone. According to Cook, this legislation could lead to changes that seriously “destroy the security of the iPhone.”
The DMA in Europe would force Apple to allow side-loading on the iPhone, which is something Cook strongly pushes back against. If Apple had to allow side-loading, Cook explained, then features like App Store nutrition labels and App Tracking Transparency “would not exist anymore.”
MacDailyNews Take: Cook’s quote regarding side-loading, in full:
I would say [side-loading] would damage both privacy and security. I mean, you look at malware as an example, and Android has 47x more malware than iOS. Why is that? It’s because we’ve designed iOS in such a way that there’s one App Store and all of the apps are reviewed prior to going on the store. That keeps a lot of this malware stuff out of our ecosystem. Customers have told us very continuously how much they value that. And so we’re going to be standing up for the user in the discussions and we’ll see where it goes. I’m optimistic, I think most people looking at security know that security is a major risk.
The full interview:
