Application Transport Security deadline for iOS apps

[Richard Gaskin]

Paul Dupuis wrote:

 >>> On 12 Jul 2016, at 6:55 AM, J. Landman Gay wrote:
 >>>
 >>> I wonder what happens if your app allows general browsing with,
 >>> say, a browser widget?
 >
 > And this is why I think what Apple is doing - regardless of the
 > security benefits - is wrong. Someone tell their friend with the
 > latest iPhone, "check out www.mysite.org" and their friend enters
 > it in their iPhone browser and ... nothing ... because the site
 > is not HTTPS.

Oh, I think you can rest assured that Apple's own browser won't be 
limited by their rules.  They'd break the utility of the iPhone if they 
did that.

Then of course the question is:  will they break Firefox and Chrome?

Maybe there would be an exemption for browsers, but that only leads to 
another question:  given that an ever larger number of major apps use a 
hybrid native-app-wrapped-around-an-embedded-browser approach, what 
exactly is a "browser"?

I can't begin to guess how Apple will handle the inevitable demands for 
exemptions.  But then again I've not read the full text of their notice 
myself, and in all fairness there's little in their history to suggest 
they're not bright.

If this were a gambit to try to eliminate competing browsers, well, may 
God be with them because the courts won't.  The world grew tired of that 
sort of control-freakishness when Microsoft used to pull it, and I 
wouldn't bet any judge today is any more interested in seeing that sort 
of restraint of trade.

Fortunately I have nothing in the works right now that needs to provide 
access to arbitrary URLs, so I can sit on the sidelines with my popcorn 
and see how the story unfolds....

What's the date for this again?  And is there a link to the policy, or 
is it like some earlier Apple policies where it's considered a violation 
of the SDK terms to disclose the full text publicly?

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com